The Depot Master | Page 9

it's a smart thing to get ten dollars out of me for a trip like this, hey?'
"'Not if it's to last a week, I don't,' says I.
"'It's your lookout if it does,' he says prompt. 'You get ten for takin' me out and back. If you ain't back on time 'tain't my fault.'
"'Unless this craft breaks down,' I says.
"''Twon't break down. I looked after that. My motto is to look out for number one every time, and it's a mighty good motto. At any rate, it's made my money for me.'
"He went on, preachin' about business shrewdness and how it paid, and how mean and tricky in little deals we Rubes was, and yet we didn't appreciate how to manage big things, till I got kind of sick of it.
"'Look here, Mr. Williams,' says I, 'you know how I make my money-- what little I do make--or you say you do. Now, if it ain't a sassy question, how did you make yours?'
"Well, he made his by bein' shrewd and careful and always lookin' out for number one. 'Number one' was his hobby. I gathered that the heft of his spare change had come from dickers in stocks and bonds.
"'Humph!' says I. 'Well, speakin' of tricks and meanness, I've allers heard tell that there was some of them things hitched to the tail of the stock market. What makes the stock market price of-- well, of wheat, we'll say?'
"That was regulated, so he said, by the law of supply and demand. If a feller had all the wheat there was and another chap had to have some or starve, why, the first one had a right to gouge t'other chap's last cent away from him afore he let it go.
"'That's legitimate,' he says. 'That's cornerin' the market. Law of supply and demand exemplified.'
"''Cordin' to that law,' says I, 'when you was so set on fishin' to-day and hunted me up to run your boat here--'cause I was about the only chap who could run it and wa'n't otherwise busy--I'd ought to have charged you twenty dollars instead of ten.'
"'Sure you had,' he says, grinnin'. 'But you weren't shrewd enough to grasp the situation and do it. Now the deal's closed and it's too late.'
"He went on talkin' about 'pools' and deals' and such. How prices of this stock and that was shoved up a-purpose till a lot of folks had put their money in it and then was smashed flat so's all hands but the 'poolers' would be what he called 'squeezed out,' and the gang would get their cash. That was legitimate, too--'high finance,' he said.
"'But how about the poor folks that had their savin's in them stocks,' I asks, 'and don't know high financin'? Where's the law of supply and demand come in for them?'
"He laughed. 'They supply the suckers and the demand for money,' says he.
"By eleven we was well out toward the fishin' grounds. 'Twas the bad season now; the big fish had struck off still further and there wa'n't another boat in sight. The land was just a yeller and green smooch along the sky line and the waves was runnin' bigger. The Shootin' Star was seaworthy, though, and I wa'n't worried about her. The only thing that troubled me was the fog, and that was pilin' up to wind'ard. I'd called Fatty's attention to it when we fust started, but he said he didn't care a red for fog. Well, I didn't much care nuther, for we had a compass aboard and the engine was runnin' fine. What wind there was was blowin' offshore.
"And then, all to once, the engine STOPPED runnin'. I give the wheel a whirl, but she only coughed, consumptive-like, and quit again. I went for'ard to inspect, and, if you'll believe it, there wa'n't a drop of gasoline left in the tank. The spare cans had ought to have been full, and they was--but 'twas water they was filled with.
"'Is THIS the way you have your boat ready for me?' I remarks, sarcastic.
"'That--that man of mine told me he had everything filled,' he stammers, lookin' scart.
"'Yes,' says I, 'and I heard him hint likewise that he was goin' to make you sorry. I guess he's done it.'
"Well, sir! the brimstone names that Fatty called that man was somethin' surprisin' to hear. When he'd used up all he had in stock he invented new ones. When the praise service was over he turns to me and says: 'But what are we goin' to do?'
"'Do?' says I. 'That's easy. We're goin' to drift.'
"And that's what we done. I tried to anchor, but we wa'n't over the ledge and the iron wouldn't reach bottom by a mile, more or less. I rigged up a sail out of the oar and the canvas spray