“Nothing to worry about, Cappy,” Matt answered. “Our five-masted schooner Mindoro is the only vessel requiring immediate attention. She arrived at Sydney yesterday with lumber from Gray's Harbor, and as yet I haven't been able to get a satisfactory return cargo for her.”
“What have you been holding out for?”
“I want to get a cargo for delivery in San Francisco if possible. The vessel will be ready to go on dry dock by the time she gets back here; and besides, I'm planning to put a semi-Diesel-type engine in her.”
'“Not by a jugful! She wasn't built with a shaft log, and I won't have you weakening my Mindoro by cutting away her deadwood—”
“Tish! Tush! You're a back number, Cappy. They don't cut through the deadwood any more. They run the shaft out over her quarter and hang it on struts.”
“She'll carry a helm—”
“She'll not; but if she does, let her. It'll give the helmsman something to do.”
Cappy subsided, fearful that if he persisted he might be given new evidence of the fact that times had changed a trifle, here and there, since he had—ostensibly—gone on the retired list.
“Well, I'll take care of the Mindoro,” he assured his son-in-law. “Early in life I adopted the woodpecker as my patron saint. Ever since, whenever I want anything I keep pecking away, and pretty soon I bust through somewhere.”
The following morning, bursting with a sense of responsibility, Cappy came bustling down to the office and got on the job at eight-thirty. After looking through the mail he called up all the freight brokers in town and urged them to make a special effort to line up a San Francisco cargo for the Mindoro; then he summoned Mr. Skinner's stenographer and was busy dictating when Mr. J. Augustus Redell was announced by a youth from the general office. Cappy went to the door to welcome his beloved young friend and business enemy.