CHAPTER XLI. WHEN PAIN AND ANGUISH WRING THE BROW
Cappy Ricks was having his siesta, with his feet on top of his desk, when Matt Peasley came bounding in, seized him by the shoulder and shook him wideawake.
“Well, young man,” Cappy snapped querulously, “what's all the excitement about?”
“Morrow has committed suicide, and I know the firm is in financial difficulties. I'll not be able to collect now—I'll have to wait with the rest of the creditors; and meantime the Tillicum, fully loaded, is somewhere down off the Mexican coast. Good gracious, Mr. Ricks, there's the very devil to pay!”
“We will, if you please, not include outsiders in this argument for the present, Matt,” Cappy retorted dryly. “The unfortunate devil does not pay! You do, Matt. I should worry!”
“But you can help me save something from the wreck!” Matt pleaded desperately. “It's going to clean me of my last dollar to make good with you on my charter, even if Morrow & Company do not make good with me on theirs; and—”
Cappy Ricks held up his hand.
“My dear boy,” he said with maddening calm, “listen to me! I had a hunch this would happen. As a matter of fact, I declined to charter to Morrow & Company direct ten days before you came prancing in with your head all swelled up with a brand-new idea for making a lot of easy money in a hurry. Me charter to them—me!” In his superb scorn Cappy waxed ungrammatical. “I should kiss a pig! Why, if sawmills were selling for six bits each I wouldn't trust that concern with a hatful of sawdust—not that they weren't honest and capable, but they haven't got any money to speak of any more!”
“But—but—Why, dad burn it, sir, you said it was perfectly agreeable to you to have me charter the Tillicum to them!” Matt roared, angry, hurt and amazed.