“You hold on, Cap'n Shad! You answer me afore you leave this room. Who's a fool? I want to know who's a fool.”
Captain Shad grinned.
“Well, go up to the post-office and ask some of the gang there,” he suggested. “Tell 'em you'll give 'em three guesses. There, there!” he added, good-naturedly, pushing the irate Mr. Chase out of the “channel.” “Don't block the fairway any longer. It's all right, Isaiah. You and me have been shipmates too long to fight now. You riled me up a little, that's all. Come on, folks.”
Two hours later, after Mary had answered the last questions even Captain Shad could think of, had received answers to all her own, and had gone to her room for the night, Mr. Hamilton turned to his partner and observed mildly:
“Shadrach, what made you so dreadful peppery to Isaiah this evenin'? I declare, I thought you was goin' to take his head off.”
The Captain grunted. “I will take it off some time,” he declared, “if he don't keep the lower end of it shut when he'd ought to. You heard what he said, didn't you?”
“Yes, I heard. That about the Smith boy's good looks, you mean?”
“Sartin. And about Mary-'Gusta's noticin' how good-lookin' he was. Rubbish!”
“Yes—yes, I know, but Isaiah was only jokin'.”
“Jokin'! Well, he may LOOK like a comic almanac, but he needn't try to joke like one while that girl of ours is around. Puttin' notions about fellers and good looks and keepin' company into her head! You might expect such stuff from them fool drummers that come to the store, but an old leather-skinned image like Isaiah Chase ought to have more sense. We don't want such notions put in her head, do we?”