He broke off abruptly.
"Peter, I am glad you are here," he added.
"Ja," said Peter vacantly.
"You have not looked at your letters yet," I reminded him.
"I have no occasion to," he retorted. "There is that which—But the street is no place for such conversation. Come home, my boy; come home."
We set off over the snowy ground, and the people we passed bowed or bobbed their heads to my father, for he was a great man in New York, as great as any after the Governor; but he walked now with his eyes upon the ground, immersed in thought. And once again as we turned into Pearl Street he muttered—
"Nay, I like it not."
Darby McGraw met us at the door, and from his wild gaze I knew him to be half-expecting to behold the pirates hot-foot at our heels.
"Have you performed your tasks, Darby?" questioned my father as the lad backed into the counting-room on the right of the entrance hall.
"Yes, master."