`` I say , Peter ! '' cried Mr. Brown , again ; `` what the devil are you about there , that I hear such a racket whenever I pass by ? You are repairing the old house , I suppose , making a new one of it ? Eh ? '' `` Too late for that , I am afraid , Mr. Brown , '' replied Peter . `` If I make it new , it will be new inside and out , from the cellar upward . '' `` Had not you better let me take the job ? '' said Mr. Brown , significantly . `` Not yet , '' answered Peter , hastily shutting the window ; for ever since he had been in search of the treasure he hated to have people stare at him . As he drew back , ashamed of his outward poverty , yet proud of the secret wealth within his grasp , a haughty smile shone out on Peter 's visage with precisely the effect of the dim sunbeams in the squalid chamber . He endeavored to assume such a mien as his ancestor had probably worn when he gloried in the building of a strong house for a home to many generations of his posterity . But the chamber was very dark to his snow-dazzled eyes , and very dismal , too , in contrast with the living scene that he had just looked upon . His brief glimpse into the street had given him a forcible impression of the manner in which the world kept itself cheerful and prosperous by social pleasures and an intercourse of business , while he in seclusion was pursuing an object that might possibly be a phantasm by a method which most people would call madness . It is one great advantage of a gregarious mode of life that each person rectifies his mind by other minds and squares his conduct to that of his neighbors , so as seldom to be lost in eccentricity . Peter Goldthwaite had exposed himself to this influence by merely looking out of the window . For a while he doubted whether there were any hidden chest of gold , and in that case whether it was so exceedingly wise to tear the house down only to be convinced of its non-existence . But this was momentary . Peter the Destroyer resumed the task which Fate had assigned him , nor faltered again till it was accomplished . In the course of his search he met with many things that are usually found in the ruins of an old house , and also with some that are not . What seemed most to the purpose was a rusty key which had been thrust into a chink of the wall , with a wooden label appended to the handle , bearing the initials `` P.G. '' Another singular discovery was that of a bottle of wine walled up in an old oven .
A tradition ran in the family that XXXXX 's grandfather , a jovial officer in the old French war , had set aside many dozens of the precious liquor for the benefit of topers then unborn .
Brown Destroyer Goldthwaite P.G. Peter chink influence non-existence phantasm sunbeams