“How late you are!” he said, as he shook hands with young Thorpe. “I wish I could have come earlier, my dear fellow,” answered Zack, rather importantly; “but I had some business to do” (he had been recovering his watch from the pawnbroker); “and my friend here had some business to do also” (Mr. Marksman had been toasting red herrings for an early dinner); “and so somehow we couldn’t get here before. Mat, let me introduce you. This is my old friend, Mr. Blyth, whom I told you of.” Valentine had barely time to take the hand of the new guest before his attention was claimed by fresh visitors. Young Thorpe did the honors of the painting-room in the artist’s absence. “Lots of people, as I told you. My friend’s a great genius,” whispered Zack, wondering, as he spoke, whether the scene of civilized life now displayed before Mr. Marksman would at all tend to upset his barbarian self-possession. No: not in the least. There stood Mat, just as grave, cool, and quietly observant of things about him as ever. Neither the pictures, nor the company, nor the staring of many eyes that wondered at his black skull-cap and scarred swarthy face, were capable of disturbing the Olympian serenity of this Jupiter of the back-woods. “There!” cried Zack, pointing triumphantly across the room to “Columbus.” “Cudgel your brains, old boy, and guess what that is a picture of, without coming to me to help you.” Mat attentively surveyed the figure of Columbus, the rig of his ship, and the wings of the typical female spirits, hovering overhead in the morning clouds--thought a little--then gravely and deliberately answered:-- “Peter Wilkins taking a voyage along with his flying wives.” Zack pulled out his handkerchief, and stifled his laughter as well as he could, out of consideration for Mat, who, however, took not the smallest notice of him, but added, still staring intently at the picture. “Peter Wilkins was the only book I had, when I was a lad aboard ship. I used to read it over and over again, at odds and ends of spare time, till I pretty nigh got it by heart. That was many a year ago; and a good lot of what I knowed then I don’t know now. But, mind ye, it’s my belief that Peter Wilkins was something of a sailor.” “Well?” whispered Zack, humoring him, “suppose he was, what of that?” “Do you think a man as was anything of a sailor would ever be fool enough to put to sea in such a craft as that?” asked Mr. Marksman, pointing scornfully to Columbus’s ship. “Hush! old Rough and Tough: the picture hasn’t anything to do with Peter Wilkins,” said Zack. “Keep quiet, and wait here a minute for me. There are some friends of mine at the other end of the room that I must go and speak to. And, I say, if Blyth comes up to you and asks you about the picture, say it’s Columbus, and remarkably like him.”