“Thank God, the boy’s true-blue, after all!” he murmured. “Just a little wild, perhaps, but he’s a Briggs—he’s sound metal at the core. Thank God for that!”
He opened the top drawer of his desk, took out a little slip of paper that helped refresh his memory, and approached the safe. Right, left, he turned the knob, as the combination on the paper bade him; then he swung open the doors, and pulled out a little drawer.
At sound of Ezra’s voice in the doorway, he started almost guiltily.
“Anythin’ you’re wantin’ down to Dudley’s store, sir?”
“No, Ezra.” The captain’s answer seemed uneasy. Under the sharp boring of Ezra’s steely eyes, he quailed. “No, there’s nothing.”
“All right, cap’n!” The old cook remained a moment, observing. Then with the familiarity of long years, he queried:
“Takin’ money again, be you? Whistlin’ whales, cap’n, that won’t do!”
“You know, cap’n, we’re gittin’ mighty nigh the bottom o’ the locker.”
“Mebbe, sir.” The honest old fellow’s voice expressed deep anxiety. “But you an’ me is cap’n an’ mate o’ this here clipper, an’ money’s money.”
The voices drifting out the open window brought Hal’s head up, listening. The doctor, peering through the blinds, saw him hesitate a moment, peer ’round, then cross the lawn to where, screened by the thick clump of lilac-bushes, he could peek into the room.
“Money’s money, cap’n,” repeated Ezra. “We hadn’t oughta let it go too fast.”
“There’s lots of better things in this world than money, Ezra,” said the captain, strangely ill at ease.
“Mebbe, sir, but it takes money to buy ’em,” the cook retorted. “I ain’t a two-dollar-worry man fer a one-dollar loss, but still I know a dollar’s a good little friend.”
“Happiness is better,” affirmed the captain. “What I’m going to spend this money for now will bring me happiness. Better than all the money in the world, is being contented with your lot.”
“Yes, sir, if it’s a lot of money, or a corner lot in a live town. _I_ think there’s six things to make a man happy. One is a good cook an’ the other five is cash. However, fur be it from me to argy with you. I got to clear fer Dudley’s, or there wun’t be no dinner.”
“It’s that damn McLaughlin, I betcha,” he pondered. “I got an intuition the cap’n’s got to pay him heavy. Intuition’s a guess, when it comes out right; an’ I’ll bet a schooner to a saucepan I’m right this time. If I was half the man I used to be, it wouldn’t be money McLaughlin’d be gittin’, but _this_!” Menacingly, he doubled his fist.