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 day by slow day his hair had turned from Jasper’s thin sleek blackness to a straggle of damp gray locks writhing over a yellow 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—”