“Certainly!  Now you’re talking business; so I’ll listen.”

“As charterer of your steamer Tillicum, I find that Captain Grant, the master you installed there, is offensive to me.  I object to the way he parts his hair and knots his necktie, and I want a new skipper on the ship.”

Cappy Ricks slid out to the edge of his swivel chair, placed a hand on each knee and eyed Matt suspiciously over the rims of his spectacles.  After a long silence he shook his head negatively.

“Then I’ll sue you!” Matt replied.  “There’s a clause in the charter party.  You’ve got to do it.”

Cappy’s mouth flew open.

“Oh, by Judas Priest, that’s right,” he said, and laughed.  “So you’re providing a job for yourself after the smoke clears away, eh?” he quizzed.  “Well, you can skipper the Tillicum while you keep up the payments of the charter money, Matt; but I give you my word that the day you slip up on a payment, out you go and back Captain Grant goes into the ship.  Meantime, however, I think I see now why you inserted that clause.  In the event of just such a contingency as the present you wanted the privilege of jumping in and taking command yourself.”

Matt nodded.

“Captain Grant is a good man, but old.  He can’t drive a crew like I can, Mr. Ricks—­and, with me on the job, that steamer will be discharged and back in San Francisco Bay from three to five days sooner that she would ordinarily.  It means six hundred dollars a day to me, sir, and every day saved is worth that much cash in hand to you, since you profess to think so lightly of my promissory note.”

“Enough!” Cappy commanded.  “I’ll admit that the thought does you credit.  It was a mighty bright idea, Matt, and showed fine forethought.  Now, then, what are you going to do to save your roll?”

“The City of Para leaves for Panama to-morrow.  Give me a letter to Captain Grant, commanding him to turn his ship over to me on presentation of this letter.  I will furnish him the funds to pay his transportation back to San Francisco.”

“Fair enough,” said Cappy; and, calling in a stenographer, he dictated the desired letter.

Ten minutes later Matt Peasley had left the office without the formality of saying good-by to Cappy Ricks, and was in a taxicab en route to his lodgings to pack his steamer trunk and hand baggage.  Cappy Ricks chuckled as Matt went angrily out.

“Ah—­that first time a man goes broke!” he soliloquized.  “What a blow to one’s pride!  What a shock to the nervous system!” He sighed.  “Poor old Matt!  Nobody knows better than Cappy Ricks how you feel, because he’s been there twice and it blamed near broke his heart each time it happened.”

He shook his head with an air of satisfaction, for things were going well with him.  He had made a prophecy and it was in a fair way of being fulfilled—­nay, its fulfillment was inevitable; whereat Cappy, after the habit of the aged in their conflict with Youth, felt very much like shaking hands with himself.  Indeed, so pleased was he that presently he called in Mr. Skinner and related the story in meticulous detail to the general manager.