The Skipper looked sheepish.
"Yes, it's all my idea," he began eagerly, but I cut him short.
"Are you really insane," said I, "or are you only feigning lunacy?"
"I'm as sane as you are," said he, "and a great deal saner. Imagine it"—he addressed a supposititious audience—"here's a man asked to marry a lovely young girl, plain but amiable——"
"That's where you're wrong," said I. "She hasn't a plain hair in her head, and she's damned unamiable. Go on and tell some more lies."
"Now think of his gettin' so mad as that—at an old man who only wants to do him a favour."
"You've made me ridiculous, that's what you've done; you've made me a laughing stock, and I won't stand it, Captain Schuyler, I——"
"Oh, come, come, now, Jones! I want to tell you my idea. I know just how much you love that girl, and I know just as well that she don't care two straws for you."
"The devil you do!" said I sulkily.
"But something's got to be done! That girl has only me, her old Uncle, to look after her. I'm an old man, Jones. Perhaps I shan't be able to stand all that you young people may have to. If anything happens to me, I want to feel that Cynthy has a protector."