"Trust me for that, Uncle Peter. Garmer tried to steer me off this line of stocks the other night. He'd heard these rumours about a slump, and he's fifty years old at that. I thanked him for his tip and coppered it with another thousand shares all around next day. The way Garmer can tell when you're playing a busted flush makes you nervous, but I haven't looked over his license to know everything down in the Street yet." The moral gain to Percival from his new devotion to the stock market was commented upon approvingly both by Uncle Peter and by his mother. It was quite as tangible as his money profits promised to be. He ceased to frequent the temple of chance in Forty-fourth Street, to the proprietor's genuine regret. The poker-games at the hotel he abandoned as being trivial. And the cabmen along upper Broadway had seldom now the opportunity to compete for his early morning patronage. He began to keep early hours and to do less casual drinking during the day. After three weeks of this comparatively regular living his mother rejoiced to note signs that his breakfast-appetite was returning. "You see," he explained earnestly to Uncle Peter, "a man to make anything at this game must keep his head clear, and he must have good health to do that. I meet a lot of those fellows down there that queer themselves by drink. It doesn't do so much hurt when a man isn't needing his brains,--but no more of it for me just now!" "That's right, son. I knew I could make something more than a polite sosh out of you. I knew you'd pull up if you got into business like you been doin'." "Come down-town with me this afternoon, and see me make a play, Uncle Peter. I think I'll begin now to buy on a margin. The rise can't hold off much longer." "I'd like to, son, but I'd laid out to take a walk up to the park this afternoon, and look in at the monkeys awhile. I need the out-doors, and anyway you don't need me down there. You know _your_ part all right. My! but I'd begin to feel nervous with all that money up, if it was anybody but you, now." In pursuance of his pronounced plan, Uncle Peter walked up Fifth Avenue that afternoon. But he stopped short of the park. At the imposing entrance of the Arlingham he turned in. At the desk he asked for Mrs. Wybert. "I'll see if Mrs. Wybert is in," said the clerk, handing him a blank card; "your name, please!" The old man wrote, "Mr. Peter Bines of Montana City would like a few minutes' talk with Mrs. Wybert." The boy was gone so long that Uncle Peter, waiting, began to suspect he would not be received. He returned at length with the message, "The lady says will you please step up-stairs."