Title:  The Go-Getter

Author:  Peter B. Kyne

Release Date:  May 4, 2004 [EBook #12257]

Language:  English

Character set encoding:  ASCII

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The Go-Getter

A Story That Tells You How to be One

By Peter B. Kyne

* * * * *

DEDICATION

This little Book is dedicated to the Memory of my dead chief, brigadier-general Leroy S. Lyon, sometime commander of the 65th field artillery brigade, 40th division, United states army.

     He practiced and preached A religion of loyalty to the country
     and the appointed task, whatever it might be.

* * * * *

I

Mr. Alden P. Ricks, known in Pacific Coast wholesale lumber and shipping circles as Cappy Ricks, had more troubles than a hen with ducklings.  He remarked as much to Mr. Skinner, president and general manager of the Ricks Logging & Lumbering Company, the corporate entity which represented Cappy’s vast lumber interests; and he fairly barked the information at Captain Matt Peasley, his son-in-law and also president and manager of the Blue Star Navigation Company, another corporate entity which represented the Ricks interest in the American mercantile marine.

Mr. Skinner received this information in silence.  He was not related to Cappy Ricks.  But Matt Peasley sat down, crossed his legs and matched glares with his mercurial father-in-law.

“You have troubles!” he jeered, with emphasis on the pronoun.  “Have you got a misery in your back, or is Herbert Hoover the wrong man for Secretary of Commerce?”

“Stow your sarcasm, young feller,” Cappy shrilled.  “You know dad-blamed well it isn’t a question of health or politics.  It’s the fact that in my old age I find myself totally surrounded by the choicest aggregation of mental duds since Ajax defied the lightning.”

“Meaning whom?”

“You and Skinner.”

“Why, what have we done?”

“You argued me into taking on the management of twenty-five of those infernal Shipping Board freighters, and no sooner do we have them allocated to us than a near panic hits the country, freight rates go to glory, marine engineers go on strike and every infernal young whelp we send out to take charge of one of our offices in the Orient promptly gets the swelled head and thinks he’s divinely ordained to drink up all the synthetic Scotch whiskey manufactured in Japan for the benefit of thirsty Americans.  In my old age you two have forced us into the position of having to fire folks by cable.  Why?  Because we’re breaking into a game that can’t be played on the home grounds.  A lot of our business is so far away we can’t control it.”