Peter Part 10

Jack didn't want any high-ball, and said so. (Biffy didn't care if he did.) The boy's mind was still on the scoop, particularly on the way in which every one of his fellow-members had spoken of the incident.

"Horrid business, all of it. Don't you think so, Garry?" Jack said after a pause.

"No, not if you keep your eyes peeled," answered Garry, emptying his gla.s.s. "Never saw Gilbert but once, and then he looked to me like a softy from Pillowville. Couldn't fool me, I tell you, on a deal like that. I'd have had a 'stop order' somewhere. Served Gilbert right; no business to be monkeying with a buzz-saw unless he knew how to throw off the belt."

Jack straightened his shoulders and his brows knit. The lines of the portrait were in the lad's face now.

"Well, maybe it's all right, Garry. My own opinion is that it's no better than swindling. Anyway, I'm mighty glad Uncle Arthur isn't mixed up in it. You heard what Sam and the other fellows thought, didn't you?

How would you like to have that said of you?"

Garry tossed back his head and laughed.

"Biffy, are you listening to his Reverence, the Bishop of c.u.mberland?

Here endeth the first lesson."

Biff nodded over his high-ball. He wasn't listening--discussions of any kind bored him.

"But what do you care, Jack, what they say--what anybody says?"

continued Garry. "Keep right on. You are in the Street to make money, aren't you? Everybody else is there for the same purpose. What goes up must come down. If you don't want to get your head smashed, stand from under. The game is to jump in, grab what you can, and jump out, dodging the bricks as they come. Let's go up-town, old man."

Neither of the young men was expressing his own views. Both were too young and too inexperienced to have any fixed ideas on so vital a subject.

It was the old fellow in the snuff-colored coat, black stock and dog-eared collar that was behind Jack. If he were alive to-day Jack's view would have been his view, and that was the reason why it was Jack's view. The boy could no more explain it than he could prove why his eyes were brown and his hair a dark chestnut, or why he always walked with his toes very much turned out, or made gestures with his hands when he talked. Had any of the jury been alive--and some of them were--or the prosecuting-attorney, or even any one of the old settlers who attended court, they could have told in a minute which one of the two young men was Judge Breen's son. Not that Jack looked like his father. No young man of twenty-two looks like an old fellow of sixty, but he certainly moved and talked like him--and had the same way of looking at things.

"The written law may uphold you, sir, and the jury may so consider, but I shall instruct them to disregard your plea. There is a higher law, sir, than justice--a law of mercy--That I myself shall exercise." The old Judge had sat straight up on his bench when he said it, his face cast-iron, his eyes burning. The jury brought in an acquittal without leaving their seats. There was an outbreak, of course, but the man went free. This young offshoot was from the same old stock, that was all; same sap in his veins, same twist to his branch; same bud, same blossom and--same fruit.

And Garry!

Not many years have elapsed since I watched him running in and out of his father's s.p.a.cious drawing-rooms on Fourteenth Street--the court end of town in those days. In the days, I mean, when his father was Collector of the Port, and his father's house with its high ceilings, mahogany doors and wide hall, and the great dining-room overlooking a garden with a stable in the rear. It had not been many years, I say, since the Hon. Creighton Minott had thrown wide its doors to whoever came--that is, whoever came properly accredited. It didn't last long, of course. Politics changed; the "ins" became the "outs." And with the change came the bridging-over period--the kind of cantilever which hope thrusts out from one side of the bank of the swift-flowing stream of adversity in the belief that somebody on the other side of the chasm will build the other half, and the two form a highway leading to a change of scene and renewed prosperity.

The hospitable Collector continued to be hospitable. He had always taken chances--he would again. The catch-terms of Garry's day, such as "couldn't fool him," "keep your eye peeled," "a buzz-saw," etc., etc., were not current in the father's day, but their synonyms were. He knew what he was about. As soon as a particular member of the Board got back from the other side the Honorable Collector would have the position of Treasurer, and then it was only a question of time when he would be President of the new corporation. I can see now the smile that lighted up his rather handsome face when he told me. He was "monkeying with a buzz-saw" all the same if he did but know it, and yet he always professed to follow the metaphor that he could "throw off the belt" that drove the pulley at his own good pleasure and so stop the connecting machinery before the teeth of the whirling blade could reach his fingers. Should it get beyond his control--of which there was not the remotest possibility--he would, of course, rent his house, sell his books and curtail. "In the meantime, my dear fellow, there is some of the old Madeira left and a game of whist will only help to drive dull care away."

Garry never whimpered when the crash came. The dear mother died--how patient and uncomplaining she was in all their ups and downs--and Garry was all that was left. What he had gained since in life he had worked for; first as office boy, then as draughtsman and then in charge of special work, earning his Chief's approval, as the Scribe has duly set forth. He got his inheritance, of course. Don't we all get ours?

Sometimes it skips a generation--some times two--but generally we are wearing the old gentleman's suit of clothes cut down to fit our small bodies, making believe all the time that they are our very own, unconscious of the discerning eyes who recognize their cut and origin.

Nothing tangible, it is safe to say, came with Garry's share of the estate--and he got it all. That is, nothing he could exchange for value received--no houses or lots, or stocks or bonds. It was the INTANGIBLE that proved his richest possession, viz.:--a certain buoyancy of spirits; a cheery, optimistic view of life; a winning personality and the power of both making and holding friends. With this came another a.s.set--the willingness to take chances, and still a third--an absolute belief in his luck. Down at the bottom of the box littered with old papers, unpaid tax bills and protested notes--all valueless--was a fourth which his father used to fish out when every other a.s.set failed--a certain confidence in the turn of a card.

But the virtues and the peccadilloes of their ancestors, we may be sure, were not interesting, our two young men as they swung up the Avenue arm in arm, this particular afternoon, the sidewalks crowded with the fashion of the day, the roadway blocked with carriages. Nor did any pa.s.sing objects occupy their attention.

Garry's mind was on Corinne, and what he would tell her, and how she would look as she listened, the pretty head tucked on one side, her sparkling eyes drinking in every word of his story, although he knew she wouldn't believe one-half of it. Elusive and irritating as she sometimes was, there was really n.o.body exactly like Miss Corinne.

Jack's mind had resumed its normal tone. Garry's merry laugh and good-natured ridicule had helped, so had the discovery that none of his friends had had anything to do with Gilbert's fall. After all, he said to himself, as he strode up the street beside his friend, it was "none of his funeral," none of his business, really. Such things went on every day and in every part of the world. Neither was it his Uncle Arthur's.

That was the most comforting part of all.

Corinne's voice calling over the banisters: "Is that you, Jack?" met the two young men as they handed their hats to the noiseless Frederick. Both craned their necks and caught sight of the Wren's head framed by the hand-rail and in silhouette against the oval sky-light in the roof above.

"Yes, and Garry's here, too. Come down."

The patter of little feet grew louder, then the swish of silken skirts, and with a spring she was beside them.

"No, don't you say a word, Garry. I'm not going to listen and I won't forgive you no matter what you say." She had both of his hands now.

"Ah, but you don't know, Miss Corinne. Has Jack told you?"

"Yes, told me everything; that you had a big supper and everybody stamped around the room; that Mr. Morris gave you a ring, or something"

(Garry held up his finger, but she wasn't ready to examine it yet), "and that some of the men wanted to celebrate it, and that you went to the club and stayed there goodness knows how long--all night, so Mollie Crane told me. Paul, her brother, was there--and you never thought a word about your promise to me" (this came with a little pout, her chin uplifted, her lips quite near his face), "and we didn't have half men enough and our cotillion was all spoiled. I don't care--we had a lovely time, even if you two men did behave disgracefully. No--I don't want to listen to a thing. I didn't come down to see either of you." (She had watched them both from her window as they crossed the street.) "What I want to know, Jack, is, who is Miss Felicia Grayson?"

"Why, Mr. Grayson's sister," burst out Jack--"the old gentleman who came to see me."

"That old fellow!"

"Yes, that old fellow--the most charming--"

"Not that remnant!" interrupted Garry.

"No, Garry--not that kind of a man at all, but a most delightful old gentleman by the name of Mr. Grayson," and Jack's eyes flashed. "He told me his sister was coming to town. What do you know about her, Corinne?"

He was all excitement: Peter was to send for him when his sister arrived.

"Nothing--that's why I ask you. I've just got a note from her. She says she knew mamma when she lied in Washington, and that her brother has fallen in love with you, and that she won't have another happy moment--or something like that--if you and I don't come to a tea she is giving to a Miss Ruth MacFarlane; and that I am to give her love to mamma, and bring anybody I please with me."

"When?" asked Jack. He could hardly restrain his joy.

"I think next Sat.u.r.day--yes, next Sat.u.r.day," consulting the letter in her hand.

"Where? At Mr. Grayson's rooms?" cried Jack.

"Yes, at her brother's, she says. Here, Jack--you read it. Some number in East Fifteenth Street--queer place for people to live, isn't it, Garry?--people who want anybody to come to their teas. I've got a dressmaker lives over there somewhere; she's in Fifteenth Street, anyhow, for I always drive there."

Jack devoured the letter. This was what he had been hoping for. He knew the old gentleman would keep his word!

"Well, of course you'll go, Corinne?" he cried eagerly.

"Of course I'll do nothing of the kind. I think it's a great piece of impudence. I've never heard of her. Because you had her brother upstairs, that's no reason why--But that's just like these people. You give them an inch and--"

Jack's cheeks flushed: "But, Corinne! She's offered you a courtesy--asked you to her house, and--"

"I don't care; I'm not going! Would you, Garry?"

The son of the Collector hesitated for a moment. He had his own ideas of getting on in the world. They were not Jack's--his, he knew, would never succeed. And they were not exactly Corinne's--she was too particular.

The fence was evidently the best place for him.

"Would be rather a bore, wouldn't it?" he replied evasively, with a laugh. "Lives up under the roof, I guess, wears a dyed wig, got Cousin Mary Ann's daguerreotype on the mantle, and tells you how Uncle Ephraim--"

The door opened and Jack's aunt swept in. She never walked, or ambled, or stepped jauntily, or firmly, or as if she wanted to get anywhere in particular; she SWEPT in, her skirts following meekly behind--half a yard behind, sometimes.

Corinne launched the inquiry at her mother, even before she could return Garry's handshake. "Who's Miss Grayson, mamma?"

"I don't know. Why, my child?"

"Well, she says she knows you. Met you in Washington."