It was too much. Cappy Ricks was too fine a sport not to acknowledge a beating; he was too generous not to rejoice in a competitor's gain.
“You lucky, lucky scoundrel!” he murmured in an awed voice. “Not enough salt water will get through that grease to hurt those engines. Gus, how did you find this all out?”
“Well, you can bet your whiskers, Cappy, I didn't depend on hearsay evidence and water-front reporters to dig it up for me. The minute I heard her sea cocks had been opened and that her funnels and masts were sticking up out of the harbor I concluded I was interested; so I sent Bill Jinks, of our office, down to Papeete to get me some first-hand information. The chief of the _Valkyrie_ is interned there, of course.”
“May mad dogs bite me! Why in the name of all that's sweet and holy didn't I have sense enough to do that?” Cappy mourned.
“You have lose the punch!” chirped Live Wire Luiz, and Cappy glared at him.
“An' what you s'pose she have in her?” Live Wire Luiz demanded. “Oh, notheeng very much, Senor Ricks. Just two t'ousand tons of phosphate.”
“Worth ten or twelve dollars a ton, Cappy.”
“An' t'irteen hundred tons of the good coal to bring her to San Francisco, _Ai_, Santa Maria!” Live Wire Luiz blew a kiss airily into space and added: “I die weeth dee-light!”
“You haven't got her yet,” Cappy snapped viciously.
“No; but we'll get her all right,” Redell declared confidently.
“We've only one real competitor to buck--an Australian steamship company. They're crazy to get her; and as there are no French bidders on this side of the world, naturally and in view of the present condition of world politics the French authorities in Papeete are pulling for the Britisher. Jinks is now in Papeete and I'm about to start for there at one o'clock. Two bids, Cappy; I'll be the dark horse and file my bid at the last minute, after I've sized up the lay of the land. But, before I do so, I'm going to take the representative of that Australian steamship company into my confidence and find out what he's going to bid. For instance, now, Cappy, if you were bidding against me, how high would you go?”
“She's a long way from nowhere,” Cappy replied thoughtfully. “It means sending a wrecking steamer down there with a lot of expert wreckers, divers, mechanics and carpenters; it means lumber for cofferdam and pontoons; it means donkey engines, cables, pumps, the stress of wind and wave--”