"'Well don't get het up about it,' said Peter. 'I knew all the time there _wasn't_, I just _wanted to hear you say so plain and emphatic_. So far as I'm concerned, my way is clear as noonday sun,' said Peter. 'Then you go first thing in the morning and adopt them, and adopt them _both_,' said Ma. 'Lily will make Mary just as good a sister as she could ever have,' said she, and then she reached over and put her arms right around me and she said, 'And if you think I'm going to keep on trying to run this house without Mickey, you're mistaken.' I began to cry, 'cause I had had a big day, and I was shaking on my feet anyway. Then Peter said, 'Have you figured it out to the end? Is it to be 'til they are of age, or forever?' She just gripped tighter and said fast as words can come, 'I say make it forever, and share and share alike. I'm willing if you are.' Peter, he said, 'I'm willing. They'll pay their way any place. Forever, and share and share alike, is my idea. Do you agree, Mickey?' 'Exactly what do you mean?' I asked, and Peter told me it was making me and Lily both his, just as far as the law could do it; we could go all the farther we wanted to ourselves. He said it meant him getting the same for me and Lily as he did for his own, and leaving us the same when he died. I told him he _needn't do that_, if he'd just keep off the old Orphings' Home devil, that's had me scared stiff all my days, I'd tend to _that_, so now me and Lily belong to Peter; he's our _Pertectorate_." "Mickey, why didn't you tell me?" asked Douglas. "Why didn't you want me to adopt you?" "Well so far as 'adopting' is concerned," said Mickey, "I ain't _crazy_ about it, with anybody. But that's the _law_ you men have made; a boy must obey it, even if he'd rather be skinned alive, and when he _knows_ it ain't _right or fair_. That's the law. I was up against it, and I didn't know but I _did_ have the snake, and Peter was on hand and made that offer, and he was grand and big about it. I don't love him any more than I do you; but I've just this minute discovered that it ain't in my skin to love any man more than I do Peter; so you'll have to get used to the fact that I love him just as well, and say, Mr. Bruce, Peter is the finest man you ever knew. If you'll come out and get acquainted, you'll just be tickled to have him in the Golf Club, and to come to his house, and to have him at yours. His nice lady is exactly like Miss Winton, only older. Say, she and Peter will adopt you too, if you say so, and between us, just as man to man, Peter is a regular lifesaver! If you got a chance you better catch on! No telling what you might want of him!" "Mickey, you do say the most poignant things!" cried Douglas. "I'd give all I'm worth to catch on to Peter right now, and cling for much _more_ than life; but what I started, I must finish, and Peter isn't here."