me just now. Darn it all! I ain't
puttin' this the way I'd ought to, but YOU know what I mean, don't you,
Cy?"

Captain Cy was leaning against the window frame, his head upon his arm.
He was not looking out, because the shade was drawn. Tidditt waited
anxiously for him to answer. At last he turned.

"Ase," he said, "I'm much obliged to you. You've pounded it in pretty
hard, but I cal'late I'd ought to have had it done to me. I'm a fool--an
OLD fool, just as I said a while back--and nothin' nor NOBODY ought to
have made me forget it. For a minute or so I--but there! don't you fret.
That young woman shan't risk her job nor her reputation on account of
me--nor of Bos'n, either. I'll see to that. And see here," he added
fiercely, "I can't stop women's tongues, even when they're as bad as
some of the tongues in this town, BUT if you hear a MAN say one word
against Phoebe Dawes, only one word, you tell me his name. You hear,
Ase? You tell me his name. Now run along, will you? I ain't safe company
just now."

Asaph, frightened at the effect of his words, hurriedly departed.
Captain Cy paced the room for the next fifteen minutes. Then he opened
the kitchen door.

"Bos'n," he called, "come in and set in my lap a while; don't you want
to? I'm--I'm sort of lonesome, little girl."

The next afternoon, when the schoolmistress, who had been delayed by the
inevitable examination papers, stopped at the Cy Whittaker place, she
was met by Georgianna; Emily, who stood behind the housekeeper in the
doorway, was crying.

"Cap'n Cy has gone away--to Washin'ton," declared Georgianna. "Though
what he's gone there for's more'n I know. He said he'd send his hotel
address soon's he got there. He went on the three o'clock train."

Phoebe was astonished.

"Gone?" she repeated. "So soon! Why, he told me he should certainly be
here to hear some news I expected to-day. Didn't he leave any message
for me?"

The housekeeper turned red.

"Miss Phoebe," she said, "he told me to tell you somethin', and it's so
dreadful I don't hardly dast to say it. I think his troubles have driven
him crazy. He said to tell you that you'd better not come to this house
any more."

CHAPTER XVIII

CONGRESSMAN EVERDEAN

In the old days, the great days of sailing ships and land merchant
fleets, Bayport was a community of travelers. Every ambitious man went
to sea, and eventually, if he lived, became a captain. Then he took his
wife, and in most cas