Hocken and Hunken Part 52

seamen's lives in danger."

"Eh? . . . _You_'re a nice man to talk, I must say! Come to me, you do, and want me to get you anything up to twenty per cent without risk.

How d'ee think that's done in these days, with every one cuttin'

freights? I gave you credit for havin' more sense."

'Bias stared. "See here," he said slowly, "if I'd known that hundred pound was to be put into any such wickedness, I'd have seen you further before trustin' you with it. As 'tis, I'll trouble you--"

"Hold hard, there!" Mr Rogers interrupted. "You're in a tarnation hurry every way, 'twould seem. Who told you as I'd put that hundred into any vessel below Plimsoll mark?"

"I thought you hinted as much."

"Then you thought a long sight too fast. If you must know, your money's in the old _Saltypool_, and old as she is, that steamship might be my child, the way I watch over her."

"The _Saltypool!_ Why, she's the most scand'lous case as has gone out of harbour these three months!"

"Eh?"

"I saw her with my own eyes alongside No. 3 jetty, the evenin' before she sailed. A calm night it was too; and she with her Plimsoll well under and a whole line o' trucks waitin' to be shot into her. She went out before daybreak, if you remember, and G.o.d knows how low she was by that time."

Mr Rogers's jaw dropped.

"The idiots!" he muttered. "When I told 'em--" He broke off.

"I say, you're not pullin' my leg?"

"Saw her with my own eyes, I tell you," 'Bias a.s.sured him, wondering a little; for the old sinner's dismay was clearly honest.

"Then all I say is, you can call Fancy and tell her to fetch me a Bible, if there's one in the house, an' I'll swear to you I never knew it, an'

I never seen it. What's more, I'll sack the captain, an' I'll sack the mate. What's more, I'll cable dismissal out to Philadelphy.

What's more--"

"There, there!" interposed 'Bias. "You didn' know, and enough said!

I don't want any man thrown out of employ. 'Tis the system I'm out to spoil."

"Skippers are a trouble-without-end in these days," Mr Rogers muttered on, staring gloomily at the fire in the grate; "specially to a man crippled like me. . . . You spend years sarchin' for a fool, an' you no sooner get the treasure, as you think--one you can trust for a plain ord'nary fool in all weathers--than he turns out a _dam_ fool!"

On his way from the ship-chandler's 'Bias ran against Mr Philp, who paused in the roadway and eyed him, chewing a piece of news and chuckling.

"That friend o' yours is a wonnur!" preluded Mr Philp.

"Meanin' Caius Hocken?"

"Who else? . . . He's goin' a great pace in these days; but you won't tell me he has flown out o' _that_ range? Yes, 'tis Cap'n Hocken I mean; our Mayor, as you may call him; and there's some as looks to see a silver cradle yet in his mayoralty."

"What's the latest?" 'Bias could not help putting the question, yet despised himself for it.

"He's President of the Stevedores' Regatta this year."

"Get along with your news--I heard it ten days ago."

"So you did, for I told you myself. But he's giving a silver cup for the fourteen-foot race."

"And I heard that, too."

"Ay: but what you don't know, maybe, is that he's been up to Rilla Farm tryin' to persuade Mrs Bosenna to attend on the Committee-ship an' hand the cup--his _cup_--to the winner."

"She's never consented?"

"Now I call that a master-stroke. That's the bold way to win a woman.

'Come along o' me, my dear, an' find yourself the lady patroness, life-size. . . . Madam, you'll excuse the liberty,--but may I have the igstreme honour to request you to take my arm in the full view of all this here a.s.sembled rabble?' So arm-in-arm it is, up the deck, and 'Ladies an' Gentlemen'--meanin' 'Attention, pray, all you sc.u.m o' the earth'--'I'll trouble you to observe strick silence while this lady, with whom you are all familiar--'"

"Steady on!"

"Well, 'familiar' is too strong a word, as you say. 'While this lady, with whom you're all acquainted, presents the gallant winner with a cup, value Five Pounds, which you may have reckoned as an igstravagance when you heard I was the donor, 'but will now reckernise as a sprat to catch a whale--that is, unless you're even bigger fools than I take ye for.

'Twas with the greatest difficulty I indooced Mrs Bosenna--'"

"She never would!" swore 'Bias.

"Well, as a matter o' fact, she hasn't. But you'll allow the trick was clever, and nothin' more left for the woman, if she'd yielded, but to be carried straight off to the altar. 'Twould have been expected of her, and no less."

"What has she done?"

"Taken a wise an' womanly course, as I hear. 'No,' says she, 'I'll go to bottomless brimstone before lendin' myself to such a dodge'--or words to that effect. 'But I'll tell 'ee what I will do,' says she, 'I'll offer this here silver cup on my own account, an' give it with my own hands to the winner. And you can stand by,' says she, 'an' look as pompous as you please.' Either that, or that in so many words.

I'm givin' you the gist of it, as it reached me."

"Thank 'ee," said 'Bias, perpending and digging up the roadway with the point of his stick. "'Tis to be her own prize, you say?"

"Yes, an' presented with her own hands. If I was you--bein' a trifle late as you are on the handicap--I'd sail in an' collar that prize.

'Twould be a facer for him."

"No time."

"Whit-Monday's not till the seventh o' June. Four clear weeks: an'

Boatbuilder Wyatt could knock you up a sh.e.l.l in half that time. He gets cleverer with every boat of the cla.s.s; and with a boat built to race once only he could make pretty well sure."

Later that afternoon Mr Philp, who never lost an occasion to advertise himself, paid a call on Mr Wyatt, boatbuilder.

"I found a new customer for you this afternoon," he announced, winking mysteriously. "If Cap'n Hunken should call along you'll know what I mean."

On his homeward road the industrious man had a stroke of good luck.

He espied Captain Hocken, and made haste to overtake him.

"Good evenin', Cap'n Cai!"

"Ah--Mr Philp? Good evenin' to 'ee."

"It's like a providence my meetin' you; for as it chances you was the last man in my mind. I happened down to Wyatt's yard just now, and--if you'll believe me--there's reason to believe he'll get an order to-morrow for another 14-footer,"

"Ay? . . . What for?"