The door opened and a youth stood in the entrance.
“Mr. J. O. Heyfuss is calling,” he announced.
“Show him in immediately,” Cappy ordered, glad of the opportunity to delay Matt's telephonic acceptance of the vessel at Hudner's price. “Hold on a minute, Matt,” he continued, turning to his son-in-law. “Heyfuss is a ship broker; maybe he has a ship to sell us; she might prove to be a better buy than the _Penelope_... Howdy, Heyfuss? Come in and sit down.”
Mr. Heyfuss entered smilingly, saluted both satellites of the Blue Star and sat down.
“Well, gentlemen,” he announced, “wonders will never cease. Every day I'm seeing, hearing and doing wonderful things in the shipping business. Day before yesterday I bought the old barkentine _Mayfair_. She'd been laid up in Rotten Row for seven years, and for at least four years the tide has been rising and falling inside her. She cost me seven hundred and fifty dollars, and I sold her the same afternoon to Al Hanify for a thousand. Not very much of a profit; but then it was Saturday and everybody closes up shop at noon, you know. So I felt the day wasn't a blank, anyhow.
“And what do you suppose Al did? You'll laugh. He called up Crowley her out on Hanlon's Marine Way, putting a new bottom in her. They're going to spend twenty thousand dollars on her; and when she's ready for sea Redell has a cargo of fir for Sydney waiting for her.
“She'll come back with coal and make her owners at least fifty thousand dollars.”
“That's all very interesting to outsiders, but commonplace stuff to us,” Cappy reminded his visitor. “Have you got a commission to sell a ship for somebody?”
“All right. I'll sell you the _Alden Besse_. She's an old tea clipper, built in the forties; but she's sound and tight. Been a motion picture ship for the past five years. I can deliver her to you for forty thousand dollars.”
“No, you'll not. I sold her to the motion picture people for fifteen hundred,” Cappy countered, “and I don't want her back at any price. I send my boys to sea to earn a safe living, not to visit Davy Jones' locker.”
“Well, I think I might get you the old Australian prison ship, _Success_. She was built at Rangoon in 1790, of teak, and will last forever. Perhaps you saw her when she was exhibited at the Exposition last year. Might get her for you kind of cheap.”