f the problem suddenly upset the
whole process of reasoning and apparently proved him wrong by behavior
exactly contrary to that which he had expected.

He had been pretty well satisfied with the result of his visit to
young Dunn at the latter's office. Malcolm had surrendered, perhaps
not gracefully or unconditionally, but he had surrendered, and the
condition--secrecy--was one which the captain himself had suggested.
Captain Elisha's mental attitude toward the son of the late Tammany
leader had been a sort of good-natured but alert tolerance. He judged
the young man to be a product of rearing and environment. He had known
spoiled youths at the Cape and, in their surroundings, they behaved much
as Malcolm did in his. The same disrespect to their elders, the same
cock-sureness, and the same careless indifference concerning the effect
which their actions might have upon other people--these were natural and
nothing but years and the hard knocks of experience could bring about a
change. Elkanah Chase, country swell and pampered heir to the cranberry
grower's few thousands, and Malcolm Dunn, idol of his set at the
Metropolitan Club, were not so very different, except in externals. The
similarity confirmed his opinion that New York was merely South Denboro
many thousand times magnified.

He knew how young Chase had behaved after an interview not unlike that
just described. In Elkanah's case several broken windows and property
destroyed on a revel the night before the Fourth had caused the trouble.
In Malcolm's it was an automobile. Both had listened to reason and had
knuckled under rather than face possible lawsuits and certain publicity.
Chase, however, had sulkily refused to speak to him for a month, and
regained affability merely because he wished to borrow money. According
to the captain's deduction, Dunn should have acted in similar fashion.
But he didn't; that was the odd part of it.

For Malcolm, when he next called, in company with his mother, at the
Warren apartment, was not in the least sulky. Neither was he over
effusive, which would have argued fear and a desire to conciliate.
Possibly there was a bit more respect in his greeting of the new
guardian and a trifle less condescension, but not much. He still hailed
Captain Elisha as "Admiral," and was as mockingly careless as ever in
his remarks concerning the latter's newness in the big city. In fact, he
was so little changed that the captain was perplexed. A chap