As though trying to make him fall!

Then the other Voice:

"You're not going to fall! You can make it? Stick! Don't be yellow'! Don't listen to him! You're not going to fall!"

As though trying to keep him from falling.

Over and over the two Voices kept that up-all the time he was climbing.

An unforgettable experience. Utterly real. As though those two Voices were actually there-either end of the cowl.

He came through all right, finally. Got hold of himself. And after that everything was easier. But to this day he holds that it was that Second Voice-Stiffening his back-that enabled him to "make it."

Back on the ground again. With a whole skin, and without breaking his neck. Grinning.

"Pretty rotten," commented the Monitor. "But you'll do. That last 'landing' wasn't bad."

He had "gone solo." He had done it!

But all the way back to the barracks he could not help puzzling over the two Voices. He finally decided it must have been something like this:

They had personified-or spoken out of-the two "habit" sides of himself-the old Adam and the new Adam.

All the time times he had ever "compromised," "shirked," "chucked it"-all the time he had let himself yield to soft, narcotic impulses in preference to harder, more tonic impulses-all the softness he had ever let form within himself-all that had waited till then to come back on him. That had been the one Voice; the mean hateful one.

All the times he had ever steeled himself-ever kept "in training," so to speak, though with nothing to gain but the satisfaction-ever driven himself by power of will and for a principle-all those thousand and one intangible little credits he had ever put by (and completely forgotten)-all that had come to life for him to draw upon to life to give him a balance enough on the right side to tide him over. That had been the second Voice.

If he had ever once known such a showdown was coming if he had it to do over again how easily he could have put by more to his credit and made his balance comfortably larger!