at eliminated from the
office all the joy and contentment old Cappy Ricks had been a life-time
installing. He inaugurated card systems and short cuts in bookkeeping
that drove Cappy to the verge of insanity, because he could never go to
the books himself and find out anything about his own business. He had
to ask Mr. Skinner--which made Skinner an important individual.

With the passage of five years the general manager was high and low
justice in Cappy's offices, and had mastered the not-too-difficult art
of dominating his employer, for Cappy seldom seriously disagreed with
those he trusted. He saved all his fighting force for his competitors.

However, Cappy's interest in the Blue Star Navigation Company did not
wane with the cessation of his activities as chief kicker. Ordinarily,
Mr. Skinner bossed the navigation company as he bossed the lumber
business, for Cappy's private office was merely headquarters for
receiving mail, reading the newspapers, receiving visitors, smoking an
after-luncheon cigar, and having a little nap from three o'clock until
four, at which hour Cappy laid aside the cares of business and put in
two hours at bridge in his club.

Despite this apparent indifference to business, however, Mr. Skinner
handled the navigation company with gloves; for, if Cappy dozed in his
office, he had a habit of keeping one eye open, so to speak, and every
little while he would wake up and veto an order of Skinner's, of which
the latter would have been willing to take an oath Cappy had never
heard. In the matter of engaging new skippers or discharging old ones
Mr. Skinner had to be very careful. Cappy always declared that any
clerk can negotiate successfully a charter at the going rates in a
stiff market, but skippers are, in the final analysis, the Genii of the
Dividends. And Cappy knew skippers. He could get more loyalty out
of them with a mere pat on the back and a kindly word than could Mr.
Skinner, with all his threats, nagging and driving, yet he was an
employer who demanded a full measure of service, and never permitted
sentiment to plead for an incompetent. And his ships were his pets; in
his affections they occupied a position but one degree removed from
that occupied by his only child, in consequence of which he was mighty
particular who hung up his master's ticket in the cabin of a Blue
Star ship. Some idea of the scrupulous care with which he examined all
applicants for a skipper's berth may be gleaned