Produced by Paul J. Hollander
CAPPY RICKS
or The Subjugation of Matt Peasley
by Peter B. Kyne
TO THE IDEAL AMERICAN SAILOR
As exemplified in the persons of my good friends,
Captain Ralph E. Peasley, of Jonesport, Maine,
Who skippered the first five-masted schooner ever built, brought her,
on that first voyage, through the worst typhoon that ever blew, and
upon arriving at the Yang Tse Kiang River for the first time in his
adventurous career, decided he could not trust a Chinese pilot and
established a record by sailing her up himself!
Captain I. N. Hibberd, of Philadelphia, Pennsylvania,
Sometime master of the American clipper ship, Cyrus Wakefield, who, at
the age of twenty-five, broke three world's records in one voyage: San
Francisco to Liverpool and back, eight months and two days; Liverpool
to San Francisco, one hundred days; from the equator to San Francisco,
eleven days. The clipper ship is gone but the skipper remains, an
undefeated champion.
Captain William P. Cantey, of San Francisco, California,
Sometime mate of the brig Galilee, who, with his naked hands,
convinced in thirty-five minutes nine larger men than himself of the
incontrovertible fact that you cannot keep a good man down.
TO THE AMERICAN SHIPOWNER
As exemplified in the persons of my good friends,
John H. Rossiter, Manager of W. R. Grace & Co., of San Francisco.
Edwin A. Christenson, President of the Sudden & Christenson S.S. Line,
of San Francisco.
John R. Hanify, President of the John R. Hanify Company, of San
Francisco.
TO THE PACIFIC COAST LUMBERMAN
As exemplified in the person of my good friend,
Augustus J. (“Gus”) Russell, California Manager for the Portland
Lumber Company, and my personal representative, without salary, in the
wholesale lumber trade, ever since I abandoned lumber for literature.
TO FREIGHT, SHIP, AND MARINE INSURANCE BROKERS
As exemplified in the persons of my good friends,
Messrs. E. B. Smith, Oscar J. Beyfuss, and Allan Hayes.
This volume is dedicated, without charge for the advertising but with
profound appreciation of the part they have made in making this book
possible. With the author they must bear an equal burden of whatever of
praise or censure shall entail.
CONTENTS
I. Master of Many Ships and Skipper of None
II. The Man from Blue Water
III. Under the Blue Star Flag
IV. Bad News from Cape Town
V. Matt Peasley Assumes Office
VI. Wordy War at a Dollar a Word
VII. Cappy Ricks Makes Bad Medicine
VIII. All Hands and Feet to the Rescue
IX. Mr. Murphy Advises Preparedness
X. The Battle of Table Bay
XI. Mr. Skinner Receives a Telegram
XII. The Campaign Opens
XIII. An Old Friend Returns and Cappy Leads Another Ace
XIV. Insult Added to Injury
XV. Rumors of War
XVI. War!
XVII. Cappy Forces an Armistice
XVIII. The War is Renewed
XIX. Capp Seeks Peace
XX. Peace at Last!
XXI. Matt Peasley Meets a Talkative Stranger
XXII. Face to Face
XXIII. Business and--
XXIV. The Clean Up
XXV. Cappy Proves Himself a Despot
XXVI. Matt Peasley in Exile
XXVII. Promotion
XXVIII. Cappy Has a Heart
XXIX. Nature Takes Her Course
XXX. Mr. Skinner Hears a Lecture
XXXI. Internal Combustion
XXXII. Skinner Proposes--and Cappy Ricks Disposes
XXXIII. Cappy's Plans Demolished
XXXIV. A Gift From the Gods
XXXV. A Dirty Yankee Trick
XXXVI. Cappy Forbids the Bans--Yet
XXXVII. Matt Peasley Becomes a Shipowner
XXXVIII. Working Capital
XXXIX. Easy Money
XL. The Cataclysm
XLI. When Pain and Anguish Wring the Brow
XLII. Unexpected Developments
XLIII. Cappy Plans a Knock-out
XLIV. Skinner Develops into a Human Being
XLV. Cappy Pulls Off a Wedding
XLVI. A Ship Forgotten
XLVII. The Tail Goes with the Hide
XLVIII. Victory
CHAPTER I. MASTER OF MANY SHIPS AND SKIPPER OF NONE
A psychologist would have termed Alden P. Ricks an individualist, but
his associates in the wholesale lumber and shipping trade of the Pacific
Coast proclaimed him a character.
In his youth he had made one voyage round Cape Horn as a cabin boy, his
subsequent nautical experience having been confined to the presidency of
the Blue Star Navigation Company and occasional voyages as a first-cabin
passenger. Notwithstanding this apparent lack of salt-water wisdom,
however, his intimate knowledge of ships and the men who go down to the
sea in them, together with his very distinct personality, had conduced
to provide him with a courtesy title in his old age.
It is more than probable that, had Alden P. Ricks been a large,
commanding person possessed of the dignity the average citizen
associates with men of equal financial rating, the Street would have
called him Captain Ricks. Had he lacked these characteristics, but borne
nevertheless even a remote resemblance to a retired mariner, his world
would have hailed him as Old Cap Ricks; but since he was what he was--a
dapper, precise, shrewd, lovable little old man with mild, paternal
blue eyes, a keen sense of humor and a Henry Clay collar, which latter,
together with a silk top hat, had distinguished him on 'Change for forty
years--it was inevitable that along the Embarcadero and up California
Street he should bear the distinguishing appellation of Cappy. In any
other line of human endeavor he would have been called Pappy--he was
that type of man.
Cappy Ricks had so much money, amassed in the wholesale lumber and
shipping business, that he had to engage some very expensive men to
take care of it for him. He owned the majority of the stock of the Ricks
Lumber and Logging Company, with sawmills and timberlands in California,
Oregon and Washington; his young men had to sell a million feet of
lumber daily in order to keep pace with the output, while the vessels
of the Blue Star Navigation Company, also controlled by Cappy, freighted
it. There were thirty-odd vessels in the Blue Star fleet--windjammers
and steam schooners; and Cappy was registered as managing owner of every
one.
Following that point in his career when the young fellows on the Street,
discovering that he was a true-blue sport, had commenced to fraternize
with him and call him Cappy, the old gentleman ceased to devote his
attention to the details of his business. He was just beginning to enjoy
life; so he shifted the real work of his multifarious interests to the
capable shoulders of a Mr. John P. Skinner, who fitted into his niche
in the business as naturally as the kernel of a healthy walnut fits its
shell. Mr. Skinner was a man still on the sunny side of middle life,
smart, capable, cold-blooded, a little bumptious, and, like the late
Julius Caesar, ambitious.
No sooner had Cappy commenced to take life easy than Skinner commenced
to dominate the business. He attended an efficiency congress and came
home with a collection of newfangled ideas that eliminated from the
office all the joy and contentment old Cappy Ricks had been a life-time
installing. He inaugurated card systems and short cuts in bookkeeping
that drove Cappy to the verge of insanity, because he could never go to
the books himself and find out anything about his own business. He had
to ask Mr. Skinner--which made Skinner an important individual.
With the passage of five years the general manager was high and low
justice in Cappy's offices, and had mastered the not-too-difficult art
of dominating his employer, for Cappy seldom seriously disagreed with
those he trusted. He saved all his fighting force for his competitors.
However, Cappy's interest in the Blue Star Navigation Company did not
wane with the cessation of his activities as chief kicker. Ordinarily,
Mr. Skinner bossed the navigation company as he bossed the lumber
business, for Cappy's private office was merely headquarters for
receiving mail, reading the newspapers, receiving visitors, smoking an
after-luncheon cigar, and having a little nap from three o'clock until
four, at which hour Cappy laid aside the cares of business and put in
two hours at bridge in his club.
Despite this apparent indifference to business, however, Mr. Skinner
handled the navigation company with gloves; for, if Cappy dozed in his
office, he had a habit of keeping one eye open, so to speak, and every
little while he would wake up and veto an order of Skinner's, of which
the latter would have been willing to take an oath Cappy had never
heard. In the matter of engaging new skippers or discharging old ones
Mr. Skinner had to be very careful. Cappy always declared that any
clerk can negotiate successfully a charter at the going rates in a
stiff market, but skippers are, in the final analysis, the Genii of the
Dividends. And Cappy knew skippers. He could get more loyalty out
of them with a mere pat on the back and a kindly word than could Mr.
Skinner, with all his threats, nagging and driving, yet he was an
employer who demanded a full measure of service, and never permitted
sentiment to plead for an incompetent. And his ships were his pets; in
his affections they occupied a position but one degree removed from
that occupied by his only child, in consequence of which he was mighty
particular who hung up his master's ticket in the cabin of a Blue
Star ship. Some idea of the scrupulous care with which he examined all
applicants for a skipper's berth may be gleaned from the fact that any
man discharged from a Blue Star ship stood as much chance of obtaining a
berth with one of Cappy Ricks' competitors as a celluloid dog chasing an
asbestos cat through Hades.
The reader will readily appreciate, therefore, the apprehensions which
assailed Cappy Ricks when the Blue Star Navigation Company discovered it
had on its payroll one Matthew Peasley, a Nobody from Nowhere, who not
only had the insufferable impudence to apply for a job skippering the
finest windjammer in the fleet, but when rebuffed in no uncertain terms,
refused to withdraw his application, and defied his owners to fire him.
Such a preposterous state of affairs borders so closely on the realm of
fancy as to require explanation; hence, for the nonce let us leave Cappy
Ricks and Mr. Skinner to their sordid task of squeezing dividends out
of the Blue Star Navigation Company and turn the searchlight of inquiry
upon the amazing Matthew.