“My traders,” Sir Archibald interrupted, quietly, “are trading White Bay and the French Shore.”
“I know it, dad,” Archie began eagerly, “but—”
“Will you compete with them?” Sir Archibald asked, his eyes wide open. “The Black Eagle sails north on a trading voyage in a fortnight. She’s loading now.”
“That’s all right,” said Archie, blithely. “We’re going to—”
“Encounter harsh competition,” Sir Archibald put in, dryly. “How will you go about it?”
Archie had been fidgeting in his chair—hardly able to command his politeness.
“A cash trader!” he burst out.
“Ah!” Sir Archibald drawled, enlightened. “I see. I see-ee!”
“We’ll be the only cash trader on the coast, dad,” Archie continued; “and we’ll advertise—and carry a phonograph—and sell under the credit prices—and—”
Sir Archibald whistled in chagrin.
“And we’ll make good,” Archie concluded.
“You little pirate!” Sir Archibald ejaculated.
Father and son laughed together. Then Sir Archibald began to drum on the desk with his finger-tips. Presently he got up and began to pace the floor, his hands thrust deep in his pockets, his lips pursed, his brows drawn in a scowl of reflection. This was a characteristic thing. Sir Archibald invariably paced, and pursed his lips, and scowled, when a problem of more than ordinary interest engaged him. He knew that Archie’s plan was not unreasonable. There might—there ought to be—good profit in a cash-trading voyage in a small schooner to the harbours of White Bay and the French Shore. There are no shops in most of these little settlements. Shops go to the people in the form of trading-schooners from St. John’s and the larger ports of the more southerly coast. It is in this way that the fisher-folk procure their flour and tea, their medicines and clothing, their tackle, their molasses, pins and needles, their trinkets, everything, in fact, both the luxuries and necessities of life. It is chiefly a credit business, the prices based on credit; the folk are outfitted in the spring and pay in salt-cod in the late summer and fall. Why shouldn’t a cash-trader, underselling the credit plan, do well on the coast in a small way?
By and by, his face clearing, Sir Archibald sat down at the desk again.
“How much do you want?” he asked, directly.
Archie took a grip on the arms of his chair and clenched his teeth. It took a good deal of resolution to utter the amount.
“Well, well?” Sir Archibald impatiently demanded.
“A thousand dollars,” said Archie, grimly.
Sir Archibald started.
“Two hundred and fifty dollars in cash,” Archie added, “and seven hundred and fifty in credit at the warehouse.”
“What’s the security?” Sir Archibald blandly inquired.
“Security!” Archie gasped.
“It is a customary consideration in business,” said Sir Archibald.
Archie’s house of cards seemed to be tumbling about his ears. Security? He had not thought of that. He began to drum on the desk with his finger-tips. Presently he got up and began to pace the floor, his hands thrust deep in his pockets, his lips pursed, his brow drawn in a scowl of reflection. Sir Archibald, recognizing his own habit in his son’s perturbation, smiled in a fatherly-fond way. The boy was very dear to him; no doubt about it. But Sir Archibald was not sentimental in the affection.
“Well, sir,” said Archie, by and by, his face clearing as he sat down, “I could offer you security, and good enough security, but it doesn’t seem quite fair.”
Sir Archibald asked the nature of the bond.
“I have a pony and cart, a motor boat and a sloop yacht,” Archie replied, grinning. “I ’low,” he drawled, with a sly drooping of his eyelids, “that they’re worth more than a thousand dollars. Eh, father? What do you think?”
Sir Archibald guffawed.
“The trouble is,” Archie went on, seriously, “that you gave them to me; and it doesn’t seem fair to you to offer them as security. But I tell you, dad,” he declared, “if we don’t make good in this trading cruise I’ll sell those things and do without ’em. It isn’t fair, I know—it seems pretty mean to you—it looks as if I didn’t care for what you’ve given me. But I do care; and you know I care. The trouble is that I want awfully to go trading.”
“It is the only security you have?”
“Except mother,” said Archie. “But,” he added, hastily, “I wouldn’t—I won’t—drag a lady into this.”
Sir Archibald threw back his head and roared.
“What you laughing at, dad?” Archie asked, a little offended, if a quick flush meant anything.
“I’m sure,” his father replied, “that the lady wouldn’t mind.”
“No,” said Archie, grave with his little problem of honour; “but I wouldn’t let a lady in for a thing like that.”
“Son,” said Sir Archibald, now all at once turning very serious, “you have better security than your pony and sloop.”
Archie looked up in bewilderment.
“It is your integrity,” Sir Archibald explained, gently, “and your efficiency.”
Archie flushed with pleasure.
“These are great things to possess,” said Sir Archibald.
“Thank you, sir,” said Archie, rising in acknowledgment of this hearty compliment.
The lad was genuinely moved.
CHAPTER XXIV
In Which the Honour of Archie Armstrong Becomes Involved, the First of September Becomes a Date of Utmost Importance, He Collides With Tom Tulk, and a Note is Made in the Book of the Future
Sir Archibald began again to tap the desk with his finger-tips. Archie strayed to the broad window and looked out upon the wharves and harbour.
“Is that the Black Eagle at the wharf?” he asked.
“The Black Eagle, sure enough!” Sir Archibald laughed. “She’s the White Bay and French Shore trader.”
“Trade enough for all,” Archie returned.
“George Rumm, master,” said Sir Archibald.
“Still?” Archie exclaimed.
The sailing reputation of Skipper George had been in question through the season. He had come within six inches of losing the Black Eagle in a small gale of the last voyage.
“Who’s clerk?” Archie asked.
“Tommy Bull, boy.”
No friend of Archie!
“Sharp enough, anyhow,” the boy thought.
Sir Archibald put his hands in his pockets again and began to pace the floor; his lips were pursed, his brows drawn. Archie waited anxiously at the window.
“When,” demanded Sir Archibald, pausing abruptly in his walk—“when do you propose to liquidate this debt?”
“We’ll sail the Spot Cash into St. John’s harbour, sir, on September first, or before.”
“With three hundred quintals of fish in her hold, I suppose?”
Three hundred quintals of dry fish, at four dollars, roughly, a quintal, was twelve hundred dollars.
“More than that, sir,” said Archie.
“Well, boy,” said Sir Archibald, briskly, “the security I have spoken of is all right, and—”
“Not worth much at auction sale,” Archie interrupted, grinning.
“There’s no better security in the world,” said Sir Archibald, “than youth, integrity and capacity.”
Archie waited.
“I’ll back you,” said Sir Archibald, shortly.
“Father,” Archie declared, his eyes shining with a little mist of delight and affection, “I’ll stand by this thing for all I’m worth!”
They shook hands upon it.
* * * *
Sir Archibald presently wrote a check and scribbled a few lines on a slip of paper. The check was for two hundred and fifty dollars; it was for running expenses and emergencies that Archie needed the hard cash. The slip of paper was an order upon the warehouses and shops for credit in the sum of seven hundred and fifty dolla
rs.
“Now,” said Sir Archibald, “it is explicitly understood between us that on or before the first of September you are to turn over to the firm of Armstrong & Company a sufficient quantity of properly cured fish to liquidate this account.”
“Yes, sir,” Archie replied, earnestly; “on or before the first day of September next.”
“You perfectly understand the terms?” Sir Archibald insisted. “You know the nature of this obligation?”
“Yes, sir.”
“Very well, son,” said Sir Archibald; “your honour is involved.”
Archie received the two slips of paper. It must be confessed that they burned his fingers a little. It was a good deal to come into possession of all at once—a good deal of money and an awe-inspiring responsibility. Sir Archibald watched the boy’s face narrowly. He seemed to be pleased with what he found there—a little fear, a little anxiety, a great deal of determination. The veteran business man wondered if the boy would sleep as easily as usual that night. Would he wake up fresh and smiling in the morning? These were large cares to lie upon the shoulders of a lad.
“Shall I give you a—well—a receipt—or a note—or anything like that?” Archie asked.
“You are upon your honour,” said his father.
Archie scratched his head in doubt.
“Your honour,” Sir Archibald repeated, smiling.
“The first of September,” Archie laughed. “I shan’t forget that date.”
In the end he had good cause to remember it.
* * * *
Before Archie left the office Sir Archibald led him to the broad window behind the desk. Archie was used to this. It was his father’s habit. The thing was not done in a spirit of boasting, as the boy was very well aware. Nor was it an attempt to impress the boy with a sense of his own importance and future wealth in the world. It was rather a well-considered and consistent effort to give him a sense of the reality and gravity of the obligations that would some day be his. From the broad window Archie looked out once more upon the various activities of his father’s great business. There were schooners fitting out for the fishing cruise to the Labrador; there were traders taking in stores for the voyage to the Straits of Belle Isle, to the South Coast, to the French Shore; there were fore-and-afters outbound to the Grand Banks and waiting for a favourable wind; there were coastwise vessels, loading flour and pork for the outport merchants; there were barques awaiting more favourable weather in which to load salt-cod for the West Indies and Spain.
All this never failed to oppress Archie a little as viewed from the broad window of his father’s office.
“Look!” said Sir Archibald, moving a hand to include the shipping and storehouses.
Archie gazed into the rainy day.
“What do you see?” his father asked, in a way half bantering, half grave.
“Your ships and wharves, sir.”
“Some day,” said Sir Archibald, “they will be yours.”
“I wish you wouldn’t say that, dad—at least, not just in that way,” said Archie, turning away from the window. “It sort of frightens me.”
Sir Archibald laughed and clapped him on the back. “You know what I mean,” said he.
“You mean that the firm has a name,” said Archie. “You mean that the name must never be disgraced. I know what you mean.”
Sir Archibald nodded.
“I hope,” said Archie, the suspicion of a quaver in his voice and a tremble in his lower lip, “that I’ll never disgrace it.”
“Nor the name of the little firm that goes into business this day,” said Sir Archibald.
Archie’s solemn face broke into a smile of amusement and surprise. “Why, dad,” said he, “it hasn’t got a name.”
“Armstrong & Company, Junior?”
“Armstrong, Topsail, Grimm & Company,” said Archie, promptly.
“Good luck to it!” wished Sir Archibald.
“No; that’s not it at all,” said Archie. “Billy Topsail schemed this thing out. Wish luck to the firm of Topsail, Armstrong, Grimm & Company.”
“Build the firm,” said Sir Archibald, “upon hard work and fair play.”
Archie hurriedly said they would—and vanished.
“Son is growing up,” thought Sir Archibald, when the boy had gone. “Son is decidedly growing up. Well, well!” he sighed; “son is growing up and in far more trouble than he dreams of. It’s a big investment, too. However,” he thought, well pleased and cheerful again, “let him go ahead and learn his daddy’s business. And I’ll back him,” he declared, speaking aloud in his enthusiastic faith. “By Jove! I’ll back him to win!”
* * * *
At the foot of the stairway Archie collided full tilt with two men who were engaged in intimate conversation as they passed the door. The one was George Rumm, skipper of the Black Eagle—a timid, weak-mouthed, shifty-eyed man, with an obsequious drawl in his voice, a diffident manner, and, altogether, a loose, weak way. The other was old Tom Tulk of Twillingate. Archie leaped back with an apology to Skipper George. The boy had no word to say to Tom Tulk of Twillingate. Tom Tulk was notoriously a rascal whom the law was eager to catch but could never quite satisfactorily lay hands on. It did not occur to Archie that no wise skipper would put heads mysteriously together in a public place with old Tom Tulk of Twillingate. The boy was too full of his own concerns to take note of anything.
“Hello, Skipper George!” he cried, buoyantly. “I’ll see you on the French Shore.”
“Goin’ north?” Skipper George drawled.
“Tradin’,” said Archie.
Skipper George started. Tom Tulk scowled. “Goin’ aboard the Black Eagle?” asked Skipper George.
“Tradin’ on my own hook, Skipper George,” said Archie; “and I’m bound to cut your throat on the Shore.”
Tom Tulk and Skipper George exchanged glances as Archie darted away. There was something of relief in Skipper George’s eyes—a relieved and teasing little smile. But Tom Tulk was frankly angry.
“The little shaver!” said he, in disgust.
It was written in the book of the future that Skipper George Rumm and Archie Armstrong should fall in with each other on the north coast before the summer was over.
CHAPTER XXV
In Which Notorious Tom Tulk o’ Twillingate and the Skipper of the “Black Eagle” Put Their Heads Together Over a Glass of Rum in the Cabin of a French Shore Trader
There was never a more notorious rascal in Newfoundland than old Tom Tulk of Twillingate. There was never a cleverer rascal—never a man who could devise new villainies as fast and execute them as neatly. The law had never laid hands on him. At any rate not for a crime of importance. He had been clapped in jail once, but merely for debt; and he had carried this off with flying colours by pushing past the startled usher in church and squatting his great flabby bulk in the governor’s pew of the next Sunday morning. He was a thief, a chronic bankrupt, a counterfeiter, an illicit liquor seller. It was all perfectly well known; but not once had a constable brought an offense home to him. He had once been arrested for theft, it is true, and taken to St. John’s by the constables; but on the way he had stolen a watch from one and put it in the pocket of the other, thereby involving both in far more trouble than they could subsequently involve him.
Add to these evil propensities a deformed body and a crimson countenance and you have the shadow of an idea of old Tom Tulk.
* * * *
George Rumm and Tom Tulk boarded the Black Eagle in the rain and sought the shelter of her little cabin. The cook had made a fire for the skipper; the cabin was warm and quiet. Tom Tulk closed the door with caution and glanced up to see that the skylights were tight. Skipper George produced the bottle and glasses.
“Now, Skipper George,” said Tom Tulk, as he tipped the bottle, “’tis a mint o’ money an’ fair easy t’ make.”
“I’m not likin’ the job,” the skipper complained. “I’m not likin’ the job at all.”
“�
�Tis an easy one,” Tom Tulk maintained, “an’ ’tis well paid when ’tis done.”
Skipper George scowled in objection.
“Ye’ve a soft heart for man’s work,” said Tom, with a bit of a sneer.
Skipper George laughed. “Is you thinkin’ t’ drive me by makin’ fun o’ me?” he asked.
“I’m thinkin’ nothin’,” Tom Tulk replied, “but t’ show you how it can be done. Will you listen t’ me?”
“Not me!” George Rumm declared.
Tom Tulk observed, however, that the skipper’s ears were wide open.
“Not me!” Skipper George repeated, with a loud thump on the table. “No, sir! I’ll have nothin’ t’ do with it!”
Tom Tulk fancied that the skipper’s ears were a little bit wider than before; he was not at all deceived by this show of righteousness on the part of a weak man.
“Well, well!” he sighed. “Say no more about it.”
“I’m not denyin’,” said Skipper George, “that it could be done. I’m not denyin’ that it would be easy work. But I tells you, Tom Tulk, that I’ll have nothin’ t’ do with it. I’m an honest man, Tom Tulk, an’ I’d thank you t’ remember it.”
“Well, well!” Tom Tulk sighed again. “There’s many a man in this harbour would jump at the chance; but there’s never another so honest that I could trust him.”
“Many a man, if you like,” Skipper George growled; “but not me.”
“No, no,” Tom Tulk agreed, with a covert little sneer and grin; “not you.”
“’Tis a prison offense, man!”
“If you’re cotched,” Tom Tulk laughed. “An’ tell me, George Rumm, is I ever been cotched?”
“I’m not sayin’ you is.”
“No; nor never will be.”
It had all been talked over before, of course; and it would be talked over again before a fortnight was past and the Black Eagle had set sail for the French Shore with a valuable cargo. Tom Tulk had begun gingerly; he had proceeded with exquisite caution; he had ventured a bit more; at last he had come boldly out with the plan. Manned with care—manned as she could be and as Tom Tulk would take care to have her—the Black Eagle was the ship for the purpose; and Skipper George, with a reputation for bad seamanship, was the man for the purpose. And the thing would be easy. Tom Tulk knew it. Skipper George knew it. It could be successfully done. There was no doubt about it; and Skipper George hated to think that there was no doubt about it. The ease and safety with which he might have the money tumble into his pocket troubled him. It was not so much a temptation as an aggravation. He found himself thinking about it too often; he wanted to put it out of his mind, but could not.
The Sea-Story Megapack: 30 Classic Nautical Works Page 41
