"I want all the figures to show the cost of running a four-masted ship, wages, stores, repairs, and so on. Dig it up in a hurry, please, for I may be a ship-owner by afternoon. Let your roustabouts have a ten minutes' rest."
There was no such thing as heading Arthur off. He volleyed questions like a rapid-fire gun. No sooner had his flying pencil scrawled the last row of figures than he fled from the wharf. Noon found him waiting in the ante-room of his father's private offices, chewing his pencil stub and scanning many rumpled pages of calculations. Presently a clerk beckoned him, and the door of the inner office was closed behind the budding shipping merchant. An hour later he bobbed out with an excited air and announced to the confidential secretary:
"Mr. Cochran says to have room number eighteen fitted up as an office, if you please. I shall use it hereafter. I want the door lettered,
'ARTHUR L. COCHRAN, SHIP-OWNER.'"
A messenger found Captain Bracewell eating his dinner at home. Margaret was trembling as she noticed that the note was written on the office stationery of Stanley P. Cochran. Her grandfather was outwardly calm, as he read aloud:
Captain John Bracewell:
Dear Sir: This is to offer you the command of the ship Sea Witch, which is now lying at Pier 38, North River, in this port. If you will accept the position, please call at my office at your earliest convenience to arrange terms, etc.
Sincerely yours,
Arthur L. Cochran, Agent and Owner.
"Listen to that, his daddy all over again," roared the ship-master. "I shall have to toe the mark now. Well, it's come true. It's come true, girlie. And our lad David did it all."
He knelt by the table, as if this were the first thing to be done, and Margaret was kneeling beside him as he gave thanks to the God in whom he had put his trust, afloat and ashore.
"We must send a cablegram to David," quavered Margaret, sobbing for sheer joy. "And tell him he must sail with us."