Peter could not interfere in Master Tim’s subscriptions. Tim was of age, his father’s partner. What if he chose to subscribe? Peter used to drop in at the subscription rooms and watch the young rake’s progress. The principal subscriptions were in private--it was then that De Châteaunéant made his heaviest collections. He was a most accomplished and successful collector. It may have been that he occasionally allowed Tim to get somewhat in arrears; it was well enough to have Miss Arabella’s brother under obligations. Peter Skerrett inquired of Rev. Logge whether all his tract societies were supplied with agents. “I could recommend you,” says Peter, “a most surprising beggar who gets money out of everyone, as Agent for the Society for Making Tracks.” In fact, to both Peter and Mr. Waddy, the colour of the nobleman’s legs became daily more offensive. They were usually clad in violet cassimere, with a flowered stripe, as is the manner of noblemen of his particular rank. But to the two gentlemen they seemed dyed of darkest Stygian hues. Peter Skerrett, to distract himself from these anxieties, though he denied that he felt any or was concerned for the Budlongs, otherwise than as an amateur of scandals, took Sir Comeguys under his protection. Like a European courier, he would allow no one to cheat that ingenuous youth but himself. Thus there is a Skerretty congruity in the wild legends of American life which luridly light the pages of “Tracks in the Trail of the Bear and the Buffalo.” Gyas Cutus and Cloanthus, when they were off duty with Miss Julia Wilkes, were constantly on the watch for Sir Com. They liked to be seen with the baronet, and were ardent to “sell” him, as they called it. But these mercantile transactions, more satisfactory to the seller than to the sold, Peter Skerrett interfered with. “You’d better take care, Guy, you and old Clo,” he said, to the pair of pleasant knaves. “This son of perfidious Albion may be green, but he is plucky and you may get your heads punched. That wouldn’t do, because they are soft and the indentures caused by such punching would remain and make it hard to fit you with hats. Abstain and be wise!” “Do let us have a shy at him, Peter,” pleaded Gyas. “His ancestors and mine fought at Bunker Hill--I wish to revenge the death of General Warren.” “Your ancestors?” replied Peter. “Who told you that you ever had any? They may have been tadpoles or worse at that heroic period. Certainly, your grandfather, the first human Gyas Cutus I ever heard of, was only a grade above the tadpole when he kept the Frog Huddle Pond House, near what was then the village of Newark in Jersey. We allow you to associate with us because you’re not such a very bad fellow when you’re properly bullied; but don’t try to come the ancestor dodge--except in that neat and evidently inherited way you have of mixing drinks.”