Chapter LVI

On the morning of April 3, 1917, Cappy Ricks came down to his office, spread a newspaper on his desk and carefully cut from it the war address of President Wilson to Congress, made the night before. This clipping the old gentleman folded carefully; he placed it in an envelope, sealed it and wrote across the face of the envelope: "Property of Alden Matthew Peasley." Then he summoned Mr. Skinner, president of the Ricks Lumber & Logging Company.

"Skinner, my dear boy," he began, "have you read the President's Message to Congress?"

"I have," replied Skinner.

"I guess that President of ours isn't some tabasco, eh? By the Holy Pink-Toed Prophet, he's just naturally read Bill Hohenzollern out of the party. Bully for Woodrow!"

Mr. Skinner's calm cold features refused to thaw, however, under the heat of his employer's enthusiasm, seeing which Cappy slid out to the edge of his chair and gazed contemplatively at Skinner over the rims of his spectacles. "Hum-m-m!" he said. The very tempo of that throat-clearing should have warned Mr. Skinner that he was treading on thin ice, but with his usual complacence he ignored the storm signal, for his mind was upon private, not public affairs.

"I'm offered the old barkentine C. D. Bryant for a cargo of redwood to Sydney," he began. "The freight rate is two hundred and twenty shillings per thousand feet, but the Bryant is so old and rotten I can't get any insurance on the cargo if I ship by her. I'm just wondering if--"

"Haramph-h-h! Ahem-m-m!"

"--it's worth while taking a chance to move that foreign order."

"Skinner!" Cappy almost shouted.

Mr. Skinner looked at him, startled.

"How can you think and talk of old barkentines and non-insurable foreign cargoes at this crisis in our country's history?" the autocrat of the numerous Ricks corporations shrilled furiously. "Dad burn your picture, Skinner, are you human? Don't you ever get a thrill from reading a document like this?"--and he tapped the envelope containing the press clipping. "What kind of juice runs in your arteries, anyhow? Red blood or buttermilk? Is your soul so dog-goned dead, crushed under the weight of dollars, that you have failed to realize this document is destined to go down in history side by side with Lincoln's Gettysburg speech? I'll bet you don't know the Gettysburg speech. Bet you never heard of it!"

"Oh, nonsense, Mr. Ricks," Skinner retorted suavely. "Pray do not excite yourself. Suppose war does impend? Is that any reason why I should neglect business?"

"Of course it is, you gibbering jackdaw! I feel like setting fire to the building, just to celebrate. Can't you step into my office on a day like this and discuss the country and her affairs for