“You SHALL not speak so! Do you imagine that you're not respected by everyone whose respect counts for anything? Yes, and by others, too. Don't you suppose Mr. Atkins respects you, down in his heart—if he has one? Doesn't your housekeeper, who sees you every day, respect and like you? And little Emily—doesn't she love you more than she does all the rest of us together?”
“Well, I guess Bos'n does care for the old man some, that's a fact. She says she likes you next best, though. Did you know that?”
But Miss Dawes was indignant.
“Captain Whittaker,” she declared, “one would think you were a hundred years old to hear you. You are always calling yourself an old man. Does Mr. Atkins call himself old? And he is older than you.”
“Well, I'm over fifty, Phoebe.” In spite of the habit for which he had just been reproached, the captain found this a difficult statement to make.
“I know. But you're younger than most of us at thirty-five. You see, I'm confessing, too,” she added with a laugh and a little blush.
Captain Cy made a mental calculation.
“Twenty years,” he said musingly. “Twenty years is a long time. No, I'm old. And worse than that, I'm an old fool, I guess. If I hadn't been I'd have stayed in South America instead of comin' here to be hooted out of the town I was born in.”
The teacher stamped her foot.
“Oh, what SHALL I do with you!” she exclaimed. “It is wicked for you to say such things. Do you suppose that Mr. Atkins would find it necessary to work as he is doing to beat a fool? And, besides, you're not complimentary to me. Should I, do you think, take such an interest in one who was an imbecile?”