Ricks

“ Socially, no. I think he wants to give me a good chance to do something for myself in a business way later on, but he made it pretty plain that he is the only member of the Ricks family I'm to take seriously. Of course I expect to have something to say about that myself, Florry, but I didn't tell him so. He's your father, you know, and besides, a man can't make a very good showing on seventy-five dollars a month. But if the Unicorn lives to complete her charter I'll be up on Easy Street, even if I'll only be a plain sea captain when I come into that money. ”

“ Skinner stood by, gnawing his nails and looking as if he would relish being kicked from one end of California Street to the other.
“Hullo!” Matt Peasley began. Cappy Ricks shuddered and closed his eyes. “Is this the British consul's office?... This is Captain Peasley, of the Blue Star Navigation Company... Yes... About our steamer Narcissus... You say the consul is on his way down to our office... Thank you... Goodbye.”
Cappy Ricks sighed like an old air-compressor. “I hope I live till he gets here,” he declared feebly. “Deliberate race, the British. No pep. Never get anywhere in a hurry.” ”

“ Ricks. I have my head left--and my right arm. I can think and I can write, and even if one of my wheels is flat, I can hike longer and faster after an order than most. Got a job for me, Mr. Ricks?"
"No, I haven't, Mr. Peck. I'm out of it, you know. Retired ten years ago. This office is merely a headquarters for social frivolity--a place to get my mail and mill over the gossip of the street. Our Mr. Skinner is the chap you should see."
"I have seen Mr. Skinner, sir," the erstwhile warrior replied, "but he wasn't very sympathetic. ”

“ He wrote Joey a check for two thousand dollars and took an affectionate farewell of his son.
“Now listen to me, my dear young Hotspur,” Cappy Ricks commanded him as he shook Joey's hand in farewell. “The schooner's name is Tyee and you'll find her at the Ricks Lumber & Logging Company's mill dock in Aberdeen, on Gray's Harbor, Washington. And don't be afraid of her. She was built to weather anything. The skipper's name is Mike Murphy, and if you can't get along with Mike and learn to love him before you're in the ship a week, there's something wrong with you, Joey. ”

“ Murphy mourned.
“Well, we've gotten it in time to be of some use,” Matt declared. “You don't suppose I'm going to let this old snoozer Ricks get away with the notion that he put one over on us, do you? Shall we haul Old Glory down? No! Never! I'll just switch off the laughing gas on Cappy Ricks,” and the young skipper went ashore and wired his managing owner as follows:
“Green hides are the essence of horror if you do not know how to handle them. Fortunately I do. Pour water on a green hide and you muzzle the stink. I judge from your last telegram you thought you handed me something.” ”

“ He's ever so much cleverer than he makes a show of; he's remarkable in his own shy way. You told me at Ricks that you wanted me to let myself go, and I've 'gone' quite far enough to discover as much as that, as well as all sorts of other delightful things about him. ”

“ Mr. Hudner snorted. “I'd like to know what the devil Cappy Ricks wants of my Unicorn when he's got her infernal sister squatting in the mud of Oakland Creek? There's something rotten in Denmark, Mr. Peasley. There always is when that old scoundrel Ricks does incomprehensible things.”
“Very likely he's up to some skullduggery, sir,” Matt opined.
“I wish you had informed me of the identity of your client, Mr. Peasley,” Hudner complained. “I don't like to sign this charter.”
“I cannot help that now, sir,” Matt retorted. ”

“ Michael Murphy, chief kicker of the Retriever, over a quiet pipe with Mr. Angus MacLean, the second mate, as the vessel lay at anchor in Grays Harbor, “Cappy Ricks had laid eyes on Mother's Darling before ordering him to Seattle to go up for his master's ticket, the old fox would have scuttled the ship sooner than trust that baby with her.”
“Ye'll nae be denying the lad kens his business,” Mr. MacLean declared.
“Aye! True enough, Mac; but 'twould be hard to convince Cappy Ricks o' that. Every skipper in his employ is a graybeard.” ”

“ As I believe I wired you, I'm going to put you in steam.”
“You didn't consult me about it, sir; but, to please you, I'll tackle steam. I'm very grateful for your interest in me, Mr. Ricks.”
“Huh! That's not true, Matt. You're not grateful; and if you are you have no business to be. I paid you a hundred and twenty-five dollars a month to skipper the Retriever; you earned every cent of it and I made you fight for the job; so, no thanks to me. And I know for a fact that you and Mr. Murphy cursed me up hill and down dale—”
“Oh, Captain Peasley!” ”

“ I'm awfully glad you cabled that hula-hula girl of yours in Reno that the stuff was all off.”
Joey's mouth flew open.
“Why—why, how did you know?” he gasped.
“I know everything, Joey. I'm that kind of an old man.”
Joey paled.
“Oh, Mr. Ricks,” he pleaded, “for heaven's sake don't let a whisper of that affair reach my wife.” He wrung his hands. “I told her she was the only girl I had ever loved—that I'd never been engaged before—that I—oh, godfather, if she ever discovers I've lied to her—”
“She'll not discover it. Compose yourself, Joey. I've seen to all that. ”

“ Skinner glanced covertly at Captain Matt Peasley and shook his head almost imperceptibly, as who should say: “Better give in to him, Matt. I know him longer than you do; he'll have his way if it kills him.” And Matt took the hint, with the result that some six weeks later Cappy Ricks, accompanied by his faithful port captain and his equally faithful port engineer, cleared for Galveston aboard the Sunset Limited. And at Galveston began the only real vacation Cappy Ricks had ever had. ”

“ Sandy got Ricks out of the firing-line, around the corner of the courting-box. His face was crimson with mortification, but it never occurred to him to be angry.
"What brought you back?" he asked huskily.
"Hosses."
"Are you going to drive this afternoon?"
"Yep. One of young Nelson's colts in the last ring. Say," he added, "he's game, all right. Me and him have done biz before. Know him?"
"Carter Nelson? Oh, yes; I know him," said Sandy, impatient to be rid of his companion.
"Me and him are a winnin' couple," said Ricks. "We plays the races straight along. ”

“ It's like the man what gulled us on the penknives. I lay to git even with him, all right."
"But he give us the night's lodgin' and some breakfast," said Sandy.
Ricks took a long drink from a short bottle, then holding it before him, he said impressively: "A feller could do me ninety-nine good turns, and if he done me one bad one it would wipe 'em all out. I got to git even with anybody what does me dirty, if it takes me all my life."
"But don't you forget to remember?"
"Not me. I ain't that kind."
Sandy leaned wearily against the haystack and tried to shelter himself from the wind. ”

“ The letter was dated from Ricks, to which place she had been transported by an impulse apparently as sudden as the inspiration she had obeyed before. "Yes, I've literally come," she wrote, "with a bandbox and a kitchen-maid; I've crossed the Rubicon, I've taken possession. It has been like plumping into cold water. I saw the only thing was to do it, not to stand shivering. I shall have warmed the place a little by simply being here for a week; when I come back the ice will have been broken. ”

“ What could such a man do without a big capital to work with? Why, Alfred E. Ricks, as we left him, was as helpless as a turtle on its back. He couldn’t have worked a scheme to beat a little girl out of a penny slate-pencil.
“When me and Bill Bassett was left alone I did a little sleight-of mind turn in my head with a trade secret at the end of it. Thinks I, I’ll show this Mr. Burglar Man the difference between business and labor. ”

“ There were five men coming back to Earth, there was stack after stack of cargo. The huge hold of the barbell was emptied, and then the shipment for the Moon—and the cargo for QB—was loaded aboard, and the three passengers for the Moon left Station One, carrying their one-suitcase-each to the new cubicle, where they would live another fifteen days of their lives. Ricks looked around at the new room, and already the retroactive terror was receding, already he was thinking of his exploit in self-congratulatory terms. ”

“ As he tramped back along the track he spied a familiar figure ahead of him. There was no mistaking that short, slouching body with the peddler's pack strapped on its back. With a cry of joy, Sandy bounded after Ricks Wilson. He actually hugged him in his joy to be once more with some one he knew.
Ricks glanced uneasily at the scar above his eye.
Sandy clapped his hand over it and laughed. "It's all right, Ricks; a miss is as good as a mile. I ain't mad any more. It's straight home with me you are goin' ”

“ Ricks, jubilant over the success of the evening, decided to follow the circus, which was to be in the next town on the following day.
"It ain't fur," he said. "We kin push on to-night and be ready to open early in the morning."
Sandy, miserable in body and spirit, mechanically obeyed instructions. His head was getting queerer all the time, and he could not remember whether it was day or night. About a mile from Clayton he sank down by the road. ”

“ Then he clinched with Matt Peasley.
“A good fight,” said Cappy Ricks half an hour after Matt Peasley had been pried away from Mr. Skinner and forced to listen to reason, “is the grandest thing in life. Now there's that crazy boy gone out in a rage just because he had the presumption to tangle with me in a business deal and get dog-gone well licked! He put it all over me yesterday, thinking I couldn't protect myself. Well, he knows better now, Skinner; he knows better now! In-fer-nal young scoundrel! Wow, but wasn't he a wild man, Skinner? Wasn't he though?” And Cappy Ricks chuckled. ”

“ And here's another footnote: 'Chief Mate Michael J. Murphy very gallantly declined to leave when he smelled the creosote, and was a tower of strength when it came to stowing the nitrate. He holds an unlimited mate's license, is sober, intelligent, courageous, honest and a hard worker. He goes up for his master's license this week!”
“Ah-h-h!” Cappy Ricks looked up, smiling. “Skinner,” he declared, “it is as hard to keep a good man down as it is for a camel to enter the Kingdom of Heaven—I mean for a rich man to enter a camel—bother! I mean you can't keep a good man down, Skinner. ”

“ Could Cappy Ricks have seen his skipper then, he would have reminded the Old Man more than ever of a bear.
Matt Peasley needed no blueprint of the big Swede's plans. All Hands And Feet, depending on his sheer horse power and superior weight, always fought in mass formation, as it were. His modus operandi was to embrace his enemy in those terrible arms, squeeze the breath out of him with one bearlike hug, then lay him on the deck, straddle him, and pummel him into insensibility at his leisure. Matt gave ground rapidly and held up a warning hand. ”

“ From somewhere in Matt Peasley's whiskers Cappy's voice came plaintively:
“Not father-in-law, sonny. New title—this morning—six o'clock—nine—pounds—grandfather! Eh? Yes; grandfather! Grandpa Ricks!”
“Boy or girl?” Matt Peasley roared, and shook the newly-elected grandfather. ”

“ He glanced from her to her father.
“He's handsome,” thought Florry. “What a beautiful tan on his throat! He looks anything but the brute he is. But he hasn't any manners. Oh, dear! He stands there like a graven image.”
Matt Peasley's hand came out of his pocket; off came his cap and he bowed slightly.
“I am Captain Peasley,” he said.
Cappy Ricks, leaning forward on the edge of his swivel chair, with head slightly bent, made a long appraisal of the young man over the rims of his spectacles.
“Ahem!” he said. “Huh! Harumph!” Ensued another terrible silence. Then: “Young scoundrel!” ”

“ That was the Irish of it. A representative of any other race on earth would have employed the third person singular when referring to the absent Murphy; only an Irishman would have said “that fella,” and only a certain kind of Irishman could have managed to inject into such simple words such a note of scorn supernal. Cappy Ricks got the message—just like that.
“Then stay off his bridge, Reardon,” he warned the chief. “Your job is in the engine-room, so even if you and Captain Murphy do not like each other, there will be no excuse for friction. ”

“ Mr. Murphy contradicted. “If that jag of green hides from Antofagasta was a joke, beware of Cappy Ricks when he's serious. He's serious about you, Matt. He's picked on you sight unseen, and he's going to do something for you. He's an old man, Matt. Let him have his way and you'll profit by it.”
“Well, I'll see what he has to say, at any rate,” Matt compromised, and they went below, Matt to pack his sea chest and Mr. Murphy to shave and array himself in a manner befitting the master of a big barkentine about to present himself at the custom-house for the first time to clear his ship. ”

“ It's nuts for a sailor any time he can trip up a landsman, and particularly his owners—”
“You O.K.'d the cablegrams, Mr. Ricks,” Skinner reminded him coldly.
“Don't talk back to me!” Cappy piped. “Not another peep out of you, sir! Not another word of discussion about this matter under any circumstances! I don't want to talk about it further—understand? It's driving me insane. Now, then, Skinner, tell me: If the man Peasley should decline to recognize McBride's authority, what course would you advise pursuing?” ”