The Depot Master Part 2

"I saw. There wa'n't no real reason why I couldn't take the job. 'Twas well along into September; the hotel was closed for the season; and about all I had on my hands just then was time.

"'All right,' says I, 'it's a deal. If you'll guarantee to have your launch ready, I--'

"'That's my business,' he says. 'It'll be ready. If it ain't you'll get your pay just the same. To-morrer mornin' at eight o'clock. And don't you forget and be late. Gid-dap, you blackguard!' says he to the horse.

"'Hold on, just a minute,' I hollers, runnin' after him. 'I don't want to be curious nor nosey, you understand, but seems 's if it might help me to be on time if I knew where your launch was goin' to be and what your name was.'

"He pulled up then. 'Humph!' he says, 'if you don't know my name and more about my private affairs than I do myself, you're the only one in this county that don't. My name's Williams, and I live in what you folks call the Lathrop place over here toward Trumet. The launch is at my landin' down in front of the house.'

"He drove off then and I walked along thinkin'. I knew who he was now, of course. There was consider'ble talk when the Lathrop place was rented, and I gathered that the feller who hired it answered to the hail of Williams and was a retired banker, sufferin' from an enlarged income and the diseases that go along with it. He lived alone up there in the big house, except for a cranky housekeeper and two or three servants.

This was afore he got married, Sim; his wife's tamed him a little. Then the yarns about his temper and language would have filled a log book.

"But all this was way to one side of the mark-buoy, so fur as I was concerned. I'd cruised with cranks afore and I thought I could stand this one--ten dollars' worth of him, anyhow. Bl.u.s.ter and big talk may scare some folks, but to me they're like Aunt Hepsy Parker's false teeth, the further off you be from 'em the more real they look. So the next mornin' I was up bright and early and on my way over to the Lathrop landin'.

"The launch was there, made fast alongside the little wharf. Nice, slick-lookin' craft she was, too, all varnish and gilt gorgeousness. I'd liked her better if she'd carried a sail, for it's my experience that canvas is a handy thing to have aboard in case of need; but she looked seaworthy enough and built for speed.

"While I was standin' on the pier lookin' down at her I heard footsteps and brisk remarks from behind the bushes on the bank, and here comes Williams, puffin' and blowin', followed by a sulky-lookin' hired man totin' a deckload of sweaters and ileskins, with a lunch basket on top.

Williams himself wan't carryin' anything but his temper, but he hadn't forgot none of that.

"'h.e.l.lo, Berry,' says he to me. 'You are on time, ain't you. Blessed if it ain't a comfort to find somebody who'll do what I tell 'em. Now you,'

he says to the servant, 'put them things aboard and clear out as quick as you've a mind to. You and I are through; understand? Don't let me find you hangin' around the place when I get back. Cast off, Sol.'

"The man dumped the dunnage into the launch, pretty average ugly, and me and the boss climbed aboard. I cast off.

"'Mr. Williams,' says the man, kind of pleadin', 'ain't you goin' to pay me the rest of my month's wages?'

"Williams told him he wa'n't, and added trimmin's to make it emphatic.

"I started the engine and we moved out at a good clip. All at once that hired man runs to the end of the wharf and calls after us.

"'All right for you, you fat-head!' he yells. 'You'll be sorry for what you done to me.'

"I cal'late the boss would have liked to go back and lick him, but I was hired to go a-fis.h.i.+n', not to watch a one-sided prize fight, and I thought 'twas high time we started.

"The name of that launch was the Shootin' Star, and she certainly lived up to it. 'Twas one of them slick, greasy days, with no sea worth mentionin' and we biled along fine. We had to, because the cod ledge is a good many mile away, 'round Sandy P'int out to sea, and, judgin' by what I'd seen of Fatty so fur, I wa'n't hankerin' to spend more time with him than was necessary. More'n that, there was fog signs showin'.

"'When was you figgerin' on gettin' back, Mr. Williams?' I asked him.

"'When I've caught as many fish as I want to,' he says. 'I told that housekeeper of mine that I'd be back when I got good and ready; it might be to-night and it might be ten days from now. "If I ain't back in a week you can hunt me up," I told her; "but not before. And that goes."

I've got HER trained all right. She knows me. It's a pity if a man can't be independent of females.'

"I knew consider'ble many men that was subjects for pity, 'cordin' to that rule. But I wa'n't in for no week's cruise, and I told him so. He said of course not; we'd be home that evenin'.

"The Shootin' Star kept slippin' along. 'Twas a beautiful mornin' and, after a spell, it had its effect, even on a crippled disposition like that banker man's. He lit up a cigar and begun to get more sociable, in his way. Commenced to ask me questions about myself.

"By and by he says: 'Berry, I suppose you figger that it's a smart thing to get ten dollars out of me for a trip like this, hey?'

"'Not if it's to last a week, I don't,' says I.

"'It's your lookout if it does,' he says prompt. 'You get ten for takin'

me out and back. If you ain't back on time 'tain't my fault.'

"'Unless this craft breaks down,' I says.

"''Twon't break down. I looked after that. My motto is to look out for number one every time, and it's a mighty good motto. At any rate, it's made my money for me.'

"He went on, preachin' about business shrewdness and how it paid, and how mean and tricky in little deals we Rubes was, and yet we didn't appreciate how to manage big things, till I got kind of sick of it.

"'Look here, Mr. Williams,' says I, 'you know how I make my money--what little I do make--or you say you do. Now, if it ain't a sa.s.sy question, how did you make yours?'

"Well, he made his by bein' shrewd and careful and always lookin' out for number one. 'Number one' was his hobby. I gathered that the heft of his spare change had come from d.i.c.kers in stocks and bonds.

"'Humph!' says I. 'Well, speakin' of tricks and meanness, I've allers heard tell that there was some of them things. .h.i.tched to the tail of the stock market. What makes the stock market price of--well, of wheat, we'll say?'

"That was regulated, so he said, by the law of supply and demand. If a feller had all the wheat there was and another chap had to have some or starve, why, the first one had a right to gouge t'other chap's last cent away from him afore he let it go.

"'That's legitimate,' he says. 'That's cornerin' the market. Law of supply and demand exemplified.'

"''Cordin' to that law,' says I, 'when you was so set on fis.h.i.+n' to-day and hunted me up to run your boat here--'cause I was about the only chap who could run it and wa'n't otherwise busy--I'd ought to have charged you twenty dollars instead of ten.'

"'Sure you had,' he says, grinnin'. 'But you weren't shrewd enough to grasp the situation and do it. Now the deal's closed and it's too late.'

"He went on talkin' about 'pools' and deals' and such. How prices of this stock and that was shoved up a-purpose till a lot of folks had put their money in it and then was smashed flat so's all hands but the 'poolers' would be what he called 'squeezed out,' and the gang would get their cash. That was legitimate, too--'high finance,' he said.

"'But how about the poor folks that had their savin's in them stocks,'

I asks, 'and don't know high financin'? Where's the law of supply and demand come in for them?'

"He laughed. 'They supply the suckers and the demand for money,' says he.

"By eleven we was well out toward the fis.h.i.+n' grounds. 'Twas the bad season now; the big fish had struck off still further and there wa'n't another boat in sight. The land was just a yeller and green smooch along the sky line and the waves was runnin' bigger. The Shootin' Star was seaworthy, though, and I wa'n't worried about her. The only thing that troubled me was the fog, and that was pilin' up to wind'ard. I'd called Fatty's attention to it when we fust started, but he said he didn't care a red for fog. Well, I didn't much care nuther, for we had a compa.s.s aboard and the engine was runnin' fine. What wind there was was blowin'

offsh.o.r.e.

"And then, all to once, the engine STOPPED runnin'. I give the wheel a whirl, but she only coughed, consumptive-like, and quit again. I went for'ard to inspect, and, if you'll believe it, there wa'n't a drop of gasoline left in the tank. The spare cans had ought to have been full, and they was--but 'twas water they was filled with.

"'Is THIS the way you have your boat ready for me?' I remarks, sarcastic.

"'That--that man of mine told me he had everything filled,' he stammers, lookin' scart.

"'Yes,' says I, 'and I heard him hint likewise that he was goin' to make you sorry. I guess he's done it.'

"Well, sir! the brimstone names that Fatty called that man was somethin'

surprisin' to hear. When he'd used up all he had in stock he invented new ones. When the praise service was over he turns to me and says: 'But what are we goin' to do?'

"'Do?' says I. 'That's easy. We're goin' to drift.'

"And that's what we done. I tried to anchor, but we wa'n't over the ledge and the iron wouldn't reach bottom by a mile, more or less. I rigged up a sail out of the oar and the canvas spray s.h.i.+eld, but there wa'n't wind enough to give us steerageway. So we drifted and drifted, out to sea. And by and by the fog come down and shut us in, and that fixed what little hope I had of bein' seen by the life patrol on sh.o.r.e.

"The breeze died out flat about three o'clock. In one way this was a good thing. In another it wa'n't, because we was well out in deep water, and when the wind did come it was likely to come harder'n we needed.