“Oh, I don't know as I know exactly what to think. What do YOU think about it, Mr. Fosdick?”
“I think--I imagine I think very much as you do.”
“I shouldn't be surprised. And--er--what's your notion of what I think?”
Captain Zelotes' gray eye twinkled as he asked the question, and the Fosdick blue eye twinkled in return. Both men laughed.
“We aren't getting very far this way, Captain,” observed the visitor. “There's no use dodging, I suppose. I, for one, am not very well pleased. Mrs. Fosdick, for another, isn't pleased at all; she is absolutely and entirely opposed to the whole affair. She won't hear of it, that's all, and she said so much that I thought perhaps I had better come down here at once, see you, and--and the young fellow with the queer name--”
“Why yes. He is your grandson, isn't he? I beg your pardon.”
“That's all right. I shan't fight with you because you don't like his name. Go ahead. You decided to come and see him--and me--?”
“Yes, I did. I decided to come because it has been my experience that a frank, straight talk is better, in cases like this, than a hundred letters. And that the time to talk was now, before matters between the young foo--the young people went any further. Don't you agree with me?”
“That now is a good time to talk? Yes, I do,” he said.
There was another interval of silence. Then Fosdick broke it with a chuckle. “And I'm the one to do the talking, eh?” he said.
Captain Lote's eye twinkled. “We-ll, you came all the way from New York on purpose, you know,” he observed. Then he added: “But there, Mr. Fosdick, I don't want you to think I ain't polite or won't talk, myself. I'll do my share when the time comes. But it does seem to me that you ought to do yours first as it's your family so far that's done the objectin'. . . . Your cigar's gone out. Have another light, won't you?”
The visitor shook his head. “No, thank you, not now,” he said hastily, placing the defunct cigar carefully on the captain's desk. “I won't smoke for the minute. So you want me to begin the talking, do you? It seems to me I have begun it. I told you that I do not like the idea of my daughter's being engaged to--to say nothing of marrying--your grandson. My wife likes it even less than I do. That is enough of a statement to begin with, isn't it?”