“Why, you haven’t cleared the old girl so soon, have you, sir?” he queried.

“Read that,” Matt announced dramatically.

Mr. Murphy read the telegram.  “Bust my bob-stay!” he murmured.  “The dirty old assassin!  The slimy old pile-worm!  The blessed old duffer!  After treating us like dogs for a year and a half he gives me the ship, sets you down for a two year apprenticeship in steam and says he’s going to build you a four-million-foot freighter!  The scoundrelly old renegade!  Why, say, Matt, Cappy’s been spilling the acid all over us and we never knew it.  Somehow, I have a notion that if we had yelled murder when he was beating us he’d have had us both out of his employ while you’d be saying Jack Robinson.”

“I believe you, Mike.  But he needn’t think he’s going to grab two years of my precious young life before he’ll trust me with a steamer.  I have an unlimited license for sail, and if I can pass the examination for steam before the inspectors—­and I can—­I’ll get my license immediately.  Just consider the old boy’s inconsistency, Mike.  If a man can handle a square-rigged ship he ought to be trusted with anything; yet, when be gives me a steamer you’d think he was giving me a man’s job!  Fair weather or foul, you stand on the bridge and control your vessel with the engine room telegraph.  Shucks!  I wonder if that crotchety old joker thinks it will take me two years to learn how to dock a steam schooner?”

Mr. Murphy hitched his trousers, stuck his thumbs in his belt and glared at Matt Peasley.  “See here, you,” he declared, “you’re a child wonder, all right, but the trouble with you is, you hate yourself too much.  Listen to me, kid.  I’m the skipper of the Retriever now and you’re my friend, young Matt Peasley, so I can talk to you as a friend.  You’re a pretty skookum youth and I’d hate like everything to mix it with you, but if you start to veto the old man’s orders you may look for a fine thrashing from me when I get back from Australia!  I won’t have you making a damned fool of yourself, Matt.  If you are in command of a four-million-foot freighter by the time you’re twenty-seven, you’ll be the youngest skipper of steam afloat, and you ought to be down on your marrow bones giving thanks to the good Lord who has done so much for you, instead of planning insurrection against Cappy Ricks.  The idea!”

“But what sense is there in waiting—­”

“When I refereed the scrap between you and All Hands And Feet you took my advice, didn’t you?  You didn’t say to me then:  ’What sense is there in waiting?  Let me go in and finish the job and have done with it,’ did you?”

“But this is business, Mike.  For a year and a half Cappy has been having a whole lot of fun out of me—­”

“It might have been fun for him, but it came pretty near being the death of me,” Mr. Murphy contradicted.  “If that jag of green hides from Antofagasta was a joke, beware of Cappy Ricks when he’s serious.  He’s serious about you, Matt.  He’s picked on you sight unseen, and he’s going to do something for you.  He’s an old man, Matt.  Let him have his way and you’ll profit by it.”