The Project Gutenberg EBook of Peter, by F. Hopkinson Smith

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Title: Peter
A Novel of Which He is Not the Hero

Author: F. Hopkinson Smith

Release Date: October, 2003 [Etext #4516]
Posting Date: January 14, 2010

Language: English

Character set encoding: ASCII

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PETER

A Novel of Which He is Not the Hero

By F. Hopkinson Smith

CHAPTER I

Peter was still poring over his ledger one dark afternoon in December,
his bald head glistening like a huge ostrich egg under the flare of the
overhead gas jets, when Patrick, the night watchman, catching sight of
my face peering through the outer grating, opened the door of the Bank.

The sight so late in the day was an unusual one, for in all the years
that I have called at the Bank--ten, now--no, eleven since we first knew
each other--Peter had seldom failed to be ready for our walk uptown when
the old moon-faced clock high up on the wall above the stove pointed at
four.

"I thought there was something up!" I cried. "What is it, Peter--balance
wrong?"

He did not answer, only waved his hand in reply, his bushy gray eyebrows
moving slowly, like two shutters that opened and closed, as he scanned
the lines of figures up and down, his long pen gripped tight between his
thin, straight lips, as a dog carries a bone.

I never interrupt him when his brain is nosing about like this; it is
better to keep still and let him ferret it out. So I sat down outside
the curved rail with its wooden slats backed by faded green curtains,
close to the big stove screened off at the end of the long room, fixed
one eye on the moon-face and the other on the ostrich egg, and waited.

There are no such banks at the present time--were no others then, and
this story begins not so very many years' ago--A queer, out-of-date,
mouldy old barn of a bank, you would say, this Exeter--for an
institution wielding its influence. Not a coat of paint for half a
century; not a brushful of whitewash for goodness knows how much longer.
As for the floor, it still showed the gullies and gr