PUBLICITY
George did not go to the club that night. He went straight home and
sent Farintosh out to buy all the evening papers and Farintosh returned
with a bundle of everything from the _Evening Sun_ to the _Polk Street
Pikers’ Messenger_. Every paper had the news, under all sorts of scare
headlines. Some of these headlines referred to Fisher and some to
himself; through all the notices ran a gentle and breezy humour, and
in them all, with one exception, Joe Barrett had his advertisement and
walked protected from laughter as Shadrac from flame.
The one exception was the _Polk Street Piker_, a free spoken organ that
generally kept to ward politics. The _Piker_, whilst allowing that
Rat Trap Fisher had swelled head and had better stick to rodents, was
frankly libellous about Barrett, said the whole thing was a fake got up
by Barrett to help his sale of damaged goods then on, said a business
must be pretty rocky to adopt such means, said that it was likely the
whole Dutchman business was a business fake.
George read this horrible libel with a chill at his heart, for he
knew that Hennessy, the editor of the _Piker_, was a led captain and
creature of Barrett’s. No one of any account read the _Piker_, but
everyone of any account would read the abject apology of the _Piker_
sure to be published in a day or two in every newspaper in California,
together with editorial comments and a full statement about the Fisher
Expedition supplied by Scudder. The thing would probably reach New
York and London. With Vanderdecken as engine and Barrett as driver and
stoker, there was no knowing where it might not reach or how long it
might not keep running, and he, George du Cane, was tied to the tail
of it. He was already in the blaze of the limelight and at that moment
men in the clubs, people at dinner parties, people in restaurants and
people in cars were talking of him. The fact of his wealth would give
him a little place, all his own, in this show. There was only one way
of escape—justification. “We’ve gotta get the Dutchman.” Hank’s words
came back to him. If they did not get the Dutchman, it would be much
better not to come back to San Francisco. George had a fine feeling for
Pacific Coast temperament; leaving that alone, half frozen Icelanders
would see the point and the joke of a much advertised amateur
expedition such as theirs returning empty handed.
He went to bed early but he could not sleep for a long time. It was all
very well talking about getting the Dutchman, but how were they to
get him? When the getting of him had been only a matter of sport, the
thing seemed fairly easy; now that it was a matter of dire necessity,
it seemed next to impossible. A nightmare task like hunting for a lost
needle in Kearney Street.
He jumped out of bed, fetched an atlas, and, taking it back to bed
with him, looked up the California coast, running his eye along from
San Francisco to Cape San Lucas, exploring the sea from the Channel
Islands to Guadaloupe and from Guadaloupe to the Tres Marias Islands.
Somewhere in that vast stretch of sea, somewhere on that line of coast
that ran from the Golden Gate to Cancer, they had to find a man who
most certainly did not want to be found by searchers. He went to sleep
on the thought and awoke to it.
Farintosh was entering the room; he was carrying a bundle of morning
papers.
“Pull up the blind,” said George.
Propped on the pillows, he opened the first paper to hand expecting
to see his name in double leaded type. Not a word. In all the paper
not a word of him or Hank or the Dutchman or the expedition. The next
paper was the same and the next. The great San Francisco dailies and
the little San Francisco dailies had treated the matter with the most
absolute contempt. George felt curiously flat, he even looked at
the dates of the papers to make sure there was no mistake and that
Farintosh had not by some accident brought him yesterday’s press.
He had dreaded seeing his name and now he was disappointed because it
was not there. Human nature is a funny thing.
He rose, bathed, dressed and came down to breakfast, but still the
depression clung. He felt small and of little account, he felt weak
and irritable. What was wrong with him? He had tasted Publicity, that
is all. Publicity, the wine of the Barretts, is also the wine of the
poets; its fascination is universal and of whatever brand it is, from
abusive to laudatory, it is always Publicity. Even the pillory, I
expect, had its compensations in the old days, and to be recognized
with a bad egg or a dead cat was, at all events, to be recognised.
And what a blaze-up that was last night, with every paper screaming
round the bon-fire,—and now this frost—why, that alone was in the
nature of an insult.
Suddenly and in the act of pouring himself out a second cup of coffee,
his mind cleared and his energy returned. “We’ve gotta get the
Dutchman.” Hank’s words had come back to him. “And by God we will,”
said he.
He finished his breakfast, rang for the car and started for the
wharves. The deck of the _Wear Jack_ was empty, he dropped down to
the cabin and there was Hank surrounded with newspapers. Hank had
evidently purchased largely last night as well as this morning.
“Well,” said George lightly, “there’s not a word in the morning papers
and that’s a good thing.”
Hank grunted.
“That’s Barrett,” said he. “He’s cut the news off plunk. Why, a blaze
in the morning papers would have been out by to-night; as it is every
man from Pacific Avenue to Polk Street is saying, ‘Why, there ain’t
no news about Hank.’ Barrett’s being ’phoned to death at the present
minute asking what it all means. People will be talking all day,
wanting news of the business and inventing lies to fill the gaps,
till it’ll get about that the Dutchman’s been caught by Joe Barrett
an’s being exhibited at his stores. By to-night all the ’phones will
be humming with lies and all the South Coast papers shouting for
information. Why, Bud, where were you born not to know that advertising
isn’t printing stuff in the papers but making men talk. One big rumour,
if you set it going, bumbling away like thunder in the foot hills, is
worth all the printed stuff from here to Nome. We’re fair handicapped.
If I was advertising liver pills, I’d be joyful, but I’m not.”
“Think it will queer our pitch?”
“Well, you don’t go duck-shooting with a brass band, do you? But
there’s no use in talking, we’re on the slide and we’ll have to
slither, and brass band or no, I’m going to get him. Come on, we’ve
gotta get to work.”
He had been at work since six o’clock, it seemed, on the ratlines,
and he was now overhauling all the standing rigging. That done, they
attacked the running.
In the middle of these operations it began to dawn on them that they
were observed. Sometimes there was quite a little group on the wharf
watching and criticising. George noticed it first.
“How the devil have they got to know the whereabouts of the boat?”
asked George. “The papers said nothing about Sullivan’s Wharf.”
“It’s Jake,” said Hank. “He’ll have been all over the wharves talking;
take a pull on that halyard. Lord, these blocks will never do, I’ll
have to go hunt in the sail-room to see if I can’t turn out some
better. What’s the time? Getting on for one? Well, I’ve got some grub
down below and I vote we have a bite, and after that, if you don’t
mind, will you skip ashore to the club and see if there’s any letters
for me. I’m expecting a business letter from N’ York about a patent
I’ve got an interest in.”
“Right,” said George.
The galley of the _Wear Jack_ was well fitted up. Jake had done his
cooking there and had left half a can of kerosene behind him. Hank had
got eggs and a great chunk of bacon from somewhere out of the blue, and
there was the remains of last night’s German sausage. In a few minutes
the frying pan was shouting over a Primus stove and Hank, in his shirt
sleeves, was directing George. There was a let-down table in the galley
and plates and knives and forks in a locker.
“I’ve overhauled the crockery and table and bed linen,” said Hank. “Did
it last night. There’s enough on board for a family—pass me your plate.
We’ll have a Chink for cook.”
“How about the crew?”
“Time enough about them—maybe we’ll have Chinks.”
To George, pondering as he ate, suddenly came the fact that
Vanderdecken—the Dutchman—Dutch Pete, or whatever his name might be,
certainly had behind him a crew of the same colour as himself, coupled
with the fact that a crew of Chinks wouldn’t be of the same fighting
colour as Vanderdecken’s lot.
He said so.
“Oh, it won’t come to fighting,” said Hank. “If it did I can hit a
dollar with an automatic at twenty-five paces once a second, and I’ll
learn you to do the same—but it won’t. We’ve got to take that chap with
our wits, not with guns, though they’ll be useful maybe for bluff. Did
y’ ever see strategy and tactics combined in the concrete?”
“No,” said George.
“Then you’ve never seen my rat trap,” said Hank.
An hour later George returned from his visit to the club with two
letters for Hank. One was the expected letter from New York; the other,
which bore only the San Francisco post-mark, was addressed to R. T.
Fisher, and ran:
11 West Lincoln Street,
San Francisco.
Sir,
As a lover of the sea and all that therein is, I take this
opportunity to beg leave to apply for a post in your expidition,
can turn my hand to anything that isn’t crooked. Was gold-mining at
Klondike two years but give it up owing to a frost bight but am used
to dealing with rough characters. Seeing the piece about you in the
evening paper to-night I make haist to apply and you will find me
equal prompt in my dealings I have to do with you, and satisfactory.
A line to above will oblige.
Yours, truly,
J. B. Yonkers.
P. S. Terms can be arranged.
“That’s the bill-mackerel,” said Hank. “Did you ever see a mackerel?
Well, it’s always headed by a couple or so of freak mackerel. Chaps
with bills like ducks. This is the first of the shoal of chaps that’ll
be wanting to come along, with us—you’ll see.”