The Honorable Peter Stirling | Page 8

Paul Leicester Ford
given his own triumph to his friend. "If you want
success in anything, you've got to sacrifice other things and concentrate
on the object. The Mention's really not worth the ink it's written with,
in my case, but I knew it would please mammy and pappy, so I put on
steam, and 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
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