Cappy Ricks Part 33

"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 a.s.sure 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 s.h.i.+pmates. And so that fellow Murphy stood in with you to work a hocuspocus game on me, eh?" he thundered. "By G.o.dfrey, 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 a.s.sured 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 s.h.i.+p, 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 d.i.c.ker 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 s.h.i.+pping 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 ash.o.r.e 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 G.o.d 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 embarra.s.sment, but answered truthfully: "Yes, sir."

"Very well," said Cappy, relapsing into one of his frequent colloquialisms, "go to it, boy. Eat it up."

CHAPTER x.x.xVI. CAPPY FORBIDS THE BANS--YET

Cappy Ricks sat at breakfast, tapping meditatively on the apex of a boiled egg, when his daughter swished into the room, saluted her interesting parent by depositing a light kiss on his bald and ingenuous head, and took her place at the table.

Florence Ricks was a radiant vision in a filmy pink breakfast gown and cap, and as she smiled perkily at Cappy he returned her bright look with one a trifle sad and yearning.

"Florence, my love," said Cappy gently, "have you, by any chance, talked with that big, two-fisted sailor of yours within the past twelve hours?"

She shook her head negatively, tilting her nose and pursing her lips in an adorable grimace of disapproval.

"Since Matt Peasley has been master of that tug I see him only when his owners cannot find something more important for him to do. Why do you pop that question at me so suddenly? Did you want to see him about something?"

"No. I saw him yesterday forenoon, and we went into a clinch and fought each other all over my private office. Matt got the decision. I thought he might have called you up to discuss with you his plans for the future. When he left me yesterday he was on his way back to the office of the Red Stack Tugboat Company to tell the port captain he could stick some other skipper on the tug Sea Fox."

Florence clapped her hands ecstatically. "Oh, goody, goody!" she cried.

"Well, it might be worse."

"Why is he resigning? To go to work for you, as I wanted him to do six months ago?"