"I'm kind of wondering, Bud," he went on presently, "wondering if you get all that means--means to me. I don't know." He passed a hand slowly across his brow, as though to brush aside growing perplexities. "I don't seem to get all it means myself. No, I don't. The whole thing's so queer," he went on, with a nervous, restless movement in his chair. "It sort of seems crazy, too." He laughed meaninglessly. Then he suddenly leaned forward with flushed cheeks and hot eyes. "Bud, don't think me crazy, but--well, say, I'm only part of me without Ronny near. Oh, I don't guess that explains. But it's what I feel--and I can't just talk it right. You don't get it? No, of course you don't. I can see it in your eyes. You think I'm right for the foolish-house. Listen. Is it possible--is it ordinary reason that when twins are born, the nature of one normal child can be divided between the two, one having what the other feller lacks? There, that's how I feel about it. It's the way it is with Ronny and me. All that he is not, I am. I haven't one of his better features. Say, Bud, I'm a pretty cold sort of man. I'd have made a fair sort of Puritan if I'd been on earth a century or so ago. I've little enough humor. I don't care for play. I don't care for half the fun most folks see in life. I'd sooner work than eat. And Ronny--well, Ronny isn't just any of those things. He's just a boy, full of every sort of human notion that's opposite to mine. And I'm crazy for him. Say, Bud, I love him better than anything in life. If anything happened to that boy, why, I guess all that's worth while in me would die plumb out." He paused. Bud's shrewd eyes remained studying the emotion-lit features of this usually unemotional man. He felt he was being admitted to a peep at a soul that was rarely, if ever, bared, and he wondered at the reason. Was it a calculated display, or was it the outlet for an emotion altogether too strong for the man's restraint? He inclined to the former belief. "Nothin' _has_ happened?" he enquired presently, in his direct fashion. Jeff laughed without any visible sign of lightness. "No," he said. Then with a deep sigh. "Thank God nothing has happened. But----" "Then the trouble----?"