Page:Frank Stockton--Adventures of Captain Horn.djvu/142

ADVENTURES OF CAPTAIN HORN back all right, and if he does it will be a grand match. Why, Edna child, if Captain Horn never gets away with a stick of that gold, it will be a most excellent match. Now, I believe in my heart," she continued, sitting down by Edna, "that when you accepted Captain Horn you expected him to come back. Tell me isn't that true?"

At that instant Miss Markham gave a little start "Mrs. Cliff," she exclaimed, "there is Ralph calling me. Won't you go and tell him all about it? Hurry, before he comes in here."

When Ralph Markham heard what had happened while he was down at the beach, he grew so furiously angry that he could not find words in which to express himself.

"That Captain Horn," he cried, when speech came to him, "is the most despotic tyrant on the face of the earth! He tells people what they are to do, and they simply go and do it. The next thing he will do is to tell you to adopt me as a son. Marry Edna! My sister! And I not know it! And she, just because he asks her, must go and marry him. Well, that is just like a woman."

With savage strides he was about marching back to the beach, when Mrs. Cliff stopped him.

"Now, don't make everybody unhappy, Ralph," she said, "but just listen to me. I want to tell you all about this matter."

It took about a quarter of an hour to make clear to the ruffled mind of Ralph the powerful, and in Mrs. Cliff's eyes the imperative, reasons for the sudden and unpremeditated matrimonial arrangements of the morning. But before she had finished, the boy grew 130