NIGHT TIDE

Auckland Star, Volume LXV, Issue 253, 25 October 1934, Page 26

NIGHT TIDE

By J. R WILMOT

(Author or "The Mysterious Masquerade," etc.

(CHAPTER Xlll.—Continued.) There came <a sudden and startlingring at the doorbell. Something doubtless had gone wrong in The Building. Perhaps one of the heating radiators was not performing its work with the efficiency that the system proclaimed. Captain Macadam opened the door. "Good afternoon, captain! Macadam, isn't it?" Miss Lottie Fillinger had dressed herself with great care for this visit, and, having dressed herself well, she knew that she looked at least five years younger than she was. "Captain Macadam it is, madam. And what caii I do for you?" "I knew it," beamed Miss Fillinger. "The resemblance is unmistakable. May I come in and have a little talk with you, captain?"

Captain Macadam eyed his visitor curiously. He tried, unsuccessfully, to recall where he had met her before. Probably from one of the charities, lie compromised. "I'm a busy man, madam," he smiled, condescendingly, "but if it's anything important, I'm sure I'm a patient listener."

"That's awfully good of you, captain," Miss Fillinger told him, following him inside. "The man who brought me up in the elevator seemed a trifle doubtful." "Doubtful?" boomed the captain as he pulled out a chair for his visitor. "What about?" "I gathered, captain, that at this hour of the day it is your custom to take a rest. Ido it myself," she went on, before Macadam could refute the elevator man's allegation. "Every afternoon. We middle-aged people can't keep up the pace like the young folks, now, can we ?" "That's true enough, Mrs. —." The captain cocked a questioning and uncertain eye. "Fillinger's my name," purred the lady sweetly, "and the prefix is still Miss." The captain looked momentarily uncomfortable, and Miss Lottie stepped boldly into the breach. "I hope you're not going to apologise, captain, because I quite took it as a compliment." They both laughed, and Miss Fillinger felt that she had scored her lirst point in the game. "Now, Mi6s Fillinger, I'm quite sure you didn't come to talk to me "about that, and I gather it must bo important if you've forgtoten your afternoon's rest." "It is important, captain. Very important. I've come to see you about John —your son." Miss Fillinger's voice had suddenly grown serious. Captain Macadam frowned, and for a moment his penetrating gaze disconcerted her. "And what do you know about my son?" He asked the question in an inquisitorial tone. "Quite a lot," she told him fearlessly. "In fact, I rather liko him. He and I get along very well together." Miss Fillinger paused, feeling her way guardedly. "You must forgive me if I appear stupid, Miss Fillinger, but there seems to be something 1 don't quite understand. In fact, you have me at a distinct disadvantage, and, being a man of the world, I have a habit of liking to know just where I stand." "I don't think you're in the least stupid, now that I've met you, captain, and I'm quite sure that you're going to be reasonable. As a matter of fact, John Macadam returned from America just over a fortnight ago, and he has been staying over in Birkenhead with me."

"But why should he do that?" demanded the captain. "Why was I not told before to-day, and why, Miss Fillinger, should you be the one to acquaint me ?" "I'm afraid it's going to be rather difficult to explain without hurting your feelings," she told him, her confidence growing. "You see John felt that, having treated you badly, you wouldn't welcome his return, and ho wanted a little time to think things over." "John's quite right about that," he agreed, bitterly. "I don't want to see him. I don't ever want to see him again. You may give him that message from me, Miss Fillinger. It will save a deal of trouble." "I don't think I shall," said Miss Fillinger, quietly, "because I've come hero with the intention of making you see reason and change your mind, and if you knew Lottie Fillinger as well as I do, you'd -realise that she doesn't know the meaning of failure." Despite the seriousness of the occasion, Captain Macadam could not resist a smile, wry though it was. "It's to bo a battle, is it?" he asked. "You'd better' take your coat off, Miss Fillinger." "Thanks, captain, I will. It is rather warm up here, isn't it?" The corners of Captain Macadam's mouth dropped. He always recognised when he was up against it. "Now, don't you think captain, that you aro being somewhat intolerant over this affair? You know that I always

A ROMANTIC OF A GREAT SEAPORT

imagined that sea captains were born diplomats; that they had to be so in fact, in order to control their ships. You don't seem to me to be the type of man who could ever be guilty of unfairness. That being so it is difficult for mo to understand and appreciate your reason for your attitude towards your son." Captain Macadam moved restlessly in his chair. This woman spoke with a sharp logic that he had never before attributed to her sex; and it was a logic that needed skilful circumvention. "Madam," lie began, "were I at sea at this moment do you know what 1 should do ? I'd sling you our of here for daring to try to dictate to me on a matter that doesn't for a moment concern you. I'm not going to do that because when I was at school I was taught to bo polite to all women. My teacher was a woman —it was a village school —and doubtless she considered herself a pioneer of chivalry. But I'm going to maintain that I've a perfectly good right to my own opinion regarding my soil. If I choose to disown him as a son, I am entitled to do so, just as much as I am entitled not to discuss what is after all a family affair with a stranger."

Miss Fillinger held up a protesting hand. "Please don't imagine, Captain Macadam, that 1 am not conscious of my position in this matter. I know lam an intruder and that were I in your placc I should probably refuse to listen. It is because 1 feel that you are being unjust to your son, and also because 1 feel he is, at this moment, in need of your assistance, that lam here at all. I have an idea that I am conversant with your views on his desertion from the sea. You have a right to those opinions, but 1 maintain that you have no right to pufh them so far that you are injurng your own son. And looking at it from that angle, how do you know ho was not right? Not all of us, you know, like the sea so well that we want to live on it for years and years, I'm a deplorable sailor even in fair weather. Whenever possiblo I use the underground railway in preference to the ferry boats. John was very young, remember, when you pushed him away to sea. You imagined that because you were a sailor he ought to follow in your footsteps as a matter of course. I firmly believe that half the failures in the world aro the result of parents taking it for granted that their children should succeed them professionally. I'm not a fool, Captain Macadam. I've not gone about the world with my eyes shut to realities. I've known dozens of perfectly competent fathers whoso businesses have been ruined because sons have been brought in to 'follow father,' and because those sons have failed to provide the necessary intelligence or enthusiasm for the business. Do you agree with me or not, captain?"

Captain Macadam looked exceedingly thoughtful. "lucre's certainly something in what you say, Miss Fillinger," he admitted, fairly, "but keeping to the subject of John. Now if John had hated the sea so much that he ran away from it, why couldn't he have talked it over with his father when his ship was in port? Why should he repress his hatred, then break out suddenly the way he did? Can you answer me those questions?" Miss Fillinger answered the captain promptly. "Certainly I can. I should say it was because he was afraid of you. He didn't dare to bring your wrath down on his head because ho respected your attitude about the sea too much. Ho probably felt that he just couldn't face such an interview because he was afraid that you wouldn't understand his point of view." "What if ho did?" demanded the captain. "He took the coward's way out. He made a first-class fool of me. That's what John did, Miss Fillinger." "Ah," smiled the lady, in a low voice, "now we are getting down to the bare truth, captain. It was your pride he hurt, not so much your reason. You didn't like" the talk John's desertion caused. That was it, admit it now?" Captain Macadam admitted that what Miss Fillinger inferred was quite correct. "But that was a long time ago," she went on, believing in the old saying that it is better to strike while the iron is hot. "Time mellows all our opinions and softens many of our prejudices, and I am going to suggest that Time has also mellowed your prejudiced against John. Isn't that so. captain?" "That's where you're wrong," he exclaimed heatedly. "Time has done no such thing. If it has done anything at all it has hardened my heart. The Bible, Miss Fillinger, says we are clay in the hands of the potter. My potter lies in her grave, and the clay has grown hard." (To be continued daily.)