“Nothing doing. Heyfuss, we want a steamer.”
“Sorry, but I haven't a thing in steamers. Just sold the last one I had ten minutes ago--the _Penelope_.”
“The what!” Matt Peasley and Cappy cried in chorus.
“The _Penelope_. Sold her to a big Eastern powder company. She goes into the nitrate trade, of course. These munition manufacturers must have powder, and to get powder they must have nitrate, and to get nitrate they must have ships, and to get ships they must pay the price. I got Hudner a million dollars for that ruin of a _Penelope._”
Matt Peasley gently seized J. O. Heyfuss by the ear and led him to the door.
“Out, thief!” he cried. “You can't sell us anything; so we don't want you hanging round this office. You might steal the safe or a roll-top desk, or something.”
Heyfuss departed, laughing good-naturedly, and Matt Peasley turned to confront Cappy Ricks. The latter had shrunk up in his chair and was looking as chopfallen and guilty as a dog caught sucking eggs. He favored his big son-in-law with a quick, shifty glance, and then looked down at the carpet.
Matt folded his arms and stared at him until he looked up.
“Don't you go to pick on me!” he warned Matt furiously. “I'll not be picked on in my own office, even by a relative.”
_“There was I, waiting at the church, Waiting at the church--“_
“I was right!” Cappy shrilled. “My mode of procedure was without a flaw.”
“Absolutely! The operation was a success, but the patient died.”
“But a feller just has to haggle!” Cappy wailed. He was almost on the verge of tears. “It's the basic principle of all trading. Why, I've made my everlasting fortune by haggling. Drat your picture, don't you know that the very pillars of financial success rest on counter-propositions?”
“Listen, relative, listen: I haven't said a word to you, have I?” Matt replied.
“No; but you looked it, and I'll not be looked at.”
“All right, Cappy, I'll not look. But I can't help thinking.”
“That it's about time you quit talking about retiring--and retired!”
With this Parthian shot Matt himself retired, leaving Cappy to shiver and bow his head on his breast; in which position he remained motionless for fully an hour.
“I guess the boy's right,” he soliloquized finally. “I think I'd better retire, after pulling that kind of a deal twice in the same place. The pace is getting too swift for me, I think; I can't keep up... Well, I guess they've got the goods on me this time. Matt was certainly on the job twice, and I blocked him both times ... Oh, Lord! I'll never hear the last of this... By the Holy Pink-Toed Prophet, I've lost my punch! Matt didn't say so; but he thinks it. And I don't blame him a bit.”