“The books show that he's honest, Lige.”
“Yes,” cried Lige, with his fist on the table. “Honest to a mill. But if that fellow ever gets on top of you, or any one else, he'll grind you into dust.”
“He isn't likely to get on top of me, Lige. I know the business, and keep watch. And now that Jinny's coming home from Monticello, I feel that I can pay more attention to her—kind of take her mother's place,” said the Colonel, putting on his felt hat and tipping his chair. “Lige, I want that girl to have every advantage. She ought to go to Europe and see the world. That trip East last summer did her a heap of good. When we were at Calvert House, Dan read her something that my grandfather had written about London, and she was regularly fired. First I must take her to the Eastern Shore to see Carvel Hall. Dan still owns it. Now it's London and Paris.”
The Captain walked over to the window, and said nothing. He did not see the searching gray eyes of his old friend upon him.
“Lige!” said the Colonel.
The Captain turned.
“Lige, why don't you give up steamboating and come along to Europe? You're not forty yet, and you have a heap of money laid by.”
The Captain shook his head with the vigor that characterized him.
“This ain't no time for me to leave,” he said. “Colonel; I tell you there's a storm comin'.”
The Colonel pulled his goatee uneasily. Here, at last, was a man in whom there was no guile.