blunt message he had intrusted to Georgianna
would, he believed, arouse Phoebe's indignation. She would not call
again. And when he returned to Bos'n, it would be to take up the child's
fight alone. If he lost that fight, or WHEN he lost it, he would close
the Cy Whittaker place, and leave Bayport for good.

He had been in Washington once before, years ago, when he was first
mate of a ship and had a few weeks' shore leave. Then he went there on
a pleasure trip with some seagoing friends, and had a jolly time. But
there was precious little jollity in the present visit. He had never
felt so thoroughly miserable. In order to forget, he made up his mind to
work his hardest to discover why the harbor appropriation was not to be
given to Bayport.

The city had changed greatly. He would scarcely have known it. He
went to the hotel where he had stayed before, and found a big, modern
building in its place. The clerk was inclined to be rather curt and
perfunctory at first, but when he learned that the captain was not
anxious concerning the price of accommodations, but merely wanted a
"comf'table berth somewheres on the saloon deck," and appeared to have
plenty of money, he grew polite. Captain Cy was shown to his room, where
he left his valise. Then he went down to dinner.

After the meal was over, he seated himself in one of the big leather
chairs in the hotel lobby, smoked and thought. In the summer, before
Bos'n came, and before her father had arisen to upset every calculation
and wreck all his plans, the captain had given serious thought to what
he should do if Congressman Atkins failed, as even then he seemed likely
to do, in securing that appropriation. The obvious thing, of course,
would have been to hunt up Mr. Atkins and question him. But this was
altogether too obvious. In the first place, the strained relations
between them would make the interview uncomfortable; and, in the
second, if there was anything underhand in Heman's backsliding on the
appropriation, Atkins was too wary a bird to be snared with questions.

But Captain Cy had another acquaintance in the city, the son of a still
older acquaintance, who had been a wealthy shipping merchant and mine
owner in California. The son was also a congressman, from a coast State,
and the captain had read of him in the papers. A sketch of his life had
been printed, and this made his identity absolutely certain. Captain
Cy's original idea had been to write to this congres