his horny fist. "The meetin' will please come to order. The
chair hereby appoints Phineas Scraggs secretary of the syndicate,
to keep a record of this and all future meetin's of the board. I
will now entertain propositions of any and all natures, and I
invite the members of the board to knock the stopper out of their
jaw tackle and go to it."

"I move," said Captain Scraggs, "that B. McGuffey, Esquire, be,
and he is hereby appointed, chief engineer of the _Maggie II_ at
a salary not to exceed the wage schedule of the Marine Engineers'
Association of the Pacific Coast, and that he be voted a
one-fourth interest in the vessel and all subsequent profits."

"Second the motion," said Mr. Gibney, "and not to hamper the
business of the meetin', we'll just consider that motion carried
unanimous."

B. McGuffey, Esquire, rose, bowed his thanks, and sat down again,
apparently very much confused. It was evident that he had
something to say, but was having difficulty framing his thoughts
in parliamentary language.

"Heave away, Mac," said Mr. Gibney.

"Cast off your lines, McGuffey," chirped Scraggs.

Thus encouraged, McGuffey rose, bowed his thanks once more,
moistened his larynx with a gulp of the punch, and spoke:

"Feller members and brothers of the syndicate: In the management
of the deck department of this new craft of ourn, my previous
knowledge of the worthy president and the unworthy secretary
leads me to believe that there's goin' to be trouble. A ship
divided agin herself must surely go on her beam ends. Now,
Scraggsy here has been master so long that the juice of authority
has sorter soaked into his marrer bones. For twenty years it's
been 'Howdy do, Captain Scraggs,' 'Have a drink, Captain
Scraggs,' 'Captain Scraggs this an' Captain Scraggs that.' I
don't mean no offense, gentlemen, when I state that you can't
teach an old dog new tricks. No man that's ever been a master
makes a good mate. On the other hand, I realize that Gib here has
been a-pantin' and a-bellyachin' all his life to get a ship of
his own an' have folks call him 'Captain Gibney.' Now that he's
gone an' done it, I say he's entitled to it. But the fact of the
whole thing is, Gib's the natural leader of the expedition or
whatever it's goin' to be, and he can't have his peace of mind
wrecked and his plans disturbed a-chasin' sailors around the deck
of the _Maggie II_. Gib is sorter what the feller calls the power
behind the throne. He's too big