Peter Part 8

"Too late for that, too," laughed Jack, merry once more. "Corinne wouldn't speak to me if I showed my face now, and then there will be plenty more dances which I can go to, and so make it all up with her.

I'm not yet as sorry as I ought to be about this dance. Your being here has been such a delight. May I--may--I come and see you some time?"

"That's just what you will do, and right away. Just as soon as my dear sister Felicia comes down, and she'll be here very soon. I'll send for you, never fear. Yes, the right sleeve first, and now my hat and umbrella. Ah, here they are. Now, good night, my boy, and thank you for letting me come."

"You know I dare not go down with you," explained Jack with a smile.

"Oh, yes--I know--I know. Good night--" and the sharp, quick tread of the old man grew fainter and fainter as he descended the stairs.

Jack waited, craning his head, until he caught a glimpse of the glistening head as it pa.s.sed once more under the lantern, then he went into his room and shut the door.

Had he followed behind his guest he would have witnessed a little comedy which would have gone far in wiping clean all trace of his uncle's disparaging remarks of the morning. He would have enjoyed, too, Parkins's amazement. As the Receiving Teller of the Exeter Bank reached the hall floor the President of the Clearing House--the most distinguished man in the Street and one to whom Breen kotowed with genuflections equalling those of Parkins--accompanied by his daughter and followed by the senior partner of Breen & Co., were making their way to the front door. The second man in the chocolate livery with the potato-bug waistcoat had brought the Magnate's coat and hat, and Parkins stood with his hand on the door-k.n.o.b. Then, to the consternation of both master and servant, the great man darted forward and seized Peter's hand.

"Why, my dear Mr. Grayson! This is indeed a pleasure. I didn't see you--were you inside?"

"No--I've been upstairs with young Mr. Breen," replied Peter, with a comprehensive bow to Host, Magnate and Magnate's daughter. Then, with the grace and dignity of an amba.s.sador quitting a salon, he pa.s.sed out into the night.

Breen found his breath first: "And you know him?"

"Know him!" cried the Magnate--"of course I know him! One of the most delightful men in New York; and I'm glad that you do--you're luckier than I--try as I may I can hardly ever get him inside my house."

I was sitting up for the old fellow when he entered his cosey red room and dropped into a chair before the fire. I had seen the impression the young man had made upon him at the dinner and was anxious to learn the result of his visit. I had studied the boy somewhat myself, noting his bright smile, clear, open face without a trace of guile, and the enthusiasm that took possession of him when his friend won the prize That he was outside the cla.s.s of young men about him I could see from a certain timidity of glance and gesture--as if he wanted to be kept in the background. Would the old fellow, I wondered, burden his soul with still another charge?

Peter was laughing when he entered; he had laughed all the way down-town, he told me. What particularly delighted him--and here he related the Portman incident--was the change in Breen's face when old Portman grasped his hand so cordially.

"Made of pinchbeck, my dear Major, both of them, and yet how genuine it looks on the surface, and what a lot of it is in circulation. Quite as good as the real thing if you don't know the difference," and again he laughed heartily.

"And the boy," I asked, "was he disappointing?"

"Young Breen?--not a bit of it. He's like all the young fellows who come up here from the South--especially the country districts--and he's from western Maryland, he says. Got queer ideas about work and what a gentleman should do to earn his living--same old talk. Hot-house plants most of them--never amount to anything, really, until they are pruned and set out in the cold."

"Got any sense?" I ventured.

"No, not much--not yet--but he's got temperament and refinement and a ten commandments' code of morals."

"Rather rare, isn't it?" I asked.

"Yes--perhaps so."

"And I suppose you are going to take him up and do for him, like the others."

Peter picked up the poker and made a jab at the fire; then he answered slowly:

"Well, Major, I can't tell yet--not positively. But he's certainly worth saving."

CHAPTER VII

With the closing of the front door upon the finest Old Gentleman in the World, a marked change took place in the mental mechanism of several of our most important characters. The head of the firm of Breen & Co. was so taken aback that for the moment that shrewdest of financiers was undecided as to whether he or Parkins should rush out into the night after the departing visitor and bring him back, and open the best in the cellar. "Send a man out of my house," he said to himself, "whom Portman couldn't get to his table except at rare intervals! Well, that's one on me!"

The lid that covered the upper half of Parkins's intelligence also received a jolt; it was a coal-hole lid that covered emptiness, but now and then admitted the light.

"Might 'ave known from the clothes 'e wore 'e was no common PUR-son," he said to himself. "To tell you the truth--" this to the second man in the potato-bug waistcoat, when they were dividing between them the bottle of "Extra Dry" three-quarters full, that Parkins had smuggled into the pantry with the empty bottles ("Dead Men," Breen called them)--"to tell you the truth, Frederick, when I took 'is 'at and coat hupstairs 'e give me a real start 'e looked that respectable"

As to Jack, not only his mind but his heart were in a whirl.

Half the night he lay awake wondering what he could do to follow Peter's advice while preserving his own ideals. He had quite forgotten that part of the older man's counsel which referred to the dignity of work, even of that work which might be considered as menial. If the truth must be told, it was his vanity alone which had been touched by the suggestion that in him might lay the possibility of reforming certain conditions around him. He was willing, even anxious, to begin on Breen & Co., subjecting his uncle, if need be, to a vigorous overhauling. Nothing he felt could daunt him in his present militant state, upheld, as he felt that he was, by the approval of Peter. Not a very rational state of mind, the Scribe must confess, and only to be accounted for by the fact that Peter's talk, instead of clearing Jack's mind of old doubts, had really clouded it the more--quite as a bottle of mixture when shaken sends its insoluble particles whirling throughout the whole.

It was not until the following morning, indeed, that the sediment began to settle, and some of the sanity of Peter's wholesome prescription to produce a clarifying effect. As long as he, Jack, lived upon his uncle's bounty--and that was really what it amounted it--he must at least try to contribute his own quota of good cheer and courtesy. This was what Peter had done him the honor to advise, and he must begin at once if he wanted to show his appreciation of the courtesy.

His uncle opened the way:

"Why, I didn't know until I saw him go out that he was a friend of Mr.

Portman's," he said as he sipped his coffee.

"Neither did I. But does it make any difference?" answered Jack, flipping off the top of his egg.

"Well I should think so--about ninety-nine and nine-tenths percent,"

replied the older man emphatically. "Let's invite him to dinner, Jack.

Maybe he'll come to one I'm giving next week and--"

"I'll ask him--that is... perhaps, though, you might write him a note, uncle, and--"

"Of course," interrupted Breen, ignoring the suggestion, "when I wanted you to take him to the club I didn't know who he was."

"Of course you did not," echoed Jack, suppressing a smile.

"The club! No, not by a d.a.m.ned sight!" exclaimed the head of the house of Breen. As this latter observation was addressed to the circ.u.mambient air, and not immediately to Jack, it elicited no response. Although slightly profane, Jack was clever enough to read in its tones not only ample apology for previous criticisms but a sort of prospective reparation, whereupon our generous young gentleman forgave his uncle at once, and thought that from this on he might like him the better.

Even Parkins came in for a share of Jack's most gracious intentions, and though he was as silent as an automaton playing a game of chess, a slight crack was visible in the veneer of his face when Jack thanked him for having brought Mr. Grayson--same reverential p.r.o.nunciation--upstairs himself instead of allowing Frederick or one of the maid-servants to perform that service.

As for his apologies to Corinne and his aunt for having remained in his room after Mr. Grayson's departure, instead of taking part in the last hours of the dance--one o'clock was the exact hour--these were reserved until those ladies should appear at dinner, when they were made with so penitential a ring in his voice that his aunt at once jumped to the conclusion that he must have been bored to death by the old fellow, while Corinne hugged herself in the belief that perhaps after all Jack was renewing his interest in her; a delusion which took such possession of her small head that she finally determined to send Garry a note begging him to come to her at once, on business of the UTMOST IMPORTANCE; two strings being better than one, especially when they were to be played each against the other.

As to the uplifting of the house of Breen & Co., and the possibility of so small a tail as himself being able to wag so large a dog as his uncle and his partners, that seemed now to be so chimerical an undertaking that he laughed when he thought of it.

This urbanity of mood was still with him when some days later he dropped into the Magnolia Club on his way home, his purpose being to find Garry and to hear about the supper which his club friends had given him to celebrate his winning of the Morris ring.

Little Biffton was keeping watch when Jack swung in with that free stride of his that showed more than anything else his muscular body and the way he had taken care of and improved it. No dumb-bells or clubs for fifteen minutes in the morning--but astride a horse, his thighs gripping a bare-back, roaming the hills day after day--the kind of outdoor experience that hardens a man all over without specializing his biceps or his running gear. Little Biff never had any swing to his gait--none that his fellows ever noticed. Biff went in for repose--sometimes hours at a time. Given a club chair, a package of cigarettes and some one to talk to him and Biff could be happy a whole afternoon.

"Ah, Breen, old man! Come to anchor." Here he moved back a chair an inch or two with his foot, and pushed his silver cigarette-case toward the newcomer.

"Thank you," replied Jack. "I've just dropped in to look for Garry Minott. Has he been in?"

Biff was the bulletin-board of the Magnolia club. As he roomed upstairs, he could be found here at any hour of the day or night.

Biff did not reply at once; there was no use in hurrying--not about anything. Besides, the connection between Biff's ears and his brain was never very good. One had to ring him up several times before he answered.