From this vehicle Matt Peasley, astonishingly well tailored, alighted,
handed out the heir to the Ricks millions, said good-by lingeringly
and drove away.
"Well," Cappy soliloquized, "I guess I'm going to land the son-in-law
I'm after. The matinee is over at a quarter of five, and those two
have fooled away an hour. I'll bet a dollar Florry steered that
sailor into a tea fight somewhere, and if she did that, Matt, you're a
tip-top risk and I'll underwrite you."
That same evening Cappy sneaked into his daughter's apartments and
found a photograph of Matt Peasley in a hammered silver frame on
Florry's dressing table.
"Holy sailor!" he chuckled. "They think they're putting one over on
the old gentleman, don't they? Trying to cover me with blood, eh?
Huh! If I'd let that fellow Matt stay ashore he'd have hung round
Florry until he wore out his welcome, and I suppose in the long run
I'd have had to put up with one of these lawn-tennis, tea-swilling
young fellows too proud to work. By Judas Priest, when I quit the
street I want to give my proxy to a lad that will make my competitors
mind their step, and by keeping Matt at sea a couple of years, I'll
get him over the moon-calf period. Deliver my girl and my business
from the hands of a damned fool!"
The following evening Cappy questioned his daughter's chauffeur--a
chauffeur, by the way, being a luxury which Cappy scorned for himself.
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