Part 13 (1/2)

Following a b.l.o.o.d.y battle in the pilot house, he subdued the mate; following his victory he was still war mad, so he went to the engine-room hatch and abused the engineer. As a result of the day's events, both men quit when the _Maggie_ was tied up at Jackson Street wharf and once more Captain Scraggs was helpless.

In his extremity, he wished he hadn't been so hard on Mr. Gibney and McGuffey, for he realized he could never hope to get them back until their salvage money should be spent.

He had other tortures in addition. He could not afford to await the construction of a new boiler, for if he did some other skipper would cut in on the vegetable trade he had worked up, for vegetables, being perishable, could not lie on the dock at Halfmoon Bay longer than forty-eight hours. It behooved Scraggs, therefore, to place an order for the new boiler and, in the meantime, to get a gang down aboard the _Maggie_ immediately and put in at least ten new tubes. By working night and day this job might be accomplished in forty-eight hours, and, fortunately, Sunday intervened. Scraggs shuddered at thought of the expense, for in addition to being parsimonious he had very little ready cash on hand and no credit.

When Mr. Gibney and McGuffey, wrapped in the calm thrall of their new-found financial independence, arrived at the _Maggie's_ berth, they were inclined to levity. Indeed, they had come for the express purpose of spoofing their late employer; to crow over him and grind his poor soul into the dirt. Fortunately for Scraggs, he was not aboard, but sounds of activity coming from the engine room aroused McGuffey's curiosity to such an extent that he descended thereto at great risk to a new suit of clothes and discovered four men at work on the boiler. They had cut the rivets and removed the head and at sight of the ruin disclosed within, Mr. McGuffey was truly shocked--and awed. Why he hadn't been blown to Kingdom Come months before was a profound mystery.

He came up and joined Mr. Gibney on a pile of old hemp hawser coiled on the bulkhead. ”Danged if I don't feel sorry for old Scraggsy, for all his meanness,” he declared. ”It's goin' to cost him five hundred dollars to patch up the old boiler an' keep the _Maggie_ runnin' until he can s.h.i.+p a new boiler. The ol' fool don't know a thing about the job himself an' there's four men down there, without a foreman, soldierin' on him an' soakin' him a dollar an' a half an hour overtime. He's in so deep now he might as well jump into bankruptcy entirely an' put in a set o'

piston rings, repack the pumps an' the stuffin-box, s.h.i.+m up the bearin's an' do a lot of little things the old _Maggie's_ just hollerin' to have done.”

”To err is human; to forgive divine,” Mr. Gibney orated. ”Come to think of it, Mac, we give the old man all that was comin' to him the other day--a little bit more, mebbe. He must be raw an'

bleedin', an' it wouldn't be sporty to plague him some more.”

”Durned if I don't feel like jumpin' into a suit of dungarees an'

helpin' him out in that engine room, Gib.”

”Troubles always comes in a flock, Bart. The Squarehead tells me his new navigatin' officer an' the new engineer has jumped their jobs. It's a dollar to a dime he asks us to come back if he sees us half way willin' to be friendly an' forget the past.”

”Well,” the philosophical McGuffey declared. ”Seein' as how we've reformed, even with money in bank, we might just as well be workin' as loafin'. There's more money in it. An' if it wasn't that Scraggs is so ornery there's worse jobs than me an' you had on the old _Maggie_.”

”I been wonderin' if we couldn't reform Scraggsy by heapin' coals of fire on his head, Bart.”

”What d'ye mean? Heapin' coals o' fire on Scraggs'd sure keep an ash hoist busy.”

”Oh, I dunno, Bart. The old man has his troubles. There's Mrs.

Scraggs a-peckin' at him every time he goes home, an' the _Maggie's_ a worry, not to mention the fact that there ain't much more'n a decent livin' for him in the green-pea trade. An' he ain't gittin' any younger, Bart. You got to bear that in mind.”

”Yes, an' he's been disapp'inted in his ambitions,” McGuffey agreed. ”On top o' that, the Ocean Sh.o.r.e Railroad is buildin'

down the coast an' as soon as the roadbed is completed over the San Pedro Mountains them farmers'll haul their produce to the railhead in motor trucks--an' there won't be no more business for the _Maggie_. Three months more'll see the _Maggie_ laid up.”

Mr. Gibney nodded. ”It's just the sweet tenderness of Satan we'll be flush when Scraggsy's broke, Bart.”

”Dang it, Gib, I sure feel sorry for the old man after takin' a look at that engine room. She's a holy fright.”

”Well, we'll make up with him when he comes back, Bart, an' if he shows a contrite sperrit--well, who knows? We might do somethin'

for him.”

”He's got to have some financial help to get that engine turnin'

over again, that's a cinch.”

”So I been thinkin'. We might lend him a coupler hundred bones at ten per cent., secured by a mortgage on the _Maggie_, if he's up agin it hard. Havin' money in bank is one thing but locatin' an investment for it is another. I've kidded the old man a lot about the _Maggie_, but she's worth two thousand dollars if somebody'd spend a thousand on her inner works an' give her a dab o' paint an' some new fire hose an' one thing an' another.”

”We'll wait here until Scraggs shows up an' see what he says. If he still says 'Good mornin', boys,' we'll answer him civil an'

see what it leads to, Gib.”

Mr. Gibney grunted his approval and Mr. McGuffey, bringing out a pocket knife, fell to manicuring his terrible finger nails and paring the callous patches off his palms. Mr. Gibney lighted a Sailor's Delight cigar and puffed meditatively, the while he watched a gasoline tug kicking the little schooner _Tropic Bird_ into an adjacent berth. From the _Tropic Bird_ came an odour of copra and pineapple and Mr. Gibney sighed; evidently that South Sea fragrance aroused in him old memories, for presently he spat overboard, watched his spittle float away on the tide, sighed again, and declared, apropos of nothing:

”When I was a young man, Mac, I was a d.a.m.ned fine young man. I had a bunch o' red whiskers an' a pair o' fists like two picnic hams. I was a wonder.”

Silently Mr. McGuffey nodded an endors.e.m.e.nt of his comrade's indicated horsepower and peculiar masculine beauty in the days of the latter's vanished youth. He continued to prune his hands.

”I was six feet two in my socks, when I wore any, which wasn't often,” Mr. Gibney continued. ”I've shrunk half an inch since them days. I weighed a hundred an' ninety-seven pounds in the buff an' my chest bulged like a goose-wing tops'l. In them days, I was an evil man to monkey with. I could have taken two like Scraggsy an' chewed 'em up, spittin' out their bones an' belt buckles. I sure was a wonder.”