It may be that fifteen hundred won"t be enough to be worth your while.
Perhaps I shouldn"t venture to offer it if I hadn"t heard--hadn"t heard----"
Sears interrupted.
"What you heard was probably true," he said crisply. "True enough, at any rate. Fifteen hundred a year looks like a lot to me now. But what am I to do to get it, that"s the question. I"m a cripple, don"t forget that."
"I should remember it if I thought it necessary. You won"t handle this job with your legs. It is your head I want. Cap"n Kendrick, I want you to take charge--take command, if you had rather we used seafaring lingo, of that establishment next door to where you are living now. I want you to act as--well, we"ll call it captain of the Fair Harbor."
Captain Sears"s eyes and mouth opened. His chair creaked as he leaned forward and then slowly leaned back again.
"You--you--" he gasped, "you want me to--to manage that--that _old women"s home_?"
"Yes."
"_Me?_"
"Yes.... Here! where are you going?"
The visitor had risen.
"Stop!" shouted Judge Knowles. "Where are you going?"
The captain breathed heavily.
"I"m goin" to send for the doctor," he declared. "One of us two needs him."
CHAPTER V
Judge Knowles"s answer to his caller"s a.s.sertion concerning the need of a physician"s services was another chuckle.
"Sit down, Cap"n," he ordered.
Kendrick shook his head. "No," he began, "I"m----"
"Sit down."
"Judge, look here: I don"t suppose you"re serious, but if you are, I tell you----"
"No, I"m going to tell _you_. SIT DOWN."
This time the invalid"s voice was raised to such a pitch that Mrs.
Tidditt came hurrying from the kitchen.
"My soul and body, Judge!" she exclaimed. "What is it? What _is_ the matter?"
Her employer turned upon her.
"The matter is that that confounded door is open again," he snapped.
"Why--why, of course "tis. I just opened it when I came in."
"Umph! Yes. Well then, hurry up and shut it when you go out. _Shut_ it!"
Emmeline, going, not only shut but slammed the door. The judge smiled grimly.
"Sit down, Kendrick," he commanded once more, panting. "Sit down, I--I"m out of breath. Confound that woman! She seems to think I"m four years old. Ah--ah--whew!"
His exhaustion was so apparent that Sears was alarmed.
"Don"t you think, Judge----" he began, but was interrupted.
"Sshh!" ordered Knowles. "Wait.... Wait.... I"ll be all right in a minute!"
The captain waited. It took more than a minute, and even then the judge"s voice was husky and his sentences broken, but his determination was unshaken.
"I want you to listen to me, Cap"n Kendrick," he said. "I know it sounds crazy, this proposal of mine, but it isn"t. How much do you know about this Fair Harbor place; its history and so on?"
Captain Sears explained that his sister had written him some facts concerning it and that recently Judah Cahoon had told him more details.
The judge wished to know what Judah had told. When informed he nodded.
"That"s about right, so far as it goes," he admitted. "Fairly straight, for a Bayport yarn. It doesn"t go far enough, though. Here is the situation:
"Lobelia, when she first conceived the fool notion," he said, "came to me, of course, to arrange it. I was her father"s lawyer for years, and so naturally I was looking out for her affairs. I said all I could against it, but she was determined, and had her way. She, through me, set aside the Sylva.n.u.s Seymour house and land to be used as a home for what she called "mariners" women" as long as--well, as long as she should continue to want it used for that purpose. She would have been contented to pay the bills as they came, but, of course, there was no business method in that, so we arranged that she was to hand over to me fifty thousand dollars in bonds, the income from that sum, plus the entrance fees and one hundred dollars yearly paid by each inmate, was to run the place. That is the way it has been run. She christened it the Fair Harbor. Heaven knows I had nothing to do with that.
"For a year or so she lived there herself and had a beautiful time queening it over the inmates. Then that Phillips chap drifted into Bayport."
The captain interrupted here. "Oh, then the Fair Harbor was off the ways before she married Phillips?" he said. "Judah told me it was afterwards."
"He"s wrong. No, the thing had been running two years when that confounded.... Humph! You never met Egbert Phillips, did you, Cap"n?"
"No."
"You"ve heard about him?"
"Only what Judah told me the other day."
"Humph! What did he tell?"
"Why, he--he gave me to understand that this Phillips was a pretty smooth article."
"Smooth! Why, Kendrick, he is.... But there, you"ll meet him some day and no feeble words of mine could do him justice. Besides all my words are getting too feeble to waste--even on anything as beautiful as Egbert the great.... And that condemned doctor will be here pretty soon, so we must get on.... Ah.... Well, he came here to teach singing, Phillips did, and he had all the women in tune before the first lesson was over.
They said he was wonderful, and he was--good G.o.d, yes! They kept on thinking he was wonderful until he married Lobelia Seymour."
"Then they changed their minds, eh?"