Nobody runs over a child if he can help it. Even a thief will bring you back your pocket-book if you trust him to take care of it. It is the trusting that does it. Few men, no matter how crooked, can resist the temptation of reaching, if only for a moment, an honest man’s level.
Peter is a romance, albeit with twinges of philosophy, but Peter is not one of its lovers.
Peter: A Novel of Which He is Not the Hero
by F. Hopkinson Smith. 1909 bestseller #9. Project Gutenberg eBook #4516.
My grade: B-.
Peter Grayson, a bald, 60-year-old banker, meets a young Marylander working in his uncle’s stock brokerage company.
Jack Breen has no love for Wall Street, but he has no training for any other white-collar work and thinks himself above manual labor.

When Jack learns a friend was bankrupted by a dirty deal his uncle put over, he resigns and moves out of Uncle Arthur’s home.
Peter gets Jack a job working for an engineer with a beautiful daughter.
Jack is smart and brave, but inclined to put his brain into neutral where people he likes are concerned.
When Jack’s friend Garry Minott commits suicide after unwise speculation leads him to embezzle, Jack rushes to save his friend’s reputation for the sake of Garry’s infant son.
F. Hopkinson Smith starts out well with plot and characterization, but he never lets either develop their potential.
Smith doesn’t let Jack learn, for example, how his lame-brained attempts to raise cash affect his future father-in-law’s business, though Smith lays all the groundwork that lesson.
Peter remains nothing more than a pleasant diversion, albeit one with very intriguing “what ifs.”
©2015 Linda Gorton Aragoni