CHAPTER XLIV. SKINNER DEVELOPS INTO A HUMAN BEING

Cappy Ricks was having his mid-afternoon siesta in his office when Captain Matt Peasley appeared at the counter of the general office and, without awaiting an invitation to enter, swung through the office gate and made straight for Cappy's office. En route he had to pa.s.s through Mr. Skinner's lair, and the general manager looked up as Matt entered.

"Well, Captain," he said pleasantly, "how goes it?"

"Fine," Matt answered with equal urbanity. "That was a slick piece of work tying up my bank account. I can't get a bond to-day, the bank is closed, and I suppose you're going to insist upon payment of that eighteen thousand dollars before midnight to-night or take the Tillic.u.m and her cargo away from me."

Mr. Skinner started in genuine amazement.

"Attached your bank account, Matt? I give you my word of honor I had nothing to do with it."

"Well, it's tied up by the Blue Star Navigation Company, and Cappy Ricks has served notice on me to call here and pay up or suffer cancellation of my charter. Of course, for all the good my bank account is to me this minute he might as well ask me to give him the moon."

"I'm truly sorry," said Skinner. "I protested to Mr. Ricks against this action. I a.s.sure you I would not have taken such a course myself--under the circ.u.mstances."

"Cappy wants cash or a certified check," Matt complained, "and he's made it impossible for me to go to my bank and get either--to-day. What am I going to do?"

"I'm afraid you're going to lose the Tillic.u.m and her cargo. The Blue Star Navigation Company will doubtless collect the freight on that northbound cargo. Besides, Mr. Ricks has some business offered for the Tillic.u.m and wants her back--"

"But I was going to give her back to him as soon as I discharged her cargo. Now, just for that he'll not get her back. I'll keep her the full year."

"But how?" Mr. Skinner queried kindly.

"By paying the Blue Star Navigation Company eighteen thousand dollars in good old U. S. yellow-backs." Matt laughed and drew from his hip pocket a roll that would have choked a hippopotamus. "Skinner, this is so rich I'll have to tell you about it, and then if you're good I'll let you be present when I put the crusher on Cappy. His plan was without a flaw. He had me right where he wanted me--only something slipped."

"What?" Mr. Skinner demanded breathlessly.

"Why, as soon as my account was attached, the bank called me up and told me about it. I was just about to start for the bank to make a deposit of all that freight money I had collected in Panama--about twenty-four thousand dollars, more or less--the Panama Railroad gave it to me in a lump--exchange on San Francisco, you know--"

"So you cashed that draft at the bank upon which it was drawn--"

"And I'm here with the cash to smother Cappy Ricks! I'll cover him with confusion, the old villain! Skinner, I give you my word, if he hadn't tried to slip one over on me I would never have stuck him with all those bills Morrow & Company didn't pay, but now that he's gone and attached my bank account--"

Mr. Skinner rose and took Matt Peasley by the arm.

"Matt," he said in the friendliest fashion imaginable. "You and I have clashed since the first day I learned of your existence, but we're not going to clash any more." He pointed to the door leading to Cappy Ricks'

office. "One of these days, Matt, whether you want to or not, you're going to be occupying that office and giving orders to me, and when you do I want to tell you here and now I shall accord you the same measure of respect I now accord Mr. Ricks. I've worked twenty-five years for Mr.

Ricks. I--I'm--absurdly fond of him, for all his er--er--"

"Why, so am I, Skinner. I'd do anything to please him--"

"Then do it," Skinner pleaded. "Give him a cheap victory. He's an old man and he'll enjoy it. He didn't sleep a wink last night, just scheming a way to get a strangle hold on you--it's hard for the old to give way to the young, you know--and now he's inside there, just hungering for you to arrive so he can jeer at you and lecture you and make fun of you.

He doesn't want your money. Why, he loves you as if you were his own boy--"

"But how can I let him get away with this deal?" Matt queried soberly.

"By rushing in on him now and simulating a terrific rage. Just imagine you're on the bridge of a steamer making up to a dock against a strong flood tide, with stupid mates fore and aft, and rotten lines that won't hold when you get them over the dolphins, and the tide has grabbed you and slammed you into the dock and done five hundred dollars' worth of damage--just feel like that, Matt--"

"If I do I'll cuss something scandalous," Matt warned him.

"The harder the better."

"And I'm to keep this money in my pocket, and let him cancel my charter, and take that northbound cargo away from me, and collect the freight on me--"

"Exactly that! He'll withdraw his suit against you to-morrow and release your bank account, and then you decline to pay him the eighteen thousand dollars you owe him until he gives an accounting of the freight money he's collected. He'll tell you to go to Halifax, but you mustn't mind.

It's going to make him as happy as a fool to think he beat you in the end."

A slow smile spread over Matt's face.

"Skinner," he said. "You're a good old wagon, that's what you are. I'm sorry we ever had any mix-up, and we'll never have another--after this one--and this is going to be a fake. You see, Skinner, if we're going to put one over on Cappy let's have it one worth while--so this is the program. I've just arrived, with blood in my eye, to clean out the Blue Star office, and I'm starting in with the general manager. Clinch me now, and we'll wrestle all over the office and bang against the furniture and that door there--"

As Cappy Ricks was wont to remark, Mr. Skinner could "get" one before one could "get" one's self.

"Get out of my office, you infernal rowdy," he yelled loud enough to awaken Cappy Ricks next door. Then he clinched with Matt Peasley.

"A good fight," said Cappy Ricks half an hour after Matt Peasley had been pried away from Mr. Skinner and forced to listen to reason, "is the grandest thing in life. Now there's that crazy boy gone out in a rage just because he had the presumption to tangle with me in a business deal and get dog-gone well licked! He put it all over me yesterday, thinking I couldn't protect myself. Well, he knows better now, Skinner; he knows better now! In-fer-nal young scoundrel! Wow, but wasn't he a wild man, Skinner? Wasn't he though?" And Cappy Ricks chuckled.

"You have probably cured him of sucking eggs," Mr. Skinner observed enigmatically.

"Well, I handed the young pup a dose of cayenne pepper, at any rate,"

Cappy bragged, "and I wouldn't have missed doing it for a cool hundred thousand. Why, Skinner, a man might as well retire from business when he gets so weak and feeble and soft-headed he doesn't know how to protect himself in the clinches and break-aways."

Mr. Skinner smiled. "The old dog for the cold scent," he suggested.

"You bet," Cappy cackled triumphantly. "Skinner, my dear boy, what are we paying you?"

"Ten thousand a year, sir."

"Not enough money. Hereafter pay yourself twelve thousand. Tut, tut. Not a peep out of you, sir, not a peep. If you do, Skinner, you'll spoil the happiest day I've known in twenty years."

CHAPTER XLV. CAPPY PULLS OFF A WEDDING

About a week later, Captain Matt Peasley was studying the weather chart at the Merchants' Exchange when he heard behind him a propitiatory "Ahem! Hum-m-m! Harump-h-h-h!"--infallible evidence that Cappy Ricks was in the immediate offing, yearning for Matt to turn round in order that he might hail the boy and thus re-establish diplomatic relations. Matt, however, elected to be perverse and pay no attention to Cappy; instead, he moved closer to the chart and affected greater interest in it.

"h.e.l.lo, you big, sulky b.o.o.b!" Cappy snapped presently, unable to stand the silence any longer. "Come away from that weather chart. It's blowing a fifty-mile nor'west gale off Point Reyes, and that's all any shipping man cares to know to-day. You haven't got any ships at sea!"

"No; but you have, sir," Matt replied, unable longer to simulate indifference to Cappy's presence. "The Tillic.u.m is bucking into that gale this minute, wasting fuel oil and making about four miles an hour.

I'm glad you're paying for the oil. Where are you loading her?"

"At Hinch's Mill, in Aberdeen, Grays Harbor; discharge at Honolulu and back with sugar." Cappy came close to Matt and drew the latter's great arm through his. "Say, Matt," he queried plaintively, "are you still mad over that walloping I gave you?"

"Well-l, no. I think I've recovered. And I'm not willing to admit I was walloped. The best you got out of our little mix-up with the Tillic.u.m was a lucky draw."

"I'm still out a lot of money," Cappy admitted. "You owe me eighteen thousand dollars on that charter I canceled on you, Matt, and you ought to pay it. Really, you ought."