The Portygee Part 43

"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 embarra.s.sed.

"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. Fosd.i.c.k," 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. Fosd.i.c.k 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 Fosd.i.c.k 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 Fosd.i.c.k.

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."

Fosd.i.c.k 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. Fosd.i.c.k."

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, Ma.s.s... .

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. Fosd.i.c.k," 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. Fosd.i.c.k 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 Fosd.i.c.k 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 Fosd.i.c.k 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. Fosd.i.c.k, 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'