“Don't talk that way. I own up I like to hear you, but I'm 'fraid it ain't true. You say I amount to somethin'. Well, what? I come back home here, with some money in my pocket, thinkin' that was about all was necessary to make me a good deal of a feller. The old Cy Whittaker place, I said to myself, was goin' to be a real Cy Whittaker place again. And I'd be a real Whittaker, a man who should stand for somethin', as my dad and granddad did afore me. The town should respect me, and I'd do things to help it along. And what's it all come to? Why, every young one on the street is told to be good for fear he'll grow up like me. Ain't that so? Course it's so! I'm--” “You SHALL not speak so! Do you imagine that you're not respected by everyone whose respect counts for anything? Yes, and by others, too. Don't you suppose Mr. Atkins respects you, down in his heart--if he has one? Doesn't your housekeeper, who sees you every day, respect and like you? And little Emily--doesn't she love you more than she does all the rest of us together?” “Well, I guess Bos'n does care for the old man some, that's a fact. She says she likes you next best, though. Did you know that?” But Miss Dawes was indignant. “Captain Whittaker,” she declared, “one would think you were a hundred years old to hear you. You are always calling yourself an old man. Does Mr. Atkins call himself old? And he is older than you.” “Well, I'm over fifty, Phoebe.” In spite of the habit for which he had just been reproached, the captain found this a difficult statement to make. “I know. But you're younger than most of us at thirty-five. You see, I'm confessing, too,” she added with a laugh and a little blush. Captain Cy made a mental calculation. “Twenty years,” he said musingly. “Twenty years is a long time. No, I'm old. And worse than that, I'm an old fool, I guess. If I hadn't been I'd have stayed in South America instead of comin' here to be hooted out of the town I was born in.” The teacher stamped her foot. “Oh, what SHALL I do with you!” she exclaimed. “It is wicked for you to say such things. Do you suppose that Mr. Atkins would find it necessary to work as he is doing to beat a fool? And, besides, you're not complimentary to me. Should I, do you think, take such an interest in one who was an imbecile?” “Well, 'tis mighty good of you. Your comin' here so to help Bos'n's fight along is--” “How do you know it is Bos'n altogether? I--” She stopped suddenly, and the color rushed to her face. She rose from the rocker. “I--really, I don't see how we came to be discussing such nonsense,” she said. “Our ages and that sort of thing! Captain Cyrus, I wish you would go to Washington. I think you ought to go.” But the captain's thoughts were far from Washington at that moment. His own face was alight, and his eyes shone. “Phoebe,” he faltered unbelievingly, “what was you goin' to say? Do you mean that--that--”