"
Peter picked up the poker and made a jab at the fire; then he
answered slowly:
"Well, Major, I can't tell yet--not positively. But he's certainly
worth saving."
CHAPTER VII
With the closing of the front door upon the finest Old Gentleman
in the World, a marked change took place in the mental mechanism
of several of our most important characters. The head of the firm
of Breen & Co. was so taken aback that for the moment that
shrewdest of financiers was undecided as to whether he or Parkins
should rush out into the night after the departing visitor and
bring him back, and open the best in the cellar. "Send a man out
of my house," he said to himself, "whom Portman couldn't get to
his table except at rare intervals! Well, that's one on me!"
The lid that covered the upper half of Parkins's intelligence also
received a jolt; it was a coal-hole lid that covered emptiness,
but now and then admitted the light.
"Might 'ave known from the clothes 'e wore 'e was no common PUR-
son," he said to himself.
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