Part 5 (2/2)
we'll just spread the word that he was so soused he jumped overboard an' swum ash.o.r.e without waitin' to see if we could back off. Lordy, Gib, don't work me to death. I'm that weary I could flop on this wet deck an' be off to sleep in a pig's whisper.”
”I dunno but what there's reason in what you say,” Mr. Gibney agreed. ”Well, turn in, Scraggsy, but the minute we hit the dock you run up town and fix things up with Bart.”
And without further ado he set the alarm clock for seven o'clock, kicked off his shoes, and climbed into his berth with his clothes on.
CHAPTER VIII
The crews of the _Aphrodite_ and the _Bodega_ slept late also, for they were weary, and fortunately, no calls for a tug came into the office of the Red Stack Company all morning. About ten o'clock Dan Hicks and Jack Flaherty breakfasted and about ten thirty both met in the office. Apparently they were two souls with but a single thought, for the right hand of each sought the shelf whereon reposed the blue volume ent.i.tled ”Lloyd's Register.” Dan Hicks reached it first, carried it to the counter, wet his tarry index finger, and started turning the pages in a vain search for the American steamer _Yankee Prince_. Presently he looked up at Jack Flaherty.
”Flaherty,” he said, ”I think you're a liar.”
”The same to you and many of them,” Flaherty replied, not a whit abashed. ”You said she was an eight thousand ton tramp.”
”I never went so far as to say I'd been aboard her on trial trip, though--and I did cut down her tonnage, showin' I got the fragments of a conscience left,” Hicks defended himself.
He closed the book with a sigh and placed it back on the shelf, just as the door opened to admit no less a personage than Batholomew McGuffey, late chief engineer, first a.s.sistant, second a.s.sistant, third a.s.sistant, wiper, oiler, water-tender, and stoker of the S.S. _Maggie_. With a brief nod to Jack Flaherty Mr. McGuffey approached Dan Hicks.
”I been lookin' for you, captain,” he announced. ”Say, I hear the chief o' the _Aphrodite's_ goin' to take a three months' lay-off to get shet of his rheumatism. Is that straight?”
”I believe it is, McGuffey.”
”Well, say, I'd like to have a chance to subst.i.toot for him. You know my capabilities, Hicks, an' if it would be agreeable to you to have me for your chief your recommendation would go a long way toward landin' me the job. I'd sure make them engines behave.”
”What vessel have you been on lately?” Hicks demanded cautiously, for he knew Mr. McGuffey's reputation for non-reliability around pay-day.
”I been with that fresh water scavenger, Scraggs, in the _Maggie_ for most a year.”
”Did you quit or did Scraggs fire you?”
”He fired me,” McGuffey replied honestly. ”If he hadn't I'd have quit, so it's a toss-up. Comin' in from Halfmoon Bay last night we got lost in the fog an' piled up on the beach just below the Cliff House----”
”This is interesting,” Jack Flaherty murmured. ”You say she walked ash.o.r.e on you, McGuffey? Well, I'll be shot!”
”She did. Scraggs blamed it on me, Flaherty. He said I didn't obey the signals from the bridge, one word led to another, an' he went dancin' mad an' ordered me off his s.h.i.+p. Well, it's his s.h.i.+p--or it _was_ his s.h.i.+p, for I'll bet a dollar she's ground to powder by now--so all I could do was obey. I hopped overboard an' waded ash.o.r.e. I suppose all my clothes an' things is gone by now. I left everything aboard an' had to borrow this outfit from Scab Johnny.” He grinned pathetically. ”So I guess you understand, Captain Hicks, just how bad I need that job I spoke about a minute ago.”
”I'll think it over, Mac, an' let you know,” Hicks replied evasively.
Mr. McGuffey, sensing his defeat, retired forthwith to hide his embarra.s.sment and distress; as the door closed behind him, Hicks and Flaherty faced each other.
”Jack,” quoth Dan Hicks, ”can two towboat men, holdin' down two hundred-dollar jobs an' presumed to have been out o' their swaddlin' clothes for at least thirty years, afford to be laughed off the San Francisco waterfront?”
”I know one of them that can't, Dan. At the same time, can a rat like Phineas P. Scraggs and a beachcomber like his mate Gibney make a pair of star-spangled monkeys out of said two towboat men and get away with it?”
”They did that last night. Still, I've known monkeys that would fight an' was human enough to settle a grudge. Follow me, Jack.”
Together they repaired to Jackson Street bulkhead. Sure enough there lay the _Maggie_, rubbing her blistered sides against the bulkhead. Captain Scraggs was nowhere in sight, but Mr. Gibney was at the winch, swinging ash.o.r.e the crates of vegetables which The Squarehead and three longsh.o.r.emen loaded into the cargo net.
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