remainder of his old age as president emeritus of all his companies.
However, if there was one thing about Cappy you could depend
upon absolutely it was the consistency of his inconsistency. For,
having announced his retirement, his very next move was to bewail his
inability to retire. He insisted upon clinging to the business like a
barnacle to a ship, and was always very much in evidence whenever any
deal of the slightest importance was about to be consummated. Indeed,
he was never so thoroughly in command as when, his first burst of
enthusiasm anent the acquisition of the _Narcissus_ at fifty per cent.
of her value having passed, he discovered that his son-in-law planned
to order Mike Murphy off the quarter-deck of the _Retriever_ onto the
bridge of the _Narcissus_, while an unknown answering to the name of
Terence Reardon had been selected for her chief engineer.

Cappy listened to Matt Peasley's announcement; then with a
propitiatory "Ahem! Hum! Harump-h-h-h!" he hitched himself forward in
his chair and gazed at Matt over the rims of his spectacles.

"Tell me, Matt," he demanded presently, "who is this man Reardon?
I do not recall such an engineer in our employ--and I thought I
knew them all."

"He is not in our employ, sir. He has been chief engineer of the
_Arab_ for the past eight years, and prior to that he was chief
of the _Narcissus_. It was Reardon who told me what ailed her.
She's a hog on coal, and the Oriental steamship people used to nag
him about the fuel bills. Their port engineer didn't agree with
Reardon as to what was wrong with her, so he left. He assures me
that if her condensers are retubed she'll burn from seven to ten
tons of coal less per day."