Blow the Man Down - A Romance of the Coast

"O I am not a man o' war or privateer," said he,

Blow high, blow low, and so sailed we!

"But I'm an honest pirate a-looking for my fee,

Cruising down along the coast of the High Barbaree."

--Shanty of the "Prince Luther."

Mr. Fletcher Fogg privately and mentally and metaphorically slapped

himself on the back whenever he considered his many activities.

He was perfectly certain that he was the best little two-handed general

operator of an all-around character that any gentleman could secure

when that gentleman wanted a job done and did not care to give explicit

instructions as to the details of procedure.

The look of grief and regret that the fat face of Mr. Fogg could assume

when said gentleman--after the job was done--blamed the methods as

unsanctioned, even though the result had been achieved--that expression

was a study in humility--humility with its tongue in its cheek.

If Mr. Fogg could have advertised his business to suit himself--being

not a whit ashamed of his tactics--he would have issued a card inscribed

about as follows: "Mr. FLETCHER FOGG: Promoting and demoting. Building and

busting. The whole inside of any financial or industrial

cheese cleaned out without disturbing the outside rind. All

still work done noiselessly. Plenty of brass bands for loud

work. Broad shoulders supplied to take on all the blame."

Mr. Fogg, in the presence of Julius Marston, was properly obsequious,

but not a bit fawning. He wiped away the moisture patches beside his

nose with a purple handkerchief, and put it back into his outside breast

pocket with the corners sticking out like attentive ears. He crossed his

legs and set on his knee an ankle clothed in a purple silk stocking. On

account of his rotundity he was compelled to hold the ankle in place in

the firm clutch of his hand. He settled his purple tie with the other

hand.

"I'm glad I was in reach when you wanted me," he assured Mr. Marston.

"I'm just in on the Triton. And I want to tell you that you're running

that steamboat line in the way an American business man wants to have

it run. If I had been on any other line, sir, I wouldn't have been

here to-day when you were looking for me. Everything else on the coast

prowling along half-speed, but down slammed the old Triton, scattering

'em out from underfoot like an auto going through a flock of chickens,

but not a jar or a scrape or a jolt, and into her dock, through two days

of thick fog, exactly on the dot. That's the way an American wants to be

carried, sir."