“Skinner,” said Cappy Ricks, “I was called out of my bed at five o'clock
this morning by the night operator at the Merchants' Exchange. He told
me our Retriever was in the breakers just south of Point Reyes, but that
a tug was standing by. What have you heard since?”
“She drifted in there in a calm last night, sir,” Mr. Skinner replied.
“Fortunately the Point Reyes lookout had reported her early yesterday
evening, and one of the Red Stack tugs--the Sea Fox--took a chance and
went out seeking. Lucky thing for us--”
“The tug hauled her off then?”
“Got a line aboard just in time. I had a telephone message from Captain
Murphy at Meiggs Wharf ten minutes ago. The Retriever is anchored in the
fairway.”
“What tug did you say it was?” Cappy queried.
“The Sea Fox.”
“That's Matt Peasley's command,” Cappy mused. “Lucky? I should say we
are! It's up to the master of the tug very frequently whether, under
such conditions, his task has been a mere towage job at the going rates
or a salvage proposition to be settled in court. I dare say Matt will
give us the benefit of the doubt and call it towage.”
“Don't deceive yourself!” Skinner snapped. “It's salvage; Murphy said
so. After he got close in Peasley refused to name a price and came
aboard and made Murphy sign a paper acknowledging that his ship was in
distress and dire peril, before he would even put a line aboard him--”
“Wow! Wow! The tugboat company will libel the ship now, and sue us for
fifty thousand dollars' salvage on vessel and cargo,” and Cappy groaned,
for he owned both. “By George!” he continued. “I didn't think Matt would
do anything like that to me. No, sir! If anybody had told me that boy
could be such an ingrate I'd have told him--”
A youth entered Cappy's office uninvited.
“Captain Peasley to see you, sir,” he said.
“Show the infernal fellow in,” rasped Cappy, and Matt Peasley stalked
into the room.
“I should like to see you privately, Mr. Ricks,” he announced, and cast
a significant glance at Skinner, who took the hint and left the room at
once.
Matt sat down. “Well,” he said, “I guess the tug Sea Fox and owners,
together with her doughty skipper and crew, will finger some of your
hard-earned dollars before long, Mr. Ricks. I pulled your barkentine
Retriever out of the breakers this morning. In fifteen minutes she would
have been on the beach and a total loss--and I have a document, signed
by Captain Murphy and his mates, to prove it. I offered the pig-headed
fellow a tow at ten o'clock the night before, but he declined it--trying
to save a few dollars, of course--so when I had him where he had to have
my services--”
“Well!” Cappy snapped, “send your owners round and we'll try to settle
out of court. If they're hogs we'll fight 'em, that's all.”
“And if you do you'll get licked. We'll get a quarter of the value of
that vessel and her cargo. She's easily worth fifty thousand dollars and
her cargo is worth thirty thousand more--that's eighty thousand, and a
quarter of eighty thousand dollars is twenty thousand.”
“You'll have to fight for it, I tell you,” Cappy reiterated.
“There is no necessity for a fight, Mr. Ricks. It all rests with
me whether this is a salvage job or just a plain towing job at the
customary rates.”
Cappy looked at his ex-skipper keenly.
“Matt,” he charged, “you've got a scheme. You want something.”
“I do; I want to save you a lot of fuss and worry and expense. In return
I want you to do something for me.”
“I'll do it, Matt. What is the program?”
“Give me that twenty thousand dollars you justly owe me--twenty thousand
dollars I have to my credit on your books, which you are withholding
just because you have the power to withhold it.”
“And in return--”
“I'll tear up the deadly document I extorted from Murphy and report a
mere towage job to my owners.”
Cappy pressed the push-button and a boy appeared.
“Tell Mr. Skinner I want to see him,” he ordered, and an instant later
Mr. Skinner entered. “Skinner,” said Cappy, “draw a check for twenty
thousand in favor of Matt Peasley, and charge it to his account.”
“And then send it over to the bank and certify it,” Matt added, “because
before I get through with you, Mr. Ricks, you'll be tempted to stop
payment on it, if I know you--and I think I do.”
Half an hour later Cappy handed Matt Peasley, a certified check for
twenty thousand dollars, and in exchange the latter handed Cappy the
only proof the Red Stack people would have had, over and above the
contradictory testimony of the crews of the respective vessels, that the
services of their tug constituted salvage and not towage. Cappy read it,
tore it into shreds and glared at Matt Peasley.
“Matt,” he said very solemnly, “I'm glad this thing happened. I've
always had a good opinion of you, but now I know that though you have
many excellent qualities you do not possess that quality which above all
others I require in an employee or a son-in-law.
“You aren't loyal. You had the sweetest case of salvage against our
vessel that any man could go into court with, and you kicked it
away like that, just for your own selfish ends. You sacrificed your
shipmates, who would have been awarded a pro rata of the salvage, and
you were false to the trust your owners reposed in you.”
Cappy stood up, his face pale with fury, and shook an admonitory finger
under Matt Peasley's nose.
“That act, sir, is an index of your true character,” he thundered.
“A master who will deceive his owners, who will be false to their
interests, is a scoundrel, sir; do you hear me?--a scoundrel. You will
oblige me, sir, by refraining from any attentions to my daughter in
the future. To think that you have descended to such a petty, miserable
subterfuge to trick me and rob your owners! Thank God, I have found you
out in time!”
“Yes, isn't it fortunate?” Matt answered humorously. “And if you get any
angrier you'll bust an artery and die.”
“Out of my office!” Cappy raved; for though he was a business man, and
never hesitated to do business in a businesslike way, he was the soul of
business honor, and in all his life he had never taken a mean or unfair
advantage of those who trusted him. The knowledge that Matt Peasley had
done such a thing filled him with rage not unmixed with sorrow.
“I'll be gone in a minute,” Matt replied gently; “only before I go
permit me to tell you something, and on my honor as a man and a sailor I
assure you I speak the truth. That wasn't a salvage job at all.”
“What?”
Matt repeated the statement. Cappy blinked and clawed at his whiskers.
“Oh,” he said presently, “I had forgotten that you and Captain Murphy
were once shipmates. And so that fellow Murphy stood in with you to work
a hocuspocus game on me, eh?” he thundered. “By Godfrey, I'll fire
him for it!” and he rushed to the office door, opened it and called to
Skinner: “Skinner, Murphy is to be fired. Attend to it.” Then he closed
the door again and faced Matt Peasley.
“Murphy is to be reinstated,” Matt assured Cappy, “for the reason that
Murphy was in deadly earnest when he signed that paper. In five minutes
he would have been a skipper without a ship, and he knew it. If you fire
Murphy you do a fine man a terrible injustice.”
“Well, how in blue blazes did he get so close to the beach and let
himself into your clutches?” Cappy raved.
“He couldn't answer that question, sir. He doesn't know. He thinks the
current set him in there. It didn't. I set him in there.”
“You set him in?” Cappy queried incredulously.
“I set him in. I kept backing up on his starboard counter, ostensibly to
dicker with him, and as soon as I had the stern of my tug within a few
feet of the Retriever I'd signal my mate at the wheel, he'd give the
engineer full speed ahead--why you have no idea of the force of the
quick water thrown back from that big towing propeller of the Sea Fox.
The rush of it just swung the Retriever's nose slowly toward the beach
and kicked her ahead fifteen or twenty feet, and then her sheer momentum
carried her thirty yards farther. By that time I was backed up to her
again, bargaining with Murphy, and ready for another kick. It was easier
after the flood tide set in, and I kept at her all night long, and
gradually kicked her into the breakers, where I wanted her. I knew
Murphy would listen to reason then. So you see, Mr. Ricks, it wasn't a
salvage job, and I didn't betray my owners at all--”
“You Yankee thief!” Cappy yelled, and dashed at Matt, to enfold the
son-in-law-to-be in a paternal embrace. “Oh, Matt, my boy, why do you
want to be a tugboat man when I need a man with your brains? Why don't
you be sensible and listen to reason?”
Matt held the old man off at arm's length and grinned at him
affectionately.
“It's worth twenty thousand dollars to get the better of you, sir,” he
said.
Cappy sat down very suddenly.
“Ah, yes,” he said. “Speaking of money reminds me: What do you intend
doing with that twenty thousand dollars?”
“Well, I thought at first I'd go into the shipping business for
myself--”
“Skiffs or gasoline launches--which?” Cappy twitted him.
“But you seem bent on having your way, and Florry is making such a fuss,
I suppose I'll have to give in to you after all.”
Matt stepped to the door, opened it and called: “Mr. Skinner!”
Mr. Skinner looked up from his desk by the window. “Well, sir!” he
demanded haughtily.
“Murphy is not to be fired,” Matt answered.
“Indeed! And by whose orders?”
“Mine! I'm the port captain of the Blue Star Navigation Company, and,
beginning now, I'm going to do all the hiring and firing of captains.”
Mr. Skinner turned pale. He started from his chair and made two steps
toward Cappy Ricks' office, firmly resolved to present his resignation
then and there. At the door, however, he thought better of it,
hesitated, returned to his desk and sat down again, for he had suddenly
remembered, and, remembering, discovered that Cappy Ricks had laid upon
him a burden that must be reckoned with--the burden of his own future.
He flushed and bit his lips; then, feeling Matt Peasley's eyes boring
into the small of his back, he turned and said:
“I have every reason to believe, Captain Peasley, that you are the right
man in the right place.”
Matt advanced upon him and held out his hand.
“Mr. Ricks has always bragged that you could think quicker and act
quicker in an emergency than any man he ever knew. He's right, you can.
Suppose we bury that pick-handle, Mr. Skinner?”
Mr. Skinner's lips twitched in a wry smile, but he took Matt Peasley's
hand and wrung it heartily, not because he loved Matt Peasley or ever
would, but because he had a true appreciation of Abraham Lincoln's
philosophy to the effect that a house divided against itself must surely
fall. “I'm sure we'll get along famously together,” he said.
“You know it,” Matt answered heartily, and stepped back into Cappy's
office.
“Well,” said Cappy, “that was mighty well done, Matt. Thank you. So you
think you'll quit the Sea Fox and be my port captain, eh?”
“I think so, sir.”
“Well, I do not, Matt. The fact of the matter is, your business
education is now about to commence, and about two minutes ago I suddenly
decided that you might as well pay for it with your own money. I have
no doubt such a course will meet with the approval of your independent
spirit anyhow. You're a little too uppish yet, Matt. You must be
chastened, and the only way to chasten a man and make him humble is
to turn him loose to fight with the pack for a while. Consequently I'm
going to turn you loose, Matt; there are some wolves along California
Street that will take your twenty thousand away from you so fast that
you won't know it's going till it's gone. But the loss will do you a
heap of good--and I guess Florry can wait a while.”
He paused and eyed Matt meditatively for fully a minute.
“And you kicked my barkentine ashore with the quick water from your
tug's propeller,” he mused aloud. “Got her where you wanted her--and
Murphy didn't suspect! He laid it to the current!” Cappy shook his head.
“A dirty Yankee trick,” he continued, “and I love you for it--in fact,
it breaks my heart not to make good that grandstand play you just pulled
on Skinner, but I've changed my mind about hiring you yet. I'm just
going to sit back and have some fun watching you defend that little old
twenty-thousand dollars I just gave you. Do you know, Matt, that I
never knew a man to save up a thousand dollars, by denying himself many
things, that he didn't invest the thousand in a wild-cat mine or a dry
oil well? Ah, Matt, it's those first few dollars that come so hard and
go so easy that break most men's hearts; but here you are with twenty
thousand that came so easy I've just naturally got to see how hard they
go! You'll be worth more money to me, Matt, and you'll be a safer man to
handle this business when I'm gone, if you go out and play the game for
a while by yourself. You have a secret itching to do it anyhow, Matt,
and in surrendering to me just now you went down with your colors
flying. You just wanted to be kind to the old man, didn't you? Well, I
appreciate it, Matt, because I'm an old man, and I know how hard it is
for a boy to yield to an old man's wishes; but youth must be served,
and God forbid that I should rob you of the joy of the conflict, my boy.
When you're busted flat and need some more money, you may have it up
to the amount to your credit on our books. And when that's gone I guess
you'll make a better port captain than you will this morning. Does that
program suit you better than the one I originally outlined?”
Matt flushed and hung his head in embarrassment, but answered
truthfully: “Yes, sir.”
“Very well,” said Cappy, relapsing into one of his frequent
colloquialisms, “go to it, boy. Eat it up.”