Quite early in their friendship, the astute Redell discovered a rift in Cappy's armor--two rifts, in fact. The first was that Cappy feared and loathed old age and fiercely resented even the most shadowy intimation that with age he was, to employ a sporting phrase, “losing his punch.” The second weakness that lay exposed to Redell was Cappy's passion for wringing a profit, by ingenious means, from apparently barren soil where no profit had ever hitherto burgeoned. At heart Cappy was a speculator; only the fact that he was a prudent and careful speculator had conduced to enrich him rather than impoverish him.
Now, Cappy was fully convinced, from optical evidence, that J. Augustus Redell was a gambler. He admired Redell's genius for business, the soundness of his decisions, the alertness of his mind and the brilliance of his financial _coups_, but--he deprecated the younger man's daring. Cappy called it recklessness. By degrees the old gentleman had come to assume a proprietary interest in Gus Redell and the latter's affairs, for the younger man frequently sought counsel from Cappy and not infrequently, a loan! Cappy knew his young friend to be the soul of manly honor, but--he was young! Ah, yes! He was young. Ergo, he was foolish. True, his foolishness had not as yet been discovered, but Cappy was certain it would come to the surface sooner or later. The boy was reckless--a gambler. Cappy abhorred gambling. He never gambled. Occasionally he speculated! What more natural, therefore, than that little Cappy should presently arrogate to himself the privilege of stabbing young J. Augustus to the vitals from time to time, just to impress upon the boy the knowledge that this is a hard, cold, cruel world with a great many bad men in it!
Nothing could possibly have delighted Redell more. Whenever Cappy stabbed him, forthwith he set about to stab Cappy in return, and thus had developed a joyous business feud. These best of friends spent an hour and a half daily, at luncheon, “picking” on each other, telling tales on each other, eternally “joshing” for the edification of a coterie of their lumber and shipping friends who always lunched in a private dining room at the Commercial Club and who were known within that organization as the Bilgewater Club.