Having, as he thought, evaded the spirit of Mr. Skinner's ultimatum while conforming to its literal terms, Cappy Ricks hurried home leaving his general manager a stunned and horrified man. In this instance, however, Cappy had erred in his strategy. Skinner was calm, cold-blooded, suave, politic and deferential, but in his kind of fight he never bluffed. He never played his hand until he had sufficient trumps to take the odd trick.
He looked ahead now, into the not very distant future, and saw Matt Peasley, husband of the heiress to the Ricks millions, giving him orders—and the vision did not sit well on the general manager's stomach. Consequently, Mr. Skinner decided for a test of strength at once.
Accordingly, when Cappy Ricks came down to the office the following morning, Mr. Skinner came into the old fellow's sanctum and requested an interview.
“Fire away, my boy,” said Cappy amiably, yet with a queer sinking feeling in his vitals, for he did not like the look in Skinner's eye; and something told him there was blood on the moon.
“With reference to this rowdy, Peasley, whom you tell me you are going to make port captain—”
“I also told you, Skinner, my boy, that he is to be my son-in-law,” Cappy interrupted, like a good general bringing up his heavy artillery prior to ordering a charge. “I beg of you, Skinner, whatever your animosities, to bear in mind the fact that my daughter could not possibly engage herself to a rowdy.”
“Out of respect to you and Miss Florence I shall not indulge in personalities, sir,” Mr. Skinner replied smilingly, and Cappy shuddered, for Mr. Skinner never smiled in a fight unless he had the situation well in hand. “I have merely called to tell you that I have invested seventy-five cents of my salary in a stout hickory pick-handle, and the next time Captain Matt Peasley enters my office I shall test the quality of the said pick-handle over his head. I don't care if he is engaged to your daughter; the minute you bring that man into this office I go out. You shall have my resignation instantly. That decision, Mr. Ricks, is final and irrevocable.” And without giving Cappy an instant for argument Mr. Skinner bowed himself out.
A month and Cappy Ricks remained minus his port captain; Mr. Skinner was still strongly entrenched in his job as general manager. It was a hard hand to beat, for the fact of the matter was that Cappy Ricks simply could not afford to dispense with Mr. Skinner. The man was too honest, too conscientious, too industrious, too brilliant, too efficient, not to be reckoned with. To part with Skinner was like parting with a dividend-producing gold mine; it was equivalent to unloading on Cappy's shoulders again the burden of work and worry that would have killed him ten years ago had he not surrendered it to Skinner, who handled it as a juggler handles nine balls. Moreover, Skinner knew all of the business secrets of the Ricks Lumber and Logging Company and the Blue Star Navigation Company—why, he was an integral part of the business; and, lastly, Cappy was fond of the man.
Skinner had come to him as office boy at the tender age of ten—and that was twenty-five years before. A daily association for twenty-five years would make a human being like Cappy fond of the devil himself; and, barring the fact that he was cold-blooded, Skinner was a fairly likeable chap, and devoted, body and soul to Cappy Ricks. The longer Cappy pondered the thought of asserting his authority as boss and defying Skinner, the more impossible the alternative became. Also the longer he thought of having Matt Peasley kept out of the business by Skinner, the higher rose his gorge, for Cappy had yearned for a son like Matt Peasley and been denied. Now when he had planned successfully to do the next best thing and have Matt for a son-in-law, to be blocked by Skinner was unbearable. All Cappy could do was to search vainly for an “out,” and in the interim, whenever he met Matt Peasley at his home, he carefully avoided all reference to Matt's future in the Blue Star employ for which, by the way, Matt was eternally grateful. He did not care to talk business with Cappy for a month as yet. He was too happy with Cappy's daughter.
Another month passed. Cappy grew thin and lost his relish for his food. Then Florence, being a woman, began to see, looming out of the rose-tinted mist of her happy dreams, a huge interrogation mark.
She wondered what her father intended doing for her future husband; and since she was accustomed to bossing her parent she spoke to Cappy about it, thereby increasing his mental agony.
About the same time Matt Peasley commenced to wonder also, but forbore to mention the subject to Cappy. Instead, he went down to the Red Stack people and got himself a job skippering a tug; and great was his joy thereat, for the wages were fully as good as he had enjoyed on the Quickstep, and he was enabled to spend nearly every night in port. The two months of idleness, albeit the happiest he had ever known, had commenced to pall on him, and he wanted to be up and doing once more. Also, being a man, he sensed something of the embarrassment of Cappy's position, and, manlike, decided to relieve the old fellow of that embarrassment. Matt concluded that he would retain his job as master of the tug Sea Fox for a few months—say six—and then ask Cappy Ricks for twenty thousand dollars, which amount would by that time be to his credit on the Blue Star books by reason of his half-interest in the seventy-five-dollar-a-day profit he and Cappy had annexed when rechartering the steamer Unicorn. With that amount of money in hand, plus the savings from his salary, he planned to marry Cappy's daughter and go into business for himself as a ship, freight and marine insurance broker.
Mr. Skinner heard of Matt Peasley's appointment as master of the tug Sea Fox several hours before the same information reached Matt himself. The general manager of the tugboat company, scanning Matt's application and having a vacancy to fill, called up Mr. Skinner.
“Say, Skinner,” he said, “I have an application for a job as master for one of our tugs from Captain Matthew Peasley. He tells me he was a couple of years under the Blue Star flag, from A. B. to master of steam and sail, with an unlimited license. Is he a good man?”
“We never had a more capable skipper in our employ,” said Mr. Skinner truthfully.
“Why did you let him go then?”
“He resigned.”
“Under fire?”
“No, he quit voluntarily.”
“Honest?”
“Very.”
“Then what's wrong with him?”
“He doesn't like me. But he's capable and fearless and a devil on wheels. He'll take a ship anywhere and bring her out again whole.”
“Then he's my huckleberry. That's the kind of man for a tugboat skipper,” was the reply, and Matt Peasley had the job, greatly to the joy of Mr. Skinner, who realized now that his ultimatum to Cappy Ricks had been a knockout blow. Cappy had surrendered, and the rowdy Matt, having given up hope of a snug berth as port captain of the Blue Star Navigation Company, had in despair sought a job with a tugboat company.
Mr. Skinner was so happy he shelved his office dignity long enough to whistle a popular ballad that had been running through his mind of late. All too gladly had he recommended Matt Peasley for that tugboat job! He would have employed anything, short of dishonorable methods, to rid the Blue Star of that incubus!
Cappy Ricks almost wept with rage when his daughter informed him that Matt had gone back to salt water. She was a little indignant over it, and demanded a show-down from her unhappy father, who looked at her miserably and said he'd think it over.
He did. Every afternoon, upon his return from luncheon he slid down on his spine in his upholstered swivel chair, draped his old shanks over his desk, dropped his chin on his breast, closed his eyes and went into a clinch with the awful problem, with all its dips, spurs and angles. Save for the nervous clasping and unclasping of his hands one would have thought him sound asleep.
For a month no gleam of light filtered through the deep gloom of the old gentleman's predicament. A dozen times had he reached forth to press the push-button on his desk, summon Skinner and force the latter to do one of two things; recede from his position or resign as general manager. Ten times he had paused with his finger on the push-button. He simply could NOT afford to dispense with Skinner! The eleventh time, however, grown desperate from much brooding over his unhappy lot, Cappy pressed the button.
“Send Mr. Skinner in,” he commanded bravely to the boy who answered his summons.
Mr. Skinner entered and stood awaiting Cappy's pleasure. On the instant the old fellow was overcome by panic. Frantically he sought an “out.”
“Skinner, my dear boy,” he purred, “has it occurred to you that young Tommy, the office boy, has been here long enough, and behaved himself well enough, to merit a raise of about ten dollars a month?”
Mr. Skinner was a natural conservative and considerable of a pessimist.
“Well, I daresay he has, although I hadn't given the matter any thought, sir. However, the way lumber has been selling the past few months, we ought to be cutting salaries instead of raising them.”
“I know, Skinner, I know. But a boy needs some encouragement; he has to have some concrete evidence of appreciation, er—er—attend to it, Skinner, my boy, attend to it.”
Mr. Skinner nodded and retired, leaving Cappy to grit his teeth and curse himself for a poltroon. “It's certainly hell when a man of my age and financial rating stands between his love and duty,” he mourned. “Darn that fellow Skinner. If my bluff should fail to work and he got on his high horse and quit, I'd have to climb off my high horse and beg him to return to work. And he knows it. He knows I've been taking it easy so long I never could bring myself to take up the burden of active business again. Money! What does money mean if it can't buy happiness? Drat that devilish Skinner. I wish to jiminy he had the burden of my dollars—”
He paused, overcome by a sudden brilliant thought. “Bully for you, Alden P., you old, three-ply, copper-riveted, reinforced, star-spangled jack-ass!” he murmured. “Why didn't you think of it before and save yourself all this grief?”
His hand shot out once more to the push-button. “Send in Mr. Hankins, sonny,” he ordered the office boy.
Mr. Hankins was the cashier; also secretary of all of Cappy's companies, of which Mr. Skinner was first vice president. He entered and stood deferentially beside Cappy's desk.
“Hankins, my dear boy, bring me the stock certificates for my holdings in the Ricks Lumber and Logging Company and the Blue Star Navigation Company. I am going to indorse them, after which I wish you would reissue the stock to me, less one hundred shares of each in the name of Mr. Skinner. Say nothing to Mr. Skinner about this and bring the new certificates to me immediately.”
When Hankins had complied with his request Cappy Ricks placed the Skinner certificates in his pocket and went uptown to the office of his attorney. He returned to his office within an hour and immediately sent for Mr. Skinner.
“Skinner, my dear boy,” began Cappy affably, “sit down. I want to have a very serious talk with you.”
“Nothing wrong, I trust,” Skinner began apprehensively, for Cappy's air was very portentous.
“If there was,” Cappy snapped, “you wouldn't be here to-day. Some other fellow would be holding down your job, and, I dare say, giving poor satisfaction—by the way, my dear Skinner, something which you have never done.”
Mr. Skinner flushed pleasurably and thanked his employer.
“Some twenty-five years ago,” Cappy continued, “you entered my employ as a spindle-legged office boy. To-day you are my general manager, and a rattling good one, too, even if we do have our little run-in together every so often. We mustn't pay any attention to that, however, for a fight is good for a man, Skinner. I maintain that it brings out all of his virtues and vices where one can have an unobstructed view of them. However, passing that, I decided a long time ago, Skinner, that you are entitled to more than a mere salary—”
“My salary has been eminently satisfactory, sir—” Mr. Skinner began.
“Don't be an ass, Skinner,” Cappy interrupted tartly. “I wouldn't give two hoots in hell for a satisfied man, unless he's his own man—understand. You should have a more vital interest in the Ricks Lumber and Logging Company and the Blue Star Navigation Company. We always make our skippers own a piece of the vessels they command, so they will not be tempted to rob us, for in robbing us they rob themselves. Consequently, thinking it over, Skinner, I have decided to make you own a piece of both the companies you manage, not because you may rob them but because I want to reward you for faithful service. I had planned to do this in my will, but I feel so healthy lately I think I'll live a long time yet, and there isn't any real sense in keeping you waiting. What is the book valuation of the Ricks L. & L. stock?”
“Three hundred eighty-seven thirteen, according to the last annual report,” replied Skinner glibly. His eyes glistened.
“And the Blue Star stock?”
“Four hundred thirty-two twenty-seven.”
“Hump! Harump-h-h! It will be worth more when the Panama Canal is opened. We'll have a crack at the Atlantic Seaboard market with our Pacific Coast lumber, and the water freight will knock the rail rate silly. Besides, I'm going to buy up a couple of large freighters, or build them, and that stock of yours will pay dividends then. I'll soak you four hundred per share for the Blue Star stock. Is that satisfactory?”
Nobody knew better than Mr. Skinner the fact that the Blue Star stock at the book valuation was appraised very conservatively. He nodded.
“Lumber market's up and down, down and up, and we never know where we stand. Give you that at two-fifty a share. Want it?”
“I should say I do!” Skinner gasped.
“Then you owe me sixty-five thousand dollars. I'll take your promissory note for it at five per cent., and you can pay the note out of your salary and the dividends. You'll be in the clear in ten years at the very latest; the stock I'm selling you now will be worth a hundred thousand—with your management. Here's the contract, which embodies a promissory note. Sign it, endorse the stock to me to secure the payment of the note, and then clear out of here. Not a peep out of you, sir, not a peep. If you say 'Thank you' I'll change my mind about selling.”
Mr. Skinner's hand trembled a little as he wrote his name across the backs of the stock certificates and appended the same clear, concise signature to the note. Silently he wrung Cappy's hand.
“Get out,” rasped Cappy. Mr. Skinner got out.
Four more months passed, and peace reigned in the offices of the Blue Star Navigation Company. Matt Peasley's name had never been mentioned in Mr. Skinner's presence since that dark day when he had ventured, for the first time in his career, to lay down the law to Cappy Ricks. The pick-handle still reposed behind Skinner's desk, but that was merely because he had forgotten all about it, and nobody ever touched any of his property without his permission. Not once had Matt Peasley's cheerful countenance darkened the Skinner horizon.
This, then, was the condition of affairs when the office boy carried to Mr. Skinner a piece of disquieting information—to wit, that Captain Matt Peasley was without and desired to hold speech with Mr. Ricks.
“Tell him Mr. Ricks is too busy to see him,” Skinner ordered. Not having heard anything of Matt for six months he concluded that the latter's affair with the boss' daughter had languished and died a natural death; hence he felt that he could defy Matt with impunity. Judge of his surprise, therefore, when a heavy hand was laid on his shoulder later and Matt Peasley stood glaring down at him.
“Well, sir!” said Skinner coolly.
“I heard you had a pick-handle waiting here for me,” Matt replied evenly, “so I just dropped in to tell you that if you ever pull a pick-handle on me I'll take it away from you and ram it down your throat. That's all I have to say to you, Mr. Skinner. If, the next time I call, at Mr. Ricks' invitation, to see him, you intercept my message and try to block my game—”
The great Peasley hand closed over Mr. Skinner's neck and felt of it tentatively.
“Ouch!” gasped Mr. Skinner.
“Admit the brother,” Matt called to an imaginary sentry behind Cappy's door. “He has given the password. The lodge has been duly opened and we are now ready for business.”
He smiled at Mr. Skinner and passed on into Cappy Ricks' office.
“Well, Matt,” the latter hailed him pleasantly, “it's been a long time since I've seen you in this office.”
“And it'll be a long time till you see me here again, sir,” Matt retorted pleasantly. “I was about to call on you when your message reached me. So suppose you tell me your business first. Then I'll tell you mine.”
“No, you won't, Matt,” Cappy challenged him, “because hereafter you're not going to have any business unless I have a finger in it too. Matt, my son, do you recall the day you quit the Quickstep?”
“With pleasure,” Matt assured him whimsically.
“You're vindictive; but no matter. Skinner declared you should never again command a Blue Star ship while he was in my employ, and I said, by George, that was right—you shouldn't. I said I was going to make you our port captain, and eventually place you in charge of the shipping after I had broken you in.”
“I have a curiosity, sir, to know why you didn't go through with that program.”
“Skinner wouldn't let me—said he'd quit if I did, and I just couldn't afford to lose him, Matt. However, I have all that fixed up now, so you quit that tugboat job of yours and come to work here as soon as you can. I could have put you to work three months ago, right after I sewed Skinner up, but I thought I'd wait a little while just to save poor Skinner's face.” Cappy commenced to chuckle softly. “In-fer-nal rascal!” he declared. “He had me where the hair is short, Matt; he had me where I dassen't defy my own general manager! Yes, sir, that was the long and short of it. I dassen't call his bluff, because he doesn't bluff worth a cent, and I happen to know some of my competitors would like to get him away from me. A good man is always in demand, Matt; never forget that. You see, Skinner has been carrying the burden of this business for the past ten years practically, and he threatened to toss that burden back on me. Well, if he had, Matt, I just couldn't have carried it without competent help—and by the time I had competent help broken in they'd be measuring me for a tombstone.”
“How did you whip him into line?” Matt demanded.
“Just like spearing fish in a dry lake, boy,” Cappy chuckled. “I just sold Mr. Skinner part of that burden, and now he has to carry it all until he dies, because if he drops it he loses what I sold him. Only one way to whip that boy into line, Matt, and that is to pelt him with dollars.”
“But I do not see how that affects me,” Matt answered.
“You don't, eh? Why, you're the port captain of the Blue Star Navigation Company, you-you-you bonehead, and Skinner has to stand for you now whether he likes it or not. He'll not sacrifice his future to vent his grudge against you, because he is a business man, Matt, and he knows it's mighty poor business to bite off his nose to spite his face. So you just come to work.”
Matt Peasley beamed across at his future father-in-law.
“That was well done, sir,” he said, “and I wish I had known you were going to do it. I would have saved you the trouble, because, you see, I never intended to go to work for you in this office anyhow.”
“The devil you say!” Cappy interrupted. “Well, you just put some reverse English on those intentions of yours, my boy. I know what's good for you.”
But Matt Peasley only shook his head.
“I can't do it, sir,” he said. “While deeply appreciative of all you want to do for me, the fact is, if I'm going to marry your daughter—and I am—I'm not going to do it on your money and be dependent upon you for a job. I'll be my own man, Mr. Ricks. I never ask odds of any man, and I don't like to work for a relative.”
“Damn your Yankee independence,” snapped Cappy angrily. “Why do you oppose me?”
“Because I'll not have anybody saying: 'There goes Matt Peasley. He fell into a good thing. Yes, indeed! Used to be a common A. B. until Alden P. Ricks' daughter fell in love with him—and of course after that he went right up the line in the Blue Star Navigation Company. He's a lucky stiff.'”
“What do you care what people say? I know what I want.”
“I do care what they say, and I care what I feel. I want to fight my own way. I want to make a wad of money and build up a business of my own—”
“You're crazy! Why, here's one ready-made, and it will stand all kinds of building up—”
“Then let Skinner build it. I'll build my own. I do not want anybody to think I married your daughter for your money.”
“Matt, you poor, chuckleheaded boy, listen to me. I intend doing for you—”
“And that,” roared Matt Peasley, smiting the desk, “is the very reason why I shall not permit you to do anything for me. That's final, Mr. Ricks. I hope you will realize it's useless to argue with me.”
“I ought to by this time,” Cappy replied bitterly. “Very well, I've told you my business with you. Suppose you state your business with me.”
“I'd like to draw twenty thousand dollars from my credit on the Blue Star books.”
“Huh! So you want to dig into that money the recharter of the Unicorn is bringing you, eh, Matt?”
“If you can spare it, Mr. Ricks.”
“Of course I can spare it—only I'll not. If you want that money, Matt, sue for it; and since you haven't any documents to prove you have it coming to you, I suppose you will agree with me that a suit would be useless expenditure of time, money and energy.”
“Then you will not give me the money, sir?” Matt Peasley demanded.
“Not a red,” said Cappy calmly. “We've fought this whole matter out before, so why argue?”
“Why, indeed,” Matt answered, and reached for his hat. He was fighting mad and desired to go away before he quarreled with Cappy.
“I'll go downstairs to the cigar stand and shake you the dice, one flop, to see whether you go into business for yourself or come to work for me,” Cappy pleaded.
Matt came to him and placed his great hands on the old man's shoulders.
“You're the finest man I ever knew, Mr. Ricks,” he said, “and you're the meanest man I ever knew, so I'll not shake dice with you. You're too fond of having your own way—”
“Yes, and you're the same, blast you!” Cappy shrilled, losing his temper entirely. “Wait till you're my age. There won't be any standing you at all. Get out!”
The barkentine Retriever, lumber laden from Astoria to San Francisco, lay under the lee of Point Reyes in a dead calm. It was a beautiful, moonlit night, with the sea as smooth as a fishpond, and Captain Michael J. Murphy, albeit a trifle surprised at his proximity to the California coast—the result of three days and nights of thick fog, which had suddenly lifted—was not particularly worried. At eight o'clock he turned in, after warning the mate to call him in case the Retriever should drift inshore.
“Never fear, sir,” the mate replied. “We'll have a puff of wind about daylight at the latest, and the current sets north and south here rather than toward the beach.”
For two hours after Captain Murphy had retired the Retriever rose and fell gently on the slightest swell, her booms and yards swinging idly amidships, her sails and cordage slatting listlessly as the vessel rolled.
Suddenly the lookout shouted: “Steamer on the port bow!” and the mate, following the direction indicated, made out the red and green sidelights and the single white light at the short masthead of the approaching vessel.
“Tug,” he announced to the man at the wheel. “Good enough! The lookout at Point Reyes reported us, and the owners have sent a tug out to snake us in.”
The mate's prognostication was correct in some particulars, for in about half an hour the tug steamed slowly alongside the Retriever and hailed her.
“Barkentine, ahoy!”
“Ahoy! Retriever, of the Blue Star, Astoria for San Francisco.”
“Sea Fox, of the Red Stack Line. Is Captain Murphy on deck?”
“No, but I'll send for him,” the mate shouted, and forthwith sent a man below to rout out the skipper. When Murphy came on deck and hailed the tug he nearly fainted at the information that came floating across the water.
“Murphy, this is Matt Peasley speaking.”
“Not Matt Peasley that used to command this old box—”
“Don't speak disrespectfully of my first command, Mike—”
“And you're only a tug captain—a dirty, thieving, piratical towboat man, holding up every honest skipper that pokes his nose into San Francisco Bay. Matt, I'm ashamed of you. How are you anyhow?”
“Fine, Mike. Want a tow?”
“I don't need one; I'll have a bit of breeze before long. I'm independent of you!”
The tug crept in closer. “Don't be foolish, Mike; better let me slip you a line.”
“How much will it cost, Matt? None of your highway robbery now. Be easy on the Retriever for old times' sake.”
“A thousand dollars,” Matt Peasley answered pleasantly, and was rewarded with a volley of oaths from Mike Murphy and his crew.
“You're a thief!” yelled Murphy.
“And you're a fool, Mike. You're not more than two miles off the breakers, you're in a calm that may last two days, and when the tide is at flood you'll set in on the beach as sure as death and taxes—and then I'll have a salvage job that will cost your owners not one thousand but ten.”
“You go to the devil!” was Murphy's reply to this, and the Sea Fox dropped astern and came round on the starboard bow of the Retriever. In she backed, a foot at a time, and Captain Murphy, up on the topgallant fo'castle, was within easy conversational distance of Matt Peasley, standing on the grating at the stern of the Sea Fox.
“Better grab this heaving line, Mike,” Matt suggested.
“Come aboard and have a drink, Matt, but leave your line behind you,” Murphy answered hospitably.
The Sea Fox drifted down fifteen or twenty feet, swung slowly, headed out to sea, and then backed gingerly in until her stern was within a few feet of the side of the Retriever.
“Hey, you! What d'ye mean to do? Back into her?” yelled Matt Peasley to his mate. “Full speed ahead! Quick!”
A bell jangled in the bowels of the Sea Fox, her great screw churned the water and she shot out from the Retriever.
“That's right! Go clear over to China, and expect me to haggle with this man through the megaphone, eh?” Matt roared. “Back up again!”
“I tell you, Matt, there isn't the slightest use hanging round for us,” Murphy warned the towboat skipper. “I wouldn't let the ship be held up by anybody, least of all a towboat man.”
“Well, when the lookout on Point Reyes telephoned into our office that the Retriever was inside the Point, I made up my mind I'd come out and get her, and I don't purpose being disappointed,” Matt replied jokingly. “I'll just wait until you drift into the breakers, and then you'll do business with me, never fear.”
“G'wan!” snorted Murphy. “How's Cappy Ricks, the old villain?”
“He's fine, Mike. He wanted me to work for him, but I don't like his general manager—Mr. Olson, full speed ahead or you'll smash our stern against this barkentine. Steady! That's better. Astern a trifle. Steady! Mike, how've you been since I saw you last?”
“Skinner,” said Cappy Ricks, “I was called out of my bed at five o'clock this morning by the night operator at the Merchants' Exchange. He told me our Retriever was in the breakers just south of Point Reyes, but that a tug was standing by. What have you heard since?”
“She drifted in there in a calm last night, sir,” Mr. Skinner replied. “Fortunately the Point Reyes lookout had reported her early yesterday evening, and one of the Red Stack tugs—the Sea Fox—took a chance and went out seeking. Lucky thing for us—”
“The tug hauled her off then?”
“Got a line aboard just in time. I had a telephone message from Captain Murphy at Meiggs Wharf ten minutes ago. The Retriever is anchored in the fairway.”
“What tug did you say it was?” Cappy queried.
“The Sea Fox.”
“That's Matt Peasley's command,” Cappy mused. “Lucky? I should say we are! It's up to the master of the tug very frequently whether, under such conditions, his task has been a mere towage job at the going rates or a salvage proposition to be settled in court. I dare say Matt will give us the benefit of the doubt and call it towage.”
“Don't deceive yourself!” Skinner snapped. “It's salvage; Murphy said so. After he got close in Peasley refused to name a price and came aboard and made Murphy sign a paper acknowledging that his ship was in distress and dire peril, before he would even put a line aboard him—”
“Wow! Wow! The tugboat company will libel the ship now, and sue us for fifty thousand dollars' salvage on vessel and cargo,” and Cappy groaned, for he owned both. “By George!” he continued. “I didn't think Matt would do anything like that to me. No, sir! If anybody had told me that boy could be such an ingrate I'd have told him—”
A youth entered Cappy's office uninvited.
“Captain Peasley to see you, sir,” he said.
“Show the infernal fellow in,” rasped Cappy, and Matt Peasley stalked into the room.
“I should like to see you privately, Mr. Ricks,” he announced, and cast a significant glance at Skinner, who took the hint and left the room at once.
Matt sat down. “Well,” he said, “I guess the tug Sea Fox and owners, together with her doughty skipper and crew, will finger some of your hard-earned dollars before long, Mr. Ricks. I pulled your barkentine Retriever out of the breakers this morning. In fifteen minutes she would have been on the beach and a total loss—and I have a document, signed by Captain Murphy and his mates, to prove it. I offered the pig-headed fellow a tow at ten o'clock the night before, but he declined it—trying to save a few dollars, of course—so when I had him where he had to have my services—”
“Well!” Cappy snapped, “send your owners round and we'll try to settle out of court. If they're hogs we'll fight 'em, that's all.”
“And if you do you'll get licked. We'll get a quarter of the value of that vessel and her cargo. She's easily worth fifty thousand dollars and her cargo is worth thirty thousand more—that's eighty thousand, and a quarter of eighty thousand dollars is twenty thousand.”
“You'll have to fight for it, I tell you,” Cappy reiterated.
“There is no necessity for a fight, Mr. Ricks. It all rests with me whether this is a salvage job or just a plain towing job at the customary rates.”
Cappy looked at his ex-skipper keenly.
“Matt,” he charged, “you've got a scheme. You want something.”
“I do; I want to save you a lot of fuss and worry and expense. In return I want you to do something for me.”
“I'll do it, Matt. What is the program?”
“Give me that twenty thousand dollars you justly owe me—twenty thousand dollars I have to my credit on your books, which you are withholding just because you have the power to withhold it.”
“And in return—”
“I'll tear up the deadly document I extorted from Murphy and report a mere towage job to my owners.”
Cappy pressed the push-button and a boy appeared.
“Tell Mr. Skinner I want to see him,” he ordered, and an instant later Mr. Skinner entered. “Skinner,” said Cappy, “draw a check for twenty thousand in favor of Matt Peasley, and charge it to his account.”
“And then send it over to the bank and certify it,” Matt added, “because before I get through with you, Mr. Ricks, you'll be tempted to stop payment on it, if I know you—and I think I do.”
Half an hour later Cappy handed Matt Peasley, a certified check for twenty thousand dollars, and in exchange the latter handed Cappy the only proof the Red Stack people would have had, over and above the contradictory testimony of the crews of the respective vessels, that the services of their tug constituted salvage and not towage. Cappy read it, tore it into shreds and glared at Matt Peasley.
“Matt,” he said very solemnly, “I'm glad this thing happened. I've always had a good opinion of you, but now I know that though you have many excellent qualities you do not possess that quality which above all others I require in an employee or a son-in-law.
“You aren't loyal. You had the sweetest case of salvage against our vessel that any man could go into court with, and you kicked it away like that, just for your own selfish ends. You sacrificed your shipmates, who would have been awarded a pro rata of the salvage, and you were false to the trust your owners reposed in you.”
Cappy stood up, his face pale with fury, and shook an admonitory finger under Matt Peasley's nose.
“That act, sir, is an index of your true character,” he thundered. “A master who will deceive his owners, who will be false to their interests, is a scoundrel, sir; do you hear me?—a scoundrel. You will oblige me, sir, by refraining from any attentions to my daughter in the future. To think that you have descended to such a petty, miserable subterfuge to trick me and rob your owners! Thank God, I have found you out in time!”
“Yes, isn't it fortunate?” Matt answered humorously. “And if you get any angrier you'll bust an artery and die.”
“Out of my office!” Cappy raved; for though he was a business man, and never hesitated to do business in a businesslike way, he was the soul of business honor, and in all his life he had never taken a mean or unfair advantage of those who trusted him. The knowledge that Matt Peasley had done such a thing filled him with rage not unmixed with sorrow.
“I'll be gone in a minute,” Matt replied gently; “only before I go permit me to tell you something, and on my honor as a man and a sailor I assure you I speak the truth. That wasn't a salvage job at all.”
“What?”
Matt repeated the statement. Cappy blinked and clawed at his whiskers.
“Oh,” he said presently, “I had forgotten that you and Captain Murphy were once shipmates. And so that fellow Murphy stood in with you to work a hocuspocus game on me, eh?” he thundered. “By Godfrey, I'll fire him for it!” and he rushed to the office door, opened it and called to Skinner: “Skinner, Murphy is to be fired. Attend to it.” Then he closed the door again and faced Matt Peasley.
“Murphy is to be reinstated,” Matt assured Cappy, “for the reason that Murphy was in deadly earnest when he signed that paper. In five minutes he would have been a skipper without a ship, and he knew it. If you fire Murphy you do a fine man a terrible injustice.”
“Well, how in blue blazes did he get so close to the beach and let himself into your clutches?” Cappy raved.
“He couldn't answer that question, sir. He doesn't know. He thinks the current set him in there. It didn't. I set him in there.”
“You set him in?” Cappy queried incredulously.
“I set him in. I kept backing up on his starboard counter, ostensibly to dicker with him, and as soon as I had the stern of my tug within a few feet of the Retriever I'd signal my mate at the wheel, he'd give the engineer full speed ahead—why you have no idea of the force of the quick water thrown back from that big towing propeller of the Sea Fox. The rush of it just swung the Retriever's nose slowly toward the beach and kicked her ahead fifteen or twenty feet, and then her sheer momentum carried her thirty yards farther. By that time I was backed up to her again, bargaining with Murphy, and ready for another kick. It was easier after the flood tide set in, and I kept at her all night long, and gradually kicked her into the breakers, where I wanted her. I knew Murphy would listen to reason then. So you see, Mr. Ricks, it wasn't a salvage job, and I didn't betray my owners at all—”
“You Yankee thief!” Cappy yelled, and dashed at Matt, to enfold the son-in-law-to-be in a paternal embrace. “Oh, Matt, my boy, why do you want to be a tugboat man when I need a man with your brains? Why don't you be sensible and listen to reason?”
Matt held the old man off at arm's length and grinned at him affectionately.
“It's worth twenty thousand dollars to get the better of you, sir,” he said.
Cappy sat down very suddenly.
“Ah, yes,” he said. “Speaking of money reminds me: What do you intend doing with that twenty thousand dollars?”
“Well, I thought at first I'd go into the shipping business for myself—”
“Skiffs or gasoline launches—which?” Cappy twitted him.
“But you seem bent on having your way, and Florry is making such a fuss, I suppose I'll have to give in to you after all.”
Matt stepped to the door, opened it and called: “Mr. Skinner!”
Mr. Skinner looked up from his desk by the window. “Well, sir!” he demanded haughtily.
“Murphy is not to be fired,” Matt answered.
“Indeed! And by whose orders?”
“Mine! I'm the port captain of the Blue Star Navigation Company, and, beginning now, I'm going to do all the hiring and firing of captains.”
Mr. Skinner turned pale. He started from his chair and made two steps toward Cappy Ricks' office, firmly resolved to present his resignation then and there. At the door, however, he thought better of it, hesitated, returned to his desk and sat down again, for he had suddenly remembered, and, remembering, discovered that Cappy Ricks had laid upon him a burden that must be reckoned with—the burden of his own future. He flushed and bit his lips; then, feeling Matt Peasley's eyes boring into the small of his back, he turned and said:
“I have every reason to believe, Captain Peasley, that you are the right man in the right place.”
Matt advanced upon him and held out his hand.
“Mr. Ricks has always bragged that you could think quicker and act quicker in an emergency than any man he ever knew. He's right, you can. Suppose we bury that pick-handle, Mr. Skinner?”
Mr. Skinner's lips twitched in a wry smile, but he took Matt Peasley's hand and wrung it heartily, not because he loved Matt Peasley or ever would, but because he had a true appreciation of Abraham Lincoln's philosophy to the effect that a house divided against itself must surely fall. “I'm sure we'll get along famously together,” he said.
“You know it,” Matt answered heartily, and stepped back into Cappy's office.
“Well,” said Cappy, “that was mighty well done, Matt. Thank you. So you think you'll quit the Sea Fox and be my port captain, eh?”
“I think so, sir.”
“Well, I do not, Matt. The fact of the matter is, your business education is now about to commence, and about two minutes ago I suddenly decided that you might as well pay for it with your own money. I have no doubt such a course will meet with the approval of your independent spirit anyhow. You're a little too uppish yet, Matt. You must be chastened, and the only way to chasten a man and make him humble is to turn him loose to fight with the pack for a while. Consequently I'm going to turn you loose, Matt; there are some wolves along California Street that will take your twenty thousand away from you so fast that you won't know it's going till it's gone. But the loss will do you a heap of good—and I guess Florry can wait a while.”
He paused and eyed Matt meditatively for fully a minute.
“And you kicked my barkentine ashore with the quick water from your tug's propeller,” he mused aloud. “Got her where you wanted her—and Murphy didn't suspect! He laid it to the current!” Cappy shook his head. “A dirty Yankee trick,” he continued, “and I love you for it—in fact, it breaks my heart not to make good that grandstand play you just pulled on Skinner, but I've changed my mind about hiring you yet. I'm just going to sit back and have some fun watching you defend that little old twenty-thousand dollars I just gave you. Do you know, Matt, that I never knew a man to save up a thousand dollars, by denying himself many things, that he didn't invest the thousand in a wild-cat mine or a dry oil well? Ah, Matt, it's those first few dollars that come so hard and go so easy that break most men's hearts; but here you are with twenty thousand that came so easy I've just naturally got to see how hard they go! You'll be worth more money to me, Matt, and you'll be a safer man to handle this business when I'm gone, if you go out and play the game for a while by yourself. You have a secret itching to do it anyhow, Matt, and in surrendering to me just now you went down with your colors flying. You just wanted to be kind to the old man, didn't you? Well, I appreciate it, Matt, because I'm an old man, and I know how hard it is for a boy to yield to an old man's wishes; but youth must be served, and God forbid that I should rob you of the joy of the conflict, my boy. When you're busted flat and need some more money, you may have it up to the amount to your credit on our books. And when that's gone I guess you'll make a better port captain than you will this morning. Does that program suit you better than the one I originally outlined?”
Matt flushed and hung his head in embarrassment, but answered truthfully: “Yes, sir.”
“Very well,” said Cappy, relapsing into one of his frequent colloquialisms, “go to it, boy. Eat it up.”