“Humph!” he grunted. “Humph! then I cal’late maybe—” He took a step toward the door, stopped, turned back, and said, with calm decision, “I guess I’d better stay. You won’t mind me, Caroline—you and Stephen. You mustn’t. As I said, I ain’t comp’ny. I’m one of the family, your pa’s brother, and I’ve come some consider’ble ways to see you two young folks and talk with you. I’ve come because your pa asked me to. I’m used to roughin’ it, been to sea a good many v’yages, and if a feather bed ain’t handy I can get my forty winks on the floor. So that’s settled, and you mustn’t have me on your conscience. That’s sense, ain’t it, Mrs. Dunn?”
Mrs. Corcoran Dunn did not deign a reply. Caroline answered for her.
“Very well,” she said, coldly. Stepping to the desk she rang a bell. The butler appeared in the doorway.
“Edwards,” said Miss Warren, “this gentleman,” indicating the captain, “is to be our guest, for the present. You may show him to his room—the blue room, I think. If it is not ready, see that it is made so.”
“Yes, Miss Caroline,” replied Edwards. Retiring to the hall, he returned with the suit-case.
“Will you wish to go to your room at once, sir?” he asked.
“Why, I guess I might as well, Commodore,” answered Captain Elisha, smiling. “Little soap and water won’t do no harm. Fact is, I feel’s if ’twas a prescription to be recommended. You needn’t tote that valise, though,” he added. “’Tain’t heavy, and I’ve lugged it so fur already sence I got off the car that I feel kind of lonesome without it.”
The butler, not knowing exactly how to answer, grinned sheepishly. Captain Elisha turned to Mrs. Dunn and her son.
“Well, good afternoon, ma’am,” he said. “I’m real glad to have made your acquaintance. Yours, too, sir,” with a nod toward Malcolm. “Your mother told me what a friend of the young folks you was, and, as I’m sort of actin’ pilot for ’em just now, in a way of speakin’, any friend of theirs ought to be a friend of mine. Hope to see you often, Mr. Dunn.”
The young man addressed smiled, with amusement not at all concealed, and languidly admitted that he was “charmed.”