Then, with the grace and dignity of an ambassador quitting a salon, he passed out into the night.
Breen found his breath first: "And you know him ?" "Know him!" cried the Magnate--"of course I know him! One of the most delightful men in New York; and I'm glad that you do--you're luckier than I--try as I may I can hardly ever get him inside my house." I was sitting up for the old fellow when he entered his cosey red room and dropped into a chair before the fire.

I had seen the impression the young man had made upon him at the dinner and was anxious to learn the result of his visit.

I had studied the boy somewhat myself, noting his bright smile, clear, open face without a trace of guile, and the enthusiasm that took possession of him when his friend won the prize That he was outside the class of young men about him I could see from a certain timidity of glance and gesture--as if he wanted to be kept in the background.

Would the old fellow, I wondered, burden his soul with still another charge?
Peter was laughing when he entered; he had laughed all the way down-town, he told me.

What particularly delighted him--and here he related the Portman incident--was the change in Breen's face when old Portman grasped his hand so cordially.
"Made of pinchbeck, my dear Major, both of them, and yet how genuine it looks on the surface, and what a lot of it is in circulation.