“Oh, he is with you, then? Oh, yes, I remember my wife said he worked in your office. But she said more about his being some sort of a--a poet, wasn't it?”
For the first time since the interview began the captain looked ill at ease and embarrassed.
“Thunderation!” he exclaimed testily, “you mustn't pay attention to that. He does make up poetry' pieces--er--on the side, as you might say, but I keep hopin' all the time he'll grow out of it, give him time. It 'ain't his regular job, you mustn't think 'tis.”
The visitor laughed again. “I'm glad of that,” he said, “both for your sake and mine. I judge that you and I, Snow, are in complete agreement as far as our opinion of poetry and that sort of stuff is concerned. Of course I'm not condemning all poetry, you understand. Longfellow and Tennyson and the regular poets are all right. You understand what I'm getting at?”
“Sartin. I used to know 'Down went the R'yal George with all her crew complete,' and a lot more. Used to say 'em over to myself when I first went to sea and stood watch alone nights. But they were different, you know; they--they--”
“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.”