Cappy surrendered. He couldn't stand any more.
“Good-bye, Gus,” he said. “Good luck to you! If you get that vessel you'll deserve her, and when you're forming the S.S. Valkyrie Company I'll head the list of stock subscribers with a healthy little chunk. You know me, Gus! I'm the old bell mare in shipping circles; a lot of others will follow where I lead.”
“I forgive you the spruce deal, Cappy. You're an awful pirate; but, for all that, you're a grand piece of work. God bless you!” And Redell put his arm round the old man affectionately. “Good-bye.”
And, followed by Live Wire Luiz, who was going to the dock to see his partner aboard the _Moana_, Redell disappeared into California Street.
“Dammit!” Cappy soliloquized bitterly. “I can't eat lunch now. One bite would choke me.”
And he turned toward the entrance to the Merchants' Exchange, being minded to enter a telephone booth and notify the Bilgewater Club he would not be present that day. As he walked through the gate into the Exchange, however, he was accosted by a heavy, florid-faced man carrying a thick woolen watch coat over his arm. This individual was Captain Aaron Porter, one of the San Francisco bar pilots, and he greeted Cappy with a respectful query after the old gentleman's health.
“I don't feel very well,” Cappy replied wearily. “I'm getting old, captain--getting old.”
Then he noted the watch coat the pilot was carrying and decided subconsciously that there could be no connection between it and the sultry August weather prevailing at that moment; consequently it informed the observant Cappy, as plainly as if it had a tongue and had spoken, that Captain Aaron Porter expected shortly to be exposed to the chill northwest winds outside as he piloted a vessel to sea. In the manufacture of sheer inane conversation, therefore, Cappy tugged the coat and said:
“Going to take a ship out this afternoon, captain?”
“Yes, sir. I'll be responsible for the _Moana_ until we cross the Potato Patch--”
“The _Moana!_” Cappy cried, and pulled out his watch. “You'd better be stepping lively, then. She sails at one, and you have twenty minutes to get to Greenwich Street Pier.”
“Oh, there's no hurry, Mr. Ricks. She'll be delayed from half to three-quarters of an hour waiting for the Australian mail. The mail train from the East is late, and of course the _Moana_ cannot sail till--”