"I do. And if he's like the majority of those titled Johnnies, he's so crooked he can hide behind a corkscrew."
"O Captain, that's absurd! Why, he is one of the most absolutely irreproachable and unapproachable young aristocrats I ever saw."
"That's all right. I don't tie up to the British aristocracy, nor any other foreign nobility. Besides, what headway will I make by steering that girl of mine off one shoal to land her on another?"
"Was the Wyoming affair quite out of the question?"
"Oh, Hal Ford is a good-enough chap, but he's a perfect kid. They are both too young to know what they want. Besides, I am not going to have her drop anchor on a ranch for the rest of her days. I'll send her up to 'Frisco to school first. That's what the row was about before she left home. The little minx defied me, so I picked her up and brought her with me out to Hong-Kong."
"Poor child! She probably sees now that you were quite right."
"Maybe she does and maybe she doesn't. She's a wily little scamp all right. I discovered that the second day out. I'd forbidden her to write any letters to the ranch, so she was keeping a log-book which she was going to mail at every port."
"And were you hard-hearted enough to confiscate it?"
"I was. At least I ordered her to give it to me on the spot, and she said she'd chuck it overboard first."
"And did she!"