_ CHAPTER XXVIII. CAPPY HAS A HEART
"Well, Matt," said Cappy Ricks, cheerfully, as he shook hands with the late second mate of the Florence Ricks. "We don't see much of each other now that you're a mate. But don't worry, you'll be a master again, and then you'll be dropping in here a couple of times a month pestering me for a lot of things for your ship that you could probably get along without. You're looking fit, my boy."
"I'm feeling fit, sir," Matt replied, grinning.
"I'm glad to hear it," was Cappy's grim reply. "Hum! Harump-h-h-h! Let me see now. You've had your course in the Mendocino dog-holes, and that's over. I hope you learned something. You've run for seven months from all the Washington and Oregon ports to Southern California, and--er--that's very nice. But you haven't been over Humboldt Bar yet, have you?"
"No, sir."
"Then you have something coming. Quite a bar in the winter time, Matt, quite a bar! Good many tickets been lost on that bar, Matt, so you ought to have more than a nodding acquaintance with it. You're going second mate in the Quickstep. She's carrying redwood shingles from Eureka to the Shingle Association's air-drying yards up river at Los Medanos at present, and she'll get to Los Medanos Sunday afternoon, so you'd better get there about the same time, in order to turn to discharging bright and early Monday morning. And you'll have to step lively, Matt. The Quickstep lives up to her name, and the way they put shingles into that vessel is a scandal."
"Shingles are nice stuff to handle," Matt ventured.
"Not redwood shingles, Matt. All right after they're dry, but when they come fresh from the saws they bleed a little, so be sure and wear gloves when you handle them. If you have a cut on your hand that redwood sap may poison you. I think you'll like the Quickstep, Matt."
"It doesn't matter whether I do or not," Matt replied humorously. "You always do things for me without consulting me anyhow."
"Why, you don't mind, do you, my boy? It's all for your own good."
"I can bear it, sir, because one of these bright days I'm going to do something without consulting you."
Cappy favored him with a sharp glance. "As the street boys say," he flashed back, "'I get you, Steve!'"
"And having gotten me, Mr. Ricks, do you still want me in your employ?"
"Oh, certainly, certainly. Any time I want to get rid of you I'll fire you or have Skinner do it for me."
Matt looked at his watch and rose. "I have four days' shore leave before me, sir," he said, "so I guess I'll be trotting along and make the most of it. I'll be at Los Medanos Sunday night."
"Her skipper's a big Finn," Cappy warned him. "Behave yourself, Matt. He's bad medicine for young second mates."
"I'll do my duty, sir."
He took his leave. As he went out the door Cappy gazed after him with twinkling eyes: "Young scoundrel!" he murmured. "Damned young scoundrel! You'll be ringing Florry up the minute you leave this office, if you haven't already done it. I'm onto you, young fellow!"
Matt Peasley took Florry Ricks to a matinee that very day. Cappy, suspecting he might attempt something of the sort and desiring to verify his suspicions, went home from the office early that day, and from his hiding place behind the window drapes in his drawing room he observed a taxicab draw up in front of his residence at six o'clock. From this vehicle Matt Peasley, astonishingly well tailored, alighted, handed out the heir to the Ricks millions, said good-by lingeringly and drove away.
"Well," Cappy soliloquized, "I guess I'm going to land the son-in-law I'm after. The matinee is over at a quarter of five, and those two have fooled away an hour. I'll bet a dollar Florry steered that sailor into a tea fight somewhere, and if she did that, Matt, you're a tip-top risk and I'll underwrite you."
That same evening Cappy sneaked into his daughter's apartments and found a photograph of Matt Peasley in a hammered silver frame on Florry's dressing table.
"Holy sailor!" he chuckled. "They think they're putting one over on the old gentleman, don't they? Trying to cover me with blood, eh? Huh! If I'd let that fellow Matt stay ashore he'd have hung round Florry until he wore out his welcome, and I suppose in the long run I'd have had to put up with one of these lawn-tennis, tea-swilling young fellows too proud to work. By Judas Priest, when I quit the street I want to give my proxy to a lad that will make my competitors mind their step, and by keeping Matt at sea a couple of years, I'll get him over the moon-calf period. Deliver my girl and my business from the hands of a damned fool!"
The following evening Cappy questioned his daughter's chauffeur--a chauffeur, by the way, being a luxury which Cappy scorned for himself. He maintained a coachman and a carriage and a spanking team of bays, and drove to his office like the old-fashioned gentleman he was. From this chauffeur Cappy learned that he, the chauffeur, had been out all the afternoon with Miss Florence and a large, light-hearted young gentleman. They had lunched together at the Cliff House.
"What did she call him?" Cappy demanded, anxious to verify his suspicions. "Didn't she address him as 'Matt?'"
"No, sir," the man replied, grinning. "She called him 'dearie.'"
"Holy jumped-up Jehosophat!" murmured Cappy, and questioned the man no further. That evening, however, he decided to have a heart--particularly after Florry had informed him that she was going out to dinner the following night.
"And you'll be all alone, popsy-wops," she added, "so you had better eat dinner at the club."
"Oh, I'm tired of my clubs," Cappy replied sadly. "Still your remark gives me an idea, Florry. If I happen to run across that young fellow Peasley--you remember him, Florry; the boy I'm training for a steamship captain--I'll have him out for dinner with me so I'll not have to eat alone."
"I thought you didn't care for him socially," Florry put forth a feeler.
"Well, he used to remind me considerably of a St. Bernard pup, but I notice he's losing a lot of that fresh, puppy-dog way he used to have. And then he's a Down-East boy. His Uncle Ethan Peasley and I were pals together fifty years ago, and for Ethan's sake I feel that I ought to show the boy some consideration. He's learning to hold himself together pretty well, and if I should run into him to-morrow I'll ask him out."
Florry exhibited not the slightest interest in her father's plans, but he noticed that immediately after dinner she hurried up to her room, and that upon her return she declined a game of pool with her father on the score of not feeling very well.
"You skipped upstairs like a sick woman," Cappy reflected. "I'll bet a hat you telephoned that son of a sea cook to be sure and throw himself in my way to-morrow, so I'll invite him out to dinner. And you're complaining of a headache now so you'll have a good excuse to cancel that dinner engagement to-morrow night so as to eat at home with your daddy and his guest. Poor old father! He's such a dub! I'll bet myself a four-bit cigar I eat breakfast alone to-morrow morning."
And it was even so. Florry sent down word that she was too indisposed to breakfast with her father, and the old man drove chuckling to his office. That afternoon Matt Peasley, in an endeavor to invade the floor of the Merchants' Exchange, to which he had no right, was apprehended by the doorkeeper and asked to show his credentials.
"Oh, I'm Captain Peasley, of the Blue Star Navigation Company," he replied lightly, and was granted admittance as the courtesy accorded all sea captains. He knew Cappy Ricks always spent an hour on 'Change after luncheon at the Commercial Club. When Cappy met him, however, the old man was mean enough to pay not the slightest attention to Matt; so after waiting round for three-quarters of an hour longer, the latter left the Exchange and walked down California Street, where he posted himself in the shelter of a corner half a block south of No. 258, where the Blue Star Navigation Company had its offices. From this vantage point presently he spied Cappy trotting home from the Merchants' Exchange; whereupon Matt strolled leisurely up the street and met him. And in order that Cappy should realize whom he was meeting Matt bumped into the schemer and then begged his pardon profusely.
"Don't mention it, Matt," the old rascal protested. "You shook up a flock of ideas in my head and jarred one loose. If you haven't anything on to-night, my boy, better come out to the house and have dinner with me. I'm all alone and I want company."
"Thank you, sir," Matt replied enthusiastically; "I'll be glad to come."
"You bet you will," Cappy thought. Aloud he said: "At six-thirty."
"Yes, sir. Thank you, sir." And Matt Peasley was off like a tin-canned dog to slick himself up for the party, while Cappy entered the elevator chuckling. "If I ever find the sour-souled philosopher who said you can't mix business and sentiment without resultant chaos," he soliloquized, "I'll boil the kill-joy in oil." _