Water Taffy King" became
a catch-word. It was then but a step to incorporating a company and
establishing huge candy factories. I. Tapp went on by leaps and
bounds. While yet a comparatively young man he found himself a
multi-millionaire. Even a rather expensive family could not spend his
income fast enough.

He built the ornate villa at The Beaches and, like Lawford, preferred
to live there rather than elsewhere. His wife and the older girls
insisted upon having a town house in Boston and in traveling at certain
times to more or less exclusive resorts and to Europe. Their one
ambition was to get into that exclusive social set in which they felt
their money should rightfully place them. But a house on the Back Bay
does not always assure one's entrance to the circles of the "gilded
codfish."

Mr. Tapp went down to the dock again after a time. Lawford had the
_Merry Andrew_ all ready to set out on the proposed fishing trip. The
sloop was a pretty craft, clinker built, and about the fastest sailing
boat within miles of Cardhaven. Lawford was proud of her.

"So you're back at last, are you?" snapped the Salt Water Taffy King.

He was a portly little man with a red face and a bald brow. His very
strut pronounced him a self-made man. He glared at his son, whose cool
nonchalance he often declared was impudence.

"I've been waiting some time for you, dad. Hop aboard," Lawford calmly
said.

"You took your time in getting back here," responded his father, by no
means mollified. "And you knew I was waiting. But you had to stand
and talk to a girl over there. Cicely says it is that picture actress
who is staying at Cap'n Abe's. Is that so?"

"I presume Cicely is right," his son answered. "There is no other here
at present to my knowledge."

"Of all things!" ejaculated Mr. Tapp. "You are always making some kind
of a fool of yourself, Lawford. Don't, for pity's sake, be _that_ kind
of a fool."

"What do you mean, dad?" and now the young man's eyes flashed. It was
seldom that Lawford turned upon his father in anger.

"You know very well what I mean. Keep away from such women. Don't get
messed up with actor people. I won't have it, I tell you! I am
determined that at least _one_ rich man's son shall not be the victim
of the wiles of any of these stage women."

The flush remained in Lawford's cheek. It hurt him to hear his father
speak so in referring to Louise Grayling. He, too, possessed some