"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?"