An express wagon, between the shafts of which was a raw-boned gray horse leaning against one shaft as a prop while he dozed, stood before Cap'n Abe's store as Louise and Mr. Judson Bane came up from the shore front. She thanked the actor as he set the heavy baskets on the porch step.
"Those blackfish look so good I long for a fish supper," he said, smiling in open admiration upon her.
Louise was quick to establish a reputation for hospitality. Perhaps it was the Silt blood that influenced her to say: "Wait till I speak to Uncle Amazon, Mr. Bane."
There was a tall gaunt man in overalls and jumper, who, somehow, possessed a family resemblance to the gray horse, leaning against the door frame, much as his beast leaned against the wagon shaft. Perry Baker and the gray horse had traveled so many years together about Paulmouth and Cardhaven that it was not surprising they looked alike.
When Louise mounted the porch steps she could not easily pass the expressman, who was saying, in drawling tones:
"Well, I brought it over, seeing I had a light load. I didn't know what else to do with it. Of course, it was Cap'n Abe give it to me to ship. Let's see, I didn't happen to see you here that night you came, an' I brought the young lady's trunks over, did I?"
"Not as I know on," barked Cap'n Amazon with brevity.
"Funny how we didn't meet then," drawled Perry Baker.
There seemed to be a tenseness to the atmosphere of the old store. Louise saw the usual idlers gathered about the cold stove—Washy Gallup on his nail-keg, his jaw wagging eagerly; Milt Baker and Amiel Perdue side by side with their elbows on the counter; Cap'n Joab Beecher leaning forward on his stick—all watching Cap'n Amazon, it seemed, with strained attention.
It was like a scene set for a play—for the taking of a film, perhaps. The whimsical thought came to Louise that the director had just shouted: "Get set!" and would immediately add: "Action! Camera! Go!"
"Course," Perry Baker drawled, "I sent it to Boston as consigner, myself; so when the chest warn't called for within a reasonable time they shipped it back to me, knowin' I was agent. Funny Cap'n Abe didn't show up for to claim it."
Cap'n Amazon, grim as a gargoyle, leaned upon the counter and stared the expressman out of countenance, saying nothing. Perry shifted uneasily in the doorway. The captain's silence and his stare were becoming irksome to bear.
"Well!" he finally ejaculated, "that's how 'tis. I'd ha' waited till—till Cap'n Abe come home—if he everdoescome; but my wife, Huldy, got fidgety. She reads the papers, and she's got it into her head there's something wrong 'bout the old chest. She dreamed 'bout it. An' ye know, when a woman gets to dreamin' she'll drag her anchors, no matter what the bottom is. She says folks have been murdered 'fore now and their bodies crammed into a chest——"
"Why, you long-winded sculpin!" exclaimed Cap'n Amazon, at length goaded to speech. "Bring that chest in and take a reef in your jaw-tackle. I knew a man once't looked nigh enough like you to be your twin; and he was purt nigh a plumb idiot, too."
Louise had never before heard her uncle's voice so sharp. It was plain he had not seen his niece until after Perry Baker turned and clumped out upon the porch, thus giving the girl free entrance to the store. She turned, smiling a little whimsically, and said to Bane:
"The moment is not propitious, I fear. Uncle Amazon seems to be put out about something."
"Don't bother him now, I beg," urged the actor, lifting his hat. "I will call later—if I may."
"Certainly, Mr. Bane," she said with seriousness. "Uncle Amazon and I will both be glad to see you."
The expressman came heavily up the steps with a green chest on his shoulder. It had handles of tarred rope and had plainly seen much service; indeed, it was brother to the box in the storeroom which Louise had found filled with nautical literature.
The girl entered the store ahead of the staggering expressman, but stepped aside for him to precede her, for she wished to beckon to Amiel to come out for the baskets of fish.
"Watch out where you're putting your foot, Perry!" Cap'n Joab suddenly exclaimed.
His warning was too late. Some youngster, eager to peel his banana, had flung its treacherous skin upon the floor. The expressman set his clumsy boot upon it.
"Whee! 'Ware below!" yelled Amiel Perdue.
To recover his footing Perry let go of the chest. It fell to the floor with a mighty crash, landing upon one corner and bursting open. During the long years it had stood in Cap'n Abe's storeroom the wood had suffered dry rot.
"Land o' Liberty an' all han's around!" bawled the irrepressible MiltBaker. "There ain't ho corpse in that dust, for a fac'!"
"What kind of a mess d'ye make that out to be, I want to know?" cackledWashy Gallup.
The hinges had torn away from the rotting wood so that the lid lay wide open. Tumbled out upon the floor were several ancient garments, including a suit of quite unwearable oilskins, and with them at least a wheelbarrow load of bricks!
"Well, I vum!" drawled the expressman, at length recovering speech. "I hope Huldy'll be satisfied."
But Cap'n Joab Beecher was not. He stood up and pointed his stick at the heap of rubbish on the floor and his voice quavered as he shrilly asked:
"Then,where's Cap'n Abe?"
They all turned to stare again at Cap'n Amazon. That hardy mariner seemed to be quite as self-possessed as usual. His grim lips opened and in caustic tone he said:
"You fellers seem to think that I'm Abe Silt's keeper. I ain't. Abe's old enough—and ought to be seaman enough—to look out for Abe Silt. What tomfoolery he packed into that chest is none o' my consarn. I l'arnt years ago that Moses an' them old fellers left the chief commandment out o' the Scriptures. That's 'Mind your own business.' Abe's business ain't mine. Here, you Amiel! clear up that clutter an' let's have no more words about it."
The decisive speech of the master mariner closed the lips of even Cap'nJoab. The latter did not repeat his query about Cap'n Abe but, with abaffled expression on his weather-beaten countenance, departed withPerry Baker.
That a trap had been for Cap'n Amazon, that it had been sprung and failed to catch the master mariner, seemed quite plain to Louise. Betty Gallup's oft-expressed suspicions and Washy Gallup's gossip suddenly impressed the girl. With these vague thoughts was connected in her mind the discovery she had made that one of Cap'n Amazon's thrilling stories was pasted into the old scrapbook. Why she should think of that discovery just now mystified her; but it seemed somehow to dovetail into the enigma.
Cap'n Amazon lifted the flap in the counter for Louise and in his usual kindly tone said:
"Good fishin', Niece Louise? Bring home a mess?"
"Yes, indeed," she told him. "The baskets are outside. Let Amiel bring them around to the back."
"Aye, aye!" returned the captain briskly. "Tautog? We'll have 'em for supper," and let her pass as though nothing extraordinary had occurred.
But to Louise's troubled mind the bursting of the old chest was like the explosion of a bomb in Cap'n Abe's store.
What was the meaning of it all? Why had the chest been filled with bricks and useless garments? And by whom?
If by Cap'n Abe, what was his object in doing such a perfectly incomprehensible thing? He had deliberately, it seemed, shipped a quite useless chest to Boston with no expectation of calling for it at the express office. Then,where had he gone?
Cap'n Joab's query was the one uppermost in Louise Grayling's thought. All these incomprehensible things seemed to lead to that most important question. Had Cap'n Abe gone to sea, or had he not? If not, what had become of him?
And how much more regarding his brother's disappearance did Cap'nAmazon know than the neighbors or herself? In her room Louise sat andfaced the problem. She deliberated upon each incident connected withCap'n Abe's departure as she knew them.
From almost the first moment of her arrival at the store on the ShellRoad, the storekeeper had announced the expected arrival of Cap'nAmazon and his own departure for a sea voyage if his brother wouldundertake the conduct of the store.
The incidents of the night of Cap'n Amazon's coming and of Cap'n Abe's departure seemed reasonable enough. Here had arisen the opportunity long desired by the Shell Road storekeeper. His brother would remain to look out for his business while he could go seafaring. Cap'n Amazon knew just the craft for the storekeeper to sail in, clearing from the port of Boston within a few hours.
There was not much margin of time for Cap'n Abe to make his preparations. Perry Baker was at hand with Louise's trunks, and the storekeeper had sent off his chest, supposedly filled with an outfit for use at sea. Just what he had intended to do with useless clothing and a hod of bricks it was impossible to understand.
Cap'n Abe had come to her bedroom door to bid Louise good-bye, and she had seen him depart in the fog just at dawn. Yet nobody had observed him at the railroad station and he had not called for the chest at the Boston express office.
The chest! That was the apex of the mystery. Never in this world had Cap'n Abe intended to take the chest with him to sea—or wherever else he had it in his mind to go.
Nor was the chest intended to be returned to the store until Cap'n Abe himself came back from his mysterious journey. The fact that Perry Baker had shipped it in his own name instead of that of the owner had brought about this unexpected incident.
Washy Gallup's gossip—his doubt regarding Cap'n Abe's shipping on a sea voyage—now came home to Louise with force. Washy suggested that the storekeeper was afraid of the sea; that in all his years at Cardhaven he had never been known to venture out of the quiet waters of the bay.
To the girl's mind, too, came the remembrance of that talk she had had with Cap'n Abe on the evening of her arrival at the store. Was there something he had said then that explained this mystery?
He had told her of the wreck of the Bravo and the drowning of Captain Joshua Silt, his father, in sight of his mother's window. She had been powerfully affected by that awful tragedy; this could not be doubted.
And the son, Cap'n Abe, a posthumous child, might indeed have come into the world with that horror of the sea which must have filled his poor mother's soul.
"It would explain why Uncle Abram never became a sailor—the only Silt for generations who remained ashore. Yet, he spoke that night as though he loved the sea—or the romance of it, at least," Louise thought.
"Perhaps, too, his own inability to sail to foreign shores and his terror of the sea made him so worship Cap'n Amazon's prowess. For they say he was continually relating stories of his brother's adventures—even more marvelous tales than Cap'n Amazon himself has related.
"Such a misfortune as Cap'n Abe's fear of the sea may easily explain his brother's good-natured scorn of him. Uncle Amazon doesn't say much about him; but I can see he looks upon Cap'n Abe as a weakling.
"But," sighed the girl in conclusion, "even this does not explain the mystery of the chest, or where Cap'n Abe can be hiding. I wonder if Uncle Amazon knows?"
As on previous occasions, Louise Grayling was deterred from putting a searching question to Cap'n Amazon because of his look and manner. The little she had seen of Cap'n Abe assured her that she would have felt no hesitancy in approaching the mild-mannered storekeeper upon any subject.
But the master mariner seemed to be an entirely different personality. The way he had overawed the idlers in the store that afternoon when the old chest was broken open, and his refusal to make any further explanation of Cap'n Abe's absence, pinched out Louise's courage as one might pinch out a candle wick.
That suspicion was rife in the community, and that the story of the strange contents of Cap'n Abe's chest had spread like a prairie fire, Louise was sure. Yet at supper time Cap'n Amazon was as calm and cheerful as usual and completely ignored the accident of the afternoon.
"Hi-mighty likely mess of tautog you caught, Louise," he said, ladling the thick white gravy dotted with crumbly yellow egg yolk upon her plate with lavish hand. "That Lawford Tapp knows where the critters school, if he doesn't know much else."
"Oh, Uncle Amazon! I think he is a very intelligent young man. Only he wastes his time so!"
"He knows enough book l'arnin', I do allow," agreed Cap'n Amazon. "But fritters away his time as you say. They all do that over to Tapp P'int, I cal'late."
"I wonder how it came to be called Tapp Point?" Louise asked, with a suddenly sharpened curiosity.
"'Cause it's belonged to the Tapps since away back,—or, so Cap'n Joab says. That sand heap never was wuth a punched nickel a ton till these city folks began to build along The Beaches."
Louise, in her own mind, immediately constructed another theory about Lawford Tapp, "the fisherman's son." The sandy point had been sold to the builder of the very ornate villa now crowning it, and the proceeds of that sale had paid for theMerry Andrewsloop and the expensive fishing rod and the clothes of superquality which the young man wore.
She shrank, however, from commenting upon this extravagant and spendthrift trait in his character, even to Uncle Amazon. Nor would she have spoken to anybody else upon the subject.
Something had happened to Louise Grayling on this adventurous afternoon—something of which she scarcely dared think, let alone talk!
The grip of fear at her heart when she thought Lawford was drowning had startled her as much as the accident itself. She had seen men in peril before—in deadly peril—without feeling any personal terror for their fate.
In that moment when Lawford was sinking and she was preparing to leap to his aid, Louise had realized this fact. And in her inmost soul she admitted—with a thrill that shook her physically as well as spiritually—that her interest in this Cape Cod fisherman's son was an interest rooted in her inmost being.
The incident of the wrecked sea chest held her attention in only a secondary degree. All through supper she was listening for Betty Gallup's heavy step. She knew she could not sleep that night without knowing how Lawford was.
For the very reason that she felt so deeply regarding it, she shrank from talking with Cap'n Amazon of the accident that had happened to Lawford. She was glad the substitute storekeeper had "gone for'ard" again to attend to customers when Betty came clumping up the back steps.
"He's all right, Miss Lou," said the kindly woman, patting the girl's hand. "I waited to see Doc Ambrose when he come back from the P'int. He says there ain't a thing the matter with him that vinegar an' brown paper won't cure.
"But land sakes! Miss Lou, ain't this an awful thing 'bout your Uncle Abe's chest? That old pirate knows more'n he'd ought to 'bout what's come o' Cap'n Abe, even if they ain't brought it home to him yit."
"Now, Betty, I wish you wouldn't," begged the girl. "Why should you give currency to such foolish gossip?"
"What foolish gossip?" snapped the woman.
"Why, about my Uncle Amazon."
"How d'yeknowhe's your uncle at all?" demanded Betty. "You never seen him before he come here. You never knowed nothin' 'bout him, so you said, 'fore you come here to Cardhaven."
"But, Betty——"
"Ain't no 'buts' about it!" fiercely declared the "able seaman.""Cap'n Abe's gone—disappeared. We don't know what's become of him.Course, Huldy Baker was a silly to think Cap'n Abe had been murderedand cut up like shark bait and shipped away in that old chest."
"Oh!"
"Yes. 'Cause Perry seen Cap'n Abe himself that night when he took the chest away. That was ridic'lous. But then, Huldy Baker ain't got right good sense, nor never had.
"But it stands to reason Cap'n Abe had no intent of shipping aboard any craft with sich dunnage in his chest as they say was in it."
"No-o. I suppose that is so," admitted Louise.
"Then, what's become of the poor man?" Betty ejaculated.
"Why, nobody seems to know. Not even Uncle Amazon."
"Have you axed him?" demanded the other bluntly.
"No. I haven't done that."
"Humph!" was the rejoinder. "You're just as much afeared on him as the rest on us. You take it from me, Miss Lou, he's been a hard man on his own quarter-deck. He ain't no more like Cap'n Abe than buttermilk's like tartaric acid.
"Cap'n Abe warn't no seafarin' man," pursued Betty, "though he had the lingo on his tongue and 'peared as salt as a dried pollock. It's in my mind that he wouldn't never re'lly go to sea—'nless he was egged on to it."
Here it was again! That same doubt as expressed by Washy Gallup—the suggestion that Cap'n Abe Silt possessed an inborn fear of the sea that he had never openly confessed.
"Why do you say that, Betty?" Louise hesitatingly asked the old woman.
"'Cause I've knowed Cap'n Abe for more'n twenty year, and in all that endurin' time he's stuck as close to shore as a fiddler. With all his bold talk about ships and sailin', I tell you he warn't a seafarin' man."
"But what has Uncle Amazon to do with the mystery of his brother's absence?" demanded Louise.
"Humph! If heisCap'n Abe's brother. Now, now, you don't know no more about this old pirate than I do, Miss Lou. He influenced Cap'n Abe somehow, or someway, so't he cut his hawser and drifted out o' soundings—that's sure! Here this feller callin' himself Am'zon Silt has got the store an' all it holds, an' Cap'n Abe's money, and ev'rything."
"Oh, Betty, how foolishly you talk," sighed the girl.
"Humph! Mebbe. And then again, mebbe it ain't foolish. Them men to-day thought they could scare that old pirate into admittin' something if they sprung Cap'n Abe's chest on him. Oh, I knowed they was goin' to do it," admitted Betty.
"Course, they had no idee what was in the chest. Bustin' it open was an accident. Perry Baker's as clumsy as a cow. But you see, Miss Lou, just how cool that ol' pirate took it all. Washy was tellin' me. He just browbeat 'em an' left 'em with all their canvas slattin'.
"Oh, you can't tell me! That old pirate's handled a crew without no tongs, you may lay to that! And what he's done to poor old Cap'n Abe——"
She went away shaking a sorrowful head and without finishing her sentence. Louise was unable to shake off the burden of doubt of Cap'n Amazon's character and good intentions. She felt that she could not spend the long evening in his company, and bidding him good-night through the open store door she retired to the upper floor.
She felt that sleep was far from her eyelids on this night; therefore she lit a candle and went into the storeroom to get something to read. She selected a much battered volume, printed in an early year of the nineteenth century, its title being:
LANDSMEN'S TALES:Seafaring Yarns of a Lubber.
Louise became enthralled by the narratives of perilous adventure and odd happenings on shipboard which the author claimed to have himself observed. She read for an hour or more, while the sounds in the store below gradually ceased and she heard Cap'n Amazon close and lock the front door for the night.
Silence below. Outside the lap, lap, lap of the waves on the strand and the rising moan of the surf over Gulf Rocks.
Louise turned a page. She plunged into another yarn. Breathlessly and, almost fearfully she read it to the end—the very story of the murdered albatross and the sailors' superstitious belief in the bird's bad influence, as she had heard Cap'n Amazon relate it to Aunt Euphemia Conroth.
She laid down the book at last in amazement and confusion. There was no doubt now of Cap'n Amazon's mendacity. This book of nautical tales had been written and printedlong before Amazon Silt was born!
And if the falseness of his wild narratives was established, was it a far cry to Betty Gallup's suspicions and accusations? What and who was this man, who called himself Amazon Silt who had taken Cap'n Abe's place in the store on the Shell Road?
Louise lay with wide-open eyes for a long time. Then she crept out of bed and turned the key in the lock of her door—the first time she had thought to do such a thing since her arrival at Cardhaven.
"Them movin' picture people are hoppin' about The Beaches like sandpipers," observed Cap'n Amazon at the breakfast table. "And I opine they air pretty average useless, too. They were hurrahin' around all day yest'day while you was out fishin'. Want to take a picture of Abe's old store here. Dunno what to do about it."
Louise was too much disturbed by her discoveries of overnight to give much attention to this subject.
"It's Abe's store, you see," went on Cap'n Amazon. "Dunno how he'd feel 'bout havin' it took in a picture and showed all over the country. It needs a coat o' paint hi-mighty bad. Ought to be fixed up some 'fore havin' its picture took—don't ye think so, Niece Louise?"
The girl awoke to the matter sufficiently to advise him:
"The lack of paint will not show in the picture, Uncle Amazon. And I suppose they want the store for a location just because it is weather-beaten and old-fashioned."
"I want to know! Well, now, if I was in the photograftin' business, seems t' me I'd pick out the nice-lookin' places to make pictures of. I knowed a feller once that made a business of takin' photografts in furin' parts. He sailed with me when I was master of theBlue Sparrow—clipper built she was, an' a spankin' fine craft. We——"
"Oh, Uncle Amazon!" Louise cried, rising from, the table suddenly, "you'll have to excuse me. I—I forgot something upstairs. Yes—I've finished my breakfast. Betty can clear off."
She fairly ran away from the table. It seemed to her as though she could not sit and listen to another of his preposterous stories. It would be on the tip of her tongue to declare her disbelief in his accuracy. How and where he had gained access to Cap'n Abe's store of nautical romances she could not imagine; but she was convinced that many, if not all, of his supposedly personal adventures were entirely fictitious in so far as his own part in them was concerned.
She put on her hat and went out of the back door in order to escape further intercourse with Cap'n Amazon for the present. On the shore she found the spot below the Bozewell bungalow a busy scene. This was a perfect day for "the sun worshipers," as somebody has dubbed motion picture people. Director Anscomb was evidently planning to secure several scenes and the entire company was on hand.
Louise saw that there were a number of spectators besides herself—some from the town, but mostly young folk from the cottages along The Beaches.
Lawford Tapp was present, and she waved her hand to him, yet preserving an air of merely good comradeship. She was glad that he did not know that it was she who had leaped to his rescue the day before. Considering the nature of the feeling she had for him, into the knowledge of which his peril had surprised her, the girl could not endure any intimate conversation with Lawford. Not just then, at least.
Tapp was in the midst of a group of girls, and she remarked his ease of manner. She did not wonder at it, for he was a gentleman by instinct no matter what his social level might be. Three of the girls were those Louise Grayling believed to be daughters of Lawford's employer.
She saw that he was breaking away from the group with the intention of coming to her. L'Enfant Terrible said something to him and laughed shrilly. She saw Lawford's cheek redden.
So Louise welcomed the approach of Mr. Bane, who chanced at the moment to be idle.
"Now you will see us grinding them out, Miss Grayling," the actor said.
Louise broke into a series of questions regarding the taking of the pictures. Her evident interest in the big leading man halted Lawford's approach. Besides, Miss Louder, who had evidently been introduced to the Taffy King's son, attached herself to him.
She was a pretty girl despite the layers of grease paint necessary to accentuate the lights and shadows of her piquant face. Her manner with men was free without being bold. With a big parasol over her shoulder, she adapted her step to Lawford's and they strolled nearer.
Bane was speaking of the script he had previously mentioned as containing a part eminently fitted for Louise. As Lawford and Miss Louder passed he said:
"I am sure you can do well in that part, Miss Grayling. It is exactly your style."
Had Lawford any previous reason for doubting Louise Grayling's connection with the moving picture industry this overheard remark would have lulled such a doubt to sleep.
The young man realized well enough that Louise was a very different girl from the blithe young woman at his side. But how could he make I. Tapp see it?
Money was not everything in the world; Lawford Tapp was far from thinking it was. He had always considered it of much less importance than the things one could exchange it for.
However, never having felt the necessity for working for mere pelf, and being untrained for any form of industry whatsoever, his father's threat of disowning him loomed a serious menace to the young man.
Not for himself did Lawford fear. He felt warm blood in his veins, vigor in his muscles, a keen edge to his nerves. He could work—preferably with his hands. He realized quite fully his limitation of brain power.
But what right had he to ask any girl to share his lot—especially a girl like Louise Grayling, who he supposed won a sufficient livelihood in a profession the emoluments of which must be far greater than those of any trade he might seek to follow?
He saw now that after his somewhat desultory college course, his months of loafing about on sea and shore had actually unfitted him for concentration upon any ordinary work. And he was not sanguine enough to expect an extraordinary situation to come his way.
Then, too, the young man realized that Louise Grayling had not given him the least encouragement to lead him to believe that she thought of him at all. At this moment her preference for Bane's society seemed marked. Already Cecile had rasped Lawford regarding the leading man's attentions to Louise.
Lawford could not face the taunting glances of Marian and Prue. They had come down to the beach on this particular morning he felt sure to comment—and not kindly—upon Louise Grayling. He hoped that she was not included in the director's plans for the day, and he was glad to see that she had no make-up on, as had these other young women.
So he strolled on grimly with Miss Louder, who would not be called for work for an hour. But the young man heard little of her chatter.
The tide was at the ebb and the two walked on at the edge of the splashing surf, where the strand was almost as firm as a cement walk. The curve of the beach took them toward the lighthouse and here, approaching with bucket and clam hoe along the flats, was the very lightkeeper who had watched theMerry Andrewand her crew the day, before when Lawford met with his accident.
"There ye be, Mr. Lawford," crowed the man, "as chipper as a sandpiper.But I swanny, I didn't ever expect t' hail ye again this side o'Jordan, one spell yest'day."
"You had your glass on us, did you?" Lawford said languidly.
"I did, young man—I did. An' when that bobbin' skiff walloped ye on the side of the head I never 'spected t' see you come up again. If it hadn't been for this little lady who———Shucks, now! This ain't her 'tall, is it?"
"Oh, Mr. Tapp, were you in a boating accident yesterday?" cried MissLouder.
"I was overboard—yes," responded Lawford, but rather blankly, for he was startled by the lightkeeper's statement. "What do you mean, Jonas?" to the lightkeeper. "Didn't Betty Gallup haul me inboard?"
"Bet Gallup—nawthin'!" exploded Jonas with disgust. "She handled that sloop o' yourn all right. I give her credit for that. But 'twas that there gal stayin' at Cap'n Abe's. Ye had her out with ye, eh?"
"Miss Grayling? Certainly."
"She's some gal, even if she is city bred," was the lightkeeper's enthusiastic observation. "An' quick! My soul! Ye'd ought to seen her kick off her skirt an' shoes an' dive after ye! I swanny, she was a sight!"
"I should think she would have been!" gasped Miss Louder with some scorn. "Goodness me, she must be a regular stunt actress!" and she laughed shrilly.
But Lawford gave her small attention. "Jonas, do you mean that?" he asked. "I thought it was Betty who saved me. Why, dad said this morning he was going to send the old woman a check. He doesn't much approve of me," and the heir of the Taffy King smiled rather grimly, "but as I'm the last Tapp——"
"He's glad ye didn't git done forcom-pletely, heh?" suggested Jonas, and giggled. "I wouldn't for a minute stand in the way of Bet Gallup's gittin' what's due her. She did pick ye both up, Lawford. But, land sakes! ye'd been six fathoms down, all right, if it hadn't been for that gal at Cap'n Abe's."
"I—I had no idea of it. I never even thanked her," muttered Lawford."What can she think of me?"
But not even Miss Louder heard this. She realized, however, that the young man who she had been told was "the greatest catch at The Beaches" was much distrait and that her conversation seemed not to interest him at all.
They went back toward the scene of the film activities. It was the hour of the usual promenade on the sands. Everybody in the summer colony appeared on the beach while the walking along the water's edge was fine. This promenade hour was even more popular than the bathing hour which was, of, course, at high tide.
Groups of women, young and old, strolled under gay parasols, or camped on the sands to chat. Brilliantly striped marquees were set up below some of the cottages, in which tea and other refreshments were served. The younger people fluttered about, talking and laughing, much like a flock of Mother Carey's chickens before a storm.
There were several wagons over from the Haven, in which the small-fry summer visitors arrived and joined their more aristocratic neighbors. The wagons stopped upon the Shell Road and the passengers climbed down to the beach between two of the larger cottages.
The people at The Beaches had tried on several occasions to inclose the stretch of shore below their summer homes, and to make it a private beach. But even the most acquisitive of the town councilmen (and there were several of the fraternity of the Itching Palm in the council) dared not establish such a precedent. The right of the public to the shore at tide-water could not safely be ignored in a community of fishermen and clam diggers.
So the shore on this morning had become a gay scene, with the interest centering on the open air studio of the film company. Lawford saw Louise walking on alone along the edge of the water. Bane had been called into conference by the director.
Lawford could not well hasten his steps and desert Miss Louder, but he desired strongly to do so. And ere the film actress lingeringly left him to rejoin her company, Louise was some distance in advance.
His sisters were near her. Lawford could see them look at her most superciliously, and the saucy Cecile said something that made Prue laugh aloud.
Just beyond the Tapp girls was approaching a group of women and men.Lawford recognized them as the Perritons and their friends. Lawfordhad no particular interest in the summer crowd himself; but he knew thePerritons were influential people in the social world.
With them was a majestic person the young man had never seen before. Undoubtedly the "Lady from Poughkeepsie." Her pink countenance and beautifully dressed gray hair showed to excellent advantage under the black and white parasol she carried.
She stepped eagerly before the party, calling:
"Louise!"
Louise Grayling raised her head and waved a welcoming hand.
"What brings you forth so early in the morning, auntie?" she asked, her voice ringing clearly across the sands.
There were at least four dumfounded spectators of this meeting, and they were all named Tapp.
Lawford stood rooted to the sands, feeling quite as though the universe had fallen into chaos. It was only L'Enfant Terrible who found speech.
"Oh, my!" she cried. "What a mistake! The movie queen turns out to be some pumpkins!"
Louise, knowing Aunt Euphemia so well, was immediately aware that the haughty lady had something more than ordinarily unpleasant to communicate. It was nothing about Uncle Amazon and the Shell Road store; some other wind of mischance had ruffled her soul.
But the girl ignored Aunt Euphemia's signals for several minutes; until she made herself, indeed, more familiar with the manner and personal attributes of these new acquaintances. There was a Miss Perriton of about her own age whom she liked at first sight. Two or three men of the party were clean-cut and attractive fellows. Despite the fact that their cottage had been so recently opened for the season, the Perritons had already assembled a considerable house party.
"Louise, I wish to talk to you," at last said Mrs. Conroth grimly.
"True," sighed her niece. "And how extremely exact you always are in your use of the language, auntie. You never wish to talkwithme.Youwill do all the talking as usual, I fear."
"You are inclined to be saucy," bruskly rejoined Aunt Euphemia. "As your father is away I feel more deeply my responsibility in this matter. You are a wayward girl—you always have been."
"You don't expect me to agree with you on that point, do you, auntie?"Louise asked sweetly.
Mrs. Conroth ignored the retort, continuing: "I am not amazed, after seeing your surroundings at the Silt place, that you should become familiar with these common longshore characters. But this that I have just learned—only this forenoon in fact—astonishes me beyond measure; it does, indeed!"
"Let me be astonished, too, auntie. I love a surprise," drawled her niece.
"Where were you yesterday?" demanded Aunt Euphemia sharply.
Louise at once thought she knew what was coming. She smiled as she replied: "Out fishing."
"And with whom, may I ask?"
"With Betty Gallup, Uncle Abram's housekeeper."
"But the man?"
"Oh! Mr. Tapp, you mean? A very pleasant young man, auntie."
"That is what I was told, Louise," her aunt said mournfully. "With young Tapp. And you have been seen with him frequently. It is being remarked by the whole colony. Of course, you can mean nothing by this intimacy. It arises from your thoughtlessness, I presume. You must understand that he is not—er——Well, the Tapps are not of our set, Louise."
"My goodness, no!" laughed the girl cheerfully. "The Tapps are realCape Codders, I believe."
Aunt Euphemia raised her eyebrows and her lorgnette together. "I do not understand you, I fear. What the Tapps are by blood, I do not know. But they are not in society at all—not at all!"
"Not in society?" repeated Louise, puzzled indeed.
"Scarcely. Of course, as Mrs. Perriton says, the way the cottagers are situated here at The Beaches, the Tappsmustbe treated with a certain friendliness. That quite impossible 'I. Tapp,' as he advertises himself, owns all the Point and might easily make it very disagreeable for the rest of the colony if he so chose."
She stopped because of the expression on her niece's countenance.
"Whatdoyou mean?" Louise asked. "Who—who are these Tapps?"
"My dear child! Didn't you know? Was I blaming you for a fault of which you were not intentionally guilty? See how wrong you are to go unwarned and unaccompanied to strange places and into strange company. I thought you were merely having a mild flirtation with that young man in the full light of understanding."
Louise controlled her voice and her countenance with an effort. "Tell me, Aunt Euphemia," she repeated, "just who Lawford Tapp is?"
"His father is a manufacturer of cheap candies. He is advertised far and wide as 'I. Tapp, the Salt Water Taffy King.' Fancy! I presume you are quite right; they probably were nothing more than clam diggers originally. The wife and daughters are extremely raw; no other word expresses it. And that house! Have you seen it close to? There was never anything quite so awful built outside an architect's nightmare."
"They own Tapp Point?Thatis Lawford's home? Those girls are his sisters?" Louise murmured almost breathlessly.
"Whomdidyou take that young man to be, Louise?"
"A fisherman's son," confessed her niece, in a very small voice. And at that Aunt Euphemia all but fainted.
But Louise would say nothing more—just then. On the approach of some of her friends, Mrs. Conroth was forced to put a cap upon her vexation, and bid her niece good-day as sweetly as though she had never dreamed of boxing her ears.
Louise climbed the nearest stairs to the summit of the bluff. She felt she could not meet Lawford at this time, and he was between her and the moving picture actors.
Within the past few hours several things that had seemed stable inLouise Grayling's life had been shaken.
She had accepted in the very first of her acquaintanceship with Lawford Tapp the supposition that his social position was quite inferior to her own. She was too broadly democratic to hold that as an insurmountable barrier between them.
Her disapproval of the young man grew out of her belief in his identity as a mere "hired man" of the wealthy owner of the villa on the Point. She had considered that a man who was so intelligent and well educated and at the same time so unambitious was lacking in those attributes of character necessary to make him a success in life.
His love for the open—for the sea and shore and all that pertained to them—coincided exactly with Louise's own aspirations. She considered it all right that her father and herself spent much of their time as Lawford spent his. Only, daddy-prof often added to the sum-total of human knowledge by his investigations, and sometimes added to their financial investments through his work as well.
Until now she had considered Lawford Tapp's tendencies toward living such an irresponsible existence as all wrong—for him. The rather exciting information she had just gained changed her mental attitude toward the young man entirely.
Louise gave no consideration whatsoever to Aunt Euphemia's snobbish stand in the matter of Lawford's social position. Professor Grayling had laughingly said that Euphemia chose to ignore the family's small beginnings in America. True, the English Graylings possessed a crest and a pedigree as long as the moral law. But in America the family had begun by being small tradespeople and farmers.
Of course, Louise considered, Aunt Euphemia would be very unpleasant and bothersome about this matter. Louise had hoped to escape all that for the summer by fleeing to Cap'n Abe's store at Cardhaven.
However (and the girl's lips set firmly) she was determined to take her own gait—to stand upon her own opinion—to refuse to be swerved from her chosen course by any consideration. Lawford Tapp was in a financial situation to spend his time in the improvement of his body and mind without regard to money considerations. Louise foresaw that they were going to have a delightful time together along the shore here, until daddy-prof came home in the fall. And then——
She saw no such cloud upon the horizon as Lawford saw. Louise acknowledged the existence of nothing—not even Aunt Euphemia's opposition—which could abate the happiness she believed within her grasp.
She admitted that her interest in Lawford had risen far above the mark of mere friendly feeling. When she had seen him sinking the day before, and in peril of his life, she knew beyond peradventure that his well-being and safety meant more to her than anything else in the world.
Now she was only anxious to have him learn that she instead of Betty had leaped into the sea after him. She would avoid him no more. Only she did not wish to meet him there on the beach before all those idlers. Louise feared that if she did so, she would betray her happiness. She thrilled with it—she was obsessed with the thought that there was nothing, after all, to separate Lawford and herself!
Yet the day passed without his coming to the store on the Shell Road. Louise still felt some disturbance of mind regarding Cap'n Amazon. She kept away from him as much as possible, for she feared that she might be tempted to blurt out just what she thought of his ridiculous stories.
She did not like to hear Betty Gallup utter her diatribes against the master mariner; although in secret she was inclined to accept as true many of the "able seaman's" strictures upon Cap'n Amazon's character.
It was really hard when she was in his presence to think of him as an audacious prevaricator—and perhaps worse. He was so kindly in his manner and speech to her. His brisk consideration for her comfort at all times—his wistful glances for Jerry, the ancient canary, and the tenderness he showed the bird—even his desire to placate Diddimus, the tortoise-shell cat—all these things withstood the growing ill-opinion being fostered in Louise Grayling's mind. Who and what was this mysterious person calling himself Cap'n Amazon Silt?
She had, too, a desire to know just how many of those weird stories he told were filched from Cap'n Abe's accumulation of nautical literature. When Cap'n Amazon had gained access to the chest of books Louise could not imagine; but the fact remained that he had at least two of the stories pat.
Louise had promised to spend the evening at the Perritons, and did so; but she returned to Cap'n Abe's store early and did not invite her escort in, although he was a youth eager to taste the novelty of being intimate with "one of these old Cape Codders," as he expressed it.
"No," she told young Malcolm Standish firmly. "Uncle Amazon is not to be made a peepshow of by the idle rich of The Beaches. Besides, from your own name, you should be a descendant of Miles Standish, and blood relation to these Cape Codders yourself. And Uncle Amazon and Uncle Abram are fine old gentlemen." She said it boldly, whether she could believe it about Cap'n Amazon or not. "I will not play showman."
"Oh, say! Ford Tapp comes here. I saw his car standing outside the other evening."
"Mr. Tapp," Louise explained calmly, "comes in the right spirit. He is a friend of the—ahem—family. He is well known to Cap'n Abe who owns the store and has made himself acquainted with Cap'n Amazon over the counter."
"And how has he made himself so solid with you, Miss Grayling?"Standish asked impudently.
"By his gentlemanly behavior, and because he knows a deal more about boat-sailing and the shores than I know," she retorted demurely.
"Leave it to me!" exclaimed Malcolm Standish. "I am going to learn navigation and fishology at once."
"But—don't you think you may be too late?" she asked him, running up the steps. "Good-night, Mr. Standish!"
Upon going indoors she did not find Cap'n Amazon. The lamp was burning in the living-room, but he was not there and the store was dark. Louise mounted the stairs, rather glad of his absence; but when she came to the top of the flight she saw the lamplight streaming through the open door of her uncle's bedroom. Diddimus, with waving tail, was just advancing into the "cabin," as Cap'n Amazon called the chamber he occupied.
Knowing that he particularly objected to having any of his possessions disturbed, and fearing that Diddimus might do some mischief there, Louise followed the tortoise-shell, calling to him:
"Come out of there! Come out instantly, Diddimus! What do you mean byventuring in where we are all forbidden to enter? Don't you know,Diddimus, that only fools dare venture where angels fear to tread?Scat!"
Something on the washstand caught Louise's glance. In the bottom of the washbowl was the stain of a dark brown liquid. Beside it stood a bottle the label of which she could read from the doorway.
She caught her breath, standing for half a minute as though entranced. Diddimus, hearing a distant footstep, and evidently suspecting it, whisked past Louise out of the room.
There were other articles on the washstand that claimed the girl's notice; but it was to the bottle labeled "Walnut Stain" that her gaze returned. She crept away to her own room, lit her lamp, and did not even see Cap'n Amazon Silt again that night.
"Ford Tapp was here last night," Cap'n Amazon told Louise at the breakfast table. "I cal'late he was lookin' for you, though he didn't just up an' say so. Seemed worried like for fear't you wouldn't have a good opinion of him."
"Mercy! what has he done?" cried the girl laughing, for even the sound of Lawford's name made her glad.
"Seems it's what he ain't done. What's all this 'bout your jumpin' overboard t'other day and savin' him from drownin'?" and the mariner fairly beamed upon her.
"Oh, uncle, you mustn't believe everything you hear!"
"No? But Bet Gallup says 'tis so. You air a hi-mighty plucky girl, I guess. I allus have thought so—and so did Abe. But I kind of feel as though I'm sort o' responsible for your safety an' well-bein' while you air here, and I can't countenance no such actions."
"Now, uncle!"
"Fellers like Ford Tapp air as plenty as horse-briers in a sand lot; but girls like you ain't made often, I cal'late. Next time that feller has to be rescued, you let Bet Gallup do it."
She knew Cap'n Amazon well enough now to see that his roughness was assumed. His eyes were moist as his gaze rested on her face, and he blew his nose noisily at the end of his speech.
"You take keer o' yourself, Louise," he added huskily. "If anything should happen to you, what—what would Abe say?"
The depth of his feeling for her—so plainly and so unexpectedly displayed—halted Louise in her already formed intention. She had arisen on this morning, determined to "have it out" with Cap'n Amazon Silt. On several points she wished to be enlightened—felt that she had a right to demand an explanation.
For she was quite positive that Cap'n Amazon was not at all what he claimed to be. His actual personality was as yet a mystery to her; but she was positive on this point: He wasnotCaptain Amazon Silt, master mariner and rover of the seas. He was an entirely different person, and Louise desired to know what he meant by this masquerade.
His seamanship, his speech, his masterful manner, were assumed. And in the matter of his related adventures the girl was confident that they were mere repetitions of what he had read.
Now Louise suddenly remembered how Cap'n Abe had welcomed her here at the old store, and how cheerfully and tenderly this piratical looking substitute for the storekeeper had assumed her care. No relative or friend could have been kinder to her than Cap'n Amazon.
How could she, then, stand before him and say: "Cap'n Amazon, you are an impostor. You have assumed a character that is not your own. You tell awful stories about adventures that never befell you. What do you mean by it all? And, in conclusion and above all,Where is Cap'n Abe?"
This had been Louise's intention when she came downstairs on this morning. The nagging of Betty Gallup, the gossip of the other neighbors, the wild suspicions whispered from lip to lip did not influence her so much. It was what she had herself discovered the evening before in the captain's "cabin" that urged her on.
Now Cap'n Amazon's display of tenderness "took all the wind out of her sails," as Betty Gallup would have said.
Louise watched him stirring about the living-room, chirruping to old Jerry and thrusting his finger into the cage for the bird to hop upon it, and finally shuffling off into the store. She hesitatingly followed him. She desired to speak, but could not easily do so. And now Cap'n Joab Beecher was before her.
Amiel Perdue had been uptown and brought down the early mail, of which the most important piece was always the Boston morning paper. Cap'n Joab had helped himself to this and was already unfolding it.
"What's in theGlobepaper, Joab?" asked Cap'n Amazon. "You millionaires 'round here git more time to read it than everIdo, I vum!"
"It don't cost you nothin' to have us read it," said Cap'n Joab easily."The news is all here arter we git through."
"Uh-huh! I s'pose so. I'd ought to thank ye, I don't dispute, for keepin' the paper from feelin' lonesome.
"I dunno why Abe takes it, anyway, 'cept to foller the sailin's and arrivals at the port o' Boston—'nless he finds more time to read than ever I do. I ain't ever been so busy in my life as I be in this store—'nless it was when I shipped a menagerie for a feller at a Dutch Guinea port and his monkeys broke out o' their cages when we was two days at sea and they tried to run the ship.
"That was some v'y'ge, as the feller said," continued Cap'n Amazon, getting well under way as he lit his after-breakfast pipe. "Them monkeys kep' all the crew on the jump and the afterguard scurcely got a meal in peace, I was——"
"Belay there!" advised Cap'n Joab, with disgust. "Save that yarn for the dog watch. What was it ye said that craft was named Cap'n Abe sailed in?"
Cap'n Amazon stopped in his story-telling and was silent for an instant. Louise, who had stood at the inner doorway listening, turned to go, when she heard the substitute storekeeper finally say:
"Curlew, out o' Boston."
The name caught the girl's instant attention and she felt suddenly apprehensive.
"Here's news o' her," Cap'n Joab said in a hushed voice. "And it ain't good news, Cap'n Silt."
"What d'ye mean?" asked the latter.
"Report from Fayal. A Portugee fisherman's picked up and brought in a boat with 'Curlew' painted on her stern, and he saw spars and wreckage driftin' near the empty boat. There's been a hurricane out there. It—it looks bad, Cap'n Silt."
Before the latter could speak again Louise was at his side and had seized his tattooed arm.
"Uncle Amazon!" she gasped. "Not theCurlew? Didn't I tell you before? That is the schooner daddy-prof's party sailed upon. Can there be two Curlews?"
"My soul and body!" exclaimed Cap'n Joab.
It was Cap'n Amazon who kept his head.
"Not likely to be two craft of the same name and register—no, my dear," he said, patting her hand. "But don't take this so much to heart. It's only rumor. A dozen things might have happened to set that boat adrift. Ain't that so, Cap'n Joab?"
Cap'n Joab swallowed hard and nodded; but his wind-bitten face displayed much distress. "I had no idee the gal's father was aboard that schooner with Cap'n Abe."
"Why, sure! I forgot it for a minute," Cap'n Amazon said cheerfully. "There, there, my dear. Don't take on so. Abe's with your father, if so be anything has happened theCurlew; and Abe'll take keer o' him. Sure he will! Ain't he a Silt? And lemme tell you a Silt never backed down when trouble riz up to face him. No, sir!"
"But if they have been wrecked?" groaned Louise. "Both father andUncle Abram. What shall we do about it, Uncle Amazon?"
In this moment of trouble she clung to the master mariner as her single recourse. And impostor or no, he who called himself Amazon Silt did not fail her.
"There ain't nothing much we can rightly do at this minute, Niece Louise," he told her firmly, still patting her morsel of a hand in his huge one. "We'll watch the noospapers and I'll send a telegraph dispatch to the ship news office in N'York and git just the latest word there is 'bout theCurlew.
"You be brave, girl—you be brave. Abe an' Professor Grayling beingtogether, o' course they'll get along all right. One'll help t'other.Two pullin' on the sheet can allus h'ist the sail quicker than one.Keep your heart up, Louise."
She looked at him strangely for a moment. The tears frankly standing in his eyes, the quivering muscles of his face, his expression of keen sorrow for her fears—all impressed her. She suddenly kissed him in gratitude, impostor though she knew him to be, and then ran away. Cap'n Joab hissed across the counter:
"Ye don'tknowthat Cap'n Abe's on that there craft, Am'zon Silt!"
"Well, if I don't—an' if you don't—don't lemme hear you makin' any cracks about it 'round this store so't she'll hear ye," growled Cap'n Amazon, boring into the very soul of the flustered Joab with his fierce gaze.
Louise did not hear the expression of these doubts; but she suffered uncertainties in her own mind. She longed to talk with somebody to whom she could tell all that was in her thoughts. Aunt Euphemia was out of the question, of course; although she must reveal to her the possible peril menacing Professor Grayling. Betty Gallup could not be trusted, Louise knew. And the day dragged by its limping hours without Lawford Tapp's coming near the store on the Shell Road.
This last Louise could not understand. But there was good reason for Lawford's effacing himself at this time. In the empire of the Taffy King there was revolution, and this trouble dated from the hour on the previous morning when Louise had met and greeted Aunt Euphemia on the beach.
The Tapp sisters may have been purse-proud and a little vulgar—from Aunt Euphemia's point of view, at least—but they did not lack acumen. They had seen and heard the greeting of Louise by the Ferritons and the extremely haughty Lady from Poughkeepsie, and knew that Louise must be "a somebody."
Cecile, young and bold enough to be direct, was not long in making discoveries. With a rather blank expression of countenance L'Enfant Terrible, for once almost speechless, beckoned her sisters to one side.
"Pestiferous infant," drawled Marian, "tell us who she is?"
"Is she a Broadway star?" asked Prue.
"Oh, she's a star all right," Cecile said, with disgust in her tone. "We've been a trio of sillies, ignoringher. Fordy's fallen on both feet—only he's too dense to know it, I s'pose."
"Tell us!" commanded Prue. "Who is she?"
"She's no screen actress," answered the gloomy Cecile.
"Who is she, then?" gasped Marian.
"Sue Perriton says she is Mrs. Conroth's niece, and Mrs. Conroth is all the Society with a capital letter thereis. Now, figure it out," said Cecile tartly. "If you smarties had taken her up right at the start——"
"But we didn't kno-o-ow!" wailed Marian.
"Go on!" commanded Prue grimly.
"Why, Miss Grayling's father is a big scientist, or something, at Washington. Her mother happened to be born here on the Cape; she was a Card. This girl is just stopping over there with that old fellow who keeps the store—her half-uncle—for a lark. What do you know aboutthat?"
"My word!" murmured Marian.
"And Ford———"
"He's mamma's precious white-haired boythistime," declared the slangy Cecile.
"Do—do you suppose he knew it all the time?" questioned Marian.
"Never! Just like old Doc Ambrose says, there isn't much above Fordy's ears but solid bone," scoffed L'Enfant Terrible.
"Wait till ma hears of this," murmured Prue, and they proceeded to beat a retreat for home that their mother might be informed of the wonder. Lawford was already out of sight.
"How really fortunate Fordy is," murmured Mrs. Tapp, having received the shocking news and been revived after it. "Fancy! Mrs. Conroth's own niece!"
"It's going to put us in justrightwith the best of the crowd at TheBeaches," Prue announced. "We've only been tolerated so far."
"Oh, Prudence!" admonished Mrs. Tapp.
"That's the truth," her second daughter repeated bluntly. "We might as well admit it. Now, if Fordy only puts this over with this Miss Grayling, they'llhaveto take us up; for it's plain to be seen they won't drop Miss Grayling, no matter whom she marries."
"If Fordy doesn't miss the chance," muttered Cecile.
"He can't!"
"He mustn't!"
"He wouldn't be mean enough to drop her just to spite us!" wailedMarian.
"No," said Prue. "He won't do that. Ford isn't a butterfly. You must admit that he's as steadfast as a rock in his likes and dislikes. Once he gets a thing in that head of his———Well! I'm sure he's fond of Miss Grayling."
"But that big actor?" suggested Cecile.
"Surely," gasped Mrs. Tapp, "the girl cannot fancy such a person asthat?"
"My! you should just see Judson Bane," sighed Cecile.
"He's the matinee girl's delight," drawled Marian. "Ford has the advantage, however, if he will take it. He's too modest."
Mrs. Tapp's face suddenly paled and she clasped a plump hand to her bosom. "Oh, girls!" she gasped.
"Nowwhat, mother?" begged Prue.
"What will I. Tapp say?"
"Oh, bother father!" scoffed L'Enfant Terrible.
"He doesn't care what Ford does," Prue said.
"Does he ever really care what any of us does?" observed Marian, yet looking doubtfully at her mother.
"You don't understand, girls!" wailed Mrs. Tapp, wringing her hands."You know he made me write and invite that Johnson girl here."
"Oh, Dot Johnson!" said Prue. "Well, she is harmless."
"She'snotharmless," declared Mrs. Tapp. "I. Tapp ordered me to get her here because, he wants Ford to marry her."
"Marry Dot Johnson?" gasped Prue.
"Oh, bluey!" ejaculated the slangy Cecile.
"But of course Ford won't do it," drawled Marian.
"Then he means to disinherit poor Ford! Oh, yes, he will!" sobbed the lady. "They've had words about it already. You know very well that when once I. Tapp makes up his mind to do a thing, he does it." And there she broke down utterly, with the girls looking at each other in silent horror.