and by, as
the feller said. Sit down, sit down, Mr. Fosdick. Throw off your coat,
won't you? It's sort of warm in here compared to out door."

The visitor admitted the difference in temperature between the interior
and exterior of the building, and removed his overcoat. Also he sat
down. Captain Zelotes opened a drawer of his desk and produced a box of
cigars.

"Have a smoke, won't you?" he inquired.

Mr. Fosdick glanced at the label on the box.

"Why--why, I was rather hoping you would smoke one of mine," he said. "I
have a pocket full."

"When I come callin' on you at your place in New York I will smoke
yours. Now it kind of looks to me as if you'd ought to smoke mine. Seems
reasonable when you think it over, don't it?"

Fosdick smiled. "Perhaps you're right," he said. He took one of the
gaudily banded perfectos from his host's box and accepted a light from
the match the captain held. Both men blew a cloud of smoke and through
those clouds each looked at the other. The preliminaries were over, but
neither seemed particularly anxious to begin the real conversation. It
was the visitor who, at last, began it.

"Captain Snow," he said, "I presume your clerk told you I wished to see
you on a matter of business."

"Who? Oh, Labe, you mean? Yes, he told me."

"I told him to tell you that. It may surprise you, however, to learn
that the business I wished to see you about--that I came on from New
York to see you about--has nothing whatever to do with the house I'm
building down here."

Captain Zelotes removed his cigar from his lips and looked meditatively
at its burning end. "No-o," he said slowly, "that don't surprise me very
much. I cal'lated 'twasn't about the house you wished to see me."

"Oh, I see! . . . Humph!" The Fosdick mild blue eye lost, for the
moment, just a trifle of its mildness and became almost keen, as its
owner flashed a glance at the big figure seated at the desk. "I see,"
said Mr. Fosdick. "And have you--er--guessed what I did come to see you
about?"

"No-o. I wouldn't call it guessin', exactly."

"Wouldn't you? What would you call it?"

"We-ll, I don't know but I'd risk callin' it knowin'. Yes, I think
likely I would."

"Oh, I see. . . . Humph! Have you had a letter--on the subject?"

"Ye-es."

"I see. From Mrs. Fosdick, of course. She said she was going to
write--I'm not sure she didn't say she had written; but I had the
impression it was to--well, to another member of your fami