Part 75

“Poke up your courts, then. It isn't my fault if they're slow.”

The new directors filed into the board-room and with great celerity proceeded to elect Fletcher Fogg to be president and general manager of the Vose line.

“What are you going to do?” pleaded the deposed executive head. “My money is in here--my whole life is in it--my pride--my intention to see that the public gets a square deal. You infernal rogue, what are you going to do with my property?”

“That's my own business,” said Fletcher Fogg.

“You can't get away with it--you can't do it!” raged Vose. “I'll get at the inside of how that meeting was conducted. You'd better take backwater right now, Fogg, and save yourself. I'm not afraid to tell you what I'm going to do. I'll have a temporary injunction issued. I'll prove fraud was used at that meeting--bribery, yes, sir!”

Mr. Fogg smiled and sat down at the president's desk. “First he'll have to find a young man by the name of David Boyne,” he told himself.

“Vose,” said the new president, “all you can show a court is the record of an annual meeting, duly and legally held. And if the judge wants to have a look at me he'll find me running this line a blamed sight better than you have ever run it.”

“It's a cheap, plain trick,” bleated the aged steamship manager. “Your crowd is going to sell out to the Paramount--it's your plot.”

“Oh no! We're not inviting injunctions and law and newspaper talk and slurs and slander, Mr. Vose. If there's ever any selling out you'll be the first to suggest it; I never shall. You see, I'm just as frank with you as you are with me. Selling this line to the Paramount right now, just because the new board is in, would be ragged work--very coarse work. Thank Heaven, I have a proper respect for the law--and what it can do to bother a fool. I am not a fool, Mr. Vose.”

XIX ~ THE PRIZE PACKAGE FROM MR. FOGG

Our captain stood on his quarter-deck, And a fine little man was he! “Overhaul, overhaul, on your davit tackle fall, And launch your boats to the sea, Brave boys! And launch your boats to the sea.” --The Whale.

A slowing, tug, tooting fussy and staccato blasts which Captain Wass translated into commands to hold up, intercepted the Nequasset in Hampton Roads.

Mr. Fletcher Fogg was a passenger on the tug. In a suit of natty gray, he loomed conspicuously in the alley outside the tug's pilot-house. He cursed roundly when he toilsomely climbed the ladder to the freighter's deck, for the rusty sheathing smutched the knees of his trousers.

“I'm doing a little better than I promised you, captain,” he stated when he arrived finally in the presence of the master. “I said Philadelphia. But here I am. Do you know me now?”

“Your name is Fogg,” returned Captain Wass, exhibiting no special delight.

“And I'm manager of this line. As it seems to be pretty hard for you to get anything through that thick nut of yours, I'll ask you to glance at a paper which will save argument.”

The paper was an attested notification, signed by the directors, stating in laconic legal phrase what Mr. Fogg had just declared.

“You recognize my authority, do you?”

“Your bill o' lading reads O. K.,” assented the skipper.

“Very well! Exactly! Then you take your orders. Proceed to an anchorage off Lambert Point below Norfolk, pick a berth well off the channel, and put down both hooks. The boat is going out of commission. I find you're not making any money for the owners.”

“It ain't my fault. With charters at--” began the master, indignantly.

“I haven't any time for a joint debate. You are laid off. Bring your accounts to the main office as soon as you have turned the steamer over to the caretaker--he'll come out from Norfolk.” Manager Fogg turned on his heel to meet Mate Mayo. “You will report at the main offices, too, Mr. Mayo. Have you master's papers?”

“I have, sir--Atlantic waters, Jacksonville to East-port.”

“Very good--you're going to be promoted. I shall put you aboard the passenger-steamer Montana as captain.” He looked about sharply. “Where is my agent?”

“There, in the quartermaster's cabin. We gave him that,” replied Captain Wass, gruffly. “I'm glad I'm out of steamboating. I've learned how to run a boarding-house and make money out of it.”

Mr. Fogg did not understand that sneer, and he paid no attention to the captain's manner. He started for the cabin indicated.

“Well, you can swell around in gold braid now and catch your heiress,” observed Captain Wass to his mate.

“I'm sorry, skipper,” said the young man, with real feeling. “You are the man to be promoted, not I. It isn't right--it doesn't seem real.”