The lumber was delivered to the _City of Panama_ in due course and, as Cappy had suspected, Live Wire Luiz failed to come down to her dock and take a smell. This was a privilege left intact for the consignee at Salina Cruz; and he, according to Mexican custom, which only demands a ghost of an excuse to seek a rebate, promptly wired a protest and declared himself swindled to the extent of five dollars a thousand feet, gold.
Also, having been similarly outraged once before, he demanded to know why he had been sent California spruce; whereupon Live Wire Luiz called up Cappy Ricks, abused him roundly and sent him a bill for six dollars a thousand, rebate! Unfortunately for the West Coast Trading Company, however, it had already discounted Cappy's invoice; so the latter could afford to stand pat--which he did.
Shortly after noon on the day of his small triumph over the West Coast Trading Company, Cappy Ricks bustled up California Street, bound for luncheon with the Bilgewater Club.
On this day, of all days, Cappy would not have missed luncheon with the Bilgewater Club for a farm. As he breezed along there was a smile on his ruddy old face and a lilt in his kind old heart, for he was rehearsing his announcement to his youthful friends of how he had but recently tanned the hide of a brother! He almost laughed aloud as he pictured himself solemnly relating, in the presence of J. Augustus Redell and Live Wire Luiz, the tale of the ill-favored spruce, excusing his own mendacity the while on the ground that he wasn't a mind reader; that if the West Coast Lumber Company desired northern spruce they should have stipulated northern spruce; that, as alleged business men, it was high time they were made aware of the ancient principle of _caveat emptor_, which means, as every schoolboy knows, that the buyer must protect himself in the clinches and breakaways. And lastly, he planned to claim it the solemn duty of the aged to instruct the young and ignorant in the hard school of experience.
Judge, therefore, of his disappointment when, on entering the lobby of the Merchants' Exchange Building, on the two top floors of which the Commercial Club is situated, he encountered Redell and Live Wire Luiz leaving the elevator.