The Cruise of the Jasper B. Read online

  Produced by John Gidusko. HTML version by Al Haines.

  THE CRUISE OF THE JASPER B.

  BY

  DON MARQUIS

  TO ALL THE COPYREADERS ON ALL THE NEWSPAPERS OF AMERICA

  CONTENTS

  CHAPTER

  I A BRIGHT BLADE LEAPS FROM A RUSTY SCABBARD II THE ROOM OF ILLUSION III A SCHOONER, A SKIPPER, AND A SKULL IV A BAD MAN TO CROSS V BEAUTY IN DISTRESS VI LADY AGATHA'S STORY VII FIRST BLOOD FOR CLEGGETT VIII A FLAME LEAPS OUT OF THE DARK IX MYSTERIES MULTIPLY X IN THE ENEMY'S CAMP XI REPARTEE AND PISTOLS XII THE SECOND OBLONG BOX XIII THE SOUL OF LOGAN BLACK XIV CLEGGETT STANDS BY HIS SHIP XV NIGHT, TEMPEST, LOVE AND BATTLE XVI ROMANCE REGNANT XVII MISS PRINGLE CALLS ON MR. CLEGGETT XVIII THE MAN IN THE BLUE PAJAMAS XIX TWO GREAT MEN MEET XX THE PSYCHOLOGICAL DETECTIVE XXI THE THIRD OBLONG BOX ARRIVES XXII DANCING ON THE DECK XXIII CUTLASSES XXIV THE DUEL XXV THE SECRET OF THE VESSEL'S HOLD XXVI A DOG DIES GAME XXVII CLEGGETT ACCOMMODATES THE KING

  CHAPTER I

  A BRIGHT BLADE LEAPS FROM A RUSTY SCABBARD

  On an evening in April, 191-, Clement J. Cleggett walked sedately intothe news room of the New York Enterprise with a drab-coloredwalking-stick in his hand. He stood the cane in a corner, changed hissober street coat for a more sober office jacket, adjusted a greeneyeshade below his primly brushed grayish hair, unostentatiously satdown at the copy desk, and unobtrusively opened a drawer.

  From the drawer he took a can of tobacco, a pipe, a pair of scissors, apaste-pot and brush, a pile of copy paper, a penknife and threehalf-lengths of lead pencil.

  The can of tobacco was not remarkable. The pipe was not picturesque.The scissors were the most ordinary of scissors. The copy paper wasquite undistinguished in appearance. The lead pencils had the mostuntemperamental looking points.

  Cleggett himself, as he filled and lighted the pipe, did it in the mostmatter-of-fact sort of way. Then he remarked to the head of the copydesk, in an average kind of voice:

  "H'lo, Jim."

  "H'lo, Clegg," said Jim, without looking up. "Might as well begin onthis bunch of early copy, I guess."

  For more than ten years Cleggett had done the same thing at the sametime in the same manner, six nights of the week.

  What he did on the seventh night no one ever thought to inquire. If anymember of the Enterprise staff had speculated about it at all he wouldhave assumed that Cleggett spent that seventh evening in some wayessentially commonplace, sober, unemotional, quiet, colorless, dull andBrooklynitish.

  Cleggett lived in Brooklyn. The superficial observer might have saidthat Cleggett and Brooklyn were made for each other.

  The superficial observer! How many there are of him! And how much hemisses! He misses, in fact, everything.

  At two o'clock in the morning a telegraph operator approached the copydesk and handed Cleggett a sheet of yellow paper, with the remark:

  "Cleggett--personal wire."

  It was a night letter, and glancing at the signature Cleggett saw thatit was from his brother who lived in Boston. It ran:

  Uncle Tom died yesterday. Don't faint now. He splits bulk fortunebetween you and me. Lawyers figure nearly $500,000 each. Mostly easilynegotiable securities. New will made month ago while sore at presidenttemperance outfit. Blood thicker than Apollinaris after all. PoorUncle Tom.

  Edward.

  Despite Edward's thoughtful warning, Cleggett did nearly faint. Nothingcould have been less expected. Uncle Tom was an irascibleprohibitionist, and one of the most deliberately disobliging men onearth. Cleggett and his brother had long ceased to expect anythingfrom him. For twenty years it had been thoroughly understood thatUncle Tom would leave his entire estate to a temperance society.Cleggett had ceased to think of Uncle Tom as a possible factor in hislife. He did not doubt that Uncle Tom had changed the will to gainsome point with the officials of the temperance society, intending tochange it once again after he had been deferred to, cajoled, andflattered enough to placate his vanity. But death had stepped in justin time to disinherit the enemies of the Demon Rum.

  Cleggett read the wire through twice, and then folded it and put itinto his pocket. He rose and walked toward the managing editor's room.As he stepped across the floor there was a little dancing light in hiseyes, there was a faint smile upon his lips, that were quite foreign tothe staid and sober Cleggett that the world knew. He was quiet, but hewas almost jaunty, too; he felt a little drunk, and enjoyed the feeling.

  He opened the managing editor's door with more assurance than he hadever displayed before. The managing editor, a pompous, tall, thin manwith a drooping frosty mustache, and cold gray eyes in a cold gray facethat somehow reminded one of the visage of a walrus, was preparing togo home.

  "Well?" he said, shortly.

  He was a man for whom Cleggett had long felt a secret antipathy. Theman was, in short, the petty tyrant of Cleggett's little world.

  "Can you spare me a couple of minutes, Mr. Wharton?" said Cleggett.But he did not say it with the air of a person who really sues for ahearing.

  "Yes, yes--go on." Mr. Wharton, who had risen from his chair, sat downagain. He was distinctly annoyed. He was ungracious. He was usuallyungracious with Cleggett. His face set itself in the expression italways took when he declined to consider raising a man's salary.Cleggett, who had been refused a raise regularly every three months forthe past two years, was familiar with the look.

  "Go on, go on--what is it?" asked Mr. Wharton unpleasantly, frowningand stroking the frosty mustache, first one side and then the other.

  "I just stepped in to tell you," said Cleggett quietly, "that I don'tthink much of the way you are running the Enterprise."

  Wharton stopped stroking his mustache so quickly and so amazedly thatone might have thought he had run into a thorn amongst the hirsutegrowth and pricked a finger. He glared. He opened his mouth. Butbefore he could speak Cleggett went on:

  "Three years ago I made a number of suggestions to you. You treated mecontemptuously--very contemptuously!"

  Cleggett paused and drew a long breath, and his face became quite red.It was as if the anger in which he could not afford to indulge himselfthree years before was now working in him with cumulative effect.Wharton, only partially recovered from the shock of Cleggett's suddenarraignment, began to stammer and bluster, using the words nearest histongue:

  "You d-damned im-p-pertinent------"

  "Just a moment," Cleggett interrupted, growing visibly angrier, andseeming to enjoy his anger more and more. "Just a word more. I hadintended to conclude my remarks by telling you that my contempt forYOU, personally, is unbounded. It is boundless, sir! But since youhave sworn at me, I am forced to conclude this interview in anotherfashion."

  And with a gesture which was not devoid of dignity Cleggett drew froman upper waistcoat pocket a card and flung it on Wharton's desk. Afterwhich he stepped back and made a formal bow.

  Wharton looked at the card. Bewilderment almost chased the anger fromhis face.

  "Eh," he said, "what's this?"

  "My card, sir! A friend will wait on you tomorrow!"

  "Tomorrow? A friend? What for?"

  Cleggett folded his arms and regarded the managing editor with a touchof the supercilious in his manner.

  "If you were a gentleman," he said, "you would have no difficulty inunderstanding these things. I have just done you the honor ofchallenging you to a duel."

  Mr. Wharton's mouth opened as if he were about to explode in a roar ofincredulous laughter. But meeting Cleggett's eyes, which were, indeed,sparkling with a most remarkable light, his jaw dropped, and he turnedslightly pale. He rose from his chair a
nd put the desk between himselfand Cleggett, picking up as he did so a long pair of shears.

  "Put down the scissors," said Cleggett, with a wave of his hand. "I donot propose to attack you now."

  And he turned and left the managing editor's little office, closing thedoor behind him.

  The managing editor tiptoed over to the door and, with the scissorsstill grasped in one hand, opened it about a quarter of an inch.Through this crack Wharton saw Cleggett walk jauntily towards thecorner where his hat and coat were hanging. Cleggett took off his wornoffice jacket, rolled it into a ball, and flung it into a waste paperbasket. He put on his street coat and hat and picked up thedrab-colored cane. Swinging the stick he moved towards the door intothe hall. In the doorway he paused, cocked his hat a trifle, turnedtowards the managing editor's door, raised his hand with his pipe in itwith the manner of one who points a dueling pistol, took careful aim atthe second button of the managing editor's waistcoat, and clucked. Atthe cluck the managing editor drew back hastily, as if Cleggett hadactually presented a firearm; Cleggett's manner was so rapt and fatalthat it carried conviction. Then Cleggett laughed, cocked his hat onthe other side of his head and went out into the corridor whistling.Whistling, and, since faults as well as virtues must be told,swaggering just a little.

  When the managing editor had heard the elevator come up, pause, and godown again, he went out of his room and said to the city editor:

  "Mr. Herbert, don't ever let that man Cleggett into this office again.He is off--off mentally. He's a dangerous man. He's a homicidalmaniac. More'n likely he's been a quiet, steady drinker for years, andnow it's begun to show on him."

  But nothing was further from Cleggett than the wish ever to go into theEnterprise office again. As he left the elevator on the ground floorhe stabbed the astonished elevator boy under the left arm with his caneas a bayonet, cut him harmlessly over the head with his cane as asaber, tossed him a dollar, and left the building humming:

  "Oh, the Beau Sabreur of the Grande Armee Was the Captain Tarjeanterre!"

  It is thus, with a single twitch of her playful fingers, that Fatewill sometimes pluck from a man the mask that has obscured his realidentity for many years. It is thus that Destiny will suddenly draw abright blade from a rusty scabbard!