For a long time after old Joe Gurney had terminated his visit Cappy Ricks sat in the position which with him always denoted intense mental concentration. He had sunk low in his swivel chair and swung his old legs to the top of his desk; his head was bowed on his breast and his eyes were closed.
Suddenly he started as if snake-bitten, sat up at his desk and reached for the telephone.
“Get me the West Coast Trading Company,” he ordered the private exchange operator, “and tell Mr. J. Augustus Redell I want to speak to him.”
Redell answered presently.
“Gus, my dear young friend,” Cappy began briskly, “I want you to do me a favor, and in so doing I think you'll find you are going to perform one for yourself also.”
“Good news, Cappy. Consider it done.”
“Thank you, my boy, but this particular favor isn't done quite so quickly. I want you to tell that Peruvian partner of yours, Live Wire Luiz Almeida to dig up a specification for a cargo of fir to be discharged on lighters at some open roadstead on the West Coast, and the more open the port and the more difficult it is to discharge there; and the harder it is to get any sane shipowner to charter a vessel to deliver a cargo there, the better I'll be pleased. Surely, Gus, you must have a customer down on the West Coast in some such port as I describe, who is actually watering at the mouth for a cargo of lumber and is unable to place it with a mill that will guarantee delivery? Look into the matter, Augustus, and see what you can do for me.”
“Do you want to furnish such a cargo from one of the Ricks Lumber & Logging Company's northern mills and freight it in one of your Blue Star Navigation Company vessels?”
“No, I don't want to do it,” Cappy replied; “but in this particular case the acceptance of such a cargo and the freighting of it via a Blue Star windjammer, even though the usual demurrage at such discharging ports will cause the vessel a loss, is a consummation devoutly to be wished. Ordinarily, if you made such a proposition to me I'd call in the boys from the general office and tell them to throw you out, but—well, in this case I'm willing to stand the loss, Augustus.”
“Yes, you are—not. Somebody else will recompense you for any loss, Cappy Ricks, never fear. Do you want the West Coast Trading Company to give you a bonus for accepting our order?”
“No, my boy. I'll make Skinner sell you the lumber at the regular base price at the mill, plus insurance and freight to point of discharge. And I won't stick you too deep on the freight, even in wartime.”
“There's something wrong with you this morning, Cappy,” Redell declared, highly mystified. “You're too obliging. However, I'm not to be outgamed. I have a specification for a cargo of half a million feet for delivery at Sobre Vista, Peru; I've been trying for a month to place the order and nobody will accept it because nobody wants to guarantee delivery. On the other hand, the purchasers have been unable to get any ship owner to charter them a vessel to go to Sobre Vista without a guaranty of a perfectly prohibitive rate of demurrage per diem; consequently I had just about abandoned my efforts to place the order.”
“Fine business, Gus. And is Sobre Vista a rotten port at which to discharge?”
“It's vile, Cappy. It's an open roadstead and the vessel lies off-shore and discharges into lighters. About four days a week the surf is so high the lighters cannot lie alongside the ship or be run up on the beach without being ruined, and to complicate the situation they only have two or three lighters at the port. Labor is scarce, too, and the fewcargadoresa skipper can hire have a habit of working two days and staying drunk for the remainder of the week on the proceeds of those two days of labor. So you can see for yourself that discharge in Sobre Vista is very hard on the skipper's nerves, and that if he can work two days a week he's in luck. And when we deduct from those two days all the national holidays and holy days and saints' feast days that have to be duly celebrated, not to mention the three hundred and sixty-five days in the year the populace doesn't feel like exerting itself—well, Cappy, I couldn't give you anything worse than Sobre Vista if you paid me for it.”
“May the good Lord bless you, Augustus! Come down and do business with Skinner on the cargo. Get him to quote you a price f.o.b. ship's tackles at the mill dock and tell him you'll furnish the tonnage when the cargo is ready for delivery. There's no sense in worrying poor Skinner until his worries are due, and when I send a Blue Star schooner to load your cargo for Sobre Vista I'm going to have to fight him and my son-in-law, Matt Peasley. But leave it to me, Gus. I'll guarantee the tonnage.”
“This is certainly wonderful,” the grateful Redell observed. “Thank you, Cappy. What I'll do to those Peruvian customers of mine on price will be a shame and a disgrace. Are you going to stick me for any demurrage on the vessel, Cappy? Because if you are, I'll have to stick my customers in order to get out clean.”
“No demurrage, Gus, not a penny.”
“Bully! Then I'll stick my customers anyhow. It makes the profit all the greater, and since they expect to pay a reasonable demurrage I see no reason why I should disappoint them.”
When Redell had hung up Cappy summoned into his presence Captain Matt Peasley.
“Matt,” he queried, “what schooners have you got due at any one of our northern mills within the next thirty days?”
Matt Peasley pondered and counted on his big fingers. “TheTyeewill be in from Valparaiso about that time,” he answered.
“Have you got her chartered?”
“Oh, no. We're using her in our own trade. Skinner will have a cargo ready for her by the time she gets back, although we don't know yet where we will send her.”
“Well, Matt, you tell Skinner he can't have her and to look around for some other vessel to take her place. I may give her to him at the last minute, but then again I may not. When she arrives at the mill, Matthew, my boy, tie her up to the mill dock to await my pleasure.”
“Why, what the devil are you going to do with theTyee?” Matt demanded, astounded beyond measure.
“I might want to take a cruise for my health and use theTyeeas a pleasure boat,” Cappy answered enigmatically. “They tell me she's as fast as a yacht in a breeze of wind.”
“The longer I'm acquainted with you, father-in-law,” Matt Peasley declared, “the less I know you. You can have yourTyee, but for every day she is held awaiting your pleasure your personal account will be charged with something in three figures. I'll figure out her average profit per day for the last five voyages and soak you accordingly.”
“Fair enough,” quoth Cappy Ricks.
Three weeks later Alden P. Ricks arrived in New York. After he had been driven to his hotel and had removed the stains of travel he telephoned the office of Gurney & Harlan and got Gurney, Senior, on the line.
“Well, I'm here, Joe,” he announced. “Have you followed my instructions and cut Joey off at the pockets?”
“I have, Alden. He's rather desperate as a result, and has been trying to borrow money by hypothecating the inheritance due him on his twenty-fifth birthday. You see, I didn't give him a second's notice; just told him he was spending too much time in play and too much money for pleasure, and that until he came into his private fortune he would have to earn any money he desired to spend. I have been very firm.”
“That's the stuff, Joe. And is he trying to earn it?”
“Yes, I think so. He's sticking round the office at any rate.”
“Hum-m-m! That's because it costs money to go anywhere else. Has he succeeded in raising a loan by assigning an interest in his inheritance?”
“No, not yet. I blocked him at all the banks and with my old friends, and I do not think he can borrow as much as he needs from any of his friends. They, like him of course, are dependent on their fathers' generosity.”
“Fine way to raise a boy! Bully. Well, I'll be down to your office in about an hour and take you and Joey to luncheon at India House. You haven't forgotten what I wrote you, Joe? You know your part, don't you? . . . Well, see that you play your hand well and we'll save that boy yet.”
Two hours later the Gurneys were lunching with Cappy Ricks at the one New York club to which Cappy belonged—quaint old India House in Hanover Square, haunt of shipping men and shippers, perhaps the best and least-known club in New York City. Joey had been unaffectedly glad to see his godfather; so much so, indeed, that Cappy rightly guessed Joey had designs on the Ricks pocketbook; for after all, as Cappy admitted to himself, he is a curmudgeon of a godfather indeed who will refuse to loan his godson a much needed twenty-five thousand dollars on gilt-edged security. In expectation of an application for a loan before the day should be done, however, Cappy was careful not to be alone with Joey for an instant, for something told him that only the presence of Gurney, Senior, kept Gurney Junior from promptly putting his fortune to the touch.
“Well, Joey, you young cut-up,” Cappy began as the trio settled in the smoking room and the waiter brought the coffee and cigars, “I see you're getting to be quite an amateur sailor. Your Dad tells me you won your last race with that schooner yacht of yours in rather pretty fashion.”
“It was a bully race, Mr. Ricks. I wish you could have been aboard with me,” Joey declared enthusiastically.
“Hum-m-m! Catch me on a yacht!” Cappy's tones were indicative of profound disgust.
“Ricks, you're a kill-joy,” old Gurney struck in. “All you think of is making money, and you've made so much of it I should think the game would have palled on you long ago. I tell Joey to go it while he's young—while he has the capacity for enjoyment.”
“Joe, I tell you now, as I've told you before, you're spoiling this boy. When he's twenty-five years old he comes into a fortune and you're not even preparing him for the task of handling that money wisely. You bought Joey that schooner yacht, didn't you?”
“I bought her cheap,” old Joe Gurney protested lamely.
“They cost a fortune to maintain, Joe. Now if Joey wanted some salt-water experience you should have sent him to sea as quartermaster on one of your own Red Funnel liners; presently he would have worked up to second mate; then first mate, and finally skipper. By that time he would have known the salt-water end of his father's business, after which he could sit in at a desk and learn the business end. Somehow, Joe, when I see a shipping man's son fooling away his time on a pleasure yacht instead of learning the shipping business, I feel as if I'd just taken a dose of ipecac.”
“Godfather is out of sorts,” Joey soliloquized sagely, and resolved to wait a day or two before broaching the subject of a loan. Cappy Ricks surveyed the young fellow severely.
“Joey,” he began, “I've no doubt you're quite a sailor on your handsome yacht, in your yachting uniform, with all the real head work to be done by your sailing master—”
“Not a bit of it,” Joey protested. “I'm not that kind of a yachtsman. I'm the captain tight and the midshipmite, and the crew take orders from me, because I don't employ a sailing master.”
“Do you mean to tell me that when you go on a cruise to the West Indies you navigate the yacht yourself—lay out your own courses and work out your own position?”
Joey smiled patronizingly.
“Certainly,” he replied. “That's easy.”
“Sure. Play is always easy. But let me tell you, young man, if you had command of a big three-legged windjammer, with a deckload of heavy green lumber fresh from the saws, and ran into a stiff sou'-easter such as we have out on the Pacific coast, you'd know what real sailoring is like.”
“Joey could handle her like that,” old Gurney declared with pride, and snapped his fingers.
“Could you, Joey?” Cappy Ricks demanded. “I have my doubts.”
“Why, I think so, Mr. Ricks. I might be a little cautious at first—”
“Well, I don't think you could,” Cappy interrupted.
“Well, I do,” old Gurney declared with some warmth. “I've been out with Joey on his yacht and I know what the boy can do.”
“Bah! You're a doddering old softy, Joe. Yachting is one thing and sailoring is another. I have an old lumber hooker on Gray's Harbor now, loading for a port in Peru, and I'd certainly love to see Joey with her on his hands. I'll bet fifty thousand dollars he couldn't sail her down to Sobre Vista, discharge her and sail back inside of six months.” The old schemer chuckled. “Lordy me,” he continued, “I'd like to see Joey trying to make her point up into the wind! She'd break his heart.”
“Look here, Alden,” Old Joe Gurney commenced to bristle. “Are you serious about that or are you just making conversation bets? Because if you're serious I'm just shipping man enough to call you for the sheer sporting joy of it.”
“By the Holy Pink-Toed Prophet, you're on!” Cappy Ricks almost yelled. “Put up or shut up—that is, provided Joey is as big a sport as his father and will undertake to sail my schoonerTyeeto Sobre Vista and back.”
“Oh, she's a schooner!” There was relief in Joey's voice. “Why, I'll sail any vessel with a fore-and-aft rig. I thought perhaps you were trying to ring in a square-rigger on me, and I'm not familiar with them. But a schooner—pooh! Pie for little Joey!”
“She's got three legs, and with a deck-load of lumber she's cranky and topheavy. I'm warning you, Joey. Remember he is a poor ship owner who doesn't know his own ship.”
Joey got up and went to a map laid out on a table, with a piece of plate glass over it, to compute the sailing distance from Gray's Harbor to Sobre Vista. He could not find Sobre Vista on the map.
“Figure the distance to Mollendo and you'll be close enough for all practical purposes,” Cappy called to him, and winked at the boy's father. “A little pep, here, boy,” he whispered to Gurney, “and we'll snare him yet.”
Joey came back from his study of the map.
“I'd have the nor'west trades clear to the Line,” he remarked to his father. “After that I'd be liable to bang round for a couple of weeks in the doldrums, but in spite of that—did you say I couldn't do it in six months, Mr. Ricks?”
“That's what I said, Joey.”
“Take the bet, dad,” said Joey quietly, “and I'll take half of it off your hands. I'll give you my note, secured by an assignment of a twenty-five-thousand-dollar interest in mother's estate to secure you in case Mr. Ricks should win and call you for his winnings—but he hasn't a chance in the world.”
“Money talks,” Cappy Ricks warned him and got out his check book. “Joe, I'll make a check in your favor for fifty thousand dollars and you make one in my favor for the same amount. We will then deposit both checks with the secretary of the club, who will act as stakeholder—”
“'Nuff said, Alden P. Ricks. I accept the dare. Sonny, if you're a worse sailor-man than you appear to be, you're liable to cost your father a sizable wad. However, I can't resist this opportunity to put a nick in the Ricks bank roll.” Gurney snickered. “Alden,” he declared, “you'll bleed for a month of Sundays. Really, this is too easy! For old sake's sake, I'll give you a chance to withdraw before it is too late.”
“Let the tail go with the hide, Joe. I don't often bet, but when I do I'm no piker. Joey, there's just one little condition I'm going to exact, however. I'm going to send one of my own skippers along with you on theTyee, because your license as master only permits you to skipper pleasure boats up to a hundred tons net register; so in order to comply with the law I'll have to have a sure-enough skipper aboard theTyee. But he shall have orders from me to be nothing but a companion to you, Joey. Once the tugboat casts you off, you are to be in supreme command until you voluntarily relinquish your authority, when of course he will take the ship off your hands. Any relinquishment of authority, however, will be tantamount to failure, and you will, of course, lose your twenty-five thousand.”
“That's a reasonable stipulation, godfather. I accept if father does—that is, provided dad lets me in on half the bet.”
“Better let the young feller in, Joe,” Cappy suggested. “If you don't he might throw the race.”
“Well, I don't like to encourage the habit of betting, least of all with my own son, but in view of the fact that this is a friendly little bet and—er—well, you can have half, Joey.”
“Thank you, sir,” said Joey. “Mr. Ricks, when do I start?”
Cappy Ricks glanced at his watch.
“The sooner the better,” he replied. “TheTyeeis loading now, but I'll wire them you're coming and to hold her for you. You have time to arrange your affairs, pack a trunk and catch the Lake Shore Limited for Chicago at five o'clock. From Chicago you take the—”
“Never mind. I know the quickest route. Dad, I'll need some money before I go.”
“How much, son?”
“Oh, a couple of thousand, just to play safe. And I'll have to leave you a batch of bills to settle for me.”
“All right, son, I'll settle them. Here's your two thousand. You can pay me back out of your winnings on the voyage. And never mind about your note or the assignment of an interest in your inheritance. If I cannot take my own son's word of honor I don't deserve a son. Just take care of yourself, Joey, because if anything should happen to you it would go rather hard with your old man.”
He wrote Joey a check for two thousand dollars and took an affectionate farewell of his son.
“Now listen to me, my dear young Hotspur,” Cappy Ricks commanded him as he shook Joey's hand in farewell. “The schooner's name isTyeeand you'll find her at the Ricks Lumber & Logging Company's mill dock in Aberdeen, on Gray's Harbor, Washington. And don't be afraid of her. She was built to weather anything. The skipper's name is Mike Murphy, and if you can't get along with Mike and learn to love him before you're in the ship a week, there's something wrong with you, Joey. Just don't start anything with Mike though, because he always finishes strong, and whatever he does is always right—with me. When you get out there he'll show you the orders I will have telegraphed him and you have my word of honor, boy, that there'll be no double-crossing and no interference unless you request it.”
“Right-o!” cried Joey, and was off to earn twenty-five thousand dollars of the easiest money he had ever heard of.
“Like spearing a fish in a bathtub,” murmured Cappy Ricks dreamily, and tore up the fifty-thousand-dollar check he had just written. “Joe, if your boy is such easy game for a pair of old duffers like us, just think what soft picking he must have been for that nimble-footed lady with the raven hair, the pearly teeth and the eyes that won't behave!”
“But she's coarse and brainless, Alden. I can't imagine a boy like my Joey falling in love with a woman like that. He ought to know better. Just remember how he was raised.”
“Fooey! Joey isn't in love. He only thinks he is, and the reason he thinks it is because she has told him so a hundred times. Can't you just see her looking up at Joey with her startled-fawn eyes and saying: 'Oh, you do love me, don't you, Joey?' As if the fact that Joey loved her constituted the eighth wonder of the world! And she's probably told Joey she'll die if he ever ceases to love her; and he's kind and obliging and wouldn't hurt a fly if he could avoid it. Why, Joe, you old idiot, you mustn't feel that Joey has disgraced himself. Isn't he planning to marry the woman? Only a decent man—a born idealist—could hold that designing woman in such reverence. Blamed if it isn't kind of sweet of the boy, although Iwouldlove to give him a kick that would jar all his relations—including his father!”
Old Joe Gurney gazed at Cappy in admiration.
“Alden,” he declared, “you have a singularly acute knowledge of women.”
“I employ about fifteen of 'em round my office; I had several narrow escapes in my youth; I have had a sweet and wonderful wife—and I have a replica of her in my daughter. And I do know young men, for I have been young myself; and I know old fools like you, Joe, because I've never had a son to make an old fool of myself over.”
“Well, now that you've hooked Joey for a six months' voyage, what's next on the program?” Gurney asked after a brief silence.
Cappy smiled—a prescient little smile.
“Why, I'm going to pull off a wedding,” he declared. “I'm going to marry Joey to the sweetest, nicest, healthiest, prettiest, brainiest little lady of twenty summers that ever threatened to put the Ricks organization on the toboggan. She's my private secretary and I've got to get rid of her or some of the young fellows in our office will be killing each other.”
“Here, here, Alden, my boy, go slow! I ought to be consulted in this matter. Who is this young lady and what are her antecedents?”
“Say, who's running this layout?” Cappy demanded. “Didn't you come to me squealing for help? Joe, take a back seat and let me try my hand without any advice from you. The girl's name is Doris Kenyon and she's an orphan. Her father used to be the general manager of my redwood mill on Humboldt Bay, and her mother was a girlhood friend of my late wife's; so naturally I've established a sort of protectorate over her. She has to work for a living, and any time there's a potentially fine, two-million-dollar husband like Joey lying round loose I like to see some deserving working girl land the cuss. As a matter of fact, it's almost a crime to steer her against Joey in his present state. But,” Cappy added, “I have a notion that before Joey gets rid of that hula-hula girl he's going to be a sadder, wiser and poorer young man than he is at present.”
“Your plan, then, is to give Joey six months away from his captor in order that he may forget her?”
“Exactly. Absence makes the heart grow colder in cases like the one under discussion, and the sea is a great place for a fellow to do some quiet, sane, uninterrupted thinking. The sea, at night particularly, is productive of much introspection and speculation on the various aspects of life, and in order to make Joey forget this vampire in a hurry all that is necessary is to have a real woman round him for a while. The first thing he knows he'll be making comparisons and the contrast will appall him.”
“You don't mean—”
“You bet I do. Joey's future wife accompanies him on the voyage, and my bully port captain, Mike Murphy, and his amiable sister go along to chaperone the party and make up a foursome at bridge. I've had a naval architect at work on the old cabin of theTyee, putting in some extra staterooms, bathrooms, and so on, and in order to make a space for the passengers I subsidized the two squarehead mates into berthing with the crew in the fo'-castle. Doris always did want to take a voyage in one of the Blue Star windjammers, and I had promised to send her at the first convenient opportunity.”
“You deep-dyed, nefarious old villain!”
“Old Cupid Ricks, eh? Well, it's lots of fun, Joe, this butting in on love's young dream. And I'm just so constituted I've got to run other people's affairs for them or I wouldn't be happy. I do think, however, that this house party on the oldTyeeis about the slickest deal I have ever put over. Joe, they're going to be right comfortable. I've shipped a maid for the girls, and the cook this time is several degrees superior to the average maritime specimen, for there's nothing like a couple of days of bum cooking to upset tempers—and I'm taking no chances. Also, just before I left I gave your future daughter-in-law her quarterly dividend—you see, when her father died I had to sort of look after the family, and I ran a bluff that Kenyon had some Ricks Lumber & Logging Company stock—you know, Joe. Proud stuff! I had to hornswoggle them. Well, as I say, I gave her the money, and my girl Florry went shopping with her. Sports clothes? Wow! Wow! White skirts, blue jersey, little sailor hat—man—oh, man, the stage is set to the last detail! I even had them ship a piano. Doris plays the guitar and has a pleasing voice, and just for good measure I threw in a crackajack cabinet phonograph and a hundred records with enough sentimental drip to sink the schooner.”
Joe Gurney stared at his old friend rather helplessly and shook his head. Such finesse was beyond his comprehension.
“You see, now,” Cappy continued, “the wisdom of my course? I insisted that you cut off Joey's allowance and get him hungry for money. You did—and he got hungry. He would have been posted at his clubs in thirty days; it is probable he owed a few bets here and there; his tailor may have needed money. Consequently, by the time I arrived on the scene he was ripe for any legitimate enterprise that would bring him in the needful funds; we arranged the enterprise and he promptly smothered it. Right off, Joe, your son said to himself: 'It will be almost a year before I come into my inheritance, and in the interim I'm going to get married, and a married man who lives on the scale my wife will expect me to assume is going to need a lot more money than a clerkship in his father's shipping office will bring him. Now, there's Tootsy-Wootsy out in Reno with a five months' sentence staring her in the eye before she'll be free to marry me, and I can't very well go out to Reno to visit her without running the risk of incurring my father's displeasure or the tongue of gossip. Consequently, I have five months' time to kill, also, and how better can I kill it than by a jolly sea voyage in a bally old lumber hooker? I can easily win twenty-five thousand dollars from my godfather, and that twenty-five thousand will carry us along until dad turns over my mother's estate to me. Fine business! I'll go to it.' And, Joe, he's done gone! Of course I'm going to win his twenty-five thousand bet because he doesn't know what it means to discharge a vessel in Sobre Vista, and Mike Murphy has orders from me to hire all the available stevedores there to do something else while Joey is trying to hire them to discharge theTyee. Don't worry, Joe! The country is safe in the capable hands of Mike Murphy.”
“I see. And the twenty-five thousand dollars you will win from Joey—”
“Will reimburse me for the extraordinary expense I've been to in saving your son. If Joey's end of the bet doesn't cover I'll nick you, Joseph, although I figure Joey's end of it will pay the fiddler. He won't miss it out of his two millions. Besides, I've noticed that the only experience worth while is the kind you pay real money for—and Joey has to buy his experience the same as the rest of us.”
Five days later Cappy Ricks dropped into the Red Funnel Line and laid a telegram on old Joe Gurney's desk.
“Read that,” he commanded, “and see if you can't work up a couple of cheers.”
Gurney read:
“Aberdeen, Wash., June 3, 1916
“Alden P. Ricks
“Waldorf-Astoria Hotel, New York
“Joey arrived bung up and bilge free. Had loaded and hauled into stream, waiting for him. Came out in launch, climbed Jacob's ladder and stood on rail, sizing up ship. Saw Doris and almost fell face down on deck. He says Doris is a dream, she says Joey is a dear. Take it from me, boss, it is all over but the wedding bells.
Old Joe Gurney took Cappy Ricks' hand in both of his and shook it heartily.
“My worries are over, Alden,” he declared. “You have, indeed, been my friend in need.”
“My troubles and Joey's are just commencing, however,” Cappy retorted blithely. “However—'never trouble trouble until trouble troubles you' is my motto. Where's that hundred-and-six-foot schooner yacht of Joey's?”
“She's at her moorings in Greenpoint Basin. Why?”
“I want to borrow her for a cruise to San Francisco, via the Panama Canal. Joey and his bride can sail her back. May I have her, to do what I please with, Joe?”
“Alden, don't ask foolish questions. Take her and God bless you! Joey owns her, but I pay the bills; so her skipper takes orders from me.”
Two days later Joey's schoonerSeafarerwas standing out to sea past Sandy Hook, but Cappy Ricks was not aboard her, for that ingenious schemer had boarded a train and gone back to San Francisco and his lumber and ships.
Cappy Ricks' meditations were interrupted by a knock at the door of his private office.
“Come in,” he piped, and his son-in-law, Captain Matt Peasley, stuck his head in.
“TheTyeeis sailing in, Cappy,” he announced. “The Merchants' Exchange has just telephoned.”
“It's an infernal lie,” Cappy shrilled excitedly. “It can't be theTyee. If it is, she's two months ahead of her schedule, and by the Holy Pink-Toed Prophet, I fixed up that schedule myself.”
Matt Peasley grinned.
“Perhaps Joey didn't like your schedule and re-arranged it to suit himself,” he suggested.
“Impossible! That infernal young scoundrel put it over me? Preposterous! Why, Mike Murphy was on the job. Get out, Matt, and don't come in here again today throwing scares into the old man.”
Nevertheless, Cappy's confidence in human nature was badly jarred when Captain Michael J. Murphy was announced two hours later. Indeed Cappy could scarcely credit his sense of sight when the redoubtable Michael entered the room. He glared at the worthy fellow over the rims of his spectacles for fully a minute while Murphy stood fidgeting just inside the doorway.
“Well,” said the Blue Star despot presently, “all I've got to say to you, Mike Murphy, is that you're certainly a hell of a seaman to stand idly by and see that young Joey do me up like this. Give an account of yourself!”
“They're engaged,” Murphy protested valiantly.
“That's my work, Mike, not yours. Don't take any credit that isn't coming to you. I want a report on your end of this deal. How does it happen that this boy harpoons me for twenty-five thousand dollars? Have thecargadoresat Sobre Vista gone on the water wagon? Did Joey out-bid you for their services? Have they added a lot more lighters to their lighterage fleet? Has the surf quit rolling in on the beach? Have the inhabitants of Sobre Vista been converted to the Mohammedan faith and declined to celebrate saints' days and holy days? Is there smallpox in the town, that the quietus has been put on fiestas and fandangoes, and has Peru been annexed by Chile and the celebration of the national holidays forbidden?”
“No, Mr. Ricks. It's the same oldmananaburg. The trouble was that Joey is a better sailorman than he appeared to be. He cracked on all the way down and made a smashing voyage, and, of course, as soon as we got there he went ashore. Two other schooners were there ahead of us. One was loading general cargo and the other was discharging it, and when Joey heard they had been there a month he investigated conditions and saw where you had him. Mr. Ricks, he came back as mad as a hatter. Of course I saw he would have to wait until the other schooners were out of the way before he could begin discharging, because they had first call on the lighters; so in view of the situation and the fact that Miss Murphy and Doris were a bit tired of the ship and wanted to go ashore and see the back country, I organized a trip for them.”
“You left Joey aboard the Tyee, of course.”
“Yes, sir. And there's where I made my fatal break. The minute my back was turned the son of a pirate got busy. It appears there was a six-inch waste pipe leading from the crew's lavatory out under the stern of the ship, and this pipe had rusted away and broken off at the flange just inside the skin of the ship sometime during the vessel's previous voyage. Of course it happened while she was homeward bound in ballast, and was standing so high out of the water that this vent where the pipe was broken was above the waterline; consequently not enough of a leak developed to be noticeable. At the mill dock, however, after we got her under-deck cargo aboard, the vessel had settled until this vent was under water, and immediately she developed a mysterious leak. In fact, due to the enormous pressure, the water came in faster than the pumps could handle it. Fortunately, however, we discovered where the leak was, though it was then too late to mend it. To do so we would have had to take out the under-deck cargo again. So I just whittled out a six-inch wooden plug, fastened it to the end of the boat hook, ran it down the narrow space through which the broken pipe led, found the vent, hammered the plug home, stopped the leak, pumped out the well, finished taking on cargo and sailed for Sobre Vista.”
“A small leak will sink a great ship,” Cappy Ricks murmured. “I think I anticipate the blow-off, Mike; but proceed.”
“Unfortunately for us that cargo of lumber we had was for the Peruvian government. They were going to use it in the construction of barracks or a new customhouse or something—and Joey knew this. And he knew about that plug. So the minute my back was turned he pulled out the plug and the water came in and trickled all through the cargo and the ship commenced to settle. But Joey didn't care. He knew a little salt water couldn't hurt the lumber. When the top of theTyee'srail was flush with the water he plugged the hole again, got his crew busy with the pumps, and by judiciously plugging and unplugging that leak he kept the crew pumping all day and all night without raising the vessel an inch, and the people ashore could see the streams of water cascading overside and the crew pumping like mad. And presently Joey gave up, went ashore, sought the captain of the port and put up a hard luck story about a leak in his ship—a leak he couldn't find anywhere—a leak that was getting away from him, because his men were too exhausted to do any more pumping. And he said his ship would get water-logged and settle until the surf began to break over her. And presently the deck lashings would part under the battering of the surf and the deck load would go by the board. Half of it would drift out to sea, and the other half would pound on the beach and get filled with sand, which would dull the saws and planes of the carpenters when they came to cut it up. Also, the ship's cabin would be sure to go, and unless he had help he would have to abandon the vessel and she would lie there, submerged, at anchor, a menace to the navigation of the port.”
“The scoundrel! The in-fer-nal young scoundrel!” cried Cappy Ricks.
“Well, he got away with it, sir. Remember our cargo was for the Peruvian government and they'd had the devil's own time getting it; consequently they couldn't afford to lose any part of it and have their anchorage ground menaced by a derelict. So the captain of the port took it up with the commandant of the local garrison, and the commandant, as Joey expressed it, heard the Macedonian cry and got busy. He commandeered all the lighters the other schooners were using; the soldiers rounded up thecargadoresat the point of the bayonet, and they started discharging the American schoonerTyee, with the spiggoty soldiers swelling Joey's crew at the pumps and Joey doing business with that wooden plug according to the requirements. Fortunately there weren't any surf days that week, and the way the cargo poured out of theTyeewas a shame and a disgrace. And when it was all out Joey plugged the leak again, pumped out the ship, and wired me at Mollendo to hurry back with the ladies or he'd sail without me. So you can see for yourself, Mr. Ricks, it was a hard hand to beat. And his luck held. He cracked on all the way home and, as you know, sir, theTyeeis fast in a breeze of wind, and you told me not to interfere unless he asked me to.”
Despite his disappointment Cappy Ricks lay back in his chair and laughed until he wept.
“Oh, Mike,” he declared, “it's worth twenty-five thousand dollars to know a boy who can pull one like that. What do you think of him, anyhow?”
“He'll do. His father has spoiled him, but not altogether. I think a heap of him, sir. Remember I've been shipmates with him a trifle over four months, and that's a pretty good test.”
“Very well, Mike. I forgive you, my boy. I hope Miss Murphy enjoyed the trip. Tell her—”
The door opened and Joey Gurney, accompanied by Miss Doris Kenyon entered unannounced.
“Hello, godfather,” yelled Joey joyously. He jerked the old man out of his chair and hugged him. “I'm back with your schooner, sir. She was easy to navigate, but that was a cold deck you handed me in Sobre Vista—”
“Glad to see you, Joey, glad to see you,” Cappy interrupted. “Ah, and here's my little secretary again. Miss Kenyon, this is a pleasure—”
“Mr. Ricks,” Joey interrupted him, “the lady's name is no longer Miss Kenyon. She is now Mrs. Joseph K. Gurney, Junior. The minute we got ashore at Meiggs' wharf and could shake the Murphys, who stood out till the last for a church wedding, we chartered a taxicab, went up to the City Hall, procured a license, rounded up a preacher—and got married. What do you know about that?”
“You're as fast as a second-story worker, Joey. I shall kiss the bride.” And Cappy did. Then he sat down and stared at the fruit of his cunning labors.
“Well, well, well!” cried Joey. “Kick in, godfather, kick in. You owe me twenty-five thousand dollars, and if I'm going to support a wife I'll need it.”
Cappy summoned Mr. Skinner, who felicitated the happy pair and departed pursuant to Cappy's order, to make out a check for Joey.
“And now,” said Cappy, as he handed the groom his winnings, “you get out of here with your bride, Joey, and I'll telephone Florry and we'll organize a wedding supper. And to-morrow morning, Joey, I'd like to see you at ten o'clock, if you can manage to be here.”
Joey promised, and hastened away with his bride.
True to his word he presented himself in Cappy's lair promptly at ten next morning. The old gentleman was sitting rigidly erect on the extreme edge of his chair; in his hand he held a typewritten statement with a column of figures on it, and he eyed Joey very appraisingly over the rims of his spectacles.
“My boy,” he said solemnly, “sit down. I'm awfully glad you cabled that hula-hula girl of yours in Reno that the stuff was all off.”
Joey's mouth flew open.
“Why—why, how did you know?” he gasped.
“I know everything, Joey. I'm that kind of an old man.”
Joey paled.
“Oh, Mr. Ricks,” he pleaded, “for heaven's sake don't let a whisper of that affair reach my wife.” He wrung his hands. “I told her she was the only girl I had ever loved—that I'd never been engaged before—that I—oh, godfather, if she ever discovers I've lied to her—”
“She'll not discover it. Compose yourself, Joey. I've seen to all that. I knew you'd give Doris the same old song and dance; everybody's doing it, you know, so I took pains to see to it that you'll never have to eat your words.”
“I must have been crazy to engage myself to that woman,” Joey wailed. “I don't know why I did it—I don't know how it happened—Oh, Mr. Ricks, please believe me!”
“I do, Joey, I do. I understand perfectly, because at the tender age of twenty-four I proposed marriage to a snake-charmer lady in the old Eden Musee. She was forty years old if she was a day, but she carried her years well and hid the wrinkles with putty, or something. Barring a slight hare-lip, she was a fairly handsome woman—in the dark.” He reached into a compartment of his desk and drew forth a package of letters tied with red ribbon. “You can have these, Joey,” he announced; “only I shouldn't advise keeping them where your wife may find them. They are your letters to your Honolulu lady.”
Joey let out a bleat of pure ecstacy and seized them.
“You haven't read them, sir, have you?” he queried, blushing desperately.
“Oh, yes, my boy. I had to, you know, because I was buying something and I wanted to make certain I got value received. Pretty gooey stuff, Joey! Read aloud, they sound like a cow's hoof settling into a wet meadow!”
“I'm so glad she took it sensibly,” Joey announced, for he was anxious to change the topic of conversation. “I suppose she saw it was the only way.”
“No, she didn't, my son. Don't flatter yourself. On your way out West to join theTyeeyou wrote her every day on the train. You told her about your bet with me, and who I was and all about me. Lucky for you that you did, and doubly lucky for you that you cabled her the jilt from Sobre Vista, or she would not have come to me with her troubles. Joey, that must have taken courage on your part. It's mighty hard for a gentleman to cable a lady and break an engagement. That's the lady's privilege, Joey.”
“I—I was desperate, Mr. Ricks. I had to. I had to have her out of the way by the time I got back, or Doris might have found it out. You see, I wanted to clear the atmosphere.”
“Well, you clouded it for fair! You see, Joey, in all those letters it appears that you never once mentioned the words marriage or engagement. But your cablegram was an admission that an engagement existed, and the lady was smart enough to realize that. It appears also that about a week after you cleared for Sobre Vista her annoying husband was killed by a taxicab in New York, so that saved her any divorce proceedings; and when your cablegram reached her she was a single lady who had been heartlessly jilted. The first thing she did was to hire a lawyer, and the first person that lawyer called on was Alden P. Ricks, the old family friend. It appears a suit for breach of promise was to be instituted unless a fairly satisfactory financial settlement could be arrived at.”
“How much did she want?” Joey barely whispered the words.
“Only a million.”
“How much did you settle for? I'll pay it out of my inheritance, Mr. Ricks. Don't worry! I won't see you stuck, for you've stood by me through thick and thin.”
“Why, I didn't give her anything, Joey. I just had her lawyer bring her on to San Francisco for a conference. Of course when lunch time came round and I hadn't heard any proposition I felt I could submit to your father, I invited Miss Fontaine and her lawyer to luncheon with me in the Palace Hotel Grill, and while we were lunching, who should come up and greet me but my old friend, the Duke of Killiekrankie, formerly Duncan MacGregor, first mate of our barkentineRetriever. Mac is an excellent fellow and for some time I had felt he merited promotion. So I made him a duke.
“Well, the duke was awfully glad to see me, and being a gentleman I couldn't do less than introduce him to the lady and her lawyer. He only stayed at our table a minute and then rejoined his friends, but all during the meal I could see Betsy Jane's mind wasn't on her breach-of-promise suit. She asked me several questions about the duke, and I told her I didn't know much about him except that he was sinfully rich and a globe-trotter, and that we'd met in Paris. Lies, Joey, but pardonable, I hope, under the circumstances.
“Well, Joey, it seems that she and the duke were registered at the same hotel and I'll be shot if his lordship didn't meet her—by accident, of course—in the lobby that afternoon. He lifted his hat and she smiled and they had a chat. The next day she cut an engagement with her lawyer and me to go motoring with the duke in my French car, and Florry's chauffeur driving, for, of course, the duke was an expensive luxury and I was trying to save a dollar wherever possible. That night the duke gave a dinner party in honor of the lady—and he gave it aboard his yacht, theDoris, formerly theSeafarer, right out here in San Francisco harbor—”
Joey went up and put his arm round Cappy's shoulders.
“Oh, Cappy Ricks, Cappy Ricks!” he cried, and then his voice broke and his eyes filled with tears.
“Yes,” Cappy continued, “I had sort o' suspected she might pull that breach-of-promise stuff on you, Joey—”
“What made you suspect it?”
“Why, I sort of suspected you were going to marry Doris Kenyon—”
“You planned to get us together on the same ship—!”
“Only place I could think of where you were safe from the Honolulu lady and couldn't run away from Doris, Joey. Well, as I say, I had sort of suspected she might sue you and disgrace you and break the heart of that little girl I'd picked out for you long before you ever met her—so I started to get there first and with the heaviest guns, I borrowed your yacht for the duke and had him sail her round himself, so he'd have her here to give the dinner party on. Then I got a Burke's peerage and told MacGregor who he was and had him study up on his family history and get acquainted with his sister, Lady Mary, and his younger brother, the Honorable Cecil Something-or-other—in particular he was not to forget to rave about the grouse shooting in Scotland.”
Cappy paused and puffed his cigar meditatively for half a minute.
“Joey,” he continued, “any time you run a bluff, run a good one. If you're starring a globe-trotting duke, have his ancestry all straightened out in advance, because he's bound to break into the newspapers and the motto of the newspaper editor is 'Show me.' And the yacht—just one of the props of the comedy, Joey; and with a little cockney steward in livery to say 'Your ludship'; and the name of the yacht changed in case she'd ever heard you speak about theSeafarer;and the cabin done over in white enamel with mahogany trim; and a new set of dishes with your family crest and the name of the yacht on every piece in case you had ever had her aboard; and a private secretary—borrowed him from my general manager, Skinner, by the way—we were certainly there when it came to throwing the ducal front. And we got away with it, for MacGregor's accent is just Scotchy enough, and he comes of good family and has excellent manners. Yes, I must say Mac made a very comfortable duke. Skinner's young man tells me it would bring tears of joy to your eyes to see him kiss the lady's hand.
“Well, Joey, the upshot of it was that after paying violent court to the lady for two weeks—Mac said he could have pulled the stunt the night of the dinner, for she fell for the title right way, but I told him to make haste slowly—the duke received a cablegram calling him home from his furlough. Oh, yes, Joey, I had him in the army. Any young unattached duke that doesn't join the British army these days doesn't get by in good society, and I had my duke on a six months' furlough to recover from his wounds. Fortunately a bunch of cedar shingles had fallen on Mac's foot recently and he was dog lame, which strengthened the play.
“Of course the duke was up in the air right away. In a passionate scene he confessed his love for that damsel of yours, Joey, and laid his dukedom at her feet. Would she marry him P. D. Q. and help him sail the yacht home? Would she? 'Oh, darling, this is so sudden!' she cried, and almost swooned in his arms. From a cabaret to a dukedom. Some jump! Sail the yacht home to England through the mine fields and submarines? Perfectly ripping, by Jove! I give you my word, Joey, she tacked on one of those New York British accents for the duke's special benefit. There was a lot of beam to hera's, Mac told me, but blamed little molded depth to her mentality. So they were married in haste, and after the duke had seen his bride in the elevator bound for their rooms at the hotel, he excused himself to get a highball. And I guess he got the highball, because I find it in this expense account he turned in to me.”
“It sounds like a fairy tale,” Joey murmured in an awed voice. “What did the duke do next?”
“Came right down to this office and informed me he was, plumb weary of the life of a bon vivant and was anxious to get to sea again. So I made him master of a new steamer we acquired recently, and he's gone out to Vladivostok with munitions for the Russians.”
“But didn't you give him some money, Mr. Ricks?”
“No. Why should I? Didn't I give him command of a steamer? You can slip him a fat check if you feel that way about it, but I never coddle my skippers, Joey, until I'm sure they're worth while. I think, however, that Mac will make good. He's very thorough.”
“Wha—what became of Ernestine?”
“Oh, by Godfrey, that's a sad story, Joey. It seems she waited at the hotel for the duke to come back and he didn't come, so the following morning she went down to the water front looking for the yacht—and the yacht was gone. During the night I'd had it towed over to Sausalito; consequently the launchman she hired couldn't find it down in Mission Bay, and back to the beach she came. After a couple of days had passed, however, she commenced to smell a rat, so she came down to my office and asked me if I'd seen anything of the duke.
“'Why, yes, I have,' I told her. 'The old duke came in here yesterday afternoon, soused to the guards, and complaining he'd been cruelly deceived into marrying a two-time loser with a couple of youngsters, and inasmuch as he was certain the family wouldn't receive her he was leaving the United States immediately, never to return.
“'And this morning the justice of the peace who performed the ceremony mailed him the license, which has been duly recorded in the office of the Secretary of State in accordance with law; and inasmuch as the license was sent to him in my care I am holding it in our safe until he calls for it.'
“Well, Joey, she looked at me and she knew the stuff was all off. She'd married the duke; I had the license to prove it, and of course she realized her breach of promise suit and claim for a million dollars' worth of heart balm would be laughed out of court if she had the crust to present it. So she did the next best thing. She abused me like a pickpocket and ended up by getting hysterical when I told her how I'd swindled her. When she got through crying I lectured her on the error of her ways and suggested that inasmuch as she had had one divorce already, another wouldn't be much of a strain on her, and I'd foot the bill for separating her legally from John Doe, alias the duke, on a charge of desertion. Then I offered her a thousand dollars and a ticket back to New York for the surrender of all your letters to her and that infernal cablegram and a release of all claims against you. I guess she was broke for she grabbed it in a hurry, Joey. The atmosphere is now clear, my son, and nothing further remains to be done in the premises, save settle the bill of expense. Fortunately theTyeemade money on that fast voyage under your command, but the cost of bringing the yacht round from New York, doing over the cabin, buying the new dishes with the crest, and settling with the lady should rightfully be borne by you. As I say, the duke was expensive, for the rascal certainly rolled 'em high. Skinner has made me up a statement of the total cost, with interest at six per cent to date, and it appears, Joey, that you owe your godfather $12,143.18. On the day you come into your inheritance, add six per cent to that sum and send me a check.”
“But the twenty-five thousand dollars I won from you—” Joey began, but Cappy held up a rigid finger, enjoining silence.
“I am going to stick your dub of a father for that, as a penance for his sins of omission, Joey; for by the Holy Pink-Toed Prophet, if ever a boy won a bet and was entitled to it, you're that young man. In-fer-nal young scoundrel! Keep it and split fifty-fifty with your wife. You won a straight bet from a crooked gambler, and if I haven't had a million dollars' worth of fun out of this transaction I hope I may marry a hula-hula woman—and I've passed my three score and ten and ought to know better!”
“But about this man MacGregor—”
“Don't worry about him. The Scotch are a hardy race and Mac is a sailor. Joey, I know sailors. The scoundrels have a wife in every port!”