Chapter XXIII - Page 2

said gravely, "you're only drawing twelve thousand a year, and you've been with me twenty-five years! And here I'm giving this boy Matt ten thousand a year and he's been on the pay roll only four months. Why, it isn't fair!"

"Remember, he was three years in the Blue Star ships that--"

"Can't consider that at all when raising salaries. The salaries of ship's officers are fixed and immutable anyhow, and when considering raises for my employees. I can take into consideration only the length of time they've been directly under my eye. Cut Matt's salary to five thousand a year and let him grow up with the business. His dividends from his Ricks L. & L. and Blue Star stock will keep him going, and he hasn't any household bills to keep up. He and Florry live with me, and I'm the goat."

"I fear Matt will not take kindly to that program, Mr. Ricks-- particularly at this time, when every ship in the offshore fleet is paying for herself every voyage."

"Why?" Cappy demanded.

"Well," Mr. Skinner replied hesitatingly, "perhaps I have no business to tell you this, because the knowledge came to me quite by accident; but the fact of the matter is, Matt is going to build himself an auxiliary schooner--"

"Good news!" Cappy piped. "That's the ticket for soup! An auxiliary schooner with semi-Diesel engines, four masts and about a million- foot lumber capacity would be a mighty good investment right now. Every yard in the country that builds steel vessels is filled up with orders, but our coast shipyards can turn out wooden vessels in a hurry; and, with auxiliary power, they'll pay five hundred per cent on their cost before this flurry in shipping, due to the war, is over. I don't care, Skinner--provided he builds a ship that's big enough to go foreign--"

"But this isn't that kind," Mr. Skinner interrupted.

"No other kind will do, Skinner."

"This is to be a schooner yacht--"

"A what!" Cappy shrilled.

"A yacht--eighty-five feet over all--"

"Eighty-five grandmothers! Why, what the devil does that boy want of a yacht? How much money does he intend to put into her?"

"I do not know, Mr. Ricks; but we can be reasonably certain of one thing; Matt Peasley will not build a cheap boat. She'll have a lot of gewgaws and gadgets, teak rail, mahogany joiner-work--at the very least, she'll cost him thirty thousand dollars."

"Skinner," Cappy declared solemnly, "he might as well put the money in a sack, go down to Clay Street Wharf and throw the money overboard! The other night I saw a couple of soldiers having a pleasant time in a shooting gallery, but what the president of the Blue Star Navigation Company wants with a thirty-thousand-dollar yacht beats my