"You don"t tell!" Lougee clucked, solicitously.
"Yes, I ketched her buggy-riding!"
"Alone?"
"No, there was a gang of "em in a beach-wagon. They was going to a party. And I ketched her dancing with a fellow at that party."
"Well, go ahead now that you"ve got started! Shake out the mainsail!"
"That"s about all there is to it--except that a fellow has been beauing her home from Sunday-school concerts with a lantern. Yes, I reckon that is about all to date and present writing," confessed Candage.
"What else do you suspect?"
"Nothing. Of course, there"s no telling what it will grow to be--with dudes a-pestering her the way they do."
"There ain"t any telling about anything in this world, is there?"
demanded Captain Lougee, very sharply.
"I reckon not--not for sure!"
"Do you mean to say that because your girl--like any girl should--has been having a little innocent fun with young folks, you have dragged her on board this old hooker, shaming her and making her ridiculous?"
"I have been trying to do my duty as a father," stated Captain Candage, stoutly, and avoiding the flaming gaze of his guest.
Captain Lougee straightened his leg so as to come at his trousers pocket, produced a plug of tobacco, and gnawed a chew off a corner, after careful inspection to find a likely spot for a bite.
"I need to have something in my mouth about this time--something soothing to the tongue and, as you might say, sort of confining, so that too much language won"t bu"st out all at once," he averred, speaking with effort as he tried to lodge the huge hunk of tobacco into a comfortable position. "I have raised five nice girls, and I have always treated "em as if they had common sense along with woman"s nat"ral goodness and consid"able more self-reliance than a Leghorn pullet. And I used "em like they had the ordinary rights and privileges of human beings. And they are growed up and a credit to the family. And I haven"t got to look back over my record and reflect that I was either a Chinyman or a Turkeyman. No, sir! I have been a father--and my girls can come and sit on my knee to-day and get my advice, and think it"s worth something."
He rose and walked toward his dory.
"But hold on," called Captain Candage. "You haven"t told me what you think."
"Haven"t I? I thought I had, making it mild and pleasant. But if you need a little something more plain and direct, I"ll remark--still making it mild and pleasant--that you"re a d.a.m.ned old fool! And now I"ll go back and be sociable with them fish sc.r.a.ps. I believe they will smell better after this!" He leaped into his dory and rowed away.
Captain Candage offered no rejoinder to that terse and meaty summing up.
Naturally, he was as ready with his tongue as Captain Ranse Lougee or any other man alongsh.o.r.e. But in this case the master of the _Polly_ was not sure of his ground. He knew that Captain Lougee had qualified as father of five. In the judgment of a mariner experience counts. And he did not resent the manner of Captain Lougee because that skipper"s brutal bluntness was well known by his friends. Captain Candage had asked and he had received. He rested his elbows on his knees and stared after the departing caller and pondered.
"Maybe he is right. He probably _is_ right. But it wouldn"t be shipboard discipline if I told her that I have been wrong. I reckon I"ll go aft and be pleasant and genteel, hoping that nothing will happen to rile my feelings. Now that my feelings are calm and peaceful, and having taken course and bearings from a father of five, I"ll probably say to her, "You"d better trot along home, sissy, seeing that I have told you how to mind your eye after this.""
IV - OVER THE "POLLY"S" RAIL
O Stormy was a good old man!
To my way you storm along!
Physog tough as an old tin pan, Ay, ay, ay, Mister Storm-along!
--Storm-along Shanty.
Without paying much attention to the disturber, Captain Candage had been a bit nettled during his meditation. A speed boat from one of the yachts kept circling the _Polly_, carrying a creaming smother of water under its upc.o.c.ked bow. It was a noisy gnat of a boat and it kicked a contemptuous wake against the rust-streaked old wagon.
When it swept under the counter, after Captain Candage was back on his quarter-deck, he gave it a stare over the rail, and his expression was distinctly unamiable.
"They probably wasted more money on that doostra-bulus than this schooner would sell for in the market today," he informed Otie.
"They don"t care how money goes so long as they didn"t have to sweat earning it. Slinging it like they"d sling beans!"
Back on its circling course swished the darting tender. This time the purring motor whined into silence and the boat came drifting alongside.
"On board _Polly!_" hailed one of the yachtsmen, a man with owner"s insignia on his cap.
The master of the old schooner stuck his lowering visage farther over the rail, but he did not reply.
"Isn"t this _Polly_ the real one?"
"No, it"s only a chromo painting of it."
"Thank you! You"re a gentleman!" snapped the yachtsman.
"Oh, hold on, Paul," urged one of the men in the tender. "There"s a right way to handle these old boys." He stood up. "We"re much interested in this packet, captain."
"That"s why you have been making a holy show of her, playing ring around a rosy, hey?"
"But tell me, isn"t this the old shallop that was a privateer in the war of eighteen twelve?"
"n.o.body aboard here has ever said she wasn"t."
"Well, sir, may we not come on board and look her over?"
"No sir, you can"t."
"Now, look here, captain--"
"I"m looking!" declared the master of the _Polly_ in ominous tones.
"We don"t mean to annoy you, captain."
"Folks who don"t know any better do a lot of things without meaning to."
Captain Candage regularly entertained a sea-toiler"s resentment for men who used the ocean as a mere playground. But more especially, during those later days, his general temper was touchy in regard to dapper young men, for he had faced a problem of the home which had tried his soul. He felt an unreasoning choler rising in him in respect to these chaps, who seemed to have no troubles of their own.
"I am a writer," explained the other. "If I may be allowed on board I"ll take a few pictures and--"
"And make fun of me and my bo"t by putting a piece in the paper to tickle city dudes. Fend off!" he commanded, noticing that the tender was drifting toward the schooner"s side and that one of the crew had set a boat-hook against the main chain-plate.
"Don"t bother with the old crab," advised the owner, sourly.
But the other persisted, courteously, even humbly. "I am afraid you do not understand me, captain. I would as soon make jest of my mother as of this n.o.ble old relic."