“You can have it yet, you know. Might take it and just keep it to fall back on in case that story-mill of yours busts altogether or all hands in Ostable County go crazy and vote the wrong ticket. Just take it and wait. Always well to have an anchor ready to let go, you know.”
“Thanks, but that wouldn't be fair. I wish I MIGHT have taken it—for your sake. I wish for your sake I were so constituted as to be good for something at it. Of course I don't mean by that that I should be willing to give up my writing—but—well, you see, Grandfather, I owe you an awful lot in this world . . . and I know you had set your heart on my being your partner in Z. Snow and Co. I know you're disappointed.”
Captain Lote did not answer instantly. He seemed to be thinking. Then he opened a drawer in his desk and took out a box of cigars similar to those he had offered the Honorable Fletcher Fosdick on the occasion of their memorable interview.
“Smoke, Al?” he asked. Albert declined because of the nearness to dinner time, but the captain, who never permitted meals or anything else to interfere with his smoking, lighted one of the cigars and leaned back in his chair, puffing steadily.
“We-ll, Al,” he said slowly, “I'll tell you about that. There was a time—I'll own up that there was a time when the idea you wasn't goin' to turn out a business man and the partner who would take over this concern after I got my clearance papers was a notion I wouldn't let myself think of for a minute. I wouldn't THINK of it, that's all. But I've changed my mind about that, as I have about some other things.” He paused, tugged at his beard, and then added, “And I guess likely I might as well own up to the whole truth while I'm about it: I didn't change it because I wanted to, but because I couldn't help it—'twas changed for me.”
He made this statement more as if he were thinking aloud than as if he expected a reply. A moment later he continued.
“Yes, sir,” he said, “'twas changed for me. And,” with a shrug, “I'd rather prided myself that when my mind was made up it stayed that way. But—but, well, consarn it, I've about come to the conclusion that I was a pig-headed old fool, Al, in some ways.”
“Nonsense, Grandfather. You are the last man to—”
“Oh, I don't mean a candidate for the feeble-minded school. There ain't been any Snows put there that I can remember, not our branch of 'em, anyhow. But, consarn it, I—I—” he was plainly finding it hard to express his thought, “I—well, I used to think I knew consider'ble, had what I liked to think was good, hard sense. 'Twas hard enough, I cal'late—pretty nigh petrified in spots.”
Albert laid a hand on his knee.