Part 10 (1/2)
”Neils an' my mate.”
”If that new mate dares to leave you in command o' the _Maggie_, alone an' unprotected on the high seas an' you with a fresh water license, I'll----”
”Then Neils an' I'll do it.”
”You don't know how. Besides, you're afraid to go aboard that bark. You don't know what kind of a frightful disease she may have aboard. Do you know a plague s.h.i.+p when you see one?”
Captain Scraggs paled a little, but the prospect of the salvage heartened him. ”I don't give a hoot,” he declared. ”I'll take a chance.”
”All right. Consider it taken. How're you goin' to get aboard her?”
”In the skiff.”
”Where's the skiff?”
Captain Scraggs glanced around wildly, and when McGuffey jeered him, he cast his hat upon the deck and started to leap upon it.
The devilish Gibney was right. It appeared that owing to a glut of freight on the landing, Captain Scraggs had decided, in view of the fine weather prevailing, to take an unusually large cargo that trip. With this idea in mind, he had piled freight over every available inch of deck s.p.a.ce until the cargo was flush with the top of the house. On top of the house, the skiff always rested, bottom up. Captain Scraggs had righted the skiff, piled it full of loose artichokes from half a dozen crates broken in the cargo net while loading, and then proceeded to pile more vegetables on top of it and around it until the _Maggie's_ funnel barely showed through the piled-up freight, and the little vessel was so top heavy she was cranky. In order to get at the small boat, therefore, it would be necessary to s.h.i.+ft this load off the house, and the question that now confronted Scraggs and his crew was to find a spot that would accommodate the part of the deckload thus s.h.i.+fted!
When Captain Scraggs had completed his hornpipe on his hat he threw an appealing glance at his new mate. ”We'll jettison what freight proves an embarra.s.sment,” this astute individual advised.
”The farmers that own it will soak you a couple o' hundred dollars for the loss, but what's that with thousands in sight waitin' to be picked up?”
”Hear that, Gib? Hear that, you swab?”
”I heard it. Did you hear that?”
”What?”
”A nice, brisk little nor'west trade wind that's only blowin'
about thirty mile an hour. The _Maggie_ ain't got power enough to tow the bark agin that wind. You'll haul her ahead two feet an', in spite o' you, she'll slip back twenty-five inches.”
”That trade wind dies down after sunset,” the devilish new mate informed him.
”Quite true. But in the meantime you're burning coal loafin'
around here, an' before you get the bark inside you'll be plumb out o' coal,” Mr. McGuffey reminded them. ”I know this old coffin like I know the back o' my own hand. Why, she lives on coal!
Oh-h-h, Scraggsy, Scraggsy, poor old Scraggsy,” he keened in a high falsetto voice and subsided on a crate of celery, the while he waved his legs in the air and affected to be overcome by his merriment. Scraggs turned the colour of a ripe old Edam cheese, while Mr. Gibney folded his hands and looked idiotic.
”Old Phineas P. Scraggs, the salvage expert!” McGuffey's falsetto would have maddened a sheep. ”He cast his bread upon the waters and lo, it returned to him after many days--and made him sick.
O-h-h-h-h, Scraggsy--poor old Scraggsy! If he went divin' for pearls in three feet o' water he'd bring up a clam sh.e.l.l. Oh, dear, I'm goin' to die o' this, Gib.”
”Don't, Bart. I'm goin' to have need o' your well-known ability to help salvage this bark. Scraggs, you old sinner, has it dawned on you that what this proposition needs to get it over is a dash o' the Adelbert P. Gibney brand of imagination?”
The new navigating officer drew Captain Scraggs aside and whispered in his ear: ”Make it up with these Smart Alecks, Scraggs. They got it on us, but if we can send you an' Halvorsen, McGuffey and Gibney over to the bark, you can get some sail on her an' what with the wind helpin' us along, the _Maggie_ can tow her all right.”
Mr. Gibney saw by the hopeful, even cunning, look that leaped to Scraggs's eyes that the problem was about to be solved without recourse to the Gibney imagination, so he resolved to be alert and not permit himself to be caught out on the end of a limb.
”Well, Scraggsy?” he demanded.
”I guess I need you in my business, Gib. You're right an' I'm always wrong. It's a fact. I _ain't_ got no more imagination than a chicken. Hence, havin' no imagination o' my own I ask you, as man to man an' appealin' to your generous instincts as an old friend an' former valued employee, to let bygones be bygones an'
haul us out o' the hole that threatens to make us the laughin'