“Is it? Depends on what you call good, I cal'late. Al learned a good deal of this and that, a little bit of foreign language, some that they call dead and some that ought to be dead—and buried, 'cordin' to my notion. When he came to me he couldn't add up a column of ten figgers without makin' a mistake, and as for business—well, what he knew about business was about equal to what Noah knew about a gas engine.”
He paused to chuckle, and Fosdick chuckled with him.
“As to family,” went on Captain Lote, “he's a Snow on his mother's side, and there's been seven generations of Snow's in this part of the Cape since the first one landed here. So far as I know, they've all managed to keep out of jail, which may have been more good luck than deservin' in some cases.”
“His father?” queried Fosdick.
The captain's heavy brows drew together. “His father was a Portygee—or Spaniard, I believe is right—and he was a play-actor, one of those—what do you call 'em?—opera singers.”
Fosdick seemed surprised and interested. “Oh, indeed,” he exclaimed, “an opera singer? . . . Why, he wasn't Speranza, the baritone, was he?”
“Maybe; I believe he was. He married my daughter and—well, we won't talk about him, if you don't mind.”
“But Speranza was a—”
“IF you don't mind, Mr. Fosdick.”
Captain Lote lapsed into silence, drumming the desk with his big fingers. His visitor waited for a few moments. At length he said: