Chapter XLVI

With this Parthian shot Matt himself retired, leaving Cappy to shiver and bow his head on his breast; in which position he remained motionless for fully an hour.

"I guess the boy's right," he soliloquized finally. "I think I'd better retire, after pulling that kind of a deal twice in the same place. The pace is getting too swift for me, I think; I can't keep up... Well, I guess they've got the goods on me this time. Matt was certainly on the job twice, and I blocked him both times ... Oh, Lord! I'll never hear the last of this... By the Holy Pink-Toed Prophet, I've lost my punch! Matt didn't say so; but he thinks it. And I don't blame him a bit."

The door of Cappy's office opened and again the youth stood in the entrance. "Mr. Redell is calling; there's a gentleman with him," he announced.

"Tell 'em I'm busier'n a cranberry merchant," Cappy snarled. "And unless you're figuring on hunting a new job, my son, don't you come in here again today."

The youth retired. However, he knew from experience that Cappy Ricks never discharged anybody save for insubordination or rank incompetence; hence, he did not hesitate to disobey the old gentleman's edict.

"Mr. Redell says his business is very important," he announced, presenting himself once more at the door.

"All right! No rest for the weary. Show them in."

J. Augustus Redell entered, accompanied by no less a personage than the British Consul. Cappy greeted them without enthusiasm and bade them be seated.

"Well," J. Augustus Redell announced cheerily, "It's plain to be seen that Little Sunshine hasn't been round this office recently."

Cappy grunted.

"What's gone wrong, Cappy?"

"Everything! Been going wrong for years and I never realized it until this afternoon. Ah, Gus, my dear young friend, how I envy you your youth, your capacity to think, your golden dreams, your boundless energy, your ability to make two-dollar bills grow where one-dollar bills grew before, thus making an apparently barren prospect as verdant as a meadow in spring. But make the most of your opportunity, young feller! The day will come to you, as it has come to me, when everything you do will be done twenty minutes too late; when every dollar you make will be subject to a cash discount of one hundred per cent; when every competitor you held cheap will suddenly develop the luck of the devil, the brains of a Demosthenes, and the courage of a hog going to war."

"I should judge that you have recently suffered a great bereavement."

"I have, Augustus, I have. Through my indecision I have just lost a bank roll a greyhound couldn't have jumped over. Suppose it was a paper profit? I grieve just the same."

"Forget it, Cappy! Life is real, life is earnest, and