The Captain sighed an impatient negative.
“He's a big, vain man. You ought to see him come into church Sunday mornings and swell down the aisle, with his wife and children trotting after him. He's proud of being thought the big financial man in the church; and whenever they'll let him he gets up after the sermon and makes a speech about the church debts. Great temperance man, too—likes to preside at prohibition meetings and plead for the sanctity of the home.”
Captain Craig was scowling. Every moment the situation was growing more serious; and here was the manager of the company, sitting on a snubbing-post and swinging his legs. Men were needed now, thought the Captain angrily—grown men, not children.
“One spring house-cleaning time—I generally put in the early mornings and evenings there—G. Hyde called me in—I was putting down the hall rugs just then—he called me in to light the gas. I had a match ready to strike and he reached over and took it away from me and put it back in the box. 'Young man,' he said—he never liked to remember my name—'do you know how I rose from nothing to be the owner of this property?' Then he picked up a burnt match, held it down to the grate, and lighted the gas with that.” Hal-loran smiled a far-away smile. “Aren't some of his steamers up at Pewaukoe now?”
The question was asked in the same careless voice, and it took the Captain a moment to realize that the subject had been changed. Then he answered with a puzzled expression:
“Yes; the G. H. Bigelow should have come in there two or three days ago. The other boats are at Chicago or up on Lake Superior.”
“Big boat, isn't it?”
“Yes.”
“Got a good crew for her?”
The Captain, all at sea, could think of nothing but an affirmative to this.