Page:Keeban (IA keeban00balm).pdf/282

 Keeban. He has stayed Keeban most of the time since, especially through that Scofield business; but once or twice he became Jerry. But now, except when he sent those two notes to me, he's been Keeban all the time."

"Stenewisc, he never had any sense," he went on to me. "He had the gas during the war. But would he sell it to the army or to the English or the French or, if he didn't like that side, would he sell to the other? He would not. He wouldn't help any government anywhere; he wouldn't help a government even to wipe out the rest. He was set to do the wiping himself, personally. He had his big idea."

I kept quiet; and he stood close. This was like Jerry himself, this impulse to talk on.

"He figured he could croak everybody—give him a little more time and plenty of gas. Everybody in New York, anyway." Keeban laughed. "Lot of good that would do. Get up!" he told me.

I got up.

"Get up!" he said to Doris; and she arose.

The normals formed before us and behind and so we started to march to the glass room.

There was an ordinary wood and plaster partition first which set off another large room at