Page:Keeban (IA keeban00balm).pdf/281

 him. He did the same in the killing of Win Scofield."

He went on talking, "You beat me out of more than you'd make in the bean business if you lived as many more years as you're going to live minutes. You like that girl over there?"

I didn't reply to that; but he went on as if I had.

"Good you do. She's traveling right along with you. Plenty of space for two in the old glass room. Now Stenewisc, he was simply a fool."

"Stenewisc, who made the gas?" I asked him. I was trying to keep him talking for the general reason that every minute gained was another minute lived; and besides, below everything else in my mind, was the idea that something might turn this body back from Keeban to Jerry again. I got to figuring like this:

"Years ago, when we were at college, he started being Keeban for a couple of short periods which confused him afterwards. He was Jerry nearly all the time. Then he stopped turning into Keeban until that night of the Sparlings' dance. He became Keeban for a time, then he was Jerry again when he came home to talk to me, after which he went back to being