r angle so that the well-trimmed side
whiskers--the veriest little dabs of whiskers hardly an inch long--would
show as well as the fringes of his grey hair.

Not that he was anxious to conceal these slight indications of advancing
years, nor did he have a spark of cheap personal vanity about him, but
because it was his nature always to put his best foot foremost and keep
it there; because, too, it behooved him in manner, dress and morals, to
maintain the standards he had set for himself, he being a Grayson, with
the best blood of the State in his veins, and with every table worth
dining at open to him from Fourteenth Street to Murray Hill, and beyond.

"Now, it's all behind me, my dear boy," he cried, as we reached the
sidewalk and turned our faces up Wall Street toward Broadway. "Fifteen
hours to live my own life! No care until ten o'clock to-morrow.
Lovely life, my dear Major, when you think of it. Ah, old Micawber
was right--income one pound, expense one pound ten shillings; result,
misery: income one pound ten, expense one pound, outcome, happiness!
What a curse this Street is to those who abuse its power for good; half
of them trying to keep out of jail and the other half fighting to keep
out of the poor-house! And most of them get so little out of it. Just as
I can detect a counterfeit bill at sight, my boy, so can I put my ringer
on these money-getters when the poison of money-getting for money's sake
begins to work in their veins. I don't mean the laying up of money for a
rainy day, or the providing for one's family. Every man should lay up a
six-months' doctor's bill, just as every man should lay up money enough
to keep his body out of Potter's Field. It's laying up the SURPLUS that
hurts."

Peter had his arm firmly locked in mine now.

"Now that concern of Breen & Company, where I found my error, are no
better than the others. They are new to this whirlpool, but they will
soon get in over their heads. I think it is only the third or fourth
year since they started business, but they are already floating all
sorts of schemes, and some of them--if you will permit me in confidence,
strictly in confidence, my dear boy--are rather shady, I think: at least
I judge so from their deposits."

"What are they, bankers?" I ventured. I had never heard of the firm; not
an extraordinary thing in my case when bankers were concerned.

Peter laughed:

"Yes, BANKERS--all in capital letters--the imitation kind. Breen
came