“I'm going to sell the Narcissus. The day I purchased her it was a moral certainty that Europe was to be plunged into a terrible war; so the ink wasn't dry on the contract before I was streaking it for New York. War was declared by England on Germany on the fifth of August, and while you'd be saying Jack Robinson every German freighter went into neutral ports to intern until the war should terminate. The German raiders are still out after the British and French commerce, and the deep-water shipping out of Eastern ports isn't a business any more. It's a delirium—a night-mare! Why, I was offered any number of charters for my Narcissus, but I didn't bother trying to charter her until just before I started for home; and, moreover, the longer I waited the better charter I could make. Besides, she isn't in commission yet—and I had other fish to fry.”
“For instance?” Cappy inquired wonderingly.
“It is an undisputed fact that the early bird gets the worm,” Matt Peasley replied brightly, “and I was the early bird. I was in New York a few days before the war became general, and for a week thereafter everybody was so blamed interested in the fighting they neglected business. But I didn't. I went to New York to charter, under the government form, as many big steel freighters as I could lay hands on—”
Cappy Ricks raised his clasped hands and gazed reverently upward.
“Oh, Lord!” he murmured. “How many? How many?”
“Fifteen,” Matt Peasley murmured complacently. “I got about half of them real cheap, because business was rotten when I landed in the East. Why, I chartered the entire fleet of one shipping firm in Boston. I had to pay a stiffer rate for the others; but—”
“How long did you charter them for?” Cappy yelled. “Quick! Tell me!”
“All for a year, with the privilege of renewal at a ten per cent. advance. I had no difficulty in rechartering to the men who had been asleep on the job. I shall average a profit of two hundred dollars a day on each of the fifteen even if I do not charter them longer—”
“A day!” Cappy's voice rose to a shrill scream.
“A day! Any American bottom that will float and move through the water is worth five times what it was before war was declared, and the freight rates are going up every day. Three thousand dollars a day income—three hundred and sixty-five days in the year! Man, if the war lasts a year I'll make a million dollars net!”