Cappy read:
RICKS LUMBER & LOGGING COMPANY
Lumber and its products
248 California St.
San Francisco.
Represented by
William E. Peck
If you can drive nails in it--we have it!
Cappy Ricks ran a speculative thumb over Comrade Peck's business card. It was engraved. And copper plates or steel dies are not made in half an hour!
"By the Twelve Ragged Apostles!" This was Cappy's most terrible oath and he never employed it unless rocked to his very foundations. "Bill, as one bandit to another--come clean. When did you first make up your mind to go to work for us?"
"A week ago," Comrade Peck replied blandly.
"And what was your grade when Kaiser Bill went A.W.O.L.?"
"I was a buck."
"I don't believe you. Didn't anybody ever offer you something better?"
"Frequently. However, if I had accepted I would have had to resign the nicest job I ever had. There wasn't much money in it, but it was filled with excitement and interesting experiments. I used to disguise myself as a Christmas tree or a box car and pick off German sharp-shooters. I was known as Peck's Bad Boy. I was often tempted to quit, but whenever I'd reflect on the number of American lives I was saving daily, a commission was just a scrap of paper to me."
"If you'd ever started in any other branch of the service you'd have run John J. Pershing down to lance corporal. Bill, listen! Have you ever had any experience selling skunk spruce?"