I take off my hat
it's to a bigger _man_ than I am and not to a more stylish hat. But,
since I've lived here in New York, I've learned that, with a whole lot
of folks, hats themselves count more than what's underneath 'em. I
haven't changed mine, and I ain't goin' to. Now, with that plain and
understood, do you want me to live here, in the same house with you? I
ain't fishin' for compliments. I want an honest answer."

He got it. Pearson looked him squarely in the eye.

"I do," he said. "I like you, and I don't care a damn about your hat. Is
that plain?"

Captain Elisha's reply was delivered over the balusters in the hall.

"Hi!" he called. "Hi, Mrs. Hepton."

The landlady had been anxiously waiting. She ran from the dining room to
the foot of the stairs.

"Yes?" she cried. "What is it?"

"It's a bargain," said the captain. "I'm ready to engage passage."

CHAPTER XV

Thus Captain Elisha entered another of New York's "circles," that which
centered at Mrs. Hepton's boarding house. Within a week he was as much
a part of it as if he had lived there for years. At lunch, on the day
of his arrival, he made his appearance at the table in company with
Pearson, and when the landlady exultantly announced that he was to be
"one of our little party" thereafter, he received and replied to the
welcoming salutations of his fellow boarders with unruffled serenity.

"How could I help it?" he asked. "Human nature's liable to temptation,
they tell us. The flavor of that luncheon we had last time I was here
has been hangin' 'round the edges of my mouth and tantalizin' my memory
ever since."

"We had a souffle that noon, if I remember correctly, Captain," observed
the flattered Mrs. Hepton.

"Did you? Well, I declare! I'd have sworn 'twas a biled-dinner hash.
Knew 'twas better than any I ever ate afore, but I'd have bet 'twas
hash, just the same. Tut! tut! tut! Now, honest, Mrs. Hepton, ain't
this--er--whatever-you-call-it a close relation--a sort of hash with its
city clothes on, hey?"

The landlady admitted that a souffle was something not unlike a hash.
Captain Elisha nodded.

"I thought so," he declared. "I was sartin sure I couldn't be mistaken.
What is it used to be in the song book? 'You can smash--you can--' Well,
I don't remember. Somethin' about your bein' able to smash the vase if
you wanted to, but the smell of the posies was there yet."

Mr. Ludlow, the bookseller, supplied the quotation.

"'