A tear crept through Florry's long lashes and dropped unheeded into her grapefruit. Cappy saw it drop, but resolved to be cruel and ignore it.
“The infernal schemer couldn't resist the temptation to take a fall out of your old man, Florry; so naturally I had to take a fall out of him; though, at that, I have doubts whether I succeeded. I think I played into his hand; and now I'm telling you about it to save him the trouble and grief of an explanation he couldn't make and which you wouldn't understand—from him. Some day my affairs will all be yours, Florry—yours and Matt's; and he'll have to manage them for you. To manage them well, he must have experience; hence, I decided, in about two flips of a humming-bird's tail, that it would be a mighty good thing for you and Matt if I forced him into business for himself and, as I informed him, let him pay for that experience with his own money; for that is the only kind of money that will buy him any experience worth while. No young man ever learned a great deal when some sentimental old fool footed the bill for his tuition fees in the college of hard knocks.”
“Poor Matt!” Florry sobbed. “He hasn't—had anything—except hard knocks since he was—fourteen years—old.”
“Yes,” shrilled Cappy; “and just look at the difference between him and these la-di-da boys that never had any hard knocks! Hard knocks! Why, hard knocks keep that devilish fellow in condition!”
“But I'd planned—we didn't want to have too long an—engagement—”
“I'll guarantee you, little daughter, you will not have to wait longer than six months. Please wait—for my sake.” And Cappy rose, made his way round the breakfast table and placed his old arms about the light and joy of his existence. “So, so, now!” he soothed. “Don't you cry, honey, until you hear what the old man has to say. Why, haven't I always given my little daughter everything she wanted? You wanted that big sailor, Florry; I saw he wanted you; and he looked awful good to me. I knew he was man, every inch of him; he was our kind of people and he knew ships and loved them, and so I wanted him for you. What if he was a big hunk of a sailor with hardly enough money saved up to buy you half a dozen party dresses? None of the Ricks tribe was ever born or bred in the purple—and I have money enough for all practical purposes. So I went after him for you, Florry, and you're going to get him; so don't cry about it.”
“Life is so filled with disappointments,” Florry sobbed, notwithstanding this was the first she had ever known.
Cappy smiled a still small smile as he bent over her.
“Fiddlesticks!” he replied. “Only the day before yesterday Matt told me he didn't want to work for me; that he didn't want a relative handing him any favors; and that he wasn't marrying you to ease himself into a soft job for life. He said he wanted to make the fight himself. And do you know, Florry, if he had been my own boy I couldn't have been prouder of him than when he told me that! When old What-you-may-call-him in Shakespeare's play said: 'Let me have men about me that are fat,' it showed how blamed little Shakespeare knew about men. He should have said: 'Let me have men about me who are long and tough, and fairly thick in the middle; let me have scrappy boys about me with backbone!'
“Well, in a way, Florry, I was disappointed, and perhaps, in the heat of the moment, I showed it, as I have a habit of doing; but after Matt had left the office, and I got to thinking it over, away down low I was proud of him. Consequently when he reversed his decision yesterday I knew why, for I lived twenty-five years with your mother. But a woman's love is selfish sometimes, and I knew that Matt had surrendered, not to me, but to you; though he came across like a sport, he didn't want to, for you'd roweled him and roped him with your love, my dear—and, though you do not know it, that's a terrible thing to do to a free-running colt like Matt Peasley. He has his code, and it's a bully code; and I don't want you to tie knots in it, Florry. Won't you be as spunky and independent as he is, and give him his head for six months more? He'll probably call sometime to-day, or ring up, to tell you how I picked holes in the program; and when he does I want you to smile and tell him you're glad of it, and suggest a postponement of the wedding until he has demonstrated to me that he is a business man.”