e ray, a feeble ray, of light.

"You're not her guardian," cried Atkins. "The courts have thrown you
out. And your appeal won't stand, either. If any money is due, it
belongs to her father. She isn't of age! No, sir! her father--"

Captain Cy's patience had been giving way. Now he lost it altogether. He
strode across the room and shook his forefinger in his victim's face.

"So!" he cried. "That's your tack, is it? By the big dipper! You GO to
her father--just you go to him and tell him! Just hint to him that you
owe his daughter thirty-odd thousand dollars, and see what he'll
do. Good heavens above! he was ready to sell her out to me for fifty
dollars' wuth of sand bank in Orham. Almost ready, he was, till you
offered a higher price to him to fight. Why, he'll have your hide nailed
up on the barn door! If you don't pay him every red copper, down on
the nail, he'll wring you dry. And then he'll blackmail you forever and
ever, amen! Unless, of course, _I_ go home and stop the blackmail by
printing my story in the Breeze. I've a precious good mind to do it. By
the Almighty, I WILL do it! unless you come off that high horse of yours
and talk like a man."

And then the monument fell, fell prostrate, with a sickly, pitiful
crash. If we of Bayport could have seen our congressman then! The great
man, great no longer, broke down completely. He cried like a baby. It
was all true--all true. He had not meant to steal, at first. He had been
led into using the money in his business. Then he had meant to send it
to the heirs, but he didn't know their whereabouts. Captain Cy smiled
at this excuse. And now he couldn't pay--he COULDN'T. He had hardly that
sum in the world. He had lost money in stocks, his property in the South
had gone to the bad! He would be ruined. He would have to go to prison.
He was getting to be an old man. And there was Alicia, his daughter!
Think of her! Think of the disgrace! And so on, over and over, with
the one recurring burden--what was the captain going to do? what was
he going to do? It was a miserable, dreadful exhibition, and Captain Cy
could feel no pride in his triumph.

"There! there!" he said at last. "Stop it, man; stop it, for goodness
sakes! Pull yourself together. I guess we can fix it up somehow. I ain't
goin' to be too hard on you. If it wan't for your meanness in bein'
willin' to let Bos'n suffer her life long with that drunken beast of a
dad of hers, I'd feel almost like tellin' you to ge