“I had one of his young friends, whom I can trust, tip him off in confidence. The news didn't make any difference to Joey. He asked her about it, and she explained it all away to his entire satisfaction.”
“I dare say. And you haven't given any indication to your son that you're on to him and his love affair?”
“I thought best to pretend ignorance, pending my arrival at a solution of the difficulty.”
“Therein you showed a gleam of real intelligence. Having humored your boy all his life you could not expect to cross him in his first love affair and get away with it. No, sir-ree! The thing to do is to put the skids under Joey and his lady love before they know you know it. Tell me more about her, however, before I begin making skids and skid grease.”
“Farewell, O my countrymen!” he murmured.
“She has two children--one by her first husband and one by her second. They're living with her mother. She supports them from the proceeds of her hula dancing.”
“Score a white mark for her, Joe. Is she a good looker?”
“A brunette, Alden, and Joey's Aunt Matilda admitted against her will that she was a beauty. My lawyer tells me, however, that she hasn't an ounce of brains, and proclaims the fact by laughing loudly when there is nothing particularly worth laughing at.”
“I imagine you've had a detective agency investigating her.”
“I have. She has little education and no refinement; her people are very ordinary. Her father is a whitewing in Philadelphia and is separated from her mother, who keeps a boarding house in Muncie, Indiana.”
“I'm afraid, Joe, she won't do for your daughter-in-law,” Cappy Ricks opined slowly. “But don't worry, my boy. You've come all the way from New York to confide in me and get my advice, and somehow I have a sneaking notion you've come to the right shop. If there's anybody calculated to put a crimp in love's young dream, I'm that individual.”
“I knew Joey and you were good friends, and besides, you're his godfather. He thinks a lot of you, Alden, and I kind of thought maybe you might come East with me, see the boy, get him to confide in you and--er--sort of advise him in the way he should go. I'm--er--well, Alden, I'm afraid I feel too badly about this to talk to Joey. I might lose my temper, and besides--besides, he's all I have and he reminds me so much of his mother that I--”