Peter laughed. He pulled his whistle-pipe from his pocket.
“I pipe for my bread,” he said. “They call me Peter the Piper.”
The other man nodded. “Good,” he said; “I like that. There’s a flavour of romance about it that appeals to me. My name’s Neil Macdonald.”
Peter looked at him. “Then you don’t mind introducing yourself to a jail-bird?” he asked jauntily; but there was an underhint of wistfulness in the words.
“My dear fellow,” responded Neil, “I have some intuition. It’s so absolutely apparent that you must have been shielding some one else, that——”
Peter interrupted him. The pupils of his blue eyes had contracted till they looked like two pinpricks.
“I beg your pardon,” he said slowly; “I said that I spent three years in prison for forgery and embezzlement.” He looked Neil full in the face.
Neil held out his hand. “I apologize,” he said; “it was extremely clumsy of me.”
Peter took his hand with a light laugh. “It was rather decent of you, all the same,” he said, “though, of course, utterly absurd. You’re the first man, though, that’s committed the absurdity. You happen, too, to be the first man with whom [Pg 15]I’ve shaken hands since I freed myself from the clasp of a Salvation Army brother who met me outside the prison gates and talked about my soul. I hadn’t the smallest interest in my soul at the moment. I wanted a cigarette and a drink more than anything in heaven or earth. He was a good-meaning fellow, of course, but—well, just a little wanting in tact. Of course, there were others ready to hold out the hand of pity if I’d asked for it. But there’d have been something slippery about the touch. The oil of charity doesn’t appeal to me.”
There was a pause. Somewhere in the blueness a lark was singing, an exuberant feathered morsel, pouring forth his very soul in song.