CHAPTER LVI
On the morning of April 3, 1917, Cappy Ricks came down to his office, spread a newspaper on his desk and carefully cut from it the war address of President Wilson to Congress, made the night before. This clipping the old gentleman folded carefully; he placed it in an envelope, sealed it and wrote across the face of the envelope: “Property of Alden Matthew Peasley.” Then he summoned Mr. Skinner, president of the Ricks Lumber & Logging Company.
“Skinner, my dear boy,” he began, “have you read the President's Message to Congress?”
“I have,” replied Skinner.
“I guess that President of ours isn't some tabasco, eh? By the Holy Pink-Toed Prophet, he's just naturally read Bill Hohenzollern out of the party. Bully for Woodrow!”
Mr. Skinner's calm cold features refused to thaw, however, under the heat of his employer's enthusiasm, seeing which Cappy slid out to the edge of his chair and gazed contemplatively at Skinner over the rims of his spectacles. “Hum-m-m!” he said. The very tempo of that throat-clearing should have warned Mr. Skinner that he was treading on thin ice, but with his usual complacence he ignored the storm signal, for his mind was upon private, not public affairs.
“I'm offered the old barkentine C. D. Bryant for a cargo of redwood to Sydney,” he began. “The freight rate is two hundred and twenty shillings per thousand feet, but the Bryant is so old and rotten I can't get any insurance on the cargo if I ship by her. I'm just wondering if—”
“Haramph-h-h! Ahem-m-m!”
“—it's worth while taking a chance to move that foreign order.”