Part 23

“I have told you to stay aft where you belong.”

“Really, father, I don't understand why--”

“Those are my orders! I understand. You don't need to understand. This world is full of cheap fellows who misinterpret actions.”

Captain Mayo grasped the rails of the bridge ladder and did down to the deck without touching his feet to the treads. He appeared before the father and daughter with startling suddenness.

“Mr. Marston, I am leaving my position on board here as soon as you can get another man to take my place.”

“You are, eh?”

“Yes, sir.”

“You signed papers for the season. It is not convenient for me to make a change.” Marston spoke with the crispness of a man who had settled the matter.

Captain Mayo was conscious that the girl was trying to attract his gaze, but he kept his eyes resolutely from her face.

“I insist on being relieved.”

“I have no patience with childishness in a man! I found it necessary to reprimand you. You'll probably know your place after this.” He turned away.

“I have decided that I do not belong on this yacht,” stated Mayo, with an emphasis he knew the girl would understand. “You must get another master!”

“I cannot pick captains out of this fog, and I allow no man to tell me my own business. I shall keep you to your written agreement. Hold yourself in readiness to carry telegrams ashore for me. I take it there is an office here?”

“There is, sir,” returned Mayo, stiffly.

The girl, departing, bestowed on him a pretty grimace of triumph, plainly rejoicing because his impetuous resignation had been overruled so autocratically. But Mayo gave a somber return to the raillery of her eyes. He had spoken out to Marston as a man, and had been treated with the contemptuous indifference which would be accorded to a bond-servant. He was wounded by the light manner in which she viewed that affront, even though her own father offered it.

He stood there alone for a time, meditating various rash acts. But under all the tumult of his feelings was the realization that the responsibility for that yacht's discipline and safety rested on his shoulders and he went about his duties. He called two of the crew and ordered the gangway steps down and the port dinghy cleared and lowered. Then he went to the chart-room and sat on a locker and tried to figure out whether he was wonderfully happy or supremely miserable.

Marston promptly closeted himself with his three wise men of business after he went aft. “We'll frame up those telegrams now and get them off,” he told them. “I thought I'd better wait until I had worked the bile out of my system. Never try to do sane and safe business when you're angry, gentlemen! I'm afraid those telegrams would not have been exactly coherent if I had written them right after that Bee liner smashed past us.”

“I have been ready to believe that Tucker would come in with us on the right lay,” said one of the associates.

“So did I,” agreed Marston. “I have thought all his loud talk has been bluff to beat up a bigger price. But, after what he did to-day! Oh no! He is out to fight and he grabbed his chance to show us! I do not believe a lot of this regular fight talk. But when a man comes up and smashes me between the eyes I begin to suspect his intentions.”

“There's no need of dickering with him any longer, Mr. Marston. He made his work as dirty as he could to-day--he has left nothing open to doubt.”

“I'm sorry,” said another of the group. “Tucker has let himself get ugly.”

“So have I,” replied Marston, dryly. “And I'm growing senile, too, I'm afraid. I went forward and wasted as much anathema on that skipper of mine as I would use up in putting through a half-million deal with an opposition traffic line. Next thing I know I'll be arguing with, the smoke-stack. But I must confess, gentlemen, that Tucker rather took my breath away to-day. Either he has become absolutely crazy or else he doesn't understand the strength of the combination.”

“He hasn't waked up yet. He doesn't know what's against him.”

“That may be our fault, in a measure,” stated one of the men. “We haven't been able to let men like Tucker in on the full details.”

“In business it's the good guesser who wins,” declared Marston. “Our merger isn't a thing to be advertised. And if we do any more explaining to Tucker the whole plan will be advertised, you can depend on it. The infernal fool has been holding us up three months, demanding more knowledge--and he can't be trusted. There's only one thing to do, gentlemen! That!” He drove his fist into his palm with significant thud.

“Is the Bee line absolutely essential in our plans?”

“Every line along this coast is essential in making that merger stock an air-tight proposition.”

“It's a new line and is not paying dividends.”