All the way up Broadway he kept up his good-natured tirade, railing at the extravagance of the age, at the costly dinners, equipages, dress of the women, until we reached the foot of the dilapidated flight of brown-stone steps leading to the front door of his home on Fifteenth Street. Here a flood of gas light from inside a shop in the basement brought into view the figure of a short, squat, spectacled little man bending over a cutting-table, a pair of shears in his hand.

“Isaac is still at work,” he cried. “If we were not so late we'd go in and have a word with him. Now there's a man who has solved the problem, my boy. Nobody will ever coax Isaac Cohen up to Fifth Avenue and into a 'By appointment to His Majesty' kind of a tailor shop. Just pegs away year after year—he was here long before I came—supporting his family, storing his mind with all sorts of rare knowledge. Do you know he's one of the most delightful men you will meet in a day's journey?”

“No—never knew anything of the kind. Thought he was just plain tailor.”

“And an intimate friend of many of the English actors who come over here?” continued Peter.

“I never heard a word about it” I answered meekly; Peter's acquaintances being too varied and too numerous for me to keep track of. That he should have a tailor among them as learned and wise as Solomon, and with friends all over the globe, was quite to be expected.

“Well, he is,” answered Peter. “They always hunt him up the first thing they do. He lived in London for years and made their costumes. There's no one, I assure you, I am more glad to see when he makes an excuse to rap at my door. You'll come up, of course, until I read my letters.”

“No, I'll keep on to my rooms and meet you later at the club.”

“You'll do nothing of the kind, you restless mortal. You'll come upstairs with me until I open my mail. It's really like touching the spring of a Jack-in-the-box, this mail of mine—all sorts of things pop out, generally the unexpected. Mighty interesting, I tell you,” and with a cheery wave of the hand to his friend Isaac, whose eyes had been looking streetward at the precise moment, Peter pushed me ahead of him up the worn marble steps flanked by the rust-eaten iron railing which led to the hallway and stairs, and so on up to his apartment.

It was just the sort of house Peter, of all men in the world, would have picked out to live in—and he had been here for twenty years or more. Not only did the estimable Isaac occupy the basement, but Madame Montini, the dress-maker, had the first floor back; a real-estate agent made free with the first floor front, and a very worthy teacher of music, whose piano could be heard at all hours of the day, and far into the night, was paying rent for the second, both front and back. Peter's own apartments ran the whole length of the third floor, immediately under the slanting, low-ceiled garret, which was inhabited by the good Mrs. McGuffey, the janitress, who, in addition to her regular duties, took especial care of Peter's rooms. Adjoining these was a small apartment consisting of two rooms, connecting with Peter's suite by a door cut through for some former lodger. These were also under Mrs. McGuffey's special care and very good care did she take of them, especially when Peter's sister, Miss Felicia Grayson, occupied them for certain weeks in the year.

These changes had all taken place in the time the old fellow had mounted the quaint stairs with the thin mahogany banisters, and yet Peter stayed on. “The gnarled pear tree in the back yard is so charming,” he would urge in excuse, “especially in the spring, when the perfume of its blossoms fills the air,” or, “the view overlooking Union Square is so delightful,” or, “the fireplace has such a good draught.” What mattered it who lived next door, or below, or overhead, for that matter, so that he was not disturbed—and he never was. The property, of course, had gone from bad to worse since the owner had died; the neighborhood had run down, and the better class of tenants down, up, and even across the street—had moved away, but none of these things had troubled Peter.

And no wonder, when once you got inside the two rooms and looked about!

There was a four-post bedstead with chintz curtains draped about the posts, that Martha Washington might have slept in, and a chintz petticoat which reached the floor and hid its toes of rollers, which the dear lady could have made with her own hands; there was a most ancient mahogany bureau to match, all brass fittings. There were easy chairs with restful arms within reach of tables holding lamps, ash receivers and the like; and rows and rows of books on open shelves edged with leather; not to mention engravings of distinguished men and old portraits in heavy gilt frames: one of his grandfather who fought in the Revolution, and another of his mother—this last by Rembrandt Peale—a dear old lady with the face of a saint framed in a head of gray hair, the whole surmounted by a cluster of silvery curls. There were quaint brass candelabra with square marble bases on each end of the mantel, holding candles showing burnt wicks in the day time and cheery lights at night; and a red carpet covering both rooms and red table covers and red damask curtains, and a lounge with a red afghan thrown over it; and last, but by no means least—in fact it was the most important thing in the sitting-room, so far as comfort was concerned—there was a big open-hearth Franklin, full of blazing red logs, with brass andirons and fender, and a draught of such marvellous suction that stray scraps of paper, to say nothing of uncommonly large sparks, had been known more than once to have been picked up in a jiffy and whirled into its capacious throat.

Just the very background for dear old Peter, I always said, whenever I watched him moving about the cheery interior, pushing up a chair, lighting a fresh candle, or replacing a book on the shelf. What a half-length the great Sully would have made of him, with his high collar, white shirt-front and wonderful neck-cloth with its pleats and counterpleats, to say nothing of his rosy cheeks and bald head, the high light glistening on one of his big bumps of benevolence. And what a background of deep reds and warm mahoganys with a glint of yellow brass for contrast!

Indeed, I have often thought that not only Peter's love of red, but much of Peter's quaintness of dress, had been suggested by some of the old portraits which lined the walls of his sitting-room—his grandfather, by Sully, among them; and I firmly believe, although I assure you I have never mentioned it to any human being before, that had custom permitted (the directors of his bank, perhaps), Peter would not only have indulged in the high coat-collar and quaint neck-cloths of his fathers, but would also have worn a dainty cue tied with a flowing black ribbon, always supposing, of course, that his hair had held out, and, what is more important, always supposing, that the wisp was long enough to hold on.

The one article, however, which, more than any other one thing in his apartment, revealed his tastes and habits, was a long, wide, ample mahogany desk, once the property of an ancestor, which stood under the window in the front room. In this, ready to his hand, were drawers little and big, full of miscellaneous papers and envelopes; pigeon-holes crammed full of answered and unanswered notes, some with crests on them, some with plain wax clinging to the flap of the broken envelopes; many held together with the gum of the common world. Here, too, were bundles of old letters tied with tape; piles of pamphlets, quaint trays holding pens and pencils, and here too was always to be found, in summer or in winter, a big vase full of roses or blossoms, or whatever was in season—a luxury he never denied himself.

To this desk, then, Peter betook himself the moment he had hung his gray surtout on its hook in the closet and disposed of his hat and umbrella. This was his up-town office, really, and here his letters awaited him.

First came a notice of the next meeting of the Numismatic Society of which he was an honored member; then a bill for his semi-annual dues at the Century Club; next a delicately scented sheet inviting him to dine with the Van Wormleys of Washington Square, to meet an English lord and his lady, followed by a pressing letter to spend Sunday with friends in the country. Then came a long letter from his sister, Miss Felicia Grayson, who lived in the Genesee Valley and who came to New York every winter for what she was pleased to call “The Season” (a very remarkable old lady, this Miss Felicia Grayson, with a mind of her own, sections of which she did not hesitate to ventilate when anybody crossed her or her path, and of whom we shall hear more in these pages), together with the usual assortment of bills and receipts, the whole an enlivening record not only of Peter's daily life and range of taste, but of the limitations of his purse as well.

One letter was reserved for the last. This he held in his hand until he again ran his eye over the pile before him. It was from Holker Morris the architect, a man who stood at the head of his profession.

“Yes, Holker's handwriting,” he said as he inserted the end of the paper cutter. “I wonder what the dear fellow wants now?” Here he ran his eye over the first page. “Listen, Major. What an extraordinary man... He's going to give a dinner, he says, to his draughtsmen... in his offices at the top of his new building, six stories up. Does the rascal think I have nothing to do but crawl up his stairs? Here, I'll read it to you.”

“'You, dear Peter:' That's just like Holker! He begins that way when he wants me to do something for him. 'No use saying you won't come, for I shall be around for you at seven o'clock with a club—'No, that's not it—he writes so badly—'with a cab.' Yes, that's it—'with a cab.' I wonder if he can drive me up those six flights of stairs? 'There'll be something to eat, and drink, and there will be fifty or more of my draughtsmen and former employees. I'm going to give them a dinner and a house-warming. Bring the Major if you see him. I have sent a note to his room, but it may not reach him. No dress suit, remember. Some of my men wouldn't know one if they saw it.”

As the letter dropped from Peter's hand a scraping of feet was heard at the hall door, followed by a cheery word from Mrs. McGuffey—she had her favorites among Peter's friends—and Holker Morris burst into the room.

“Ah, caught you both!” he cried, all out of breath with his run upstairs, his hat still on his head. No one blew in and blew out of Peter's room (literally so) with the breeze and dash of the distinguished architect. “Into your coats, you two—we haven't a moment to spare. You got my letter, of course,” he added, throwing back the cape of his raincoat.

“Yes, Holker, just opened it!” cried Peter, holding out both hands to his guest. “But I'm not going. I am too old for your young fellows—take the Major and leave me behind.”

The architect grabbed Peter by the arm. “When did that mighty idea crack its way through that shell of yours, you tottering Methusaleh! Old! You're spryer than a frolicking lamb in March. You are coming, too, Major. Get into your coats and things!”

“But Isaac is pressing my swallow-tail.”

“I don't mean your dress-coat, man—your OVERCOAT! Now I am sure you didn't read my letter? Some of my young fellows haven't got such a thing—too poor.”

“But look at YOURS!”

“Yes, I had to slip into mine out of respect to the occasion; my boys wouldn't like it if I didn't. Sort of uniform to them, but they'd be mighty uncomfortable if you wore yours. Hurry up, we haven't a minute to lose.”

Peter had forced the architect into one of the big chairs by the fire by this time, and stood bending over him, his hands resting on Morris's broad shoulders.

“Take the Major with you, that's a good fellow, and let me drop in about eleven o'clock,” he pleaded, an expression on his face seen only when two men understand and love each other. “There's a letter from Felicia to attend to; she writes she is coming down for a couple of weeks, and then I've really had a devil of a day at the bank.”

“No, you old fraud, you can't wheedle me that way. I want you before everybody sits down, so my young chaps can look you over. Why, Peter, you're better than a whole course of lectures, and you mean something, you beggar! I tell you” (here he lifted himself from the depths of the chair and scrambled to his feet) “you've got to go if I have to tie your hands and feet and carry you downstairs on my back! And you, too, Major—both of you. Here's your overcoat—into it, you humbug!... the other arm. Is this your hat? Out you go!” and before I had stopped laughing—I had refused to crowd the cab—Morris had buttoned the surtout over Peter's breast, crammed the straight-brimmed hat over his eyes, and the two were clattering downstairs.