Chapter XXXVI

And he turned toward the entrance to the Merchants' Exchange, being minded to enter a telephone booth and notify the Bilgewater Club he would not be present that day. As he walked through the gate into the Exchange, however, he was accosted by a heavy, florid-faced man carrying a thick woolen watch coat over his arm. This individual was Captain Aaron Porter, one of the San Francisco bar pilots, and he greeted Cappy with a respectful query after the old gentleman's health.

"I don't feel very well," Cappy replied wearily. "I'm getting old, captain--getting old."

Then he noted the watch coat the pilot was carrying and decided subconsciously that there could be no connection between it and the sultry August weather prevailing at that moment; consequently it informed the observant Cappy, as plainly as if it had a tongue and had spoken, that Captain Aaron Porter expected shortly to be exposed to the chill northwest winds outside as he piloted a vessel to sea. In the manufacture of sheer inane conversation, therefore, Cappy tugged the coat and said:

"Going to take a ship out this afternoon, captain?"

"Yes, sir. I'll be responsible for the Moana until we cross the Potato Patch--"

"The Moana!" Cappy cried, and pulled out his watch. "You'd better be stepping lively, then. She sails at one, and you have twenty minutes to get to Greenwich Street Pier."

"Oh, there's no hurry, Mr. Ricks. She'll be delayed from half to three-quarters of an hour waiting for the Australian mail. The mail train from the East is late, and of course the Moana cannot sail till--"

"You will pardon me, captain," Cappy Ricks interrupted politely, "but I've just thought of a very important matter. I must run and telephone."

As J. Augustus Redell had just pointed out, twenty minutes was scarcely ample time in which to decide on the right emissary to send to Papeete, get into communication with the said individual and induce him to go. In addition, such a person would have to have time to pack some clothing; also, to procure a letter of credit at the bank and purchase a ticket, not to mention the time requisite to receive his instructions and get to the steamer's dock. But with almost an hour--well, a wide-awake man can accomplish much in an hour, and Cappy Ricks was a natural leader of forlorn hopes. In the brief interval required to accomplish the journey from the door of the Merchants' Exchange to a telephone booth a flock of bright ideas capered through Cappy's ingenious head like goats on a tin roof.

"Main 2000!" he barked, and in five seconds he had the connection. "Put Skinner on the line!"

Cappy's own private exchange operator had the temerity to inform him that Mr. Skinner was out at luncheon.

"The in-fer-nal scoundrel--just when I need him! Put