“Well, Matt,” said Cappy Ricks, cheerfully, as he shook hands with the
late second mate of the Florence Ricks. “We don't see much of each other
now that you're a mate. But don't worry, you'll be a master again, and
then you'll be dropping in here a couple of times a month pestering
me for a lot of things for your ship that you could probably get along
without. You're looking fit, my boy.”
“I'm feeling fit, sir,” Matt replied, grinning.
“I'm glad to hear it,” was Cappy's grim reply. “Hum! Harump-h-h-h!
Let me see now. You've had your course in the Mendocino dog-holes, and
that's over. I hope you learned something. You've run for seven months
from all the Washington and Oregon ports to Southern California,
and--er--that's very nice. But you haven't been over Humboldt Bar yet,
have you?”
“No, sir.”
“Then you have something coming. Quite a bar in the winter time, Matt,
quite a bar! Good many tickets been lost on that bar, Matt, so you ought
to have more than a nodding acquaintance with it. You're going second
mate in the Quickstep. She's carrying redwood shingles from Eureka to
the Shingle Association's air-drying yards up river at Los Medanos at
present, and she'll get to Los Medanos Sunday afternoon, so you'd better
get there about the same time, in order to turn to discharging bright
and early Monday morning. And you'll have to step lively, Matt. The
Quickstep lives up to her name, and the way they put shingles into that
vessel is a scandal.”
“Shingles are nice stuff to handle,” Matt ventured.
“Not redwood shingles, Matt. All right after they're dry, but when they
come fresh from the saws they bleed a little, so be sure and wear gloves
when you handle them. If you have a cut on your hand that redwood sap
may poison you. I think you'll like the Quickstep, Matt.”
“It doesn't matter whether I do or not,” Matt replied humorously. “You
always do things for me without consulting me anyhow.”
“Why, you don't mind, do you, my boy? It's all for your own good.”
“I can bear it, sir, because one of these bright days I'm going to do
something without consulting you.”
Cappy favored him with a sharp glance. “As the street boys say,” he
flashed back, “'I get you, Steve!'”
“And having gotten me, Mr. Ricks, do you still want me in your employ?”
“Oh, certainly, certainly. Any time I want to get rid of you I'll fire
you or have Skinner do it for me.”
Matt looked at his watch and rose. “I have four days' shore leave before
me, sir,” he said, “so I guess I'll be trotting along and make the most
of it. I'll be at Los Medanos Sunday night.”
“Her skipper's a big Finn,” Cappy warned him. “Behave yourself, Matt.
He's bad medicine for young second mates.”
“I'll do my duty, sir.”
He took his leave. As he went out the door Cappy gazed after him with
twinkling eyes: “Young scoundrel!” he murmured. “Damned young scoundrel!
You'll be ringing Florry up the minute you leave this office, if you
haven't already done it. I'm onto you, young fellow!”
Matt Peasley took Florry Ricks to a matinee that very day. Cappy,
suspecting he might attempt something of the sort and desiring to verify
his suspicions, went home from the office early that day, and from his
hiding place behind the window drapes in his drawing room he observed
a taxicab draw up in front of his residence at six o'clock. From this
vehicle Matt Peasley, astonishingly well tailored, alighted, handed out
the heir to the Ricks millions, said good-by lingeringly and drove away.
“Well,” Cappy soliloquized, “I guess I'm going to land the son-in-law
I'm after. The matinee is over at a quarter of five, and those two have
fooled away an hour. I'll bet a dollar Florry steered that sailor into
a tea fight somewhere, and if she did that, Matt, you're a tip-top risk
and I'll underwrite you.”
That same evening Cappy sneaked into his daughter's apartments and found
a photograph of Matt Peasley in a hammered silver frame on Florry's
dressing table.
“Holy sailor!” he chuckled. “They think they're putting one over on the
old gentleman, don't they? Trying to cover me with blood, eh? Huh! If
I'd let that fellow Matt stay ashore he'd have hung round Florry until
he wore out his welcome, and I suppose in the long run I'd have had to
put up with one of these lawn-tennis, tea-swilling young fellows too
proud to work. By Judas Priest, when I quit the street I want to give
my proxy to a lad that will make my competitors mind their step, and by
keeping Matt at sea a couple of years, I'll get him over the moon-calf
period. Deliver my girl and my business from the hands of a damned
fool!”
The following evening Cappy questioned his daughter's chauffeur--a
chauffeur, by the way, being a luxury which Cappy scorned for himself.
He maintained a coachman and a carriage and a spanking team of bays, and
drove to his office like the old-fashioned gentleman he was. From this
chauffeur Cappy learned that he, the chauffeur, had been out all the
afternoon with Miss Florence and a large, light-hearted young gentleman.
They had lunched together at the Cliff House.
“What did she call him?” Cappy demanded, anxious to verify his
suspicions. “Didn't she address him as 'Matt?'”
“No, sir,” the man replied, grinning. “She called him 'dearie.'”
“Holy jumped-up Jehosophat!” murmured Cappy, and questioned the man no
further. That evening, however, he decided to have a heart--particularly
after Florry had informed him that she was going out to dinner the
following night.
“And you'll be all alone, popsy-wops,” she added, “so you had better eat
dinner at the club.”
“Oh, I'm tired of my clubs,” Cappy replied sadly. “Still your remark
gives me an idea, Florry. If I happen to run across that young fellow
Peasley--you remember him, Florry; the boy I'm training for a steamship
captain--I'll have him out for dinner with me so I'll not have to eat
alone.”
“I thought you didn't care for him socially,” Florry put forth a feeler.
“Well, he used to remind me considerably of a St. Bernard pup, but I
notice he's losing a lot of that fresh, puppy-dog way he used to have.
And then he's a Down-East boy. His Uncle Ethan Peasley and I were pals
together fifty years ago, and for Ethan's sake I feel that I ought to
show the boy some consideration. He's learning to hold himself together
pretty well, and if I should run into him to-morrow I'll ask him out.”
Florry exhibited not the slightest interest in her father's plans, but
he noticed that immediately after dinner she hurried up to her room, and
that upon her return she declined a game of pool with her father on the
score of not feeling very well.
“You skipped upstairs like a sick woman,” Cappy reflected. “I'll bet a
hat you telephoned that son of a sea cook to be sure and throw himself
in my way to-morrow, so I'll invite him out to dinner. And you're
complaining of a headache now so you'll have a good excuse to cancel
that dinner engagement to-morrow night so as to eat at home with your
daddy and his guest. Poor old father! He's such a dub! I'll bet myself a
four-bit cigar I eat breakfast alone to-morrow morning.”
And it was even so. Florry sent down word that she was too indisposed
to breakfast with her father, and the old man drove chuckling to his
office. That afternoon Matt Peasley, in an endeavor to invade the floor
of the Merchants' Exchange, to which he had no right, was apprehended by
the doorkeeper and asked to show his credentials.
“Oh, I'm Captain Peasley, of the Blue Star Navigation Company,” he
replied lightly, and was granted admittance as the courtesy accorded all
sea captains. He knew Cappy Ricks always spent an hour on 'Change after
luncheon at the Commercial Club. When Cappy met him, however, the old
man was mean enough to pay not the slightest attention to Matt; so after
waiting round for three-quarters of an hour longer, the latter left the
Exchange and walked down California Street, where he posted himself in
the shelter of a corner half a block south of No. 258, where the
Blue Star Navigation Company had its offices. From this vantage point
presently he spied Cappy trotting home from the Merchants' Exchange;
whereupon Matt strolled leisurely up the street and met him. And in
order that Cappy should realize whom he was meeting Matt bumped into the
schemer and then begged his pardon profusely.
“Don't mention it, Matt,” the old rascal protested. “You shook up a
flock of ideas in my head and jarred one loose. If you haven't anything
on to-night, my boy, better come out to the house and have dinner with
me. I'm all alone and I want company.”
“Thank you, sir,” Matt replied enthusiastically; “I'll be glad to come.”
“You bet you will,” Cappy thought. Aloud he said: “At six-thirty.”
“Yes, sir. Thank you, sir.” And Matt Peasley was off like a tin-canned
dog to slick himself up for the party, while Cappy entered the elevator
chuckling. “If I ever find the sour-souled philosopher who said
you can't mix business and sentiment without resultant chaos,” he
soliloquized, “I'll boil the kill-joy in oil.”