JAKE
The water front of San Francisco is unique. The long wharves, vibrating
to the thunder of trade, show ships from all corners of the world;
ships from China and the Islands, from Japan, from Africa, from India;
tall Cape Horners, held to the wharves with wire mooring-lines, lie
cleaning their bilges or lining their holds for grain cargoes with
ships for Durban, ships for Cork, steamers for Seattle and Northern
ports. Beyond lies the bay, blue or wind-beaten gray, busy with a
shipping life of its own, with Oakland, six miles across the water, for
a sister port. Beyond the bay are the hills that saw the desolation
before the first Spaniards broke the ground or the keel of the first
sandalwood trader rode the waters of the Golden Gate.
Here on the wharves to-day, it takes little imagination to see the
ships that have vanished and the traders that are gone—the South Sea
whaleman, with stump top gallant masts and boats slung out on wooden
davits, the Island schooner of the old days when the _Leonora_ was a
living ship and before copra was handled by companies.
George and his companion struck the water front, where a big “turret
boat” of the Clan line was moored, the Lascars huddled round her
foc’sle engaged in preparing fish for a curry.
“That’s the canal,” said Hank. “She’s come through from ’Urope with a
cargo and now she’s loading up for Bombay or somewhere. Looks as if
she’d been built by some one that’d gone bughouse, don’t she? She’s
built like that to save dues going through the Suez Canal. Wonder
what the shipping companies will be up to in the way of swindling the
Panama. I tell you, Bud, there’s not a hair’s difference between humans
and rats for tricks and smart ways.”
They passed along, reaching an old decayed bit of wharf that had
somehow withstood change and reconstruction. It is now little more than
a landing stage, but in the old days, under the name of Rafferty’s
wharf, it had a broad front. Whalers used to come alongside to
discharge and clean up and here Bones’ Old Sailors’ Lodging House, half
tavern, used to take unfortunates in and do for them. There was a trap
door from Bones’ back parlour to the water below, where boats could
come in between the piles and ship off sailor men blind with dope. Then
it became respectable and changed its name to Sullivan’s.
Alongside this stage lay the _Wear Jack_, a sixty ton schooner, fifty
feet long. The watchman happened to be on deck, a thin man greatly
gone to decay, dressed in a brown sweater and wearing an old fur cap.
He was seated on the coaming of the skylight, smoking.
“Hullo,” said Hank. “That you, Jake?”
The fellow below cocked an eye up and evidently recognised the other,
but he didn’t move.
“I’m coming aboard to overhaul her,” said Hank. “I’ve just seen Mr.
Tyrebuck, here’s his card.”
“Well, I’m not preventin’ you,” said Jake.
Hank came down the ladder followed by George.
The deck of the _Wear Jack_ ran flush fore and aft. Neglect sat there
with dirt and tobacco juice. Old ends of rope lay about and spars and
main blocks that had seen a better day, and bits of newspaper and a
bucket with potato peelings in it.
Forward, with her keel to the sky, lay an old broken dinghy that might
have come out of the ark, and a flannel jumper aired itself on the port
rail. No wonder that prospective buyers sniffed and went off.
The soft job man on the cabin skylight looked at the newcomers.
“Where’s your cyard?” said he.
Hank presented the card. “Now then,” said Hank, “if you’re not stuck
to that skylight with cobbler’s wax, hoist yourself and get busy. I’m
going right all over her, cabin first. Come along.”
He led the way down.
The saloon of the _Wear Jack_ had plenty of head room, six feet four
or so; there were bunks on either side and a cabin aft shut off by a
bird’s-eye maple door. The upholstering was in crimson, crimson plush,
and the table was of mahogany. Everything was of the best and little
the worse for wear, but over everything was the gloom of the murdered
sunlight, filtering in through the filthy skylight and the grimy
portholes. Hank opened the door of the after cabin.
“Pretty musty, ain’t it?” said Jake. “I kyan’t get it right, nohow. You
could grow mushrooms on that bunk with the damp, though where it comes
from, search me. Ain’t sea damp, it’s damp that seems to have got in
the wood. The wood sweats when the weather’s a bit warm. Smells like an
old cheese.”
“Well, I ain’t buying a scent factory,” said Hank.
“Oh, buyin’ her, are you?” said Jake, “_buyin’_ her.” He said nothing
more, but followed as Hank led the way out of the saloon. They
inspected the lavatory and bath, the galley, and then they came to the
auxiliary engine, for the _Wear Jack_ boasted an auxiliary engine, a
neat little Kelvin paraffin engine in a canvas jacket.
“Does the engine run?” asked Hank of the soft job man.
“Run,” said Jake. “Well the last time I heard of it runnin’, it run off
its bed plates. That’s the yarn I got from one of the chaps that were
in her on her last cruise—but maybe it’s a lie.”
“Now look here,” said Hank, “you deal straight with me and I’ll deal
straight with you to the tune of five dollars. I don’t want to buy old
junk. Is there anything wrong with this ship?” He nudged George as he
spoke.
“Well,” said Jake, “I oughtn’t to be talking, I s’pose, I’m put here to
show her to parties, but I haven’t swore to say nothing; anything wrong
with her? Why she’s all wrong, the sticks are carrots and the plankin’s
mush, run that there injin and you’ll shake her to pieces, get her in
a beam sea and she’ll strain her heart open. But mind you she’s fast,
her lines are good, but they’re just lines held together by a lick of
paint.”
Hank was down on his knees testing the planking to which the bed plates
were fixed with his knife.
Then he rose up and led the way on deck. They examined the foc’sle. It
had accommodations for six.
Coming out of the foc’sle, Hank began a cruise of his own, poking about
here and there. Then he dived down below again.
When he came on deck he handed Jake the five dollars for his
information and they left the ship.
He took George’s arm as they went along the wharf.
“Remember,” said he, “what I told you to-day about the _Wear Jack_
being an optical delusion.”
“Yes, and you seem to have been pretty right.”
“Oh, was I? Well, way back in my head I was thinking different, and I
only know that now. I can’t explain my head piece, except by saying it
goes by instinct. When I saw Jake the other day, he must have climbed
right down into my mind and sat there ever since, explaining things
without my knowing, otherwise I’m doubtful if I’d have been so keen on
Tyrebuck letting me have the old _Jack_. Not that I mind risking my
life, but there it is, I wouldn’t have been as keen and maybe wouldn’t
have pushed the deal through. It’s the biggest deal I’ve ever made.”
“How’s that?”
“Why, Bud, can’t you see what’s wrong with the schooner?”
“No.”
“Jake! The schooner’s as sound as I am. She’s not as young as she used
to be, but she’s one of the old navy that was built to wear. I’ve
examined her. You remember my telling you that rats couldn’t beat
humans in tricks? Well, it was just beginning to hit me then that maybe
all that raffle and dirt on her deck and all the yarns I’d heard about
her were put out by Jake.”
“Why?”
“Why, to keep his job. He don’t want her sold. She’s his job. Besides,
he’s been collecting five dollars a time, and maybe more, from every
mug of a buyer he’s given ‘a straight tip’ about her. That’s human
nature. He wouldn’t have got a cent for praising her.”
“Good Lord! What a scoundrel! Why didn’t you tell him straight out
instead of handing him that money?”
“Not me,” said Hank. “Have him maybe sink her at her moorings to-night,
or play some dirty trick. To-morrow, with Tyrebuck’s letter in my hand,
it will be different. But only for him, I wouldn’t have got her for
nothing.”
“Only for yourself, you mean,” said George.
“Well, maybe,” said Hank.