“Yes,” he said, “it’s a hard case, I know, but, Mr. Stirling, I owe a mortgage on the place, and the interest falls due in September. I’m out four months’ rent, and really can’t afford any more.” So Peter took thirty-two dollars from his “Trustee” fund, and sent it to the tobacconist. “I have deducted eight dollars for collection,” he wrote. Then he saw his first client, and told him of his landlord’s concession. “How much do I owe you?” inquired the grocer. “The Podds tell me they owe you sixteen dollars.” “Yes. I shan’t get it.” “My fee is twenty-five. Mark off their bill and give me the balance.” The grocer smiled cheerfully. He had charged the Podds roundly for their credit, taking his chance of pay, and now got it paid in an equivalent of cash. He gave the nine dollars with alacrity. Peter took it upstairs and gave it to Mrs. Podds. “If things look up with you later,” he said, “you can pay it back. If not, don’t trouble about it. Ill look in in a couple of weeks to see how things are going.” When this somewhat complicated matter was ended, he wrote about it to his mother: “Many such cases would bankrupt me. As it is, my fund is dwindling faster than I like to see, though every lessening of it means a lessening of real trouble to some one. I should like to tell Miss De Voe what good her money has done already, but fear she would not understand why I told her. It has enabled me to do so much that otherwise I could not have afforded. There is only one hundred and seventy-six dollars left. Most of it though, is merely loaned and perhaps will be repaid. Anyway, I shall have nearly six hundred dollars for my work as secretary of the Food Commission, and I shall give half of it to this fund.” CHAPTER XXX. A “COMEDY.” When the season began again, Miss De Voe seriously undertook her self-imposed work of introducing Peter. He was twice invited to dinner and was twice taken with opera parties to sit in her box, besides receiving a number of less important attentions. Peter accepted dutifully all that she offered him. Even ordered a new dress-suit of a tailor recommended by Lispenard. He was asked by some of the people he met to call, probably on Miss De Voe’s suggestion, and he dutifully called. Yet at the end of three months Miss De Voe shook her head. “He is absolutely a gentleman, and people seem to like him. Yet somehow—I don’t understand it.” “Exactly,” laughed Lispenard. “You can’t make a silk purse out of a sow’s ear.” “Lispenard,” angrily said Miss De Voe, “Mr. Stirling is as much better than—” “That’s it,” said Lispenard. “Don’t think I’m depreciating Peter. The trouble is that he is much too good a chap to make into a society or a lady’s man.” “I believe you are right. I don’t think he cares for it at all.” “No,” said Lispenard. “Barkis is not willin’. I think he likes you, and simply goes to please you.” “Do you really think that’s it?”