When I asked him—­we had found three empty seats at a table—­what impressed him most in the club, it being his first visit, he answered in his simple, direct way, that he thought it was the note of good-fellowship everywhere apparent, the men greeting each other as if they really meant it.  Another feature was the dress and faces of the members—­especially the authors, to whom Peter had introduced him, whose books he had read, and whose personalities he had heard discussed, and who, to his astonishment, had turned out to be shabby-looking old fellows who smoked and drank, or played chess, like other ordinary mortals, and without pretence of any kind so far as he could detect.

“Just like one big family, isn’t it, Mr. Grayson?” the boy said.  “Don’t you two gentlemen love to come here?”

“Yes.”

“They don’t look like very rich men.”

“They’re not.  Now and then a camel crawls through but it is a tight squeeze,” remarked Peter arching his gray, bushy eyebrows, a smile hovering about his lips.

The boy laughed:  “Well, then, how did they get here?”

“Principally because they lead decent lives, are not puffed up with conceit, have creative brains and put them to some honest use,” answered Peter.

The boy looked away for a moment and remarked quietly that about everybody he knew would fail in one or more of these qualifications.  Then he added: 

“And now tell me, Mr. Grayson, what most of them do—­that gentleman, for instance, who is talking to the old man in the velvet cap.”

“That is General Norton, one of our most distinguished engineers.  He is Consulting Engineer in the Croton Aqueduct Department, and his opinion is sought all over the country.  He started life as a tow-boy on the Erie Canal, and when he was your age he was keeping tally of dump-cars from a cut on the Pennsylvania Railroad.”

Jack looked at the General in wonderment, but he was too much interested in the other persons about him to pursue the inquiry any further.

“And the man next to him—­the one with his hand to his head?”

“I don’t recall him, but the Major may.”

“That is Professor Hastings of Yale,” I replied—­“perhaps the most eminent chemist in this or any other country.”

“And what did he do when he was a boy?” asked young Breen.

“Made pills, I expect, and washed out test tubes and retorts,” interrupted Peter, with a look on his face as if the poor professor were more to be pitied than commended.

“Did any of them dig?” asked the boy.

“What kind of digging?” inquired Peter.

“Well, the kind you spoke of the night you came to see me.”