rried. He had made up his mind not to take Mr. Skinner
seriously. Mr. Skinner flushed, looked dangerous, but concluded not to
pursue the investigation further.

Three weeks later, when making up to a dock at San Pedro, a strong ebb
tide and a mistake in judgment swung the bow of the Quickstep into the
end of the dock and a dolphin was torn out. In the fullness of time
the Blue Star Navigation Company was in receipt of a bill for $112 dock
repairs, whereupon Mr. Skinner wrote Matt, prefacing his letter with the
query: "Referring to inclosed bill--how did this happen?" Then he went
on to scold Matt bitterly for his inability to handle his ship properly
in making up to a dock.

Matt promptly returned Mr. Skinner his own letter, with this penciled
memorandum at the bottom of the page: "Referring to inclosed bill for
dock repairs--the dock happened to be in my course. That's the only way
I can account for it."

For some time, whenever the Quickstep carried shingle cargoes for the
Shingle Association, there had been disputes over her freight bill, due
to continued discrepancies between the tally in and the tally out, and
Mr. Skinner had instructed Matt to tally his next cargo into the ship
himself and then tally it out again. Matt engaged a certified lumber
surveyor at five dollars a day to do the tallying at the various mills,
but at Los Medanos he tallied the cargo out personally. To a shingle it
agreed with the mill tally. Subsequently the manager of the drying yard
reported a shortage of eight thousand shingles, and again Mr. Skinner
wrote Matt for an explanation, to which Matt replied as follows:

"Do not pay any attention to the yard manager's tally. Ours is right. A
certified tallyman counted 11,487,250 in, and I counted 11,487,250 out,
as I have already reported. Sorry I cannot reverse my decision. However,
I have an idea which may account for the shortage: After the vessel
is reported down river, the stevedores gather on the dock, and while
waiting for us to arrive and commence discharging they whittle shingles
to pass the time away. I give you this information for what it may be
worth."

Mr. Skinner had the grace to see that he had been rebuked and left
standing in a very poor light for one of his noted efficiency, so he
did not pursue the subject further; but the next time Matt came to the
office he jumped on him for carrying a dead-head passenger from San
Pedro in the first cabin.

"Of course I carried him,