Of course, there wasn't a word of truth in it, but just the same it always embarrassed Alec a little bit, much to the delight of Elsa. Probably that was why the shipper teased the lad, for Elsa was the apple of his eye. To please her, he would have done things far more foreign to his nature than to crack a joke.
Probably the reason Elsa was so fond of Alec was because he treated her as an absolute equal. There was no hint of condescension on his part when he talked with her, no suggestion of superiority. He never intimated that because she was a girl she shouldn't do this or that thing that he did. Like the majority of American girls of to-day, Elsa was independent, sensible, thoughtful, and able. So her tastes and desires were remarkably like those of any other normal person of her age and training. She liked sailing, tennis, swimming, basket-ball, motoring, camping, and similar sports, and was quite as intelligent about them as most boys would have been. With similar likes himself, Alec understood her feelings exactly and treated her much as he would have treated a boy chum of his own age. Though he was doubtless a little more chivalrous toward her than he would have been to one of his boy friends, he did not carry his chivalry to the point where it interfered with their friendship. So the two became very good chums, indeed. It was a matter of delight to them both that Alec was able to help her with many a knotty point in her studies. In every way the two seemed fashioned to be the best of friends.
To Alec the privilege of coming to the captain's house meant more than he could have told. Alec and his father had lived with a very estimable family. Here at Bivalve he missed greatly that home influence. His companions on the Bertha B and at the piers he had come to esteem greatly; yet they were mostly rough workingmen, uncouth in speech and manner, though pure gold at heart. Alec was at an age and in a situation when he especially needed the refining influence of a good home. He got it in Captain Rumford's home.
Just why Captain Rumford chose to take Alec to his home, the inscrutable oyster shipper never said. But he never did anything without a reason. Outsiders who knew about the matter attached far more significance to it than Alec possibly could. Also they understood much better than Alec did how fortunate a lad he was. With the leading oyster shipper at Bivalve back of him, Alec's future was already secure if he chose to become an oyster-planter himself.
Alec, fortunately, never once thought of the matter in that light. He didn't even know that the shipper was behind him. In his own mind he was simply an employee whom the shipper, for some reason or other, had come to like. And he meant to do everything in his power to retain Captain Rumford's good-will.
It pleased Alec immensely that he had been able to help his benefactor so much with his office work. The changes that had been made seemed to lighten the work daily. Yet the changes already made were not all that Alec hoped to make. He wanted a better system of filing and keeping records. Every time he looked at the dusty pigeonholes in the old rack above the captain's desk, each stuffed full of miscellaneous contents, his fingers itched to tear the whole thing out and install some modern filing cases. But he knew he must bide his time for that.
Very late in the winter, or very early in the spring, when the oyster business was getting toward its lowest ebb and the office work was light, Alec asked permission to clean the office. The shipper looked at him in amazement.
"What for?" he asked.
"Perhaps we could arrange things in a way that would expedite our work," replied Alec, watching his boss out of the corner of his eye.