It seemed that mother considered my nurse to blame for Jerry becoming detached from his own party; my mother always fixed blame for occurrences; also, she always felt responsibility. She felt that now for Jerry and took him in her carriage and brought him home where she kept him isolated in a guest room while she had the police notified and advertisements put in the papers. She said she would persist in efforts to return Jerry to his parents until she got results; the authorities--she thought--were too careless about such matters and too soon gave up, and merely sent a child to an institution. Accordingly, Jerry remained at our house; and then, when my mother’s efforts brought no result, she still kept him. A child’s specialist examined him and found him reassuringly sound, with excellent development, no ascertainable defects or hereditary taints, all senses acute, and decidedly “bright.” Apparently, he was about two years old; “of European parentage” was as far as the doctor would commit himself. “French,” my mother decided. “He says his name is ‘Jerry.’ I don’t think that it is his name; it probably represents ‘mon cheri.’” “Spanish,” my father always said, for no reason, I believe, other than he thought my mother was too positive and also he particularly liked the Spanish. They couldn’t help liking Jerry, who knew, besides his name, only the usual hundred or so ordinary words which a child picks up first; English words, they were, at first spoken with a marked French accent, my mother said. So they let Jerry and me play together; I was an only child. A companion, therefore, was “good for me”; and we have been together ever since. I cannot remember a time when there was not Jerry; he cannot consciously recall any home previous to ours or any one previous to us,--besides the nameless “mama” and “papa” whom he asked for, at first, and “Keeban.” Keeban, apparently, was another child; a brother or sister; or perhaps only a playmate. Jerry could not describe him, of course; he could only go about looking for and asking for Keeban. Naturally, as time went on, my mother and father replaced Jerry’s own nameless mama and papa; but I never replaced Keeban; and Jerry never forgot him. As we became older, Jerry’s idea of Keeban became at the same time more imaginary and more definite; for Keeban changed from some one for whom Jerry searched to some one always with us,--an imaginary companion, a third to us two, interesting, always up to something and most convenient to accuse when we were caught in heinous wrong. I can remember, when we were about seven, asking Jerry what Keeban was like. I did not consider that Keeban represented a real person; he was, to me, merely one of Jerry’s interesting imaginations. “Keeban,” said Jerry, “is another me. Don’t you never have a Keeban, too?”