Captain Scraggs | Page 7

it?
We're up Salt Creek without a paddle; all hell to pay and no pitch hot."
"McGuffey's fired!" Captain Scraggs screeched.
"Come, come, Scraggsy, old tarpot," Mr. Gibney soothed. "This ain't no
time for fightin'. Thinkin' an' actin' is all that saves the Maggie now."
But Captain Scraggs was beyond reason. "McGuffey's fired!
McGuffey's fired!" he reiterated. "The dirty rotten wharf rat! Call
yourself an engineer?" he continued, witheringly. "As an engineer
you're a howling success at shoemakin', you slob. I'll fix your clock for
you, my hearty. I'll have your ticket took away from you, an' that's no
Chinaman's dream, nuther."
"It's all my fault runnin' by dead reckonin'," the honest Gibney
protested. "Mac ain't to fault. The engine room telegraph busted an' he
got the wrong signal."
"It's his business to see to it that he's got an engine room telegraph that
won't bust----"
"You dog!" McGuffey roared and sprang at the skipper, who leaped
nimbly up the little ladder to the top of the pilot house and stood
prepared to kick Mr. McGuffey in the face should that worthy venture
up after him. "I can't persuade you to git me nothin' that I ought to have.
I'm tired workin' with junk an' scraps an' copper wire and pieces o'
string. I'm through!"

"You're right--you're through, because you're fired!" Scraggs shrieked
in insane rage. "Get off my ship, you maritime impostor, or I'll take a
pistol to you. Overboard with you, you greasy, addlepated bounder!
You're rotten, understand? Rotten! Rotten! Rotten!"
"You owe me eight dollars an' six bits, Scraggs," Mr. McGuffey
reminded his owner calmly. "Chuck down the spondulicks an' I'll get
off your ship."
Captain Scraggs was beyond reason, so he tossed the money down to
the engineer. "Now git," he commanded.
Without further ado, Mr. McGuffey started across the deckload to the
fo'castle head. Scraggs could not see him but he could hear him--so he
pelted the engineer with potatoes, cabbage heads, and onions, the
vegetables descending about the honest McGuffey in a veritable
barrage. Even in the darkness several of these missiles took effect.
Upon reaching the very apex of the Maggie's bow, Mr. McGuffey
turned and hurled a promise into the darkness: "If we ever meet again,
Scraggs, I'll make Mrs. Scraggs a widow. Paste that in your hat--when
you get a new one."
The Maggie was resting easily on the beach, with the broken water
from the long lazy combers surging well up above her water line. At
most, six feet of water awaited the engineer, who stood, peering
shoreward and listening intently, oblivious to the stray missiles which
whizzed past. Presently, from out of the fog, he heard a grinding,
metallic sound and through a sudden rift in the fog caught a brief
glimpse of blue flame with sparks radiating faintly from it.
That settled matters for Bartholomew McGuffey. The metallic sound
was the protest from the wheels of a Cliff House trolley car rounding a
curve; the blue flame was an electric manifestation due to the
intermittent contact of her trolley with the wire, wet with fog.
McGuffey knew the exact position of the Maggie now, so he poised a
moment on her bow; as a wave swept past him, he leaped overboard,
scrambled ashore, made his way up the beach to the Great Highway

which flanks the shore line between the Cliff House and Ingleside,
sought a roadhouse, and warmed his interior with four fingers of
whiskey neat. Then, feeling quite content with himself, even in his wet
garments, he boarded a city-bound trolley car and departed for the
warmth and hospitality of Scab Johnny's sailor boarding house in
Oregon Street.
CHAPTER V
Captain Scraggs continued to hurl other people's vegetables into the
murk forward for at least two minutes after Mr. McGuffey had shaken
the coal dust of the Maggie from his feet, and was only recalled to more
practical affairs by the bored voice of Mr. Gibney.
"The owners o' them artichokes expect to get half a dollar apiece for
'em in New York, Scraggsy. Cut it out, old timer, or you'll have a claim
for a freight shortage chalked up agin you."
"Nothin' matters any more," Scraggs replied in a choked voice, and
immediately sat down on the half-emptied crate of artichokes and
commenced to weep bitterly--half because of rage and half because he
regarded himself a pauper. Already he had a vision of himself scouring
the waterfront in search of a job.
"No use boo-hooin' over spilt milk, Scraggsy." Always philosophical,
the author of the owner's woe sought to carry the disaster off lightly.
"Don't add your salt tears to a saltier sea until you're certain you're a
total loss an' no insurance. I got you into this and I suppose it's up to me
to get