“I am sorry, sir, but it’s not for sale,” said Jack, trying to smother his glee.

“Why?” demanded Breen bluntly.

“I have sold it to Mr. Robert Guthrie.”

“Guthrie!  The devil you say!—­When?”

“To-day.  The final papers are signed to-morrow.  Excuse me, I must catch my boat—­” and away he went, his cup now brimming over, leaving Breen biting his lips and muttering to himself as he gazed after him.

“Guthrie!—­My customer!  Damn that boy—­I might have known he would land on his feet.”

But Jack kept on home to his sweetheart, most of the way in the air.

Down in the little room all this time in the rear of the tailor’s shop the two old men sat talking.  Peter kept nothing back; his lips quivering again and another unbidden tear peeping over the edge of his eyelid when he told of Jack’s offer.

“A dear boy, Isaac—­yes, a dear boy.  He never thinks with his head—­only with his heart.  Never has since I knew him.  Impulsive, emotional, unpractical, no doubt—­and yet somehow he always wins.  Queer—­very queer!  He comes upstairs to me and I start out on a fool’s errand.  He goes down to you, and you hand him out your money.  He gives it all away the next day, and then we have Guthrie doubling the price.  Queer, I tell you, Isaac—­extraordinary, that’s what it is—­almost uncanny.”

The Jew threw away his cigar, rested his short elbows on the arms of his chair, and made a basket of his hands, the tips of all his fingers touching.

“No, you are wrong, my good friend.  It is not extraordinary and it is not uncanny.  It is very simple—­exceedingly simple.  Nobody runs over a child if he can help it.  Even a thief will bring you back your pocket-book if you trust him to take care of it.  It is the trusting that does it.  Few men, no matter how crooked, can resist the temptation of reaching, if only for a moment, an honest man’s level.”

CHAPTER XXXIII

Peter’s coat was finished in time for the wedding—­trust Isaac for that—­and so was his double-breasted white waistcoat—­he had not changed the cut in twenty years; and so were his pepper-and-salt trousers and all his several appointments, little and big, even to his polka-dot scarf of blue silk, patent-leather shoes and white gaiters.  Quite the best-dressed man in the room, everybody said, and they of all the people in the world should have known.

And the wedding!

And all that went before it, and all that took place on that joyous day; and all that came after that happiest of events!