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“Lord, I’d forgotten that minor plague! Must be a year since he’s been here. Oh, let him—No, hanged if I will! Tell him I’m too busy to see him. That is, unless he’s got some news about Jasper. Pump him, and find out. ”

The president’s secretary sweetly confided to John:

“I’m so sorry, but the president is in conference just now. What was it you wanted to see him about? Is there any news about—uh— about your brother?”

“There is not, miss. I am here to see the president on the business of the Lord. ”

“Oh! If that’s all I’m afraid I can’t disturb him. ”

“I will wait. ”

Wait he did, through all the morning, through the lunch hour—when the president hastened out past him—then into the afternoon, till the president was unable to work with the thought of that scarecrow out there, and sent for him.

“Well, well! What is it this time, John? I’m pretty busy. No news about Jasper, eh?”

“No news, sir, but—Jasper himself! I am Jasper Holt! His sin is my sin. ”

“Yes, yes, I know all that stuff—twin brothers, twin souls, share responsibility—”

“You don’t understand. There isn’t any twin brother. There isn’t any John Holt. I am Jasper. I invented an imaginary brother, and disguised myself—Why, don’t you recognize my voice?”

While John leaned over the desk, his two hands upon it, and smiled wistfully, the president shook his head and soothed: “No, I’m afraid I don’t. Sounds like good old religious John to me! Jasper was a cheerful, efficient sort of crook. Why, his laugh—”

“But I can laugh!” The dreadful croak which John uttered was the cry of an evil bird of the swamps. The president shuddered. Under the edge of the desk his fingers crept toward the buzzer by which he summoned his secretary.

They stopped as John urged: “Look—this wig—it’s a wig. See, I am Jasper!”

He had snatched off the brown thatch. He stood expectant, a little afraid.

The president was startled, but he shook his head and sighed.

“You poor devil! Wig, all right. But I wouldn’t say that hair was much like Jasper’s!”

He motioned toward the mirror in the corner of the room.

John wavered to it. And indeed he saw that his hair had turned from Jasper’s thin sleek blackness to a straggle of damp gray locks writhing over a y
ellow skull.

He begged pitifully: “Oh, can’t you see I am Jasper? I stole ninety-seven thousand dollars from the bank. I want to be punished! I want to do anything to prove—Why, I’ve been at your house. Your wife’s name is Evelyn. My salary here was—”

“My dear boy, don’t you suppose that Jasper might have told you all these interesting facts? I’m afraid the worry of this has—pardon me if I’m frank, but I’m afraid it’s turned your head a little, John. ”

“There isn’t any John! There isn’t! There isn’t!”

“I’d believe that a little more easily if I hadn’t met you before Jasper disappeared. ”

“Give me a piece of paper. You know my writing—”

With clutching claws John seized a sheet of bank stationery and tried to write in the round script of Jasper. During the past year and a half he had filled thousands of pages with the small finicky hand of John. Now, though he tried to prevent it, after he had traced two or three words in large but shaky letters the writing became smaller, more pinched, less legible.

Even while John wrote the president looked at the sheet and said easily: “Afraid it’s no use. That isn’t Jasper’s fist. See here, I want you to get away from Rosebank—go to some farm—work outdoors—cut out this fuming and fussing—get some fresh air in your lungs. ” The president rose and purred: “Now, I’m afraid I have some work to do. ”

He paused, waiting for John to go.

John fiercely crumpled the sheet and hurled it away. Tears were in his weary eyes.

He wailed: “Is there nothing I can do to prove I am Jasper?”

“Why, certainly! You can produce what’s left of the ninety-seven thousand!”

John took from his ragged waistcoat pocket a five-dollar bill and some change. “Here’s all there is. Ninety-six thousand of it was stolen from my house last night. ”

Sorry though he was for the madman, the president could not help laughing. Then he tried to look sympathetic, and he comforted: “Well, that’s hard luck, old man. Uh, let’s see. You might produce some parents or relatives or somebody to prove that Jasper never did have a twin brother. ”

“My parents are dead, and I’ve lost track of their kin—I was born in England—Father came over when I was six. There might be some cousins or some old neighbors, but I don’t know. Probably impossible to find out, in these wartimes, without going over there. ”

“Well, I guess we’ll have to let it go, old man. ” The president was pressing the buzzer for his secretary and gently bidding her: “Show Mr. Holt out, please. ”

From the door John desperately tried to add: “You will find my car sunk—”

The door had closed behind him. The president had not listened.

The president gave orders that never, for any reason, was John Holt to be admitted to his office again. He telephoned to the bonding company that John Holt had now gone crazy; that they would save trouble by refusing to admit him.

John did not try to see them. He went to the county jail. He entered the keeper’s office and said quietly: “I have stolen a lot of money, but I can’t prove it. Will you put me in jail?”

The keeper shouted: “Get out of here! You hoboes always spring that when you want a good warm lodging for the winter! Why the devil don’t you go to work with a shovel in the sand pits? They’re paying two-seventy-five a day. ”

“Yes, sir,” said John timorously. “Where are they?”