"
Cappy nodded at Skinner approvingly, as though to say: "Smart of him,
eh?" Matt continued:
"After sending my wireless to Captain Grant aboard the Tillicum I sent
a cablegram to the Panama Railroad people informing them that, owing
to certain circumstances over which I had no control, the steamer
Tillicum, fully loaded and en route to Panama to discharge cargo, had
been turned back on my hands by the charterers. I informed them I had
diverted the steamer to San Diego for orders, and in the interim,
unless the Panama Railroad guaranteed me by cable immediately sixty
per cent. of the through-freight rate for the Tillicum, and a return
cargo to San Francisco, I would decline to send the Tillicum to
Panama, but would, on the contrary, divert her to Tehuantepec and
transship her cargo over the American-Hawaiian road there. I
figured--"
"You infernal scoundrel!" Cappy Ricks murmured. "You--slippery--devil!"
"Of course," Matt went on calmly, "I had no means of knowing what
freight rate Morrow & Company received; but I figured that they ought
to get about forty per cent., the Panama Railroad about twenty per
cent., and the steamer on the Atlantic side the remaining forty. So I
decided to play safe and ask sixty per cent. of the through rate,
figuring that the Panama Railroad would give it to me rather than have
the Tillicum's cargo diverted over their competitor's road at
Tehuantepec.
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