CHAPTER III




Long before the two had reached the top floor of the building in
which the dinner was to be given, they had caught the hum of the
merrymakers, the sound bringing a smile of satisfaction to Peter's
face, but it was when he entered the richly colored room itself,
hazy with cigarette smoke, and began to look into the faces of the
guests grouped about him and down the long table illumined by
myriads of wax candles that all his doubts and misgivings faded
into thin air. Never since his school days, he told me afterwards,
had he seen so many boisterously happy young fellows grouped
together. And not only young fellows, with rosy cheeks and bright
eyes, but older men with thoughtful faces, who had relinquished
for a day the charge of some one of the important buildings
designed in the distinguished architect's office, and had spent
the night on the train that they might do honor to their Chief.

But it was when Morris, with his arm fast locked in his, began
introducing him right and left as the "Guest of Honor of the
Evening," the two shaking hands first with one and then another,
Morris breaking out into joyous salvos of welcome over some
arrival from a distant city, or greeting with marked kindness and
courtesy one of the younger men from his own office, that the old
fellow's enthusiasm became uncontrollable.