With this Parthian shot Matt himself retired, leaving Cappy to shiver
and bow his head on his breast; in which position he remained motionless
for fully an hour.
“I guess the boy's right,” he soliloquized finally. “I think I'd better
retire, after pulling that kind of a deal twice in the same place. The
pace is getting too swift for me, I think; I can't keep up... Well, I
guess they've got the goods on me this time. Matt was certainly on the
job twice, and I blocked him both times ... Oh, Lord! I'll never hear
the last of this... By the Holy Pink-Toed Prophet, I've lost my punch!
Matt didn't say so; but he thinks it. And I don't blame him a bit.”
The door of Cappy's office opened and again the youth stood in the
entrance. “Mr. Redell is calling; there's a gentleman with him,” he
announced.
“Tell 'em I'm busier'n a cranberry merchant,” Cappy snarled. “And unless
you're figuring on hunting a new job, my son, don't you come in here
again today.”
The youth retired. However, he knew from experience that Cappy Ricks
never discharged anybody save for insubordination or rank incompetence;
hence, he did not hesitate to disobey the old gentleman's edict.
“Mr. Redell says his business is very important,” he announced,
presenting himself once more at the door.
“All right! No rest for the weary. Show them in.”
J. Augustus Redell entered, accompanied by no less a personage than the
British Consul. Cappy greeted them without enthusiasm and bade them be
seated.
“Well,” J. Augustus Redell announced cheerily, “It's plain to be seen
that Little Sunshine hasn't been round this office recently.”
Cappy grunted.
“What's gone wrong, Cappy?”
“Everything! Been going wrong for years and I never realized it until
this afternoon. Ah, Gus, my dear young friend, how I envy you your
youth, your capacity to think, your golden dreams, your boundless
energy, your ability to make two-dollar bills grow where one-dollar
bills grew before, thus making an apparently barren prospect as verdant
as a meadow in spring. But make the most of your opportunity, young
feller! The day will come to you, as it has come to me, when everything
you do will be done twenty minutes too late; when every dollar you make
will be subject to a cash discount of one hundred per cent; when every
competitor you held cheap will suddenly develop the luck of the devil,
the brains of a Demosthenes, and the courage of a hog going to war.”
“I should judge that you have recently suffered a great bereavement.”
“I have, Augustus, I have. Through my indecision I have just lost a
bank roll a greyhound couldn't have jumped over. Suppose it was a paper
profit? I grieve just the same.”
“Forget it, Cappy! Life is real, life is earnest, and you have a bank
roll of real profits a giraffe couldn't reach the top of.”
“Oh, it isn't the money, Gus. Money is only a vulgar symbol of my
bereavement. The trouble is--I've lost my punch! I can't think, Gus; I
can't act promptly. I'm out of touch with my times. I remind myself of
nothing so much as the old rooster that suddenly discovered he had been
elected to furnish the dinner the following Sunday. His hens cackled and
called to him that they had found some worms, but he wouldn't pay
any attention to them; just leaned up against the wire netting in the
poultry yard and said to himself: 'Oh, hell! What's the use? Today an
egg--tomorrow a feather duster!'”
“Don't be pessimistic, Cappy. Don't! It doesn't become you, and I don't
believe a word you're telling me. You're still the old he-fox of the
world; and I've come to you for help on a deal that's going to mean a
whole lot of money to both of us if we can only put it through.”
“I'm sorry, Gus, but I'm not interested. As a matter of fact, I've
retired.”
“Nonsense! Nonsense! I know where there's a beautiful ten-thousand-ton,
net register, steel steamer to be bought for three hundred thousand
dollars--”
Cappy Ricks threw out an arm and pressed his hand against Redell's
mouth.
“Sh-h-h!” he warned. “Sh-h-h! Hush!”
With the agility of a man half his age Cappy ran to the door, bolted it
on the inside and returned to his desk. He was rubbing his hands and his
eyes were aglow with interest.
“What are you sh-h-h-ing about?” Redell demanded.
“Matt Peasley and that cowardly Skinner. Not a word of this to them,
Gus! Not--a--whisper!” And he winked one eye and twisted up the corner
of his mouth knowingly. Mr. Redell nodded his promise and Cappy went on:
“Now Gus, my dear young friend, start in at the beginning and tell me
everything. I assume, of course, that this is real business and not
another of your jokes on the old man. Word of honor, Gus?”
“Word of honor, Cappy.”
“All right; blaze away! Come, come! What have you got to offer?”
“I have a condition and I offer you a half interest in it if you can
suggest a plan to circumvent His Royal Highness, Kaiser Wilhelm--”
“Hum-m-m! Enough!” Cappy interrupted, and turned to the British
Consul: “This is an international affair, eh? See if I don't state
the proposition in a nutshell--if I may be pardoned the bromide.
This steamer is a German, and the proposition is to get her under the
American flag so firmly that she'll stay there; then, I suppose,
we're to charter her to the British Government, or one of Britain's
allies--Russia, for instance.”
J. Augustus Redell and the British Consul exchanged admiring winks.
“What did I tell you, Mister Consul?” Redell declared triumphantly. “Mr.
Ricks knows the story before we have told it. And yet he's complaining
about the loss of his punch!”
Cappy looked slightly self-conscious; it was plain the compliment
pleased him.
“Well, Gus, my boy,” he answered, “I have lost my punch, though at that
I'm not exactly a pork-and-beaner. Hum-m-m! Ahem! Harumph-h-h! This must
be a hard order to fill. Mister Consul, when Gus Redell has to come
to me for help. That son of a gun can move faster and go through more
obstacles than quicksilver. Gus, what's gone wrong with you? Have you
lost your punch too? And at your age?”
“Looks like it, Cappy. I've thought and thought until I'm desperate, and
not an idea worth while has presented itself. That's why I've come to
you.”
“Well, I don't guarantee a cure, my boy. But I'll say this much: If you
and I can't put this thing over, then it just isn't put-overable. Fire
away, Gus!”
“Have you ever heard of the steamer _Bavarian?”_
“Of course! She belongs to Adolph Koenitz and flies the German flag.
Since the war started she's been interned down in Mission Bay.”
Redell nodded.
“Adolph Koenitz never became an American citizen, despite the fact that
he had lived in San Francisco twenty years and operated three steamers
out of this port. He was a reserve officer in the German Navy; and when
the war broke out he interned his ships, placed his entire estate in his
wife's name and reported for duty. He perished in the Battle of Jutland,
both his boys were killed at Verdun, and now his widow would like to
sell the _Bavarian_ and get some cash. She had a large income from an
estate in Germany, but the war cut that off.
“Also, it appears that Koenitz was rather heavily involved, and the
expense of maintaining those interned steamers, with their German crews
aboard, has his widow badly worried; in fact, she has reached the point
where she finds it necessary to sell one of the steamers in order to
hang on to the other two. She has tried to raise a mortgage on the
_Bavarian_, but nobody cares to loan money on an interned German
steamer.”
“Naturally,” Cappy replied sarcastically. “And I'm amazed that you
should consider me boob enough to consider seriously buying the same
steamer outright! Gus, I'd have about as much use for that steamer as
I would have for a tail. Even if I should buy her now, and not use her
until the war is over, I should be risking my money; for the German
Government, if you remember, issued an order in 1915 forbidding its
subjects to sell their interned ships without the consent of the said
government. And, even if Mrs. Koenitz can procure the Kaiser's consent,
I fail to see the wisdom of tying up three hundred thousand dollars in
an idle investment.”
“Ah, but under those circumstances she wouldn't be an idle investment.”
“Yes, she would, my boy. Great Britain issued an Order in Council in
1914 notifying all neutral nations that she would not sanction the
transfer of registry of any German vessel. A few daring devils took a
chance--and what happened? The British Navy overhauled the ships at
sea and took them into a British port where a British prize court
confiscated them. There is the case of the _Mazatlan_, for instance. She
was German owned and flew the German flag; her owner put her under the
Mexican flag, and subsequently she was sold at a bargain to one of our
neighbors, who put her under American registry. Do you know where the
_Mazatlan_ is now? Well, I'll tell you: She's freighting war munitions
for Johnny Bull--and our optimistic neighbor isn't collecting the
freight money either.”
“Quite true, Mr. Ricks; quite true--in ordinary cases,” the Consul told
him smilingly.
“By the Holy Pink-Toed Prophet! I smell a mouse. Hum-m-m! That
simplifies matters. We-l-l! If you are in position, Mister Consul, to
give me your word of honor as a gentleman and an officer of your king
that the British Navy will turn its blind side to the _Bavarian_ when
she puts to sea, I'll buy the _Bavarian_ so fast it'll make your head
swim. In return for this favor, of course, I am to charter the ship at
the going rates to--”
“Our ally, the Russian Government, Mr. Ricks. And you have my word of
honor, which is all I can give you; for a deal like this, as you know,
cannot be made in writing. I have had the matter up with the Admiralty,
however, and permission has been granted me to give the verbal assurance
of my government.”
“I'll make a finger bet with your government, Mister Consul. As for
Kaiser Bill's consent to the transfer--_heraus mit 'em!_ We'll get along
without that. Wilhelm doesn't cut much ice with me these days and I'm
willing to wager the price of the _Bavarian_ that such ice as he does
cut will blame soon melt. Gus, you say Mrs. Koenitz wants to sell?”
“Yes.”
“And she doesn't care who buys?”
“Not a particle! She's sore on the Kaiser; it's been thumbs down on
Wilhelm ever since Adolph and the boys lost the number of their mess.
She says to me: 'Herr Riddle, dot Kaiser orders war like I order beer!'
However, there's an 'if' to the transfer. While we know the British
Navy will not bother us should we buy the steamer, still enthusiastic
Britishers all over the world will have their eyes on the _Bavarian_
and clamor for her capture. Great Britain cannot publicly--or, at least,
obviously--make any exceptions to her Order in Council, and we'll have
to mess up that steamer's title and nativity to save John Bull's social
standing. We must make a bluff at deceiving him. If we can show some
sort of legal transfer to another flag J. B. can play blindman's buff
with dignity and honor; otherwise nix!”
Cappy Ricks' eyes sought the ceiling.
“What have I done to deserve this?” he demanded of an invisible
Presence. “Why am I afflicted thus? Job had his boils; but you and I,
Augustus, are covered with a financial rash, bleeding at every pore, and
with no relief in sight.”
“I told you this was a tough one, Cappy. I've pondered the situation
until my brain is addled like a last year's nest egg, and finally I've
come to you as a last resort. If you can't cook up an airtight scheme,
then there is no help; and I'm going to forget the _Bavarian_ and attend
to some business more profitable and less debilitating.”
“There must be an out, Gus. It's too good a thing to abandon. Suppose
you and the Consul go away and give me time to concentrate my thoughts
on this problem. It's a holy terror; but--Well, I've seen dogs almost as
sick as this one cured.”
“God bless you!” Mr. Redell murmured fervently. “Consul, let us depart
and leave Mr. Ricks to himself. Call me up, Cappy, when you see a ray of
light. Two heads are better than one, you know.”