Cappy Ricks | Page 2

Skinner Develops into a Human Being XLV. Cappy
Pulls Off a Wedding XLVI. A Ship Forgotten XLVII. The Tail Goes
with the Hide XLVIII. Victory
CHAPTER I
MASTER OF MANY SHIPS AND SKIPPER OF NONE
A psychologist would have termed Alden P. Ricks an individualist, but

his associates in the wholesale lumber and shipping trade of the Pacific
Coast proclaimed him a character.
In his youth he had made one voyage round Cape Horn as a cabin boy,
his subsequent nautical experience having been confined to the
presidency of the Blue Star Navigation Company and occasional
voyages as a first-cabin passenger. Notwithstanding this apparent lack
of salt-water wisdom, however, his intimate knowledge of ships and the
men who go down to the sea in them, together with his very distinct
personality, had conduced to provide him with a courtesy title in his old
age.
It is more than probable that, had Alden P. Ricks been a large,
commanding person possessed of the dignity the average citizen
associates with men of equal financial rating, the Street would have
called him Captain Ricks. Had he lacked these characteristics, but
borne nevertheless even a remote resemblance to a retired mariner, his
world would have hailed him as Old Cap Ricks; but since he was what
he was--a dapper, precise, shrewd, lovable little old man with mild,
paternal blue eyes, a keen sense of humor and a Henry Clay collar,
which latter, together with a silk top hat, had distinguished him on
'Change for forty years--it was inevitable that along the Embarcadero
and up California Street he should bear the distinguishing appellation
of Cappy. In any other line of human endeavor he would have been
called Pappy--he was that type of man.
Cappy Ricks had so much money, amassed in the wholesale lumber
and shipping business, that he had to engage some very expensive men
to take care of it for him. He owned the majority of the stock of the
Ricks Lumber and Logging Company, with sawmills and timberlands
in California, Oregon and Washington; his young men had to sell a
million feet of lumber daily in order to keep pace with the output, while
the vessels of the Blue Star Navigation Company, also controlled by
Cappy, freighted it. There were thirty-odd vessels in the Blue Star
fleet--windjammers and steam schooners; and Cappy was registered as
managing owner of every one.
Following that point in his career when the young fellows on the Street,

discovering that he was a true-blue sport, had commenced to fraternize
with him and call him Cappy, the old gentleman ceased to devote his
attention to the details of his business. He was just beginning to enjoy
life; so he shifted the real work of his multifarious interests to the
capable shoulders of a Mr. John P. Skinner, who fitted into his niche in
the business as naturally as the kernel of a healthy walnut fits its shell.
Mr. Skinner was a man still on the sunny side of middle life, smart,
capable, cold-blooded, a little bumptious, and, like the late Julius
Caesar, ambitious.
No sooner had Cappy commenced to take life easy than Skinner
commenced to dominate the business. He attended an efficiency
congress and came home with a collection of newfangled ideas that
eliminated from the office all the joy and contentment old Cappy Ricks
had been a life-time installing. He inaugurated card systems and short
cuts in bookkeeping that drove Cappy to the verge of insanity, because
he could never go to the books himself and find out anything about his
own business. He had to ask Mr. Skinner--which made Skinner an
important individual.
With the passage of five years the general manager was high and low
justice in Cappy's offices, and had mastered the not-too-difficult art of
dominating his employer, for Cappy seldom seriously disagreed with
those he trusted. He saved all his fighting force for his competitors.
However, Cappy's interest in the Blue Star Navigation Company did
not wane with the cessation of his activities as chief kicker. Ordinarily,
Mr. Skinner bossed the navigation company as he bossed the lumber
business, for Cappy's private office was merely headquarters for
receiving mail, reading the newspapers, receiving visitors, smoking an
after-luncheon cigar, and having a little nap from three o'clock until
four, at which hour Cappy laid aside the cares of business and put in
two hours at bridge in his club.
Despite this apparent indifference to business, however, Mr. Skinner
handled the navigation company with gloves; for, if Cappy dozed in his
office, he had a habit of keeping one eye open, so to speak, and every
little while he would wake up and veto an order of Skinner's, of which

the latter would have been willing to take an oath Cappy had never
heard. In the matter