The one article, however, which, more than any other one thing in
his apartment, revealed his tastes and habits, was a long, wide,
ample mahogany desk, once the property of an ancestor, which stood
under the window in the front room. In this, ready to his hand,
were drawers little and big, full of miscellaneous papers and
envelopes; pigeon-holes crammed full of answered and unanswered
notes, some with crests on them, some with plain wax clinging to
the flap of the broken envelopes; many held together with the gum
of the common world. Here, too, were bundles of old letters tied
with tape; piles of pamphlets, quaint trays holding pens and
pencils, and here too was always to be found, in summer or in
winter, a big vase full of roses or blossoms, or whatever was in
season--a luxury he never denied himself.

To this desk, then, Peter betook himself the moment he had hung
his gray surtout on its hook in the closet and disposed of his hat
and umbrella. This was his up-town office, really, and here his
letters awaited him.

First came a notice of the next meeting of the Numismatic Society
of which he was an honored member; then a bill for his semi-annual
dues at the Century Club; next a delicately scented sheet inviting
him to dine with the Van Wormleys of Washington Square, to meet an
English lord and his lady, followed by a pressing letter to spend
Sunday with friends in the country. Then came a long letter from
his sister, Miss Felicia Grayson, who lived in the Genesee Valley
and who came to New York every winter for what she was pleased to
call "The Season" (a very remarkable old lady, this Miss Felicia
Grayson, with a mind of her own, sections of which she did not
hesitate to ventilate when anybody crossed her or her path, and of