“Miss Florence,” Matt began, “this is Matt.”

“Matt who?” she queried with provoking assumption of innocence.

“Door Mat,” he replied.  “Your daddy has just walked all over me at any rate.”

“Oh, good morning, captain.  Why, what has happened?  Your voice sounds like the growl of a big bear.”

“I suppose so.  I’m hopping mad.  The very first day I was ashore I turned a nice little trick for your father.  I wasn’t on the pay roll at the time, so we went into the deal together and chartered the Lion and the Unicorn to freight ore for the Mannheim people from Alaska to Seattle.  I furnished the valuable information and the bright idea, and he capitalized both.  The result of the deal was that he has his own steamer, the Lion, off his hands for four years, chartered at a fancy figure.  Also he chartered the Unicorn from her owner at a cheap rate and rechartered at an advance of seventy-five dollars a day, and we split that profit between us.  That gives me an income of thirty-seven and a half a day for the next four years, provided the Unicorn doesn’t get wrecked.  Naturally I wanted to stay ashore, when there’s money to be made as easy as that—­and he won’t let me.”

“Oh, I’m so sorry, captain.”

“Well, that helps.”

“You do not have to go to sea, do you?” Miss Ricks queried hopefully.

“Yes, Miss Florry, I do; that’s what hurts.  Your father induced me to invest all of my savings in a mortgage and a bond, and he has both locked up in the Blue Star safe with that ogre Skinner in charge, so I can’t get them to realize on.  Of course I could go to law and make him give them to me, but he knows I’ll not do that, so he just sits there and defies me.  And I neglected to take the proper business precautions about my daily income from the charter of the Unicorn, and because I cannot prove I have a divvy coming on that he says he won’t give me a cent of it.  He says he’ll credit my account on the company’s books, and when the Unicorn completes her charter he’ll give it to me in a lump.  In the meantime he’s going to invest it for me, and without consulting me.”

“Oh, dear,” said Miss Ricks sympathetically.  “I’m so sorry dad’s such a busybody.”

“You’re not half so sorry as I am.  I’m flat broke, and in order to eat I have to go to work, and in order to go to work I have to get a job, and in order to get the job I have to take what your father offers me—­in fact, insists upon my taking.  You see, Miss Florry, I’m almost a stranger in Pacific shipping.  I don’t know any owners except your father and I’ve never had any coastwise experience.  It might be years before I could get another job as master of a sailing ship, and most steamship captains prefer to let some other captains break in their mates for them.  So you see I’m helpless.”

A silence.  Then:  “I’m going to sea in the Gualala to-morrow morning, Florry.”