eager to go. It seemed that he already stood on tiptoe peering forth,
eager, straining at his leash. And since he was no longer content at
Horsham Manor, I reasoned, with regret, that the sooner he went the
better. I had done all I could for him. His destiny was now in the lap
of the gods.

Everything had been carefully arranged. The Ballards, elder and
younger, were to take him to the new house in town where Christopher
would look after him. At first Jerry would not listen to the
arrangement. I had for so long been his guide and philosopher I must
continue his friend. He wanted me with him in New York. But to this I
demurred. Much as I disliked the thought of separation, I had made up
my mind that he must go alone, cut adrift from all moral support. I
had wished to go away, for having saved practically all my salary for
ten years I was now independent, but at Jerry's insistent pleading we
compromised. For the present I would stay on at the Manor and finish
my book.

Jerry's birthday dinner was an impressive affair. With the two
Ballards came the five solemn co-executors of John Benham's will--Mr.
Stewardson, Mr. da Costa, Mr. Wrenn, Mr. Walsenberg and Mr. Duhring.
And these, with Jerry, Radford, Flynn, the boxer, and myself made up
the company. Jerry had insisted on having Flynn and no amount of
urging could dissuade him. Flynn was his friend, he said, more his
friend than Mr. Wrenn, Mr. Duhring or indeed any of the others whom he
barely knew by sight. And so Flynn came.

The elders were solemn and significant, Jerry, at the head of the
table, wearing for the first time his new finery (under the hypnotism,
as he confessed in a whisper, of the vast expanse of white
shirt-front), trying to look as though he were enjoying himself.
Radford and I were mere onlookers. Flynn was acutely miserable. Had it
not been for Jack Ballard I fear the conversation would have
degenerated into a discussion of the merits and possibilities of
Jerry's many "companies." But every time that that danger threatened
the irrepressible Jack demolished it with an anecdote. He wasn't going
to have Jerry's bud nipped so early, as his own had been, by the frost
of finance. By the time we had reached the roast, and the champagne,
the plutocrats seemed to realize that the occasion was a birthday
party and not a board meeting.

Over the port there were speeches, toasts by the plutocrats, one by
one, to the newly risen Railroad King, while Jerry gra