CHAPTER XLIII. CAPPY PLANS A KNOCK-OUT
The morning following Matt Peasley's triumphant return from Panama with the steamer Tillicum, Cappy Ricks created a mild sensation in his offices by reporting for duty at a quarter past eight. Mr. Skinner was already at his desk, for he was a slave driver who drove himself fully as hard as he did those under him. He glanced up apprehensively as Cappy bustled in.
“Why, what has happened, Mr. Ricks?” he queried.
“I have an idea,” said Cappy. “Skinner, my boy, a word with you in private.”
Mr. Skinner rose with alacrity, for instinct warned him that he was in for some fast and clever work. Cappy sat in at his desk, and Skinner, drawing up a chair, sat down beside him and waited respectfully for Cappy to begin.
“Skinner,” Cappy began impressively, “for many years you and I have been harboring the delusion that we are business men, whereas, if we can stand to hear the truth told about ourselves, we handle a deal with the reckless abandon of a pair of bear cubs juggling hazel nuts.”
“I have sufficient self-esteem,” Skinner replied stiffly, “not to take that pessimistic view of myself. If you refer to the inglorious rout we suffered yesterday in our skirmish with Captain Matt Peasley, permit me to remind you, in all respect, that you handled that entire deal yourself.”
“Bah!” said Cappy witheringly. “Why, you aided and abetted me, Skinner. You told me my strategy was absolutely flawless.”
“I am not the seventh son of a seventh son, sir. I did not see the flaw in your strategy. You lost by one of those strange accidents which must be attributed to the interference of the Almighty in the affairs of men.”
“Lost!” Cappy jeered. “Lost! Skinner, you infuriate me. I haven't lost. Like John Paul Jones, I haven't yet commenced to fight. Skinner, listen to me. When I get through with that Matt Peasley you can take it from me he'll be sore from soul to vermiform appendix.”
“If I may be permitted a criticism, sir, I would suggest that you let this matter rest right where it is. Surely you realize the delicate position you are in, quarreling with your future son-in-law—”
“Agh-h-h! Pooh!” snapped Cappy. “That's all outside office hours. I haven't any grudge against the boy and he knows it. I don't want his little old bank roll—that is, for keeps. When I went into this deal, Skinner, I was actuated by the same benevolent intentions as a man that desires to cure a hound pup of sucking eggs. He fills an egg with cayenne pepper and leaves it where the pup can find it—and after that the pup sucks no more eggs. I love this boy Matt like he was my own son, but he's too infernally fresh! He holds people too cheap; he's too trustful. He's made his little wad too easily, and easy money never did any man any good. So I wanted to teach him that business is business, and if I could take his roll away from him I was going to do it. Of course, Skinner, I need not remind you that I would have loaned him the next minute, without interest and without security, every cent I'd taken from him in this deal—”
“But why peeve over it, Mr. Ricks? If Captain Matt—”
“At my age—to take a beating like that?” Cappy shrilled. “Impossible! Why, he'll tell this story on the Merchants' Exchange, and I can't afford that. Not at my age, Skinner, not at my age! I have a reputation to sustain, and, by the Holy Pink-toed Prophet, I'm going to sustain it. I'm going down fighting like a bear cat. I know he scalded us yesterday, Skinner, but every dog must have his day—and that dog-gone Matt's day dawned this morning.”
“The only tactical error, if I may appear hypercritical,” Skinner said suavely, “was your failure to cancel the charter on the very day that Matt slipped up on his first advance payment. If you had done that you would have had him. Don't say I didn't call your attention to the fact that his payment was overdue!”
“Yes, if I had done that I would have had him, but how much would I have had him for? Paltry nine thousand dollars! I wanted him to get into the financial quicksands up to his chin—and then I'd have had him! Besides, Skinner, I had to go slow. Just think what would have happened if Florry found me out! Why, I would have had to call off the dogs before I was half through the job.”
“He's probably told her all about it by now,” Skinner suggested.
“Don't get him wrong,” Cappy protested. “He's no tattle-tale. He'll fight fair. However, as I was saying, I couldn't do anything raw, Skinner. I had planned, when Matt reached Panama and discovered he had been double-crossed to pass the buck up to you!”
Mr. Skinner started, but Cappy continued serenely:
“I planned to be away from the office when the blow-off came, and you were to have borne the brunt of Matt's fury and despair. Why, what the devil do I have a general manager for if not to help me out in these little affairs? And besides, Skinner, when he blew in here the day Morrow & Company hit the ceiling, he was so excited and worried I felt positive he was busted then; so what was the use calling him for his overdue payment when if I let him run on I'd have his young soul in hock for the next ten years?” Cappy leaned forward and laid an impressive hand on Mr. Skinner's knee. “You know, Skinner, we really need that boy in this office, and it would have been a fine thing to have gotten him and gotten him right. Then he wouldn't be leaving the reservation to chase rainbows. However, as the boys say, I overlooked a bet, but I'll not overlook another.”
“You said you had an idea,” Mr. Skinner suggested.
“I have. Just at present there is a libel on the Tillicum, and when we lift it Matt Peasley is prepared to plaster another libel on her, and another, and still another. Now, as a result of our conversation with Matt yesterday, he thinks we'll lift the libel to-day—in fact, settle with him for what he paid the crew when they assigned their wage claim to his company, and thus prevent any further libels. Now, if we do that it leaves Matt in the clear to commence discharging his cargo, but at the same time it makes it incumbent upon him to slam a certified check for eighteen thousand dollars down on the Blue Star counter, in order to hold the vessel long enough to discharge her and collect the freight. Then he'll turn the vessel back on our hands with many thanks—rot him!”
“I have no doubt that such are his intentions, Mr. Ricks; in which event he will, of course, be ready with the certified check the instant we make formal, written demand upon him for our money. I believe I have already warned you, sir, that we cannot cancel the charter without first making formal, written demand for our charter money.”
“Well,” said Cappy, “we'll get round that all right.”
“Pray, how?”
“What time did Matt Peasley leave this office after the battle yesterday?”
“I should say in the neighborhood of half after three.”
“Hum! Ahem! Harump-h-h! The banks close at three, and they do not reopen for business until ten this morning. It is now exactly a quarter of nine. Has Matt Peasley had time to procure a certified check since he arrived from Panama—or has he not?”
“The situation admits of no argument,” Mr. Skinner admitted.
“Exactly! He didn't have time yesterday, and he sha'n't have time to-day, and to-morrow will be too late, because his money is due us to-day! We shall lift all those libels and free the Tillicum for him; then we shall make formal demand upon him for eighteen thousand dollars, in cash or certified check—we can legally decline his check unless certified—and when he fails to make good we formally cancel the charter. Then what happens? I'll tell you. We grab the boat with a full cargo from him as he grabbed it from Morrow & Company with a full cargo. Then we collect the freight on that northbound cargo as he collected the freight on the southbound cargo, and,” Cappy continued calmly, “I dare say that freight money will put us in the clear on all those bills we're stuck for.”
“And to do all this,” Skinner remarked sententiously, “it is necessary to tie up Matt Peasley's bank account the instant the bank opens this morning.”
“Skinner,” said Cappy feelingly, “you get me almost before I get myself. Now listen, while I give you your orders: Go right up to our attorney's office, take our copy of the charter with you, explain that Matt has defaulted in his payments, and instruct our attorney to enter suit to collect. Tell him to get the complaint out and filed within three-quarters of an hour, and then, the instant he has filed the suit, he is to get out a writ of attachment on the Pacific Shipping Company's bank account.”
“But we cannot do that, Mr. Ricks. We must make formal, written demand for the payments in arrears before we can proceed to force collection—”
“Certainly. We'll do that after we've tied up his bank account.”
“But when we get into court we'll be nonsuited because we didn't do that first.”
“I sincerely hope so. But in the meanwhile we've tied up Matt's bank account, and while we're arguing the merits of our action in so doing, another sun will have set, and when it rises again”—Cappy kissed his hand airily into space—“the good ship Tillicum will be back under the Blue Star Flag—”
“But Matt Peasley will allege conspiracy and a lot of things, and he can sue us and get the boat back and force us to render an accounting of that freight money.”
“That situation will admit of much argument, Skinner. However, Matt will not sue me. Florry wouldn't let him! He'll make us lift the attachment on his bank account, and then he'll protect himself and tell us to whistle for the eighteen thousand dollars he owes us. Whichever way the cat jumps he wins. What I want to do is break even and with a modicum of my self-respect left intact.”
“He'll promptly file a bond to lift the attachment—”
“Will he? Who in this city will go on his bond? Who does he know?”
“There are bonding companies in business, and for a cash consideration—”
“Rot! They will investigate and ponder before granting his application for a bond. It takes a day or two to get a bond through a bonding house, and all I want to do is to tie Matt up for a day. Now, listen! You see to it that the suit is filed and an attachment levied on Matt Peasley's bank account in the Marine National. That's where he keeps his little wad, because I took him over and introduced him there myself. Well, sir, in the meantime I'll call up Matt and precipitate a devil of a row with him over the phone. I'll tell him I've made up my mind to fight him to the last ditch and that those libels will not be lifted until he lifts them himself. Of course, he'll figure right away that he won't need a certified check to-day, and maybe he'll neglect to provide himself with one; or he may be chump enough to figure we'll take his check uncertified, and if he does that will teach him something.”
“Well, I'm betting he'll not be caught napping,” Mr. Skinner declared, “and if you want my opinion of this new proceeding I will state frankly that I am not in favor of it. It savors too much of assination. Of course, you may do it and get away with it—”
“Pooh!” snorted Cappy. “Forget it. At ten minutes of three this afternoon the libel on the Tillicum will be lifted, and Matt Peasley will be paid in cash the sum he advanced his crew for wages. That will block him from slapping any more libels on her and holding us up. Then we'll make formal, written demand upon him for eighteen thousand dollars; he won't have it where he can lay his hands on it, and he'll be up Salt Creek without a paddle.”
“I am not in favor of it,” Mr. Skinner reiterated firmly.
“Neither am I, Skinner, but I've got to do something. Can't let that young pup cover me with blood. No, sir, not at my age, Skinner. I can't afford to be laughed off California Street. And by the way, since when did you become a champion of Matt Peasley?”
Mr. Skinner did not answer.
“Since when?” Cappy repeated.
“Since he administered such a thorough thrashing to the Blue Star Navigation Company,” Mr. Skinner answered, “and did it without prejudice. He swatted us, and we deserved it, but he didn't get angry. Every time he banged us, he'd look at me as much as to say: 'I hate to swat you two, but it's got to be done.' Bang! 'This hurts me more than it does you.' Biff! And then he went out smiling. I used to think he was an—an—interloper, I thought he had designs on the Blue Star Navigation Company and the Ricks Lumber and Logging Company, but he hasn't. He doesn't give a hoot for anything or anybody except for what he can be to them; not for what they can be to him. He's brainy and spunky and, by thunder, I'm for him, and if you're going to hand him a clout when he isn't looking you'll have to do it yourself.”
“Skinner,” said Cappy Ricks impressively. “Look me square in the eye. Do you refuse orders?”
“I do, sir,” Skinner replied, and looked Cappy in the eye so fiercely that the old schemer quailed. “This is an unworthy business, Mr. Ricks. You're trying to teach Matt Peasley some business tricks, and he's taught you a few, so be a sport, sir, and pay for your education.”
“All right,” Cappy replied meekly. “When my own general manager goes back on me, I suppose there's nothing to do but quit. The program appears to be impracticable, so we'll say no more about it.”
“I am glad to hear you say that, Mr. Ricks,” Skinner answered feelingly, and forthwith repaired to his own office.
Cappy Ricks gazed after him almost affectionately, and as the door closed behind the general manager, Cappy murmured sotto voce:
“Skinner, I've been twenty-five years wondering why the devil I liked you, and now I know. Why, you cold-blooded, efficient, human automaton, you've actually got a heart! Bow! wow! Faithful Fido Skinner was just a-tugging at the chain and dragging the dog house after him in his efforts to eat me up! I hope I go bankrupt if I don't raise his salary!”
He turned to a pigeonhole in his desk and drew forth the charter he had negotiated months before with Matt Peasley for the Tillicum. He read it over carefully, tucked it in his breast pocket and slipped quietly out the door. One hour later a suit against the Pacific Shipping Company was filed in the county clerk's office, and at five minutes after ten a deputy-sheriff appeared at the paying-teller's window in the Marine National Bank and filed a writ of attachment on the funds to their credit.
CHAPTER XLIV. SKINNER DEVELOPS INTO A HUMAN BEING
Cappy Ricks was having his mid-afternoon siesta in his office when Captain Matt Peasley appeared at the counter of the general office and, without awaiting an invitation to enter, swung through the office gate and made straight for Cappy's office. En route he had to pass through Mr. Skinner's lair, and the general manager looked up as Matt entered.
“Well, Captain,” he said pleasantly, “how goes it?”
“Fine,” Matt answered with equal urbanity. “That was a slick piece of work tying up my bank account. I can't get a bond to-day, the bank is closed, and I suppose you're going to insist upon payment of that eighteen thousand dollars before midnight to-night or take the Tillicum and her cargo away from me.”
Mr. Skinner started in genuine amazement.
“Attached your bank account, Matt? I give you my word of honor I had nothing to do with it.”
“Well, it's tied up by the Blue Star Navigation Company, and Cappy Ricks has served notice on me to call here and pay up or suffer cancellation of my charter. Of course, for all the good my bank account is to me this minute he might as well ask me to give him the moon.”
“I'm truly sorry,” said Skinner. “I protested to Mr. Ricks against this action. I assure you I would not have taken such a course myself—under the circumstances.”
“Cappy wants cash or a certified check,” Matt complained, “and he's made it impossible for me to go to my bank and get either—to-day. What am I going to do?”
“I'm afraid you're going to lose the Tillicum and her cargo. The Blue Star Navigation Company will doubtless collect the freight on that northbound cargo. Besides, Mr. Ricks has some business offered for the Tillicum and wants her back—”
“But I was going to give her back to him as soon as I discharged her cargo. Now, just for that he'll not get her back. I'll keep her the full year.”
“But how?” Mr. Skinner queried kindly.
“By paying the Blue Star Navigation Company eighteen thousand dollars in good old U. S. yellow-backs.” Matt laughed and drew from his hip pocket a roll that would have choked a hippopotamus. “Skinner, this is so rich I'll have to tell you about it, and then if you're good I'll let you be present when I put the crusher on Cappy. His plan was without a flaw. He had me right where he wanted me—only something slipped.”
“What?” Mr. Skinner demanded breathlessly.
“Why, as soon as my account was attached, the bank called me up and told me about it. I was just about to start for the bank to make a deposit of all that freight money I had collected in Panama—about twenty-four thousand dollars, more or less—the Panama Railroad gave it to me in a lump—exchange on San Francisco, you know—”
“So you cashed that draft at the bank upon which it was drawn—”
“And I'm here with the cash to smother Cappy Ricks! I'll cover him with confusion, the old villain! Skinner, I give you my word, if he hadn't tried to slip one over on me I would never have stuck him with all those bills Morrow & Company didn't pay, but now that he's gone and attached my bank account—”
Mr. Skinner rose and took Matt Peasley by the arm.
“Matt,” he said in the friendliest fashion imaginable. “You and I have clashed since the first day I learned of your existence, but we're not going to clash any more.” He pointed to the door leading to Cappy Ricks' office. “One of these days, Matt, whether you want to or not, you're going to be occupying that office and giving orders to me, and when you do I want to tell you here and now I shall accord you the same measure of respect I now accord Mr. Ricks. I've worked twenty-five years for Mr. Ricks. I—I'm—absurdly fond of him, for all his er—er—”
“Why, so am I, Skinner. I'd do anything to please him—”
“Then do it,” Skinner pleaded. “Give him a cheap victory. He's an old man and he'll enjoy it. He didn't sleep a wink last night, just scheming a way to get a strangle hold on you—it's hard for the old to give way to the young, you know—and now he's inside there, just hungering for you to arrive so he can jeer at you and lecture you and make fun of you. He doesn't want your money. Why, he loves you as if you were his own boy—”
“But how can I let him get away with this deal?” Matt queried soberly.
“By rushing in on him now and simulating a terrific rage. Just imagine you're on the bridge of a steamer making up to a dock against a strong flood tide, with stupid mates fore and aft, and rotten lines that won't hold when you get them over the dolphins, and the tide has grabbed you and slammed you into the dock and done five hundred dollars' worth of damage—just feel like that, Matt—”
“If I do I'll cuss something scandalous,” Matt warned him.
“The harder the better.”
“And I'm to keep this money in my pocket, and let him cancel my charter, and take that northbound cargo away from me, and collect the freight on me—”
“Exactly that! He'll withdraw his suit against you to-morrow and release your bank account, and then you decline to pay him the eighteen thousand dollars you owe him until he gives an accounting of the freight money he's collected. He'll tell you to go to Halifax, but you mustn't mind. It's going to make him as happy as a fool to think he beat you in the end.”
A slow smile spread over Matt's face.
“Skinner,” he said. “You're a good old wagon, that's what you are. I'm sorry we ever had any mix-up, and we'll never have another—after this one—and this is going to be a fake. You see, Skinner, if we're going to put one over on Cappy let's have it one worth while—so this is the program. I've just arrived, with blood in my eye, to clean out the Blue Star office, and I'm starting in with the general manager. Clinch me now, and we'll wrestle all over the office and bang against the furniture and that door there—”
As Cappy Ricks was wont to remark, Mr. Skinner could “get” one before one could “get” one's self.
“Get out of my office, you infernal rowdy,” he yelled loud enough to awaken Cappy Ricks next door. Then he clinched with Matt Peasley.
“A good fight,” said Cappy Ricks half an hour after Matt Peasley had been pried away from Mr. Skinner and forced to listen to reason, “is the grandest thing in life. Now there's that crazy boy gone out in a rage just because he had the presumption to tangle with me in a business deal and get dog-gone well licked! He put it all over me yesterday, thinking I couldn't protect myself. Well, he knows better now, Skinner; he knows better now! In-fer-nal young scoundrel! Wow, but wasn't he a wild man, Skinner? Wasn't he though?” And Cappy Ricks chuckled.
“You have probably cured him of sucking eggs,” Mr. Skinner observed enigmatically.
“Well, I handed the young pup a dose of cayenne pepper, at any rate,” Cappy bragged, “and I wouldn't have missed doing it for a cool hundred thousand. Why, Skinner, a man might as well retire from business when he gets so weak and feeble and soft-headed he doesn't know how to protect himself in the clinches and break-aways.”
Mr. Skinner smiled. “The old dog for the cold scent,” he suggested.
“You bet,” Cappy cackled triumphantly. “Skinner, my dear boy, what are we paying you?”
“Ten thousand a year, sir.”
“Not enough money. Hereafter pay yourself twelve thousand. Tut, tut. Not a peep out of you, sir, not a peep. If you do, Skinner, you'll spoil the happiest day I've known in twenty years.”
CHAPTER XLV. CAPPY PULLS OFF A WEDDING
About a week later, Captain Matt Peasley was studying the weather chart at the Merchants' Exchange when he heard behind him a propitiatory “Ahem! Hum-m-m! Harump-h-h-h!”—infallible evidence that Cappy Ricks was in the immediate offing, yearning for Matt to turn round in order that he might hail the boy and thus re-establish diplomatic relations. Matt, however, elected to be perverse and pay no attention to Cappy; instead, he moved closer to the chart and affected greater interest in it.
“Hello, you big, sulky boob!” Cappy snapped presently, unable to stand the silence any longer. “Come away from that weather chart. It's blowing a fifty-mile nor'west gale off Point Reyes, and that's all any shipping man cares to know to-day. You haven't got any ships at sea!”
“No; but you have, sir,” Matt replied, unable longer to simulate indifference to Cappy's presence. “The Tillicum is bucking into that gale this minute, wasting fuel oil and making about four miles an hour. I'm glad you're paying for the oil. Where are you loading her?”
“At Hinch's Mill, in Aberdeen, Grays Harbor; discharge at Honolulu and back with sugar.” Cappy came close to Matt and drew the latter's great arm through his. “Say, Matt,” he queried plaintively, “are you still mad over that walloping I gave you?”
“Well-l, no. I think I've recovered. And I'm not willing to admit I was walloped. The best you got out of our little mix-up with the Tillicum was a lucky draw.”
“I'm still out a lot of money,” Cappy admitted. “You owe me eighteen thousand dollars on that charter I canceled on you, Matt, and you ought to pay it. Really, you ought.”
“That being tantamount to an admission on your part you cannot go into court with clean hands and force me to pay it,” Matt flashed back at him, “I'll make you a proposition: You render me an accounting of the freight you collected on the cargo you stole from me, and I'll render you an accounting for the freight on the cargo I stole from you; then we'll get an insurance adjuster in and let him figure out, by general average, how much I would owe you if I had a conscience; then I'll give you my note, due in one year, at six per cent. for whatever the amount may be.”
“Why not give me the cash?” Cappy pleaded. “You've got the money in bank.”
“I know; but I want to use it for a year.”
“Your note's no good to me,” Cappy protested. “I told you once before it wasn't hockable at any bank.”
“Then I'll withdraw my proposition.”
“And present a substitute?”
“No, sir.”
“I guess I'll take your note,” Cappy said eagerly.
“I thank you for the compliment,” Matt laughed; and Cappy, no longer able to dissemble, laughed with him—and their feud was over. Consequently, post-mortems being in order, Matt went on: “I feel pretty sneaky about sticking you with all those bills on the Tillicum that Morrow & Company defaulted on, just because the law enabled me to do so—but you did your best to ruin me; you wouldn't have showed me any pity or consideration.”
“Not a dog-goned bit!” Cappy declared firmly. “I was out to bust you wide open for the good of your immortal soul. I would have taken your roll away from you, my son, by fair means—or—er—legal, if I could.” He looked up at Matt, with such a smile as he might have applied to a lovable and well-beloved son. “I hope you've got sporting blood enough in you to realize I didn't really want your little bank roll, Matt,” he said half pleadingly. “I don't know just why I did it—except that I'm an old man and I know it; and I hate to be out of the running. I suppose, just because I'm old, I wanted to take a fall out of you—you're so young; and—oh, Matt, you do make a scrap so worth while!
“And, because I've lived longer in this world and fought harder for what I've got than you'll ever have to fight, I wanted to put about six feet of hot iron into your soul. You're a little bit too cocksure, Matt. I tell you it's a mistake to hold your business competitor cheap. I want you to know that the fine gentleman who plays cribbage with you at your club to-night will lift the hair off your head down here on the Street to-morrow, because that's the game; and nobody shakes hands with you before giving you the poke that puts you to sleep. There are a lot of old men out in the almshouse just because they trusted too much in human nature; and I wanted to show you how hard and cruel men can be and excuse their piracy on the plea that it is business! I tell you, Matt Peasley, when you've lived as long as I have you'll know men for the swine they are whenever they see some real money in sight.”
“Well, I shouldn't be surprised if you got the lesson over after all,” Matt replied gravely. “You certainly made me step lively to keep from getting run over. You scared me out of a year's growth.”
Cappy laughed contentedly.
“And what are you going to do with all this money you admit you owe me and decline to let me see the color of for a year?”
“Do you really want to know?” Matt queried.
“I'll take you to luncheon up at the Commercial Club if you'll tell me.”
Matt bent low and whispered in Cappy's ear:
“I'm going to marry your daughter. I'll have to furnish a home and—”
“No excuse!” said Cappy fiercely. “Son, all you've got to buy is the wedding ring and the license, and some clothes. I'm stuck for the wedding expenses and you don't have to furnish a home. My house is big enough for three, isn't it?”
“But this thing of living with your wife's relations—” Matt began mischievously, until he saw the pain and the loneliness in Cappy's kind old eyes. “Oh, well,” he hastened to add, “pull it off to suit yourself; but don't waste any time.”
“In-fer-nal young scoundrel!” Cappy cried happily. “We've waited too long already.”
Florry was a June bride, and the proudest and happiest man present, not excepting the groom, was old Cappy Ricks. He looked fully two inches taller as he walked up the church aisle, with Florry on his arm, and handed her over to Matt Peasley, waiting at the altar. And when the ceremony was over, and Matt had entered the waiting limousine with his bride, Cappy Ricks stood on the church steps among a dozen of his young friends from the wholesale lumber and shipping trade and made a brief oration.
“Take a good look at him, boys,” he said proudly. “You fresh young fellows will have to tangle with him one of these bright days; and when you do he'll make hell look like a summer holiday to you. See if he doesn't!”
Later, when Matt and Florry, about to leave on their honeymoon, were saying good-bye, Matt put his huge arm round Cappy and gave him a filial hug. Cappy's eyes filled with tears.
“I guess we understand each other, sonny,” he said haltingly. “I've wanted a son like you, Matt. Had a boy once—little chap—just seven when he died—might have been big like you. I was the runt of the Ricks' tribe, you know—all the other boys over six feet—and his mother's people—same stock. I—I—”
Matt patted his shoulder. Truly he understood.
CHAPTER XLVI. A SHIP FORGOTTEN
The Blue Star Navigation Company's big steam schooner Amelia Ricks, northbound to load lumber at Aberdeen in command of a skipper who revered his berth to such an extent that he thought only of pleasing Mr. Skinner by making fast time, thus failing to take into consideration a two-mile current setting shoreward, had come to grief. Her skipper had cut a corner once too often and started overland with her right across the toe of Point Gorda. Her wireless brought two tugs hastening up from San Francisco; but, before they could haul her off at high tide, the jagged reef had chewed her bottom to rags, and in a submerged condition she was towed back to port and kicked into the dry dock at Hunters Point.
Cappy Ricks, feverishly excited over the affair, was very anxious to get a report on the condition of the vessel as soon as possible. He had planned to hire a launch and proceed to Hunters Point for a personal appraisal of the damage to the Amelia Ricks, but the northwest trades were blowing half a gale that day and had kicked up just sufficient sea to warn Cappy that seasickness would be his portion if he essayed to brave it in a launch. It occurred to him, therefore, to stay in the office and send somebody in whose knowledge of ships he had profound confidence. He got Matt Peasley on the phone at once.
“Matt,” he said plaintively. “I want you to do the old man a favor, if you will. You heard about our Amelia Ricks, didn't you? Well, she's in dry dock at Hunters Point now, and they'll have the dock pumped out in two hours so we can see what her bottom looks like. I know she's ripped out clear up to the garboards and probably hogged, and I can hardly wait to make sure. The marine surveyor for the Underwriters will go down this afternoon to look her over, and then he'll take a day to present his long, typewritten report—and I can't wait that long. Will you skip down to Crowley's boathouse, hire a launch and charge it to us, and go down to see the Amelia? She'll be shored up by the time you get down there. Make a good quick examination of the damage and hurry back so I can talk it over with you. I go a heap on your judgment, Matt.”
“I'll start right away, sir,” Matt promised, glad of any opportunity to favor Cappy.
Two hours later, on his way back to the Mission Street bulkhead, he passed, in Mission Bay, a huge, rusty red box of a steel freighter, swinging at anchor. Under ordinary weather conditions Matt would have paid no attention to her; but, as has already been stated, the northwest trades were blowing a gale and had kicked up a sea; hence the steamer was rolling freely at her anchorage, and as the launch bobbed by to windward of her she rolled far over to leeward—and Matt saw something that challenged his immediate attention and provoked his profound disgust. The sides of the vessel below the water line were incrusted with barnacles and eelgrass fully six inches thick!
No skipper that ever set foot on a bridge could pass that scaly hulk unmoved. Matt Peasley said uncomplimentary things about the owners of the vessel and directed the launchman to pass in under her stern, in order that he might read her name. She proved to be the Narcissus, of London.
He stood in the stern of the launch, staring thoughtfully after the Narcissus, and before his mind there floated that vision of the barnacles and eelgrass, infallible evidence that the years had been long since the Narcissus had been hauled out.
“Do you know how long that steamer has lain there?” he queried of the launchman.
“I been runnin' launches to and from Hunters Point for seven years an' she was there when I come on the job,” the latter answered.
“It's no place for a good ship,” Matt Peasley murmured musingly. “She ought to be out on the dark blue, loaded and earning good money for her owners. I must find out why she isn't doing it.”
Having rendered a meticulous report to Cappy on the condition of the Amelia Ricks, Matt, his brain still filled with thoughts of that lonely big steamer swinging neglected in Mission Bay among the rotting oyster boats and old clipper ships waiting to be converted into coal hulks, proceeded to the Merchants' Exchange where Lloyds' Register soon put him in possession of the following information:
The steamer Narcissus had been built in Glasgow in 1894 by Sutherland & Sons, Limited. She was four hundred and fifty-five feet long, fifty-eight feet beam and thirty-one feet draft. She had triple-expansion engines of two thousand indicated horse power, two Scotch boilers, and was of seventy-five hundred tons net register.
“Huh!” Matt murmured. “She'll carry forty per cent. more than her registered tonnage; if I had the loading of her she'd carry fifty per cent. more, at certain seasons of the year. I wonder why her owners have let her lie idle for eight years? I'll have to ask Jerry Dooley. He knows everything about ships that a landsman can possibly know.”
Jerry Dooley had presided over the desk at the Merchants' Exchange for so many years that there was a rumor current to the effect that he had been there in the days when the water used to come up to Montgomery Street. Before Jerry's desk the skippers of all nations came and went; to him there drifted inevitably all of the little, intimate gossip of the shipping world. If somebody built a ship and she had trouble with her oil burners on the trial trip, Jerry Dooley would know all about it before that vessel got back to her dock again. If somebody else's ship was a wet boat, Jerry knew of it, and could, moreover, give one the name of the naval architect responsible; if a vessel had been hogged on a reef, Jerry could tell you the name of the reef, the date of the wreck, the location of the hog, and all about the trouble they had keeping her cargo dry as a result. To this human encyclopedia, therefore, did Matt Peasley come in his still-hunt for information touching the steamer Narcissus.
He opened negotiations by handing Jerry Dooley a good cigar. Jerry examined it, saw that it was a good cigar, and said: “I don't smoke myself, but I have a brother that does.” He fixed Matt Peasley with an alert, inquisitive eye and said: “Well, what do you know, Captain?”
“Nothing much. What do you know about the steamer Narcissus?”
Jerry Dooley scratched his red head.
“Narcissus!” he murmured. “Narcissus! By George, it's a long time since I heard of her. Has she just come into port?” And he glanced apprehensively at the register of arrivals and departures, wondering if he hadn't overlooked the Narcissus.
“She's been in port eight years at least,” Matt answered; “tucked away down in Mission Bay, with a watchman aboard.”
“Oh, I remember now,” Jerry replied. “She belongs to the Oriental Steamship Company. Old man Webb, of the Oriental Company, got all worked up about the possibilities of the Oriental trade right after the Spanish War. He had a lot of old bottoms running in the combined freight and passenger trade and not making expenses when the war came along, and the Government grabbed all his boats for transports to rush troops over to the Philippines. That was fine business for quite a while and the Oriental got out of the hole and made a lot of money besides. About that time Old Webb saw a vision of huge Oriental trade for the man who would go after it, and in his excitement he purchased the Narcissus. She carried horses down to the Philippines, and to China during the Boxer uprising; and when that business was over, and while old Webb was waiting for the expected boom in trade to the Orient, he got a lumber charter for her from Puget Sound to Australia. But she was never built for a lumber boat, though she carried six million five hundred thousand feet; she was so big and it took so long to load and discharge her that she lost twenty-five thousand dollars on the voyage. Run her in the lumber trade and the demurrage would break a national bank.
“Well, sir, after that lumber charter, old man Webb had a fit. He tried her out on a few grain charters, but she didn't make any money to speak of; and about that time the P. & S. W., with a view to grabbing some Oriental freight for their road, got the control of the steamship company away from Webb. The Oriental trade boom never developed, and the regular steamers, carrying freight and passengers, were ample to cope with what business the company was offered; so they didn't need the Narcissus.
“As I remember it, she was expensive to operate. She had a punk pair of boilers or she needed another boiler—or something; at any rate, she was a hog on coal, and they laid her up until such time as they could find use for her. I suppose after she was laid up a few years the thought of all the money it would cost to put her in commission again discouraged them—and she's been down in Mission Bay ever since.”
“But the Canal will soon be open,” Matt suggested. “One would suppose they'd put her in commission and find business for her between Pacific and Atlantic coast ports.”
“You forget she's a foreign-built vessel and hence cannot run between American ports.”
“She can run between North and South American ports,” Matt replied doggedly. “I bet if I owned her I'd dig up enough business in Brazil and the Argentine to keep her busy. I'd be dodging backward and forward through the Canal.”
“You would, of course,” Jerry answered placidly; “but the Oriental Steamship Company cannot.”
“Why?”
“Fifty-one per cent. of their stock is owned by a railroad—and under the law no railroad-owned ship may use the Canal.”
Matt's eyebrows arched.
“Ah!” he murmured. “Then that's one of the reasons why she's a white elephant on their hands.”
“Got a customer for her?” Jerry queried shrewdly. “A fellow ought to be able to pick the Narcissus up rather cheap.”
Matt shook his head negatively.
“Happened to pass her in a launch a couple of hours ago, and the sight of the barnacles on her bottom just naturally graveled me and roused my curiosity. Much obliged for your information.” And Matt excused himself and strolled over to the counter of the Hydro-graphic Office to look over the recent bulletins to masters.
The information that the whistling buoy off Duxbury Reef had gone adrift and that Blunt's Reef Lightship would be withdrawn for fifteen days for repairs and docking interested him but little, however. In his mind's eye there loomed the picture of that great red freighter, with her foul bottom, rusty funnel and unpainted, weather-beaten upper works.
“Her bridge is pretty well exposed to the weather,” he murmured. “I'd build it up so the man on watch could just look over it. I noticed they'd had the good sense to house over her winches, so I dare say they're in good shape; her paint will have prevented rust below the water line, and I'll bet she's as sound as the day she was built. I think I'd paint her dead black, with red underbody and terra-cotta upper works.” He pondered. “Yes, and I'd paint her funnel dead black, too, with a broad red band; and on both sides of the funnel, in the center of this red band, I'd have a white diamond with a black P in the center of it. By George, they'd know the Peasley Line as far as they could see it!”
He would have dreamed on had he not bethought himself suddenly of his modest capital—fifty thousand-odd dollars, out of which he owed Cappy Ricks a considerable sum on a promissory note due in one year. On such a meager bank balance it would not do to dream of buying a vessel worth nearly four hundred thousand dollars. Why, it would require twenty thousand dollars to put her in commission after all these years of idleness, and she had to have another boiler because she was a hog on coal; and, in addition, her operating cost would be between nine and ten thousand dollars a month.
Matt shook his head and looked round the great room as though in search of inspiration. He found it. His wandering glance finally came to rest on Jerry Dooley's alert countenance. Jerry crooked a finger at him and Matt strolled over to the desk.
“I've been watching you milling the idea round in your head,” said Jerry. “I saw you reject it. You're crazy! It can be done.”
“How?” Matt queried eagerly.
“Go get an option on her for the lowest price you can get—then form a syndicate and sell her to them at a higher price; or, if you don't want to do that, form your syndicate to buy her at the option price, and if you work it right you can get the job of managing owner. I want to tell you that two and one-half per cent. commission on her freight earnings would make a nice income.”
“I wonder whom I could get into the syndicate?” Matt queried.
Jerry scratched his head.
“Well,” he suggested, “you're mighty close to old Cappy Ricks. If you could hook him for a piece of her, the rest would be easy. Any shipping man on the Street will follow where Cappy Ricks leads. I'd try Pollard & Reilly; Redell, of the West Coast Trading Company; Jack Haviland, the ship chandler; Charley Beyers, the ship's grocer and butcher; A. B. Cahill & Co., the coal dealers; Pete Hansen, of the Bulkhead Hotel down on the Embarcadero—he's always got a couple of thousand dollars to put into a clean-cut shipping enterprise. Then there's Rickey, the ship-builder, and—yes, even Alcott, the crimp, will take a piece of her. I'd look in on Louis Wiley, the chronometer man, and Cox, the coppersmith—why I'd take in every firm and individual who might hope to get business out of the ship; and, you bet, I'd sell 'em all a little block of stock in the S. S. Narcissus Company.”
“It might be done,” Matt answered evasively. “I'll think it over.”
He did think it over very seriously the greater portion of that night. As a result, instead of going to his office next morning he went to Mission Street bulkhead and engaged a launch, and forty minutes later, in response to his hail, the aged watchman aboard the Narcissus came to the rail and asked him what he wanted.
“I want to come aboard!” Matt shouted.
“Got a permit from the office?”
“No.”
“Orders are to allow nobody aboard without a permit.”
“How do you like the color of this permit?” Matt called back, and waved a greenback.
The answer came in the shape of a Jacob's ladder promptly tossed overside and Matt Peasley mounted the towering hulk of the Narcissus.
“What do you want?” the watchman again demanded as he pouched the bill Matt handed him.
“I want to examine this vessel from bilge to truck,” Matt answered. “I'll begin with a look at the winches.”
As he had surmised, the winches had been housed over and fairly buried in grease when the ship laid up; hence they were in absolutely perfect condition. The engines, too, had received the best of care, as nearly as Matt could judge from a cursory view. Her cargo space was littered up with a number of grain chutes, which would have to come out; and her boats, which had been stored in the empty hold aft, away from the weather, were in tiptop shape. She had a spare anchor, plenty of chain, wire cable and Manila lines, though these latter would doubtless have to be renewed in their entirety, owing to deterioration from age.
Her crew quarters were commodious and ample, and the officers' quarters all that could be desired; her galley equipment was complete, even to a small auxiliary ice plant. What she needed was cleaning, painting and scraping, and lots of it, also the riggers would be a few days on her standing rigging; but, so far as Matt could discern, that was all. From the watchman he learned that one Terence Reardon had been her chief engineer in the days when the Oriental Steamship Company first owned her.
From the Narcissus, Matt Peasley returned to the city and went at once to the office of the Marine Engineers' Association, where he made inquiry for Terence Reardon. It appeared that Terence was chief of the Arab, loading grain at Port Costa; so to Port Costa Matt Peasley went to interview him. He found Reardon on deck, enjoying a short pipe and a breath of cool air, and introduced himself.
“I understand you were the chief of the Narcissus at one time, Mr. Reardon,” Matt began abruptly. “I understand, also, that under your coaxing you used to get ten miles out of her loaded.”
Parenthetically it may be stated that Matt Peasley had never heard anything of the sort; but he knew the weaknesses of chief engineers and decided to try a shot in the dark, hoping, by the grace of the devil and the luck of a sailor, to score a bull's-eye. He succeeded at least in ringing the bell.
“Coax, is it?” murmured Terence Reardon in his deep Kerry brogue. “Faith, thin, the Narcissus niver laid eye on the day she could do nine an' a half wit' the kindliest av treatment. Wirrah, but 'tis herself was the glutton for coal. Sure, whin I'd hand in me report to ould Webb, and he'd see where she'd averaged forty ton a day, the big tears'd come into the two eyes av him—the Lord ha' mercy on his sowl!”
“You never had any trouble with her engines,” Matt suggested.
“I had throuble keepin' shteam enough in the b'ilers to run thim; but I'll say this for her ingines: Give them a chancet an' they'd run like a chronometer.”
“Would you consider an offer to leave the Arab and be chief of the Narcissus?” Matt queried. “I'm thinking of buying her, and if I do I'll give you twenty-five dollars a month above the regular Association scale.”
“I'll go ye,” murmured Reardon, “on wan condition: Ye'll shpend some money in her ingine room, else 'tis no matther av use for ye to talk to me. I'll not be afther breakin' me poor heart for the sake av twenty-five dollars a month. Sure, 'twould be wort' that alone to see the face av ye, young man, afther wan look at the coal bill.”
“What repairs would you suggest? Do you think she needs another boiler? I noticed she has two. We could move those two over and make room for another.”
“Do nothing av the sort, sir. Before ould Webb got her she'd been usin' bad wather down on the East African Coast, I'm thinkin', and it raised hell wit' her. 'Tis the expinse av retubin' her condensers that always frightened ould Webb, and whin he lost conthrol the blatherskite booby av a port ingineer the new owners app'inted come down to the ship, looked her over, wit' niver a question to me that knew the very sowl av her, and reported to the owners that what she needed was another b'iler.” And Terence Reardon laughed the short, mirthless chuckle of the man who knows.
“Then,” Matt continued, “the money should be spent—”
“In retubing her condensers,” declared the engineer emphatically. “Do that an' do a good job on her, an' she'll have shteam enough for thim fine big ingines av hers on thirty-two ton a day, an' less. An' have a care would ye buy her until she ships a new crank shaft. She's a crack in the web av the afther crank shaft ye could shtick a knife blade into. She may run for years, but sooner or later some wan'll have a salvage claim agin ye if ye neglect it now. An', for the love av heaven, have nothin' to do wit' her big motor. 'Twas bur-rnt out by him that had her ahead av me—bad cess to him, whereiver he is! An' they did a poor, cheap job av windin' the armature agin. Ye'll be in hot wather wit' the electric-light system until ye put in a new motor.
“The rheostat on the searchlight niver was any good; and she may or may not need a new whistle—I dunno. Sure, the skipper niver blew it good an' long but the wanst; an', so help me, young man, I was lookin' at the shteam gauge whin he shtarted that prolonged blast—an' whin he finished the gauge had dhropped tin pounds! So up I go on the bridge to the ould man, an' says I to him, says I: 'Clear weather or thick fog, I'm tellin' ye to lave that whistle alone if ye expect to finish the voyage. Wan toot out av it means a ton av coal gone to hell an' a dhrop av blood out av the owner's heart! An' from that time on the best I iver hearrd out av that whistle was a sick sort av a sob.”
Matt laughed as Terence Reardon's natural propensity for romancing came to the front. He thanked the chief for the latter's invaluable information, and, with a mental resolve to have Terence Reardon presiding over the engines of the Narcissus at no distant date, he returned to the city.