The Project Gutenberg EBook of The Go-Getter, by Peter B. Kyne

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Title: The Go-Getter

Author: Peter B. Kyne

Release Date: May 4, 2004 [EBook #12257]

Language: English

Character set encoding: ASCII

*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE GO-GETTER ***

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The Go-Getter

A Story That Tells You How to be One

By Peter B. Kyne

* * * * *

DEDICATION

THIS LITTLE BOOK IS DEDICATED TO THE MEMORY OF MY DEAD CHIEF,
BRIGADIER-GENERAL LEROY S. LYON, SOMETIME COMMANDER OF THE
65TH FIELD ARTILLERY BRIGADE, 40TH DIVISION, UNITED STATES
ARMY.

HE PRACTICED AND PREACHED A RELIGION OF LOYALTY TO THE COUNTRY
AND THE APPOINTED TASK, WHATEVER IT MIGHT BE.

* * * * *

I

Mr. Alden P. Ricks, known in Pacific Coast wholesale lumber and shipping
circles as Cappy Ricks, had more troubles than a hen with ducklings. He
remarked as much to Mr. Skinner, president and general manager of the
Ricks Logging & Lumbering Company, the corporate entity which
represented Cappy's vast lumber interests; and he fairly barked the
information at Captain Matt Peasley, his son-in-law and also president
and manager of the Blue Star Navigation Company, another corporate
entity which represented the Ricks interest in the American mercantile
marine.

Mr. Skinner received this information in silence. He was not related to
Cappy Ricks. But Matt Peasley sat down, crossed his legs and matched
glares with his mercurial father-in-law.

"_You_ have troubles!" he jeered, with emphasis on the pronoun. "Have
you got a misery in your back, or is Herbert Hoover the wrong man for
Secretary of Commerce?"

"Stow your sarcasm, young feller," Cappy shrilled. "You know dad-blamed
well it isn't a question of health or politics. It's the fact that in my
old age I find myself totally surrounded by the choicest aggregation of
mental duds since Ajax defied the lightning."

"Meaning whom?"

"You and Skinner."

"Why, what have we done?"

"You argued me into taking on the management of twenty-five of those
infe