"I have sung my swan-song as a bard," Applebo observed. "Poetry can make a d---- fool of a man. 'Sickening verse,' quoth my paternal. I shall write no more sickening verse." He stared absently at the yellow bulkhead, then as absently set about to steep some tea. "Perhaps, when I get something in my tummy, I will look with a less saddened retrospect upon my 'family quarrel.' What an old brute! I wonder why Hermione is so fond of him? There is a jolt coming to him when he learns that his accusations were all creatures of his prejudiced and unreasonable imagination. The old beast actually thought that I had been putting her up to secret rendezvous ... when, as a matter of fact, upon the only two occasions when we have met, I have been the one to bring the interview to a close and send her home! Shucks!" A quart or two of tea, with some dozen and odd macaroons, had a decidedly cheering influence upon the spirits of Mr. Applebo. This breakfast achieved, he wrote a letter to Hermione, telling her of his unfortunate interview with his father. After this, he took the Finn and went ashore, in quest of certain things needed for the run to New York. Most important of these was a fresh supply of macaroons. At noon the fog had slightly thinned and there was a little air from the northeast. Nobody but Applebo would have thought of putting to sea in such weather, but he had an idea that his father, after interviewing Hermione, might return to express his regret at certain things which he had said, and Applebo had, for the time being, completely changed his views in regard to the desirability of a paternal parent in the scheme of his careless life. Not only had the romantic anticipations of the poet been dealt a severe blow by this brutal introduction to his father, but, what was worse, his hypersensitive mind had almost immediately parodied it, so that, even while smarting from the interview, he was cynically laughing at it. Like many poetic natures, Applebo's had its keen appreciation of the ridiculous, and it was because he was conscious that his sentimentality often enticed him out upon the thin ice of the absurd that he had, as a sort of self-protection, acquired the veiled, mocking pose which left the unsympathetic world in doubt as to whether he was making a fool of himself or of it! In his interview with Heldstrom, Applebo had been quick to appreciate the futility of a pose of any sort. The sturdy Norwegian would have torn through it like a shark through a gill-net. Applebo had found himself always quite well-equipped to meet force with force, and so, when his father had brought to the onslaught sheer weight of personality, his son had met him with the same backing. The issue had been a draw, and Applebo felt that, if he had frankly won, he would be far less content. Half an hour later he was feeling a secret admiration for his sturdy, one-ideal old father, and wishing that they had parted friends.