be dull. Not for me, at least. I love it."

They reached the store. Louise bade the young man good-morning and
went around to the back door to greet Betty.

Lawford made his purchases in rather serious mood and returned to his
motor boat. His mind was fixed upon the way Louise Grayling had looked
as he stepped ashore and greeted her.

He had been close enough to her now, and for time enough as well, to be
sure that there was nothing artificial about this girl. She was as
natural as a flower--and just as sweet! There was a softness to her
cheek and to the curve of her neck like rich velvet. Her eyes were
mild yet sparkling when she became at all animated. And that demure
smile! And her dimples!

When a young man gets to making an accounting of a girl's charms in
this way, he is far gone indeed. Lawford Tapp was very seriously
smitten.

He saw his youngest sister, Cicely, whom the family always called
L'Enfant Terrible, speeding back to the villa in the automobile. She
had not gone as far as Paulmouth, after all, and she reached home long
before he docked the launch. Lawford did not pay much attention to
what went on in the big villa. His mother and sisters lived a social
life of their own. He merely slept there, spending most of his days on
the water.

The Salt Water Taffy King was not at the private dock when Lawford
arrived. Mr. Israel Tapp was an irritable and impatient man. He "flew
off the handle" at the slightest provocation. Many times a day he lost
his temper and, as Lawford phlegmatically expressed it, "blew up."

These exhibitions meant nothing particularly to Mr. Tapp. They were
escape-valves for a nervous irritability that had grown during his
years of idleness. Born of a poor Cape family, but with a dislike for
fish-seines and lobster-pots, he had turned his attention from the
first to the summer visitors, even in his youth beginning to flock to
the old-fashioned ports of the Cape. Catering to their wants was a
gold mine but little worked at that time.

He began to sell candy at one of the more popular resorts. Then he
began to make candy. His Salt Water Taffy became locally famous. He
learned that a good many of the wealthier people who visited the Cape
in summer played all the year around. They went to Atlantic City or to
the Florida beaches in the winter.

So Israel Tapp branched out and established salt water taffy kitchens
all up and down the coast. "I. Tapp, the Salt