"Oh Peter, Peter!" he cried, "is this you?"
Peter Fiddle stopped singing, with the righteously indignant air of one whose devotions have been interrupted by a rude barbarian.
"And who will you be," he demanded witheringly, "that dares to be speaking to the McDuff in such a fashion? Who will you be, indeed?"
"Come, come, Peter, none of that," said his friend soothingly. "I cannot think who you are. You surely can't be my old friend, Peter McDuff, sitting by the roadside this way. Who are you, anyway?"
Peter became suddenly grave. The question raised a terrible doubt in his mind. He looked about him with the wavering gaze of a man on board a heaving ship. His unsteady glance fell on the empty wagon shafts lying on the ground. He looked at them in bewilderment, then took off his old cap and scratched his head.
"How is this, I'd like to know?" demanded Lawyer Ed, pushing his advantage. "If you're not Peter McDuff, who are you? And where is the horse gone?"
Roderick climbed out of the buggy, smothering his laughter, and leaving the two to argue the question, he went after the truant horse which might help to establish his master's lost identity. Lawyer Ed dismounted and helped him hitch it, and apparently satisfied by its reappearance, Peter stretched himself on the seat and went soundly asleep again. He lay all undisturbed while they drove him in at his gate, and put his horse away once more. And he did not move even when they lifted him from his perch and, carrying him into the house, put him into his bed.
And just as they entered the town they met poor young Peter plodding slowly and heavily towards his dreary home.
"We must do something for those two, Rod," said Lawyer Ed, shaking his head pityingly. "We must get Local Option or something that'll help Peter."
But Roderick was thinking of what Miss Leslie Graham had said, and wondering if it might mean that he would be asked to handle the big affairs of Graham and Company.