The information that the whistling buoy off Duxbury Reef had gone adrift and that Blunt’s Reef Lightship would be withdrawn for fifteen days for repairs and docking interested him but little, however.  In his mind’s eye there loomed the picture of that great red freighter, with her foul bottom, rusty funnel and unpainted, weather-beaten upper works.

“Her bridge is pretty well exposed to the weather,” he murmured.  “I’d build it up so the man on watch could just look over it.  I noticed they’d had the good sense to house over her winches, so I dare say they’re in good shape; her paint will have prevented rust below the water line, and I’ll bet she’s as sound as the day she was built.  I think I’d paint her dead black, with red underbody and terra-cotta upper works.”  He pondered.  “Yes, and I’d paint her funnel dead black, too, with a broad red band; and on both sides of the funnel, in the center of this red band, I’d have a white diamond with a black P in the center of it.  By George, they’d know the Peasley Line as far as they could see it!”

He would have dreamed on had he not bethought himself suddenly of his modest capital—­fifty thousand-odd dollars, out of which he owed Cappy Ricks a considerable sum on a promissory note due in one year.  On such a meager bank balance it would not do to dream of buying a vessel worth nearly four hundred thousand dollars.  Why, it would require twenty thousand dollars to put her in commission after all these years of idleness, and she had to have another boiler because she was a hog on coal; and, in addition, her operating cost would be between nine and ten thousand dollars a month.

Matt shook his head and looked round the great room as though in search of inspiration.  He found it.  His wandering glance finally came to rest on Jerry Dooley’s alert countenance.  Jerry crooked a finger at him and Matt strolled over to the desk.

“I’ve been watching you milling the idea round in your head,” said Jerry.  “I saw you reject it.  You’re crazy!  It can be done.”

“How?” Matt queried eagerly.

“Go get an option on her for the lowest price you can get—­then form a syndicate and sell her to them at a higher price; or, if you don’t want to do that, form your syndicate to buy her at the option price, and if you work it right you can get the job of managing owner.  I want to tell you that two and one-half per cent. commission on her freight earnings would make a nice income.”

“I wonder whom I could get into the syndicate?” Matt queried.

Jerry scratched his head.

“Well,” he suggested, “you’re mighty close to old Cappy Ricks.  If you could hook him for a piece of her, the rest would be easy.  Any shipping man on the Street will follow where Cappy Ricks leads.  I’d try Pollard & Reilly; Redell, of the West Coast Trading Company; Jack Haviland, the ship chandler; Charley Beyers, the ship’s grocer and butcher; A. B. Cahill & Co., the coal dealers;