" Matt replied. "When I was before the mast in
the Annabel Lee he was her skipper, so when I met him in Pedro minus
his ticket and stony broke I gave him a lift to San Francisco. Mr. Ricks
informed me that I would be permitted these little courtesies within the
bounds of reason."

"When Captain Kjellin had the Quickstep," Mr. Skinner answered, "he
never carried dead-heads."

"You mean he didn't have the courage to put the name on the passenger
list and write D. H. after it. However, please do not compare me with
Captain Kjellin."

"Well, you're not making the time he made in the Quickstep."

"I know it, sir. My policy is to make haste slowly. Kjellin hurried--and
see what happened to him. He'll never be fast again, either, with that
short leg of his."

"Captain Peasley, I am opposed to your levity."

"Do you want me to worry and stew just because you do not happen to like
me and keep picking on me, Mr. Skinner? Why don't you be a sport
and give me a fair chance, sir? You have all the best of it in any
argument--so why argue?"

"No more dead-heads," Mr. Skinner warned. "Hereafter, pay for your
guests."

With the coming on of winter, however, Matt's troubles with Mr. Skinner
really commenced, although, in all justice to Skinner, the general
manager was merely following out his theory of efficiency, and in
respect to the matter upon which he deviled Matt Peasley most he did
not differ vastly from many managing owners of steam schooners on the
Pacific Coast. The trouble lay in the fact that the Quickstep carried
passengers. While she was a cargo boat, and hence had no regular run or
sailing schedule, her cabin accommodations were really very good and her
steward's department excelled that of the regular passenger boats. By
cutting the regular passenger rates from twenty-five to forty per cent.
and advertising the vessel to sail at a certain hour on a certain date
from a certain pier, free-lance ticket brokers found no difficulty
in getting her a fair complement of passengers each trip. There was a
moderate profit in this passenger traffic, and Mr. Skinner was anxious
to increase it.

The difficulty surrounding the passenger business in the steam-schooner
trade, however, lies in the uncertainty of a vessel's arrival and
departure. It is all guesswork. Thus Matt Peasley, with his cargo half
discharged at San Pedro, would estimate that he would sail from that
port, northbound via San Francisco to some Oregon or Was