“Not a darn bit.”
“Yet—yet I—I'm awfully glad she said it to me. I—I needed it, I guess.”
“Maybe you did, son. . . . And—humph—well, maybe I needed it, too. . . . Yes, I know that's consider'ble for me to say,” he added dryly.
Albert was still thinking of Laban and Rachel.
“They're queer people,” he mused. “When I first met them I thought they were about the funniest pair I ever saw. But—but now I can't help liking them and—and—Say, Grandfather, they must think a lot of your—of our family.”
“Cal'late they do, son. . . . Well, boy, we've had our sermon, you and me, what shall we do? Willin' to sign for the five years trial cruise if I will, are you?”
Albert couldn't help smiling. “It was three years Rachel proposed, not five,” he said.
“Was, eh? Suppose we split the difference and make it four? Willin' to try that?”
“Yes, sir.”
“Agreement bein' that you shall stick close to Z. Snow and Co. durin' work hours and write as much poetry as you darned please other times, neither side to interfere with those arrangements? That right?”