The Honorable Peter Stirling | Page 8

got it. If I'd hitched on a lot of freight cars loaded with stuff that wouldn't have told in Exams, I never could have been in on time."
Peter shook his head rather sadly. "You outclass me in brains, Watts, as much as you do in other things"
"Nonsense," said Watts. "I haven't one quarter of your head. But my ancestors--here's to the old coves--have been brain-culturing for three hundred years, while yours have been land-culturing; and of course my brain moves quicker and easier than yours. I take to a book, by hereditary instinct, as a duck to water, while you are like a yacht, which needs a heap of building and fitting before she can do the same. But you'll beat me in the long run, as easily as the boat does the duck. And the Honor's nothing."
"Except, as you said, to one's"--Peter hesitated for a moment, divided in mind by his wish to quote accurately, and his dislike of anything disrespectful, and then finished "to one's mother."
"That's the last person it's needed for, chum," replied Watts. "If there's one person that doesn't need the world's or faculty's opinion to prove one's merit, it's one's dear, darling, doating, self-deluded and undisillusioned mamma. Heigh-ho. I'll be with mine two weeks from now, after we've had our visit at the Pierces'. I'm jolly glad you are going, old man. It will be a sort of tapering-off time for the summer's separation. I don't see why you insist on starting in at once in New York? No one does any law business in the summertime. Why, I even think the courts are closed. Come, you'd better go on to Grey-Court with me, and try it, at least. My mammy will kill the fatted calf for you in great style."
"We've settled that once," said Peter, who was evidently speaking journalistically, for he had done the settling.
Watts said something in a half-articulate way, which certainly would have fired the blood of every dime museum-keeper in the country, had they been there to hear the conversation, for, as well as could be gathered from the mumbling, it related to a "pig-headed donkey" known of to the speaker. "I suppose you'll be backing out of the Pierce affair yet," he added, discontentedly.
"No," said Peter.
"An invitation to Grey-Court is worth two of the Shrubberies. My mother knows only the right kind of people, while Mr. Pierce--"
"Is to be our host," interrupted Peter, but with no shade of correction in his voice.
"Yes," laughed Watts, "and he is a host. He'll not let any one else get a word in edgewise. You are just the kind of talker he'll like. Mark my word, he'll be telling every one, before you've been two hours in the house, that you are a remarkably brilliant conversationalist."
"What will he say of you?" said Peter, in a sentence which he broke up into reasonable lengths by a couple of pulls at his pipe in the middle of it.
"Mr. Pierce, chum," replied Watts, with a look in his eyes which Peter had learned to associate with mischief on Watts's part, "has too great an affection for yours truly to object to anything I do. Do you suppose, if I hadn't been sure of my footing at the Shrubberies, that I should have dared to ask an invitation for"--then Watts hesitated for a moment, seeing a half-surprised, half-anxious look come into Peter's face, "for myself?" he continued.
"Tell truth and shame the devil," said Peter.
Watts laughed. "Confound you! That's what comes of letting even such a stupid old beggar as you learn to read one's thoughts. It's mighty ungrateful of you to use them against me. Yes. I did ask to have you included in the party. But you needn't put your back up, Mr. Unbendable, and think you were forced on them. Mr. Pierce gave me carte blanche, and if it hadn't been you, it would have been some other donkey."
"But Mrs. Pierce?" queried Peter.
"Oh," explained Watts, "of course Mrs. Pierce wrote the letter. I couldn't do it in my name, and so Mr. Pierce told her to do it. They're very land of me, old man, because my governor is the largest stockholder, and a director in Mr. P.'s bank, and I was told I could bring down some fellows next week for a few days' jollity. I didn't care to do that, but of course I wouldn't have omitted you for any amount of ducats."
Which explanation solves the mystery of Peter's presence at the Shrubberies. To understand his face we must trace the period between his arrival and the moment this story begins.

CHAPTER IV.
BEGINNINGS.
How far Watts was confining himself to facts in the foregoing dialogue is of no concern, for the only point of value was that Peter was invited, without regard to whether Watts