Cape Town, Feb. 17, 19—.

  Bluestar,
    San Francisco.

  Holler when you’re hit.  Paid for it myself.  Am I to bring
  Retriever home?

Peasley.

“I dare say the fellow did,” Mr. Skinner informed Cappy.  “He has four months’ wages coming to him at sixty dollars a month—­and if he didn’t, why, I’ll instruct McBride to deduct the cable charges from his wages when he pays him off.”

“I think your reference to his meager maritime experience annoyed him, Skinner,” Cappy suggested thoughtfully.  “It may be that he is a most excellent sailor.  At least, he spends his money like one.”

Cappy had no further comment to make, and the reply to this impudent communication was accordingly left to Mr. Skinner, who cabled: 

San Francisco, Feb. 17th, 19—.

  Rickstar,
    Cape Town.

  No!

Bluestar.

“I think that will settle the upstart,” Mr. Skinner declared confidently as he rang for a messenger boy.

It did not.  Four hours later he received this: 

Cape Town, Feb. 17, 19—.

  Bluestar,
    San Francisco.

  Why?

Peasley.

Now it was a custom of Mr. Skinner’s, when a subordinate laid claim to an inalienable right which the general manager was not willing to concede, to regard with very grave suspicion that subordinate’s loyalty to the company.  If the subordinate protested Mr. Skinner would warn him, kindly, quietly, but none the less forcefully; and if he persisted Mr. Skinner would dispense with the services of that subordinate so fast the offender, nine times out of ten, would be left standing in a sort of fog and blinking at the suddenness with which the metaphorical can had, metaphorically speaking, been tied to his caudal appendage.  Every large business office has its Skinner—­a queer combination of decency, honesty, brains and brutality, a worshiper at the shrine of Mammon in the temple of the great god Business, a reactionary Republican, treasurer of his church and eventually a total loss from diabetes, brought on by lack of exercise and worry over trifles.

However, to return to our particular Mr. Skinner and Matt Peasley, the rebellious.  In all justice to Skinner it must be admitted that his first impulse with reference to Matt Peasley was eminently fair.  He really desired to convey to this persistent person an intimation to the effect that the latter was, colloquially speaking, monkeying with the buzz-saw and in imminent danger of having his head lopped off; and he would have given it, too, provided the delivery of the ultimatum should not have cost the Blue Star Navigation Company ninety-eight cents a word, including the address.  Consequently, Skinner, always efficient and realizing that McBride would doubtless be enabled to pick up another mate in Cape Town, or in a pinch, could dispense with a first mate altogether, made answer to Matt Peasley as follows: