of
the insular prejudice of his kind against those who win their
livelihood in the glare of the theatrical spotlight. This gentle,
well-bred, delightful girl staying at Cap'n Abe's store was a
revelation to him. He held his tongue, however, and held his temper in
check as well.

"I don't see," stormed I. Tapp, "why you can't take up with a nice girl
and marry. Why, at your age I was married and we had Marian!"

"Don't you think that should discourage me, dad?" Lawford put in.
"Marian is nobody to brag of, I should say."

"Hah!" ejaculated his father. "She's a fool, too. But there are nice
girls. I was talking to your mother about your case last night. Of
course, I don't want you to say anything to her about what I'm going to
tell you now. She's got the silliest notions," pursued Mr. Tapp who
labored under the belief that all the wisdom of the ages had lodged
under his own hat. "Expects her daughters to marry dukes and you to
catch a princess or the like."

"There are no such fish in these waters," laughed Lawford. "At least,
none has so much as nibbled at my hook."

"And no nice girl will nibble at it if you don't come ashore once in a
while and get into something besides fisherman's duds."

"Now, dad, clothes do not make the man."

"Who told you such a fool thing as that? Some fool philosopher with
only one shirt to his back said it. Bill Johnson proved how wrong that
was to my satisfaction years and years ago. Good old Bill! I wanted
to branch out. We had just that one little candy factory and I worked
in it myself every day.

"I got the idea," continued I. Tapp, launched on a favorite subject
now, "that my balance sheet and outlook for trade might impress the
bank people. I wanted to build a bigger factory. So I took off my
apron one day and walked over to the bank. I saw the president. He
looked like a fashion plate himself and he swung a pair of dinky
glasses on a cord as he listened to me and looked me over. Then he
turned me down--flat!

"I told Bill about it. Bill was kind of tied up just then himself.
That was before he made his big strike. But he was a different fellow
from me. Bill always looked like ready money.

"'Isra,' he says to me, 'I'll tell you how to get that money from the
bank.'

"'It can't be done, Bill,' I told him. 'The president of the bank
showed me that my business was too weak to stand such spread-eagling.

"'Nonsense!' says Bill. 'It isn't your busin