Caleb West, Master Diver

by Francis Hopkinson Smith

The general looked again at Captain Joe and Caleb. There was no questioning their integrity. Theirs were faces that disarmed suspicion at once.

“Are these your signatures?” he asked, pointing to the scrawls in blue lead pencil subscribed under Sanford’s.

“They are, sir,” said Captain Joe and Caleb almost simultaneously; Caleb answering with a certain tone of solemnity, as if he were still in government service and under oath, lifting his hat as he spoke. Men long in government employ have this sort of unconscious awe in the presence of their superiors.

“Make a copy of it,” said the general curtly to the secretary of the Board. Then he turned on his heel, crossed the Screamer’s deck, and entered the cabin of the tender, where he was followed by the other members of the committee.

Ten minutes later the steward of the tender called Carleton. The men looked after him as he picked his way over the platforms and across the deck of the sloop. His face was flushed, and a nervous twitching of the muscles of his mouth showed his agitation over the summons. The apparition of the pantry door, they thought, had taken the starch out of him.

Mrs. Leroy crossed to Sanford’s side and whispered anxiously, “What do you think, Henry?”

“I don’t know yet, Kate. Barton is a gruff, exact man, and a martinet, but he hasn’t a dishonest hair on his head. Wait.”

The departure of the engineers aboard the tender, followed almost immediately by that of the superintendent, left the opposition, so to speak, unrepresented. Those of the ladies who were on sufficiently intimate terms with Sanford to mention the fact at all, and who, despite the major’s efforts to lead them out of range, had heard every word of the discussion, expressed the hope that the affair would come out all right. One, a Mrs. Corson, said in a half-querulous tone that she thought they ought to be ashamed of themselves to find any fault, after all the hard work he had done. Jack and Smearly consulted apart. They were somewhat disturbed, but still believed that Sanford would win his case.

To the major, however, the incident had a far deeper and much more significant meaning.

“It’s a part of their infernal system, Henry,” he said in a sympathetic voice, now really concerned for his friend’s welfare,—“a trick of the damnable oligarchy, suh, that is crushing out the life of the people. It is the first time since the wah that I have come as close as this to any of the representatives of this government, and it will be the last, suh.”