“Matt, my dear boy,” he confessed miserably, “this is certainly one occasion upon which father appears to have overlooked his hand. However, none of us is perfect; and if we're caught out without an umbrella, so to speak—”
“We?” Matt reminded him witheringly. “Cappy, it's all right to use that 'we' stuff when you're talking to Skinner, but trot out the perpendicular pronoun when you're talking to me. I hate to say 'I told you so'; but—”
“Lay off me!” Cappy pleaded. “I'm an old man, Matt; so be easy on me. Besides, I don't make a mistake very often, and you know it.”
“I do know it. But when you blocked me on that building scheme you certainly made up for lost time. Really, Cappy, you mustn't make me play so close to my vest in these brisk times. If I'm to manage the Blue Star Navigation Company I mustn't have my ideas pooh-poohed as if I were a hare-brained child.”
“I know, Matt; I know. But I built up the Blue Star Navigation Company and the Ricks Lumber & Logging Company by playing 'em close, and it's a hard habit to break.
“However, let us forget the past and look forward with confidence to the future. Matt, my dear boy, since we cannot get a shipyard to build a steamer for us, I'm going to break a rule of forty years' standing and buy one in the open market. I guess that'll prove to you I'm not so hide-bound with conservatism as you think. Go forth into the highways and the byways, Matt, and see what they have for sale.”
“How high do you want me to go?”
“As high as they hung Haman—if you find it necessary.”
“That's certainly a free hand; but I'm afraid it comes too late. I doubt if there is an owner with the kind of steamer we want who is crazy enough to sell her.”
“Tish! Tush! All things are for sale all the time. Scour the market, Matt, and you'll find Cappy Ricks isn't the only damned fool left in the shipping business. My boy, you'd be surprised at the number of so-called business men who are entirely devoid of imagination. Dozens of them still think the war will end this fall, but I'm willing to make a healthy bet that the fall of 1917 still finds them going to it to beat four of a kind.”