“Sure! My wife--why, I give you my word that my own wife and her set go perfectly daffy over chaps who write stuff that rhymes and that the papers are printing columns about. Snow, if this grandson of yours was a genuine press-touted, women's club poet instead of a would-be--well, I don't know what might happen. In that case she might be as strong FOR this engagement as she is now against it.” He paused, seeming a bit ashamed of his own heat. Captain Zelotes, however, regarded him with more approval than he had yet shown. “It's been my observation that women are likely to get off the course chasin' false signals like that,” he observed. “When a man begins lettin' his hair and his mouth run wild together seems as if the combination had an attraction for a good many women folks. Al keeps his hair cut, though, I'll say that for him,” he added. “It curls some, but it ain't long. I wouldn't have him in the office if 'twas.” “Well, Mr. Fosdick,” he continued, “what other objections are they? Manners? Family and relations? Education? Any objections along that line?” “No-o, no; I--well, I don't know; you see, I don't know much about the young fellow.” “Perhaps I can help you out. As to manners--well, you can judge them for yourself when you see him. He seems to be in about every kind of social doin's there is down here, and he's as much or more popular with the summer folks than with the year-'rounders. Education? Well, that's fair to middlin', as I see it. He spent nine or ten years in a mighty expensive boardin' school up in New York State.” “Did he? What school?” The captain gave the name of the school. Fosdick looked surprised. “Humph! That IS a good school,” he said. “Is it? Depends on what you call good, I cal'late. Al learned a good deal of this and that, a little bit of foreign language, some that they call dead and some that ought to be dead--and buried, 'cordin' to my notion. When he came to me he couldn't add up a column of ten figgers without makin' a mistake, and as for business--well, what he knew about business was about equal to what Noah knew about a gas engine.” He paused to chuckle, and Fosdick chuckled with him. “As to family,” went on Captain Lote, “he's a Snow on his mother's side, and there's been seven generations of Snow's in this part of the Cape since the first one landed here. So far as I know, they've all managed to keep out of jail, which may have been more good luck than deservin' in some cases.” “His father?” queried Fosdick. The captain's heavy brows drew together. “His father was a Portygee--or Spaniard, I believe is right--and he was a play-actor, one of those--what do you call 'em?--opera singers.” Fosdick seemed surprised and interested. “Oh, indeed,” he exclaimed, “an opera singer? . . . Why, he wasn't Speranza, the baritone, was he?” “Maybe; I believe he was. He married my daughter and--well, we won't talk about him, if you don't mind.” “But Speranza was a--” “IF you don't mind, Mr. Fosdick.”