“Pooh-pooh for you!” Matt laughed. “God is good and the devil not half bad. I got the guaranties I asked for, old dear! Don't you ever think I'd have been crazy enough to go to Panama without them.”
Cappy jerked forward in his chair again.
“Matt,” he said sternly, “you have defaulted in your payments to the Blue Star Navigation Company to the tune of eighteen thousand dollars, and I'd like to hear what you have to say about that.”
“Well, I couldn't help it,” Matt replied, “I was shy ten thousand dollars when Morrow & Company defaulted on me, and I was at sea when the other payment fell due. However, you had your recourse. You could have canceled the charter on me. That was a chance I had to take.
“Why didn't you grab the ship away from me? If you had done that you would be in the clear to-day instead of up to your neck in grief.”
“We'll grab her away from you to-day—never fear!” Cappy promised him. “I guess we'll get ours from the freight due on that cargo of steel rails you came home with.”
“You have another guess coming, Mr. Ricks. You'll not do any grabbing to-day, for the reason that somebody else has already grabbed her.”
“Who?” chorused Cappy and Skinner.
“The United States Marshal. Half an hour ago the Pacific Shipping Company libeled her.”
“What for, you bonehead? You haven't any cause for libel, so how can you make it stick?”