Fletcher Fogg, suave, dignified, radiating business importance, freshened by a barber's ministrations, walked into the Franklin law-offices the next morning at nine-thirty.
He announced himself to a girl typist, and she referred him to a young man who came forth from a private room.
“I have power of attorney from Mr. Franklin to transact his routine business,” explained the young man. “Of course, if it's a new case or a question of law—”
“Neither, neither, my dear sir! Simply a matter of routine. But,” he leaned close to the young man's ear, “strictly private.”
Mr. Fogg himself closed the door of the inner office when the two had retired there.
“One of your matters to-day, I believe, is the annual meeting of the Vose line. I am a stockholder.”
Fogg produced a packet of certificates and laid them on the desk.
“Are there to be any officers or other stockholders present?” he asked, showing just a bit of solicitude, in spite of himself.
“I think not,” returned the young man. “Nothing has been said about it. The proxies and instructions have been sent in, as usual, by registered mail.” He indicated documents stacked on the desk. “I was just about to begin on the matter.”
“I suppose our proxies run to the clerk of the corporation, as usual, with full power of substitution, clerk to follow instructions,” said Mr. Fogg, a bit pompously, using his complete knowledge of corporation routine.
“Yes, sir. We handle most of the corporation meetings that way when it's all cut and dried. In this case, it's simply a re-election of the old officers.”
“Exactly!”
Mr. Fogg pulled his chair closer, dabbed his purple handkerchief on each side of his nose, and inquired, kindly and confidentially: “My son, what's your name?”
“David Boyne.”
“Law student here—secretary, eh?”
“Yes, sir.”
“Exactly—and a long, hard pull ahead of you. It's too bad you're not in New York, where a young man doesn't have to travel the whole way around, but can cut a corner or two. I could give you a lot of examples of bright young chaps who have grabbed in when the grabbing was good.
“But I haven't the time. You take my word for it. I'm a plain, outspoken business man, and I'm in with the biggest financial interests in New York. And I'm going to offer you the grandest opportunity of your life right now, David.”
He picked up his certificates and arranged them in one hand, as a player arranges his cards.
“I have here ten shares, say, and each share is owned by a different individual—all good men. You don't know them, but I do. They are connected with our big interests. And I'm right here as a stockholder. Do you realize, David, that instructing you to hold this meeting without a single stockholder present is really asking you to do something that's not strictly legal?”
“We usually do it this way,” faltered Boyne.
“Exactly! Men like those who are running the Vose line are always asking an innocent man to do something illegal. I'm going to come right to the point with you, David. Those old moss-backs who have sent those instructions are trying to wreck the Vose line. I want you to disregard those instructions. I am anxious to be president and general manager of the line. I want you to elect as directors these stockholders.” He tapped his finger on the certificates.
The young man was both frightened and bewildered. He turned pale. “I can't do that,” he gasped.
“Yes, you can. There are the proxies. It's up to you to vote 'em as you want to. They allow full power of substitution, usual fashion!”
“But I can't disobey my instructions.”
“I say you can, if you've got grit enough to make a good thing for yourself.”
“Such a thing was never done here.”
“Probably not. It's a new idea. But new things are being done right along in high finance. You ought to be up where big things are happening every day. You stand in with me, and I'll put you there. You see, I'm getting right down to cases on this matter with you, David. Vote those proxies as I direct and I'll hand you five thousand dollars inside of two hours, and will plant you in a corking job with my people as soon as this thing calms down. I could have palavered a long time before coming to business in this way, but I see you're a bright young fellow and don't need a lot of hair-oil talk. I don't ask you to hurt anybody in especial. You can elect the old treasurer—we don't want to handle the money—this is no cheap brace game. But I want a board of directors who will put me in as general manager until certain reforms can be instituted so as to bring the line up to date. Five thousand dollars, mind you, and then you'll be taken care of.”
“But I'll be put into state prison.”
“Nonsense, my boy! Why would you vote those proxies according to your instructions? Why, because it would be for your interest to do so if I hadn't come in here with a better proposition. Now it's for your interest to vote 'em as I tell you. The most they can make out of it is a breach of trust, and that amounts to nothing. With five thousand dollars in your mitt, you wouldn't need to hang around here to take a lot of slurs. I'll slip you another thousand for your expenses on a little trip till the air is all clear.”
Boyne stared at this blunt and forceful tempter; his hand which clutched the chair-arms trembled; “I'm going to be still more frank with you, my boy. And, by the way, you must know that I'm no mere four-flusher. You've heard of Fletcher Fogg, eh? You knew who I was when you got that wire from me yesterday?”
“Why, yes, I know of you through our corporation work, sir.”
“Exactly!” Mr. Fogg assumed even more unctuously the manner of an old friend. “Now, as I say, I'm going to be frank—take you in on the ground floor. Of course, they can have another—a special meeting of the Vose line after a thirty days' notice to the stockholders. They will probably call that meeting, and I don't care if they do. But I have an ambition to be general manager of the line for those thirty days to make—well, I want to make a little investigation of general conditions,” declared Mr. Fogg, resorting to his purple handkerchief. “That's all I care to say. At the end of thirty days we may—I'm speaking of the big interests I represent—we may decide to buy the line and make it really worth something to the stockholders. You understand, I hope. It's strictly business—it's all right—it's good financiering. After it's all over and those old, hardshell directors wake up, I'll venture to say they'll be pleased all around that this little turn has been made. In the mean time, having been taken care of, you needn't mind whether they're pleased or not.”
Boyne looked at the sheaf of certificates in Fogg's hand; he bent frightened gaze on the documents stacked on the desk. They lay there representing his responsibility, but they also represented opportunity. The sight of them was a rebuke to the agitated thoughts of treason which assailed him. But the mere papers had no voice to make that rebuke pointed.
Mr. Fogg did have a voice. “Five thousand dollars in your fist, my boy, as soon as I can work the wire to New York—and there's no piker about the man who can have five thousand flashed in here when he asks for it. You can see what kind of men are behind me. What do you care about old man Vose and his crowd?”
“There's Mr. Franklin! I'll be doing a mighty mean trick, Mr. Fogg. No, I'll not do it.”
Mr. Fogg did not bluster. He was silent for some time. He pursed his lips and stared at Boyne, and then he shifted his gaze to the ceiling.
“It's too bad—too bad for a young fellow to turn down such an opportunity,” he sighed. “It can be done without you, Boyne, in another way. The same result will happen. But you might as well be in on it. Now let me tell you a few instances of how some of the big men in this country got their start.”
Mr. Fogg was an excellent raconteur with a vivid imagination, and it did not trouble his conscience because the narratives he imparted to this wide-eyed youth were largely apocryphal.
“You see,” he put in at the end of the first tale, “what a flying start will do for a man. Suppose that chap I've just told you about sat back and refused to jump when the road was all open to him! You don't hear anybody knocking that man nowadays, do you? And yet that's the trick he pulled to get his start.”
With a similar snapper did Mr. Fogg touch up each one of his stories of success.
“I—I didn't have any idea—I thought they managed it some other way,” murmured David Boyne.
“Your horizon has been limited; you haven't been out in the world enough to know, my son.”
“I have heard of all those men, of course. They're big men to-day.”
“You didn't think they got to be millionaires by saving the money out of clerks' salaries, did you? Of course, Boyne, I admit that in this affair you'll be up to a little sharp practice. But you're not stealing anything. Nobody can lug off steamships in a vest pocket. It's only a deal—and deals are being made every day.”
Fogg was a keen judge of his fellow-men. He knew weakness when he saw it. He could determine from a man's lower lip and the set of his nose whether that person were covetous. And he knew now what signified the flush on Boyne's cheeks and the light in his eyes. However, there was something else to reckon with.
“I will not betray Mr. Franklin's confidence in me. Positively, I will not,” said the young man. “He's sick, and that would make it worse.”
“How sick is he?”
“He is very, very ill. It was an operation, and he has had a relapse. But we hope he's coming out all right.”
“What hospital is he in?”
Boyne gave the name.
“I think I'll call up and ask when it is expected that he can see visitors,” announced Fogg, with business briskness. “I wish Franklin had been here on deck—Franklin, himself.”
“I don't believe Mr. Franklin would turn a trick of this sort,” asserted the clerk. “I'd hate to face him, after doing it myself.”
“Franklin would be able to see further into a financial deal than a young chap,” said Mr. Fogg, severely, and then he found his number and made his call. “Good heavens!” he blurted, after a question. “I am in his office. Yes, I'll tell Boyne.”
With a fine affectation of grief and surprise, he snapped the transmitter upon the hook and whirled on Boyne. His back had been toward the young man—he had spoken with hand across the receiver.
“He has just died—he's dead! Franklin has passed away.”
“I would have been notified,” gasped Boyne.
“They were just going to call you. You heard me say I'd inform you.”
“But I must call the hospital—offer my services. I must go up there.”
Mr. Fogg put out his hand and pressed the young man back into his chair. “A lulu must be played quick and the pot raked sudden,” he reflected.
“Just a moment, my son. Now you're standing on your own bottom. You won't have to explain to Mr. Franklin.”
He pointed to the clock. His stories had consumed time. The hour was ten-thirty-five.
“That annual meeting of the Vose line was called for ten of the clock to-day. Mr. Franklin was alive at that hour. He was the clerk of that corporation. What happens now will not embarrass you so far as he's concerned. Be sensible. Make a stroke for yourself. You're out of a job, anyway. Go to it, now.”
Fogg spoke sharply, imperiously. He exerted over the young man all the force of his personality.
“Five thousand dollars—protected by my interests—slipped out of sight for a few months—it's easy. Sit down there and make up your records; vote those proxies. Vote 'em, I say. This meeting was held at ten o'clock. Make up your records.”
He stood over Boyne, arguing, promising, urging, and the young man, at last, sweating, flushed, trembling, bent over his documents, sorted them, and made up his records.
“We'll send on a copy to the office of the Vose line by registered mail,” commanded Fogg. “Attest it as a copy of the true record by notary. When it drops in on 'em I will be there, with my directors and my little story—and the face of Uncle Vose will be worth looking at, though his language may not be elevating. You come out with me, Boyne. I'm going to the telegraph office.”
“But I must get in touch at once with Mr. Franklin's family—offer my services,” pleaded the clerk.
“There isn't a thing you can do right now,” snapped the masterful gentleman from New York. “I suggest that you close the office. Send the girl home. You should do that much out of respect to your employer's memory.”
Ten minutes later the record had been mailed and the flustered Boyne was trotting around town with Mr. Fogg. The latter seemed to have a tremendous amount of business on his hands. He hired a cab and was hustled yon and thither, leaving the young man in the vehicle, with instructions to stay there, whenever a stop was made. But at last Mr. Fogg returned from an errand with some very tangible results. He put a packet of bank-notes into Boyne's shaking hands.
“Did you ever see as much real money before, my son?” asked Fogg, genially. “That's your five thousand. And here's five hundred toward that expense money we promised. I'm suggesting that you leave town to-night. Tuck that cash away on yourself and duck out of sight.”
Having secured the money and placed that powerful argument in the young man's hands, Mr. Fogg's hurry and anxiety seemed to be over. When he had seen the packet buttoned inside Boyne's coat he smiled.
“The trade is clinched and the job is done, son, and I feel sure that, being a healthy young American citizen with plenty of cash to pay your way, you're not going to let go that cash nor do any foolish squealing.”
“I've gone too far to back out,” admitted Boyne, patting the outside of his coat. “But it seems like a dream.”
“I've heard a little piece of good news while I've been running around—forgot to tell you,” said Fogg, in a matter-of-fact way. “That fool attendant at the hospital must have misunderstood me, or I misunderstood him. Franklin isn't dead.”
“He-isn't-dead?”
“No. Last report is that he's better this forenoon. But that's the way some of these crazy attendants mix things up when anybody inquires at a hospital. Now, of course, seeing that the registered copy is on its way and Franklin is getting better, that's all the more reason why you don't care to hang around these diggings and be annoyed. I've got a scheme. It will take you out of town in a very quiet style. I have telephoned down to the docks, and there's a Vose freighter in here discharging rails. Do you live at home or at a boarding-place?”
“I board,” said Boyne, still wrestling with the sickening information that he had betrayed an employer who was alive; somehow the sentiment that it was equally base to betray a deceased employer had not impressed itself on his benumbed conscience. He was now keenly aware that he feared to meet up with a living and indignant Lawyer Franklin. Fogg questioned, and Boyne gave his boarding-house address.
“We'll drive there, and I'll wait outside in the cab until you can scratch together a gripful of your things. Don't load yourself down too much. Remember, you've got plenty of cash in your pockets.”
A little later Fogg escorted the young man up the gang-plank of the Nequasset, from whose hold the last of her load of clanging rails was being derricked by panting windlass engines. To Captain Zoradus Wass, who was lounging against the rail just outside the pilot-house, Mr. Fogg marched with business promptitude, and spoke with assurance.
“Captain, my name is Fletcher Fogg. Within forty-eight hours the directors of the Vose line will elect me president and general manager. That news may be rather astonishing, but it's true.”
The veteran skipper did not reply. He shifted a certain bulge from one cheek to the other.
“Well?” queried Fogg, a bit sharply.
“I ain't saying anything”
“You believe what I tell you, don't you?”
“I don't know you.”
“This young man is David Boyne, acting clerk of the Vose line corporation. The annual meeting has just been held in this city. He made the official records. He will tell you that a new board of directors has been chosen—the old crowd is out.”
“That is so,” stated Boyne, obeying the prompting of Fogg's quick glance.
“I don't know you, either.”
Mr. Fogg was not abashed. “It isn't especially necessary that you know us. How soon do you leave?”
“We're going out light as soon as them rails are on the wharf.”
“I am sending Mr. Boyne with you on a tour of inspection, captain. Please give him quarters and use him right.”
“Nothing doing till I get orders from the owners,” declared Captain Wass.
“Haven't I told you that I shall be general manager of this line to-morrow, or next day, at the latest?”
“When you're general manager come around and give off your orders, sir.”
“I'll do it. I'll come aboard in New York—”
“I'm ordered to Philadelphia,” prompted Captain Wass. “That's where you'll find me.”
“Philadelphia, then! I'll come aboard and fire you.”
“Do just as you feel like doing.”
“You refuse to take along this young man?”
“This ain't a passenger-boat. I don't know you. Show orders from owners—otherwise nothing doing.”
Mate Mayo had come out of his cabin, near at hand. With a young man's quicker perception of possibilities and contingencies he realized that his skipper might be letting an old man's obstinacy block common sense.
The first mate had an eye for men and their manners. He had been listening to Mr. Fogg. That gentleman certainly seemed to know what he was talking about. And young Mate Mayo, having a nose for news as well as an eye for men, understood that the coast transportation business was in a touchy state generally. He gave Mr. Fogg further inspection and decided that a little skilful compromising was advisable.
“Captain Wass, will you step aside with me a moment?” asked the mate.
“What for?”
“I want to have a word with you.”
“Have it right here,” said the captain, tartly. “I never have any business that's got to be whispered behind corners.” He scowled when his mate gave him a wink, both suggestive and imploring. “Spit it out!”
“The law doesn't allow us to take passengers, as you suggest. And naturally you don't like to act without orders from owners.” He looked at Mr. Fogg as he spoke, plainly offering apology to that gentleman. “But we need a second steward and—”
“We don't!” Captain Wass was blunt and tactless.
“I beg pardon—we really do. And we can sign this young man in a—a sort of nominal way, and then when we get to Philadelphia we'll probably find the matter all straightened out.”
“What's your name?” asked Mr. Fogg.
“Boyd Mayo, sir. First mate.”
“Mr. Mayo, you're a young man with a lot of common sense,” declared Fogg.
To himself, staring at the young man, he said: “I'm going to play this game out with two-spots, and here's one ready for the draw!”
“I'll see you in Philadelphia, Mr. Mayo,” he continued, aloud. “I am exactly what I say I am. Captain Wass, you've got something coming to you. Mr. Mayo, you've got something coming to you, also—and it's good!” His assertiveness was compelling, and even the captain displayed symptoms of being impressed. “It isn't at all necessary that my agent make this trip with you, Captain Wass. Perhaps I had no distinct right to bring him here. But I am a hustling sort of a business man and I want to get at matters in short order. However, I ask no favors. Come on, Boyne!”
“We'll sign him on as steward to cover the law,” proffered the captain, as terse in consent as he was in refusal.
“Very well,” agreed Fogg. “You've got an able first mate, sir.” He flipped his watch out. “I've got a train to make, gentlemen. Good day!”
He took Boyne by the arm and led him to the ladder from the bridge. “Son,” said he, “you dig into that Mayo chap till you know him up and down and through and through. I'm going to use him. And you keep your mouth shut about yourself.” He backed down the ladder, feeling his way cautiously with his fat legs, trotted to the waiting cab, and was whirled away.
At high noon the next day Fletcher Fogg marched into the general offices of the Vose line in company with ten solid-looking citizens. Imperturbable and smiling, he allowed President Vose to shriek anathema and to wave the certified copy of the record of the annual meeting under the snub Fogg nose.
“What you say doesn't change the situation in the least,” affirmed Mr. Fogg. “You'll find the actual records of the meeting deposited in the usual place in the state of your incorporation. If you think these new directors are not lawfully and duly elected, you can apply to the courts.”
“You confounded thief, it's likely to take a year to get a decision. This is damnable. It's piracy. You know what courts are!”
“Poke up your courts, then. It isn't my fault if they're slow.”
The new directors filed into the board-room and with great celerity proceeded to elect Fletcher Fogg to be president and general manager of the Vose line.
“What are you going to do?” pleaded the deposed executive head. “My money is in here—my whole life is in it—my pride—my intention to see that the public gets a square deal. You infernal rogue, what are you going to do with my property?”
“That's my own business,” said Fletcher Fogg.
“You can't get away with it—you can't do it!” raged Vose. “I'll get at the inside of how that meeting was conducted. You'd better take backwater right now, Fogg, and save yourself. I'm not afraid to tell you what I'm going to do. I'll have a temporary injunction issued. I'll prove fraud was used at that meeting—bribery, yes, sir!”
Mr. Fogg smiled and sat down at the president's desk. “First he'll have to find a young man by the name of David Boyne,” he told himself.
“Vose,” said the new president, “all you can show a court is the record of an annual meeting, duly and legally held. And if the judge wants to have a look at me he'll find me running this line a blamed sight better than you have ever run it.”
“It's a cheap, plain trick,” bleated the aged steamship manager. “Your crowd is going to sell out to the Paramount—it's your plot.”
“Oh no! We're not inviting injunctions and law and newspaper talk and slurs and slander, Mr. Vose. If there's ever any selling out you'll be the first to suggest it; I never shall. You see, I'm just as frank with you as you are with me. Selling this line to the Paramount right now, just because the new board is in, would be ragged work—very coarse work. Thank Heaven, I have a proper respect for the law—and what it can do to bother a fool. I am not a fool, Mr. Vose.”
A slowing, tug, tooting fussy and staccato blasts which Captain Wass translated into commands to hold up, intercepted the Nequasset in Hampton Roads.
Mr. Fletcher Fogg was a passenger on the tug. In a suit of natty gray, he loomed conspicuously in the alley outside the tug's pilot-house. He cursed roundly when he toilsomely climbed the ladder to the freighter's deck, for the rusty sheathing smutched the knees of his trousers.
“I'm doing a little better than I promised you, captain,” he stated when he arrived finally in the presence of the master. “I said Philadelphia. But here I am. Do you know me now?”
“Your name is Fogg,” returned Captain Wass, exhibiting no special delight.
“And I'm manager of this line. As it seems to be pretty hard for you to get anything through that thick nut of yours, I'll ask you to glance at a paper which will save argument.”
The paper was an attested notification, signed by the directors, stating in laconic legal phrase what Mr. Fogg had just declared.
“You recognize my authority, do you?”
“Your bill o' lading reads O. K.,” assented the skipper.
“Very well! Exactly! Then you take your orders. Proceed to an anchorage off Lambert Point below Norfolk, pick a berth well off the channel, and put down both hooks. The boat is going out of commission. I find you're not making any money for the owners.”
“It ain't my fault. With charters at—” began the master, indignantly.
“I haven't any time for a joint debate. You are laid off. Bring your accounts to the main office as soon as you have turned the steamer over to the caretaker—he'll come out from Norfolk.” Manager Fogg turned on his heel to meet Mate Mayo. “You will report at the main offices, too, Mr. Mayo. Have you master's papers?”
“I have, sir—Atlantic waters, Jacksonville to East-port.”
“Very good—you're going to be promoted. I shall put you aboard the passenger-steamer Montana as captain.” He looked about sharply. “Where is my agent?”
“There, in the quartermaster's cabin. We gave him that,” replied Captain Wass, gruffly. “I'm glad I'm out of steamboating. I've learned how to run a boarding-house and make money out of it.”
Mr. Fogg did not understand that sneer, and he paid no attention to the captain's manner. He started for the cabin indicated.
“Well, you can swell around in gold braid now and catch your heiress,” observed Captain Wass to his mate.
“I'm sorry, skipper,” said the young man, with real feeling. “You are the man to be promoted, not I. It isn't right—it doesn't seem real.”
“There isn't any real steamboating on this coast any longer. It is—I don't know what the devil it is,” snarled the veteran. “I have been sniffing and scouting. I'd like to be a mouse in the wall of them New York offices and hear what it is they're trying to do to us poor cusses. Ordered one day to keep the law; ordered the next day to break the law; hounded by owners and threatened by the government! I'm glad I'm out of it and glad you've got a good job. That last I'm specially glad about. But keep your eye peeled. There are queer doings round about you!”
Fogg entered the cabin and shut the door behind him. He found Boyne sitting on a stool and looking somewhat apprehensive. “Hiding?” inquired Fogg.
“I thought I wouldn't show myself till I was sure about who was on that tug,” said the young man.
“That's the boy, David,” complimented Fogg, with real heartiness. “You're no fool. Nothing like being careful. Pack your bag and go aboard the tug.” He marched out.
“Philadelphia charter has been canceled, eh?” asked Captain Wass. The tone of his voice did not invite amity.
“It has, sir.”
“Seems queer to turn down a cargo that's there waiting—and the old boat can carry it cheaper than anybody else, the way I've got expenses fined down.”
“Are you trying to tell me my business?”
“I have beep steamboating forty years, and I know a little something about it.”
Mr. Fogg looked at the old mariner, eyes narrowed. He wanted to inform Captain Wass that the latter knew altogether too much about steamboating for the kind of work that was planned out along the coast in those ticklish times.
“Then I ain't to expect anything special from now on?” asked the skipper. In spite of his determination to be crusty and keep his upper lip stiff, he could not repress a little wistfulness, and his eyes roved over the old freighter with affection.
“Not a thing, sir!” Mr. Fogg was blunt and cool. He started for the ladder. He slapped the shoulder of Mayo as he passed the young man. “Here's the kind of chap we're looking for nowadays. The sooner you report, my boy, the better for you.”
With Boyne following him, he climbed down the swaying ladder, and was lifted from the lower rungs over the tug's rail to a secure footing.
After the lines had been cast off and the tug went floundering away at a sharp angle, Captain Wass scuffed into his pilot-house and gave the bells.
“She seems to feel it—honest she does!” he told Mate Mayo. “She goes off logy. She doesn't pick up her heels. Nor could I do it when I walked in here. Going to be scrapped—the two of us! Cuss their picking and stealing and fighting and financing. They ain't steam-boating any longer. They're using good boats to play checkers in Wall Street with. Well, son,” he mourned, hanging dispiritedly over the sill of the window and staring up the wind-swept Chesapeake, “I ain't going to whine—but I shall miss the old packet and the rumble and racket of the old machine down there in her belly. I'd even take the job of watchman aboard her if he would hire me.”
“He seems to fancy me a bit. I'll ask him to hire you,” proffered the mate, eagerly.
“I reckon you didn't get the look in his eye when he fired me,” said Captain Wass. “I won't allow you to say a word to him about me. You go ahead, boy, and take the job he has offered. But always remember that he's a slick operator. See what he has done to Uncle Vose; and we haven't been able to worm it out of that passenger how it was done, either. Financing in these days comes pretty nigh to running without lights and under forced draught. It gets a man to Prosperity Landing in a hurry, providing he doesn't hit anything bigger than he is. They're going to haul up this freighter and blame it on to me because I ain't making money for the owners. They'll have plenty of figgers to show it. Look out that they don't lay something worse and bigger to you. They're going to play a game with the Vose line, I tell you! In the game of big finance, 'tag-gool,' making 'it' out of the little chap who can't run very fast, seems to be almighty popular.”
He slowed the freighter to a snail's pace when he approached the dredged channel, and at last the leadsman found suitable bottom. Both anchors were let go.
The old skipper sounded the jingle, telling the chief engineer that the engine-crew was released. In a speaking-tube the captain ordered both boilers to be blown off.
“And there's the end of me as master of my ship,” he said.
Mate Mayo's eyes were wet, but words of sympathy to fit the case did not come to his sailor tongue, and he was silent.
When the tug was near Newport News, Manager Fogg took David Boyne apart from all ears which might hear. He gave the young man another packet of money.
“The rest of your expenses for a good trip,” he said. “You seem to be a chap who knows how to mind his own business—and able to get at the other fellow's business in pretty fair shape. You haven't told such an awful lot about young Mayo, but it's satisfactory to learn that he has lived such a simple and every-day life that there isn't much to tell.”
“I never saw a man so sort of guileless,” affirmed Boyne. “Not that I have had a lot of experience, but in a lawyer's office you are bound to see considerable of human nature.”
“He is no doubt a very deserving young man—and I'm glad I can use him,” said Fogg, not able to keep all the grimness out of his tones. “Now, son,” he went on, after a moment of pondering, “you stay on board this tug till I have been gone five minutes. There are a lot of sharp eyes around in these times, and some of Vose's friends would be glad to run to him with a story about me. After five minutes, you take your bag and walk to Dock Seven and go aboard the freighter Ariel—go just as if you belonged there. Tell the captain that you are Daniel Boyle—get the name—Daniel Boyle. And never tell anybody until you hear from me that your name is David Boyne. That freighter leaves to-night for Barbados with sugar machinery. You'll have a nice trip.”
“I don't care how far away I get,” declared Boyne, rather bitterly. “I have done a tough trick. I'm pretty much of a renegade. No, I don't care how far I go.”
“Nor I, either,” agreed Fogg, but a smile relieved the brutality of the speech. “You see, son, both of us have special reasons why it's just as well for you to be away from these diggings for a time. If some folks get hold of you they'll bother you with a lot of foolish questions. When you get tired of Barbados go ahead and pick out another nice trip, and keep going, and later on we'll find a good job for you up this way. Keep me posted. Good-by.”
The tug had docked and he hurried off and away.
“It's quite a game,” reflected Mr. Fogg. “I've bluffed a pot with one two-spot. Work was a little coarse because it had to be done on short notice. The work I do with my second two-spot is going to be smoother, and there won't be so much beefing after the pot is raked in. Too much hollering, and your game gets raided! I can see what would happen to me—Julius Marston doing it—if I give the strong-arm squad an opening. But if they see the little Fogg boy slip a card in the next deal he's going to make—well, I'll eat the Montana, if that's the only way to get rid of her.”
Boyd Mayo lost no time in obeying his orders to report in New York. He gave his name to a clerk at the offices of the Vose line and asked to see Mr. Fogg. He presented himself a bit timorously. He was not at all sure of his good fortune. It is rather bewildering for a young man to have the captaincy of a twin-screw passenger racer popped at one as carelessly as tossing a peanut to a child. He crushed his cap between trembling palms when he followed the clerk into the inner office.
Mr. Fogg rose and greeted Mayo with great cordiality. “Good morning, captain,” said the manager. “Allow me to hope that you're going to be as lively in keeping to schedule time as you have been in getting here from Norfolk.”
“I didn't feel like wasting much time, considering what was promised me,” stammered Mayo, not yet sure of himself.
“Afraid I might change my mind?”
“It seemed too good to be true. I wanted to get here as soon as I could and make sure that I had heard right, sir. Here are my papers.”
He laid them in the manager's hand. Fogg did not unfold them. He fanned them, indicating a chair.
“Sit down, Captain Mayo. You understand that new management has taken hold of the Vose line in order to get some life and snap into the business. We have strong competition. A big syndicate is taking over the other steamship properties, and we must hustle to keep up with the procession. I'm laying off freighters that are not showing a proper profit—I'm weeding out the moss-covered captains who are not up with the times. That's why I'm putting you on the Montana in place of Jacobs.”
“He's a good man—one of the best,” ventured Mayo, loyalty to his kind prompting him. “I'll be sorry to see him step aside, as glad as I am to be promoted—and that's honest.”
“That's the way to talk; but we've got to have hustle and dash, and young men can give us what we're after. It doesn't mean that you've got to take reckless chances.”
“I hope not, Mr. Fogg. My training with Captain Wass has been the other way. And if you could only give him—”
“Captain, you've got your own row to hoe. Keep your eye on it,” advised the general manager, sharply. “I'm picking captains for the Vose boats, and I think I understand my business. Now what I want to know is, do you have confidence in me? Are you going to be loyal to me?”
“Yes, sir!” affirmed Mayo, impressed by his superior's brisk, brusque business demeanor.
“Exactly! And the only talk I want you to turn loose is to the effect that you believe I'm doing my best to make this line worth something to the stockholders. Where are you stopping?”
Mayo named a little hotel around the corner.
“I'll put you aboard the Montana just as soon as I can arrange the details of transfer. I may let Jacobs make another trip or so. Report here each morning at nine. For the rest of the time keep within reach of the hotel telephone.”
Mayo saluted and went out.
Fogg called the observer at the weather bureau on the telephone and asked some questions. He was informed that the wind had swung into the northwest and that the long-prevailing fog had been blown off the coast.
Mr. Fogg appeared to feel somewhat peevish over this sudden departure of the weather phenomenon which bore his family name. He slammed the receiver on to the hook and said a naughty word. A person overhearing might have wondered a bit, for here was a steamboat manager cursing the absence of the fog instead of preserving his profanity to expend on the presence of the demoralizing mists. But the reign of the north wind in late summer is never long; three days later the breeze shifted, and the gray banks of the fog marched in from the open sea.
Mayo was awakened early by the clamor of the whistles of river craft, for the little hotel was near the water-front. He saw the fog drifting in shredded masses against the high buildings, shrouding the towers. He had been waiting his call to duty with much impatience, finding the confinement of the hotel irksome in the crisp days of sunlight, eager to be out and about this splendid new duty which promised so much.
It was the Montana's sailing-day from the New York end.
He had gone to sleep thrilling with the earnest hope that he would be called to take her out. But when he looked out into that morning, saw the draping curtains of the stalking mists, heard the frantic squallings of craft in the harbor, frenzied howls of alarm, hoarse hootings of protests and warnings, he was suddenly and pointedy anxious to have his elevation to the pilot-house of the Montana deferred. Better the smoky, cramped office of the little hotel where he had been chafing in dismal waiting. He was perfectly willing to sit there and study over again the advertising chromos on the walls and gaze out on the everlasting procession of rumbling drays. But at eight o'clock the telephone summoned him.
“This is General-Manager Fogg,” the voice informed him, though he did not require the information; he knew those crisp tones. “I am speaking from my apartments. Please proceed at once to the Montana. I'll come aboard within an hour.”
“Do you expect me to take command—to—take her out to-day?” faltered Mayo.
“Certainly. Captain Jacobs will transfer command as soon as I get down.”
Mayo had just been rejoicing in his heart because Jacobs would be obliged to bear the responsibility of that day's sailing; he had been perfectly sure that a new man would not be summoned under the conditions which prevailed. He wanted to suggest to Manager Fogg that making the change just then would be inadvisable. He cleared his throat and searched his soul for words. But a sharp and decisive click told him that Mr. Fogg considered the matter settled. He came away from the telephone, dizzy and troubled, and he was not comforted when he recollected how Manager Fogg had received meek suggestions in the past. He paid his modest account, took his traveling-bag, and started for the Vose line pier.
When he saw her looming in the fog—his ship at last—he felt like running away from her incontinently, instead of running toward her.
Mayo had all of a young man's zeal and ambition and courage—but he had in full measure a sailor's caution and knowledge of conditions; he had been trained by that master of caution, Captain Zoradus Wass. He was really frightened as he stared up at the towering bow, the mighty flanks, the graceful sweep of superstructure, and realized that he must guide this giant and her freightage of human beings into the white void of the fog. In his honesty he acknowledged to himself that he was frightened.
The whole great fabric fairly shouted responsibility at him.
He was confident of his ability. As chief mate he had mastered the problems of courses and manoeuvers in the fog along that same route which he must now take. But until then the supreme responsibility had devolved upon another.
Men were rushing freight aboard on rattling trucks—parallel lines of stevedores were working. There were many trunks, avant couriers of the passengers.
He went aboard by the freight entrance and found his way to the row of officers' staterooms. He recognized the gray-bearded veteran who was pacing the alley outside the pilot-house, though the man was not in uniform; it was the deposed master.
“Good morning, Captain Mayo,” he said, without any resentment in his tones. “I congratulate you on your promotion.”
“I hope you understand that I didn't go hunting for this job,” blurted Mayo.
“I believe it's merely a matter of new policy—so Manager Fogg tells me. Understand me, too, Captain Mayo! I harbor no resentment, especially not against you.”
He put out his hand in fine, manly fashion, and was so distinctly the best type of the dignified, self-possessed sea-captain of the old school, that Mayo fairly flinched at thought of replacing this man.
Captain Jacobs opened the door lettered “Captain.” “All my truck is out and over the rail. I'll sit in with you, if you don't mind, until Mr. Fogg arrives. You're going to have a thick passage, Captain Mayo.”
“It doesn't seem right to me—putting a new man on here in this fog,” protested Mayo, warmly. “I ought to have her in clear weather till I know her tricks. In a pinch, when you've got to know how a boat behaves, and know it mighty sudden in order to avoid a smash, one false move puts you into the hole.”
“They seem to be running steamboat lines from Wall Street nowadays, instead of from the water-front,” said Captain Jacobs, dryly. “It's all in the game as they're playing it in these times. There's nothing to be said by the men in the pilot-house.”
“I'm a sailor, and a simple one. I think I know my job, Captain Jacobs, or else I wouldn't accept this promotion. But I've got no swelled head. It's the proper and sensible thing for you to take the Montana out tonight and let me hang around the pilot-house and watch you. If I can prevail upon Mr. Fogg to allow it, will you make another trip?”
“I would do it to help you, but I'll be blasted if I'll help Fogg—not if he would get down now and beg me,” declared Captain Jacobs, showing temper for the first time. “And if you had been pitchforked out as I've been after all my years of honest service you'd feel just as I do, Captain Mayo. You don't blame me, do you?”
“I can't blame you.”
“You know the courses, and you'll have the same staff as I've had. You'll find every notation in the log accurate to the yard or the second. She's a steady old girl and, knowing tide set and courses, as you do, you can depend on her to the turn of a screw. You have my best wishes—but I'm done.”
He put the fervor of final resolve into the declaration. But, with sailor's fraternal spirit of helpfulness he sat down and went into the details of all the Montana's few whims. He called in the mates and introduced them to the new master. They seemed to be quiet, sturdy men who bore no malice because a new policy had put a new man over them.
Then arrived General-Manager Fogg, and in this strictly business presence Mayo did not presume to voice any of his doubts or his opinion of his inefficiency.
The rather stiff and decidedly painful ceremony of speeding the former commander was soon over, and Captain Jacobs departed.
“Why haven't you put on your uniform?” asked Fogg. “You have fixed yourself out with a new one, of course?”
“Yes, sir.” Mayo's cheeks flushed slightly when he recollected how he had strutted before the mirror in his room at the hotel. But he had been ashamed to hurry into his gilt-incrusted coat in the presence of Captain Jacobs.
“Get it on as soon as you can,” ordered the general manager. “I want you to make a general inspection of the boat with me.”
They made the tour, and in spite of his misgivings, when he saw the mists sweeping past the end of the pier Captain Mayo, receiving the salutes of respectful subalterns, felt the proud joy of one who has at last arrived at the goal of his ambition.
Master of the crack Montana, queen of the Vose fleet, at the age of twenty-six!
He glanced into each of the splendid mirrors of the great saloon to make sure of the gold letters on his cap.
The thick carpet seemed grateful to his step. The ship's orchestra was rehearsing in its gallery.
If only that devilish fog would lift! But still it surged in from the sea, and the glass, down to 29.40, promised no clearing weather.
“Safety to the minutest detail—that's my motto,” declared Manager Fogg. “Order a fire drill.”
It was accomplished, and Mr. Fogg criticized the lack of snap. He was rather severe after the life-boat drill, was over. He ordered a second rehearsal. He commanded that the crew do it a third time. The warmth of his insistence on this feature of shipboard discipline was very noticeable.
“And when you put those boats back see to it that every line is free and coiled and every cover loose. It costs a lot of good money if you kill off passengers in these days.” Then he hurried away. “I'll see you before sailing-time,” he informed Captain Mayo.
The new skipper was glad to be alone and to have leisure for study of the steamer's log-books. He had been accustomed to a freighter's slower time on the courses. He did a little figuring. He found that at seventy-five revolutions per minute the Montana would log off about the same speed that the freighter made when doing her best. He resolved to make the fog an excuse and slow down to the Nequasset's familiar rate of progress. He reflected that he would feel pretty much at home under those circumstances. He was heartened, and went about the ship looking less like a malefactor doomed to execution.
When General-Manager Fogg, bustled on board a few minutes prior to the advertised sailing-time at five o'clock, he commented on Captain Mayo's improved demeanor.
“Getting one of the best jobs on this coast seemed to make considerable of a mourner out of you. Perhaps a mirror has shown you how well you look in that new uniform. At any rate, I'm glad to see you have chirked up. And now I'll give you a piece of news that ought to make you look still happier: I'm going along on this trip with you. If you show me that you can do a good job in this kind of weather you needn't worry about your position.”
The expression on Captain Mayo's face did not indicate unalloyed delight when he heard this “good news.” Unaccustomed as he was to the ship, he could not hope to make a smooth showing.
“And still you refuse to cheer up!” remonstrated the manager.
“I am glad you are going along, sir. Don't misunderstand me. But a sailor is a pretty serious chap when he feels responsibility. I'm undertaking a big stunt.”
“It's the best way to find out whether you're the man for the job—whether you're the man I think you are. It's a test that beats sailing ships on a puddle.”
“I'm glad you're aboard,” repeated the captain. “It's going to shade down my responsibility just a little.”
“It is, is it?” cried Manager Fogg, his tones sharp. “Not by a blamed sight! You're the captain of this craft. I'm a passenger. Don't try to shirk. You aren't afraid, are you?”
They were standing beside the dripping rail outside the pilot-house. Far below them, in the spacious depths of the steamer, a bugle sounded long-drawn notes and the monotonous calls of stewards warned “All ashore!”
The gangways were withdrawn with dull “clackle” of wet chains over pulleys, and Captain Mayo, after a swift glance at his watch, to make sure of the time, ordered a quartermaster to sound the signal for “Cast off!” The whistle yelped a gruff note, and, seeing that all was clear, the captain yanked the auxiliary bell-pulls at the rail. Two for the port engine, two for the starboard, and the Montana began to back into the gray pall which shrouded the river.
Captain Mayo saw the lines of faces on the pier, husbands and wives, mothers and sweethearts, bidding good-by to those who waved farewell from the steamer's decks. He gathered himself with supreme grip of resolve. It was up to him! He almost spoke it aloud.
Tremors of doubt did not agitate him any longer. It was unthinking faith, nevertheless it was implicit confidence, that all those folks placed in him. They were intrusting themselves to his vessel with the blind assurance of travelers who pursue a regular route, not caring how the destination is reached as long as they come to their journey's end.
The hoarse, long, warning blast which announced to all in the river that the steamer was leaving her dock drowned out the shouts of farewell and the strains of the gay air the orchestra was playing.
“See you later,” said General-Manager Fogg. “I think I'll have an early dinner.”
Captain Mayo climbed the short ladder and entered his pilot-house.
It was up to him!