“What for, Mr. Ricks?”
Cappy thrust his thumb into Skinner's ribs, winked, bent low, and whispered:
“Too slow, Skinner; too slow. I'm getting old, you know—I can't wait for ever. And if the experiment succeeds—Skinner, my dear boy, you're next! You've been married more than a year now—”
“I fail to comprehend—”
“Grandson!” Cappy whispered. “Grandson!”
“Oh!” said Mr. Skinner.
CHAPTER XXIV
One of the remarks most frequently heard on California Street was to the effect that whenever Cappy Ricks girded up his loins and went after something he generally got it. His scheme to get Matt Peasley to sea for one voyage, accompanied by Florry, worked as smoothly as a piston; and on the fifteenth of January the Peasleys went aboard the Retriever at Bellingham and towed out, bound for Manila with a cargo of fir lumber. Matt made the run down in sixty-six days, a smart passage, waited a week in Manila Bay before he could secure a berth and commence discharging, discharged in a week, loaded a cargo of hemp, with a deckload of hardwood logs, and was ready for the return trip to San Francisco on April twenty-fourth, on which day he towed out past Corregidor.