I bade Jack good-by, after hearing of the bad quarter-hour he had spent with Ballard, Senior, downtown, and made my way to my train for Horsham Manor in no very happy frame of mind. Had I known what new phase of Jerry's character was soon to be revealed to me, God knows I should have been still more unhappy. Jerry was not at the Manor when I arrived there. For some reasons best known to Marcia Van Wyck and himself it had been decided to stay for awhile longer in town, and it was not until over a month later that Jerry arrived bag and baggage in his machine with Christopher. He greeted me cheerfully enough, but I was not quite satisfied with his appearance. The marks of his fight with Clancy had almost, if not quite, disappeared, and while he had taken on much of his normal weight, he had little color and his eyes were dull. He smoked cigarettes constantly, lighting one from another, and on the afternoon and evening of the day of his arrival, sat moodily frowning at vacancy, or walked aimlessly about, his mind obviously upon some troublesome or perplexing matter. I could not believe that Clancy's victory had cast this shadow upon his spirit, but I asked no questions. He ordered wine for dinner, a thing he had never done before at the Manor, save on a few occasions when we had had guests, and drank freely of both sherry and champagne, finishing after his coffee with some neat brandy, which he tossed off with an air of familiarity that gave me something of a shock. He invited me to join him and when I refused seemed to find amusement in twitting me about my abstemious habits. "Come along now, just a nip of brandy, Roger. 'Twill make your blood flow a bit faster. No? Why not, old Dry-as-dust? Conscientious scruples? A dram is as good as three scruples. Come along, just a taste." "Brandy was made for old dotards and young idiots. I'm neither." "Oh, very well, here's luck!" and he drank again, setting the glass down and drawing a deep breath of satisfaction. And then with a laugh. "An idiot! I suppose I am. Good thing to be an idiot, Roger. Nothing expected of you. Nobody disappointed." "You're talking nonsense," I said sternly. "Nonsense! I differ from you there, old top," he laughed. "The true philosophy of life is the one that brings the greatest happiness. Self-expression is my motto, wherever it leads you. I fight, I play, I smoke, I drink because those are the things my particular ego requires." "Ah! You're happy?" "'Happiness,' old Dry-as-dust, as our good friend Rasselas puts it, 'is but a myth.' I have ceased listening with credulity to the whispers of fancy or pursuing with eagerness the phantoms of hope. They're not for me. To live in the thick of life and take my knockouts or give them--Reality! I'm up against it at last,--real people, real thoughts, real trials, real problems--I want them all. I'm going to drink deep, deep." He reached for the brandy bottle again, but I whisked it away and rose.