“Sure! We're locking the stable door after the horse has been stolen. If we'd been for him when the Lusitania was sunk instead of being divided in our opinions and swayed in our judgment by a lot of hysterical pacifists and German propagandists we'd have been into the war long ago and saved millions of human lives; we'd have had the war won.” He sighed.
“What a prime lot of jackasses we Americans are!” he continued. “We talk of liberty and demand license; we prate of democracy and we're a nation of snobs!”
“You wanted to see me about something,” Skinner reminded him.
“Ah, yes; I was forgetting. This envelope, Skinner, contains the President's address. Take it and put it in the vault, and when my grandson is twelve years old give that press clipping to his mother and tell her I said she was to read it to the boy and make him learn it by heart. I won't be on hand to do the Americanizing of that youngster myself, and most likely Matt Peasley will be too busy to think much about it, so I'm taking no chances. You rile me to beat the band sometimes, Skinner, but I'll say this much in your favor: I have never known you to forget anything.”
“Thank you, sir.”
Mr. Skinner took the envelope and departed, and Cappy rang for a stenographer.
“Take a telegram, fast day message,” he barked: “'His Excellency, The President, White House, Washington, D. C. Dear Mister President: I did not vote for you last fall, but your address of last night makes me ashamed that I did not. I am controlling owner of the Blue Star Navigation Company, operating a fleet of fifty vessels of various kinds, twelve of which are foreign-going steam freighters. Am also controlling owner of the Ricks Lumber & Logging Company, cutting a million feet of lumber daily. Everything I control, every dollar I possess, is at the service of my country. God bless you, sir! Alden P. Ricks.'
“That sounds sloppy, but it's the way I feel,” Cappy declared. “When a man has a big heart-breaking job to do and a lot of Philistines are knocking him, maybe it helps him to retain his faith in humankind to have some fellow grow sincerely sloppy and slip a telegraphic cheer in with the hoots. Besides, if I didn't let off steam today I'd swell up and bust myself all over the office—”
The door opened and Mr. Terence P. Reardon, port engineer of the Blue Star Navigation Company, entered. Mr. Reardon's right eye was in deep mourning and at no very remote period something—presumably a fist—had shifted his nose slightly to starboard; indeed, even as he entered Cappy's office a globule of the rich red Reardon blood trembled in each of the port engineer's nostrils. His knuckles were slightly skinned and the light of battle blazed in his black eyes.
“Terence, my dear, dear fellow,” murmured the horrified Cappy, “you look as if you had been fed into a concrete mixer. Have you been fighting?”