Chapter XIII: Mr. Cook Wires

After that both sides stood pat for a time. Cook and Son, although they sent no more tugs, did not wire, as the Captain had suggested, and the anchor and chain lay untouched on the bottom, with the _Lizzie’s_ buoy floating above, and the tide-driven sand sifting steadily over the great iron links.

The partners went dragging for other anchors. At the end of a week, Captain Titcomb hinted that it might be a good idea to telephone the _Liberty’s_ owners and ask if they were ready to trade. But Bradley was firm.

“No,” he said; “we can stick it out as long as they can.”

The Captain grinned admiringly. “Brad,” he said; “you’ve got more nerve than I have; I swan if you ain’t! When I think of us two buckin’ up against a concern that owns twenty-two vessels, I give in it gives me the palsy in my knees. But go it, son! I’ll stand behind you till all’s blue.”

The next move in the game came from an unexpected quarter. The Captain and Bradley had just landed one evening, after a day on the shoals, when Obed Nickerson came strolling down the wharf to meet them.

“Hello!” he said. “Haven’t seen you fellers for some time. Goin’ to walk up to the village? Don’t know but I’ll go with you; I need a little exercise.”

This seemed a trifle odd, for sleek, easy-going Obed wasn’t fond of walking; as a usual thing he preferred to drive one of his fast horses. As Captain Titcomb said, later: “You didn’t need to smell bait to know somebody was goin’ fishin’.”

They walked on, talking town politics and gossip. No one mentioned business until the underwriters’ agent said, casually: “Well, how’s things goin’? Got up that barge anchor yit?”

“Not yet,” replied Bradley.

“Humph! ’twill be pretty badly sanded if you let it lay much longer, won’t it? Why don’t you fellers write to the Salvage Company? I understand the job was given to them. I don’t imagine either you or they want any lawyers mixed up in it. I shouldn’t be s’prised if they’d be willin’ to meet you ha’f way in a dicker.”

Captain Titcomb kept his eyes fixed on the ground. “What makes you think so?” he asked.

“Oh! nothin’ special. But I’d write ’em if I was you.”

“Hum! You couldn’t do it for us, could you, Obed?”

“Why, I don’t know. Maybe I could. I know ’em pretty well. Now s’pose--only s’pose, of course--that I could fix this thing up; what’s the lowest terms that you’d raise that anchor and chain for?”

Then the Captain looked up and laughed, like one who has solved a riddle. “That’s Brad’s job,” he said. “Ask him, Obed.”

“Well,” said Bradley, with his hands in his pockets. “We’ll raise that anchor and what we can get of the chain for five hundred dollars. That’s our price.”

“Oh! now what’s the use? They won’t pay that, and----”

“Look here!” broke in Captain Titcomb, “I’ve had some dealin’s, afloat and ashore, with this young feller,” laying his hand on his partner’s shoulder, “and I’ve found that, when his mind’s made up, he’s a kind of combination of mule and the Rock of Ages. ’Twon’t do, Obed. You write to the Salvage Company or Cook and Son, or whoever set you on this tack, and tell ’em that Titcomb and Nickerson are little, but oh my! Tell ’em that that chain’s sandin’ and settlin’ every day, but that, if we have to wait till the other end sticks out in China and makes a clothesline for the heathen in his blindness, there she stays till they come to time. No hard feelin’s to you, Obed, and sorry you had your walk for nothin’.”

The underwriters’ agent was momentarily embarrassed; then he laughed.

“All right,” he said. “You mustn’t git the idea that there’s anything in this for me. I only----”

“I know. You only done it to oblige, like the feller that fetched the rat poison to his mother-in-law when she said he made her sick of life. We understand. Good-bye.”

The partners were considerably encouraged by this interview. They argued that Cook and Son were getting nervous.

That evening Bradley and the old maids were in the sitting-room. Miss Prissy was much better and had, for the first time, donned a wrapper and come downstairs to sit in the big rocker. Miss Tempy was reading aloud to her, and Clara was in the kitchen washing the supper dishes.

“‘The Earl bent his proud head,’” read Miss Tempy, “‘and gazed into the clear blue orbs that met his own. Claire,” he murmured, in a deep, rich tone that vibrated through the heavy air of the gloomy cavern; “Claire, my beautiful! my own! poor and humble your station on earth may have been, but henceforth, if we escape from the lurid flames of yonder volcano and the cruel blades of the merciless buccaneers, you shall no longer be the peasant maid, but my bride, my wife, mistress of Castle Craggyknoll; the peerless----”’”

“What’s that?” she exclaimed, breaking off suddenly.

“What’s what?” asked her sister, drowsily.

“Seems to me I heard somebody in the kitchen.”

“Clara is there, isn’t she?” queried Bradley.

“Yes, but--I thought--yes, there’s somebody else. I do b’lieve it’s a man! You don’t s’pose she’s got a beau? I’m goin’ to see.”

And, before the others could remonstrate, she put the _Comforter_ on the table and started for the kitchen. They heard her cross the dining-room and open the door. Then came an exclamation.

“Why! _why!_” she cried; and then, “Well, I do declare!”

“What do you s’pose ’tis?” asked Miss Prissy, now thoroughly awake. The kitchen door had swung to, but there was a great clatter of voices behind it. Miss Tempy was exclaiming and arguing; Clara, apparently, was saying very little, and a third person, in a deep bass rumble, was explaining something or other.

“Land of goodness!” cried Miss Prissy, “I hope it ain’t the minister, and me in this old wrapper.”

The kitchen door was opened, Miss Tempy appeared beaming, and there followed her into the sitting-room no less a personage than Captain Ezra Titcomb. The Captain’s face was the least bid redder than usual, but he was otherwise as suave and unmoved as if the time of his previous call had been but yesterday instead of four years before.

“Well, Prissy!” he said, shaking hands with the invalid, “how are you to-night? ’Most ready to come on deck and take command? No, don’t git up. Evenin’, Brad.”

Poor Miss Prissy! She patted her tumbled hair into the most presentable shape possible, hurriedly pulled the red and white knitted “Afghan” over the wrapper, and managed to gasp that she was glad to see the Captain. Then she sat still and stared reproachfully at Miss Tempy.

But that lady was too excited to notice her sister’s agitation. She fluttered about the visitor like a hen with one chicken, trying to hang up his hat, dropping it, blushing violently as she collided with him in the attempt to pick it up, and generally behaving, as Miss Prissy said afterwards, like a born gump.

“Set right down, Cap’n,” she pleaded. “We’re reel glad to see you. What _made_ you come to the kitchen door? I couldn’t think who ’twas; could you, Prissy? Oh, my sakes!”

In her nervous haste she had pushed forward the big armchair that had once been the throne of Captain Darius, but which, owing to the infirmities of age, had for some time been kept in the corner for show purposes only. It had a weak leg, and, when Captain Titcomb planted himself upon the worn black oilcloth cushion, the infirm member promptly bent inward and the Captain slid gracefully to the floor.

“_Tempy!_” exclaimed Miss Prissy, in a freezing tone. Bradley laughed and ran to assist the fallen one. Miss Tempy, now in a perfectly helpless state, wrung her hands and stuttered.

“The idea of givin’ him father’s chair!” cried Miss Prissy. “Tempy, have you gone loony? I hope you ain’t hurt, Cap’n Ezra? We never use that chair now. It used to belong to father.”

Miss Tempy was heard to remark, feebly, that it looked “_so_ like him.” She declared afterwards that she didn’t say it.

The Captain made light of the accident and selected another seat, carefully testing it beforehand. He at once began to talk about the weather and Miss Prissy’s illness. But the older sister interrupted him as soon as the opportunity offered.

“What made you come to the back door?” she asked.

There wasn’t an instant’s hesitancy in the Captain’s reply:

“Oh!” he said, lightly, “it’s rainin’ a little and I thought I wouldn’t muss up them floors of yours. I know them floors of old,” he added, and laughed heartily. He continued to talk about the floors and seemed to think his fear of soiling them a great joke. Miss Tempy, who was a trifle more rational by this time, laughed with him, but Miss Prissy seemed still curious.

“You used to come to the dinin’-room door, even when it snowed,” she said.

“Yes, but I had on my sea-boots this time and they’re so big I tote ha’f the road along with me. Reminds me,” he added, hastily, just in time to cut off another question, “of what the old man--my dad, I mean--said about a colored cook he had aboard his ship once. Dad said that darky’s feet was the largest live things without lungs that he ever saw out of water.”

Bradley thought he had never seen his partner so willing, even anxious, to monopolize the entire conversation as he was that evening. He cracked jokes and spun yarns without stopping to rest. Clara came in, after a little, and seated herself quietly on the sofa. She, too, seemed a trifle nervous, but the sisters did not notice it. They were hypnotized by their caller’s lively tongue, and laughed like girls. Miss Prissy grew more like herself every minute.

“Don’t go, Cap’n,” she pleaded, as the visitor pulled out his watch and rose from the chair. “I declare! you’re better’n the doctor!”

“Much obliged, Prissy, but ’twas too much of a good thing that busted the cider jug. Two opposition doctors in one house would be like the two Irishmen fightin’ for the pig--’twas an ‘ilegant row’ while it lasted, but it killed the pig. No, I must be gittin’ on. I left my umbrella out in the kitchen. Clara, bring the lamp, will you, please?”

Clara rose and started for the kitchen, but Miss Tempy intercepted her.

“_I’ll_ git your umbrella, Cap’n,” she said.

“No, no! you set still. Clara knows jest where ’tis; she put it away.”

“Well, I guess I can find it. You needn’t come, Clara. Yes, here ’tis. Good night, Cap’n Titcomb. I--I hope, now you’ve found the way, you’ll call again some evenin’. Bradley’ll be glad to see you and so will Prissy and--and I. You’ve done her a world of good. _Good_ night.”

The Captain walked briskly down to the gate. Then, as the door closed behind him, he paused, wiped his forehead with his coatsleeve, and drew a long breath.

There was jubilation in the old maids’ room that night.

* * * * *

Obed Nickerson must have been prompt in communicating to the Salvage Company, or Cook and Son, the news of the failure of his attempted negotiations with the partners, for on Tuesday of the following week this telegram came:

“BRADLEY NICKERSON, Orham, Mass.

“Come my office immediately.

ALPHEUS COOK.”

“Humph!” grunted Captain Titcomb; “short and crisp, like the old woman’s pie-crust, ain’t it? Well, Brad, I guess you’d better go.”

Bradley agreed with him and, once more, he hurried home to pack his grip. But this time he took care to tell Gus. She rejoiced with him over the triumph they both felt sure was coming.

“You’re succeeding, Brad,” she said. “Everybody is talking about it. I’m prouder of you than ever.”

“But when will you be willing to have me tell people that we’re engaged? Mayn’t I do that now, Gus?”

She paused, and his hopes rose; but then she shook her head. “It wouldn’t be fair to you,” she said. “Sometimes I feel that I almost--well, like you enough to be content to stay in Orham all my life and work for you and with you. I’m trying hard to feel that way. But at other times it seems as if I _must_ get away to where the people talk of something beside their neighbors’ affairs; where there are great things being done and where the world moves. You think I’m inconsistent, don’t you?”

“No, it _is_ dull down here, and most of the folks are rather narrow, I’m afraid. Gus, you know what my business means to me. Well, if it will please you, and if you’ll come with me, I’ll give it all up, even now, and go back to the city and try it there.”

She smiled tenderly. “You’re a dear, good boy,” she said; “but do you suppose I should ever be happy again if I let you do that?”

The railway journey to Boston had only one incident worth notice. At Buzzards Bay the Boston train meets that bound down the Cape. There was some delay at the station and Bradley stepped out on the platform. He was walking up and down smoking when somebody shouted, “Hello, Brad Nickerson! what are you doing here?”

Brad turned and saw Sam Hammond.

“Well!” he exclaimed, shaking hands with his old seat-mate. “Where are you bound--Orham?”

“Yup. How _is_ the old graveyard, anyway?”

“Pretty quiet just now. Most of the summer folks have gone home. You on another vacation?”

Sam laughed. “Kind of vacation a fellow hands out to himself,” he answered. “The Wrecking Company and I had a row; they tried to put ten men’s work on me and I wouldn’t stand for it. So I told ’em to go to the devil. It put ’em in a hole, all right, but nobody’s going to walk on _my_ neck, if I know it. I’m going home to loaf for a while--I need a rest anyway. Then I’ll go back to New York and hook on with another crowd. There’s plenty of ’em want me, but they can wait. How’s all the girls? Gus Baker pretty well?”

They talked for a few minutes longer. Sam asked how the anchor-dragging trust was getting on. Then the two trains started. Bradley leaned back in his seat in the smoker and meditated. Somehow a conversation with Sam always made him “blue.” He wished the fellow was not going to Orham.

Next morning, bright and early, he walked into the “coal king’s” office. The important young man with the pen behind his ear disdained to recognize him.

“Who’d you wish to see?” he asked, after a dignified interval.

“Mr. Cook--the older one,” answered Bradley.

“He’s busy now. Likely to be busy all the morning. What do you want to see him for? Won’t I do?”

“Don’t know, I’m sure,” replied the wrecker, gravely. “I’ll speak to Mr. Cook about it. You see, he was the one that sent for me, so----”

“He _sent_ for you! Oh! excuse me. I wish you’d said so sooner. Sit down, please. What name, sir?”

“Nickerson--sir.”

The young man, much less important, hurried into another room, and returned at once.

“Mr. Cook’ll see you, sir,” he said, opening the gate. “Step right into his private office, Mr. Nickerson. Say,” he added, in a whisper, “maybe you’d better not mention that I wanted you to talk to me.”

The great Mr. Cook was seated behind his big carved desk. The whole outfit looked rather formidable. He stared at Bradley over his glasses.

“Sit down,” he commanded. “Got my wire, I suppose?”

“Yes, sir.”

“Humph! Yes. Well, have you fellows got tired of keeping me from recovering my property yet?”

“What property?”

“Oh, be hanged! You know what property I mean. Are you ready to let the Salvage Company take up that anchor you’ve got buoyed?”

“No, sir.”

“When will you be?”

“Never,” was the smiling answer.

“Humph!” Mr. Cook wheeled round in his chair. “I suppose you realize, young man,” he said, impressively, “that this concern of ours could send down tugs and men enough to snake that anchor and chain right out of your hands. You understand that, do you?”

“Yes, sir, I understand it.”

“Then what’s to prevent our doing it?”

“I don’t believe you want a lawsuit.”

“Lawsuit! Why, Nickerson, look here! I’ve got lawsuits on my hands now that make anything you could bring up look like thirty cents. And my lawyers could fight you through court after court till you were milked dry. What chance would you have against our money?”

“Not much, sir. But, Mr. Cook, is it worth the trouble and what it’ll cost you?”

The “coal king’s” manner changed. He leaned back in his chair and actually grinned.

“For a ’longshoreman,” he observed, “you’re not so slow. No, it isn’t worth the trouble, to say nothing of the money and those confounded nuisances, lawyers. There’s been more valuable time and breath wasted on this fool thing now than the eight or nine hundred dollars it cost comes to. Why don’t you see the Salvage Company and make a trade with them? They’re about sick of it, too.”

“I’d rather trade direct with you.”

Mr. Cook patted his desk with his pencil. Then he glanced at the clock.

“Oh, pshaw!” he exclaimed, testily. “Well, what’s your lowest price delivered on the Orham wharf? Lowest, mind! no trimmings!”

“Five hundred dollars.”

“All right, you may take it up. I’ll give you four hundred cash for the job. Go ahead, and work quick. Good-day, Nickerson; glad to have met you.”

He swung around to the desk and picked up some papers. But Bradley did not go.

“Excuse me, Mr. Cook,” he said. “Our figure was five hundred, not four.”

“Humph! Well, five’s robbery. Four’s what I’ll pay.”

“All right, sir. Sorry we can’t trade. Good morning.”

“Hold on there!” shouted the owner of the _Liberty_. “Do you mean you won’t raise the anchor?”

“Not for less than five hundred.”

“Split the difference; make it four-fifty?”

“No, sir.”

“Oh, well, hang it! go ahead. Five hundred, then--only don’t bother me any more.”

But Bradley still hesitated. “There is just one thing more, Mr. Cook,” he said. “That chain has sanded in every day since it has been on that bottom. We may not be able to get up the whole of it. We warned your tugboat skipper when he was down. We’ll do our best, though.”

“Oh! you’ll get it. I’d be willing to bet that you’d get up the everlasting foundations if you made up your mind to. Say, Nickerson!” Mr. Cook put his hands in his pockets and looked quizzically at Bradley; “I guess I owe you an apology. I said, when you were here before, that you couldn’t bluff me. Well, it looks as if you could. Any more at the Cape like you?”

Bradley laughed. “Shouldn’t wonder,” he said.

“Don’t want a job, do you?”

“No, sir; not at present, thank you. That is, nothing but wrecking jobs. Anything in that line you can throw in our way we should appreciate.”

“I’ll remember it. If you get sick of anchor-dragging any time, come and see me. Have a cigar to smoke as you go along. Good-day.”

The young man with the pen, now very polite, bowed Bradley out of the gate. The junior partner was happy. He felt that not only had the wisdom of his course in the matter of the _Liberty’s_ anchor been proven, but that when Cook and Son should have future wrecking contracts to give out, Titcomb and Nickerson might be considered as bidders to be reckoned with.