CHAPTER XL
Cappy Ricks was, for the thousandth time since his voluntary retirement from active business some ten years previous, overwhelmed with his ancient responsibilities. Mr. Skinner had, under the insistent prodding of his wife, consented grudgingly to a vacation and had gone up into the Sierras to loaf and fish.
Scarcely had Skinner departed when one of the Blue Star steamers ran ashore on the Southern California coast, and Captain Matt Peasley left immediately for the scene of the disaster to superintend the work of floating the stranded vessel. This left Cappy riding herd on the destinies of the Blue Star ships, with Mr. Hankins, Skinner's understudy, looking after the lumber.
Prior to boarding the train, Matt Peasley had ventured the suggestion that Mr. Skinner be ordered by wire to return to town at once; but this veiled hint that the Blue Star ships could not be managed by the man who had built up the Blue Star Navigation Company had been received very coldly by the president emeritus of the Ricks interests.
“Young feller,” Cappy informed his son-in-law testily, “I'll have you know I was managing the Blue Star Navigation Company quite some years before you quit wearing pinafores; so I guess, while you and Skinner are away from the office, we can manage to stagger along after a fashion.”
“But I don't like to have you worried with business after you've retired—”
“Retired!” Cappy hooted. “Swell chance I've got to retire! I'll die in the harness whether I want to or not. Tut, tut, my boy! Don't be afraid to put me in as a pinch hitter for this organization. The worst I can do is to single—and I might clout a home run.”
“But Skinner has been away two weeks—”
“Enough! It would be a bad thing to obsess Skinner with the notion that we can't get along without him. Then he never would take a rest; and I don't want any martyrs or neurasthenics round my office. You got anything on the fire that's liable to burn or boil over, before you get back?”