"Go on," said Helen reassuringly. But he could not go on, under the circumstances. Instead he turned very red. As usual, she divined his thought, noticed his confusion, and took pity on it.

"She must be awfully nice," she said. "I don't wonder you fell in love with her. I wish I might know her better."

"I wish you might. By and by you must. And she must know you. Helen, I—I feel so ashamed of—of—"

"Hush, or I shall begin to think you are ashamed because you liked me—or thought you did."

"But I do like you. Next to Madeline there is no one I like so much. But, but, you see, it is different."

"Of course it is. And it ought to be. Does her mother—do her people know of the engagement?"

He hesitated momentarily. "No-o," he admitted, "they don't yet. She and I have decided to keep it a secret from any one for the present. I want to get on a little further with my writing, you know. She is like you in that, Helen—she's awfully fond of poetry and literature."

"Especially yours, I'm sure. Tell me about your writing. How are you getting on?"

So he told her and, until they stood together at the parsonage gate, Madeline's name was not again mentioned. Then Helen put out her hand.

"Good morning, Albert," she said. "I'm glad we have had this talk, ever so glad."

"By George, so am I! You're a corking friend, Helen. The chap who does marry you will be awfully lucky."

She smiled slightly. "Perhaps there won't be any such chap," she said. "I shall always be a schoolmarm, I imagine."

"Indeed you won't," indignantly. "I have too high an opinion of men for that."

She smiled again, seemed about to speak, and then to change her mind. An instant later she said,

"I must go in now. But I shall hope to see you again before I go back to the city. And, after your secret is out and the engagement is announced, I want to write Madeline, may I?"

"Of course you may. And she'll like you as much as I do."

"Will she? . . . Well, perhaps; we'll hope so."

"Certainly she will. And you won't let my treating you as—as I have make any difference in our friendship?"

"No. We shall always be friends, I hope. Good-by."

She went into the house. He waited a moment, hoping she might turn again before entering, but she did not. He walked home, pondering deeply, his thoughts a curious jumble of relief and dissatisfaction. He was glad Helen had seen her duty and given him over to Madeline, but he felt a trifle piqued to think she had done it with such apparent willingness. If she had wept or scolded it would have been unpleasant but much more gratifying to his self-importance.

He could not help realizing, however, that her attitude toward him was exceptionally fine. He knew well that he, if in her place, would not have behaved as she had done. No spite, no sarcasm, no taunts, no unpleasant reminders of things said only a few months before. And with all her forgiveness and forbearance and understanding there had been always that sense of greater age and wisdom; she had treated him as she might have treated a boy, younger brother, perhaps.

"She IS older than I am," he thought, "even if she really isn't. It's funny, but it's a fact."

December came and Christmas, and then January and the new year, the year 1917. In January, Z. Snow and Co. took its yearly account of stock, and Captain Lote and Laban and Albert and Issachar were truly busy during the days of stock-taking week and tired when evening came. Laban worked the hardest of the quartette, but Issy made the most fuss about it. Labe, who had chosen the holiday season to go on one of his periodical vacations, as rather white and shaky and even more silent than usual. Mr. Price, however, talked with his customary fluency and continuity, so there was no lack of conversation. Captain Zelotes was moved to comment.

"Issy," he suggested gravely, looking up from a long column of figures, "did you ever play 'Door'?"

Issachar stared at him.

"Play 'Door'?" he repeated. "What's that?"

"It's a game. Didn't you ever play it?"

"No, don't know's I ever did."

"Then you'd better begin right this minute. The first thing to do is to shut up and the next is to stay that way. You play 'Door' until I tell you to do somethin' else; d'you hear?"

At home the week between Christmas and the New Year was rather dismal. Mr. Keeler's holiday vacation had brought on one of his fiancee's "sympathetic attacks," and she tied up her head and hung crape upon her soul, as usual. During these attacks the Snow household walked on tiptoe, as if the housekeeper were an invalid in reality. Even consoling speeches from Albert, who with Laban when the latter was sober, enjoyed in her mind the distinction of being the reincarnation of "Robert Penfold," brought no relief to the suffering Rachel. Nothing but the news brought by the milkman, that "Labe was taperin' off," and would probably return to his desk in a few days, eased her pain.

One forenoon about the middle of the month Captain Zelotes himself stopped in at the post office for the morning mail. When he returned to the lumber company's building he entered quietly and walked to his own desk with a preoccupied air. For the half hour before dinner time he sat there, smoking his pipe, and speaking to no one unless spoken to. The office force noticed his preoccupation and commented upon it.

"What ails the old man, Al?" whispered Issachar, peering in around the corner of the door at the silent figure tilted back in the revolving chair, its feet upon the corner of the desk. "Ain't said so much as 'Boo' for up'ards of twenty minutes, has he? I was in there just now fillin' up his ink-stand and, by crimus, I let a great big gob of ink come down ker-souse right in the middle of the nice, clean blottin' paper in front of him. I held my breath, cal'latin' to catch what Stephen Peter used to say he caught when he went fishin' Sundays. Stevey said he generally caught cold when he went and always caught the Old Harry when he got back. I cal'lated to catch the Old Harry part sure, 'cause Captain Lote is always neat and fussy 'bout his desk. But no, the old man never said a word. I don't believe he knew the ink was spilled at all. What's on his mind, Al; do you know?"

Albert did not know, so he asked Laban. Laban shook his head.

"Give it up, Al," he whispered. "Somethin's happened to bother him, that's sartin'. When Cap'n Lote gets his feet propped up and his head tilted back that way I can 'most generally cal'late he's doin' some real thinkin'. Real thinkin'—yes, sir-ee—um-hm—yes—yes. When he h'ists his boots up to the masthead that way it's safe to figger his brains have got steam up. Um-hm—yes indeed."

"But what is he thinking about? And why is he so quiet?"

"I give up both riddles, Al. He's the only one's got the answers and when he gets ready enough maybe he'll tell 'em. Until then it'll pay us fo'mast hands to make believe we're busy, even if we ain't. Hear that, do you, Is?"

"Hear what?" demanded Issachar, who was gazing out of the window, his hands in his pockets.

"I say it will pay us—you and Al and me—to make believe we're workin' even if we ain't."

"'Workin'!" indignantly. "By crimus, I AM workin'! I don't have to make believe."

"That so? Well, then, I'd pick up that coal-hod and make believe play for a spell. The fire's 'most out. Almost—um-hm—pretty nigh—yes—yes."

Albert and his grandfather walked home to dinner together, as was their custom, but still the captain remained silent. During dinner he spoke not more than a dozen words and Albert several times caught Mrs. Snow regarding her husband intently and with a rather anxious look. She did not question him, however, but Rachel was not so reticent.

"Mercy on us, Cap'n Lote," she demanded, "what IS the matter? You're as dumb as a mouthful of mush. I don't believe you've said ay, yes or no since we sat down to table. Are you sick?"

Her employer's calm was unruffled.

"No-o," he answered, with deliberation.

"That's a comfort. What's the matter, then; don't you WANT to talk?"

"No-o."

"Oh," with a toss of the head, "well, I'm glad I know. I was beginnin' to be afraid you'd forgotten how."

The captain helped himself to another fried "tinker" mackerel.

"No danger of that around here, Rachel," he said serenely. "So long as my hearin's good I couldn't forget—not in this house."

Olive detained her grandson as he was following Captain Zelotes from the dining room.

"What's wrong with him, Albert?" she whispered. "Do you know?"

"No, I don't, Grandmother. Do you think there is anything wrong?"

"I know there's somethin' troublin' him. I've lived with him too many years not to know the signs. Oh, Albert—you haven't done anything to displease him, have you?"

"No, indeed, Grandmother. Whatever it is, it isn't that."

When they reached the office, the captain spoke to Mr. Keeler.

"Had your dinner, Labe?" he asked.

"Yes—yes, indeed. Don't take me long to eat—not at my boardin' house. A feller'd have to have paralysis to make eatin' one of Lindy Dadgett's meals take more'n a half hour. Um-hm—yes."

Despite his preoccupation, Captain Zelotes could not help smiling.

"To make it take an hour he'd have to be ossified, wouldn't he, like the feller in the circus sideshow?" he observed.

Laban nodded. "That—or dead," he replied. "Yes—just about—just so, Cap'n."

"Where's Issachar?"

"He's eatin' yet, I cal'late. He don't board at Lindy's."

"When he gets back set him to pilin' that new carload of spruce under Number Three shed. Keep him at it."

"Yes, sir. Um-hm. All right."

Captain Zelotes turned to his grandson. "Come in here, Al," he said. "I want to see you for a few minutes."

Albert followed him into the inner office. He wondered what in the world his grandfather wished to see him about, in this very private fashion.

"Sit down, Al," said the captain, taking his own chair and pointing to another. "Oh, wait a minute, though! Maybe you'd better shut that hatch first."

The "hatch" was the transom over the door between the offices. Albert, remembering how a previous interview between them had been overheard because of that open transom, glanced at his grandfather. The twinkle in the latter's eye showed that he too, remembered. Albert closed the "hatch." When he came back to his seat the twinkle had disappeared; Captain Zelotes looked serious enough.

"Well, Grandfather?" queried the young man, after waiting a moment. The captain adjusted his spectacles, reached into the inside pocket of his coat and produced an envelope. It was a square envelope with either a trade-mark or a crest upon the back. Captain Lote did not open the envelope, but instead tapped his desk with it and regarded his grandson in a meditative way.

"Al," he said slowly, "has it seemed to you that your cruise aboard this craft of ours here had been a little smoother the last year or two than it used to be afore that?"

Albert, by this time well accustomed to his grandfather's nautical phraseology, understood that the "cruise" referred to was his voyage as assistant bookkeeper with Z. Snow and Co. He nodded.

"I have tried to make it so," he answered. "I mean I have tried to make it smoother for you."

"Um-hm, I think you have tried. I don't mind tellin' you that it has pleased me consid'ble to watch you try. I don't mean by that," he added, with a slight curve of the lip, "that you'd win first prize as a lightnin'-calculator even yet, but you're a whole lot better one than you used to be. I've been considerable encouraged about you; I don't mind tellin' you that either. . . . And," he added, after another interval during which he was, apparently, debating just how much of an admission it was safe to make, "so far as I can see, this poetry foolishness of yours hasn't interfered with your work any to speak of."

Albert smiled. "Thanks, Grandfather," he said.

"You're welcome. So much for that. But there's another side to our relations together, yours and mine, that I haven't spoken of to you afore. And I have kept still on purpose. I've figgered that so long as you kept straight and didn't go off the course, didn't drink or gamble, or go wild or the like of that, what you did was pretty much your own business. I've noticed you're considerable of a feller with the girls, but I kept an eye on the kind of girls and I will say that so far as I can see, you've picked the decent kind. I say so far as I can see. Of course I ain't fool enough to believe I see all you do, or know all you do. I've been young myself, and when I get to thinkin' how much I know about you I try to set down and remember how much my dad didn't know about me when I was your age. That—er—helps some toward givin' me my correct position on the chart."

He paused. Albert's brain was vainly striving to guess what all this meant. What was he driving at? The captain crossed his legs and continued.

"I did think for a spell," he said, "that you and Helen Kendall were gettin' to understand each other pretty well. Well, Helen's a good girl and your grandma and I like her. Course we didn't cal'late anything very serious was liable to come of the understandin', not for some time, anyhow, for with your salary and—well, sort of unsettled prospects, I gave you credit for not figgerin' on pickin' a wife right away. . . . Haven't got much laid by to support a wife on, have you, Al?"

Albert's expression had changed during the latter portion of the speech. Now he was gazing intently at his grandfather and at the letter in the latter's hands. He was beginning to guess, to dread, to be fearful.

"Haven't got much to support a wife on, Al, have you?" repeated Captain Zelotes.

"No, sir, not now."

"Um. . . . But you hope to have by and by, eh? Well, I hope you will. But UNTIL you have it would seem to older folks like me kind of risky navigatin' to—to . . . Oh, there was a letter in the mail for you this mornin, Al."

He put down the envelope he had hitherto held in his hand and, reaching into his pocket, produced another. Even before he had taken it from his grandfather's hand Albert recognized the handwriting. It was from Madeline.

Captain Zelotes, regarding him keenly, leaned back again in his chair. "Read it if you want to, Al," he said. "Maybe you'd better. I can wait."

Albert hesitated a moment and then tore open the envelope. The note within was short, evidently written in great haste and agitation and was spotted with tear stains. He read it, his cheeks paling and his hand shaking as he did so. Something dreadful had happened. Mother—Mrs. Fosdick, of course—had discovered everything. She had found all his—Albert's—letters and read them. She was furious. There had been the most terrible scene. Madeline was in her own room and was smuggling him this letter by Mary, her maid, who will do anything for me, and has promised to mail it. Oh, dearest, they say I must give you up. They say—Oh, they say dreadful things about you! Mother declares she will take me to Japan or some frightful place and keep me there until I forget you. I don't care if they take me to the ends of the earth, I shall NEVER forget you. I will never—never—NEVER give you up. And you mustn't give me up, will you, darling? They say I must never write you again. But you see I have—and I shall. Oh, what SHALL we do? I was SO happy and now I am so miserable. Write me the minute you get this, but oh, I KNOW they won't let me see your letters and then I shall die. But write, write just the same, every day. Oh what SHALL we do?

Yours, always and always, no matter what everyone does or says, lovingly and devotedly,

MADELINE.

When the reading was finished Albert sat silently staring at the floor, seeing it through a wet mist. Captain Zelotes watched him, his heavy brows drawn together and the smoke wreaths from his pipe curling slowly upward toward the office ceiling. At length he said:

"Well, Al, I had a letter, too. I presume likely it came from the same port even if not from the same member of the family. It's about you, and I think you'd better read it, maybe. I'll read it to you, if you'd rather."

Albert shook his head and held out his hand for the second letter. His grandfather gave it to him, saying as he did so: "I'd like to have you understand, Al, that I don't necessarily believe all that she says about you in this thing."

"Thanks, Grandfather," mechanically.

"All right, boy."

The second letter was, as he had surmised, from Mrs. Fosdick. It had evidently been written at top speed and at a mental temperature well above the boiling point. Mrs. Fosdick addressed Captain Zelotes Snow because she had been given to understand that he was the nearest relative, or guardian, or whatever it was, of the person concerning whom the letter was written and therefore, it was presumed, might be expected to have some measure of control over that person's actions. The person was, of course, one Albert Speranza, and Mrs. Fosdick proceeded to set forth her version of his conduct in sentences which might almost have blistered the paper. Taking advantage of her trust in her daughter's good sense and ability to take care of herself—which trust it appeared had been in a measure misplaced—he, the Speranza person, had sneakingly, underhandedly and in a despicably clandestine fashion—the lady's temper had rather gotten away from her here—succeeded in meeting her daughter in various places and by various disgraceful means and had furthermore succeeded in ensnaring her youthful affections, et cetera, et cetera.

"The poor child actually believes herself in love with him," wrote the poor child's mother. "She protests ridiculously that she is engaged to him and will marry him in spite of her father or myself or the protests of sensible people. I write to you, therefore, assuming you likewise to be a sensible person, and requesting that you use your influence with the—to put the most charitable interpretation of his conduct—misguided and foolish young man and show him the preposterous folly of his pretended engagement to my daughter. Of course the whole affair, CORRESPONDENCE INCLUDED, must cease and terminate AT ONCE."

And so on for two more pages. The color had returned to Albert's cheeks long before he finished reading. When he had finished he rose to his feet and, throwing the letter upon his grandfather's desk, turned away.

"Well, Al?" queried Captain Zelotes.

Albert's face, when he turned back to answer, was whiter than ever, but his eyes flashed fire.

"Do you believe that?" he demanded.

"What?"

"That—that stuff about my being a—a sneak and—and ensnaring her—and all the rest? Do you?"

The captain took his pipe from his mouth.

"Steady, son, steady," he said. "Didn't I tell you before you begun to read at all that I didn't necessarily believe it because that woman wrote it."

"You—you or no one else had better believe it. It's a lie."

"All right, I'm glad to hear you say so. But there's a little mite of truth here and there amongst the lies, I presume likely. For instance, you and this Fosdick girl have been—er—keepin' company?"

"Her name is Madeline—and we are engaged to be married."

"Oh! Hum—I see—I see. And, bein' as the old lady—her mother, Mrs. Fosdick, I mean—hasn't suspected anything, or, at any rate, hasn't found out anything until now, yesterday, or whenever it was, I judge you have been meetin'—er—Madeline at places where there wasn't—well, too large a crowd. Eh?"

Albert hesitated and was, momentarily, a trifle embarrassed. But he recovered at once.

"I met her first at the drug store last summer," he said defiantly. "Then I met her after that at the post office and at the hotel dance last fall, and so on. This year I met her—well, I met her first down by the beach, where I went to write. She liked poetry and—and she helped me with mine. After that she came—well, she came to help me again. And after that—after that—"

"After that it just moved along kind of natural, eh? Um-hm, I see."

"Look here, Grandfather, I want you to understand that she is—is—by George, she is the cleanest, finest, best girl in the world. Don't you get the idea that—that she isn't. She came to meet me just because she was interested in my verse and wanted to help. It wasn't until the very last that we—that we found out we cared for each other."

"All right, boy, all right. Go on, tell me the whole yarn, if you feel like it. I don't want to pry too much into your affairs, but, after all, I AM interested in those affairs, Al. Tell me as much as you can."

"I'll tell you the whole. There's nothing I can't tell, nothing I'm not proud to tell. By George, I ought to be proud! Why, Grandfather, she's wonderful!"

"Sartin, son, sartin. They always are. I mean she is, of course. Heave ahead."

So Albert told his love story. When he had finished Captain Zelote's pipe was empty, and he put it down.

"Albert," he said slowly, "I judge you mean this thing seriously. You mean to marry her some day."

"Yes, indeed I do. And I won't give her up, either. Her mother—why, what right has her mother got to say—to treat her in this way? Or to call me what she calls me in that letter? Why, by George—"

"Easy, son. As I understand it, this Madeline of yours is the only child the Fosdicks have got and when our only child is in danger of bein' carried off by somebody else—why, well, their mothers and fathers are liable to be just a little upset, especially if it comes on 'em sudden. . . . Nobody knows that better than I do," he added slowly.

Albert recognized the allusion, but he was not in the mood to be affected by it. He was not, just then, ready to make allowances for any one, particularly the parental Fosdicks.

"They have no business to be upset—not like that, anyhow," he declared. "What does that woman know about me? What right has she to say that I ensnared Madeline's affection and all that rot? Madeline and I fell in love with each other, just as other people have, I suppose."

"You suppose right," observed Captain Zelotes, dryly. "Other people have—a good many of 'em since Adam's time."

"Well, then! And what right has she to give orders that I stop writing or seeing Madeline,—all that idiotic stuff about ceasing and terminating at once? She—she—" His agitation was making him incoherent—"She talks like Lord Somebody-or-other in an old-fashioned novel or play or something. Those old fools were always rejecting undesirable suitors and ordering their daughters to do this and that, breaking their hearts, and so on. But that sort of thing doesn't go nowadays. Young people have their own ideas."

"Um-hm, Al; so I've noticed."

"Yes, indeed they have. Now, if Madeline wants to marry me and I want to marry her, who will stop us?"

The captain pulled at his beard.

"Why, nobody, Al, as I know of," he said; "provided you both keep on wantin' to marry each other long enough."

"Keep on wanting long enough? What do you mean by that?"

"Why, nothin' much, perhaps; only gettin' married isn't all just goin' to the parson. After the ceremony the rent begins and the grocers' bills and the butchers' and the bakers' and a thousand or so more. Somebody's got to pay 'em, and the money's got to come from somewhere. Your wages here, Al, poetry counted in, ain't so very big yet. Better wait a spell before you settle down to married life, hadn't you?"

"Well—well, I—I didn't say we were to be married right away, Grandfather. She and I aren't unreasonable. I'm doing better and better with my writings. Some day I'll make enough, and more. Why not?"

There was enough of the Speranza egotism in this confident assurance to bring the twinkle to the captain's eye. He twisted his beard between his finger and thumb and regarded his grandson mildly.

"Have you any idea how much 'enough' is liable to be, Al?" he inquired. "I don't know the facts about 'em, of course, but from what I have heard I judge the Fosdicks have got plenty of cash. I've heard it estimated around town from one million to fifty millions. Allowin' it's only one million, it seems likely that your—er—what's-her-name—Madeline has been used to havin' as much as fifty cents to spend whenever she wanted it. Do you cal'late to be able to earn enough makin' up poetry to keep her the way her folks have been doin'?"

"No, of course not—not at first."

"Oh, but later on—when the market price of poetry has gone up—you can, eh?"

"Look here, Grandfather, if you're making fun of me I tell you I won't stand it. This is serious; I mean it. Madeline and I are going to be married some time and no one can stop us."

"All right, son, all right. But it did seem to me that in the light of this letter from—er—your mother-in-law that's goin' to be, we ought to face the situation moderately square, anyhow. First comes marriage. Well, that's easy; any fool can get married, lots of 'em do. But then, as I said, comes supportin' yourself and wife—bills, bills, and more bills. You'll say that you and she will economize and fight it out together. Fine, first-rate, but later on there may be more of you, a child, children perhaps—"

"Grandfather!"

"It's possible, son. Such things do happen, and they cost money. More mouths to feed. Now I take it for granted that you aren't marryin' the Fosdick girl for her money—"

The interruption was prompt and made with fiery indignation.

"I never thought of her money," declared Albert. "I don't even know that she has any. If she has, I don't want it. I wouldn't take it. She is all I want."

Captain Zelotes' lip twitched.

"Judgin' from the tone of her ma's last letter to me," he observed, "she is all you would be liable to get. It don't read as if many—er—weddin' presents from the bride's folks would come along with her. But, there, there, Al don't get mad. I know this is a long ways from bein' a joke to you and, in a way, it's no joke for me. Course I had realized that some day you'd be figgerin', maybe, on gettin' married, but I did hope the figgerin' wouldn't begin for some years yet. And when you did, I rather hoped—well, I—I hoped. . . . However, we won't stop to bother with that now. Let's stick to this letter of Mrs. Fosdick's here. I must answer that, I suppose, whether I want to or not, to-day. Well, Al, you tell me, I understand that there has been nothin' underhand in your acquaintance with her daughter. Other than keepin' the engagement a secret, that is?"

"Yes, I do."

"And you mean to stick by your guns and. . . . Well, what is it? Come in!"

There had been a knock upon the office door. In answer to his employer's summons, Mr. Keeler appeared. He held a card in his hand.

"Sorry to disturb you, Cap'n Lote," he said. "Yes, I be, yes, sir. But I judged maybe 'twas somethin' important about the lumber for his house and he seemed anxious to see you, so I took the risk and knocked. Um-hm—yes, yes, yes."

Captain Zelotes looked at the card. Then he adjusted his spectacles and looked again.

"Humph!" he grunted. "Humph! . . . We-ell, Labe, I guess likely you might show him in here. Wait just a minute before you do it, though. I'll open the door when I want him to come."

"All right, Cap'n Lote. Yes, yes," observed Mr. Keeler and departed. The captain looked thoughtfully at the card.

"Al," he said, after a moment's reflection, "we'll have to cut this talk of ours short for a little spell. You go back to your desk and wait there until I call you. Hold on," as his grandson moved toward the door of the outer office. "Don't go that way. Go out through the side door into the yard and come in the front way. There's—er—there's a man waitin' to see me, and—er—perhaps he'd better not see you first."

Albert stared at him uncomprehendingly.

"Better not see ME?" he repeated. "Why shouldn't he see me?"

Captain Zelotes handed the card to Albert.

"Better let me talk with him first, Al," he said. "You can have your chance later on."

The card bore the name of Mr. Fletcher Story Fosdick.



CHAPTER XI

Albert read the name on the card. He was too astonished to speak. Her father! He was here! He—

His grandfather spoke again, and his tone was brisk and businesslike.

"Go on, Al," he ordered. "Out through this side door and around to the front. Lively, son, lively!"

But the young man's wits were returning. He scowled at the card.

"No," he said stoutly, "I'm not going to run away. I'm not afraid of him. I haven't done anything to be ashamed of."

The captain nodded. "If you had, I should ASK you to run away," he said. "As it is, I just ask you to step out and wait a little while, that's all."

"But, Grandfather, I WANT to see him."

"All right, I want you to—but not until he and I have talked first. Come, boy, come! I've lived a little longer than you have, and maybe I know about half as much about some things. This is one of 'em. You clear out and stand by. I'll call you when I want you."

Albert went, but reluctantly. After he had gone his grandfather walked to the door of the outer office and opened it.

"Step aboard, Mr. Fosdick," he said. "Come in, sir."

Mr. Fletcher Fosdick was a large man, portly, and with a head which was rapidly losing its thatch. His smoot-shaven face was ruddy and his blue eye mild. He entered the private office of Z. Snow and Co. and shook the hand which Captain Zelotes proffered.

"How do you do, Captain Snow?" he asked pleasantly. "You and I have had some business dealings, but we have never met before, I believe."

The captain waved toward a chair. "That's a fact, Mr. Fosdick," he said. "I don't believe we ever have, but it's better late than by and by, as the feller said. Sit down, sit down, Mr. Fosdick. Throw off your coat, won't you? It's sort of warm in here compared to out door."

The visitor admitted the difference in temperature between the interior and exterior of the building, and removed his overcoat. Also he sat down. Captain Zelotes opened a drawer of his desk and produced a box of cigars.

"Have a smoke, won't you?" he inquired.

Mr. Fosdick glanced at the label on the box.

"Why—why, I was rather hoping you would smoke one of mine," he said. "I have a pocket full."

"When I come callin' on you at your place in New York I will smoke yours. Now it kind of looks to me as if you'd ought to smoke mine. Seems reasonable when you think it over, don't it?"

Fosdick smiled. "Perhaps you're right," he said. He took one of the gaudily banded perfectos from his host's box and accepted a light from the match the captain held. Both men blew a cloud of smoke and through those clouds each looked at the other. The preliminaries were over, but neither seemed particularly anxious to begin the real conversation. It was the visitor who, at last, began it.

"Captain Snow," he said, "I presume your clerk told you I wished to see you on a matter of business."

"Who? Oh, Labe, you mean? Yes, he told me."

"I told him to tell you that. It may surprise you, however, to learn that the business I wished to see you about—that I came on from New York to see you about—has nothing whatever to do with the house I'm building down here."

Captain Zelotes removed his cigar from his lips and looked meditatively at its burning end. "No-o," he said slowly, "that don't surprise me very much. I cal'lated 'twasn't about the house you wished to see me."

"Oh, I see! . . . Humph!" The Fosdick mild blue eye lost, for the moment, just a trifle of its mildness and became almost keen, as its owner flashed a glance at the big figure seated at the desk. "I see," said Mr. Fosdick. "And have you—er—guessed what I did come to see you about?"

"No-o. I wouldn't call it guessin', exactly."

"Wouldn't you? What would you call it?"

"We-ll, I don't know but I'd risk callin' it knowin'. Yes, I think likely I would."

"Oh, I see. . . . Humph! Have you had a letter—on the subject?"

"Ye-es."

"I see. From Mrs. Fosdick, of course. She said she was going to write—I'm not sure she didn't say she had written; but I had the impression it was to—well, to another member of your family, Captain Snow."

"No, 'twas to me. Come this mornin's mail."

"I see. My mistake. Well, I'm obliged to her in a way. If the news has been broken to you, I shan't have to break it and we can get down to brass tacks just so much sooner. The surprise being over—I take it, it WAS a surprise, Captain?"

"You take it right. Just as much of a surprise to me as you."

"Of course. Well, the surprise being over for both of us, we can talk of the affair—calmly and coolly. What do you think about it, Captain?"

"Oh, I don't know as I know exactly what to think. What do YOU think about it, Mr. Fosdick?"

"I think—I imagine I think very much as you do."

"I shouldn't be surprised. And—er—what's your notion of what I think?"

Captain Zelotes' gray eye twinkled as he asked the question, and the Fosdick blue eye twinkled in return. Both men laughed.

"We aren't getting very far this way, Captain," observed the visitor. "There's no use dodging, I suppose. I, for one, am not very well pleased. Mrs. Fosdick, for another, isn't pleased at all; she is absolutely and entirely opposed to the whole affair. She won't hear of it, that's all, and she said so much that I thought perhaps I had better come down here at once, see you, and—and the young fellow with the queer name—"

"My grandson."

"Why yes. He is your grandson, isn't he? I beg your pardon."

"That's all right. I shan't fight with you because you don't like his name. Go ahead. You decided to come and see him—and me—?"

"Yes, I did. I decided to come because it has been my experience that a frank, straight talk is better, in cases like this, than a hundred letters. And that the time to talk was now, before matters between the young foo—the young people went any further. Don't you agree with me?"

Captain Zelotes nodded.

"That now is a good time to talk? Yes, I do," he said.

"Good! Then suppose we talk."

"All right."

There was another interval of silence. Then Fosdick broke it with a chuckle. "And I'm the one to do the talking, eh?" he said.

Captain Lote's eye twinkled. "We-ll, you came all the way from New York on purpose, you know," he observed. Then he added: "But there, Mr. Fosdick, I don't want you to think I ain't polite or won't talk, myself. I'll do my share when the time comes. But it does seem to me that you ought to do yours first as it's your family so far that's done the objectin'. . . . Your cigar's gone out. Have another light, won't you?"

The visitor shook his head. "No, thank you, not now," he said hastily, placing the defunct cigar carefully on the captain's desk. "I won't smoke for the minute. So you want me to begin the talking, do you? It seems to me I have begun it. I told you that I do not like the idea of my daughter's being engaged to—to say nothing of marrying—your grandson. My wife likes it even less than I do. That is enough of a statement to begin with, isn't it?"

"Why, no, not exactly, if you'll excuse my sayin' so. Your daughter herself—how does she feel about it?"

"Oh, she is enthusiastic, naturally. She appears to be suffering from temporary insanity on the subject."

"She don't seem to think it's quite as—er—preposterous, and ridiculous and outrageous—and Lord knows what all—as your wife does, eh?"

"No. I say, Snow, I hope you're not too deeply offended by what my wife wrote you. I judge you are quoting from her letter and apparently she piled it on red-hot. You'll have to excuse her; she was almost wild all day yesterday. I'll ask your pardon on her behalf."

"Sho, sho! No need, Mr. Fosdick, no need at all. I know what women are, even the easy-goin' kind, when they've got steam up. I've got a wife—and I had a daughter. But, gettin' back on the course again, you think your daughter's crazy because she wants to marry my grandson. Is that it?"

"Why, no, I wouldn't say that, exactly. Of course, I wouldn't say that."

"But, you see, you did say it. However, we'll leave that to one side for a spell. What objection—what real objection is there to those two marryin'—my grandson and your daughter—provided that they care for each other as they'd ought to?"

Mr. Fosdick's expression changed slightly. His tone, as he replied to the question, was colder and his manner less cordial.

"I don't know that it is worth while answering that in detail," he said, after an instant's pause. "Frankly, Captain Snow, I had rather hoped you would see, for yourself, the reasons why such a marriage wouldn't be desirable. If you don't see them, if you are backing up your grandson in his business, why—well, there is no use in our discussing the matter any further, is there? We should only lose our tempers and not gain much. So we had better end it now, I think."

He rose to his feet. Captain Zelotes, leaning forward, held up a protesting hand.

"Now—now, Mr. Fosdick," he said earnestly, "I don't want you to misunderstand me. And I'm sorry if what I said has made you mad."

Fosdick smiled. "Oh, I'm not mad," he answered cheerfully. "I make it a rule in all my business dealings not to get mad, or, more especially, not to let the other fellow know that I'm getting that way. My temper hasn't a ruffle in it just now, and I am leaving merely because I want it to remain smooth. I judge that you and I aren't going to agree. All right, then we'll differ, but we'll differ without a fight, that's all. Good afternoon, Captain."

But Captain Lote's hand still remained uplifted.

"Mr. Fosdick," he said, "just a minute now—just a minute. You never have met Albert, my grandson, have you? Never even seen him, maybe?"

"No, but I intend to meet him and talk with him before I leave South Harniss. He was one of the two people I came here to meet."

"And I was the other, eh? Um-hm. . . . I see. You think you've found out where I stand and now you'll size him up. Honest, Mr. Fosdick, I . . . Humph! Mind if I tell you a little story? 'Twon't take long. When I was a little shaver, me and my granddad, the first Cap'n Lote Snow—there's been two since—were great chums. When he was home from sea he and I stuck together like hot pitch and oakum. One day we were sittin' out in the front yard of his house—it's mine, now—watchin' a hoptoad catch flies. You've seen a toad catch flies, haven't you, Mr. Fosdick? Mr. Toad sits there, lookin' half asleep and as pious and demure as a pickpocket at camp-meetin', until a fly comes along and gets too near. Then, Zip! out shoots about six inches of toad tongue and that fly's been asked in to dinner. Well, granddad and I sat lookin' at our particular toad when along came a bumble-bee and lighted on a honeysuckle blossom right in front of the critter. The toad didn't take time to think it over, all he saw was a square meal, and his tongue flashed out and nailed that bumble-bee and snapped it into the pantry. In about a half second, though, there was a change. The pantry had been emptied, the bumble-bee was on his way again, and Mr. Toad was on his, hoppin' lively and huntin' for—well, for ice water or somethin' coolin', I guess likely. Granddad tapped me on the shoulder. 'Sonny,' says he, 'there's a lesson for you. That hoptoad didn't wait to make sure that bumble-bee was good to eat; he took it for granted, and was sorry afterward. It don't pay to jump at conclusions, son,' he says. 'Some conclusions are like that bumble-bee's, they have stings in 'em.'"

Captain Lote, having finished his story, felt in his pocket for a match. Fosdick, for an instant, appeared puzzled. Then he laughed.

"I see," he said. "You think I made too quick a jump when I concluded you were backing your grandson in this affair. All right, I'm glad to hear it. What do you want me to do, sit down again and listen?"

He resumed his seat as he asked the question. Captain Zelotes nodded.

"If you don't mind," he answered. "You see, you misunderstood me, Mr. Fosdick. I didn't mean any more than what I said when I asked you what real objection there was, in your opinion to Albert's marryin' your—er—Madeline, that's her name, I believe. Seems to me the way for us to get to an understandin'—you and I—is to find out just how the situation looks to each of us. When we've found out that, we'll know how nigh we come to agreein' or disagreein' and can act accordin'. Sounds reasonable, don't it?"

Fosdick nodded in his turn. "Perfectly," he admitted. "Well, ask your questions, and I'll answer them. After that perhaps I'll ask some myself. Go ahead."

"I have gone ahead. I've asked one already."

"Yes, but it is such a general question. There may be so many objections."

"I see. All right, then I'll ask some: What do the lawyers call 'em?—Atlantic? Pacific? I've got it—I'll ask some specific questions. Here's one. Do you object to Al personally? To his character?"

"Not at all. We know nothing about his character. Very likely he may be a young saint."

"Well, he ain't, so we'll let that slide. He's a good boy, though, so far as I've ever been able to find out. Is it his looks? You've never seen him, but your wife has. Don't she like his looks?"

"She hasn't mentioned his looks to me."

"Is it his money? He hasn't got any of his own."

"We-ell, of course that does count a little bit. Madeline is our only child, and naturally we should prefer to have her pick out a husband with a dollar or so in reserve."

"Um-hm. Al's twenty-one, Mr. Fosdick. When I was twenty-one I had some put by, but not much. I presume likely 'twas different with you, maybe. Probably you were pretty well fixed."

Fosdick laughed aloud. "You make a good cross-examiner, Snow," he observed. "As a matter of fact, when I was twenty-one I was assistant bookkeeper in a New Haven broker's office. I didn't have a cent except my salary, and I had that only for the first five days in the week."

"However, you got married?"

"Yes, I did. More fool I! If I had known anything, I should have waited five years at least. I didn't have any one to tell me so. My father and mother were both dead."

"Think you'd have listened to 'em if they had been alive and had told you? However, however, that's all to one side. Well, Albert's havin' no money to speak of is an objection—and a good honest one from your point of view. His prospects here in this business of mine are fair, and he is doin' better at it than he was, so he may make a comf'table livin'—a comf'table South Harniss livin', that is—by and by."

"Oh, he is with you, then? Oh, yes, I remember my wife said he worked in your office. But she said more about his being some sort of a—a poet, wasn't it?"

For the first time since the interview began the captain looked ill at ease and embarrassed.

"Thunderation!" he exclaimed testily, "you mustn't pay attention to that. He does make up poetry' pieces—er—on the side, as you might say, but I keep hopin' all the time he'll grow out of it, give him time. It 'ain't his regular job, you mustn't think 'tis."

The visitor laughed again. "I'm glad of that," he said, "both for your sake and mine. I judge that you and I, Snow, are in complete agreement as far as our opinion of poetry and that sort of stuff is concerned. Of course I'm not condemning all poetry, you understand. Longfellow and Tennyson and the regular poets are all right. You understand what I'm getting at?"

"Sartin. I used to know 'Down went the R'yal George with all her crew complete,' and a lot more. Used to say 'em over to myself when I first went to sea and stood watch alone nights. But they were different, you know; they—they—"

"Sure! My wife—why, I give you my word that my own wife and her set go perfectly daffy over chaps who write stuff that rhymes and that the papers are printing columns about. Snow, if this grandson of yours was a genuine press-touted, women's club poet instead of a would-be—well, I don't know what might happen. In that case she might be as strong FOR this engagement as she is now against it."

He paused, seeming a bit ashamed of his own heat. Captain Zelotes, however, regarded him with more approval than he had yet shown.

"It's been my observation that women are likely to get off the course chasin' false signals like that," he observed. "When a man begins lettin' his hair and his mouth run wild together seems as if the combination had an attraction for a good many women folks. Al keeps his hair cut, though, I'll say that for him," he added. "It curls some, but it ain't long. I wouldn't have him in the office if 'twas."

"Well, Mr. Fosdick," he continued, "what other objections are they? Manners? Family and relations? Education? Any objections along that line?"

"No-o, no; I—well, I don't know; you see, I don't know much about the young fellow."

"Perhaps I can help you out. As to manners—well, you can judge them for yourself when you see him. He seems to be in about every kind of social doin's there is down here, and he's as much or more popular with the summer folks than with the year-'rounders. Education? Well, that's fair to middlin', as I see it. He spent nine or ten years in a mighty expensive boardin' school up in New York State."

"Did he? What school?"

The captain gave the name of the school. Fosdick looked surprised.

"Humph! That IS a good school," he said.

"Is it? Depends on what you call good, I cal'late. Al learned a good deal of this and that, a little bit of foreign language, some that they call dead and some that ought to be dead—and buried, 'cordin' to my notion. When he came to me he couldn't add up a column of ten figgers without makin' a mistake, and as for business—well, what he knew about business was about equal to what Noah knew about a gas engine."

He paused to chuckle, and Fosdick chuckled with him.

"As to family," went on Captain Lote, "he's a Snow on his mother's side, and there's been seven generations of Snow's in this part of the Cape since the first one landed here. So far as I know, they've all managed to keep out of jail, which may have been more good luck than deservin' in some cases."

"His father?" queried Fosdick.

The captain's heavy brows drew together. "His father was a Portygee—or Spaniard, I believe is right—and he was a play-actor, one of those—what do you call 'em?—opera singers."

Fosdick seemed surprised and interested. "Oh, indeed," he exclaimed, "an opera singer? . . . Why, he wasn't Speranza, the baritone, was he?"

"Maybe; I believe he was. He married my daughter and—well, we won't talk about him, if you don't mind."

"But Speranza was a—"

"IF you don't mind, Mr. Fosdick."

Captain Lote lapsed into silence, drumming the desk with his big fingers. His visitor waited for a few moments. At length he said:

"Well, Captain Snow, I have answered your questions and you have answered mine. Do you think we are any nearer an agreement now?"

Captain Zelotes seemed to awake with a start. "Eh?" he queried. "Agreement? Oh, I don't know. Did you find any—er—what you might call vital objections in the boy's record?"

"No-o. No, all that is all right. His family and his education and all the rest are good enough, I'm sure. But, nevertheless—"

"You still object to the young folks gettin' married."

"Yes, I do. Hang it all, Snow, this isn't a thing one can reason out, exactly. Madeline is our only child; she is our pet, our baby. Naturally her mother and I have planned for her, hoped for her, figured that some day, when we had to give her up, it would be to—to—"

"To somebody that wasn't Albert Speranza of South Harniss, Mass. . . . Eh?"

"Yes. Not that your grandson isn't all right. I have no doubt he is a tip-top young fellow. But, you see—"

Captain Lote suddenly leaned forward. "Course I see, Mr. Fosdick," he interrupted. "Course I see. You object, and the objection ain't a mite weaker on account of your not bein' able to say exactly what 'tis."

"That's the idea. Thank you, Captain."

"You're welcome. I can understand. I know just how you feel, because I've been feelin' the same way myself."

"Oh, you have? Good! Then you can sympathize with Mrs. Fosdick and with me. You see—you understand why we had rather our daughter did not marry your grandson."

"Sartin. You see, I've had just the same sort of general kind of objection to Al's marryin' your daughter."

Mr. Fletcher Fosdick leaned slowly backward in his chair. His appearance was suggestive of one who has received an unexpected thump between the eyes.

"Oh, you have!" he said again, but not with the same expression.

"Um-hm," said Captain Zelotes gravely. "I'm like you in one way; I've never met your Madeline any more than you have met Al. I've seen her once or twice, and she is real pretty and nice-lookin'. But I don't know her at all. Now I don't doubt for a minute but that she's a real nice girl and it might be that she'd make Al a fairly good wife."

"Er—well,—thanks."

"Oh, that's all right, I mean it. It might be she would. And I ain't got a thing against you or your folks."

"Humph,—er—thanks again."

"That's all right; you don't need to thank me. But it's this way with me—I live in South Harniss all the year round. I want to live here till I die, and—after I die I'd like first-rate to have Al take up the Z. Snow and Co. business and the Snow house and land and keep them goin' till HE dies. Mind, I ain't at all sure that he'll do it, or be capable of doin' it, but that's what I'd like. Now you're in New York most of the year, and so's your wife and daughter. New York is all right—I ain't sayin' a word against it—but New York and South Harniss are different."

The Fosdick lip twitched. "Somewhat different," he admitted.

"Um-hm. That sounds like a joke, I know; but I don't mean it so, not now. What I mean is that I know South Harniss and South Harniss folks. I don't know New York—not so very well, though I've been there plenty of times—and I don't know New York ways. But I do know South Harniss ways, and they suit me. Would they suit your daughter—not just for summer, but as a reg'lar thing right straight along year in and out? I doubt it, Mr. Fosdick, I doubt it consid'able. Course I don't know your daughter—"

"I do—and I share your doubts."

"Um-hm. But whether she liked it or not she'd have to come here if she married my grandson. Either that or he'd have to go to New York. And if he went to New York, how would he earn his livin'? Get a new bookkeepin' job and start all over again, or live on poetry?"

Mr. Fosdick opened his mouth as if to speak, seemed to change his mind and closed it again, without speaking. Captain Zelotes, looking keenly at him, seemed to guess his thoughts.

"Of course," he said deliberately, but with a firmness which permitted no misunderstanding of his meaning, "of course you mustn't get it into your head for one minute that the boy is figgerin' on your daughter's bein' a rich girl. He hasn't given that a thought. You take my word for that, Mr. Fosdick. He doesn't know how much money she or you have got and he doesn't care. He doesn't care a continental darn."

His visitor smiled slightly. "Nevertheless," he began. The captain interrupted him.

"No, there ain't any nevertheless," he said. "Albert has been with me enough years now so that I know a little about him. And I know that all he wants is your daughter. As to how much she's worth in money or how they're goin' to live after he's got her—I know that he hasn't given it one thought. I don't imagine she has, either. For one reason," he added, with a smile, "he is too poor a business man to think of marriage as a business, bill-payin' contract, and for another,—for another—why, good Lord, Fosdick!" he exclaimed, leaning forward, "don't you know what this thing means to those two young folks? It means just moonshine and mush and lookin' into each other's eyes, that's about all. THEY haven't thought any practical thoughts about it. Why, think what their ages are! Think of yourself at that age! Can't you remember. . . . Humph! Well, I'm talkin' fifty revolutions to the second. I beg your pardon."

"That's all right, Snow. And I believe you have the situation sized up as it is. Still—"

"Excuse me, Mr. Fosdick, but don't you think it's about time you had a look at the boy himself? I'm goin' to ask him to come in here and meet you."

Fosdick looked troubled. "Think it is good policy?" he asked doubtfully. "I want to see him and speak with him, but I do hate a scene."

"There won't be any scene. You just meet him face to face and talk enough with him to get a little idea of what your first impression is. Don't contradict or commit yourself or anything. And I'll send him out at the end of two or three minutes."

Without waiting for a reply, he rose, opened the door to the outer office and called, "Al, come in here!" When Albert had obeyed the order he closed the door behind him and turning to the gentleman in the visitor's chair, said: "Mr. Fosdick, this is my grandson, Albert Speranza. Al, shake hands with Mr. Fosdick from New York."

While awaiting the summons to meet the father of his adored, Albert had been rehearsing and re-rehearsing the speeches he intended making when that meeting took place. Sitting at his desk, pen in hand and pretending to be busy with the bookkeeping of Z. Snow and Company, he had seen, not the ruled page of the day book, but the parental countenance of the Honorable Fletcher Fosdick. And, to his mind's eye, that countenance was as rugged and stern as the rock-bound coast upon which the Pilgrims landed, and about as unyielding and impregnable as the door of the office safe. So, when his grandfather called him, he descended from the tall desk stool and crossed the threshold of the inner room, a trifle pale, a little shaky at the knees, but with the set chin and erect head of one who, facing almost hopeless odds, intends fighting to the last gasp.

To his astonishment the Fosdick countenance was not as his imagination had pictured it. The blue eyes met his, not with a glare or a glower, but with a look of interest and inquiry. The Fosdick hand shook his with politeness, and the Fosdick manner was, if not genial, at least quiet and matter of fact. He was taken aback. What did it mean? Was it possible that Madeline's father was inclined to regard her engagement to him with favor? A great throb of joy accompanied the thought. Then he remembered the letter he had just read, the letter from Madeline's mother, and the hope subsided.

"Albert," said Captain Zelotes, "Mr. Fosdick has come on here to talk with us; that is, with me and you, about your affairs. He and I have talked up to the point where it seemed to me you ought to come in for a spell. I've told him that the news that you and his daughter were—er—favorably disposed toward each other was as sudden and as big a surprise to me as 'twas to him. Even your grandma don't know it yet. Now I presume likely he'd like to ask you a few questions. Heave ahead, Mr. Fosdick."

He relit his cigar stump and leaned back in his chair. Mr. Fosdick leaned forward in his. Albert stood very straight, his shoulders braced for the encounter. The quizzical twinkle shone in Captain Lote's eye as he regarded his grandson. Fosdick also smiled momentarily as he caught the expression of the youth's face.

"Well, Speranza," he began, in so cheerful a tone that Albert's astonishment grew even greater, "your grandfather has been kind enough to get us through the preliminaries, so we'll come at once to the essentials. You and my daughter consider yourselves engaged to marry?"

"Yes, sir. We ARE engaged."

"I see. How long have you—um—been that way, so to speak?"

"Since last August."

"Why haven't you said anything about it to us—to Mrs. Fosdick or me or your people here? You must excuse these personal questions. As I have just said to Captain Snow, Madeline is our only child, and her happiness and welfare mean about all there is in life to her mother and me. So, naturally, the man she is going to marry is an important consideration. You and I have never met before, so the quickest way of reaching an understanding between us is by the question route. You get my meaning?"

"Yes, sir, I guess I do."

"Good! Then we'll go ahead. Why have you two kept it a secret so long?"

"Because—well, because we knew we couldn't marry yet a while, so we thought we had better not announce it for the present."

"Oh! . . . And the idea that perhaps Mrs. Fosdick and I might be slightly interested didn't occur to you?"

"Why, yes, sir, it did. But,—but we thought it best not to tell you until later."

"Perhaps the suspicion that we might not be overjoyed by the news had a little weight with you, eh? Possibly that helped to delay the—er—announcement?"

"No, sir, I—I don't think it did."

"Oh, don't you! Perhaps you thought we WOULD be overjoyed?"

"No, sir. We didn't think so very much about it. Well, that's not quite true. Madeline felt that her mother—and you, too, sir, I suppose, although she didn't speak as often of you in that way—she felt that her mother would disapprove at first, and so we had better wait."

"Until when?"

"Until—until by and by. Until I had gone ahead further, you know."

"I'm not sure that I do know. Gone ahead how? Until you had a better position, more salary?"

"No, not exactly. Until my writings were better known. Until I was a little more successful."

"Successful? Until you wrote more poetry, do you mean?"

"Yes, sir. Poetry and other things, stories and plays, perhaps."

"Do you mean—Did you figure that you and Madeline were to live on what you made by writing poetry and the other stuff?"

"Yes, sir, of course."

Fosdick looked across at Captain Zelotes. The Captain's face was worth looking at.

"Here, here, hold on!" he exclaimed, jumping into the conversation. "Al, what are you talkin' about? You're bookkeeper for me, ain't you; for this concern right here where you are? What do you mean by talkin' as if your job was makin' up poetry pieces? That's only what you do on the side, and you know it. Eh, ain't that so?"

Albert hesitated. He had, momentarily, forgotten his grandfather and the latter's prejudices. After all, what was the use of stirring up additional trouble.

"Yes, Grandfather," he said.

"Course it's so. It's in this office that you draw your wages."

"Yes, Grandfather."

"All right. Excuse me for nosin' in, Mr. Fosdick, but I knew the boy wasn't puttin' the thing as plain as it ought to be, and I didn't want you to get the wrong notion. Heave ahead."

Fosdick smiled slightly. "All right, Captain," he said. "I get it, I think. Well, then," turning again to Albert, "your plan for supporting my daughter was to wait until your position here, plus the poetry, should bring in sufficient revenue. It didn't occur to you that—well, that there might be a possibility of getting money—elsewhere?"

Albert plainly did not understand, but it was just as plain that his grandfather did. Captain Zelotes spoke sharply.

"Mr. Fosdick," he said, "I just answered that question for you."

"Yes, I know. But if you were in my place you might like to have him answer it. I don't mean to be offensive, but business is business, and, after all, this is a business talk. So—"

The Captain interrupted. "So we'll talk it in a business way, eh?" he snapped. "All right. Al, what Mr. Fosdick means is had you cal'lated that, if you married his daughter, maybe her dad's money might help you and her to keep goin'? To put it even plainer: had you planned some on her bein' a rich girl?"

Fosdick looked annoyed. "Oh, I say, Snow!" he cried. "That's too strong, altogether."

"Not a mite. It's what you've had in the back of your head all along. I'm just helpin' it to come out of the front. Well, Al?"

The red spots were burning in the Speranza cheeks. He choked as he answered.

"No," he cried fiercely. "Of course I haven't planned on any such thing. I don't know how rich she is. I don't care. I wish she was as poor as—as I am. I want HER, that's all. And she wants me. We don't either of us care about money. I wouldn't take a cent of your money, Mr. Fosdick. But I—I want Madeline and—and—I shall have her."

"In spite of her parents, eh?"

"Yes. . . . I'm sorry to speak so, Mr. Fosdick, but it is true. We—we love each other. We—we've agreed to wait for each other, no matter—no matter if it is years and years. And as for the money and all that, if you disinherit her, or—or whatever it is they do—we don't care. I—I hope you will. I—she—"

Captain Zelotes' voice broke in upon the impassioned outburst.

"Steady, Al; steady, son," he cautioned quietly. "I cal'late you've said enough. I don't think any more's necessary. You'd better go back to your desk now."

"But, Grandfather, I want him to understand—"

"I guess likely he does. I should say you'd made it real plain. Go now, Al."

Albert turned, but, with a shaking hand upon the doorknob, turned back again.

"I'm—I—I'm sorry, Mr. Fosdick," he faltered. "I—I didn't mean to say anything to hurt your feelings. But—but, you see, Madeline—she and I—we—"

He could not go on. Fosdick's nod and answer were not unkindly. "All right, Speranza," he said, "I'm not offended. Hope I wasn't too blunt, myself. Good-day."

When the door had closed behind the young man he turned to Captain Lote.

"Sorry if I offended you, Snow," he observed. "I threw in that hint about marrying just to see what effect it would have, that's all."

"Um-hm. So I judged. Well, you saw, didn't you?"

"I did. Say, Captain, except as a prospective son-in-law, and then only because I don't see him in that light—I rather like that grandson of yours. He's a fine, upstanding young chap."

The captain made no reply. He merely pulled at his beard. However, he did not look displeased.

"He's a handsome specimen, isn't he?" went on Fosdick. "No wonder Madeline fell for his looks. Those and the poetry together are a combination hard to resist—at her age. And he's a gentleman. He handled himself mighty well while I was stringing him just now."

The beard tugging continued. "Um-hm," observed Captain Zelotes dryly; "he does pretty well for a—South Harniss gentleman. But we're kind of wastin' time, ain't we, Mr. Fosdick? In spite of his looks and his manners and all the rest, now that you've seen him you still object to that engagement, I take it."

"Why, yes, I do. The boy is all right, I'm sure, but—"

"Sartin, I understand. I feel the same way about your girl. She's all right, I'm sure, but—"

"We're agreed on everything, includin' the 'but.' And the 'but' is that New York is one place and South Harniss is another."

"Exactly."

"So we don't want 'em to marry. Fine. First rate! Only now we come to the most important 'but' of all. What are we going to do about it? Suppose we say no and they say yes and keep on sayin' it? Suppose they decide to get married no matter what we say. How are we goin' to stop it?"

His visitor regarded him for a moment and then broke into a hearty laugh.

"Snow," he declared, "you're all right. You surely have the faculty of putting your finger on the weak spots. Of course we can't stop it. If these two young idiots have a mind to marry and keep that mind, they WILL marry and we can't prevent it any more than we could prevent the tide coming in to-morrow morning. I realized that this was a sort of fool's errand, my coming down here. I know that this isn't the age when parents can forbid marriages and get away with it, as they used to on the stage in the old plays. Boys and girls nowadays have a way of going their own gait in such matters. But my wife doesn't see it in exactly that way, and she was so insistent on my coming down here to stop the thing if I could that—well, I came."

"I'm glad you did, Mr. Fosdick, real glad. And, although I agree with you that the very worst thing to do, if we want to stop this team from pullin' together, is to haul back on the bits and holler 'Whoa,' still I'm kind of hopeful that, maybe . . . humph! I declare, it looks as if I'd have to tell you another story. I'm gettin' as bad as Cap'n Hannibal Doane used to be, and they used to call him 'The Rope Walk' 'cause he spun so many yarns."

Fosdick laughed again. "You may go as far as you like with your stories, Captain," he said. "I can grow fat on them."

"Thanks. Well, this ain't a story exactly; it just kind of makes the point I'm tryin' to get at. Calvin Bangs had a white mare one time and the critter had a habit of runnin' away. Once his wife, Hannah J., was in the buggy all by herself, over to the Ostable Fair, Calvin havin' got out to buy some peanuts or somethin'. The mare got scared of the noise and crowd and bolted. As luck would have it, she went right through the fence and out onto the trottin' track. And around that track she went, hell bent for election. All hands was runnin' alongside hollerin' 'Stop her! Stop her! 'but not Calvin—no SIR! He waited till the mare was abreast of him, the mare on two legs and the buggy on two wheels and Hannah 'most anywheres between the dasher and the next world, and then he sung out: 'Give her her head, Hannah! Give her her head. She'll stop when she runs down.'"

He laughed and his visitor laughed with him.

"I gather," observed the New Yorker, "that you believe it the better policy to give our young people their heads."

"In reason—yes, I do. It's my judgment that an affair like this will hurry more and more if you try too hard to stop it. If you don't try at all so any one would notice it, it may run down and stop of itself, the way Calvin's mare did."

Fosdick nodded reflectively. "I'm inclined to agree with you," he said. "But does that mean that they're to correspond, write love letters, and all that?"

"Why, in reason, maybe. If we say no to that, they'll write anyhow, won't they?"

"Of course. . . . How would it do to get them to promise to write nothing that their parents might not see? Of course I don't mean for your grandson to show you his letters before he sends them to Madeline. He's too old for that, and he would refuse. But suppose you asked him to agree to write nothing that Madeline would not be willing to show her mother—or me. Do you think he would?"

"Maybe. I'll ask him. . . . Yes, I guess likely he'd do that."

"My reason for suggesting it is, frankly, not so much on account of the young people as to pacify my wife. I am not afraid—not very much afraid of this love affair. They are young, both of them. Give them time, and—as you say, Snow, the thing may run down, peter out."

"I'm in hopes 'twill. It's calf love, as I see it, and I believe 'twill pay to give the calves rope enough."

"So do I. No, I'm not much troubled about the young people. But Mrs. Fosdick—well, my trouble will be with her. She'll want to have your boy shot or jailed or hanged or something."

"I presume likely. I guess you'll have to handle her the way another feller who used to live here in South Harniss said he handled his wife. 'We don't never have any trouble at all,' says he. 'Whenever she says yes or no, I say the same thing. Later on, when it comes to doin', I do what I feel like.' . . . Eh? You're not goin', are you, Mr. Fosdick?"

His visitor had risen and was reaching for his coat. Captain Zelotes also rose.

"Don't hurry, don't hurry," he begged.

"Sorry, but I must. I want to be back in New York tomorrow morning."

"But you can't, can you? To do that you'll have to get up to Boston or Fall River, and the afternoon train's gone. You'd better stay and have supper along with my wife and me, stay at our house over night, and take the early train after breakfast to-morrow."

"I wish I could; I'd like nothing better. But I can't."

"Sure?" Then, with a smile, he added: "Al needn't eat with us, you know, if his bein' there makes either of you feel nervous."

Fosdick laughed again. "I think I should be willing to risk the nervousness," he replied. "But I must go, really. I've hired a chap at the garage here to drive me to Boston in his car and I'll take the midnight train over."

"Humph! Well, if you must, you must. Hope you have a comf'table trip, Mr. Fosdick. Better wrap up warm; it's pretty nigh a five-hour run to Boston and there's some cool wind over the Ostable marshes this time of year. Good-by, sir. Glad to have had this talk with you."

His visitor held out his hand. "So am I, Snow," he said heartily. "Mighty glad."

"I hope I wasn't too short and brisk at the beginnin'. You see, I'd just read your wife's letter, and—er—well, of course, I didn't know—just—you see, you and I had never met, and so—"

"Certainly, certainly. I quite understand. And, fool's errand or not, I'm very glad I came here. If you'll pardon my saying so, it was worth the trip to get acquainted with you. I hope, whatever comes of the other thing, that our acquaintanceship will continue."

"Same here, same here. Go right out the side door, Mr. Fosdick, saves goin' through the office. Good day, sir."

He watched the bulky figure of the New York banker tramping across the yard between the piles of lumber. A moment later he entered the outer office. Albert and Keeler were at their desks. Captain Zelotes approached the little bookkeeper.

"Labe," he queried, "there isn't anything particular you want me to talk about just now, is there?"

Lahan looked up in surprise from his figuring.

"Why—why, no, Cap'n Lote, don't know's there is," he said. "Don't know's there is, not now, no, no, no."

His employer nodded. "Good!" he exclaimed. "Then I'm goin' back inside there and sit down and rest my chin for an hour, anyhow. I've talked so much to-day that my jaws squeak. Don't disturb me for anything short of a fire or a mutiny."



CHAPTER XII

He was not disturbed and that evening, after supper was over, he was ready to talk again. He and Albert sat together in the sitting room—Mrs. Snow and Rachel were in the kitchen washing dishes—and Captain Zelotes told his grandson as much as he thought advisable to tell of his conversation with the Honorable Fletcher Fosdick. At first Albert was inclined to rebel at the idea of permitting his letters to Madeline to be read by the latter's parents, but at length he agreed.

"I'll do it because it may make it easier for her," he said. "She'll have a dreadful time, I suppose, with that unreasonable mother of hers. But, by George, Grandfather," he exclaimed, "isn't she splendid, though!"

"Who? Mrs. Fosdick?"

"No, of course not," indignantly. "Madeline. Isn't she splendid and fine and loyal! I want you to know her, Grandfather, you and Grandmother."

"Um-hm. Well, we'll hope to, some day. Now, son, I'm goin' to ask for another promise. It may seem a hard one to make, but I'm askin' you to make it. I want you to give me your word that, no matter what happens or how long you have to wait, you and Madeline won't get married without tellin' her folks and yours beforehand. You won't run away and marry. Will you promise me that?"

Albert looked at him. This WAS a hard promise to make. In their talks beneath the rainbows, whenever he and Madeline had referred to the future and its doubts, they had always pushed those doubts aside with vague hints of an elopement. If the unreasonableness of parents and grandparents should crowd them too far, they had always as a last resort, the solution of their problem by way of a runaway marriage. And now Captain Zelotes was asking him to give up this last resort.

The captain, watching him keenly, divined what was in his grandson's mind.

"Think it over, Al," he said kindly. "Don't answer me now, but think it over, and to-morrow mornin' tell me how you feel about it." He hesitated a moment and then added: "You know your grandmother and I, we—well, we have maybe cause to be a little mite prejudiced against this elopin' business."

So Albert thought, and the next morning, as the pair were walking together to the office, he spoke his thought. Captain Zelotes had not mentioned the subject.

"Grandfather," said Albert, with some embarrassment, "I'm going to give you that promise."

His grandfather, who had been striding along, his heavy brows drawn together and his glance fixed upon the frozen ground beneath his feet, looked up.

"Eh?" he queried, uncomprehendingly.

"You asked me last night to promise you something, you know. . . . You asked me to think it over. I have, and I'm going to promise you that—Madeline and I won't marry without first telling you."

Captain Zelotes stopped in his stride; then he walked on again.

"Thank you, Al," he said quietly. "I hoped you'd see it that way."

"Yes—yes, I—I do. I don't want to bring any more—trouble of that kind to you and Grandmother. . . . It seems to me that you—that you have had too much already."

"Thank you, son. . . . Much obliged."

The captain's tone was almost gruff and that was his only reference to the subject of the promise; but somehow Albert felt that at that moment he and his grandfather were closer together, were nearer to a mutual understanding and mutual appreciation than they had ever been before.

To promise, however, is one thing, to fulfill the obligation another. As the days passed Albert found his promise concerning letter-writing very, very hard to keep. When, each evening he sat down at the table in his room to pour out his soul upon paper it was a most unsatisfactory outpouring. The constantly enforced recollection that whatever he wrote would be subject to the chilling glance of the eye of Fosdick mater was of itself a check upon the flow. To write a love letter to Madeline had hitherto been a joy, a rapture, to fill pages and pages a delight. Now, somehow, these pages were hard to fill. Omitting the very things you were dying to say, the precious, the intimate things—what was there left? He and she had, at their meetings and in their former correspondence, invented many delightful little pet names for each other. Now those names were taboo; or, at any rate, they might as well be. The thought of Mrs. Fosdick's sniff of indignant disgust at finding her daughter referred to as some one's ownest little rosebud withered that bud before it reached the paper.

And Madeline's letters to him were quite as unsatisfactory. They were lengthy, but oh, so matter of fact! Saharas of fact without one oasis of sentiment. She was well and she had done this and that and had been to see such and such plays and operas. Father was well and very busy. Mother, too, was well, so was Googoo—but these last two bits of news failed to comfort him as they perhaps should. He could only try to glean between the lines, and as Mrs. Fosdick had raked between those lines before him, the gleaning was scant picking indeed.

He found himself growing disconsolate and despondent. Summer seemed ages away. And when at last it should come—what would happen then? He could see her only when properly chaperoned, only when Mother, and probably Googoo, were present. He flew for consolation to the Muse and the Muse refused to console. The poems he wrote were "blue" and despairing likewise. Consequently they did not sell. He was growing desperate, ready for anything. And something came. Germany delivered to our Government its arrogant mandate concerning unlimited submarine warfare. A long-suffering President threw patience overboard and answered that mandate in unmistakable terms. Congress stood at his back and behind them a united and indignant people. The United States declared war upon the Hun.

South Harniss, like every other community, became wildly excited. Captain Zelotes Snow's gray eyes flashed fiery satisfaction. The flags at the Snow place and at the lumber yard flew high night and day. He bought newspapers galore and read from them aloud at meals, in the evenings, and before breakfast. Issachar, as usual, talked much and said little. Laban Keeler's comments were pithy and dryly pointed. Albert was very quiet.

But one forenoon he spoke. Captain Lote was in the inner office, the morning newspaper in his hand, when his grandson entered and closed the door behind him. The captain looked up.

"Well, Al, what is it?" he asked.

Albert came over and stood beside the desk. The captain, after a moment's scrutiny of the young man's face, put down his newspaper.

"Well, Al?" he said, again.

Albert seemed to find it hard to speak.

"Grandfather," he began, "I—I—Grandfather, I have come to ask a favor of you."

The captain nodded, slowly, his gaze fixed upon his grandson's face.

"All right; heave ahead," he said quietly.

"Grandfather, you and I have had a four years' agreement to work together in this office. It isn't up yet, but—but I want to break it. I want you to let me off."

"Humph! . . . Let you off, eh? . . . What for?"

"That's what I came here to tell you. Grandfather, I can't stay here—now. I want to enlist."

Captain Zelotes did not answer. His hand moved upward and pulled at his beard.

"I want to enlist," repeated Albert. "I can't stand it another minute. I must. If it hadn't been for you and our promise and—and Madeline, I think I should have joined the Canadian Army a year or more ago. But now that we have gone into the war, I CAN'T stay out. Grandfather, you don't want me to, do you? Of course you don't."

His grandfather appeared to ponder.

"If you can wait a spell," he said slowly, "I might be able to fix it so's you can get a chance for an officer's commission. I'd ought to have some pull somewheres, seems so."

Albert sniffed impatient disgust. "I don't want to get a commission—in that way," he declared.

"Humph! You'll find there's plenty that do, I shouldn't wonder."

"Perhaps, but I'm not one of them. And I don't care so much for a commission, unless I can earn it. And I don't want to stay here and study for it. I want to go now. I want to get into the thing. I don't want to wait."

Captain Lote leaned forward. His gray eyes snapped.

"Want to fight, do you?" he queried.

"You bet I do!"

"All right, my boy, then go—and fight. I'd be ashamed of myself if I held you back a minute. Go and fight—and fight hard. I only wish to God I was young enough to go with you."



CHAPTER XIII

And so, in this unexpected fashion, came prematurely the end of the four year trial agreement between Albert Speranza and Z. Snow and Co. Of course neither Captain Zelotes nor Albert admitted that it had ended. Each professed to regard the break as merely temporary.

"You'll be back at that desk in a little while, Al," said the captain, "addin' up figgers and tormentin' Issy." And Albert's reply was invariably, "Why, of course, Grandfather."

He had dreaded his grandmother's reception of the news of his intended enlistment. Olive worshiped her daughter's boy and, although an ardent patriot, was by no means as fiercely belligerent as her husband. She prayed each night for the defeat of the Hun, whereas Captain Lote was for licking him first and praying afterwards. Albert feared a scene; he feared that she might be prostrated when she learned that he was to go to war. But she bore it wonderfully well, and as for the dreaded "scene," there was none.

"Zelotes says he thinks it's the right thing for you to do, Albert," she said, "so I suppose I ought to think so, too. But, oh, my dear, DO you really feel that you must? I—it don't seem as I could bear to . . . but there, I mustn't talk so. It ain't a mite harder for me than it is for thousands of women all over this world. . . . And perhaps the government folks won't take you, anyway. Rachel said she read in the Item about some young man over in Bayport who was rejected because he had fat feet. She meant flat feet, I suppose, poor thing. Oh, dear me, I'm laughin', and it seems wicked to laugh a time like this. And when I think of you goin', Albert, I—I . . . but there, I promised Zelotes I wouldn't. . . . And they MAY not take you. . . . But oh, of course they will, of course they will! . . . I'm goin' to make you a chicken pie for dinner to-day; I know how you like it. . . . If only they MIGHT reject you! . . . But there, I said I wouldn't and I won't."

Rachel Ellis's opinion on the subject and her way of expressing that opinion were distinctly her own. Albert arose early in the morning following the announcement of his decision to enter the service. He had not slept well; his mind was too busy with problems and speculations to resign itself to sleep. He had tossed about until dawn and had then risen and sat down at the table in his bedroom to write Madeline of the step he had determined to take. He had not written her while he was considering that step. He felt, somehow, that he alone with no pressure from without should make the decision. Now that it was made, and irrevocably made, she must of course be told. Telling her, however, was not an easy task. He was sure she would agree that he had done the right thing, the only thing, but—

"It is going to be very hard for you, dear," he wrote, heedless of the fact that Mrs. Fosdick's censorious eye would see and condemn the "dear." "It is going to be hard for both of us. But I am sure you will feel as I do that I COULDN'T do anything else. I am young and strong and fit and I am an American. I MUST go. You see it, don't you, Madeline. I can hardly wait until your letter comes telling me that you feel I did just the thing you would wish me to do."

He hesitated and then, even more regardless of the censor, added the quotation which countless young lovers were finding so apt just then:

"I could not love thee, dear, so much, Loved I not honor more."

So when, fresh from the intimacy of this communication with his adored and with the letter in his hand, he entered the sitting-room at that early hour he was not overjoyed to find the housekeeper there ahead of him. And her first sentence showed that she had been awaiting his coming.

"Good mornin', Albert," she said. "I heard you stirrin' 'round up in your room and I came down here so's you and I could talk together for a minute without anybody's disturbin' us. . . . Humph! I guess likely you didn't sleep any too well last night, did you?"

Albert shook his head. "Not too well, Rachel," he replied.

"I shouldn't wonder. Well, I doubt if there was too much sleep anywheres in this house last night. So you're really goin' to war, are you, Albert?"

"Yes. If the war will let me I certainly am."

"Dear, dear! . . . Well, I—I think it's what Robert Penfold would have done if he was in your place. I've been goin' over it and goin' over it half the night, myself, and I've come to that conclusion. It's goin' to be awful hard on your grandma and grandfather and me and Labe, all us folks here at home, but I guess it's the thing you'd ought to do, the Penfold kind of thing."

Albert smiled. "I'm glad you think so, Rachel," he said.

"Well, I do, and if I'm goin' to tell the truth I might as well say I tried terrible hard to find some good reasons for thinkin' 'twan't. I did SO! But the only good reasons I could scare up for makin' you stay to home was because home was safe and comf'table and where you was goin' wan't. And that kind of reasonin' might do fust-rate for a passel of clams out on the flats, but it wouldn't be much credit to decent, self-respectin' humans. When General Rolleson came to that island and found his daughter and Robert Penfold livin' there in that house made out of pearls he'd built for her—Wan't that him all over! Another man, the common run of man, would have been satisfied to build her a house out of wood and lucky to get that, but no, nothin' would do him but pearls, and if they'd have been di'monds he'd have been better satisfied. Well. . . . Where was I? . . . Oh yes! When General Rolleson came there and says to his daughter, 'Helen, you come home along of me,' and she says, 'No, I shan't leave him,' meanin' Robert Penfold, you understand—When she says that did Robert Penfold say, 'That's the talk! Put that in your pipe, old man, and smoke it?' No, SIR, he didn't! He says, 'Helen, you go straight home along with your pa and work like fury till you find out who forged that note and laid it onto me. You find that out,' he says, 'and then you can come fetch me and not afore.' That's the kind of man HE was! And they sailed off and left him behind."

Albert shook his head. He had heard only about half of the housekeeper's story. "Pretty rough on him, I should say," he commented, absently.

"I GUESS 'twas rough on him, poor thing! But 'twas his duty and so he done it. It was rough on Helen, havin' to go and leave him, but 'twas rougher still on him. It's always roughest, seems to me," she added, "on the ones that's left behind. Those that go have somethin' to take up their minds and keep 'em from thinkin' too much. The ones that stay to home don't have much to do EXCEPT think. I hope you don't get the notion that I feel your part of it is easy, Al. Only a poor, crazy idiot could read the papers these days and feel that any part of this war was EASY! It's awful, but—but it WILL keep you too busy to think, maybe."

"I shouldn't wonder, Rachel. I understand what you mean."

"We're all goin' to miss you, Albert. This house is goin' to be a pretty lonesome place, I cal'late. Your grandma'll miss you dreadful and so will I, but—but I have a notion that your grandpa's goin' to miss you more'n anybody else."

He shook his head. "Oh, not as much as all that, Rachel," he said. "He and I have been getting on much better than we used to and we have come to understand each other better, but he is still disappointed in me. I'm afraid I don't count for much as a business man, you see; and, besides, Grandfather can never quite forget that I am the son of what he calls a Portygee play actor."

Mrs. Ellis looked at him earnestly. "He's forgettin' it better every day, Albert," she said. "I do declare I never believed Capt'n Lote Snow could forget it the way he's doin'. And you—well, you've forgot a whole lot, too. Memory's a good thing, the land knows," she added, sagely, "but a nice healthy forgetery is worth consider'ble—some times and in some cases."

Issachar Price's comments on his fellow employee's decision to become a soldier were pointed. Issy was disgusted.

"For thunder sakes, Al," he demanded, "'tain't true that you've enlisted to go to war and fight them Germans, is it?"

Albert smiled. "I guess it is, Issy," he replied.

"Well, by crimus!"

"Somebody had to go, you see, Is."

"Well, by crimustee!"

"What's the matter, Issy? Don't you approve?"

"Approve! No, by crimus, I don't approve! I think it's a divil of a note, that's what I think."

"Why?"

"WHY? Who's goin' to do the work in this office while you're gone? Labe and me, that's who; and I'll do the heft of it. Slavin' myself half to death as 'tis and now—Oh, by crimustee! This war is a darned nuisance. It hadn't ought to be allowed. There'd ought to be a law against it."

But of all the interviews which followed Albert's decision the most surprising and that which he was the least likely to forget was his interview with Laban Keeler. It took place on the evening of the third day following the announcement of his intention to enlist. All that day, and indeed for several days, Albert had noted in the little bookkeeper certain symptoms, familiar symptoms they were and from experience the young man knew what they portended. Laban was very nervous, his fingers twitched as he wrote, occasionally he rose from his chair and walked up and down the room, he ran his hand through his scanty hair, he was inclined to be irritable—that is, irritable for him. Albert had noted the symptoms and was sorry. Captain Zelotes noted them and frowned and pulled his beard.

"Al," he said to his grandson, "if you can put off goin' up to enlist for a little spell, a few days, I wish you would. Labe's gettin' ready to go on one of his vacations."

Albert nodded. "I'm afraid he is," he said.

"Oh, it's as sartin as two and two makes four. I've lived with him too many years not to know the signs. And I did hope," he added, regretfully, "that maybe he was tryin' to break off. It's been a good long spell, an extry long spell, since he had his last spree. Ah hum! it's a pity a good man should have that weak spot in him, ain't it? But if you could hang around a few more days, while the vacation's goin' on, I'd appreciate it, Al. I kind of hate to be left here alone with nobody but Issachar to lean on. Issy's a good deal like a post in some ways, especially in the makeup of his head, but he's too ricketty to lean on for any length of time."

That evening Albert went to the post-office for the mail. On his way back as he passed the dark corner by the now closed and shuttered moving-picture theater he was hailed in a whisper.

"Al," said a voice, "Al."

Albert turned and peered into the deep shadow of the theater doorway. In the summer this doorway was a blaze of light and gaiety; now it was cold and bleak and black enough. From the shadow a small figure emerged on tiptoe.

"Al," whispered Mr. Keeler. "That's you, ain't it? Yes, yes—yes, yes, yes—I thought 'twas, I thought so."

Albert was surprised. For one thing it was most unusual to see the little bookkeeper abroad after nine-thirty. His usual evening procedure, when not on a vacation, was to call upon Rachel Ellis at the Snow place for an hour or so and then to return to his room over Simond's shoe store, which room he had occupied ever since the building was erected.

There he read, so people said, until eleven sharp, when his lamp was extinguished. During or at the beginning of the vacation periods he usually departed for some unknown destination, destinations which, apparently, varied. He had been seen, hopelessly intoxicated, in Bayport, in Ostable, in Boston, once in Providence. When he returned he never seemed to remember exactly where he had been. And, as most people were fond of and pitied him, few questions were asked.

"Why, Labe!" exclaimed Albert. "Is that you? What's the matter?"

"Busy, are you, Al?" queried Laban. "In a hurry, eh? Are you? In a hurry, Al, eh?"

"Why no, not especially."

"Could you—could you spare me two or three minutes? Two or three minutes—yes, yes? Come up to my room, could you—could you, Al?"

"Yes indeed. But what is it, Labe?"

"I want to talk. Want to talk, I do. Yes, yes, yes. Saw you go by and I've been waitin' for you. Waitin'—yes, I have—yes."

He seized his assistant by the arm and led him across the road toward the shoe store. Albert felt the hand on his arm tremble violently.

"Are you cold, Labe?" he asked. "What makes you shiver so?"

"Eh? Cold? No, I ain't cold—no, no, no. Come, Al, come."

Albert sniffed suspiciously, but no odor of alcohol rewarded the sniff. Neither was there any perfume of peppermint, Mr. Keeler's transparent camouflage at a vacation's beginning. And Laban was not humming the refrain glorifying his "darling hanky-panky." Apparently he had not yet embarked upon the spree which Captain Lote had pronounced imminent. But why did he behave so queerly?

"I ain't the way you think, Al," declared the little man, divining his thought. "I'm just kind of shaky and nervous, that's all. That's all, that's all, that's all. Yes, yes. Come, come! COME!"

The last "come" burst from him in an agony of impatience. Albert hastened up the narrow stairs, Laban leading the way. The latter fumbled with a key, his companion heard it rattling against the keyhole plate. Then the door opened. There was a lamp, its wick turned low, burning upon the table in the room. Mr. Keeler turned it up, making a trembly job of the turning. Albert looked about him; he had never been in that room before.

It was a small room and there was not much furniture in it. And it was a neat room, for the room of an old bachelor who was his own chambermaid. Most things seemed to have places where they belonged and most of them appeared to be in those places. What impressed Albert even more was the number of books. There were books everywhere, in the cheap bookcase, on the pine shelf between the windows, piled in the corners, heaped on the table beside the lamp. They were worn and shabby volumes for the most part, some with but half a cover remaining, some with none. He picked up one of the latter. It was Locke on The Human Understanding; and next it, to his astonishment, was Alice's Adventures in Wonderland.