Cappy Ricks | Page 7

Retriever now. If I have to wire to Seattle for a second mate I may not be able to get one--and if I am forced to wire to San Francisco I may be stuck here a week. I've shipped my crew and paid them all in advance, and if I don't get to sea in an hour I'll lose every man Jack of them, and have it all to do over again."
"Well, I'll speak to the fellow for you, Noah," McBride suggested, and darted out of the cabin to interview the said Murphy. Two minutes later he was back.
"Sorry, Noah, but Murphy says he wouldn't sign up for a trip to Cape Town at chief mate's wages."
"I'm sorry, too, Mac," Captain Noah answered resignedly. "I'm sorry you're such a liar. My grief is only compensated by the knowledge that Murphy is not aboard the Nokomis at this minute, and, if you did any talking while you were out on deck a minute ago you must have talked to yourself. Do I get this man, Murphy and thus save the Blue Star Navigation Company five hundred dollars or must I wire Cappy Ricks to wire you to do your duty by the company?"
"You infernal thief," shouted McBride, "you're taking the best second mate I've had in years."
"Never mind that. Do I get Mike Murphy peaceably or--"
"You've got him already" McBride charged.
"You're better at telling the truth than you are at lying, Angus McBride. You'll have plenty of time to get a second mate while the Nokomis is loading, and you can send the bill for his railroad fare to Cappy Ricks and tell him to charge it to the Retriever."
McBride tried to appear aggrieved, but failed. He burst out laughing, and reached for the locker in which he kept the schooner's supply of grog.
"Would it was prussic acid," he growled.
"Don't say I went behind your back and stole your mate," Kendall retorted. "And if your second mate is as poor as your whiskey," he added, piling insult on to injury, "you can have him back when I return from Cape Town."
Matt Peasley felt that he was going to like Michael J. Murphy. The latter was Irish, but he had left Ireland at a very tender age and was, to all intents and purposes, a breezy American citizen, and while he wore a slight cauliflower in one ear, his broad, kindly humorous face and alert, bustling manner was assurance that he would be an easy man to get along with. When the Old Man introduced him to Matt, he extended a horny right hand that closed on Matt's like the jaws of a dredger, the while he ran an equally horny left hand up and down the chief mate's arm.
"I'm sure we'll get along famously together, Mr. Murphy," Matt suggested.
Again Mr. Murphy ran his hand over that great arm.
"You know it!" he declared with conviction.
Captain Noah laughed aloud, and as Matt scampered forward over the deckload, herding his savages before him, to receive the tug's breast line and make it fast on the bitts the skipper turned to Mr. Murphy.
"There's a lad for you," he declared.
"He has manners and muscle, and those are two things that seldom go together," Mr. Murphy rejoined. "He's Down-Easter, I see. Did Cappy Ricks send him to you, sir?"
"No--not that he wouldn't, however, if he'd ever met the boy. The crimp brought him aboard with the sweepings and scrapings of San Francisco."
"I hope he wasn't drunk--like the rest," Mr. Murphy answered anxiously. "'Twould be a sin to desecrate that lovely body with whiskey."
"He was bung up and bilge free--and that's why he's chief kicker now. The hawser's fast for'd, Mr. Murphy. Cast off your stern line."
"All clear for'd, sir," Matt Peasley's shout came ranging down the wind, and the tug snatched the big barkentine out from the mill dock into the stream where she cast her off, put her big towing hawser aboard, paid it out and started for Grays Harbor bar.
CHAPTER IV
BAD NEWS FROM CAPE TOWN
On a certain day in February Mr. Skinner, coming into Cappy Ricks' office with a cablegram in his hand, found his employer doubled up at his desk and laughing in senile glee.
"I have a cablegram--" Mr. Skinner began.
"I have a good story," Cappy interrupted. "Let me tell it to you, Skinner. Oh, dear! I believe this is about going to kill the boys up on 'Change when I tell them." He wiped his eyes, controlled his mirth and turned to the general manager. "Skinner," he said, "did you know I had gotten back into the harness while you were up at the Astoria mill? Well I did, Skinner. I had to, you know. If it was the last act of my life I had to square accounts with that man Hudner,