Cappy Ricks Part 45

"She's been in port eight years at least," Matt answered; "tucked away down in Mission Bay, with a watchman aboard."

"Oh, I remember now," Jerry replied. "She belongs to the Oriental Steamship Company. Old man Webb, of the Oriental Company, got all worked up about the possibilities of the Oriental trade right after the Spanish War. He had a lot of old bottoms running in the combined freight and pa.s.senger trade and not making expenses when the war came along, and the Government grabbed all his boats for transports to rush troops over to the Philippines. That was fine business for quite a while and the Oriental got out of the hole and made a lot of money besides. About that time Old Webb saw a vision of huge Oriental trade for the man who would go after it, and in his excitement he purchased the Narcissus. She carried horses down to the Philippines, and to China during the Boxer uprising; and when that business was over, and while old Webb was waiting for the expected boom in trade to the Orient, he got a lumber charter for her from Puget Sound to Australia. But she was never built for a lumber boat, though she carried six million five hundred thousand feet; she was so big and it took so long to load and discharge her that she lost twenty-five thousand dollars on the voyage. Run her in the lumber trade and the demurrage would break a national bank.

"Well, sir, after that lumber charter, old man Webb had a fit. He tried her out on a few grain charters, but she didn't make any money to speak of; and about that time the P. & S. W., with a view to grabbing some Oriental freight for their road, got the control of the steamship company away from Webb. The Oriental trade boom never developed, and the regular steamers, carrying freight and pa.s.sengers, were ample to cope with what business the company was offered; so they didn't need the Narcissus.

"As I remember it, she was expensive to operate. She had a punk pair of boilers or she needed another boiler--or something; at any rate, she was a hog on coal, and they laid her up until such time as they could find use for her. I suppose after she was laid up a few years the thought of all the money it would cost to put her in commission again discouraged them--and she's been down in Mission Bay ever since."

"But the Ca.n.a.l will soon be open," Matt suggested. "One would suppose they'd put her in commission and find business for her between Pacific and Atlantic coast ports."

"You forget she's a foreign-built vessel and hence cannot run between American ports."

"She can run between North and South American ports," Matt replied doggedly. "I bet if I owned her I'd dig up enough business in Brazil and the Argentine to keep her busy. I'd be dodging backward and forward through the Ca.n.a.l."

"You would, of course," Jerry answered placidly; "but the Oriental Steamship Company cannot."

"Why?"

"Fifty-one per cent. of their stock is owned by a railroad--and under the law no railroad-owned ship may use the Ca.n.a.l."

Matt's eyebrows arched.

"Ah!" he murmured. "Then that's one of the reasons why she's a white elephant on their hands."

"Got a customer for her?" Jerry queried shrewdly. "A fellow ought to be able to pick the Narcissus up rather cheap."

Matt shook his head negatively.

"Happened to pa.s.s her in a launch a couple of hours ago, and the sight of the barnacles on her bottom just naturally graveled me and roused my curiosity. Much obliged for your information." And Matt excused himself and strolled over to the counter of the Hydro-graphic Office to look over the recent bulletins to masters.

The information that the whistling buoy off Duxbury Reef had gone adrift and that Blunt's Reef Lightship would be withdrawn for fifteen days for repairs and docking interested him but little, however. In his mind's eye there loomed the picture of that great red freighter, with her foul bottom, rusty funnel and unpainted, weather-beaten upper works.

"Her bridge is pretty well exposed to the weather," he murmured. "I'd build it up so the man on watch could just look over it. I noticed they'd had the good sense to house over her winches, so I dare say they're in good shape; her paint will have prevented rust below the water line, and I'll bet she's as sound as the day she was built. I think I'd paint her dead black, with red underbody and terra-cotta upper works." He pondered. "Yes, and I'd paint her funnel dead black, too, with a broad red band; and on both sides of the funnel, in the center of this red band, I'd have a white diamond with a black P in the center of it. By George, they'd know the Peasley Line as far as they could see it!"

He would have dreamed on had he not bethought himself suddenly of his modest capital--fifty thousand-odd dollars, out of which he owed Cappy Ricks a considerable sum on a promissory note due in one year. On such a meager bank balance it would not do to dream of buying a vessel worth nearly four hundred thousand dollars. Why, it would require twenty thousand dollars to put her in commission after all these years of idleness, and she had to have another boiler because she was a hog on coal; and, in addition, her operating cost would be between nine and ten thousand dollars a month.

Matt shook his head and looked round the great room as though in search of inspiration. He found it. His wandering glance finally came to rest on Jerry Dooley's alert countenance. Jerry crooked a finger at him and Matt strolled over to the desk.

"I've been watching you milling the idea round in your head," said Jerry. "I saw you reject it. You're crazy! It can be done."

"How?" Matt queried eagerly.

"Go get an option on her for the lowest price you can get--then form a syndicate and sell her to them at a higher price; or, if you don't want to do that, form your syndicate to buy her at the option price, and if you work it right you can get the job of managing owner. I want to tell you that two and one-half per cent. commission on her freight earnings would make a nice income."

"I wonder whom I could get into the syndicate?" Matt queried.

Jerry scratched his head.

"Well," he suggested, "you're mighty close to old Cappy Ricks. If you could hook him for a piece of her, the rest would be easy. Any shipping man on the Street will follow where Cappy Ricks leads. I'd try Pollard & Reilly; Redell, of the West Coast Trading Company; Jack Haviland, the ship chandler; Charley Beyers, the ship's grocer and butcher; A. B.

Cahill & Co., the coal dealers; Pete Hansen, of the Bulkhead Hotel down on the Embarcadero--he's always got a couple of thousand dollars to put into a clean-cut shipping enterprise. Then there's Rickey, the ship-builder, and--yes, even Alcott, the crimp, will take a piece of her. I'd look in on Louis Wiley, the chronometer man, and c.o.x, the coppersmith--why I'd take in every firm and individual who might hope to get business out of the ship; and, you bet, I'd sell 'em all a little block of stock in the S. S. Narcissus Company."

"It might be done," Matt answered evasively. "I'll think it over."

He did think it over very seriously the greater portion of that night.

As a result, instead of going to his office next morning he went to Mission Street bulkhead and engaged a launch, and forty minutes later, in response to his hail, the aged watchman aboard the Narcissus came to the rail and asked him what he wanted.

"I want to come aboard!" Matt shouted.

"Got a permit from the office?"

"No."

"Orders are to allow n.o.body aboard without a permit."

"How do you like the color of this permit?" Matt called back, and waved a greenback.

The answer came in the shape of a Jacob's ladder promptly tossed overside and Matt Peasley mounted the towering hulk of the Narcissus.

"What do you want?" the watchman again demanded as he pouched the bill Matt handed him.

"I want to examine this vessel from bilge to truck," Matt answered.

"I'll begin with a look at the winches."

As he had surmised, the winches had been housed over and fairly buried in grease when the ship laid up; hence they were in absolutely perfect condition. The engines, too, had received the best of care, as nearly as Matt could judge from a cursory view. Her cargo s.p.a.ce was littered up with a number of grain chutes, which would have to come out; and her boats, which had been stored in the empty hold aft, away from the weather, were in tiptop shape. She had a spare anchor, plenty of chain, wire cable and Manila lines, though these latter would doubtless have to be renewed in their entirety, owing to deterioration from age.

Her crew quarters were commodious and ample, and the officers' quarters all that could be desired; her galley equipment was complete, even to a small auxiliary ice plant. What she needed was cleaning, painting and sc.r.a.ping, and lots of it, also the riggers would be a few days on her standing rigging; but, so far as Matt could discern, that was all. From the watchman he learned that one Terence Reardon had been her chief engineer in the days when the Oriental Steamship Company first owned her.

From the Narcissus, Matt Peasley returned to the city and went at once to the office of the Marine Engineers' a.s.sociation, where he made inquiry for Terence Reardon. It appeared that Terence was chief of the Arab, loading grain at Port Costa; so to Port Costa Matt Peasley went to interview him. He found Reardon on deck, enjoying a short pipe and a breath of cool air, and introduced himself.

"I understand you were the chief of the Narcissus at one time, Mr.

Reardon," Matt began abruptly. "I understand, also, that under your coaxing you used to get ten miles out of her loaded."

Parenthetically it may be stated that Matt Peasley had never heard anything of the sort; but he knew the weaknesses of chief engineers and decided to try a shot in the dark, hoping, by the grace of the devil and the luck of a sailor, to score a bull's-eye. He succeeded at least in ringing the bell.

"Coax, is it?" murmured Terence Reardon in his deep Kerry brogue.

"Faith, thin, the Narcissus niver laid eye on the day she could do nine an' a half wit' the kindliest av treatment. Wirrah, but 'tis herself was the glutton for coal. Sure, whin I'd hand in me report to ould Webb, and he'd see where she'd averaged forty ton a day, the big tears'd come into the two eyes av him--the Lord ha' mercy on his sowl!"

"You never had any trouble with her engines," Matt suggested.

"I had throuble keepin' shteam enough in the b'ilers to run thim; but I'll say this for her ingines: Give them a chancet an' they'd run like a chronometer."

"Would you consider an offer to leave the Arab and be chief of the Narcissus?" Matt queried. "I'm thinking of buying her, and if I do I'll give you twenty-five dollars a month above the regular a.s.sociation scale."

"I'll go ye," murmured Reardon, "on wan condition: Ye'll shpend some money in her ingine room, else 'tis no matther av use for ye to talk to me. I'll not be afther breakin' me poor heart for the sake av twenty-five dollars a month. Sure, 'twould be wort' that alone to see the face av ye, young man, afther wan look at the coal bill."

"What repairs would you suggest? Do you think she needs another boiler?

I noticed she has two. We could move those two over and make room for another."

"Do nothing av the sort, sir. Before ould Webb got her she'd been usin'