“Oh, that’s it, is it?” answered Peter in a relieved tone.

“And now will you tell me what your business is, sir?” asked the young man.  “You seem so different from the others.”

“Me!  Oh, I take care of the money your gamblers win,” replied Peter, at which they both laughed, a spark of sympathy being kindled between them.

Then, seeing the puzzled expression on the boy’s face, he added with a smile:  “I’m Receiving Teller in a bank, one of the oldest in Wall Street.”

A look of relief passed over the young fellow’s face.

“I’m very glad, sir,” he said, with a smile.  “Do you know, sir, you look something like my own father—­what I can remember of him—­that is, he was—­” The lad checked himself, fearing he might be discourteous.  “That is, he had lost his hair, sir, and he wore his cravats like you, too.  I have his portrait in my room.”

Peter leaned still closer to the speaker.  This time he laid his hand on his arm.  The tumult around him made conversation almost impossible.  “And now tell me your name?”

“My name is Breen, sir.  John Breen.  I live with my uncle.”

The roar of the dinner now became so fast and furious that further confidences were impossible.  The banners had been replaced and every one was reseated, talking or laughing.  On one side raged a discussion as to how far the decoration of a plain surface should go—­“Roughing it,” some of them called it.  At the end of the table two men were wrangling as to whether the upper or the lower half of a tall structure should have its vertical lines broken; and, if so, by what.  Further down high-keyed voices were crying out against the abomination of the flat roof on the more costly buildings; wondering whether some of their clients would wake up to the necessity of breaking the sky-line with something less ugly—­even if it did cost a little more.  Still a third group were in shouts of laughter over a story told by one of the staff who had just returned from an inspection trip west.

Young Breen looked down the length of the table, watched for a moment a couple of draughtsmen who stood bowing and drinking to each other in mock ceremony out of the quaint glasses filled from the borrowed flagons, then glanced toward his friend Minott, just then the centre of a cyclone that was stirring the group midway the table.

“Come over here, Garry,” he called, half rising to his feet to attract his friend’s attention.

Minott waved his hand in answer, waited until the point of the story had been reached, and made his way toward Peter’s end of the table.

“Garry,” he whispered, “I want to introduce you to Mr. Grayson—­ the very dearest old gentleman you ever met in your whole life.  Sits right next to me.”

“What, that old fellow that looks like a billiard ball in a high collar?” muttered Minott with a twinkle in his eye.  “We’ve been wondering where Mr. Morris dug him up.”