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."

Florence looked up and bravely smiled a forgiving smile through her
tears.

"You're a dreadful Buttinsky, Daddy Ricks!" she protested.

He kissed her hungrily.

"Oh, I'm a devil in my own home town!" he replied, and trotted back to
his neglected breakfast. "If Matt hasn't made good as a business man
within six months, or has lost his bank roll--and I intend to see to it
that he does lose it, if I ever get a hack at him--we'll pull off this
wedding anyhow. I guess there's room enough in this house for three."

At nine o'clock Cappy Ricks, with a lilt in his heart, drove down to
his office behind his team of high-stepping bays. At the corner of
California and Drumm Streets he saw Matt Peasley and hailed him. The
latter came to the carriage door and looked in.

"It's all right, Matt," Cappy said with a cunning wink. "I've fixed
Florry's clock for her. There won't be the slightest trouble."

Matt Peasley wrung his hand gratefully.

"I quit the Sea Fox last night," he announced gladly.

"Going into business this morning, I suppose?"

"Yes, sir."

"What line?"

"Ship, freight and marine insurance broker."

"Well, that's a line that will keep you hustling for your wheatcakes
until you get well acquainted. However, just to give you a shove in the
right direction, you might scout round the market and see whether you
can dig up a cargo for our steamer Tillicum. Usual commission of two and
a half per cent."

"Thank you, Mr. Ricks. I ought to be able to scare up something in the
way of a foreign lumber cargo for her."

"We've tried and failed. Moreover, her fuel-oil tankage isn't sufficient
to take her too far foreign and back; added to which she is under
American registry, employing American seamen, and I'd rather lay her up
than put a coolie crew aboard and compete with the British tramps, with
their Lascar and Chinamen, at six and seven dollars a