Читать книгу The Ocean Wireless Boys on the Atlantic - Goldfrap John Henry - Страница 4

THE REJECTED REWARD

When Jack returned, he was surprised to hear voices in the cabin. His uncle had a habit of talking to himself, but there was another voice mingling with the old sailor’s deep, rumbling tones.

Wondering greatly who the visitor could be, for somehow the voice sounded different from the bellowings of the old sea cronies who visited the Venus either on business or socially, Jack descended the cabin stairs.

The swinging lamp was lighted and shone down on his uncle and another man, seated on opposite sides of the table.

“By the great main boom, the lad never told me a word of it!” his uncle was saying. “Dived overboard an’ saved your little gal, eh? Well, sir, Jack’s a chip of the old block!”

The man who sat opposite the captain was a portly gentleman with a bald brow, gold-rimmed glasses and close-cropped gray mustache. He spoke with curt, sharp emphasis, as if his minutes were dollars.

“Lucky that a watchman saw and recognized the boy as he sneaked away,” this individual replied. “If it had not been for that, I might never have found him. But I must see him. Where is he?”

“Here he is, sir, to answer for himself,” said the captain, as he heard Jack’s step on the stair.

As the boy entered the cabin the ship-owner jumped to his feet. He crossed the place with a quick, rapid stride and grasped Jack’s free hand.

“I’m proud to shake hands with a youngster like you,” he said in his swift, incisive way, “yes, sir, proud. If it had not been for you, my daughter might have drowned with those dolts all standing round doing nothing. Jove – ”

He mopped his forehead in an agitated way at the very thought of what might have happened.

“That’s all right, sir,” said Jack, “I’m glad I was there when I happened to be. When I knew the little girl was all right, I came away.”

The boy had recognized the shipping magnate from pictures of him that he had seen in the papers. Had he not come around another way from the bakery, he would have been prepared for this august visitor by the sight of his limousine, lying at the head of the dock.

“’Sarn it all, why didn’t you spin me the yarn?” sputtered the captain in an aggrieved tone.

“Oh! there really wasn’t much to tell,” said Jack. “The little girl was clinging to a pile and I went down and got her up. That’s all there was to it. If I hadn’t done it, somebody else would.”

“That is just the point,” roared Mr. Jukes, “somebody else wouldn’t.”

He drew out a check-book and signed his name to a check. He shoved this across the table to Jack, who was standing by his uncle.

“Fill that in for any amount you like, lad,” he said in his dictatorial way. “Make it a good, round sum. Jacob Jukes’ account can stand it.”

Jack colored and hesitated.

“Well, what’s the matter, boy?” sputtered the ship-owner, noting the boy’s hesitation. “That check won’t bite you. I know a whole lot of lads who’d have grabbed at it before it was out of my hand.”

“I beg your pardon, sir,” rejoined Jack, “you’re very generous and – and all that. Maybe you’ll think me ungrateful, but I can’t take that check.”

“Wha – what! Can’t take my check! What’s the matter with the boy?”

“Hev you slipped the cable of your senses, Jack?” hoarsely exclaimed his uncle, in what was meant to be a whisper.

“I don’t want money for just doing a little thing like that,” said the boy stubbornly.

“You don’t mean it. Come, take that check at once. Don’t be a fool!” urged Mr. Jukes with a very red face. “Why can’t you do as I tell you!”

The magnate’s tone was almost angry. He was not used to having his commands disobeyed, and he was commanding Jack to take the check. But the boy resolutely shook his head.

“Why, confound it all, I can’t understand it. Make him take the check at once, captain.”

“Don’t see how I can, if he’s so sot and stubborn about it,” rejoined the captain. Then, turning to Jack, he made another appeal. “Why won’t you take it, Jack?” he growled. “Shiver my timbers, what ails you?”

“Nothing; but I can’t accept money from Mr. Jukes or anybody else, for doing what I did,” said the boy quietly.

Mr. Jukes, with a crimson face, gave up the battle. He reached across the table, took the check and slowly tore it into fragments.

“It is the first time in my experience that I ever encountered such a singular lad as this. Hang me if I don’t think there’s a screw loose somewhere. But after what you did for me this afternoon, never hesitate to call on me if you need anything at any time. Here’s my card.”

He rose, and with a comical mixture of astonishment and indignation on his face, regarded Jack somewhat as he might have looked at some strange freak in nature.

“Thank you, sir,” said the boy, taking the bit of pasteboard, “I didn’t mean to offend you; but – but, well, I couldn’t take that check, that’s all.”

“Well, well, we’ll say no more about it,” said the great man testily. “But remember, I’ll always stand your friend if I can.”

He started to leave the cabin, when he suddenly brought up “all standing,” as the captain would have said, with a sharp exclamation of pain.

“What is it, sir?” demanded that veteran with some concern. “Your figurehead looks like you had some sort of a pain.”

“It is nothing. Just a sharp twinge of my old trouble, rheumatism,” explained the great man. “The damp air of the Basin may have brought it on.”

“Anchor right where you are!” exclaimed the captain, and before Mr. Jukes could say another word, he had darted into the “drug-store” and was back with a bottle full of a villainous-looking black liquid.

“My rheumatiz’ and gout remedy,” he explained.

“Yes, but I am under medical treatment. I – ”

“Keel-haul all your doctors. Throw their medicine overboard,” burst out the captain. “Try a few applications of Cap’n Ready’s Rheumatiz and Gout Specific. Cap’n Joe Trotter of the Flying Scud cured himself with two bottles. Take it! Try it! Rub it in twice a day, night and morning, and in a week you’ll be as spry as a boy, as taut and sound as a cable.”

“Well, well, I’ll try it,” said the magnate good-naturedly in reply to Captain Toby’s outburst of eloquence; “how much is it?”

“One dollar, guaranteed to work if used as directed, or your money back,” rattled on the captain, pocketing a bill which Mr. Jukes peeled off a roll that made Captain Toby open his eyes.

And so, burdened with a bottle of the “Rheumatiz and Gout Specific,” and with the memory of the first person he had ever met who was not willing to accept his bounty, the shipping magnate stepped ashore from the Venus.

“He’ll be dancing a hornpipe in a week,” prophesied Captain Toby; “the Specific has never failed.”

But if he could have seen Mr. Jukes carefully drop the bottle overboard as soon as he reached the shore end of the dock, his opinion of him would have fallen considerably. As it was, the old seaman was loud in his praise.

“Think of him, the skipper of a big corporation and all that, wisiting us on the Wenus!” he exclaimed. “Why, Jack, that’ll be something to tell about. The great Mr. Jukes! Maybe this’ll all lead to something! If the Specific works like it did on Cap’n Joe Trotter, he may make me his physician in ordinary.”

“Let’s hope it won’t work the same way on him that it did on Captain Zeb Holliday,” said Jack with a smile.

“Huh! That deck-swabbing lubber!” cried the captain, with intense scorn. “He drank it instead of rubbing it in, although the directions was wrote on the bottle plain as print. But, Jack, lad, why didn’t you take that check? Consarn it all – ”

“It’s no good talking about it, uncle,” said the boy, cutting him short; “I couldn’t take it; that’s all there is to that.”

“Confound you for a young jackass! Douse my topsails, but I’m proud of you, lad!” roared the captain, bringing down a mighty hand on Jack’s shoulders. “And now let’s pipe all hands to supper.”

Two days later, Jack happened to pass the dock where the Titan liner lay. She was taking aboard her cargo from a pipe-line – crude, black oil destined for Antwerp. Because of the adventure in which he had participated alongside her, Jack felt an interest in the ugly, powerful tanker. As he was looking at her, he noticed some men busy at the tops of her squat steel masts.

All at once they began to haul something aloft. What it was, Jack recognized the next moment. It was the antennæ of a wireless plant. They were installing a station on the ship, which bore the name “Ajax” on her round, whaleback stern.

Jack’s heart gave a sudden leap. A great idea had come to him. Mr. Jukes owned the Titan Line. The ship-owner had said to him only two nights before: “Remember, I’ll always stand your friend if I can. Never hesitate to call on me if you need anything at any time.”

And right then Jack needed something mighty badly. He needed the job of wireless operator on board the Ajax.