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Dual Control
Dual Control / Ship's Company, Part 8
DUAL CONTROL
"Never say 'die,' Bert," said Mr. Culpepper, kindly; "I like you, and so do most other people who know what's good for 'em; and if Florrie don't like you she can keep single till she does."
Mr. Albert Sharp thanked him.
"Come in more oftener," said Mr. Culpepper. "If she don't know a steady young man when she sees him, it's her mistake."
"Nobody could be steadier than what I am," sighed Mr. Sharp.
Mr. Culpepper nodded. "The worst of it is, girls don't like steady young men," he said, rumpling his thin grey hair; "that's the silly part of it."
"But you was always steady, and Mrs. Culpepper married you," said the young man.
Mr. Culpepper nodded again. "She thought I was, and that came to the same thing," he said, composedly. "And it ain't for me to say, but she had an idea that I was very good-looking in them days. I had chestnutty hair. She burnt a piece of it only the other day she'd kept for thirty years."
"Burnt it? What for?" inquired Mr. Sharp.
"Words," said the other, lowering his voice. "When I want one thing nowadays she generally wants another; and the things she wants ain't the things I want."
Mr. Sharp shook his head and sighed again.