ing. Finally he frowned
and said:

"Fifty dollars a day too much."

He did not know a thing about it, but he knew Cappy Ricks well enough to
know that Cappy would first decide on his minimum price and then add
a hundred dollars a day for good measure; hence, Yankeelike, Matt
commenced to chaffer, with the result that before he left the office
Cappy had abated his price fifty dollars a day and given Matt a
forty-eight-hour option on the vessel, agreeing to charter her to him at
the figures specified, contingent on Matt's ability to recharter her to
a responsible firm.

Cappy chuckled as Matt Peasley left the office.

"You're taking a pretty big bite, Matt," he soliloquized; "so I'll
handicap you. And if anything goes wrong, and you fail to collect from
your people, I'll give you a lesson in high finance that you'll never
forget, young man! I'll bet my immortal soul you're going to try to do
business with Morrow & Company; and if that outfit isn't scheduled for
involuntary bankruptcy, then I'm a Chinaman. A charter for a year, eh?
They'll never last a year. They'll bust, owing you a month's charter
money, Matthew, and the vessel will be at sea, most likely, or in a
South American port, when that happens; and you can't throw her back on
me until you deliver her in her home port. And meantime your charter to
me keeps rambling right along, and I'll attach your bankroll if you're
a day late with your payment in advance. Yes, sir; I'll break you in two
for the good of your immortal soul. Matt--Matt, my son--something tells
me you're monkeying with fire and liable to get burned."

From Cappy Ricks' office Matt Peasley called on Kelton of Morrow &
Company. Kelton, a shrewd, double-action sort of person and the smartest
shipping man on the street, looked with frank curiosity at Matt's modest
card.

"Pacific Shipping Company, eh? That's a new one on me, Captain Peasley,"
he said.

"It's a new one on me also," Matt replied humorously; "in fact, it
is too recent to be very well known. We've been operating a fleet of
windjammers, with auxiliary power, down on the Mexican Coast," he added
truthfully, calm in the knowledge that two schooners constitute a fleet
if one be not inclined to split conversational hairs; "but we sold them
and decided to go into the steamship business. We hope to buy or build a
line of freighters to run to Atlantic Coast ports via the Panama Canal."

"What steam vessels have you got now?" Kelton queri