After Mr. Duncan also had had another look and seen for himself that it was true, he sat down in his chair and tried to think it out. He was still trying to think it out when Wesley himself came in the door.
“Hi-i!” hailed Wesley, and taking one of Mr. Duncan’s longest cigars, sat down and answered Mr. Duncan’s first question by beginning to tell the story. It took just about the length of a cigar to tell it, for, while Wesley smoked fast, he also talked fast, and with that told barely more than the cold facts.
Barely more than the cold facts, and yet, to get the real color of it, one should have heard Wesley tell it; should have seen him hunch his shoulders wrathfully in the beginning when he was picturing Glover’s sending the messenger astray; should have seen him bring his fist down on the desk when he drove the Lucy across the Gulf to head off Glover at Canso; then should have seen him lean back and laugh when he told how Glover abandoned his vessel. And, finally, one should have caught a glimpse of his eyes through the halo of smoke when he said, “And ’twarn’t no joke takin’ them frozen herrin’ out of the Calumet that night, and ’twas pump, pump, pump, and stand by on the Lucy all along the Cape shore ready to take the crew off her any minute. Yes, sir. She leaked a little, did the Calumet, and she cert’nly did set scandalously low in the water at times, but we wiggled her home. Yes, sir, and there she is, out in the stream.”
Having smoked out his cigar, Wesley naturally slowed up. “And I misdoubt that she’d stayed afloat of herself another half hour. There’s a hole under her quarter that most of them herrin’, if they knowed enough or didn’t happen to be put away in pickle, could’ve swum their way through. A good man, that Charlie Green, Mr. Duncan; and if you could only’ve heard the twist he put into his voice when he was talkin’ to Glover just afore he went into Canso Harbor that night! But a week on the railway oughter fix up the Calumet so she’ll be as good as ever.
“But ain’t that a good one on Glover, though? Hah, what? Glover, the—the—strategist? That’s it—strategist—strat-e-gist! Ho-ho!” Wesley leaned back in his chair and blew the last ring up at the ceiling. “And John Rose— I don’t cal’late John Rose’ll feel so bad when he hears the whole story—hah, what? And Glover—ho-ho!—think of him tellin’ his friends up to Canso how it happened—and leave it to him to tell it right; and after he gets through tellin’ them that, of him hirin’ a tug to go down and pull her off, and him cruisin’ around lookin’ for her—and not findin’ her—ho-ho! But I s’pose we got to talk business now. What’s the salvage law about this, Mr. Duncan? I’ve picked up a few vessels at sea in my time, but never one quite this way. How about the salvage, Mr. Duncan?”
“The vessel was abandoned, you say?”
“She cert’nly was.”
“Well, then, our lawyer ought to be able to fix that up easily enough. There’ll be a big salvage, don’t you worry about that. And however it comes out, it will cost her owner a good many times more than if he hadn’t got so oversmart a skipper for her. But you’re laughing again, Captain—what is it?”
“I couldn’t help laughin’ to think of Withrow, too. I never did partic’larly like Withrow, either. What does he think, d’y’ s’pose, Mr. Duncan?”
“Withrow? M-m— I wouldn’t want to say. But I know what I’d think if it happened to one of my vessels, and I know what I’d say—and what I’d do, too.”