“Apparently his friends haven’t entered into his calculations.”

“I repeat, it isn’t like him, Jack.  Somebody has put this idea into his head.”

I stopped so abruptly that Ballard regarded me curiously.

“Somebody—­who?”

I paced the floor with long strides, my fingers twitching to get that pretty devil by the throat.  I knew now—­it had come in a flash of light—­Marcia.  Jerry listened now to no one but Marcia; but I couldn’t tell Jack.

“Somebody—­somebody at Flynn’s,” I muttered.

He regarded me curiously.

“But the boy is immune to flattery.  There isn’t a vain bone in his body.  I confess he puzzles me.  But I think you’ll find he’s quite stubborn about it.”

“Stubborn, yes, but—­”

My remark was cut short by a ring of the bell, immediately answered by Ballard’s man, and Jerry entered.  He was, I think, attired in one of Jack’s “Symphonies,” wore a blossom in his buttonhole, swung a stick jauntily, and altogether radiated health and good humor, greeting us both in high spirits.

“Well, fairy godfathers, what’s my gift today?” he laughed.  “A golden goose, a magic ring, or a beautiful Cinderella hidden behind the curtain?” and he poked at the portiere playfully.  “But you have the appearance of conspirators.  Is it only a lecture?”

“I’ve just been telling Roger,” Jack began gravely, “about your fight with Clancy, Jerry.”

I saw the boy’s jaw muscles clamp, but he replied very quietly.

“Yes, Uncle Jack.  He objects, I suppose.”

“Not object,” I said quickly.  “It’s the wrong word, Jerry.  You’re your own master, of course.  We were just wondering whether you hadn’t undervalued our friendship in not asking our advice before making your plans.”

Jerry followed a pattern in the rug with the point of his stick.

“I wish you hadn’t put it just that way, Roger.”

“I don’t know how else to put it.  That’s the fact, isn’t it, Jerry?”

“No.  I don’t undervalue your friendship.  You know that, Roger, you too.  Uncle Jack.  I suppose I should have said something about it.  But I—­I just sort of drifted into it.  I think walloping Sagorski spoiled me—­made me rather keen to have a try at somebody who had licked him.  Clancy’s almost, if not quite, the best in his class.  I’ll get well thrashed, I guess, but it’s going to be a lot of fun trying—­and if nobody knows who I am, I can’t see what harm it does.”

I couldn’t tell what there was in his tone and manner that made me think he was playing a part not his own.  I was not yet used to Jerry out in the world, but as compared with the Jerry of Horsham Manor, he didn’t ring true.

“You can’t keep people from knowing, Jerry,” I said.  “Your picture will be on every sporting page in the United States.”

“Oh, we’ve fixed that with a photographer.  Flynn had a picture of a cousin of his who is dead—­young chap—­looked something like me.  They’re faking the thing.”