Captain Scraggs Part 21

"They're goin' to make a landin', Gib."

"--then I deduct that this body-s.n.a.t.c.hin' Scraggs----"

"They're boardin' us, Gib."

"--has arranged with yon fat Chinaman to relieve us o' the unwelcome presence of his defunct friends. _He's gone an' hunted up the relatives an' made 'em come across_--that's what he's done. The dirty, low, schemin' granddaddy of all the foxes in Christendom! Wasn't I the numbskull not to think of it myself?"

"'Tain't too late to mend your ways, Gib. I don't see Scraggs nowhere," Mr. McGuffey suggested promptly. "All that remains for me an' you to do, Gib, is to imagine the price, collect the money, an' declare a dividend. Quick, Gib! What'll we ask him?"

"I'll fish around an' see what figger Scraggs charged him," the cautious Gibney replied and stepped to the rail to meet Gin Seng, for it was indeed he.

"Sow-see, sow-see, hun-gay," Mr Gibney saluted the Chinaman in a facetious attempt to talk the latter's language. "h.e.l.lo, there, John Chinaman. How's your liver? Captain he allee same get tired; he no waitee. Wha's mallah, John. Too long time you no come. You heap lazy all time."

Gin Seng smiled his bland, inscrutable Chinese smile. "You ketchum two China boy in box?" he queried.

"We have," boomed McGuffey, "an' beautiful specimens they be."

"No money, no China boy," Gibney added firmly.

"Money have got. Too muchee money you wantee. No can do. Me pay two hundred dollah. Five hundred dollah heap muchee. No have got."

"Nothin' doin', John. Five hundred dollars an' not a penny less.

Put up the dough or beat it."

Gin Seng expostulated, lied, evaded, and all but wept, but Mr.

Gibney was obdurate and eventually the Chinaman paid over the money and departed with the remains of his countrymen. "I knew he'd come through, Bart," Mr. Gibney declared. "They got to s.h.i.+p them stiffs to China to rest alongside their ancestors or be in Dutch with the sperrits o' the departed forever after."

"Do we have to split this swag with that dirty Scraggs?" McGuffey wanted to know. "Seein' as how he tried to give us the double cross----"

"We'll fix Scraggsy--all s.h.i.+pshape an' legal so's he won't have no comeback. Quick, grab some o' them empty potato crates an'

pile 'em here where the stiffs was lyin' an' cover 'em up with the tarpaulin. I don't want Scraggsy to think the corpses is gone until I've hooked him good and plenty."

The stage was set in a few minutes and the conspirators set themselves to await the return of Scraggs. They had not long to wait. Upon his arrival at Gin Seng's place of business Captain Scraggs had been informed that Gin Seng had gone out twenty minutes before, and further inquiry revealed the portentous fact that he had departed in an express wagon. Consumed with misgivings of disaster, Scraggs returned to the _Maggie_ as fast as the California Street cable car and his legs could carry him; as he came aboard his anxious glance sought the tarpaulin-covered boxes on deck and at sight of them his mental thermometer rose at once. In the cabin he found Mr. Gibney and McGuffey playing cribbage. They laid down their hands as Scraggs entered.

"Well, are you all cooled out an' willin' to listen to reason, Scraggsy, old business man?" Gibney greeted him cheerfully.

"None more so, Gib. If you've got a proposition to submit, fire away."

"That's comfortin', Scraggsy. Well, me an' Bart's been chewing over your proposition to buy out our interest in them two c.h.i.n.ks, an' as the upshot of our talk we made up our minds to sell, but not for no measly little five bucks' profit. Now, Scraggsy, you old he-devil, on your honour as between s.h.i.+pmates, you got to admit five dollars ain't hardly worth considerin'. Come down to earth now. You know blamed well you're expectin' to pull out with a neat profit an' that you can afford to boost that five-dollar ante. What would you consider a fair price for a one-third interest? Be honest an' fair, Scraggsy."

Captain Scraggs sat down, beaming. With Mr. Gibney in this frame of mind he knew he could do anything with him. "Well, now, Gib, my _dear_ boy, if a man was to get twenty-five dollars for his interest, I should say he oughtn't to have no kick comin'. I know I wouldn't."

"If you was sellin' your interest--imagine, now, that you're me an' I'm you--would you be satisfied to sell for twenty-five dollars?"

"I certainly would, Gib, my boy. Why, that's almost four hundred per cent. profit, an' any man that'd turn up his nose at a four hundred per cent. profit ought to go an' have his head examined by a competent nut doctor."

"Well, if you feel that way about it, all right, Scraggsy," Mr.

Gibney replied slowly and put his hand in his pocket. "As I remarked previous, while you're away me an' Bart gets chewin' over the proposition an' decides we'll sell. An' to show you what a funny world this is, while me an' Bart's settin' on deck a-waitin' for you to come back an' close with us, along breezes a fat old Chinaman in an express wagon an' offers to buy them two cases of Oriental goods.

He makes me an' Mac what we considers a fair offer for our two-thirds. You ain't around to offer suggestions an' as it's a take-it-or-leave-it proposition an' two-thirds o' the stock is represented in me an' Mac an' accordin' to your rulin' the majority's got the decidin' vote, we ups an' smothers his offer.

Lemme see, now," he continued, and got out a stub of lead pencil with which he commenced figuring on the white oilcloth table cover.

"We paid twenty dollars for them two derelicts an' a dollar towage.

That's twenty-one dollars, an' a third o' twenty-one is seven, an'

seven dollars from twenty-five leaves eighteen dollars comin' to you. Here's your eighteen dollars, Scraggsy, you lucky old vagabond--all clear profit on a neat day's work, no expense, no investment, no back-breakin' interest charges or overhead, an' sold out at your own figger."

Captain Scraggs's face was a study in conflicting emotions as he raked in the eighteen dollars. "Thanks, Gib," he said frigidly.

"Me an' Gib's goin' ash.o.r.e for lunch at the Marigold Cafe,"

McGuffey announced presently, in order to break the horrible silence that followed Scraggsy's crus.h.i.+ng defeat. "I'm willin' to spend some o' my profits on the deal an' blow you to a lunch with a small bottle o' Dago Red thrown in. How about it, Scraggs?"

"I'm on." Scraggs sought to throw off his gloom and appear sprightly. "What'd you peddle them two cadavers for, Gib?"

Mr. Gibney grinned broadly but did not answer. In effect, his grin informed Scraggs that _that_ was none of the latter's business--and Scraggs a.s.similated the hint. "Well, at any rate, Gib, whatever you soaked him, it was a mighty good sale an' I congratulate you. I think mebbe I might ha' done a little better myself, but then it ain't every day a feller can turn an eighteen-dollar trick on a corpse."

"Comin' to lunch with us?" McGuffey demanded.

"Sure. Wait a minute till I run forward an' see if the lines is all fast."

He stepped out of the cabin and presently Gibney and McGuffey were conscious of a rapid succession of thuds on the deck. Gibney winked at McGuffey.

"'Nother new hat gone to h.e.l.l," murmured McGuffey.

CHAPTER XVIII

It was fully a week before Captain Scraggs's mental hemorrhage, brought on every time his mind reverted to his loss on the "ginseng"

deal, ceased. During all of that period his peregrinations around the _Maggie_ were as those of one for whom the sweets of existence had turned to wormwood and vinegar. Mr. Gibney confided to McGuffey that it was a toss-up whether the old man was meditating murder or suicide. In fact, so depressed was Captain Scraggs that he lacked absolutely the ambition to "rag" his a.s.sociates; observing which Mr.

McGuffey vouchsafed the opinion that perhaps Scraggsy was "teched a mite in his head-block."

"Don't you think it," Mr. Gibney warned. "If old Scraggsy's crazy he's crazy like a fox. What's rilin' him is the knowledge that he's stung to the heart an' can't admit it without at the same time admittin' he'd cooked up a deal to double-cross us. He's just a-bustin' with the thoughts that's acc.u.mulatin' inside him.

Right now he'd drown his sorrers in red liquor if he could afford it."

"He's troubled financially, Gib."

"Well, you know who troubled him, don't you, Bart?"

"I mean about the cost o' them repairs in the engine room. Unless he can come through in thirty days with the balance he owes, the boiler people are goin' to libel the _Maggie_ to protect their claim."

Mr. Gibney arched his bushy eyebrows. "How do you know?" he demanded.

"He was a-tellin' me," Mr. McGuffey admitted weakly.

"Well, he wasn't a-tellin' me." Mr. Gibney's tones were ominous; he glared at his friend suspiciously as from the _Maggie's_ cabin issued forth Scraggsy's voice raised in song.

"h.e.l.lo! The old boy's thermometer's gone up, Bart. Listen at him.

'Ever o' thee he's fondly dreamin'.' Somethin's busted the spell an' I'll bet a cooky it was ready cash." He menaced Mr. McGuffey with a rigid index finger. "Bart," he demanded, "did you loan Scraggsy some money?"