rabbed right in on the subject
as I have. I was glad to see you coming aboard, Captain Lougee. I want
some advice from a man who knows."

"Then I'm the man to ask, Captain Candage."

"Last time I was home--where she has been living with her Aunt Zilpah--I
ketched her!" confessed Candage. His voice was hoarse. His fingers, bent
and calloused with rope-pulling, trembled as he fingered the seam of his
trousers.

"You don't tell!" Lougee clucked, solicitously.

"Yes, I ketched her buggy-riding!"

"Alone?"

"No, there was a gang of 'em in a beach-wagon. They was going to a
party. And I ketched her dancing with a fellow at that party."

"Well, go ahead now that you've got started! Shake out the mainsail!"

"That's about all there is to it--except that a fellow has been beauing
her home from Sunday-school concerts with a lantern. Yes, I reckon that
is about all to date and present writing," confessed Candage.

"What else do you suspect?"

"Nothing. Of course, there's no telling what it will grow to be--with
dudes a-pestering her the way they do."

"There ain't any telling about anything in this world, is there?"
demanded Captain Lougee, very sharply.

"I reckon not--not for sure!"

"Do you mean to say that because your girl--like any girl should--has
been having a little innocent fun with young folks, you have dragged her
on board this old hooker, shaming her and making her ridiculous?"

"I have been trying to do my duty as a father," stated Captain Candage,
stoutly, and avoiding the flaming gaze of his guest.

Captain Lougee straightened his leg so as to come at his trousers
pocket, produced a plug of tobacco, and gnawed a chew off a corner,
after careful inspection to find a likely spot for a bite.

"I need to have something in my mouth about this time--something
soothing to the tongue and, as you might say, sort of confining, so that
too much language won't bu'st out all at once," he averred, speaking
with effort as he tried to lodge the huge hunk of tobacco into a
comfortable position. "I have raised five nice girls, and I have always
treated 'em as if they had common sense along with woman's nat'ral
goodness and consid'able more self-reliance than a Leghorn pullet. And
I used 'em like they had the ordinary rights and privileges of human
beings. And they are growed up and a credit to the family. And I haven't
got to look back over my record and reflect that I was either a Chinyman
or a Turkeyman. No, si