was only a little bit drunk he inclined to frivolity and
gaiety, and was given to playing the fiddle and dancing, but when he
was very drunk, he was very solemn, and intensely religious. He gave
himself to the singing of psalms, and if propped up would preach a
sermon worthy of Doctor Leslie himself.

A turn in the road brought him into sight. There, between the silver
mirror of the moonlit lake and the dark scented green of the forest,
insensible to the beauty of either, sat the man. He was perched
perilously on the seat of his wagon and was swaying from side to side,
swinging his arms about him and singing in a loud maudlin voice, the
fine old psalm that he had learned long, long ago before he became less
than a man.

Lawyer Ed pulled up before him.

"Oh Peter, Peter!" he cried, "is this you?"

Peter Fiddle stopped singing, with the righteously indignant air of one
whose devotions have been interrupted by a rude barbarian.

"And who will you be," he demanded witheringly, "that dares to be
speaking to the McDuff in such a fashion? Who will you be, indeed?"

"Come, come, Peter, none of that," said his friend soothingly. "I
cannot think who you are. You surely can't be my old friend, Peter
McDuff, sitting by the roadside this way. Who are you, anyway?"

Peter became suddenly grave. The question raised a terrible doubt in
his mind. He looked about him with the wavering gaze of a man on board
a heaving ship. His unsteady glance fell on the empty wagon shafts
lying on the ground. He looked at them in bewilderment, then took off
his old cap and scratched his head.

"How is this, I'd like to know?" demanded Lawyer Ed, pushing his
advantage. "If you're not Peter McDuff, who are you? And where is the
horse gone?"

Roderick climbed out of the buggy, smothering his laughter, and leaving
the two to argue the question, he went after the truant horse which
might help to establish his master's lost identity. Lawyer Ed
dismounted and helped him hitch it, and apparently satisfied by its
reappearance, Peter stretched himself on the seat and went soundly
asleep again. He lay all undisturbed while they drove him in at his
gate, and put his horse away once more. And he did not move even when
they lifted him from his perch and, carrying him into the house, put
him into his bed.

And just as they entered the town they met poor young Peter plodding
slowly and heavily towards his dreary home.

"We must do somethin