CHAPTER IV.
Breakfast--any meal for that matter--in the high-wainscoted, dark-as-a-pocket dining-room of the successful Wall Street broker--the senior member of the firm of A.Breen & Co., uncle, guardian and employer of the fresh, rosy-cheeked lad who sat next to Peter on the night of Morris's dinner, was never a joyous function.
The room itself, its light shut out by the adjoining extensions, prevented it; so did the glimpse of hard asphalt covering the scrap of a yard, its four melancholy posts hung about with wire clothes-lines; and so did the clean-shaven, smug-faced butler, who invariably conducted his master's guests to their chairs with the movement of an undertaker, and who had never been known to crack a smile of any kind, long or short, during his five years' sojourn with the family of Breen.
Not that anybody wanted Parkins to crack one, that is, not his master, and certainly not his mistress, and most assuredly not his other mistress, Miss Corinne, the daughter of the lady whom the successful Wall Street broker had made his first and only wife.
All this gloomy atmosphere might have been changed for the better had there been a big, cheery open wood fire snapping and blazing away, sputtering out its good morning as you entered--and there would have been if any one of the real inmates had insisted upon it--fought for it, if necessary; or if in summer one could have seen through the curtained windows a stretch of green grass with here and there a tree, or one or two twisted vines craning their necks to find out what was going on inside; or if in any or all seasons, a wholesome, happy-hearted, sunny wife looking like a bunch of roses just out of a bath, had sat behind the smoking coffee-urn, inquiring whether one or two lumps of sugar would be enough; or a gladsome daughter who, in a sudden burst of affection, had thrown her arms around her father's neck and kissed him because she loved him, and because she wanted his day and her day to begin that way:--if, I say, there had been all, or one-half, or one-quarter of these things, the atmosphere of this sepulchral interior might have been improved--but there wasn't.
There was a wife, of course, a woman two years older than Arthur Breen--the relict of a Captain Barker, an army officer--who had spent her early life in moving from one army post to another until she had settled down in Washington, where Breen had married her, and where the Scribe first met her.

But this sharer of the fortunes of Breen preferred her breakfast in bed, New York life having proved even more wearing than military upheavals.

And there was also a daughter, Miss Corinne Barker, Captain and Mrs.Barker's only offspring, who had known nothing of army posts, except as a child, but who had known everything of Washington life from the time she was twelve until she was fifteen, and she was now twenty; but that young woman, I regret to say, also breakfasted in bed, where her maid had special instructions not to disturb her until my lady's jewelled fingers touched a button within reach of her dainty hand; whereupon another instalment of buttered rolls and coffee would be served with such accessories of linen, porcelain and silver as befitted the appetite and station of one so beautiful and so accomplished.
These conditions never ceased to depress Jack.

Fresh from a life out of doors, accustomed to an old-fashioned dining-room--the living room, really, of the family who had cared for him since his father's death, where not only the sun made free with the open doors and windows, but the dogs and neighbors as well--the sober formality of this early meal--all of his uncle's meals, for that matter--sent shivers down his back that chilled him to the bone.
He had looked about him the first morning of his arrival, had noted the heavy carved sideboard laden with the garish silver; had examined the pictures lining the walls, separated from the dark background of leather by heavy gold frames; had touched with his fingers the dial of the solemn bronze clock, flanked by its equally solemn candelabra; had peered between the steel andirons, bright as carving knives, and into the freshly varnished, spacious chimney up which no dancing blaze had ever whirled in madcap glee since the mason's trowel had left it and never would to the end of time,--not as long as the steam heat held out; had watched the crane-like step of Parkins as he moved about the room--cold, immaculate, impassive; had listened to his "Yes, sir--thank you, sir, very good, sir," until he wanted to take him by the throat and shake something spontaneous and human out of him, and as each cheerless feature passed in review his spirits had sunk lower and lower.
This, then, was what he could expect as long as he lived under his uncle's roof--a period of time which seemed to him must stretch out into dim futurity.

No laughing halloos from passing neighbors through wide-open windows; no Aunt Hannahs running in with a plate of cakes fresh from the griddle which would cool too quickly if she waited for that slow-coach of a Tom to bring them to her young master.