"Don't! A bald-headed old pill who ought to have--"

Then the two passed out of hearing.





CHAPTER IV




Breakfast--any meal for that matter--in the high-wainscoted, dark-
as-a-pocket dining-room of the successful Wall Street broker--the
senior member of the firm of A. Breen & Co., uncle, guardian and
employer of the fresh, rosy-cheeked lad who sat next to Peter on
the night of Morris's dinner, was never a joyous function.

The room itself, its light shut out by the adjoining extensions,
prevented it; so did the glimpse of hard asphalt covering the
scrap of a yard, its four melancholy posts hung about with wire
clothes-lines; and so did the clean-shaven, smug-faced butler, who
invariably conducted his master's guests to their chairs with the
movement of an undertaker, and who had never been known to crack a
smile of any kind, long or short, during his five years' sojourn
with the family of Breen.

Not that anybody wanted Parkins to crack one, that is, not his
master, and certainly not his mistress, and most assuredly not his