When theRetrieverwas out from Manila seventy days Cappy Ricks remarked to Mr. Skinner that Matt would be breezing in most any day now. On the eightieth day he remarked to Mr. Skinner that Matt was coming home a deal slower than he had gone out. The efficient Skinner, however, cited so many instances of longer passages from Manila to San Francisco that Cappy was comforted, although he was not convinced. “You make me a type-written list of all those vessels and their passages, Skinner,” he cautioned; “and when you can't think of any more authentic cases fake up a few. Florry's beginning to worry. She knows now what it means to be a sailor's wife, and if that doggoned Matt doesn't report soon 111 know what it means to be a sailor's father-in-law. I wish to Jimminy I hadn't sent Matt out with theRetriever.”
Ninety days passed. Cappy commenced to fidget. A hundred days passed, and Cappy visited the hydrographic office and spent a long time poring over charts of the air currents in the China Sea, along the coast of Asia and in the North Pacific.
“Skinner, my dear boy,” he quavered when he returned to the office; “I'm a most unhappy old man.”
Mr. Skinner forgot for an instant that he was a business man and, with a sudden, impulsive movement, he put his long, thin arm round the old man and squeezed him.
“If you didn't think so much of him, sir,” he comforted Cappy, “you'd worry less. She really will not be overdue until she's out a hundred and twenty days.”
“Skinner,” Cappy piped wearily, “don't try to deceive me. I've been in the shipping game for forty-odd years, boy. I know it's about six thousand miles from San Francisco to Manila, and if a vessel averages ninety miles a day she's making a smart passage. Matt made it down in sixty-six days, and he ought to come back in sixty, because he has fair winds all the way. Skinner, the boy's a month overdue; and if he never shows up—if he stays out much longer—Florry'll break her heart; and my grandson—think of it, Skinner!—think of the prenatal effect on the child! Oh, Skinner, my dear, dear boy, I want him big and light-hearted and sunny-souled like Matt—and to think this is all my doing—my own daughter! Oh! Oh, Skinner, my heart is breaking!”
Mr. Skinner fled to his own office and did something most un-Skinner-like. He blinked away several large bright tears; and while he was blinking them the telephone bell rang. Mechanically Mr. Skinner answered. It was Jerry Dooley, in charge of the Merchants' Exchange.
“Mr. Skinner,” said Jerry, “I've got some bad news for you.”
“The-the-Retriever—” Skinner almost whispered.
“Yes, sir. I thought I'd tell you first, so you could break it to the old man gently. The Grace linerEcudorianarrived at Victoria this morning and reports speaking theRetrievereight hundred miles off the coast of Formosa. The vessel was under jib, lower topsail, foretopmast staysail, mainsail and spanker. She was flying two flags—an inverted ensign and the yellow quarantine flag. TheEcudoriansteamed close alongside of her, to windward. Captain Peasley was at the wheel—”
“Thank God!” Mr. Skinner almost sobbed. “What was wrong with her, Jerry? Hurry up, man! Hurry up! Tell me!”
“He was alone on the ship, Mr. Skinner. Bubonic plague! Killed the entire crew! Matt was the only man immune, and he's sailing theRetrieverhome alone!”
Mr. Skinner groaned.
“Good gracious Providence! Why didn't theEcudoriantake him off?”
“Credit them with offering it,” Jerry replied. “He wouldn't come. He declined to jeopardize the people aboard the steamer and he wouldn't abandon theRetrieverwith her full cargo; so what could they do? They had to sail away without him.”
Gently Mr. Skinner broke the news to Cappy Ricks; for, of course, the United Press dispatches had carried it to the later afternoon editions and it would be useless for Mr. Skinner to attempt to lie kindly. Cappy, with bowed head, heard him through; when finally he looked up at Skinner his eyes were dead.
“Quite what I expected of him, Skinner,” he said dully. “And I'd rather have him die than dog it! This report from theEcudorianhelps some, Skinner. It will do to keep hope alive in my Florry—and every two weeks until the boy is born we'll—we'll—Oh, Skinner—”
“Yes, sir; I'll attend to it. Leave everything to me, Mr. Ricks. I'll have wireless reports and telegrams and cablegrams from every port on earth telling of ships having spoken theRetriever, with the skipper well and hearty, and sending messages of good cheer to his wife.”
“You—you won't be—er—stingy, Skinner? You'll send out theTillicumto find him and tow him in, won't you? And you'll have real telegrams—spend money, Skinner! I'll have to bring those messages home to Florry—”
“Everything, Mr. Ricks. And I'll start right in by slipping fifty dollars to each of the waterfront reporters on all the papers. They're good boys, Mr. Ricks. I'll tell them why I have to have the service. Mrs. Peasley must have our fake reports confirmed in the papers—”
“For work like that the marine reporters should have more money,” Cappy suggested wearily. His old hand reached out gropingly, closed over Mr. Skinner's and held it a moment childishly. “You're a very great comfort to me, Skinner—very great indeed! And you'll come home with me to-night, won't you, Skinner? I'm a little afraid—I want you near me, Skinner—in case I can't get away with it to Florry.”
His dry, dead eyes studied the pattern in the office carpet.
“Two mates, a cook and ten A. B.'s!” he murmured presently. “One man, even a Matt Peasley, cannot do the work of thirteen men. No, Skinner; it isn't done. One man simply cannot sail a barkentine.”
But Mr. Skinner was not listening. He was on the long-distance phone calling the master of theTillicum, just about finishing discharge of a cargo of nitrate at San Pedro. And presently Cappy heard him speaking:
“Mr. Ricks, listen! Grant, of theTillicum, says Matt would go up the China Sea on the southwest monsoon... Yes, captain. You say—ah, yes; quite so... Grant says he'd edge over until he got into the Japan Stream, and that would add a knot or two an hour to his speed... Yes, Grant. Speak up! ... Grant says, Mr. Ricks, that about the middle of September or the first of October Matt would run out of the southwest monsoon into the northeast monsoon—that's it, Grant, isn't it? He'd get them about off Formosa, eh?... Yes, Grant. Then he'd run into the prevailing westerly winds and run north on a great circle about five hundred miles below the Aleutian Islands—I see, Grant. All right! Fill your oil tanks and take an extra supply on deck, head into the North Pacific... Yes; use your own judgment, of course. Mine's no good... Yes; and bring a lot of disinfectants and a doctor, so it'll be safe to put a few men aboard when you find her and put your hawser on her ... Yes, Grant. If you find her you'll not have reason to regret it. Good-bye! Good luck!”
“While theTillicumis on this wild-goose chase, Skinner,” Cappy said wearily, “she is chartered by the Blue Star Navigation Company to Alden P. Ricks personally, at the prevailing rates. The stockholders mustn't pay for my fancies, Skinner. You'll see to that, won't you?”
Excerpt from the log of Captain Matt Peasley relief skipper of the American barkentine Retriever; Manila to San Francisco.
May Third.—Seaman Olaf Lindstrom died to-day, following an illness of thirty-six hours. He was taken with chills and fever on the morning of the second, complained of a severe headache and vomited repeatedly. Removed him from the forecastle to a spare room in the forward house, which on theRetrieverhas always been used as a sick bay. While being supported along the deck he collapsed, and when the mate undressed him and put him to bed he complained of soreness in his groins. I examined them and found them slightly swollen. Treated him for ague—calomel, salts, quinine and whisky, and one-fortieth-grain strychnine hypodermic solution to keep up his heart action when the fever registered one hundred and four and higher. He grew steadily worse. Could not find anything in my Home Book of Medicine that exactly described his symptoms, and was at a loss to diagnose Lindstrom's case until I discovered the ship's cat with a rat it had just killed.
There were no rats aboard theRetrieverwhen she left San Francisco. I recalled that the first night we tied up to the dock in Manila a dirty little China Coast tramp lay just ahead of us; and as I passed her on my way uptown I saw a rat run down her gangplank. She had rat-guards on her mooring lines. We had just tied up to the dock and I returned immediately and instructed the mate to be sure to put the rat-guards on our mooring lines, and not to use any sort of gangplank. When I returned to the vessel later that night I found that the mate had neglected to put on the rat-guards and logged him for it. Before we left the dock a Chinaman died of bubonic plague aboard that tramp, and the port health authorities put the vessel in quarantine immediately and prevented further spread of the disease.
When I saw the ship's cat with a rat, therefore, I knew we had some of that rotten China Coaster's plague rats aboard. Accordingly threw cat and rat overboard just as the cook announced Lindstrom's death. Upon looking up the information on plague, I am now convinced we have it aboard—that Linstrom died of it. First Mate Olaf Matson wrapped himself in my old bathrobe, gloved his hands and threw Lindstrom's body overboard, following it with the gloves and bathrobe.
I am, in a measure, prepared for plague. When I learned we had lain close to a vessel with a case of plague aboard I laid in some plague medicine, on general principles and just to have an anchor out to windward. At the English drug store on the Escolta I bought a tiny bottle of Yersin's Antipest Serum and another of Haffkine's Prophylactic Fluid. It was all they had on hand and it wasn't much; but—it is enough to save me—and I intend to be saved if possible. I cannot afford to die now. I do not know how old the Haffkine's Fluid is; and the older it is, the longer it takes to render one immune. The antipest serum will render me immune immediately, but the duration of the immunity thus granted lasts, at the most, only fifteen days. I must, therefore, first take a hypodermic injection of antipest serum to render me immune immediately and the next day follow with an injection of Haffkine's Fluid, which gives permanent immunity, but not for a week or longer when used alone.
There is this devilish thing about it to be considered, however: I may at this moment be inoculated with plague, for the period of incubation is from three to seven days—and I've fondled that cat every day since we left Manila. If I am already infected and do not know it, and while in that condition take an injection of the antipest serum, the book says the serum will immediately bring on a fatal and virulent attack of the plague! On the other hand, if I am not inoculated and take the antipest serum I am safe.
The question before the house, therefore, is: Shall I take it or shall I not? And if I do take it shall I be saving my life or committing suicide? I am like the fellow in the story who was forced to drink from one of two glasses of wine. He knew one of them contained poison, but he didn't know which one it was! I shall make my will and flip a coin to decide the issue.
May Fourth.—Two a.m. Mate reports another sick man in the forecastle. Wish I had some formaldehyde gas. Have told mate to sprinkle chloride of lime in Lindstrom's bunk and to dust the walls and floors of the forecastle and sick bay with it. That is the only disinfectant I have aboard in quantity.
At midnight I flipped the coin—heads I'd take it; tails I wouldn't. The coin fell heads—and I took it.
Four a.m.—Mustered the crew and gave them a lecture on bubonic plague. I have sufficient antipest serum for four men. After explaining that it was Hobson's choice, I asked the men to draw matches, held in the hand of the first mate, to see who should be the lucky ones. They all decided to take a chance and go without it, with the exception of two seamen and the mates, who, learning that I had taken it, decided to follow suit. Accordingly I inoculated them with the antipest serum.
Five p.m.—Inoculated myself with Haffkine's Fluid.
Seven-thirty.—Seaman Ross died. Mr. Matson threw the body overboard. No services.
Midnight.—Mr. Matson is down with it.
May Fifth.—Mr. Matson very ill and delirious. Cook moping round like a drunken man; complains of severe headache. Wind blowing lightly from south-west. Everything set. Inoculated second mate and the two seamen with Haffkine's.
May Sixth.—Mr. Matson died at noon today. Cook down with it; also another seaman, and Mr. Eccles, the second mate. Have altered ship's course and am running for Hongkong. Winds light and baffling. Have not made thirty miles today. Calm at midnight. Mr. Eccles died just as the watches were being changed. I now feel that I have escaped; so examined Mr. Eccles' body. He went so fast I am curious. No swelling of the glands at all. Am inclined to think his was pneumonic or septicaemic. Threw him overboard myself.
May Seventh.—Light and baffling airs all day; monsoon blowing in weak puffs. Another seaman ill. So ends this day.
May Eighth.—Cook died at noon. No buboes on him either. He turned kind of black. I was chief undertaker. No airs to speak of. Ship barely making steerage way. So ends this day.
May Ninth.—Seaman Peterson died early this morning. Do not know exact hour. Found him dead in his berth. Another funeral; no services. Monsoon freshening. Made forty-eight miles today. Two more seamen on sick report; and, to add to my worries, they are the very two I inoculated with the antipest serum and Haffkine's. Is this stuff worthless?
May Tenth.—Seamen Halloran and Kaiser died within an hour of each other this evening—Halloran at nine-thirty and Kaiser at ten-eighteen. Put both bodies overboard immediately.
I have four seamen left, and am doing the cooking, navigating, nursing and undertaking. Wind freshening hourly. Made seventy-two miles today. Glad Florry and Cappy Ricks cannot see me now, although, for some fool reason, I have a notion I shall see them again. If I were going to get plague it would have developed before now. I feel quite safe, but most unhappy and worried.
Midnight.—Seaman Anderson down with it. Jumped overboard to save me the bother of throwing him overboard about the day after to-morrow, which is a courtesy I did not expect of Anderson. I am obliged to him. I am exhausted and so are my three remaining seamen. We cannot handle the canvas now, so have taken in the foresail, royals, and topgallant sails, hauled down the flying jib and got the gaff topsail off her, leaving her under the jib, fore-topmast staysail, upper and lower fore-topsails, main-topmast staysail, mainsail and spanker. Hove her to and turned in.
May Eleventh.—After a horrible breakfast, which I cooked, got under way again. Monsoon blowing nicely, but under the small amount of canvas I am forced to carry cannot make more than six miles an hour. Have decided not to run to Hongkong. If I am to lose my three remaining seamen I shall have lost them long before I sight land, and the tug or steamer that hooks on to me off Hongkong will stick me with a terrific salvage bill. If I'm going to be stuck I prefer to be stuck closer to home, and if I manage to keep these three men the four of us can sail her home. I'll take a chance and run up the coast of Asia with the Japan Stream until I reach the northeast monsoon. I'm certain to be spoken and can send word to Florry. In a pinch, at this season of the year, I can sail her home alone.
May Fifteenth.—I am alone on the ship. Into the Japan Stream, monsoon blowing the sweetest it ever blew. Lucky thing for me I had the forethought to trim her down; otherwise I should have had to cut away a lot of canvas. And how Cappy Ricks would scream at the sail bill later on! We were hove to overnight when Borden and Jacobsen died, on the thirteenth. McBain complained of a headache and vertigo on the morning of the fourteenth; so I laid to until he died, last night. I was not with him when he passed. What good would it have done? I had breakfast; and after breakfast I found him in his berth, dead. I tossed him overboard, and every last rag of clothing, dunnage and blankets aboard, with the exception of those in my own cabin. Then I burned sulphur in the fore-castle, the galley, the cook's room and the stateroom formerly occupied by the mates, closed the doors, and hoped for the best. Slept a lot that day and night; and at eight this morning slacked off my spanker and main sheets, checked in my foreyard and topsail by taking the the braces to the donkey engine, and was off for home.
Have established my commissary in the lee of the wheel box. Set up a small kerosene stove I found in the storeroom, and get along nicely. It is quite an art to fry eggs with one hand and steady the wheel with the other, but I managed it three times today. To-morrow I will cook enough at breakfast to last me for luncheon and supper; hence will only have to heat some coffee.
Logged fifty-one miles by eight o'clock; then lashed the wheel and let her take care of herself while I got steam up in the donkey and hauled in my spanker and mainsail; then I slacked off my foreyard and topsail yards, hove her to on the port tack, hung three red lights on the forestay to show she wasn't under command, set my alarm clock and turned in. I have to smile at the ease with which one man—provided he is a sizable man and able to stand strain—can sail a barkentine before the wind in fair weather. I am not worried. I am not going to have bubonic plague. It is horribly lonely, but I am due for fair winds—and I should worry.
Even if I should get a blow and have to take the lower topsail off her, I can lower the yard by the topsail halyards until it rests on the cap; then I'll skip aloft and run a knife along the head of the topsail and let it whip to glory. After that it may blow and be damned! All the clothes the old girl is wearing now will never take the sticks out of her. I've trimmed her down to jib, lower topsail, fore-topmast staysail, mainsail and spanker. Wish I dared carry the foresail. However, I must play safe. It is awful, though, to be in a ship as fast as theRetrieverand have to crawl the way I'm crawling. Crawl all day and sleep all night! Well, sometimes I can crawl all day and night and sleep half a day. We shall see. I used to be able to stand considerable before I hit the beach and got soft. The necessity for firing the donkey every night would soon exhaust my fuel supply; but I have a deck-load of hardwood logs! {Illustration: (Excerpt from the log of Cap't Matt Peasley) “I am alone on the ship—all the rest are now dead”—}
Four months had passed since theEcudorianhad spoken Matt Peasley off the coast of Formosa; during that period no further news had been received in Cappy Ricks' office, although the diligent Skinner, aided and abetted by the waterfront reporters, managed to have a piece of cheering information for Florry about every two weeks. And, in order to forestall any possibility of some garrulous girl friend, with a male relative in the shipping business, “spilling the beans,” as Cappy expressed it, the old man had taken a house in the country, and came to the office only twice a week to mourn for his lost Matthew and glean what little comfort he could from the empty words of hope Mr. Skinner dispensed so lavishly.
“If we can only keep Florry buoyed up with hope until the baby comes!” Cappy would groan. “She's worried; but, strange to say, Skinner, she hasn't the slightest idea he's in any danger. Those fake cablegrams and reports of ships speaking Matt—each time closer to home—have done the trick, Skinner. Of course the boy's dead, and I killed him; but Florry—well, she took a trip on theRetrieverand knows how safe she is, and I've had a lot of old sailing skippers down to visit me, and primed them to tell her just how they would get away with such a proposition as Matt's—and how easy it would be. Besides, she knows Matt had some plague prophylactic aboard—”
“Yes; and I've told her she mustn't show the white feather—for your sake,” Mr. Skinner interrupted; “and I think she's sensible enough to know she mustn't permit herself to show it—for the baby's sake.”
Cappy bowed his head and shook like a hooked fish.
“When the baby's two weeks old I'll tell her,” he moaned. “Oh, Skinner, Skinner, my dear boy, this is going to kill me! I won't last long now, Skinner. All my fault! I had to go butting in. That girl's heart is breaking with anxiety. When she comes down to breakfast, Skinner, I can see she's been crying all night.”
“Horrible!” Mr. Skinner murmured. “Horrible! We can only hope.”
On the twelfth of September Florry's baby was born. It was a boy, and a bouncing boy at that; and Cappy Ricks forgot for the moment he had rendered that baby fatherless, and came up to the city to report the news to Skinner.
“Well, Skinner, my dear boy,” he announced with just a touch of his old-time jauntiness, “little Matthew just arrived! Everything lovely.”
Mr. Skinner was about to formulate suitable phrases of congratulation when the telephone bell rang. It was Jerry Dooley up at the Merchants' Exchange; and he was all excitement.
“Hey, Skinner,” he cried. “TheRetrieveris passing in!”
“No!” Mr. Skinner shrieked. “It isn't possible!”
“It is! She's coming in the Gate now—she's right under the lookout's telescope; and there's only one man on deck—”
Mr. Skinner turned to Cappy Ricks, put his arms round him and jerked the old man from one end of the office to the other.
“He's safe, he's safe, he's safe, he's safe!” he howled indecorously. “Matt's sailing her in. He's sailing her in—”
“You scoundrel!” Cappy shrilled. “Be quiet! Is she sailing in or towing—”
“She's sailing in.”
Cappy Ricks slumped down in his chair, his arms hanging weakly at his sides.
“Yes, Skinner,” he barely whispered, “Matt's alive, after all. Nobody else would have the consummate crust to sail her in but him. Any other skipper under heaven would have hove to off the lightship and sent in word by the pilot boat to send out a tug. Oh, Lord, I thank Thee! I'm a wicked, foolish, bone-headed old man; but Lord, I do thank Thee—I do, indeed!”
Half an hour later Cappy Ricks and Mr. Skinner, in a fast motorboat, came flying up the bay and caught sight of theRetrieverloafing lazily past Fort Mason. On she came, with a tiny bone in her teeth; and suddenly, as Cappy peered ahead through the spray that flew in over the bows of the launch and drenched him to the skin, theRetriever'smainsail was lowered rapidly. The vessel was falling off by the time the mainsail was down and Cappy and Mr. Skinner saw Matt run aft, steady the wheel and bring the vessel up on the wind again. She was now under spanker and the headsails. Matt lashed the wheel and again ran forward, pausing at the main-topmast-staysail halyards to cast them off and permit the sail to come down by the run.
On to the topgallant forecastle Matt Peasley leaped, praising his Maker for patent anchors on theRetriever. With a hammer he knocked out the stopper; the starboard anchor dropped and the red rust flew from her hawsepipe as the anchor chain screamed through it. With his hand on the compressor of the windlass, Matt Peasley snubbed her gently to the forty-five fathom shackle, cast off his jib halyards to let the jib slide down the stay by its own weight, raced aft, and gently lowered the spanker as the American barkentineRetriever, with the yellow flag flying at the fore, swung gently to anchor on the quarantine grounds, two hundred and twenty-one days from Manila.
Cappy Ricks turned to his general manager.
“Pretty work, Skinner!” he said huskily. “I guess there's nothing wrong with that boy's health. Damn! The quarantine boat will beat us to it! Matt's throwing the Jacob's ladder over the side for them.”
“We can't board her until she passes quarantine—” Mr. Skinner began; but Cappy silenced him with a terrible look.
“The word can't, Skinner, was eliminated from my vocabulary some fifty years ago. We can—and I will! You needn't; but I've simply got to! Hey, you!”—to the launchman—“kick her wide open and show some speed.”
Despite the warning cries from the quarantine officers in the health boat, the launch ran in along theRetriever'sside; Cappy Ricks grasped the Jacob's ladder as the launch rasped by and climbed up with an agility that caused Mr. Skinner to marvel. As his silk hat appeared over theRetriever'srail a wind-bitten, bewhiskered, gaunt, hungry-looking semi-savage reached down, grasped him under the arms, snaked him inboard and hugged him to his heart.
Silence for a minute, while Cappy Ricks' thin old shoulders shook and heaved as from some internal spasm, and Matt Peasley's big brown hand patted Cappy's back. Presently he said:
“Well, father-in-law—”
From somewhere in Matt Peasley's whiskers Cappy's voice came plaintively:
“Not father-in-law, sonny. New title—this morning—six o'clock—nine—pounds—grandfather! Eh? Yes; grandfather! Grandpa Ricks!”
“Boy or girl?” Matt Peasley roared, and shook the newly-elected grandfather.
“Boy! Florry—fine—never lost hope!”
A port health officer came over the rail. He shook an admonitory finger at Cappy Ricks.
“Hey, you! Old man, you're under arrest—that is, you're in quarantine, and you'll have to stay aboard this ship until she's fumigated. Yes; and we'll fumigate you, too. Whadje mean by coming aboard ahead of us?”
“Cappy,” Matt Peasley said, “tell that person to go chase himself! Why, there hasn't been any plague aboard the ship in nearly five months!”
Cappy looked up and wiped the tears of joy out of his whiskers.
“Scoundrel!” he cackled. “Infernal young scoundrel! What do you mean by risking myRetriever, sailing her through the Gate with a crew of one man?”
“Take a look at me!” Matt laughed. “I'm all hands! And didn't I prove I'm enough men to handle her? The pilots wouldn't board me, and by sailing her in myself I saved pilotage and salvage claims. I lost the lower topsail and the consignees are going to find a shortage in those hardwood logs; but that's all—except that I haven't had a decent meal in God knows when. Say, Cappy, what does he look like? A Peasley or a Ricks?”
“Both,” Cappy chirped diplomatically. “Matt, are you all over the blue-water fever?”
“You bet!” he declared. “No more relief jobs for me. I've had plenty, although it might have been worse. It was lonely and sometimes I thought I was going crazy. Used to talk out loud to myself! I had some awful weather; but I just tucked her head under her wing and let her roll, and after I ran into the northeast monsoon, and later into the westerly winds, I had it easier and got more rest. You know, Cappy, when a ship is sailing on the wind, if you lash her helm a little bit below amidships she'll steer herself. Slow work, but—I got here; and, now that I'm here, I'm going to stay here.
“Of course, Cappy,” he added, “I've just got to have something with sails to play with; but no more offshore sailing in mine—that is—well, I'm going to stay home for a long time—after a while, maybe—and meantime I'm going to build a little schooner yacht—”
“For the love of Mike, do!” Cappy pleaded. “I'll be stuck in quarantine with you for a couple of days and we'll kill time drawing up a rough set of plans. And when that schooner yacht is ready, Matt, I'll tell you what I want you to do.”
“What, Cappy?”
“Send the bill to grandpa, Matthew!”
“If I hadn't been a case-hardened old fool I'd have cheered you on when you wanted to build that schooner yacht last year. I'd have saved myself a world of grief.”
He placed his hand gently on Matt's shoulder and his face was ineffably sad as he continued: “Of course, with you away and your fate undecided, as it were, Matt, that infernal Skinner wasn't worth two hoots in a hollow. Why, the boy flopped around the office like a rooster with its head off, and as a result I've had to come out of my retirement and keep an eye on things. Thank God, I can let go now. Really, Matt, you have no idea how I long to separate myself from the hurly-burly of California street. What I want is peace and seclusion—”
“You can have my share of that commodity for the remainder of my natural life,” Matt laughed happily, “I want noise and people. I want screaming and yelling and fighting and risks and profits and losses and liars and scoundrels and honest men all inextricably mixed.” He tossed his great sun-tanned arms above his head. “Lord, I want Life,” he half shouted.
Cappy sighed. These young pups! When they grow to see life as old dogs—
“Well, Matt, all I've got to say is that the first man that butts into my private office and starts unloading a cargo of grief on me, is going to get busted between the eyes with a paper weight. I'm through with grief and woe. I don't give a hoot what happens to the world or anybody in it. I want peace and a rest. I can afford it and wouldn't I be a first-class idiot not to take it while the taking is good, Matt?”
“No more mixing in the shipping end, eh?” Matt asked hopefully.
Cappy raised his right hand solemnly. “Never again, Matt. I'm through with ships and sailors and cargoes and the whole cussed Blue Star fleet can sink and be damned to it, but I'll not lift a hand to save it. I'm THROUGH.”
ALAS! Man proposes, but God disposes. Cappy had smoked his post-prandial cigar next day and was in the midst of his mid-afternoon siesta, when the buzzer on his desk waked him with its insistent buzzing. He reached for the telephone.
“My dear,” he reproved his private exchange operator, “how often have I told you not to disturb me between two and three o'clock?”
“I knew you wouldn't mind being disturbed this afternoon, Mr. Ricks. Your old friend Mr. Gurney, of New York, is calling.”
“Old Joe Gurney? By the Holy Pink-Toed Prophet! Show him in.” Cappy was at the door to meet his visitor when the latter entered. Mr Joseph Gurney, senior partner of the firm of Gurney & Harlan, was, like Cappy Ricks, a shiping man and a Down-Easter. He and Cappy Ricks had been a boyhood friends in Thomaston, Main, and Gurney & Harlan were the agents and controlling owners of the Red Funnel line plying between New York and ports on the West Coast.
“Well, Joe, you doddering old pirate?” cried Cappy Ricks affectionately. “Come in and rest your hands and feet. I'm tremendously glad to see you. When did you drift into down?”
He shook hands with Gurney and steered him toward a chair.
“Ten minutes ago, Alden, my boy. Delighted to see you again, and particularly pleased to see how carelessly you carry your years. I'm three months younger than you—and I feel like the last rose of summer.”
“You look it, Joe. Take a leaf out of my book and let the young fellows 'tend to business for you. Don't let worry ride over you in the shank of your old age, my boy. I never do. Haven't paid a bit of attention to business in the last ten years, and that's why at my age I'm looking so fit.”
“You'll live to be a hundred, Alden.”
Cappy smiled.
“Well,” he declared, “I'm going to live while I have the time. I never expect to be a walking corpse just stalling round in an effort to defer settlement with the undertaker, and I won't be a dead one until the neighbors hear a quartet singing Lead Kindly Light out at my house—Joe you look worried. Anything gone wrong with you, old friend? Need some money? Have you married a young wife?”
“It's Joey,” Gurney confessed miserably.
“What? My godson, little Joey Gurney?”
“He's big Joey Gurney now.”
“Yes, and a fine boy, Joe—no thanks to you. His mother's influence was strong enough to counteract any impulses for crime he might have inherited from his father.”
Gurney smiled sadly at Cappy Ricks' badinage.
“He is a fine boy, Alden, but—he's only a boy, and I'm afraid he's going to make hash of his young life before it's fairly started.”
“Booze?”
“No.”
“Well, then where did he first meet this woman?”
Joe Gurney, Senior, hitched his chair close to his friend's and laid an impressive hand on Cappy's knee.
“Alden,” he said feelingly, “you and I have been friends, man and boy, for about sixty-five years. I believe we were five years old when we robbed Deacon Follansbee's beehive and got stung to death.”
“Yes, and we've both been getting stung more or less ever since, only somehow we still manage to recover and be none the worse for the experience. At least, Joe, we learned about bees. When it comes to boys, however, I've still got my experience coming. My little chap died when he was twelve, you know. I've never quite gotten over his loss; in fact, Joe, I was dreaming of him a minute ago when you called.”
“You had him long enough, Alden, to realize how I feel about Joey.”
Cappy nodded. “Let's see,” he answered, reflectively pulling his whiskers, “Joey must be about twenty-four years old now, isn't he?”
“Twenty-four last Tuesday; and at twenty-five he comes into his mother's fortune. I've managed his little nest egg pretty well, Alden; invested it all in the vessel property of Gurney & Harlan, and since the war started I've swelled what originally was a quarter of a million to about a million and a half. His stock in the Red Funnel Line is worth a million at the very least, and the remaining half million is represented by cold cash in bank and bonds that can be converted into cash overnight.
“Hum-m-m! Harumph-h-h! Quite a fortune for a youth of a twenty-five to be intrusted with. I'll bet somebody will take it away from him before he's thirty.”
“That's a safe bet, Alden. He has a candidate for his money on his trail right now.”
“And he doesn't realize it?”
“Alden, he's only twenty-four years old. What does a boy know at twenty-four?”
“Well, Joe, you and I had accumulated a heap of experience and hard knocks at that age, and I seem to remember we each had a little money we'd managed to save here and there. I don't agree with you at all on this twenty-four-year-old excuse. My son-in-law, Matt Peasley—you remember the Peasleys of Thomaston; Matt's a nephew of Ethan, who was lost off the main yard of theMartha Peasley—was holding a master's ticket for sail, any ocean and any tonnage, before he was twenty-one. He's not much older than your Joey right now, but, nevertheless, he's president of the Blue Star Navigation Company and worth a million and a half, every dollar of which he has made by his own energy and ability.”
“Well, of course, Alden, there are exceptions to every rule.”
“Not if you raise 'em right and you've got the right kind of stock to work on and the boy is healthy and normal. Now I know your Joey comes from the right stock; I know his mother raised him right until he was sixteen when the good Lord took her away from you both; and I know he is healthy and normal. Hasn't he proved that by falling in love? The only conclusion I can draw, therefore, is that you've made a monkey out of him, Joe Gurney.”
“Perhaps I have, Alden; perhaps I have,” Gurney replied sadly.
“No 'perhaps' about it. I know you have. You sent him to college and gave him ten thousand dollars a year to spend. If you wanted to give him a fine education and turn out a man and a gentleman you might have gotten him into the Naval Academy at Annapolis, where he would have learned something of ships and graduated with a master's ticket; after serving a few years and getting the corners knocked off him he could have resigned and you would have had a sane, dependable man to sit in at your desk when you're gone. By the Holy Pink-Toed Prophet, Joe Gurney, you make me sick! You're like every other damphool American father who accumulates a few million dollars in excess of his legitimate needs and then gets all puffed up with the notion he's got to give his son all the so-called advantages his own parents were too poor to afford him—or too sensible. The result is you turn out an undeveloped or over-developed boob, too proud to work and not able to take a real man's place in the world because he hasn't been taught how. And in the course of time he marries a female boob who has been raised according to the same general specifications, and nine times out of ten she's too refined to be bothered with a family. And presently there's a trip out to Reno and the little squib in the paper and—er—ahem! Drat your picture, Joe, you're the responsible party. You created a ten-thousand-dollar-a-year parasite on the body politic while your boy was still in his teens, and now you want to know what the devil to do about it, don't you?”
“That's exactly what I want to know, Alden,” Gurney confessed miserably, “and I've crossed the continent to get your advice. I haven't very many real friends—the kind I can open my heart to—”
“Tut, tut, Joe. Enough of vain repining. Now then, old friend, let's get to the bottom of this thing and see if we can't buy this wreck in from the underwriters, salvage it and put it in commission again. Never say die, Joe! Where there's a will there's a lawsuit or a heartache—particularly if the estate makes it worth while. Now then, Joe, you must realize that it's the fashion nowadays, when a fellow has to consult a specialist, to give his personal and family history for three generations back before receiving treatment. So if I am to diagnose Joey's case I'll have to have a history of Joey. Now then! He graduated from college at the age of twenty-two did he not?”
“He didn't graduate, Alden. He was requested to leave.”
“Hum-m-m! I didn't know that. What for?”
“General uselessness and animal spirits, I suppose. It wasn't anything dishonorable. The main contributory cause was an alleged poem lampooning some individual they called Prexy.”
“Hum-m-m! And since leaving college what has he done?”
“I've had him in my office.”
“Joe, answer my question. I know you've had him in your office. But what has he done? Has he earned his salary?”
“I'm afraid he hasn't, Alden. Somehow golf and tennis and week-end parties and yachting and big-game hunting in Alaska and tarpon fishing in Florida sort of interfere with business.”
“Well, that isn't much of a crime, Joe. I never had time to do those highly enjoyable things and I couldn't afford them. When I could afford them and had time to do them I was too old. You say the boy is fond of yachting?”
“It's his greatest hobby. In his taste for salt water he at least resembles his ancestors. The Gurneys were all sailors and shipping men.”
“Is he a good yachtsman, Joe?”
“He has a schooner that's a hundred and six feet over all and he seems to win pretty regularly with her. I never knew him to get worse than second place in all the races he has entered.”
“Too bad,” Cappy Ricks murmured sadly. “A noble ambition absolutely misdirected. He would have been a skipper and, lastly, a good shipping man if you had only managed him like a sensible father should. Now about this girl he's in love with?”
“That happened about three months ago. He met her at one of those roof-garden, midnight cabaret, turkey-trot palaces in New York—”
“Yes, I know. I always take in the sights when I go to New York, but the last time I was at that one up near Fifty-fourth Street the noise bothered me. And the show was very poor; in fact, after seeing it I made up my mind I was off cabaret stuff for keeps.”
“You ancient scalawag! What were you doing in a place like that?”
“Seeing life as it ought not to be, of course. Your boy Joey took me up there, by the way. In-fer-nal young scoundrel! He showed me the town and we had quite a time together.”
Joe Gurney's old eyes popped with amazement.
“You went batting round with my Joey—an old ruin like you?”
“Why not? We behaved ourselves, and besides I always trot a heat with the young fellows whenever I get a chance. It keeps me young. I enjoyed Joey a heap, although I could see he was a jolly young jackass. Moreover, I'm his godfather, and I guess it was all right for me to tag along and see to it that my godson didn't get into deep water close to the shore, wasn't it? Don't you ever step out with Joey and get your nose wet?”
“Certainly not!”
Cappy Ricks smiled wistfully.
“If I had a son I'd pal up with him,” he declared. “I'd want to get out with him and raise a little dignified hell once in a while, just to be a human being and keep him from being a mollycoddle. Ahem! Harumph. So he flagged this damsel in the leg show, eh?”
Joe Gurney nodded miserably.
“Have you given her the once over?” Cappy demanded.
“Yes, I went up there one night. I was afraid somebody would see me, so I took along Joey's aunt, Matilda. We saw the young woman. She does a dance specialty—an alleged Hawaiian hula-hula. It's fake from start to finish.”
“You show a guilty technical knowledge of the hula, Joe,” Cappy reminded him. “But passing that, what's the latest report on the situation?”
“Horrible, Alden, horrible!” replied Joe Gurney.
“Careful, Joe, careful! Many a wheat-straw skirt and sharks'-teeth necklace may conceal a pure and honest heart.”
“Well, she's been married twice and divorced once, to begin with, and—”
“That's a-plenty, Joe.”
“And she has just completed her contract in the show and gone out to Reno to acquire a six months' residence in order to get rid of husband number two so she can take on Joey.”
“Who told you all this?”
“I found it out—by asking.”
“Have you told Joey?”
“No.”
“Does he know it?”
Gurney nodded.
“I had one of his young friends, whom I can trust, tip him off in confidence. The news didn't make any difference to Joey. He asked her about it, and she explained it all away to his entire satisfaction.”
“I dare say. And you haven't given any indication to your son that you're on to him and his love affair?”
“I thought best to pretend ignorance, pending my arrival at a solution of the difficulty.”
“Therein you showed a gleam of real intelligence. Having humored your boy all his life you could not expect to cross him in his first love affair and get away with it. No, sir-ree! The thing to do is to put the skids under Joey and his lady love before they know you know it. Tell me more about her, however, before I begin making skids and skid grease.”
“She is thirty-one years old—”
Cappy Ricks threw up both hands.
“Farewell, O my countrymen!” he murmured.
“She has two children—one by her first husband and one by her second. They're living with her mother. She supports them from the proceeds of her hula dancing.”
“Score a white mark for her, Joe. Is she a good looker?”
“A brunette, Alden, and Joey's Aunt Matilda admitted against her will that she was a beauty. My lawyer tells me, however, that she hasn't an ounce of brains, and proclaims the fact by laughing loudly when there is nothing particularly worth laughing at.”
“I imagine you've had a detective agency investigating her.”
“I have. She has little education and no refinement; her people are very ordinary. Her father is a whitewing in Philadelphia and is separated from her mother, who keeps a boarding house in Muncie, Indiana.”
“I'm afraid, Joe, she won't do for your daughter-in-law,” Cappy Ricks opined slowly. “But don't worry, my boy. You've come all the way from New York to confide in me and get my advice, and somehow I have a sneaking notion you've come to the right shop. If there's anybody calculated to put a crimp in love's young dream, I'm that individual.”
“I knew Joey and you were good friends, and besides, you're his godfather. He thinks a lot of you, Alden, and I kind of thought maybe you might come East with me, see the boy, get him to confide in you and—er—sort of advise him in the way he should go. I'm—er—well, Alden, I'm afraid I feel too badly about this to talk to Joey. I might lose my temper, and besides—besides, he's all I have and he reminds me so much of his mother that I—”
“Yes, yes, I understand, Joe. Leave it to me and I'll advise with him. Yes, I will—with an ax handle! And I'll go East with you and tie knots in his tail—only he won't know anything about it. It may cost you a little money, but I assume expense is no object.”
“It would be cheap at a million.”
“Where that boy and your money are concerned you're such an ass, Joe, I'm almost tempted to charge you a million extra for the operation. However, considering Deacon Follansbee's beehive, and Joey's mother and my godson—”
Old Joe Gurney took Cappy Ricks' hand in both of his, that trembled so with age and anxiety.
“Dear old Alden,” he declared. “I knew you wouldn't fail me.”