Peter waved his hat, and turning, walked off the pier.

“Could he forget them?” was the question he asked himself.

CHAPTER X

Waiting.

“My friend,” said an old and experienced philosopher to a young man, who with all the fire and impatience of his years wished to conquer the world quickly, “youth has many things to learn, but one of the most important is never to let another man beat you at waiting.”

Peter went back to his desk, and waited.  He gave up looking at the wall of his office, and took to somebody “On Torts” again.  When that was finished he went through the other law books of his collection.  Those done, he began to buy others, and studied them with great thoroughness and persistence.  In one of his many walks, he stumbled upon the Apprentices’ Library.  Going in, he inquired about its privileges, and became a regular borrower of books.  Peter had always been a reader, but now he gave from three or four hours a day to books, aside from his law study.  Although he was slow, the number of volumes, he not merely read, but really mastered was marvellous.  Books which he liked, without much regard to their popular reputation, he at once bought; for his simple life left him the ability to indulge himself in most respects within moderation.  He was particularly careful to read a classic occasionally to keep up his Greek and Latin, and for the same reason he read French and German books aloud to himself.  Before the year was out, he was a recognized quantity in certain book-stores, and was privileged to browse at will both among old and new books without interference or suggestion from the “stock” clerks.  “There isn’t any good trying to sell him anything,” remarked one.  “He makes up his mind for himself.”

His reading was broadened out from the classic and belles-lettres grooves that were still almost a cult with the college graduate, by another recreation now become habitual with him.  In his long tramps about the city, to vary the monotony, he would sometimes stop and chat with people—­with a policeman, a fruit-vender, a longshoreman or a truckster.  It mattered little who it was.  Then he often entered manufactories and “yards” and asked if he could go through them, studying the methods, and talking to the overseer or workers about the trade.  When he occasionally encountered some one who told him “your kind ain’t got no business here” he usually found the statement “my father was a mill-overseer” a way to break down the barrier.  He had to use it seldom, for he dressed plainly and met the men in a way which seldom failed to make them feel that he was one of them.  After such inspection and chat, he would get books from the library, and read up about the business or trade, finding that in this way he could enjoy works otherwise too technical, and really obtain a very good knowledge of many subjects.  Just how interesting he found such books as “Our Fire-Laddies,” which he read from cover to cover, after an inspection of, and chat with, the men of the nearest fire-engine station; or Latham’s “The Sewage Difficulty,” which the piping of uptown New York induced him to read; and others of diverse types is questionable.  Probably it was really due to his isolation, but it was much healthier than gazing at blank walls.