“Better not laugh at Jack, Cory,” Garry had replied; “you’ll be taking your own hat off to him one of these days; we all shall.  Arthur Breen missed it when he let him go.  Jack’s queer about some things, but he’s a thoroughbred and he’s got brains!”

“He insulted Mr. Breen in his own house, that’s why he let him go,” snapped Corinne.  The idea of her ever taking off her hat, even figuratively, to John Breen, was not to be brooked,—­not for an instant.

“Yes, that’s one way of looking at it, Cory, but I tell you if Arthur Breen had had Jack with him these last few months—­ever since he left him, in fact,—­and had listened once in a while to what Jack thought was fair and square, the firm of A. B. & Co. would have a better hold on things than they’ve got now; and he wouldn’t have dropped that million either.  The cards don’t always come up the right way, even when they’re stacked.”

“It just served my stepfather right for not giving us some of it, and I’m glad he lost it,” Corinne rejoined, her anger rising again.  “I have never forgiven him for not making me an allowance after I married, and I never will.  He could, at least, have continued the one he always gave me.”

Garry winked sententiously, and remarked in reply that he might be making the distinguished money-bags an allowance himself one of these fine days, and he could if some of the things he was counting on came out top side up, but Corinne’s opinions did not change either toward Jack or her stepfather.

CHAPTER XIX

When the pain in Jack’s heart over Ruth became unbearable, there was always one refuge left—­one balm which never failed to soothe, and that was Peter.

For though he held himself in readiness for her call, being seldom absent lest she might need his services, their constrained intercourse brought with it more pain than pleasure.  It was then that he longed for the comfort which only his dear mentor could give.

On these occasions Mrs. McGuffey would take the lace cover off Miss Felicia’s bureau, as a matter of precaution, provided that lady was away and the room available, and roll in a big tub for the young gentleman—­“who do be washin’ hisself all the time and he that sloppy that I’m afeared everything will be spi’lt for the mistress,” and Jack would slip out of his working clothes (he would often come away in his flannel shirt and loose tie, especially when he was late in paying off) and shed his heavy boots with the red clay of Jersey still clinging to their soles, and get into his white linen and black clothes and dress shoes, and then the two chums would lock arms and saunter up Fifth Avenue to dine either at one of Peter’s clubs or at some house where he and that “handsome young ward of yours, Mr. Grayson—­do bring him again,” were so welcome.

If Miss Felicia was in town and her room in use, there was never any change in the programme, Mrs. McGuffey rising to the emergency and discovering another and somewhat larger apartment in the next house but two—­“for one of the finest gintlemen ye ever saw and that quiet,” etc.—­into which Jack would move and which the good woman would insist on taking full charge of herself.