13]there was some excellent reason why he did not do it.

[Pg 13]

The man was silent. Peter appreciated his silence.

“The fact is,” said Peter deliberately, “that prior to my starting this ‘walking tour,’ as you so kindly term it, I had spent three years in prison for forgery and embezzling a considerable sum of money.”

“Ah!” said the man quietly, watching him.

“There are always the colonies,” went on Peter carelessly. “But somehow I’ve a predilection for England. Of course, in England there is the disadvantage that you’re bound to produce references if you want work—I mean the kind of work that would appeal to me. I dare say I might get taken on as a day labourer on a farm, but even there my speech is against me; it makes people suspicious.”

“But how do you manage?” asked the other curiously.

Peter laughed. He pulled his whistle-pipe from his pocket.

“I pipe for my bread,” he said. “They call me Peter the Piper.”

[Pg 14]

[Pg 14]

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 

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