was Peter's humanity which had conquered Oxford, and in so doing proved—impecunious only son of an absolutely broke peer as he was—that he would be able to make a very fair living in the future on his wits. It may be said that he never intended to work.

It was part of Peter's honesty and simplicity to remain American. He made no effort to ape the Oxford manner of speech. He would see himself shot before he got into the rather effeminate clothes affected by the Oxford man. He continued to be natural, to remain himself, and not to take on the colors chameleon-wise of those about him. His Stetson hat was the standing joke of St. John's. Nevertheless, there was not one man in the college who would not have hit hard if any derogatory remarks had been thrown at the head inside it. His padded shoulders, upholstered ties and narrow belt were all frequently caricatured, but the sound of Peter's laugh gathered men together like the music of the Pied Piper of Hamelin. It was just that this man Peter Guthrie was a man that made him not only accepted in a place seething with quaint and foolish habits, out-of-date shibboleths and curious unwritten laws, but loved and respected. Here was one to whom merely to live was a joy. To the despondent he came therefore as a tonic. He exuded breeziness filled with ozone. His continuous high spirits infected even those foolish boys who were encrusted with affectation and stuccoed with the petty side and insolence of Eton. He worked hard and played hard and slept like a dog, ate hearty and drank like a thirsty plant. Also he smoked like a factory chimney. He had no crankish views—no tolerance for "isms," and was not ashamed to stride into chapel and say his prayers like a simple boy. In short, "unashamed" was his watchword, and he had been endowed with the rare gift of saying "No," and sticking to it. And to Nicholas Kenyon, who frequented the rooms of the so-called intellectuals—those "little dreadful clever people" who parroted and perverted other men's thoughts and possessed no originality of their own—it was a stroke of genius on Peter's part to have nothing but the photographs of his family all over his rooms. He must be a big man, Nicholas said to himself, who could afford, among the very young, to dispense with the female form divine in his frames—the nudes so generally placed in them—in order to convey the impression of being devilish wise and bad. Also it showed, according to this human merchant, a peculiar strength of character on Peter's part to bolt his door regularly one evening a week so that he might sit down uninterrupted and write a tremendous screed to his mother. However, that was Peter the man-boy—Peter the Rhodes scholar—Peter the Oxford man—who always wound up his musical evenings with the "Star Spangled Banner." And there was just one other side to this big, simple fellow's character which puzzled and annoyed the bloodless, clever parasite who lived with him and upon him,—women.

Now, Nicholas Kenyon—the Honourable Nicholas Augustus Fitzhugh Kenyon—was a patron of the drama. That is to say, he had the right somehow to enter the stage door of the Theatre Royal at all times, and did so whenever the theatre was visited by a musical comedy company. He was known to innumerable chorus girls as "Boy-dear," and made a point of entertaining them at luncheon and supper during their visits to the university town. He brought choice specimens of this breed to Beaumont Street for tea and tittle-tattle and introduced them to Peter, who liked them very much and would have staked his life upon their being angels. But when it came to driving out to small unnoticeable inns, Peter squared his shoulders and stayed at home.

"The devil take it!" said Nicholas one night, with frightful frankness which was devoid of any intentional insolence. "What's this cursed provincialism that hangs to you? I suppose it comes from the fact that you were born in a shack to the tinkle of the trolley-car!"

Peter's howl of laughter made the piano play an immaculate tune. "Wrong," he said. "Gee! but you're absolutely wrong. The whole thing comes to this, Nick: One of these fine days I'm going to be married. The girl I marry is going to be clean. I believe in fairness. I'm going to be clean. That's all there is to it."

So that, one way and another, Dr. Hunter G. Guthrie, of New York, as well as St. John's College, Oxford, had several reasons to be rather proud of this man Peter.

III

One o'clock that afternoon found Peter still hammering on his piano, not only to the intense delight of three snub-nosed tradesmen's boys who delayed delivery of mutton-chops and soles, which were only plaice, but also of five people who had come quietly into the room. They stood together watching and listening and waiting for him suddenly to discover that he was not alone. One was a tall, rather angular, clean-shaven, noticeably intellectual man whose thin hair was grey and who wore very large glasses with tortoise-shell frames, through which he looked with pale, short-sighted eyes. He held a grey hat in his thin hand and stood watching the boy—who made his piano do the work of a full band—with a smile of infinite pride on his lips. Another was a little lady, all soft and sweet, with a bird-like face and a curious bird-like appearance. All about her there was a sort of perennial youthfulness, and the goodness of her kind heart gleamed so openly in her eyes that they asked beggars and cripples, itinerant musicians, ragamuffins, street dogs and all humbugs to come and be helped. At that moment they were full of tears, although little lines of laughter were all about them. Another was a slight, exceedingly good-looking young man whose hair went into a series of small waves and was brushed away from his forehead. He was grinning like a Cheshire cat and showing two rows of teeth which would make a dentist both envious and annoyed. There was a slight air of precocity about his clothes. Two girls made up the rest of the party. Both were young and slim and of average height. Both were unmistakably American in their fearless independence and cleanness of cut. One was dark, with almost black eyebrows which just failed to meet in the middle. Her eyes were amazing and as full of danger as a maxim,—large and blue—the most astonishing blueness. They were framed with long, thick, black lashes. Her lips were rather full and red, and her skin white. She might have been an Italian or a Spaniard. The other girl was blonde and slim, with large grey eyes set widely apart, a small patrician nose and a lovely little mouth turning up at the corners.

How long all these people would have stayed watching and listening no man can say. Suddenly, in the middle of a bar, Peter sprang up and turned round. His cry of joy and the way in which he plunged forward and picked up the little bird-like woman in his arms was very good to see.

"Mother!" he cried. "Mother! Oh, Gee! This is great!" and he kissed her cheeks and her hands, and then her cheeks again, all the while making strange, small, fond noises like a little boy who comes back home after the holidays.

"Oh, dear, dear Peter!" said the little woman, between tears and laughter. "How splendidly rough you are! You shake me to pieces! Where shall I be able to tidy my hair?"

Then, with a rather constrained air and a touch of nervous cordiality, Peter turned to his father and took his hand. "How are you, father?" he asked. "You look fine."

Dr. Hunter Guthrie swallowed something and gave a murmur which remained incoherent. Before he could pull himself together, Peter was hugging his sister, who squealed like a pig from the tightness of this man's