Cappy Ricks Retires | Page 7

are
seamen. They have the right to land and stay ashore three months, if
they state that it is their intention to ship out again within that period;
but if they do not so ship, then the immigration authorities may deport
them as paupers or for failure to pay the head tax; and in that event they
will all be returned to the vessel that brought them here, and the owners
of the vessel will be forced to intern them and care for them.' Under the
circumstances, therefore, I concluded they would jump at a job in an
American vessel, for the reason that under the American flag they
would be reasonably safe; and even if the Narcissus should be searched
by a British cruiser, she would not dare take these Germans off her.
Remember, we had a war with England once for boarding our ships and
removing seamen!"
"By the Holy Pink-Toed Prophet," said Cappy Ricks, "there's
something in that, Matt."
"There's a splendid saving in the pay roll, let me tell you," the proud
Murphy continued. "I took the matter up at once with the German
skipper and he fixed it for me, and mighty glad he was to get his
countrymen off his hands. We get all that liner's coal passers, oilers,
firemen, six deckhands and four quartermasters at the scale of wages
prevailing in Hamburg. I know what it is in marks, but I haven't figured
it out in dollars and cents, although whatever it is it's a scandal! It
almost cuts our pay roll in half."
"Do you speak German, captain?" Cappy queried excitedly.
"I do not, sir--more's the pity. But the four quartermasters speak fair
English, and I have engaged two good German-American mates who
speak German. Reardon has shipped German-American engineers and
some of his coal passers and firemen speak fair English. I've got two
Native Son Chinamen in the galley and a Cockney steward. We'll get
along."
"And a rattling fine idea, too," Cappy Ricks declared warmly. "Mike,
my boy, you're a wonder. That's the spirit. Always keep down the
overhead, Matt. That's what eats up the dividends."

"Well, I wouldn't agree to it if the Narcissus wasn't going to be engaged
in neutral trade, or if she was carrying munitions of war to the Allies,"
Matt declared. "I'd be afraid some of Mike's Germans might blow up
the ship."
"Believe me," quoth Michael J. Murphy, "if she was engaged in
freighting munitions to England, it'd be a smart German that would get
a chance to blow her up. I think I'd scuttle her myself first."
"Well, Mike, if your courage failed you," Cappy Ricks replied
laughingly, "I think we could safely leave the job to Terence Reardon."

CHAPTER IV

On that first voyage the Narcissus carried general cargo to northern
ports on the West Coast. Then she dropped down to a nitrate port and
loaded nitrate for New York, and about the time she passed through the
Panama Canal the Blue Star Navigation Company wired its New York
agent to provide some neutral business for her next voyage. Freights
were soaring by this time, due to the scarcity of the foreign bottoms
which formerly had carried Uncle Sam's goods to market, and Cappy
Ricks and Matt Peasley knew the rates would increase from day to day,
and that in consequence their New York agents would experience not
the slightest difficulty in placing her--hence they delayed as long as
they could placing her on the market.
On the other hand, the New York agents, realizing that higher freight
rates meant a correspondingly higher commission for them on the
charter, held off until the Narcissus had almost finished discharging at
Hoboken before they closed with a fine old New York importing and
exporting house for a cargo of soft coal from Norfolk, Virginia, to
Manila, or Batavia. The charterers were undecided which of these two
cities would be the port of discharge, and stipulated that the vessel was
to call at Pernambuco, Brazil, for orders. The New York agents
marvelled at this for--to them--very obvious reasons; but inasmuch as
the charterers had offered a whopping freight rate and declined to do
business on any other basis, and since further the agent concluded it
was no part of his office to question the motives of a house that never

before had been subjected to suspicion, he concluded to protect himself
by leaving the decision to the owners of the Narcissus. Accordingly he
wired them as follows:
"Blue Star Navigation Company,
"258 California St., San Francisco, Cal.
"Have offer Narcissus, coal Norfolk Batavia or Manila, charterers
undecided, Pernambuco for orders, ten dollars per ton. Shall we close?
Answer.
"SEABORN"
2 boards, 1" x 8" and up, and too great a percentage of 4" x 6"-20'