my
estate; in fact, the bulk of my estate, because I leave no other heirs.
I am the last Renfrew of my race, Peter."

Peter grew more and more amazed as the old gentleman unfolded this
strange proposal. What queerer, pleasanter berth could he find than that
offered him here in the quietude of the old manor, among books, tending
the feeble flame of this old aristocrat's life? An air of scholasticism
hung about the library. In some corner of this dark oaken library his
philosophies would rest comfortably.

Then it occurred to Peter that he would have to continue his sleeping
and eating in Niggertown, and since his mother had died and his rupture
with Cissie, the squalor and smells of the crescent had become
impossible. He told the old Captain his objections as diplomatically as
possible. The old man made short work of them. He wanted Peter to sleep
in the manor within calling distance, and he might begin this very night
and stay on for a week or so as a sort of test whether he liked the
position or not. The Captain waited with some concern until Peter agreed
to a trial.

After that the old gentleman talked on interminably of the South, of the
suffrage movement, the destructive influence it would have on the home,
the Irish question, the Indian question, whether the mound-builders did
not spring from the two lost tribes of Israel--an endless outpouring of
curious facts, quaint reasoning, and extraordinary conclusions, all
delivered with the great dignity and in the flowing periods of an
orator.

It was fully two o'clock in the morning when it occurred to the Captain
that his new secretary might like to go to bed. The old man took the
hand-lamp which was still burning and led the way out to the back piazza
past a number of doors to a corner bedroom. He shuffled along in his
carpet slippers, followed by the black-and-white cat, which ran along,
making futile efforts to rub itself against his lean shanks. Peter
followed in a sort of stupor from the flood of words, ideas, and strange
fancies that had been poured into his ears.

The Captain turned off the piazza into one of those old-fashioned
Southern rooms with full-length windows, which were really glazed doors,
a ceiling so high that Peter could make out only vague concentric rings
of stucco-work among the shadows overhead, and a floor space of ball-
room proportions. In one corner was a huge canopy bed, across from it a
clothes-press of dark wood, and in another cor