“Certainly, Madam,” stammered Captain Barber at last, rising. “Just as you wish.”
“Mrs. Marshall,” said Major Carey bowing, “when Master Mortimer returns from school will you have him do me the honor to call upon me?”
“With great pleasure,” said Mortimer’s mother, “although the poor boy is not coming directly home at the close of school. He will first visit his uncle Douglas in Hammondsport, New York. And, by the way, Captain,” she added, turning to the flustered planter-banker, “I’m afraid his wardrobe may require replenishing and he will need a little pocket money. Will you kindly send him a hundred dollars and charge it to my account?”
There was no help for it. If she had been a man the thrifty banker would have been adamant. To the widow of his dead friend he only bowed.
“At once,” he answered politely. Then he added: “Madam, I trust you will not think me impertinent. But what are your plans for your son’s future?”
“Colonel Marshall was a tobacco grower,” she answered proudly. “The Aspley plantation has known nothing but tobacco for a hundred and fifty years.”
When Major Carey’s old buggy—he did not own or use an automobile—had creaked down the weed-grown Aspley Place private road to the highway and the unhinged gate had been dragged into place, Captain Barber turned to his companion.
“If Mrs. Marshall’s son hasn’t any more business sense than his mother the Barber Bank is going to have a tidy sum to charge up to profit and loss. We’re two old fools. What do you want to see the boy about?”
Major Carey grunted. “I’m goin’ to tell him what his mother doesn’t know—that she isn’t worth a cent and that he must go to work and care for her.”