Adventure stories; Brothers -- Fiction; Chicago (Ill.) -- Fiction; Detective and mystery stories
“No,” I said; but I had Jerry’s--that other imaginary boy, the
duplicate of Jerry, who came to see us, whom we played with, who did
extraordinary things and went away. Then, gradually, we dropped him;
that is, Jerry ceased to mention him and we stopped having him “come.”
I think I forgot him until we were in Princeton University together; a
lot of us had been to New York over the week-end and after we’d been
back a few days, Jim Townsend dropped into Jerry’s and my room, when
Jerry was out, and said:
“Steve, I wouldn’t say a word against Jerry to anybody but you; but you
ought to know how queer he is sometimes.”
“When?” I said.
“Last Saturday in New York; I was down on the east side with a bunch
of our class, just knocking about the ordinary way, when we ran on
Jerry in a rum lot, I tell you. He pretended not to recognize any of
us; in fact, he was in a bunch that tried to rough us; we had rather
a go. When it was over, I got at Jerry, he made me so damn mad going
in with that lot of muckers against us. I told him what I thought and
he looked at me as cool as could be. ‘Who do you think I am?’ he asked
me, as though I didn’t know him in Bowery ‘suitings’; for he had on
the whole get-up of his friends, Steve. I gave him up, I tell you; and
he wasn’t drunk, either. Since he didn’t know me, I decided I wouldn’t
know him, next time I saw him here; so I passed him outside just now
without speaking. He came after me and asked why. I told him; and what
do you suppose he did? Denied he’d even been on the east side Saturday;
he said I hadn’t seen him; that wasn’t he.”
“It wasn’t, Jim,” I said. “Jerry was with me all Saturday on Broadway.
We never got east of Fifth Avenue at all.”
“That’s right, Steve. Stand up for him; I would, too,” Jim said; and
nothing I could say would shake him that he’d seen Jerry. He was so
sure about it, and so were the rest of the bunch who’d been with him,
that it got me wondering, particularly when I remembered later that
Jerry hadn’t stayed with me all Saturday; we were separated for a
couple of hours.
I said nothing to him about it; and it soon blew over until, a couple
of months later, another bunch of fellows from the college ran into
Jerry on the same side of town, but peacefully, this time; so
peacefully, in fact, that he borrowed a hundred dollars from them. Said
he would be in trouble down there unless he had the money. I heard
about this from several men and then from Jerry.
“Tell me straight, Steve; do you believe I do queer things?” he asked
me suddenly one night.
“Of course not,” I said.
“I know you wouldn’t think it when I’m myself; but do you think there’s
a chance that sometimes I’m not myself and I go queer--like that fight
with Jim Townsend a few weeks ago; and borrowing a hundred dollars from
Davis in New York last Saturday. I swear to you, Steve, I haven’t the
slightest remembrance of even seeing Fred or any of the fellows with
him who saw me and saw him hand me the hundred.”
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
Reviews
Reviews
No reviews yet
Be the first to share your thoughts on this work.
Join the Discussion
Join the discussion
Sign in to leave a comment or review.
Sign InorCreate an account