Cappy Ricks | Page 6

sticks on a six-legged schooner, and be sure and name 'em right."
"Fore, main, mizzen, spanker, jigger and driver, sir," Matt fired back at him.
"Bully for you, my son. You're the third mate. Cappy Ricks allows me the luxury of a third mate whenever I run across a young fellow that appears to be worth a whoop in hell, so grab your duds, and go aft, and don't bring any cockroaches with you. I'll dig up a bosun among the squareheads."
"Thank you, sir."
"Name?"
"Mr. Peasley, sir."
Since he was no longer an A B., young Matt concluded he might as well accord himself the respect due him as a ship's officer; so he tacked on the Mister, just to show the Old Man he knew his place. The master noted that; also, the slurring of the sir as only a sailor can slur it.
"I shouldn't wonder if you'd do," he remarked as Matt passed him on his way to the forecastle for his dunnage.
On his way back he carried his bag over his shoulder and his framed license in his left hand. Two savages were following with his sea chest.
I do declare!" the skipper cried. "If that lubberly boy hasn't got some sort of a ticket! Let me see it, Mr. Peasley." And he snatched it out of his grasp.
"So, you're a first mate of sail, for any ocean and any tonnage, eh?" he said presently. "Are you sure this ticket doesn't belong to your father?"
"Sir," declared the exasperated Matt, "I never asked you for this job of third mate; and if I've got to stomach your insults to hold it down I don't want it. That's my ticket and I'm fully capable of living up to it."
"I'm glad to hear that, Mr. Peasley, because if you're not I'll be the first one to find it out--and don't you forget it! I'll have no marine impostors aboard my ship. Where do they ship little boys before the mast, Mr. Peasley?"
"On the Grand Banks, sir."
"I beg your pardon," said the skipper; "but really I thought you were a Native Son. My father was drowned there thirty years ago."
"The Peasleys have all died on the Banks sir," Matt replied, much mollified.
"We'll go down into my cabin and drink a toast to their memory, Mr. Peasley. It isn't often we skippers out here meet one of our own."
It is hard for a Down-Easter, even though he may have lost the speech of his people, not to be, partial to his own; and Captain Noah Kendall, of the barkentine Retriever, was all the cook had declared him to be. He scolded his Norsk mates so bitterly while the vessel was taking on cargo at Grays Harbor that both came and asked for their time an hour before the vessel sailed. However, the old man was aware they would do this, for he had handled that breed too long not to know that the Scandinavian sailor on the Pacific Coast quits his job on the slightest pretext, but never dreams of leaving until he knows that by so doing he can embarrass the master or owners. Even if the mates had not quit, Kendall would have discharged them, for it had been in his mind to try Matt Peasley out as chief mate, and acquire a second mate with a sweeter disposition than that possessed by the late incumbent.
No sooner had the Norsk mates departed than Captain Noah Kendall paid a visit to Captain McBride in command of the schooner Nokomis (also a Blue Star vessel), which had arrived that day and was waiting for the Retriever's berth at the mill dock, in order to commence loading.
"Mac," quoth Captain Noah, "what kind of a second mate have you got?"
"A no-good Irish hound named Murphy," McBride replied promptly, for he had heard rumors of war aboard the Retriever and something told him Kendall had come to borrow his second mate, in order that the Retriever might tow out immediately. A canny, cunning lad was McBride, but for all his Scotch blood he was no match for Captain Noah Kendall.
"I heard he wasn't worth two squirts of bilge water," Captain Noah lied glibly. "However, I'll take him off your hands and reimburse you for the expense of bringing his successor down from Seattle or up from San Francisco. My two mates have just asked to be paid off, and despite the fact that they have signed articles, I've let them go. No use going to sea with a pair of sulky mates, you know. Fortunately, I had a young Down-Easter aboard and I've put him in as first mate--"
"Noah," urged McBride. "I wouldn't advise you to take this man Murphy."
"Beggars can't be choosers," Captain Noah replied mournfully. "The tide serves in half an hour and the tug is alongside the