Cappy Ricks Part 16

Moreover, to Matt's practiced eye, this individual seemed to savor of a Down-Easter. He was just the sort of man one might expect to bear the name of Matthew Peasley; so the captain mounted the stairs and sought the proprietor, from whom he purchased the picture in question for the trifling sum of fifty cents. Then he bore it away to the Retriever, scrawled his autograph across the old gentleman's hip and mailed the picture to Cappy Ricks.

CHAPTER XX. PEACE AT LAST!

Mr. Skinner entered Cappy Ricks' office bearing an envelope marked "Photo. Do not crush or bend!" From the announcement in the upper right-hand corner the general manager deduced that the photograph was from Matt Peasley.

"Well, here's Captain Peasley's picture, Mr. Ricks," he announced.

"Ah! Splendid. Prompt, isn't he?" Cappy tore open the envelope, drew forth the photograph, scrutinized it carefully and then laid it face down on his desk, while he got out his spectacles, cleaned them carefully, adjusted them and gazed at the photograph once more.

"Ahem! Hu-m-m-m! Harump-h-h-h! Well, Skinner, life is certainly full of glad surprises," he announced presently, and added--"particularly where that man Peasley is concerned. I never did see the beat of that fellow."

"May I see his photograph, sir?" Mr. Skinner pleaded.

"Certainly," and Cappy pa.s.sed it to the general manager, who glanced once at it and smiled down whimsically at Cappy.

"Yes, I agree with you, Mr. Ricks," he said. "Of all the surprises that man Peasley has handed us, this is the greatest."

Cappy nodded and smiled a little prescient smile. "Skinner," he said, "send in a stenographer. I'm going to send him a telegram."

He did. Matt Peasley blinked when he got it, and for the first time since he had commenced exchanging telegrams and cablegrams with the peculiar Mr. Ricks he was thoroughly non-plussed--so much so, in fact, that he called his right bower, Michael J. Murphy, into consultation.

"Mike," he said, and handed the mate the telegram, "what in the world do you suppose the old duffer means by that?"

Mr. Murphy read:

"Matt, I always knew you were young, but I had no suspicion you were a child in arms until I received your photograph."

"Serves you right," the mate declared. "I told you to send the photo of an OLD man."

"But I did, Mike. I sent him a picture of an old pappy-guy sort of man, with long, mutton-chop whiskers, gla.s.ses and an old-fashioned collar as tall as the taffrail."

"It beats my time then what he's driving at, Captain Matt. But then one can never tell what Cappy Ricks is up to. I've heard he's a great hand to have his little joke, so I daresay that telegram is meant for sarcasm."

Matt had a horrifying inspiration. "I know what's wrong," he cried bitterly. "He thinks I'm so old I ought to be retired, and that telegram is in the nature of a hint that a letter, asking for my resignation, is on the way now."

"Why--why--why?" Mr. Murphy stuttered, "did you send him the picture of Methuselah himself? Heaven's sake, skipper, there's a happy medium, you know. I meant for you to pick yourself out a man of about fifty-five, and here you've slipped him a patriarch of ninety. Sarcasm! I should say so."

They stared at each other a few seconds; then Mr. Murphy had an equally disturbing inspiration.

"By Neptune!" he suggested, "maybe you sent him the picture of somebody he knows!"

"Well, in that case, Mike, I'm not going to hang on the hook of suspicion. Maybe I can find out whose picture I sent," and away Matt went up town to the photograph gallery. When he returned ten minutes later Mr. Murphy, sighting him a block in the offing, knew the skipper of the barkentine Retriever for a broken man! Beyond doubt he had shipped a full cargo of grief.

"Well?" he queried as Matt hove alongside. "Did you find out?"

Matt nodded gloomily.

"Who?" Mr. Murphy demanded peremptorily.

"Cappy Ricks!" Matt almost wailed.

"NO!" Mr. Murphy roared.

"Yes! The old scoundrel was up here three years ago, visiting this mill--you know, Mike, he owns it--and the Retriever was here loading at the time. He and Captain Kendall were close friends, and they went over to that photograph shop, had their pictures taken and swapped--and like a poor, helpless, luckless b.o.o.b I had to come along and buy the sample picture the photographer hung in his case. It never occurred to me to ask questions--and I might have known n.o.body but a prominent citizen ever gets into a show-case--"

"Glory, glory, hallelujah," Mr. Murphy crooned in a deep, chain-locker voice, and fled from the skipper's wrath.

An hour later, in the privacy of his cabin, Matt Peasley took his pen in hand and wrote to Cappy Ricks:

Mr. Alden P. Ricks, Dear Sir:--

I herewith tender my resignation as master of the barkentine Retriever, same to take effect on my return from Sydney--or before I sail, if you desire. If I do not hear from you before I sail I shall a.s.sume that it will be all right to quit when I get back from Australia.

I will not be twenty-three years old until the Fourth of July.

I was afraid you wouldn't trust me with a big ship like the Retriever if you knew; so I sent you a photograph I purchased for fifty cents from the local photographer. I guess that's all--except that you couldn't find a better man to take my place than Mr. Murphy. He has had the experience.

Yours truly, Matt Peasley.

There were tears in his eyes as he dropped that letter into the mail box. The Blue Star Navigation Company owned the Retriever, but--but--well she was Matt Peasley's ship and he loved her as men learn to love their homes. It broke his heart to think of giving her up.

"Skinner," said Cappy Ricks, "I've got a letter from the man Peasley at last; and now, by golly, I can quit and take a vacation. Send in a stenographer." The stenographer entered. "Take telegram--direct message," he ordered, and commenced to dictate:

Captain Matthew Peasley,

Your resignation accepted. You are too almighty good for a windjammer, Matthew. You need more room for the development of your talent. Give Murphy the ship, with my compliments, and tell him I've enjoyed the fight because it went to a knock-out.

Report to me at this office as soon as possible. You belong in steam. A second mate's berth waiting for you. In a year you will be first mate of steam; a year later you will be master of steam, at two-fifty a month, and I will have a four-million-foot freighter waiting for you if you make good.

The picture was a bully joke; but I could not laugh, Matt. It is so long since I was a boy.

Cappy.

"Send that right away, like a good girl," he ordered. "He's about loaded and he may have towed out before the telegram reaches him. Or, better still, send the message in duplicate--one copy to the mill and the other in care of the custom-house at Port Townsend. He'll have to touch in there to clear the ship."

He walked into Mr. Skinner's office.

"Skinner," he said, "Murphy has the Retriever, and you're in charge of the shipping. Attend to the transfer of authority before she gets out of the Sound."

CHAPTER XXI. MATT PEASLEY MEETS A TALKATIVE STRANGER

Cappy Ricks' telegram to Matt, in care of the mill at Port Hadlock, arrived several hours after the Retriever, fully loaded with fir lumber, had been s.n.a.t.c.hed away from the mill dock by a tug and started on her long tow to Dungeness, where the hawser would be cast off. It was not until the vessel came to a brief anchorage in the strait off Port Townsend, the port of entry to Puget Sound, and Matt went ash.o.r.e to clear his ship, that the duplicate telegram sent in care of the Collector of the Port, was handed to him.

He read and reread it. The news it contained seemed too good to be true.