rver will admit that you didn't quit," I
said. "Clancy, I'm sure, knows better than anybody."

"Good old Clancy. He _was_ a sight--but he squared things. I saw that
knockout coming, but I couldn't move for the life of me. My arms
wouldn't come up. By George--that _was_ a wallop! Oh well," he sighed,
"the better man won. I'm satisfied."

I helped him into his clothes and we went down to breakfast. He
examined his letters quickly and put them aside with an air of
disappointment, and then asked if there had been any telephone calls,
seeming much put out when I told him my reasons for disconnecting the
instrument.

"Oh, it doesn't matter--Beastly nuisance, those reporters--" He looked
over at me and grinned sheepishly. "Nice morning reading for Ballard,
Senior! It _was_ a rotten trick to play on him, though. He didn't
deserve all this. I wouldn't wonder if he didn't speak to me now. I
deserve that, I think. He cost me ten thousand cold. I'm in disgrace.
I'll never be able to square myself--never."

When he got up from the breakfast table he caught a glimpse of his
face in a mirror. "I _am_ a sight. The lip is going down nicely, but
the eye! Looks like an overripe tomato against a wall. Pretty sort of
a phiz to go calling on a lady with."

"You're going visiting?"

"Yes, Marcia and I are going up to the country together. You'll have
to go along."

"Thanks," I said, "but I've some matters to attend to here."

"I say, Roger," he went on quickly examining himself anew in the
mirror; "I've got to get hold of Flynn. There's a chap in the Bowery
who makes a business of painting eyes." And he went off to the
telephone where I heard him making the arrangement.

With Jerry restored to partial sanity my duty at the town house was
ended. Reporters still came to the door, but were turned away, and,
seeing that I could be of no further use, I made my adieux and took my
way downtown.

If no man is a hero to his valet, surely no boy can be a hero to his
tutor, and I may as well admit that glorious as Jerry's defeat had
been, I had ceased to reckon him among the perfect creations of this
world. Nowhere, I think, have I hailed Jerry as a hero. I have not
meant to place him upon a pedestal. At the Manor, before he came to
New York, he did no wrong, because the things that were good were
pleasant to him and because original sin--_Eheu!_ I was beginning to
wonder! Original sin! John Benham had ignored its existence and I had
thoug