“I couldn't take her with me, sir,” Matt protested. “I wanted to, but she would have been in the way. You see, I knew I was going to be busy night and day.”
Cappy Ricks slid out to the edge of his swivel chair; with a hand on each knee he gazed at his smiling son-in-law over the rims of his spectacles. For fully a minute he remained motionless.
“Matt,” he demanded suspiciously, “what the devil have you been up to?”
Matt raised a huge forefinger.
“Number one,” he began: “I bought the Oriental Steamship Company's freighter Narcissus, seventy-five hundred tons' register, for two hundred and seventy-five thousand dollars, and in a month she'll be in tiptop shape and ready for sea. I've paid twenty-five thousand dollars down on her and I'll have to make a payment of twenty thousand dollars on the twenty-sixth of September and twenty thousand dollars a month on her thereafter until she, is paid for. And if I default on a payment for more than thirty days before I've paid off half of the purchase price the Oriental Steamship Company may, at its option, take the vessel away from me.”
Cappy Ricks smiled.
“Ah!” he breathed softly. “So you want help, eh? You finally did manage to get into deep water close to the shore, and now you're yelling to father to come through and save you, eh? Well, I'll do it, my boy, because I think you made a bully buy; and she's worth it. I'll take over your bargain for you and give you, say—er—ahem! we—harumph-h-h—say twenty-five thousand dollars profit. Not so bad, eh? When I was your age—” Cappy paused, open-mouthed. He had suddenly remembered something. “Oh, no,” he contradicted himself; “this isn't my foolish day—not by a jugful! You owe me a lot of money on that promissory note you gave me when we settled up for that Tillicum business—so I'll not give you any money after all. I'll just take the contract of sale off your hands, give you back the money you risked in the deal—and your promissory note, cancelled.” And Cappy Ricks sat back and clawed his whiskers expectantly.
“Oh, I'm not in distress,” Matt answered cheerfully. “On the contrary, I'm going to take up that note before the week is out.”
Once more Cappy slid out to the edge of his chair.
“Where are you going to get the money?” he demanded bluntly.