“I shall not ask anybody but you. Tell me truly: Weren't you troubled; about the business, and the store? Truly, now.”
Captain Dan rubbed his chin. He wished very much to deny the allegation, or at least to dodge the truth. But he was a poor prevaricator at any time, and his daughter was looking him straight in the eye.
“Well,” he faltered, “I—I—How in time did you guess that? I—Humph! why, yes, I was a little mite upset. You see, trade ain't been first rate this summer, and collections were awful slow. I hate to drive folks, especially when I know they're hard up. I was a little worried, but it's all right now. Aunt Laviny's three thousand fixed that all right. It'll carry me along like a full sail breeze. You go back to school, like a sensible girl, and don't you worry a mite. It's all right now, Gertie.”
“Honest?”
“Honest to Betsy!” with an emphatic nod.
He meant it; he really thought it was all right. The fact that he owed a thousand already and that the remaining two would almost certainly be swept into the capacious maw of the Metropolitan Store did not occur to him then. Daniel Dott was a failure as a business man but as an optimist he was a huge success.
“Then you're sure you can afford to have me go back for my last year?”
“Course I am. I couldn't afford to do anything else.”
His absolute certainty stifled his daughter's doubts for the time, but she asked another question.
“And there's nothing that troubles you at all?”