Blow The Man Down. Holman Day
is, sir,” returned Mayo, stiffly.
The girl, departing, bestowed on him a pretty grimace of triumph, plainly rejoicing because his impetuous resignation had been overruled so autocratically. But Mayo gave a somber return to the raillery of her eyes. He had spoken out to Marston as a man, and had been treated with the contemptuous indifference which would be accorded to a bond-servant. He was wounded by the light manner in which she viewed that affront, even though her own father offered it.
He stood there alone for a time, meditating various rash acts. But under all the tumult of his feelings was the realization that the responsibility for that yacht's discipline and safety rested on his shoulders and he went about his duties. He called two of the crew and ordered the gangway steps down and the port dinghy cleared and lowered. Then he went to the chart-room and sat on a locker and tried to figure out whether he was wonderfully happy or supremely miserable.
Marston promptly closeted himself with his three wise men of business after he went aft. “We'll frame up those telegrams now and get them off,” he told them. “I thought I'd better wait until I had worked the bile out of my system. Never try to do sane and safe business when you're angry, gentlemen! I'm afraid those telegrams would not have been exactly coherent if I had written them right after that Bee liner smashed past us.”
“I have been ready to believe that Tucker would come in with us on the right lay,” said one of the associates.
“So did I,” agreed Marston. “I have thought all his loud talk has been bluff to beat up a bigger price. But, after what he did to-day! Oh no! He is out to fight and he grabbed his chance to show us! I do not believe a lot of this regular fight talk. But when a man comes up and smashes me between the eyes I begin to suspect his intentions.”
“There's no need of dickering with him any longer, Mr. Marston. He made his work as dirty as he could to-day—he has left nothing open to doubt.”
“I'm sorry,” said another of the group. “Tucker has let himself get ugly.”
“So have I,” replied Marston, dryly. “And I'm growing senile, too, I'm afraid. I went forward and wasted as much anathema on that skipper of mine as I would use up in putting through a half-million deal with an opposition traffic line. Next thing I know I'll be arguing with, the smoke-stack. But I must confess, gentlemen, that Tucker rather took my breath away to-day. Either he has become absolutely crazy or else he doesn't understand the strength of the combination.”
“He hasn't waked up yet. He doesn't know what's against him.”
“That may be our fault, in a measure,” stated one of the men. “We haven't been able to let men like Tucker in on the full details.”
“In business it's the good guesser who wins,” declared Marston. “Our merger isn't a thing to be advertised. And if we do any more explaining to Tucker the whole plan will be advertised, you can depend on it. The infernal fool has been holding us up three months, demanding more knowledge—and he can't be trusted. There's only one thing to do, gentlemen! That!” He drove his fist into his palm with significant thud.
“Is the Bee line absolutely essential in our plans?”
“Every line along this coast is essential in making that merger stock an air-tight proposition.”
“It's a new line and is not paying dividends.”
“Well, for that matter, it's got nothing in that respect on some of the other lines we're salting down in the merger,” suggested a member of the party, speaking for the first time.
“I'm afraid you said it then, Thompson! American bottoms seem to be turned into barnacle-gardens,” declared the man who had questioned the matter of Tucker's value.
“Gentlemen, just a moment!” Julius Marston leaned forward in his chair. His voice was low. His eyes narrowed. He dominated them by his earnestness. “You have followed me in a number of enterprises, and we have had good luck. But let me tell you that we have ahead of us the biggest thing yet, and we cannot afford to leave one loose end! Not one, gentlemen! That's why a fool like Tucker doesn't deserve any consideration when he gets in our way. Listen to me! The biggest thing that has ever happened in this world is going to happen. How do I know? I am not sure that I do know. But as I have just told you, the man who guesses right is the winner.” His thin nose was wrinkled, and the strip of beard on his chin bristled. Sometimes men called Marston “the fox of Wall Street.” He suggested the reason for his nickname as he sat there and squinted at his associates. “And there's an instinct that helps some men to guess right. Something is going to happen in this world before long that will make millionaires over and over out of men who have invested a few thousands in American bottoms.”
“What will happen?” bluntly inquired one of the men, after a silence.
“I am neither clairvoyant nor crystal-gazer,” said Marston, grimly. “But I have led you into some good things when my instinct has whispered. I say it's going to happen—and I say no more.”
“To make American bottoms worth while the whole of Europe will have to be busy doing something else with their ships.”
“All right! Then they'll be doing it,” returned Marston.
“It would have to be a war—a big war.”
“Very well! Maybe that's the answer.”
“But there never can be another big war. As a financier you know it.”
“I have made some money by adhering to the hard and fast rules of finance. But I have made the most of my money by turning my back on those rules and listening to my instinct,” was Marston's rejoinder. “I don't want to over-influence you, gentlemen. I don't care to discuss any further what you may consider to be dreams. I am not predicting a great war in Europe. Common sense argues the other way. But I am going into this ship-merger proposition with every ounce of brains and energy and capital I possess. The man who gets in my way is trying to keep these two hands of mine off millions!” He shook his clutched fists above his head. “And I'll walk over him, by the gods! whether it's Tucker or anybody else. We have had some good talks on the subject, first and last. I'm starting now to fight and smash opposition. What do you propose to do in the matter, gentlemen?”
They were silent for a time, looking at one another, querying without words. Then out of their knowledge of Julius Marston's uncanny abilities, remembering their past successes, came resolve.
“We're in with you to the last dollar,” they assured him, one after the other.
“Very well! You're wise!”
He unlocked a drawer of his desk and secured a code-book. He pressed a buzzer and the secretary came hurrying from his stateroom.
“We'll open action, gentlemen, with a little long-distance skirmish over the wire.”
He began to dictate his telegrams.
VI ~ AND WE SAILED
O Johnny's gone to Baltimore
To dance upon that sanded floor.
O Johnny's gone for evermore;
I'll never see my John no more!
O Johnny's gone!
What shall I do?
A-way you. H-e-e l-o-o-o!
O Johnny's gone!
What shall I do?
Johnny's gone to Hilo.
—Old Hauling Song.
The taciturn secretary fumbled his way forward and delivered to Captain Mayo a little packet securely bound with tape.
“Orders from Mr.