However, Cappy's interest in the Blue Star Navigation Company did not
wane with the cessation of his activities as chief kicker.
Ordinarily, Mr. Skinner bossed the navigation company as he bossed the
lumber business, for Cappy's private office was merely headquarters
for receiving mail, reading the newspapers, receiving visitors,
smoking an after-luncheon cigar, and having a little nap from three
o'clock until four, at which hour Cappy laid aside the cares of
business and put in two hours at bridge in his club.

Despite this apparent indifference to business, however, Mr. Skinner
handled the navigation company with gloves; for, if Cappy dozed in his
office, he had a habit of keeping one eye open, so to speak, and every
little while he would wake up and veto an order of Skinner's, of which
the latter would have been willing to take an oath Cappy had never
heard. In the matter of engaging new skippers or discharging old ones
Mr. Skinner had to be very careful. Cappy always declared that any
clerk can negotiate successfully a charter at the going rates in a
stiff market, but skippers are, in the final analysis, the Genii of
the Dividends. And Cappy knew skippers. He could get more loyalty
out of them with a mere pat on the back and a kindly word than could
Mr. Skinner, with all his threats, nagging and driving, yet he was an
employer who demanded a full measure of service, and never permitted
sentiment to plead for an incompetent. And his ships were his pets;
in his affections they occupied a position but one degree removed from
that occupied by his only child, in consequence of which he was mighty
particular who hung up his master's ticket in the cabin of a Blue Star
ship. Some idea of the scrupulous care with which he examined all
applicants for a skipper's berth may be gleaned from the fact that any
man discharged from a Blue Star ship stood as much chance of obtaining