During the period when Joey Gurney was busy doing all that Cappy Ricks desired him to do and some things that were slightly off Cappy's program, the president emeritus of the Blue Star Navigation Company and allied interests was discovering that it is one thing to declare for the simple life and quite another to live it. The Great War challenged so much of the Ricks interest that he could not bear to live far from morning and evening editions—and he wanted them red hot off the presses. Things were doing in the shipping world. The most inconceivable trades were being consummated daily, freights were soaring, lumber prices had reached an unprecedentedly high level and promised to go higher; there was something doing every minute and not enough minutes in a working day to accommodate half of these somethings. What more natural, therefore, than that Cappy presently should find himself caught in the maelstrom, even though he told himself daily that, come what mighthewould keep out of it.
The first indefinite evidence that he was about to be engulfed came in the form of a newspaper story, ex the steamerTimaru, from Sydney, via Tahiti. There it was, as big as a church—a paragraph of it, tucked away in a column-and-a-half story of the bombardment of Papeete by the German Pacific fleet early in September of 1914:
“An incident of the bombardment was the sinking of the German freight steamerValkyrieby shells from the German fleet. The vessel had been captured by the French gunboatZeilesome weeks previous and was at anchor in the harbor, under the guns of theZeile, when the German squadron appeared off the entrance. The gunboat immediately was made the target for the German guns, and sunk. During the attack, however, a wild shell missed theZeileand struck theValkyrie, tearing a great hole in her hull and causing her to sink in ten fathoms at her anchorage.”
Ten fathoms! Sixty feet! Why, at that depth Cappy should have known that her masts and funnel would be above water; that in all probability she carried war-risk insurance; that she was so far from anywhere the underwriters would have abandoned her, even had she not been a prize of war, since there are no appliances in Papeete for salving a vessel of her size; that she could be raised if one cared to spend a little money on doing it; that one projectile probably had not ruined her beyond repair; that she was a menace to navigation in Papeete Harbor and hence would have to be gotten out of the way, either by dynamite or auction; that—well, any number of thats should have occurred to Cappy Ricks to suggest the advisability of keeping track of the wreck of theValkyrie. However, for some mysterious reasons—his resentment against the German cause, probably—the golden prospect never appealed to him, for when he had finished reading the article he merely said:
“Well, what do you know about that? Skinner, it's a mighty lucky thing for that German admiral that I'm not the Kaiser, for I'd certainly make him hard to catch. The idea of sinking that fine steamer—and a German steamer at that! Here was the little old French gunboat, about as invulnerable as a red-cedar shingle; and instead of moving into proper position and raking her with their light guns—instead of calling on her to surrender—these Germans had to go to work in a hurry and inaugurate a campaign of frightfulness. The minute they were off the harbor—Zowie! Blooey! Bam! It was all over but the cheering, and they'd chucked an eight-inch projectile through a ship that was worth four of the gunboat.
“Skinner, that's what I call spilling the beans. Why they didn't take their time, recapture that freighter and give her skipper a chance to hustle across to San Francisco or Honolulu and intern, is a mystery to me. The idea! Why, for that German fleet to waste ammunition on that Jim-Crow town and a hand-me-down gunboat was equivalent to John L. Sullivan whittling out a handle on a piece of two-by-four common fir in order to attack a cockroach!”
Cappy was so incensed that he growled about the Germans for an hour. Then he forgot theValkyrie, notwithstanding the fact that the press jogged his memory again when the German fleet, deciding that prudence was the better part of valor, fled from the Pacific to escape the Japanese, only to be destroyed in the South Atlantic by the British fleet. A resume of the operations of the German squadron in the Pacific brought forth mention of the destruction of theZeileand theValkyrie. However, Cappy's mind was not in Tahiti now, but off the Falkland Islands, for he was very much pro-Ally and devoted more thought to military and naval strategy than he did to the lumber and shipping business.
However, the climax of Cappy's indignation over the disaster to theValkyriewas not attained until a few months later when, in conversation on the floor of the Merchants' Exchange with the skipper of the schoonerTarus, who happened to have been in Papeete at the bombardment, he learned he had done the German admiral a grave injustice. He came back to his office, boiling, declaring the French were a crazy nation, and that, after all, he could recall meeting one or two fine Germans during the course of a fairly busy career. He summoned Mr. Skinner and Matt Peasley to hear the sordid tale.
“Remember that steamerValkyriethe Germans were supposed to have sunk by accident in the harbor of Papeete during the bombardment in September of 1914?” he queried.
“I believe I read something about it in the papers at the time,” Mr. Skinner replied.
“What about her?” Matt Peasley demanded.
“Why, the Germans didn't sink her at all, Matt! The Frenchmen did it,” Cappy shrilled. “The crazy, frog-eating jumping-jacks of Frenchmen! The tramp wasn't flying the German flag—naturally the Frenchmen had hauled it down; so the Germans didn't investigate her. Besides, they were in a hurry—you'll remember the Japs were on their trail at the time; so they just devoted forty minutes to shooting up the town, and beat it. I don't suppose they ever knew they hit theValkyrie; perhaps they figured that, having sunk the gunboat, theValkyriecould up hook and away at her leisure, since there was nothing left to prevent her.
“Huh! Makes me sick to talk about it; but the skipper of theTauruswas there at the time and he tells me that, though theValkyriewas pretty well down by the stern, her bulkheads were holding and she wouldn't have sunk if those blamed Frenchmen, fearful that the German fleet was coming back after her, hadn't gone aboard and opened her sea cocks! Yes, sir. Rather than risk having her recaptured, they opened her sea cocks and sunk her! And, at that, they didn't have sense enough to run her out to deep water. No! They had to do the trick as she lay at anchor; and there she lies still, a menace to navigation and a perennial reminder to those Papeete Frenchmen that he who acts in haste will repent at leisure.”
To this outburst Mr. Skinner made some perfunctory remark, attributing the situation to a lack of efficiency, while Matt Peasley went back to his office and grieved as he reflected on the corrosive action of salt water on those fine, seven-year-old engines.
Time passed. Mr. Skinner developed a pallor and irritability that bespoke all too truly an attack of nerves, from overwork, and sore against his will was hustled off to Honolulu for a rest while Cappy Ricks had the audacity to take charge of the lumber business. Whereupon Mr. J. Augustus Redell, of the West Coast Trading Company, discovered the unprotected condition of the Ricks Lumber & Logging Company and promptly, in sheer wanton deviltry, proceeded to sew Cappy Ricks up on an order for a million grape stakes.
A word here regarding the said J. Augustus Redell. He was a blithe, joyous creature, still in the sunny thirties, and what he didn't know about the lumber business—particularly the marketing of lumber products—could be tucked into anybody's eyes without impairing their eyesight. Mr. Redell had fought his way up from office boy with the Black Butte Lumber Company to lumber broker with offices of his own. He had owned a retail yard in which business he had gone “bust” for more money than the world appeared to contain. But he had fought his way back and paid a hundred cents on the dollar, including some hundred and forty thousand dollars he had owed the Ricks mills at the time of his collapse. Because he was young and fine and good-natured and brave and brilliant, Cappy had always admired J. Augustus Redell, but after the latter had so splendidly re-established his credit and formed a partnership with a Peruvian gentleman, one Senor Luiz Almeida, known locally as Live Wire Luiz, Cappy found that he had for the genial J. Augustus an admiration that amounted to affection. The West Coast Trading Company, under which title Live Wire Luiz and J. Augustus Redell did a lumber brokerage business with Mexico, Central American and South American countries principally, had Cappy Ricks' entire confidence, although he would have died rather than admit this. Live Wire Luiz he ignored and always dismissed as a factor in the affairs of that company, but whenever Redell had a deal on that was too heavy for his financial sinews, Cappy could always be depended upon to lend a helping hand. On his part, Redell revered Cappy Ricks as only an idealistic and naturally lovable rascal of a boy can revere an idealistic and lovable old man. To J. Augustus Redell little, old, naive, whimsical, gentle, terrible, brilliant, cunning, generous, altruistic, prudent, youthful old Cappy Ricks was a joy forever. With the impishness of his tender years, Mr. Redell could conceive of no greater joy than picking on Cappy Ricks just to see the latter fight back.
Quite early in their friendship, the astute Redell discovered a rift in Cappy's armor—two rifts, in fact. The first was that Cappy feared and loathed old age and fiercely resented even the most shadowy intimation that with age he was, to employ a sporting phrase, “losing his punch.” The second weakness that lay exposed to Redell was Cappy's passion for wringing a profit, by ingenious means, from apparently barren soil where no profit had ever hitherto burgeoned. At heart Cappy was a speculator; only the fact that he was a prudent and careful speculator had conduced to enrich him rather than impoverish him.
Now, Cappy was fully convinced, from optical evidence, that J. Augustus Redell was a gambler. He admired Redell's genius for business, the soundness of his decisions, the alertness of his mind and the brilliance of his financialcoups, but—he deprecated the younger man's daring. Cappy called it recklessness. By degrees the old gentleman had come to assume a proprietary interest in Gus Redell and the latter's affairs, for the younger man frequently sought counsel from Cappy and not infrequently, a loan! Cappy knew his young friend to be the soul of manly honor, but—he was young! Ah, yes! He was young. Ergo, he was foolish. True, his foolishness had not as yet been discovered, but Cappy was certain it would come to the surface sooner or later. The boy was reckless—a gambler. Cappy abhorred gambling. He never gambled. Occasionally he speculated! What more natural, therefore, than that little Cappy should presently arrogate to himself the privilege of stabbing young J. Augustus to the vitals from time to time, just to impress upon the boy the knowledge that this is a hard, cold, cruel world with a great many bad men in it!
Nothing could possibly have delighted Redell more. Whenever Cappy stabbed him, forthwith he set about to stab Cappy in return, and thus had developed a joyous business feud. These best of friends spent an hour and a half daily, at luncheon, “picking” on each other, telling tales on each other, eternally “joshing” for the edification of a coterie of their lumber and shipping friends who always lunched in a private dining room at the Commercial Club and who were known within that organization as the Bilgewater Club.
Early in 1915 Redell had seen an opportunity for inducing Cappy Ricks to speculate in grape stakes—to his financial hurt and humiliation. There was to be an election that fall—a special election to see whether California should “go dry” or “stay wet,” and for some reason not quite apparent to Mr. Redell, a great many people believed the state would “go dry.” Among the people who so believed, Redell discovered, were the woodsmen who, during the winter of 1914, would, under normal conditions, have split from redwood trees sufficient grape stakes to support such new vineyards as would come into bearing in the fall of 1915. Fearing that there would be no market for their grape stakes when the making of wine should be prohibited by law, these woodsmen had made no effort to supply the demand; wherefore the Machiavellian J. Augustus Redell, taking advantage of Mr. Skinner's absence from the office of the Ricks mills, cleverly managed to inculcate in Cappy Ricks the idea that it would be a splendid and profitable venture if he, the said Cappy, should wade into the grape stake market and corner it. The idea appealed to the speculative part of the old gentleman's nature and he had gone to work in a hurry, only to discover, after he had accepted orders from the West Coast Trading Company for a great many carloads of grape stakes for future delivery, that, when the day of reckoning should come, he would not be enabled to pick up enough grape stakes to fill his orders, for the very sufficient reason that nobody had manufactured grape stakes for that year's market, and they were not available at any price!
It had been a cruel blow and Cappy's weakness had been exposed without mercy to the members of the Bilgewater Club by Mr. Redell, who thereafter kept both eyes wide open, knowing that sooner or later Cappy would retaliate.
Retaliation was, of course, inevitable. Cappy realized this. For the first time in his career as a lumber and shipping king the sly old dog realized he had been out-thought, out-played, out-gamed and man-handled by a mere pup. And, though he had taken his beating like the rare old sport that he was, nevertheless the leaves of memory had a horrible habit of making a most melancholy rustling; and for two weeks, following his ignominious rout at the hands of J. Augustus Redell, Cappy's days and nights were entirely devoted to scheming ways and means of vengeance. Curiously enough, it was the West Coast Trading Company that accorded him the opportunity he craved.
Having massacred Cappy in the grape-stake deal and established an unlimited credit thereby, the West Coast Lumber Company, per Senor Felipe Luiz Almeida, alias Live Wire Luiz, decided to purchase a little jag of spruce from the Ricks Lumber & Logging Company. Cappy Ricks looked at the proffered order, saw that it called for number one clear spruce, and promptly accepted it at a dollar under the market. He was to bring the spruce in to San Francisco on one of his own schooners, lay her alongside theCity of Panamaand discharge it into her, for delivery at Salina Cruz, Mexico.
Cappy knew, of course, that Live Wire Luiz handled exclusively the West Coast Trading Company's Mexican, Central and South American business. He knew, also, that there were many points about the lumber business that the explosive little Peruvian had still to learn; so he decided to stab the West Coast Trading Company, through the innocent and trusting Senor Almeida, with a weapon he would not have dreamed of employing had J. Augustus Redell placed the order. Live Wire Luiz knew the Ricks Lumber & Logging Company always sold its output on mill tally and inspection; that Cappy Ricks' grading rules were much fairer to his customers than those of his competitors; that when he contracted to deliver number one clear spruce he would deliver exactly that and challenge anybody to pick a number two board out of the lot. But what Live Wire Luiz did not know was that there are two kinds of number one spruce on the Pacific Coast. One grows in California and the other in Oregon and Washington—and Cappy Ricks had both kinds for sale.
“Aha!” Cappy murmured as he glanced over Live Wire Luiz's order after the latter had gone. “Number one clear spruce, eh? All right, sir! Away down in my wicked heart I know you want some nice number one stock from our Washington mill, at Port Hadlock; but unfortunately you have failed to stipulate it—so we'll slip you a little of the California product and teach you something you ought to know.”
Whereupon Cappy sent the order to his mill on Humboldt Bay, California. Though this plant manufactured redwood lumber almost exclusively, whenever the woods boss came across a nice spruce or bull-pine tree among the redwood he was wont to send it down to the mill, where it was sawed and set aside for trusting individuals like Live Wire Luiz. When seasoned this spruce was very good stock. Unfortunately, however, experts differ in their diagnosis of California spruce. There are those who will tell you it is not spruce, but a bastard fir; while others will tell you it is not fir, but a bastard spruce. Cappy Ricks had no definite ideas on the subject, for he didn't own enough of that kind of stumpage to grieve him. All he knew or cared was that when such outlawed stock was billed as spruce no judge or jury in the land could say it was fir; also, that in its green state it possessed an abominable odor!
The lumber was delivered to theCity of Panamain due course and, as Cappy had suspected, Live Wire Luiz failed to come down to her dock and take a smell. This was a privilege left intact for the consignee at Salina Cruz; and he, according to Mexican custom, which only demands a ghost of an excuse to seek a rebate, promptly wired a protest and declared himself swindled to the extent of five dollars a thousand feet, gold.
Also, having been similarly outraged once before, he demanded to know why he had been sent California spruce; whereupon Live Wire Luiz called up Cappy Ricks, abused him roundly and sent him a bill for six dollars a thousand, rebate! Unfortunately for the West Coast Trading Company, however, it had already discounted Cappy's invoice; so the latter could afford to stand pat—which he did.
Shortly after noon on the day of his small triumph over the West Coast Trading Company, Cappy Ricks bustled up California Street, bound for luncheon with the Bilgewater Club.
On this day, of all days, Cappy would not have missed luncheon with the Bilgewater Club for a farm. As he breezed along there was a smile on his ruddy old face and a lilt in his kind old heart, for he was rehearsing his announcement to his youthful friends of how he had but recently tanned the hide of a brother! He almost laughed aloud as he pictured himself solemnly relating, in the presence of J. Augustus Redell and Live Wire Luiz, the tale of the ill-favored spruce, excusing his own mendacity the while on the ground that he wasn't a mind reader; that if the West Coast Lumber Company desired northern spruce they should have stipulated northern spruce; that, as alleged business men, it was high time they were made aware of the ancient principle ofcaveat emptor, which means, as every schoolboy knows, that the buyer must protect himself in the clinches and breakaways. And lastly, he planned to claim it the solemn duty of the aged to instruct the young and ignorant in the hard school of experience.
Judge, therefore, of his disappointment when, on entering the lobby of the Merchants' Exchange Building, on the two top floors of which the Commercial Club is situated, he encountered Redell and Live Wire Luiz leaving the elevator.
The West Coast Trading Company had offices in the same building and, as Redell carried a plethoric suit case, while Live Wire Luiz followed with a small hand bag, Cappy realized they were bound for parts unknown. In consequence of which he realized he had rehearsed to no purpose his expose of the pair before the Bilgewater Club. He halted the partners and secured a firm grip on the lapel of each.
“Cowards!” he sneered. “Running out on me, eh? By Judas Priest, I just knew you didn't dast to stay and hear me tell the boys about that spruce. Drat you! The next time you'll know the difference between attar of roses and California spruce!”
Redell put down his suit case, pulled out his watch, glanced at it and then at his partner.
“Shall I tell him, Luiz?” he queried.
Live Wire Luiz thereupon consulted his watch, scratched his ear and said:
“Friend of my heart, do you theenk eet ees safe?”
“Oh, yes. He isn't a bit dangerous, Luiz. He's lost all his teeth and all he can do now is sit and bay at the moon.”
Live Wire Luiz shrugged.
“I theenk maybe so you are right,amigo mio. The steamer she will go to depart in half an hour, an' that ees not time for thees ol' high-binder to do somet'ing. Eet ees what you call one stiff li'l' order. I admit thees spruce bandit ees pretty smart, but—” again Live Wire Luiz shrugged his expressive shoulders—“he ees pretty ol', no? I theenk to myself he have lose—what you call heem? ah, yes, he have lose hees punch!”
“I fear he has, Luiz; so I'll tell him. At least the knowledge will gravel him and take all the joy out of that stinking little spruce swindle of his.”
“'Twon't neither!” Gappy challenged. “I stung you there—drat your picture!—and I'm glad I did it. I rejoice in my wickedness. Cost you five hundred dollars for making a monkey out of the old man in that grape-stake deal, Gus.”
“Why,” said Redell wonderingly, “I thought you'd forgiven me that, Cappy.”
“So I have; but I haven't forgotten. Expect me to lose my self-respect and forget about it? No, sir! When I go into a deal and emerge in the red, I take a look at my loss-and-gain account and forget it; but when I'm ravished of my self—respect-wow! Look out below and get out from under! In-fer-nal young scoundrel! If I don't show you two before I die that I haven't lost my punch I'll come back from the grave to ha'nt you. Go on and spin your little tale, Augus-tus. You can't tell me anything that'll make me mad. What you got on your mind besides your hair, Gus? Out with it, boy; out with it! I'm listening.”
And Cappy came close to Redell and inclined his head close to the young fellow's breast; whereupon Redell put his lips close to Cappy's ear and answered hoarsely:
“I'm going to Papeete to bid in that sunken German steamer,Valkyrie.”
Cappy nodded.
“Huh!” he said. “Is that all? Well, when you return from Papeete you're going to take another journey right away.”
“Where?”
“Into the bankruptcy court first, and then up to the Home for the Feeble-Minded. On the level, boy, you're overdue at the foolish farm.”
“I'll take a chance, Cappy. All you old graybeards can do is sit on the fence and decry the efforts of the rising generation. You just croak and knock. Of course I admit that once on a time an opportunity couldn't fly by you so fast you wouldn't get some of the tail feathers; but that was a long time ago.”
He paused and glanced at his partner. Sorrowfully Live Wire Luiz tapped his forehead with his brown, cigarette-stained forefinger.
“Senile decay!” Redell murmured.
“Sure; I bet you, Mike!” Live Wire Luiz answered.
He wagged his head lugubriously, turned aside and affected to wipe away a vagrant tear with his salmon-colored silk handkerchief.
“Look here!” Cappy rasped. “This thing is getting personal. Never mind about my years, you pup. If my back is bent a trifle it's from carrying a load of experience and other people's mistakes. And never mind about my noodle! It may have a few knots and shakes in it, but they're tight and sound, and it's free of pitch pockets, wane and rotten streaks; so this old head grades as merchantable timber still.
“As for your head, Gus, and that of this human firecracker with you, both have streaks of sap round the edges, and I'll prove it to you yet. No; on second thought I don't have to prove it. You've already done that yourself! You're going to Papeete to try to bid in theValkyrie, and she's junk!”
“Partly.” Redell admitted. “She's been under water about two years and I suppose the teredo have digested her upper works by now; but they can be rebuilt quickly and without a great deal of expense.”
“How about her boilers? You'll have to retube them.”
“I don't think so. I was talking with Captain Hippard, of the Morrison-Hippard Line. They had the steamerChinookunder water a year in Norton Sound, but they raised her and brought her to San Francisco under her own steam. You know, Cappy, it's the combination of water and air that makes iron and steel rust. It seems that when a boiler is under water and not exposed to the air it rusts very slowly; also, the rust is like a soft film—it doesn't pit and scale off in great flakes. And a couple of years under water will not do any appreciable damage to theValkyrie'sboilers. TheChinookis running yet, notwithstanding the fact that fifteen years ago she was submerged for a year.”
“Huh!” Cappy grunted.
“The same condition, of course, holds true with regard to her hull, only more so,” Redell continued. “The paint will protect the hull perfectly. Of course if, after getting her up, she is permitted to lie exposed to the air, the soft film of rust will promptly harden and scale off and she'll go to glory in a few months. However, nothing like that will happen, because the minute she's up she'll be thoroughly cleaned and scrubbed and painted. Of course the asbestos cover will have peeled off her boilers, but even at that I'll bring her to San Francisco under her own steam. She'll just be ungodly hot below decks and a hog for coal until the boilers are re-covered.”
Cappy sighed. He was not prepared to combat this argument, for he had a sneaking impression Redell was right. However, he returned undaunted to the attack.
“She's shot full of holes,” he declared.
“She has one hole through her, and when she's loaded light that hole is above water line. The wrecking vessel that goes down to salve her will have steel plates, tools and mechanics aboard, and new plates can be put in temporarily. And if that cannot be done those holes can be patched with planking and cemented over.”
“Well, all right. Grant that. But think of her engines, Gus. Think of those fine, smooth bearings and polished steel rods all corroded and pitted by salt water. The water may not have a disastrous effect on the boilers and hull, but an engine can't stand any rust at all and still remain one hundred per cent efficient. I tell you I know, Gus. I had myAmelia Rickssubmerged on Duxbury Reef for a week; then I hauled her off and she lay on the tide flats in Mission Bay another three weeks until I could patch her up and float her into the dry dock. Do you know what it cost me to make her engines over again? Thirteen thousand dollars, young man—and, at that, they're nothing to brag of now.”
“Quite right; but that's because you didn't employ a German engineer and tell him you were going to put theAmelia Rickson Duxbury Reef. Are you familiar with the characteristics of German engineers, Cappy?”
Cappy threw up both hands.
“I'm neutral, Gus. Between them and the French it's a case of heads I win, tails you lose.”
“No, no, Cappy. You're wrong. The Germans are a careful, thrifty, painstaking, systematic race, and the chief of theValkyriewas the flower of the flock. When that little French gunboat captured her this chief engineer looked into the future and saw himself and theValkyrieinterned indefinitely—and he didn't like it. It just broke his heart to think of a stranger messing round among his engines; so the instant he got into Papeete and blew down his boilers he did a wise thing. He knew the war risk insurance would probably cover theValkyrie'sloss as a war prize, but there was a chance that her German owners might send one of their hyphenated brethren down to Papeete to buy her in the prize court; and if that happened the chief wanted them to have a good ship. Perhaps, also, he figured on getting his old job back after the war. At any rate he got out a barrel of fine heavy grease and slobbered up his engines for fair.”
It was too much. Cappy Ricks was too fine a sport not to acknowledge a beating; he was too generous not to rejoice in a competitor's gain.
“You lucky, lucky scoundrel!” he murmured in an awed voice. “Not enough salt water will get through that grease to hurt those engines. Gus, how did you find this all out?”
“Well, you can bet your whiskers, Cappy, I didn't depend on hearsay evidence and water-front reporters to dig it up for me. The minute I heard her sea cocks had been opened and that her funnels and masts were sticking up out of the harbor I concluded I was interested; so I sent Bill Jinks, of our office, down to Papeete to get me some first-hand information. The chief of theValkyrieis interned there, of course.”
“May mad dogs bite me! Why in the name of all that's sweet and holy didn't I have sense enough to do that?” Cappy mourned.
“You have lose the punch!” chirped Live Wire Luiz, and Cappy glared at him.
“She's an honest vessel, Cappy.”
“An' what you s'pose she have in her?” Live Wire Luiz demanded. “Oh, notheeng very much, Senor Ricks. Just two t'ousand tons of phosphate.”
“Worth ten or twelve dollars a ton, Cappy.”
“An' t'irteen hundred tons of the good coal to bring her to San Francisco,Ai, Santa Maria!” Live Wire Luiz blew a kiss airily into space and added: “I die weeth dee-light!”
“You haven't got her yet,” Cappy snapped viciously.
“No; but we'll get her all right,” Redell declared confidently.
“How'll you get her?”
“We've only one real competitor to buck—an Australian steamship company. They're crazy to get her; and as there are no French bidders on this side of the world, naturally and in view of the present condition of world politics the French authorities in Papeete are pulling for the Britisher. Jinks is now in Papeete and I'm about to start for there at one o'clock. Two bids, Cappy; I'll be the dark horse and file my bid at the last minute, after I've sized up the lay of the land. But, before I do so, I'm going to take the representative of that Australian steamship company into my confidence and find out what he's going to bid. For instance, now, Cappy, if you were bidding against me, how high would you go?”
“She's a long way from nowhere,” Cappy replied thoughtfully. “It means sending a wrecking steamer down there with a lot of expert wreckers, divers, mechanics and carpenters; it means lumber for cofferdam and pontoons; it means donkey engines, cables, pumps, the stress of wind and wave—”
“She lies in a protected cove, Cappy; the mean rise and fall of the tide, so close to the equator, is about eighteen inches, and the water is so clear you can always see what the divers are doing. Forget the stress of wind and wave.”
“Forty thousand dollars would be my top figure if I were the Australian bidder,” Cappy declared, and added to himself: “But, as Alden P. Ricks, seventy-five might not stagger me in view of the present freight rates.”
“Just what I figured,” Redell answered. “She'll cost us two hundred thousand dollars before we get her in commission again. I figure the Australian people will not go over forty thousand dollars. They won't figure Jinks as a heavyweight. I told him to create the impression that he was a professional wrecker—a sort of fly-by-night junk dealer, who would buy the vessel if he could get her at a great bargain. Then I'll drop quietly into Papeete, and at the eleventh hour fifty-ninth minute I'll slip in a bid that will top the Australian's. If by any chance Jinks' bid should also top the Australian's I'll just forfeit the certified check for ten per cent of my bid, run out and leave the ship to Jinks, the next highest bidder. The chances are I'll make a few thousand dollars at that.”
“How do you purpose raising her—provided you are the successful bidder?”
“Well, she has four hatches and she lies on an even keel. I'll build a coffer dam on her deck round these four hatches and pump her out. If we have enough pumps we can pump her out faster than the water can leak in under the coffer dam. When I've lightened her somewhat I'll kick her into the shore, little by little, until she lies in shallow water with her bulwarks above the surface. Then I'll patch the holes in her, pump her out—and up she'll come, of course.”
“You say that so glibly,” Gappy growled, “one would almost think you could whistle it.”
“Don't feel sore, Cappy. Do you know what a vessel of her age and class is worth nowadays? Well, I'll tell you. About sixty dollars a ton, dead weight capacity—and theValkyriecan carry seven thousand tons; that's four hundred and twenty thousand dollars—”
“If you can get her up,” Cappy interrupted.
“If I bid her in I'll get her up. Don't worry.”
'“It'll clean you of your bank roll to do it.”
“Of course. Luiz and I aren't millionaires like you; so we'll just form a corporation and call it the S. S. Valkyrie Company and sell stock in our venture. I have you down right now for a ten-thousand-dollar subscription at the very least, though you can have more if you want it.”
“Gus,” Cappy pleaded, “if you bid that boat in for forty thousand dollars I'll give you ten thousand dollars for your bargain and reimburse you for all the expense you've been put to.”
“Nothing doing, Cappy.”
“I'll make it—let me see—I'll make it twenty thousand.”
“You waste your breath. She'll pay for herself the first year she's in commission.”
“I'll furnish the sinews of war, Gus, for a half interest in her. Let me add her to the Blue Star Fleet and you'll never regret it.”
“Sorry, Cappy; but Luiz and I are ambitious. We want to get into the steamship business ourselves.”
“Well, then, I've offered to do the fair thing by you two lunatics,” Cappy declared with a great air of finality. “So now I'll deliver my ultimatum: I'm going to keep theValkyrieand not give you two as much as one little piece of her. Yes, sir! I'm going to send a representative to Papeete and match you and that Australian chap for your shoe-strings. Gus, you know me! If I ever go after a thing and don't get it, the man that takes it away from me will know he's been in a fight.”
“Indeed, I know it, Cappy—which is why I kept this information carefully to myself. However, I guess you'll not get in on this good thing.”
“Why?”
“You're too late for the banquet.”
“Not one leetle hope ees left for you, Cappy Reeks,” Senor Almeida asserted. “TheMoana, on which my good partner have engaged passage to-day, ees the last steamer which shall arrive to Papeete before the bids shall be open. The next steamer, Capitan Reeks ees arrive too late.”
“Yes; and theMoanasails in just twenty-five minutes, Cappy. If you're thinking of sending a man down to bid against me you'll have to step lively.”
Cappy Ricks was now beside himself; this gentle, good-natured heckling had made of him a venerable Fury.
“I'll cable my bid!” he shrilled.
“No you won't Cappy, for the reason that there is no cable to Tahiti.”
“Then I'll wireless it!”
“Well, you can try that, Cappy. Unfortunately, however, the only wireless station in Tahiti is a little, old, one-cat-power set. It can receive your message, but it can't send one that will reach the nearest wireless station—and that's at Honolulu. And until the bank in Tahiti can confirm drafts by wireless I imagine it will not pay them on presentation.”
Cappy surrendered. He couldn't stand any more.
“Good-bye, Gus,” he said. “Good luck to you! If you get that vessel you'll deserve her, and when you're forming the S.S. Valkyrie Company I'll head the list of stock subscribers with a healthy little chunk. You know me, Gus! I'm the old bell mare in shipping circles; a lot of others will follow where I lead.”
“I forgive you the spruce deal, Cappy. You're an awful pirate; but, for all that, you're a grand piece of work. God bless you!” And Redell put his arm round the old man affectionately. “Good-bye.”
And, followed by Live Wire Luiz, who was going to the dock to see his partner aboard theMoana, Redell disappeared into California Street.
“Dammit!” Cappy soliloquized bitterly. “I can't eat lunch now. One bite would choke me.”
And he turned toward the entrance to the Merchants' Exchange, being minded to enter a telephone booth and notify the Bilgewater Club he would not be present that day. As he walked through the gate into the Exchange, however, he was accosted by a heavy, florid-faced man carrying a thick woolen watch coat over his arm. This individual was Captain Aaron Porter, one of the San Francisco bar pilots, and he greeted Cappy with a respectful query after the old gentleman's health.
“I don't feel very well,” Cappy replied wearily. “I'm getting old, captain—getting old.”
Then he noted the watch coat the pilot was carrying and decided subconsciously that there could be no connection between it and the sultry August weather prevailing at that moment; consequently it informed the observant Cappy, as plainly as if it had a tongue and had spoken, that Captain Aaron Porter expected shortly to be exposed to the chill northwest winds outside as he piloted a vessel to sea. In the manufacture of sheer inane conversation, therefore, Cappy tugged the coat and said:
“Going to take a ship out this afternoon, captain?”
“Yes, sir. I'll be responsible for theMoanauntil we cross the Potato Patch—”
“TheMoana!” Cappy cried, and pulled out his watch. “You'd better be stepping lively, then. She sails at one, and you have twenty minutes to get to Greenwich Street Pier.”
“Oh, there's no hurry, Mr. Ricks. She'll be delayed from half to three-quarters of an hour waiting for the Australian mail. The mail train from the East is late, and of course theMoanacannot sail till—”
“You will pardon me, captain,” Cappy Ricks interrupted politely, “but I've just thought of a very important matter. I must run and telephone.”
As J. Augustus Redell had just pointed out, twenty minutes was scarcely ample time in which to decide on the right emissary to send to Papeete, get into communication with the said individual and induce him to go. In addition, such a person would have to have time to pack some clothing; also, to procure a letter of credit at the bank and purchase a ticket, not to mention the time requisite to receive his instructions and get to the steamer's dock. But with almost an hour—well, a wide-awake man can accomplish much in an hour, and Cappy Ricks was a natural leader of forlorn hopes. In the brief interval required to accomplish the journey from the door of the Merchants' Exchange to a telephone booth a flock of bright ideas capered through Cappy's ingenious head like goats on a tin roof.
“Main 2000!” he barked, and in five seconds he had the connection. “Put Skinner on the line!”
Cappy's own private exchange operator had the temerity to inform him that Mr. Skinner was out at luncheon.
“The in-fer-nal scoundrel—just when I need him! Put Captain Matt Peasley on the line, and be quick about it. Matt! Matt, listen! This is the old man speaking. Get an earful of what I'm going to tell you now, and don't ask any questions—just obey! Do you remember that big German freighter—the Valkyrie—sunk in Papeete Harbor?”
“Yes, sir.”
“She's a prize, Matt. I've just been given a low-down on her condition. Gus Redell is leaving on theMoanato bid her in at the government sale—the young scoundrel told me all about it and twitted me because we were asleep on the job and let the good thing get away from us. TheMoana'ssupposed to sail at one o'clock, but the Eastern mail is late—she won't get away from the dock until about one-thirty; but when she does—”
“When she does we'll have a man aboard her to beat Redell to the German steamer,” Matt Peasley interrupted. “I've got the message. Where are you, father-in-law?”
“At the Merchants' Exchange.”
“You attend to the funds and I'll do the rest.”
“Confound you!” rasped Cappy Ricks. “You're so headstrong, you'll jam things up yet if you don't listen to me.”
“But you'll have to send somebody Redell doesn't know.”
“That doesn't matter at all. Now, son, will you listen to me? I'll attend to the money and I'll also frame this entire deal. Is Miss Keenan in the office—you know—Skinner's stenographer?”
“Yes, sir.”
“She's been wanting to go on a vacation. When I heard about it I asked her how she'd like a cruise to Alaska—remember we have theTillicumleaving at six to-night for St. Michael's. She said that would be fine; so I gave her a pass and the owner's suite on theTillicum.”
“So I hear. Her trunk was sent to theTillicum'sdock this morning and she has her suit case in the office. She planned to work today and go aboard theTillicumafter office hours.”
“Good! Then she's all ready lor a voyage to Tahiti. Have the private exchange operator phone our wharf office instantly and tell them to load Miss Keenan's trunk on the first wagon handy and rush it over to theMoana. Give Miss Keenan fifteen hundred dollars and tell her she's to go to Papeete. If she kicks about clothes tell her to get along with what she has and buy what she needs on arrival.”
He waited while Matt Peasley gave the necessary instructions to the exchange operator. Then:
“It's all right, sir. Miss Keenan will go. She'll be on her way in five minutes. I've told her to go aboard and buy her ticket from the purser or from the ticket agent at the gang plank.”
“Fine business! Now who else have we in our employ that I can send? I want a man—and a rattling smart one.”
“Mike Murphy, the skipper of theNarcissus,” Matt suggested.
“The very man! He's discharging at Union Street Wharf. Phone the wharfinger's office and tell him he'll not regret taking a message down to the dock to Captain Murphy. Murphy will probably be at lunch aboard. Tell the wharfinger to tell him to throw a few clothes into a suit case—that he's to go to Papeete on mighty important business—and to meet me at the head of Greenwich Street Dock at one-twenty, without fail, for his orders and his money. Having phoned these orders, Matt, take the office automobile and scorch to the water front to see that they're carried out. Take Miss Keenan with you. Good-bye.”
And Cappy Ricks dashed out of the Merchants' Exchange as though the devil was at his heels walloping him at every jump. It was four blocks to the Marine National Bank, but the California Street cable car took him there in four minutes. Gasping and perspiring Cappy trotted into the cashier's office, where for ten precious seconds he stood, open-mouthed, unable to say a word.
“Well, Mr. Ricks,” the cashier greeted him, “if you can't talk make signs.”
Cappy flapped his hands and made three rapid strokes with his index finger, like a motion-picture actor writing a twelve-line letter; then the words came in a veritable cascade.
“Letters of credit,” he croaked-“two.” The cashier picked up a pencil and a scratch pad. “One, twenty-five thousand, favor Michael J. Murphy; one, favor—oh, what in blue blazes is that girl's first name? Oh, dear! Oh, dear! I never heard her first name—she's just Miss Keenan. Oh, the devil! Call her Matilda—that's it—Matilda Keenan—fifty thousand dollars for her; and—”
“You appear to be in a terrific hurry for them, Mr. Ricks, so I'll get them started immediately,” the cashier interrupted, and turned his memorandum over to an underling, with instructions to give Mr. Ricks' letters of credit precedence over all other business.
“Now write—check—your favor—seventy thousand. I'll sign it—hope Skinner has enough cash on deposit; if he hasn't—my personal note, you know.”
“A mere trifle, Mr. Ricks. We will not worry over that.” The cashier filled in the check and Cappy signed it with a trembling hand. “And now,” the cashier continued, “we will have to have Miss Keenan and Mr. Murphy come to the bank to register their respective signatures—”
“Nothing doing!” Cappy piped. “Give me the cards and I'll have 'em write their signatures on them aboard the steamer and send them ashore by the pilot. None o' your efficiency monkey business, my son! I guarantee everything.”
He dashed to the telephone and yelled into the receiver: “Taxicab! Taxicab!”
“One of the cars belonging to the bank is at the curb, Mr. Ricks. The chauffeur will take you wherever you desire to go,” the cashier suggested.
“Bully for you!” Again Cappy commenced to flap his hands. “Stenographer—where's the stenographer? Oh, Judas Priest, nobody helps me! Bless your sweet heart, my dear, here you are, aren't you? Yes, and I'll not forget you for it either. No, no, no! No notes. Just stick piece of paper in the typewriter—now then! Ready! Dictation direct to machine. Er—ah! Harumph-h-h! Oh, suffering sailor! What's the name of the French bank in Papeete? I don't know. I'm a director and vice president of this infernal bank—and I don't know I'm alive! Man, man, I want it—a thing—a what-you-may-call-'em—a—Oh, the devil! Why do I deposit in this dratted bank? Eureka! I have it! I want a notice.”
“You mean an advice, Mr. Ricks.”
“Bully boy! An advice. That's it. Holy mackerel, how I love a man that's fast on his feet! A notice to the bank in Papeete, Island of Tahiti, that you've given Captain Michael J. Murphy a letter of credit for twenty-five thousand dollars—only one notice for one letter of credit. I'm up to skullduggery. Man, man, why don't you dictate? Usual courtesies—good customer of your bank—you know; usual flubdub. No advice regarding Miss Keenan's letter of credit—just Murphy's.”
The cashier good-naturedly shouldered Cappy Ricks aside and dictated to the bank's correspondent in Papeete a brief note to the effect that the Marine National had that day issued to Captain Michael J. Murphy a letter of credit in the sum of twenty-five thousand dollars; that it understood Captain Murphy was proceeding to Papeete on some matter of business and took this occasion to commend him to their kindly offices.
“Stick that in an envelope—address envelope, seal it, and write outside: 'Kindness purser S.S.Moana.' The mail to Papeete is closed, but I'll see that theMoana'spurser delivers it to the bank,” Cappy ordered.