"Peter said, 'Yes, we've got them; now the question is whether we keep them, or send them to an Orphings' Home.'
"The nice lady she said faster than I can tell you: 'Peter Harding, I'm ashamed of you! There's no question of that kind! There's never going to be!'
"'Well don't get het up about it,' said Peter. 'I knew all the time there wasn't, I just wanted to hear you say so plain and emphatic. So far as I'm concerned, my way is clear as noonday sun,' said Peter. 'Then you go first thing in the morning and adopt them, and adopt them both,' said Ma. 'Lily will make Mary just as good a sister as she could ever have,' said she, and then she reached over and put her arms right around me and she said, 'And if you think I'm going to keep on trying to run this house without Mickey, you're mistaken.' I began to cry, 'cause I had had a big day, and I was shaking on my feet anyway. Then Peter said, 'Have you figured it out to the end? Is it to be 'til they are of age, or forever?' She just gripped tighter and said fast as words can come, 'I say make it forever, and share and share alike. I'm willing if you are.' Peter, he said, 'I'm willing. They'll pay their way any place. Forever, and share and share alike, is my idea. Do you agree, Mickey?' 'Exactly what do you mean?' I asked, and Peter told me it was making me and Lily both his, just as far as the law could do it; we could go all the farther we wanted to ourselves. He said it meant him getting the same for me and Lily as he did for his own, and leaving us the same when he died. I told him he needn't do that, if he'd just keep off the old Orphings' Home devil, that's had me scared stiff all my days, I'd tend to that, so now me and Lily belong to Peter; he's our Pertectorate."
"Mickey, why didn't you tell me?" asked Douglas. "Why didn't you want me to adopt you?"
"Well so far as 'adopting' is concerned," said Mickey, "I ain't crazy about it, with anybody. But that's the law you men have made; a boy must obey it, even if he'd rather be skinned alive, and when he knows it ain't right or fair. That's the law. I was up against it, and I didn't know but I did have the snake, and Peter was on hand and made that offer, and he was grand and big about it. I don't love him any more than I do you; but I've just this minute discovered that it ain't in my skin to love any man more than I do Peter; so you'll have to get used to the fact that I love him just as well, and say, Mr. Bruce, Peter is the finest man you ever knew. If you'll come out and get acquainted, you'll just be tickled to have him in the Golf Club, and to come to his house, and to have him at yours. His nice lady is exactly like Miss Winton, only older. Say, she and Peter will adopt you too, if you say so, and between us, just as man to man, Peter is a regular lifesaver! If you got a chance you better catch on! No telling what you might want of him!"
"Mickey, you do say the most poignant things!" cried Douglas. "I'd give all I'm worth to catch on to Peter right now, and cling for much more than life; but what I started, I must finish, and Peter isn't here."
"Well what's the matter with me?" asked Mickey. "Have you run into the yellow jackets too? 'Cause if you have, I'm ahead of you, so I know what to do. Just catch on to me!"
"Think you are big enough to serve as a straw for a drowning man,
Mickey?" inquired Douglas.
"Sure! I'm big enough to establish a Pertectorate over you, this minute. The weight of my body hasn't anything to do with the size of my heart, or how fast I can work my brains and feet, if I must."
"Mickey," said Douglas despairingly, "it's my candid opinion that no one can save me, right now."