Peter had drunk in every word of the story, bowing his head, fanning out his fingers, or interrupting with his customary “Well, well!” whenever some particular detail seemed to tend toward the final success.

And then, the story over, there came the part that Peter never forgot; that he has told me a dozen times, and always with the same trembling tear under the eyelids, and the same quivering of his lower lip.

Jack had drawn his chair nearer the old gentleman, and had thrown one arm over the shoulder of his dearest friend in the world.  There was a moment’s silence as they sat there, and then Jack began.  “There is something I want you to do for me, Uncle Peter,” he said, drawing his arm closer till his own fresh cheek almost touched the head of the older man.  “Please, don’t refuse.”

“Refuse, my dear boy!  I am too happy to-day to refuse anything.  Come, out with it.”

“I am going to give you half of this money.  I love you better than any one in this world except Ruth, and I want you to have it.”

Peter threw up his hands and sprang to his feet.

“What!—­You want to—­Why, Jack!  Are you crazy!  Me!  My dear boy, it’s very lovely of you to wish to do it, but just think.  Oh, you dear Jack!  No!—­no, no!” He was beating the air now deprecatingly with his outspread fingers as he strode around the room, laughing short laughs in his effort to keep back the tears.

Jack followed him in his circuit, talking all the while, until he had penned the old gentleman in a corner between the open desk and the window.

“But, Uncle Peter—­think what you have done for me!  Do you suppose for one moment that I don’t know that it was you and not I who sold the property?  Do you think Mr. Guthrie would have added that five thousand dollars to the price if he hadn’t wanted to help you as well as me?”

“Five thousand dollars, my dear Jack, is no more to Robert Guthrie than a ferry ticket is to you or me.  He gave you the full price because you trusted to his honesty and told him the truth, and he saw your inexperience.”

“No—­it was you he was thinking of, I tell you,” protested Jack, with eager emphasis.  “He would never have sent Ballantree for me had you not talked to him—­and it has been so with everything since I knew you.  You have been father, friend, everybody to me.  You gave me Ruth and my work.  Everything I am I owe to you.  You must—­you shall have half of this money!  Ruth and I can be married, and that is all we want, and what is left I can put into our new work to help Mr. MacFarlane.  Please, Uncle Peter!—­we will both be so much happier if we know you share it with us.”  Here his voice rose and a strain of determination rang through it.  “And, by George!—­Uncle Peter, the more I think of it, the more I am convinced that it is fair.  It’s yours—­not mine.  I will have it that way—­you are getting old, and you need it.”