uffeur Cappy learned that he, the chauffeur, had been out all the
afternoon with Miss Florence and a large, light-hearted young gentleman.
They had lunched together at the Cliff House.

"What did she call him?" Cappy demanded, anxious to verify his
suspicions. "Didn't she address him as 'Matt?'"

"No, sir," the man replied, grinning. "She called him 'dearie.'"

"Holy jumped-up Jehosophat!" murmured Cappy, and questioned the man no
further. That evening, however, he decided to have a heart--particularly
after Florry had informed him that she was going out to dinner the
following night.

"And you'll be all alone, popsy-wops," she added, "so you had better eat
dinner at the club."

"Oh, I'm tired of my clubs," Cappy replied sadly. "Still your remark
gives me an idea, Florry. If I happen to run across that young fellow
Peasley--you remember him, Florry; the boy I'm training for a steamship
captain--I'll have him out for dinner with me so I'll not have to eat
alone."

"I thought you didn't care for him socially," Florry put forth a feeler.

"Well, he used to remind me considerably of a St. Bernard pup, but I
notice he's losing a lot of that fresh, puppy-dog way he used to have.
And then he's a Down-East boy. His Uncle Ethan Peasley and I were pals
together fifty years ago, and for Ethan's sake I feel that I ought to
show the boy some consideration. He's learning to hold himself together
pretty well, and if I should run into him to-morrow I'll ask him out."

Florry exhibited not the slightest interest in her father's plans, but
he noticed that immediately after dinner she hurried up to her room, and
that upon her return she declined a game of pool with her father on the
score of not feeling very well.

"You skipped upstairs like a sick woman," Cappy reflected. "I'll bet a
hat you telephoned that son of a sea cook to be sure and throw himself
in my way to-morrow, so I'll invite him out to dinner. And you're
complaining of a headache now so you'll have a good excuse to cancel
that dinner engagement to-morrow night so as to eat at home with your
daddy and his guest. Poor old father! He's such a dub! I'll bet myself a
four-bit cigar I eat breakfast alone to-morrow morning."

And it was even so. Florry sent down word that she was too indisposed
to breakfast with her father, and the old man drove chuckling to his
office. That afternoon Matt Peasley, in an endeavor to invade the floor
of the Merchants' Exchange, to which