Paradise Garden: The Satirical Narrative of a Great Experiment

"They're full enough of it as it is. Jerry's opponent is a very prominent pug—an aspirant for the heavyweight title, no less a one than Jack Clancy, otherwise known as 'The Terrible Sailor, Champion of the Navy.'"

"But your father—the public—! It will ruin Jerry—ruin him—"

"Wait a bit. Fortunately Jerry's anonymity has been carefully kept. At Flynn's gymnasium he's called Jim Robinson, and it's as Jim Robinson, Flynn's wonderful unknown, that he will make his public appearance."

"But a name is a slender thread to hang Jerry's whole reputation on. He'll be recognized, of course. This thing can't go on. It must be stopped at once," I cried.

"Exactly," said Ballard coolly over his coffee cup. "But how?"

"An appeal to the boy's reason. He must be insane to do such a thing. It's Flynn who's put him up to this."

"I think not. If I understand Jerry correctly, he urged Flynn to make the match. He's quite keen about it."

I paced the floor in some bewilderment, trying to think of a reason for Jerry's strange behavior, but curiously enough the real one did not come to me.

"I can't imagine how such an ambition could have got into his head," I muttered.

Ballard struck a match for his cigarette and smiled.

"The nice balance of Jerry's cosmos between the purely physical and the merely mental has been disturbed—that's all. Liberty has become license and has gone into his muscles. What shall we do about it? Flatly, I don't know. That's what I asked you down to discuss."

I took a turn or two up and down the room.

"Your father—the executors—know nothing of this?"

"Phew! I should say not!"

"They could stop it, I suppose."

"I'm not so sure," he said quietly. "If the boy has made up his mind."

I sank in a chair, trying to think.

"The executors mustn't know. Jack. We'll keep the thing quiet. We've got to appeal to Jerry."

"That's precisely the conclusion I've reached myself. I've asked him to come this morning. He may be in at any moment."

I looked out of the window thoughtfully toward the distant Jersey shore.

"This isn't like Jerry. He's a fine athlete and a good sportsman—for the fun he gets out of the thing. But he has too good a mind not to be above the personal vulgarity of such an exhibition as this. His finer instincts, his natural modesty, his lack of vanity—everything that we know of the boy contradicts the notion of a personal incentive for this wild plan. Does he know what he's doing—what it means—the publicity—?"

"He thinks he's dodging that. Nobody knows him in New York except a few fellows at the clubs, he says."

"But has he no consideration for us—for me?" I cried.

"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."

The boy was getting a new code of morals as well as a new vocabulary.

"You can't hide a lie, Jerry."

"I'm not harming anybody," he muttered.

"Nobody but yourself," I said sternly.

"I don't see that," he growled, clasping his great fists over his knees.