"He ain't so bad looking," Annie commented one day, as she and Peter strolled up to the hedge and inspected the new gardener at work with the clipping-shears. "And, at least, he's tall--that's something. They're usually so little, them Eye-talians." "Huh!" said Peter, "size ain't no merit. The less there is of an Eye-talian, the better. His bigness don't help along his courage none. Ye're a coward, Tony. D'ye hear that?" Their comments had been made with perfect freedom in Vittorio's presence, while he hummed a tune from "Fra Diavolo" in smiling unconcern. Unless one couched one's insults in kindergarten language and fired them straight into his face, they passed him by unscathed. "Ye're a coward, Tony," Peter repeated. "Cow-ward?" Vittorio broke off his song and beamed upon them with a flash of black eyes and white teeth. "How you mean, cow-ward? No understand." "A coward," Peter patiently explained, "is a man who's afraid to fight--like you. Eye-talians are cowards. They don't dare stand up man to man an' take what's comin' to 'em. When they've got a grudge to pay, they creeps up in the night an' sticks a knife in yer back. That's bein' a coward." The insulting significance of this escaped Vittorio, but he clung to the word delightedly. "Cow-ward, cow-ward," he repeated, to fix the syllables in his mind. "Nice word! Sank you." Then, as a glimmering of Peter's insinuation finally penetrated, he shook his head and laughed. The charge amused him. "Me no cow-ward!" he declared. "No afraid fight, but no like-a fight. Too hard work." He shrugged his shoulders and spread out his hands. "More easy take care-a flower." The subtlety of this explanation was lost upon Peter, and the two went their ways; the one happily engaged with his weeding and his pruning, the other looking on across the hedge contemptuously scornful. Peter's ideal of the highest human attainment was to become a "true sport." His vocabulary was intensive rather than extensive, and the few words it contained meant much. The term "true sport" connoted all desirable qualities. Abstractly, it signified ability, daring, initiative, force; it meant that the bearer attacked the world with easy, conquering grace, and--surest test of all--that he faced defeat no less than success with a high heart. Concretely, a true sport could play polo and ride to hounds, could drive a motor-car or a four-in-hand or sail a boat, could shoot or swim or box. All of these things, and several others, Mr. Harry Jasper could do. It was from observing him that Peter's definition had gained such precision.