CHAPTER XXXIX. EASY MONEY
Captain Matt Peasley's first act after consummating his first successful deal was to purchase for the Pacific Shipping Company a membership in the Merchants' Exchange, on the floor of which he knew he would meet daily all the shipping men of San Francisco, and thus be enabled to keep in touch with trade conditions.
He had been a member less than a week when the wisdom of spending five hundred dollars for his membership was made delightfully apparent. While he stood watching the secretary chalk on the blackboard the record of the latest arrivals and departures, he heard a man behind him speaking:
“Heyfuss, I'm in the market to charter another freighter for the Panama run. You might look round and see whether you can line something up for us. I'd like about a two-thousand-ton boat; and we could charter her for a year.”
“There's only one vessel available,” the man addressed as Heyfuss answered; “and that's the Tillicum. Cappy Ricks had her laid up in Oakland Creek—”
Matt moved away and approached a clerk at the desk.
“That dark-haired man with the thick glasses, talking with Mr. Heyfuss,” he said—“who is he?”
“That is Mr. Henry Kelton, manager of G. H. Morrow Company,” the clerk answered. “They operate a line of sailing vessels foreign and half a dozen steamers to South American ports.”
Matt thanked him, entered a telephone booth and on consulting the telephone directory, discovered that J. O. Heyfuss was a broker.
“I'll have to step lively to beat Heyfuss to it,” he soliloquized, and forthwith hastened down to the office of the Blue Star Navigation Company.