y was fond of the man.

Skinner had come to him as office boy at the tender age of ten--and that
was twenty-five years before. A daily association for twenty-five years
would make a human being like Cappy fond of the devil himself; and,
barring the fact that he was cold-blooded, Skinner was a fairly likeable
chap, and devoted, body and soul to Cappy Ricks. The longer Cappy
pondered the thought of asserting his authority as boss and defying
Skinner, the more impossible the alternative became. Also the longer he
thought of having Matt Peasley kept out of the business by Skinner, the
higher rose his gorge, for Cappy had yearned for a son like Matt Peasley
and been denied. Now when he had planned successfully to do the next
best thing and have Matt for a son-in-law, to be blocked by Skinner was
unbearable. All Cappy could do was to search vainly for an "out," and
in the interim, whenever he met Matt Peasley at his home, he carefully
avoided all reference to Matt's future in the Blue Star employ for
which, by the way, Matt was eternally grateful. He did not care to talk
business with Cappy for a month as yet. He was too happy with Cappy's
daughter.

Another month passed. Cappy grew thin and lost his relish for his
food. Then Florence, being a woman, began to see, looming out of the
rose-tinted mist of her happy dreams, a huge interrogation mark.

She wondered what her father intended doing for her future husband; and
since she was accustomed to bossing her parent she spoke to Cappy about
it, thereby increasing his mental agony.

About the same time Matt Peasley commenced to wonder also, but forbore
to mention the subject to Cappy. Instead, he went down to the Red Stack
people and got himself a job skippering a tug; and great was his joy
thereat, for the wages were fully as good as he had enjoyed on the
Quickstep, and he was enabled to spend nearly every night in port.
The two months of idleness, albeit the happiest he had ever known, had
commenced to pall on him, and he wanted to be up and doing once more.
Also, being a man, he sensed something of the embarrassment of Cappy's
position, and, manlike, decided to relieve the old fellow of that
embarrassment. Matt concluded that he would retain his job as master of
the tug Sea Fox for a few months--say six--and then ask Cappy Ricks
for twenty thousand dollars, which amount would by that time be to his
credit on the Blue Star books by reason of his half-interest in
the sevent