"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!" e.j.a.c.u.l.a.t.ed 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 of the insular prejudice of his kind against those who win their livelihood in the glare of the theatrical spotlight. This gentle, well-bred, delightful girl staying at Cap'n Abe's store was a revelation to him. He held his tongue, however, and held his temper in check as well.

"I don't see," stormed I. Tapp, "why you can't take up with a nice girl and marry. Why, at your age I was married and we had Marian!"

"Don't you think that should discourage me, dad?" Lawford put in.

"Marian is n.o.body to brag of, I should say."

"Hah!" e.j.a.c.u.l.a.t.ed his father. "She's a fool, too. But there are nice girls. I was talking to your mother about your case last night. Of course, I don't want you to say anything to her about what I'm going to tell you now. She's got the silliest notions," pursued Mr. Tapp who labored under the belief that all the wisdom of the ages had lodged under his own hat. "Expects her daughters to marry dukes and you to catch a princess or the like."

"There are no such fish in these waters," laughed Lawford. "At least, none has so much as nibbled at my hook."

"And no nice girl will nibble at it if you don't come ash.o.r.e once in a while and get into something besides fisherman's duds."

"Now, dad, clothes do not make the man."

"Who told you such a fool thing as that? Some fool philosopher with only one shirt to his back said it. Bill Johnson proved how wrong that was to my satisfaction years and years ago. Good old Bill! I wanted to branch out. We had just that one little candy factory and I worked in it myself every day.

"I got the idea," continued I. Tapp, launched on a favorite subject now, "that my balance sheet and outlook for trade might impress the bank people. I wanted to build a bigger factory. So I took off my ap.r.o.n one day and walked over to the bank. I saw the president. He looked like a fashion plate himself and he swung a pair of d.i.n.ky gla.s.ses on a cord as he listened to me and looked me over. Then he turned me down--flat!

"I told Bill about it. Bill was kind of tied up just then himself.

That was before he made his big strike. But he was a different fellow from me. Bill always looked like ready money.

"'Isra,' he says to me, 'I'll tell you how to get that money from the bank.'

"'It can't be done, Bill,' I told him. 'The president of the bank showed me that my business was too weak to stand such spread-eagling.

"'Nonsense!' says Bill. 'It isn't your business, it's your nerve that you've got to hire money on--and your clothes. You do what I tell you.

Come to my tailor's in the morning.'

"Well, to cut a long story short, I did it. I rigged up to beat that bank president himself. When he saw me in about two hundred dollars'

worth of good clothes he considered the case again and recommended the loan to his board. 'You put your facts much more lucidly to-day, Mr.

Tapp,' is the way he expressed himself. But take it from me, Lawford, it was my clothes that made the impression.

"So!" ruminated Mr. Tapp, "that is one thing Bill Johnson did for me.

And later, as you know, he came into the candy business with me and his money helped make I. Tapp, the Salt Water Taffy King. Lawford, Bill is like a brother to me. His girl, Dorothy, is one of the nicest girls who ever stepped in a slipper."

"Dorothy Johnson is a really sweet girl, dad," Lawford agreed. "I like her."

"There!" e.j.a.c.u.l.a.t.ed I. Tapp. "You let that liking become something stronger. Dorothy's just the girl for you to marry."

"_What_?" gasped the skipper of the _Merry Andrew_, almost losing his grip on the steering wheel.

"You get my meaning," said his father, scowling. "I've always meant you should marry Bill's daughter. I had your mother write her last night inviting her down here. Of course, your mother and the girls think Bill Johnson's folks are too plain. But I'm boss once in a while in my own house."

"And you call mother a matchmaker!"

"I know what I want and I'm going to get it," said I. Tapp doggedly.

"Dorothy is the girl for you. Don't you get entangled with anybody else. Not a penny of my money will you ever handle if you don't do as I say, young man!"

"You needn't holler till you're hit, dad," Lawford said, trying to speak carelessly.

"Oh! _I_ sha'n't holler," snarled the Taffy King. "I warn you. One such play as that and I'm through with you. I'm willing to support an idle, ne'er-do-well; but he sha'n't saddle himself with one of those theatrical creatures and bring scandal upon the family. Do you know what I was doing when I was your age? I had a booth at 'Gansett, two at Newport, a big one at Atlantic City, and was beginning to branch out. I worked like a dog, too."

"That's why I think I don't have to work, dad," said Lawford coolly.

CHAPTER IX

SUSPICION HOVERS

Betty Gallup, clothed as usual in her man's hat and worn pea-coat, but likewise on this occasion with mystery, seized Louise by the hand the instant she appeared and drew her into the kitchen, shutting the door between that and the living-room.

"What is the matter?" the girl asked. "Have you broken something--or is the canary dead?"

"Sh!" warned Betty, her little brown eyes blinking rapidly. "I heard something last night."

"I didn't. I slept like a baby. The night before I heard that old foghorn----"

"I mean," interrupted Betty, "something was told me."

"Well, go on." Louise made up her mind that she could not stem the tide of talk.

"About your uncle, Cap'n Abe. He--he never was seen to take that train to Boston. I got it straight, or pretty average straight. Mandy Baker told me, and Peke Card's wife, Mary Lizbeth, told her, who got it right from Lute Craven who works in the post-office uptown, and Lute got it from Noah Coffin. You know, he't drives the ark you come over in from Paulmouth. Well! Noah was at Paulmouth depot as he always is of course when the clam train stops at five-thutty-five. He says he didn't see Cap'n Abe nor n.o.body that looked like him board that train yest'day mornin'."

"Why, Betty!" Louise could only gasp. This house-that-Jack-built narrative quite took her breath away.

"Besides," went on Betty; "there's more to it. Cap'n Abe's chest was took back to the depot by Perry Baker when he brought your trunks over, sure 'nough. And Perry Baker says he shipped that chest to Boston for your uncle, marked to be called for. It went by express."

"But--but what of it?" asked the puzzled girl.

"Humph! Stands to reason," declared Mrs. Gallup, "that Cap'n Abe wouldn't have done no such foolish thing as that. It costs money to ship a heavy sea chest by express. He could have took it on his ticket as baggage, free gratis, for nothin'!"

"I really don't see," Louise now said rather severely, "that these facts you state--if they are facts--are any of our business, Betty.

Uncle Abram might have taken the train at some other station. He was not sure, perhaps, whether he would join the ship Cap'n Amazon recommended, so why should he not send his chest by express?"

"Cap'n Am'zon! Humph!" sniffed Betty. "n.o.body knows whether that's his name or not. _He_ comes here without a smitch of clo'es, as near as I can find out."

Louise was amused; yet she was somewhat vexed as well. The curiosity, as well as the animosity, displayed by Betty and others of the neighbors began to appall her. If Cape Cod folk were, as her daddy-professor had declared, "the salt of the earth," some of the salt seemed to have lost its savor.