Cap'n Amazon smiled whimsically and looked down at his stained and
toil-worn palm.
"I see you're nigh-sighted, ma'am. Some of us git that way as we grow
older. I never have been bothered with short eyesight myself."
"I wish to see my niece at once," Mrs. Conroth said, flushing a little
at his suggestion of her advancing years.
"Come right in," he said, lifting the flap in the counter.
Mrs. Conroth glared around the store through her glass. "Cannot Louise
come here?" She asked helplessly.
"We live back o' the shop--and overhead," explained Cap'n Amazon.
"Come right in, I'll have Betty Gallup call Louise."
Bristling her indignation like a porcupine its quills, the majestic
woman followed the spry figure of the captain. Her first glance over
the old-fashioned, homelike room elicited a pronounced sniff.
"Catarrh, ma'am?" suggested the perfectly composed Cap'n Amazon. "This
strong salt air ought to do it a world of good. I've known a sea
v'y'ge to cure the hardest cases. They tell me lots of 'em come down
here to the Cape afflicted that way and go home cured.
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