e his cousin
Urquhart, for this same reason. A man of means, Rodney would no doubt
have held, has much ado to save his soul alive; better, if possible, be
a bricklayer or a mendicant friar.

"Some day," said Peter politely, "I may have to be a travelling pedlar.
This is only an experiment, to see if it works."

He was conscious suddenly of two opposing principles that crossed swords
with a clash. Rodney and Urquhart--poverty and wealth--he could not
analyse further.

But Rodney was newly friendly to him for the rest of that term. Urquhart
commented on it.

"Stephen always takes notice of the destitute. The best qualification for
his regard is to commit such a solecism that society cuts you, or such a
crime that you get a month's hard. Short of that, it will do to have a
hole in your coat, or paint a bad picture, or produce a yesterday's
handkerchief. He probably thinks you're on the road to that. When you
get there, he'll swear eternal friendship. He can't away with the
prosperous."

"What a mistake," Peter said. It seemed to him a singularly perverse
point of view.

CHAPTER III

THE HOPES

It was rather fun shopping for Leslie. Leslie was a stout, quiet,
ponderous person between thirty and forty, and he really did not bound
at all; Urquhart had done him less than justice in his description. There
was about him the pathos of the very rich. He was generous in the
extreme, and Peter's job proved lucrative as well as pleasant. He grew
curiously fond of Leslie; his attitude towards him was one of respect
touched with protectiveness. No one should any more "do" Leslie, if he
could help it.

"He's let me," Peter told his cousin Lucy, "get rid of all his horrible
Lowestoft forgeries; awful things they were, with the blue hardly dry on
them. Frightful cheek, selling him things like that; it's so insulting.
Leslie's awfully sweet-tempered about being gulled, though. He's very
kind to me; he lets me buy anything I like for him. And he recommends me
to his friends, too. It's a splendid profession; I'm so glad I thought
of it. If I hadn't I should have had to go into a dye shop, or be a
weaver or something. It wouldn't have been good form; it wouldn't even
have been clean. I should have had a day-before-yesterday's handkerchief
and Rodney would have liked me more, but Denis would probably have cut
me. As it is I'm quite good form and quite clean, and I move in the best
circles. I love the Ignorant Rich; they're