“Sartin. I used to know 'Down went the R'yal George with all her crew complete,' and a lot more. Used to say 'em over to myself when I first went to sea and stood watch alone nights. But they were different, you know; they—they—”
“Sure! My wife—why, I give you my word that my own wife and her set go perfectly daffy over chaps who write stuff that rhymes and that the papers are printing columns about. Snow, if this grandson of yours was a genuine press-touted, women's club poet instead of a would-be—well, I don't know what might happen. In that case she might be as strong FOR this engagement as she is now against it.”
He paused, seeming a bit ashamed of his own heat. Captain Zelotes, however, regarded him with more approval than he had yet shown.
“It's been my observation that women are likely to get off the course chasin' false signals like that,” he observed. “When a man begins lettin' his hair and his mouth run wild together seems as if the combination had an attraction for a good many women folks. Al keeps his hair cut, though, I'll say that for him,” he added. “It curls some, but it ain't long. I wouldn't have him in the office if 'twas.”
“Well, Mr. Fosdick,” he continued, “what other objections are they? Manners? Family and relations? Education? Any objections along that line?”
“No-o, no; I—well, I don't know; you see, I don't know much about the young fellow.”
“Perhaps I can help you out. As to manners—well, you can judge them for yourself when you see him. He seems to be in about every kind of social doin's there is down here, and he's as much or more popular with the summer folks than with the year-'rounders. Education? Well, that's fair to middlin', as I see it. He spent nine or ten years in a mighty expensive boardin' school up in New York State.”
“Did he? What school?”
The captain gave the name of the school. Fosdick looked surprised.
“Humph! That IS a good school,” he said.