"First thing you'll do," said Uncle Peter, promptly, "you go write a letter to that beau of your'n, tellin' him it's all off. You don't want to let him be the one to break it because you lost your money, do you? You go sign his release right this minute." "Yes--you're right, Uncle Peter--I suppose it must be done--but the poor fellow really cares for me." "Oh, of course," answered the old man, "it'll fairly break his heart. You do it just the same!" She withdrew, and presently came back with a note which she despatched to Mauburn. Percival and his mother had continued their dinner, the former shaking his head between the intervals of the old man's lashings, and appearing to hold silent converse with himself. This was an encouraging sign. It is a curious fact that people never talk to themselves except triumphantly. In moments of real despair we are inwardly dumb. But observe the holders of imaginary conversations. They are conquerors to the last one. They administer stinging rebukes that leave the adversary writhing. They rise to Alpine heights of pure wisdom and power, leaving him to flounder ignobly in the mire of his own fatuity. They achieve repartee the brilliance of which dazzles him to contemptible silence. If statistics were at hand we should doubtless learn that no man has ever talked to himself save by way of demonstrating his own godlike superiority, and the tawdry impotence of all obstacles and opponents. Percival talked to himself and mentally lived the next five years in a style that reduced Uncle Peter to grudging but imperative awe for his superb gifts of administration. He bathed in this imaginary future as in the waters of omnipotence. As time went on he foresaw the shafts of Uncle Peter being turned back upon him with such deadliness that, by the time the roast came, his breast was swelling with pity for that senile scoffer. Uncle Peter had first declared that the thought of food sickened him. Prevailed upon at last by Mrs. Bines to taste the soup, he was soon eating as those present had of late rarely seen him eat. "'Tain't a natural appetite, though," he warned them. "It's a kind of a mania before I go all to pieces, I s'pose." "Nonsense! We'll have you all right in a week," said Percival. "Just remember that I'm going to take care of you." "My son can do anything he makes up his mind to," declared Mrs. Bines--"just anything he lays out to do." They talked until late into the night of what he should "lay out" to do. Meantime the stronghold of Mauburn's optimism was being desperately stormed. In an evening paper he had read of Percival's losses. The afternoon press of New York is not apt to understate the facts of a given case. The account Mauburn read stated that the young Western millionaire had beggared his family.