Mrs. Cliff's Yacht

by Frank R. Stockton

"And do you mind telling me who it is?" she asked.

"Since you ask me, I don't mind a bit," said he. "It's Miss Croup."

Mrs. Cliff started back astonished. "Willy Croup!" she exclaimed. "You amaze me! I don't think she would suit you."

"I'd like to know why not?" he asked quickly.

"In the first place," said she, "it's a long time since Willy was a girl."

"That's the kind I want," he answered. "I don't want to adopt a daughter. I want to marry a grown woman."

"Well," said Mrs. Cliff, "Willy is certainly grown. But then, it doesn't seem to me that she would be adapted to a married life. I am sure she has made up her mind to live single, and she hasn't been accustomed to manage a house and conduct domestic affairs. She has always had some one to depend upon."

"That's what I like," said he. "Let her depend on me. And as to management, you needn't say anything to me about that, Mrs. Cliff. I saw her bouncing to the galley of the Summer Shelter, and if she manages other things as well as she managed the cooking business there, she'll suit me."

"It seems so strange to me, Mr. Burke," said Mrs. Cliff, after a few moments' silence. "I never imagined that you would care for Willy Croup."

Mr. Burke drew himself forward to the edge of the chair on which he was sitting, he put one hand on each of his outspread knees, and he leaned forward, with a very earnest and animated expression on his countenance. "Now, look here, Mrs. Cliff," he said, "I want to say something to you. When I see a young woman, brought up in the very bosom of the Sunday school, and on the quarter deck of respectability, and who never, perhaps, had a cross word said to her in all her life, or said one to anybody, judging from her appearance, and whose mind is more like a clean pocket-handkerchief in regard to hard words and rough language than anything I can think of;—when I see that young woman with a snow-white disposition that would naturally lead her to hymns whenever she wanted to raise her voice above common conversation,—when I see that young woman, I say, in a moment of life or death to her and every one about her, dash to the door of that engine room, and shout my orders down to that muddled engineer,—knowing I couldn't leave the wheel to give them myself,—ramming them into him as if with the point of a handspike, yelling out everything that I said, word for word, without picking or choosing, trusting in me that I knew what ought to be said in such a moment, and saying it after me, word for word, cursing, swearing, slamming down oaths on him just as I did, trusting in me all the time as to what words ought to be used, and just warming up that blasted engineer until sense enough came to him to make him put out his hand and back her,—then, Mrs. Cliff, I know that a woman who stands by me at a time like that will stand by me at any time, and that's the woman I want to stand by. And now, what have you got to say?"