Cappy Ricks sprang to attention. Presently, through the partition, his cracked old voice reached Mr. Skinner:
_“Then conquer we must, when our cause is so just; And this be our motto: 'May we nev-er go bust!'”_
“What's doing here?” Mr. Skinner demanded, banging at the door, which was locked.
“Go way back and sit down!” Cappy shrilled. “I'll show you and Matt Peasley where to head in, yet--see if I don't!”
Cappy Ricks and J. Augustus Redell arrived at the Merchants' Exchange promptly at one o'clock on the date of the sale of the S. S. _General Carranza,_ as the _Bavarian_ was now called. Just inside the door they paused and looked at each other.
“Whe-e-e-ew!” murmured Cappy Ricks. “All the shipping men in the world are here to bid on our property, Gus.”
Mr. Redell whistled softly. “This,” he said, “will be some auction!”
“There is only one thing that a shipping man in this country has more respect for than an Order in Council--and that is an Order in the United States District Court!”
“Naturally. It's backed up by our army and navy.”
“By the Holy Pink-Toed Prophet, somebody's sporting blood is going to be tested today; and something tells, me, Augustus, my dear young friend, that it's going to be Matt Peasley's.”
“Having used German methods to bring about this auction sale,” he confessed, “I concluded to steal a little more of this Teutonic stuff; so I established a system of espionage in Skinner's office and another in Matt Peasley's. Gus, I got a lot of low-down information on those two young pups; they're trying to slip something over on the old dog.”
“Well, they'll never teach him any new tricks, Cappy.”
“You know it! I observe that, as usual, Jim Searles will conduct the auction. He's climbing up on the block now, and, by the Toenails of Moses, Matt Peasley is on the job! Look, Gus! You can see his black head sticking up out of the heart of the riot.”
As Cappy and Redell joined the crowd Jim Searles, by acclamation the auctioneer of the Port of San Francisco, rapped smartly with his little gavel, and a tense silence settled over the crowd.
“This,” Mr. Searles announced, “will be a fight to a finish, winner take all. In accordance with an order of the United States District Court I am about to sell, at public auction, to the highest bidder, the Mexican Steamship _General Carranza_, ex-German Steamship _Bavarian_, to satisfy the following judgments: Mr. J. Augustus Redell--”