Cappy Ricks Part 20

"I've bet Florry five thousand dollars you'll dispose of Hudner and the Unicorn, Matt," he said.

"I'm glad of that, sir, because if you hope to win the bet you'll have to help me. I've gone as far as I can, sir. I've got an option on the Unicorn for three days on a sixty-day charter, running coastwise with general cargo, with the privilege of renewing for four years at the same rate. The rate, by the way, is three hundred and twenty-five dollars. I want you to charter her from Hudner; and then--"

"Bless your soul, boy, I don't want her! Haven't I got a boat of my own I'd almost be willing to charter at the same figure to Hudner?"

"You don't understand, sir. The Mannheim people, with copper mines in Alaska, want two boats to freight ore--and their agent came down on the train with me. Don't you see, sir, that you have to control both boats to get a price? If you don't that agent will play you against Hudner and Hudner against you, until he succeeds in tying up both boats at a low price. He wouldn't tell you he wants two boats, but he was fool enough to tell me--"

"G.o.d bless my mildewed soul!" said Cappy excitedly, and smashed his old fist down on his desk. "For the man to do things, give me the lad who keeps his ears open and his mouth shut! Of course we'll charter her; and, what's more, we'll give her business ourselves for sixty days just to keep her off the market!"

"Then you'd better hurry and close the deal, sir," Matt warned him. "I only arrived in town this morning; and I checked my baggage at the depot and came up here immediately. The Seattle broker went up to his hotel.

He said he had to have a bath and a shave and some clean linen first thing," he added scornfully: "Me, I'd swim Channel Creek at low tide in a dress suit if I had important business on the other side."

"Matt," said Cappy gratefully, "you're a boy after my own heart. Really, I think you ought to get something out of this if we put it through."

"Well, as I stated, I wouldn't take anything out of the Lion charter, because it's my duty to save you when somebody has a gun at your head; but on the Unicorn charter I thought--well, if you can recharter at a profit I thought you might agree to split the profit with me. I'm a skipper, you know, and this sort of thing is out of my regular line; and besides, I'm not on your pay roll at present. I've promoted the deal, so to speak. I supply the ship and the brains and the valuable information, and you supply business for the ship."

"Yes; and, in spite of the hard times, I'll supply it at a profit if I have to," Cappy declared happily. "Of course I'll split the profit with you, Matt. As you say, this Unicorn deal is outside your regular line.

It's a private deal; and as the promoter of it you're ent.i.tled to your legitimate profit." He rang for Mr. Skinner.

"Skinner, my boy," he said when that functionary entered, "Matt and I are going to unload that white elephant of a Lion and get her off our hands for four years at a fancy figure; but to do it we've got to charter another white elephant--the Black b.u.t.te Lumber Company's Unicorn. Here's an option Captain Peasley has just secured on her. Have the charter parties made out immediately in conformity with this option and bring them here for my signature."

Mr. Skinner read the option and began to protest.

"Mr. Ricks, I tell you we cannot possibly use the Unicorn for sixty days, if you are forced to keep her off the market that long. If this thing develops into a waiting game--"

"I'll wear the other side out," Cappy finished for him. "Listen to me, Skinner! How's the shingle market in the Southwest?"

"The market is steady at three dollars and fifty cents, f.o.b. Missouri River common points."

Cappy scratched his ear and cogitated.

"The Unicorn will carry eighteen million shingles," he murmured. "The going water freight from Grays Harbor to San Francisco is how much?"

"Thirty-five cents a thousand," Mr. Skinner replied promptly.

"Therefore, if we used one of our own vessels to freight eighteen million shingles it would cost us--"

"Six thousand three hundred dollars," prompted Mr. Skinner.

"Fortunately for us, however, we do not use one of our own vessels.

We use that fellow Hudner's and we get her for three hundred and twenty-five dollars a day. She can sail from here to Grays Harbor, take on her cargo, get back to San Francisco and discharge it in twelve days.

What's twelve times three hundred and twenty-five?"

"Thirty-nine hundred dollars," flashed Skinner, to the tremendous admiration of Matt Peasley, who now considered the manager an intellectual marvel.

"Being a saving of how much?" Cappy droned on.

"Twenty-four hundred dollars," answered the efficient human machine without seeming to think for an instant.

"Being a saving of how many cents on a thousand shingles?"

Mr. Skinner closed one eye, c.o.c.ked the other at the ceiling an instant and said:

"Thirteen and one-third cents a thousand."

"Very well, then, Skinner. Now listen to my instructions: Wire all the best shingle mills on Grays Harbor for quotations on Extra Star A Stars in one to five million lots, delivery fifteen, thirty and forty-five days from date; and if the price is right buy 'em all. We have about ten millions on hand at our own mill. To-night send out a flock of night letters to all the wholesale jobbers and brokers in Kansas, Missouri, Oklahoma, Texas, and all points taking a sixty-cent tariff, and quote 'em ten cents under the market subject to prior acceptance."

He turned to Matt Peasley.

"That clause--'subject to prior acceptance'--saves our faces in case we find ourselves unable to deliver the goods," he explained, and turned again to Skinner.

"We can freight the shingles from Grays Harbor to San Francisco in the Unicorn; re-ship on cars from Long Wharf and beat the direct car shipments from the mills ten cents, and still make our regular profit.

Besides, the cut in price will bring us in a raft of orders we could not get otherwise. We can thus keep the Unicorn busy for sixty days without losing a cent on her, and if we haven't come to terms with the Mannheim people at the end of that time we'll find something else for her.

And, of course, if we succeed meantime in chartering the Lion at a satisfactory price, we can throw the Unicorn back on Hudner at the end of the sixty days." And Cappy snickered malevolently as he pictured his enemy's discomfiture under these circ.u.mstances.

Mr. Skinner nodded his comprehension and hastened away to prepare the charter parties.

CHAPTER XXIV. THE CLEAN UP

Hudner, manager of the Black b.u.t.te Lumber Company, arched his eyebrows as Matt Peasley entered his office half an hour after he had left it and presented for Hudner's signature a formal charter party, in duplicate, wherein the Blue Star Navigation Company chartered from J. B. Hudner, managing owner of record, the American Steamer Unicorn for sixty days from date, at the rate of three hundred and twenty-five dollars a day, said managing owner to pay all expenses of operating said Unicorn.

"Huh!" Mr. Hudner snorted. "I'd like to know what the devil Cappy Ricks wants of my Unicorn when he's got her infernal sister squatting in the mud of Oakland Creek? There's something rotten in Denmark, Mr. Peasley.

There always is when that old scoundrel Ricks does incomprehensible things."

"Very likely he's up to some skullduggery, sir," Matt opined.

"I wish you had informed me of the ident.i.ty of your client, Mr.

Peasley," Hudner complained. "I don't like to sign this charter."

"I cannot help that now, sir," Matt retorted. "You have agreed in writing to charter the vessel to any responsible person I might bring to you, and I guess the Blue Star Navigation Company comes under that head."

Mr. Hudner sighed and gritted his teeth. Instinct told him there was deviltry afoot, but in an evil moment he had sewed himself up and he had no alternative now save to complete the contract or stand suit. So he signed the charter party and retained the original, while Matt Peasley, with the duplicate in his pocket, hastened back to Cappy Ricks' office.

"Matt," said Cappy approvingly, "you're a born business man, and it will be strange indeed if you don't pick up a nice little piece of money on this Unicorn deal." He glanced at his watch and then turned to his daughter.

"Florry, my dear," he said, "would you like to go up-town with your daddy and Captain Peasley for luncheon?"

Matt Peasley grinned like a Jack-o'-lantern, all lit up for Hallowe'en.

"Fine!" he said enthusiastically.

Florence withered him with one impersonal glance, saw that she had destroyed him utterly, relented, and graciously acquiesced. When they left the office Matt Peasley was stepping high, like a ten-time winner, for he had suddenly made the discovery that life ash.o.r.e was a wonderful, wonderful thing. There was such a lilt in his young heart that, for the life of him, he could not forbear doing a little double shuffle as he waited at the elevator with Cappy and his daughter. He sang:

"The first mate's boat was the first away; But the whale gave a flip of his tail, And down to the bottom went five brave boys, Never again to sail-- Brave boys, Never again to sail!

When the captain heard of the loss of his whale, Right loud-lee then he swore.