CHAPTER XIX.
When the pain in Jack's heart over Ruth became unbearable, there was always one refuge left--one balm which never failed to soothe, and that was Peter.
For though he held himself in readiness for her call, being seldom absent lest she might need his services, their constrained intercourse brought with it more pain than pleasure.

It was then that he longed for the comfort which only his dear mentor could give.
On these occasions Mrs.McGuffey would take the lace cover off Miss Felicia's bureau, as a matter of precaution, provided that lady was away and the room available, and roll in a big tub for the young gentleman--"who do be washin' hisself all the time and he that sloppy that I'm afeared everything will be spi'lt for the mistress," and Jack would slip out of his working clothes (he would often come away in his flannel shirt and loose tie, especially when he was late in paying off) and shed his heavy boots with the red clay of Jersey still clinging to their soles, and get into his white linen and black clothes and dress shoes, and then the two chums would lock arms and saunter up Fifth Avenue to dine either at one of Peter's clubs or at some house where he and that "handsome young ward of yours, Mr.Grayson--do bring him again," were so welcome.
If Miss Felicia was in town and her room in use, there was never any change in the programme, Mrs.McGuffey rising to the emergency and discovering another and somewhat larger apartment in the next house but two--"for one of the finest gintlemen ye ever saw and that quiet," etc .-- into which Jack would move and which the good woman would insist on taking full charge of herself.
It was on one of these blessed and always welcome nights, after the two had been dining at "a little crack in the wall," as Peter called a near-by Italian restaurant, that he and Jack stopped to speak to Isaac Cohen whom they found closing his shop for the night.

Cohen invited them in and Jack, after following the little tailor through the deserted shop--all the work people had left--found himself, to his great surprise, in a small room at the rear, which Isaac opened with a key taken from his vest pocket, and which even in the dim light of a single gas jet had more the appearance of the den of a scholar, or the workshop of a scientist, than the private office of a fashioner of clothes.
Peter only stayed a moment--long enough to borrow the second volume of one of Isaac's books, but the quaint interior and what it contained made a great impression on Jack,--so much so that when the two had said good-night and mounted the stairs to Peter's rooms, it was with increased interest that the boy listened to the old fellow who stopped on every landing to tell him some incident connected with the little tailor and his life: How after his wife's death some years before, and his only daughter's marriage--"and a great affair it was, my boy, I was there and know,"-- Cohen had moved down to his shop and fitted up the back room for a little shelter of his own, where he had lived with his books and his personal belongings and where he had met the queerest looking people--with big heads and bushy beards--foreigners, some of them--speaking all kinds of languages, as well as many highly educated men in town.
Once inside his own cosey rooms Peter bustled about, poking the fire into life, drawing the red curtains closer, moving a vase of roses so he could catch their fragrance from where he sat, wheeling two big, easy, all-embracing arm-chairs to the blaze, rolling a small table laden with various burnables and pourables within reach of their elbows, and otherwise disporting himself after the manner of the most cheery and lovable of hosts.

This done, he again took up the thread of his discourse.
"Yes! He's a wonderful old fellow, this Isaac Cohen," he rattled on when the two were seated.

"You had only a glimpse of that den of his, but you should see his books on costumes,--he's an authority, you know,--and his miniatures,--Oh, a Cosway, which he keeps in his safe, that is a wonder!--and his old manuscripts.