“The Lord save us!” said the boy.  “You’re never Percy Sybarite!”

P. Sybarite winced.  “Not so loud!” he pleaded in a stage whisper.  “Some one might hear you.”

“What the devil’s the matter with you?”

“I am that man you named—­but, prithee, Percy me no Percevals, an’ you’d be my friend.  For fifteen years I’ve kept my hideous secret well.  If it becomes public now ...”

Peter Kenny laughed in spite of his pain.

“I’ll keep your secret, too,” he volunteered, “since you feel that way about it....  But, I say:  what have you been doing with yourself since—­since—­” He stammered.

“Since the fall of the House of Sybarite?”

“Yes.  I didn’t know you were in New York, even.”

“Your mother and Mae Alys knew it—­but kept it quiet, the same as me,” said the little man.

“But—­well—­what have you been doing, then?”

“Going to and fro like a raging lion—­more or less—­seeking what I might devour.”

“And the devourings have been good, eh?  You’re high-spirited enough.”

“I think,” said P. Sybarite quietly—­“I may say—­though you can’t see it—­that my present smile would, to a shrewd observer, seem to indicate I’d swallowed a canary-bird ... a nice, fat, golden canary-bird!” he repeated, smacking his lips with unction.

“You talk as if you’d swallowed a dictagraph,” said Peter Kenny.

“It’s my feeling,” sighed P. Sybarite.  “But yourself?  Let’s see; when I saw you last you were the only authentic child pest of your day and generation—­six or seven at most.  How long have you been out of college?”

“A year—­not quite.”

“And sporting bachelor rooms of your own!”

“I’m of age.  Besides, if you must know, mother and Mae Alys are both dotty on the society game, and I’m not.  I won’t be rushed round to pink teas and—­and all that sort of thing.”

“Far more wholesome than pink whiskeys at Dutch House.”

“You don’t understand—­”

“No; but I mean to.  There!” announced P. Sybarite, finishing the bandage with a tidy flat knot—­make yourself comfortable on that couch, tell me where you keep your whiskey, and I’ll mix myself a drink and listen to your degrading confession....

“Now,” he added, when Peter Kenny, stretched out on the couch, had suffered himself to be covered up—­“not being an M.D., I’ve no conscience at all about letting you talk yourself to death; eaten alive as I am with curiosity; and knowing besides that you can’t kill a Kenny but with kindness.”

“You’ll find the whiskey on the buffet,” said the boy.

“Obliged to you,” P. Sybarite replied, finding it.

“And I suppose I—­”

“You’re quite right; you’ve had enough.  Alcohol is nothing to help mend a wound.  If your friend Higgins permits it, when he comes—­well and good....  Meanwhile,” he added, taking a seat near the head of the couch, and fixing his youthful relation with a stern enquiring eye—­“what were you doing in Dutch House the night?”