"By the Twelve Ragged Apostles!" he murmured. "By the Holy Pink-toed Prophet! We changed the sign on you and we stacked the Cohens on you and we set a policeman to guard the shop to keep you from breaking the window, and we made you dig up two thousand dollars on Sunday night in a town where you are practically unknown, and while you missed the train at eight o'clock, you overtake it at two o'clock in the morning and deliver the blue vase. Come in and rest your poor old game leg, Bill. Brake-man, I'm much obliged to you."
Bill Peck entered and slumped wearily down on the settee. "So it was a plant?" he cracked, and his voice trembled with rage. "Well, sir, you're an old man and you've been good to me, so I do not begrudge you your little joke, but Mr. Ricks, I can't stand things like I used to. My leg hurts and my stump hurts and my heart hurts------"
He paused, choking, and the tears of impotent rage filled his eyes. "You shouldn't treat me that way, sir," he complained presently. "I've been trained not to question orders, even when they seem utterly foolish to me; I've been trained to obey them--on time, if possible, but if impossible, to obey them anyhow. I've been taught loyalty to my chief--and I'm sorry my chief found it necessary to make a buffoon of me. I haven't had a very good time the past three years and--and--you can--pa-pa-pass your skunk spruce and larch rustic and short odd length stock to some slacker like Skinner--and you'd better--arrange--to replace--Skinner, because he's young--enough to--take a beating--and I'm going to--give it to him--and it'll be a hospital--job--sir--"
Cappy Ricks ruffled Bill Peck's aching head with a paternal hand.
"Bill, old boy, it was cruel--damnably cruel, but I had a big job for you and I had to find out a lot of things about you before I entrusted you with that job. So I arranged to give you the Degree of the Blue Vase, which is the supreme test of a go-getter. You thought you carried into this stateroom a two thousand dollar vase, but between ourselves, what you really carried in was a ten thousand dollar job as our Shanghai manager."
"Wha--what!"
"Every time I have to pick out a permanent holder of a job worth ten thousand dollars, or more, I give the candidate the Degree of the Blue Vase," Cappy explained. "I've had two men out of a field of fifteen deliver the vase, Bill."
Bill Peck had forgotten his rage, but the tears of his recent fury still glistened in his bold blue eyes. "Thank you, sir. I forgive you--and I'll make good in Shanghai."
"I know you will, Bill. Now, tell me, son, weren't you tempted to quit when you discovered the almost insuperable obstacles I'd placed in your way?"
"Yes, sir, I was. I wanted to commit suicide before I'd finished telephoning all the C-o-h-e-n-s in the world. And when I started on the C-o-h-n-s--well, it's this way, sir. I just couldn't quit because that would have been disloyal to a man I once knew."