“There, my dear Breen,” said Peter, when he had adjusted his cravat before the glass and brushed a few stray hairs over his temples, “that’s a man it would do you an immense amount of good to know; the kind of a man you call worthwhile.  Not only does he speak three languages, Hebrew being one of them, but he can talk on any subject from Greek temples to the raising of violets.  Morris thinks the world of him—­So do I.”

“Yes, I heard him say something about columns.”

“Oh!—­then you overheard!  Yes, they are for the new synagogue that Morris is building.  Cohen is chairman of the committee.”

“And he is the banker, too, I suppose?” rejoined Jack, in a tone which showed his lack of interest in both man and subject.  It was Peter’s ear he wanted, and at once.

The old man’s eyes twinkled:  “Banker!—­not a bit of it.  He’s a tailor, my dear boy—­a most delightful gentleman tailor, who works in the basement below us and who only yesterday pressed the coat I have on.”  Here Peter surveyed himself with a comprehensive glance.  “All the respectable people in New York are not money mad.”  Then, seeing Jack’s look of astonishment over the announcement, he laid his hand on the boy’s shoulder and said with a twinkle of his eye and a little laugh:  “Only one tailor—­not nine—­my boy, was required to make Mr. Cohen a man.  And now about yourself.  Why are you not at work?  Old fellows like me once in a while have a holiday—­but young fellows!  Come!—­What is it brings you here during business hours?  Anything I can help you in?—­anything at home?” and Peter’s eyes bored holes in the boy’s brain.

Jack glanced at Miss Felicia, who was arranging the roses Morris had brought her, and then said in a half whisper:  “I have had a row with my uncle, sir.  Maybe I had better come some other day, when—­”

“No—­out with it!  Row with your uncle, eh?  Rows with one’s uncles are too commonplace to get mysterious over, and, then, we have no secrets.  Ten chances to one I shall tell Felicia every word you say after you’ve gone, so she might as well hear it at first-hand.  Felicia, this young fellow is so thin-skinned he is afraid you will laugh at him.”

“Oh, he knows better.  I have just been telling him how charming he must be to have won Miss MacFarlane’s good opinion,” rejoined his sister as she moved her work-basket nearer her elbow.

And then, with mind at rest, now that he was sure Ruth had not heard, and with eyes again blazing as his thoughts dwelt upon the outrage, he poured out his story, Miss Felicia listening intently, a curious expression on her face, Peter grave and silent, his gaze now on the boy, now on the hearth-rug on which he stood.  Only once did a flash illumine his countenance; that was when Jack reached that part of his narrative which told of the denunciation he had flung in his uncle’s face concerning the methods by which poor Gilbert had been ruined.