The Honorable Peter Stirling and What People Thought of Him. Paul Leicester Ford

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      "Don't you think you could do as well here?" said Mrs. Stirling.

      "Up to a certain point, better. But New York has a big beyond," said Peter. "I'll try it there first, and if I don't make my way, I'll come back here"

      Few mothers hope for a son's failure, yet Mrs. Stirling allowed herself a moment's happiness over this possibility. Then remembering that her Peter could not possibly fail, she became despondent. "They say New York's full of temptations," she said.

      "I suppose it is, mother," replied Peter, "to those who want to be tempted."

      "I know I can trust you, Peter," said his mother, proudly, "but I want you to promise me one thing."

      "What?"

      "That if you do yield, if you do what you oughtn't to, you'll write and tell me about it?" Mrs. Stirling put her arms about Peter's neck, and looked wistfully into his face.

      Peter was not blind to what this world is. Perhaps, had his mother known it as he did, she might have seen how unfair her petition was. He did not like to say yes, and could not say no.

      "I'll try to go straight, mother," he replied, "but that's a good deal to promise."

      "It's all I'm going to ask of you, Peter," urged Mrs. Stirling.

      "I have gone through four years of my life with nothing in it I couldn't tell her," thought Peter. "If that's possible, I guess another four is." Then he said aloud, "Well, mother, since you want it, I'll do it."

      The reason of Peter's eagerness to get to New York, was chiefly to have something definite to do. He tried to obtain this distraction of occupation, at present, in a characteristic way, by taking excessively long walks, and by struggling with his mother's winter supply of wood. He thought that every long stride and every swing of the axe was working him free from the crushing lack of purpose that had settled upon him. He imagined it would be even easier when he reached New York. "There'll be plenty to keep me busy there," was his mental hope.

      All his ambitions and plans seemed in a sense to have become meaningless, made so by the something which but ten days before had been unknown to him. Like Moses he had seen the promised land. But Moses died. He had seen it, and must live on without it. He saw nothing in the future worth striving for, except a struggle to forget, if possible, the sweetest and dearest memory he had ever known. He thought of the epigram: "Most men can die well, but few can live well." Three weeks before he had smiled over it and set it down as a bit of French cynicism. Now—on the verge of giving his mental assent to the theory, a pair of slate-colored eyes in some way came into his mind, and even French wit was discarded therefrom.

      Peter was taking his disappointment very seriously, if quietly. Had he only known other girls, he might have made a safe recovery, for love's remedy is truly the homeopathic "similia similibus curantur," woman plural being the natural cure for woman singular. As the Russian in the "Last Word" says, "A woman can do anything with a man—provided there is no other woman." In Peter's case there was no other woman. What was worse, there seemed little prospect of there being one in the future.

CHAPTER VIII.

       Table of Contents

SETTLING.

       Table of Contents

      The middle of July found Peter in New York, eager to begin his grapple with the future. How many such stormers have dashed themselves against its high ramparts, from which float the flags of "worldly success;" how many have fallen at the first attack; how many have been borne away, stricken in the assault; how many have fought on bravely, till driven back by pressure, sickness or hunger; how few have reached the top, and won their colors!

      As already hinted, Peter had chosen the law as his ladder to climb these ramparts. Like many another fellow he had but a dim comprehension of the struggle before him. His college mates had talked over professions, and agreed that law was a good one in New York. The attorney in his native town, "had known of cases where men without knowing a soul in a place, had started in and by hard work and merit had built up a good practice, and I don't see why it can't be done as well in New York as in Lawrence or Lowell. If New York is bigger, then there is more to be done." So Peter, whose New York acquaintances were limited to Watts and four other collegians, the Pierces and their fashionables, and a civil engineer originally from his native town, had decided that the way to go about it was to get an office, hang up a sign, and wait for clients.

      On the morning after his arrival, his first object was a lodging. Selecting from the papers the advertisements of several boarding-houses, he started in search of one. Watts had told him about where to locate, "so as to live in a decent part of the city," but after seeing and pricing a few rooms near the "Avenue," about Thirtieth Street, Peter saw that Watts had been thinking of his own purse, rather than of his friend's.

      "Can you tell me where the cheaper boarding-houses are?" he asked the woman who had done the honors of the last house.

      "If it's cheapness you want, you'd better go to Bleecker Street," said the woman with a certain contemptuousness.

      Peter thanked her, and, walking away, accosted the first policeman.

      "It's Blaker Strate, is it? Take the Sixth Avenue cars, there beyant," he was informed.

      "Is it a respectable street?" asked Peter.

      "Don't be afther takin' away a strate's character," said the policeman, grinning good-naturedly.

      "I mean," explained Peter, "do respectable people live there?"

      "Shure, it's mostly boarding-houses for young men," replied the unit of "the finest." "Ye know best what they're loike."

      Reassured, Peter, sought and found board in Bleecker Street, not comprehending that he had gone to the opposite extreme. It was a dull season, and he had no difficulty in getting such a room as suited both his expectations and purse. By dinner-time he had settled his simple household goods to his satisfaction, and slightly moderated the dreariness of the third floor front, so far as the few pictures and other furnishings from his college rooms could modify the effect of well-worn carpet, cheap, painted furniture, and ugly wall-paper.

      Descending to his dinner, in answer to a bell more suitable for a fire-alarm than for announcing such an ordinary occurrence as meals, he was introduced to the four young men who were all the boarders the summer season had left in the house. Two were retail dry-goods clerks, another filled some function in a butter and cheese store, and the fourth was the ticket-seller at one of the middle-grade theatres. They all looked at Peter's clothes before looking at his face, and though the greetings were civil enough, Peter's ready-made travelling suit, bought in his native town, and his quiet cravat, as well as his lack of jewelry, were proof positive to them that he did not merit any great consideration. It was very evident that the ticket-seller, not merely from his natural self-assertion but even more because of his enviable acquaintance with certain actresses and his occasional privileges in the way of free passes, was the acknowledged autocrat of the table. Under his guidance the conversation quickly turned to theatrical and "show" talk. Much of it was vulgar, and all of it was dull. It was made the worse by the fact that they all tried to show, off a little before the newcomer, to prove their superiority and extreme knowingness to him. СКАЧАТЬ