“Well, my boss informs me the charterers assume the risk, so I suppose I shouldn't worry over the Blue Star Navigation Company's end of the gamble. They know their own business, I dare say. Evidently they feared I might want to resign, so I have been asked to remain; and when Captain Peasley says 'please' to me, Mr. von Staden, I find it very, very hard to refuse.”
“I am glad, for the sake of our selfish interests, my dear captain, to find you so loyal to your owners' financial interests,” the supercargo replied heartily. “Now that you have decided to remain, I need not point out to you the danger of a resignation at this time. It might lead to some unlooked-for developments which might prejudice your owners, although I think they have covered their tracks very effectually. Nevertheless, it is not well to take the slightest risk—”
“Without being well paid for it,” Murphy interrupted sneeringly. “My owners have been well paid for their risk, but where do I come in? I haven't been promised double my usual salary, or a split on the profits of the voyage; and I know if I were to command a vessel loaded with munitions of war I would not be asked to take her into the North Sea at the customary skipper's wages. I'd be offered a large bonus.”
“You forget, my dear captain, that your charterers assume all the risks. One of them was the risk that you might resign unless you received adequate compensation. I came aboard prepared to insure that risk,” and he touched with his toe the Gladstone bag. “What do you say to $5,000?”
Michael J. Murphy smiled. “It is pleasant, sir,” he said, “to be paid $5,000 for doing something one yearns to do for nothing. I am not a hog. Five thousand dollars is sufficient. How do I get it—and when?”
“In gold coin of the United States, or gold certificates of the same interesting country, my dear captain, and you may have it immediately.” Again Herr von Staden kicked the Gladstone bag.
“I'll take it in gold certificates. And in order that my dear old father and mother may have the benefit of my rascality in case anything unforeseen should arise to prevent my return, I suggest you hand over the boodle this minute, and I'll go ashore and express it home.”
“Captain Murphy, you are a man after my own heart—”
“I am not a born fool, sir,” Murphy interrupted. “I'm accepting this money to be a fool, well knowing it is foolish to do it, for still I am taking a risk. I am thirty-eight years old, Mr. von Staden, and a skipper as young as that has his future all before him. Set him down on the beach, however, with his ticket revoked for all time—and his future is behind him.”
“In that event,” the supercargo replied, “you might accept my assurance, without questioning my authority for such assurance, that you would have no difficulty in procuring a remunerative position ashore. The firm of von Staden & Ulrich could use you very handily.”