“Well,” he declared, “I'm going to live while I have the time. I never expect to be a walking corpse just stalling round in an effort to defer settlement with the undertaker, and I won't be a dead one until the neighbors hear a quartet singing Lead Kindly Light out at my house--Joe you look worried. Anything gone wrong with you, old friend? Need some money? Have you married a young wife?”
“Yes, and a fine boy, Joe--no thanks to you. His mother's influence was strong enough to counteract any impulses for crime he might have inherited from his father.”
Gurney smiled sadly at Cappy Ricks' badinage.
“He is a fine boy, Alden, but--he's only a boy, and I'm afraid he's going to make hash of his young life before it's fairly started.”
“Well, then where did he first meet this woman?”
Joe Gurney, Senior, hitched his chair close to his friend's and laid an impressive hand on Cappy's knee.
“Alden,” he said feelingly, “you and I have been friends, man and boy, for about sixty-five years. I believe we were five years old when we robbed Deacon Follansbee's beehive and got stung to death.”
“Yes, and we've both been getting stung more or less ever since, only somehow we still manage to recover and be none the worse for the experience. At least, Joe, we learned about bees. When it comes to boys, however, I've still got my experience coming. My little chap died when he was twelve, you know. I've never quite gotten over his loss; in fact, Joe, I was dreaming of him a minute ago when you called.”
“You had him long enough, Alden, to realize how I feel about Joey.”
Cappy nodded. “Let's see,” he answered, reflectively pulling his whiskers, “Joey must be about twenty-four years old now, isn't he?”
“Twenty-four last Tuesday; and at twenty-five he comes into his mother's fortune. I've managed his little nest egg pretty well, Alden; invested it all in the vessel property of Gurney & Harlan, and since the war started I've swelled what originally was a quarter of a million to about a million and a half. His stock in the Red Funnel Line is worth a million at the very least, and the remaining half million is represented by cold cash in bank and bonds that can be converted into cash overnight.
“Hum-m-m! Harumph-h-h! Quite a fortune for a youth of a twenty-five to be intrusted with. I'll bet somebody will take it away from him before he's thirty.”