have given me--"

"You can have it yet, you know. Might take it and just keep it to fall
back on in case that story-mill of yours busts altogether or all hands
in Ostable County go crazy and vote the wrong ticket. Just take it and
wait. Always well to have an anchor ready to let go, you know."

"Thanks, but that wouldn't be fair. I wish I MIGHT have taken it--for
your sake. I wish for your sake I were so constituted as to be good for
something at it. Of course I don't mean by that that I should be willing
to give up my writing--but--well, you see, Grandfather, I owe you an
awful lot in this world . . . and I know you had set your heart on my
being your partner in Z. Snow and Co. I know you're disappointed."

Captain Lote did not answer instantly. He seemed to be thinking. Then
he opened a drawer in his desk and took out a box of cigars similar to
those he had offered the Honorable Fletcher Fosdick on the occasion of
their memorable interview.

"Smoke, Al?" he asked. Albert declined because of the nearness to dinner
time, but the captain, who never permitted meals or anything else to
interfere with his smoking, lighted one of the cigars and leaned back in
his chair, puffing steadily.

"We-ll, Al," he said slowly, "I'll tell you about that. There was a
time--I'll own up that there was a time when the idea you wasn't goin'
to turn out a business man and the partner who would take over this
concern after I got my clearance papers was a notion I wouldn't let
myself think of for a minute. I wouldn't THINK of it, that's all. But
I've changed my mind about that, as I have about some other things." He
paused, tugged at his beard, and then added, "And I guess likely I might
as well own up to the whole truth while I'm about it: I didn't change it
because I wanted to, but because I couldn't help it--'twas changed for
me."

He made this statement more as if he were thinking aloud than as if he
expected a reply. A moment later he continued.

"Yes, sir," he said, "'twas changed for me. And," with a shrug, "I'd
rather prided myself that when my mind was made up it stayed that way.
But--but, well, consarn it, I've about come to the conclusion that I was
a pig-headed old fool, Al, in some ways."

"Nonsense, Grandfather. You are the last man to--"

"Oh, I don't mean a candidate for the feeble-minded school. There ain't
been any Snows put there that I can remember, not our branch of 'em,
anyhow. But, consarn it, I--I--" he was pl