"Here!" cries Corkey. "What's your name?" The boy stammers in his speech.

"N-n-n-noah!" he replies.

"Why not?" inquires Corkey. "You bet your sweet life you tell me what your name is!"

"N-n-n-noah!"

"Why not? Tell me that!"

"M-m-my name is N-n-noah!" exclaims the boy.

"Ho! ho!" laughs Corkey. "Let's see them fingers! Got any more in your pockets?"

"N-n-n-noah," answers the boy.

"Got six toes, too?"

"Y-y-yes, sah!"

"A dead mascot!" says Corkey. It is an auspice of the most eminent fortune. Corkey from this moment rejects the collectorship, and stakes all on going to Congress. Thoughts of murdering Lockwin out here in this wilderness come into the man's mind.

"I wouldn't do that, nohow. Oh, I'll never be worked off—none of that for me!"

In Corkey's tongue, to be worked off is to be hanged.

"Nixy. I'll never be worked off. But it would be easy to throw him from the deck to-night. Some of the boys would do it, too, if they knew him."

The man grows murderous.

"Easy enough. Somebody slap his jaw and get him in a fight. Oh, he'll fight quick enough. Then three or four of 'em tip him into the lake. Why, it ain't even the lake out here. It's Georgian Bay. It's out of the world, too. My father was in Congress. My grandfather was in. Wonder how they got there? Wonder if they did any dirt?"

Corkey's face is hard and black. He rises. He feels ill. He swears at the mascot. "I thought he had too many points when I see him."

The train is late. The propeller, Africa, lies at the dock ready to start.

"Well, if I come to such a place as this I must expect a jackleg railroad. They say they've got an old tub there at the dock. Good stiff fall breeze, too."

The thought of danger resuscitates Corkey. He finds some sailors, tells them how he was elected to Congress, slaps them on the back, tries to split the bar with his fist, a feat which has often won votes, and tightens his heart with raw Canadian whisky.

"Going to be rough, Corkey."

"'Spose so," nods Corkey. "Is she pretty good?"

"The Africa?"

"Um-huh!"

"Oh, well, she's toted me often enough. She's like the little nig they carry."

"Does that mascot sail with her?"

"To be sure."

"That settles it. Landlord, give us that sour mash."

"Train's coming!"

The drinks are hurriedly swallowed and paid for, and the men are off for the depot near by.

"How are ye, Lockwin?" "How-dy-do, Corkey. Where have you got me? Going to murder me and get to Congress in my place?"

"No, but I expect you're going to resign and let me in."

"Where's your boat? I hear they're waiting. I suppose we can get supper on board. Why did you choose such a place as this?"

"Well, cap, I had a long slate to fix up when I came here. If I was to be collector, of course I want to make my pile out of it, and I must take care of the boys. But I didn't start out to be collector, and I've about failed to make any slate at all. Yet, if I'm to sell out to you folks, I reckon I couldn't do it on any boat in the open lakes. I'm not sure but Georgian Bay is purty prominent. Captain Grant, this is Mr. Lockwin, of Chicago. This is the captain of the Africa. Mr. Bodine, Mr. Lockwin, of Chicago. Mr. Bodine is station-keeper here. Mr. Troy, Mr. Lockwin. Mr. Troy keeps the hotel. Mr. Flood, Mr. Lockwin. Mr. Flood runs the bank and keeps the postoffice and general store."

The group nears the hotel.

Corkey is seized with a paroxysm of tobacco strangling, ending with a sneeze that is a public event. He is again black in the face, but he has been polite.

The uninitiated express their astonishment at a sneeze so mighty, and enter the inn. The women of the dining-room come peeping into the bar-room, But the captain explains:

"That sneeze carried Corkey to Congress. I've heern tell how he'd be in the middle of a speech and some smart Aleck would do something to raise the laugh on the gentleman. Corkey would get to strangling and then would end with a sneeze that would carry the house. It's great!"

"That's what it is!" says Mr. Bodine.

"Gentlemen, my father had it. It's no laughing matter. God sakes, how that does shake a man!"

But Corkey has not only done the polite act. He has relieved his mind. He is no longer in danger of being worked off.

"I wouldn't be likely to do up my man if I introduced him to everybody."

Yet the opportunity to murder Lockwin, as a theoretical proposition, dwells with Corkey, now that he is clearly innocent.

"I might have given him a false name. He'd a had to stand it, because he don't like this business nohow. Everything was favorable. Have we time for a drink, cap'n?" The last sentence aloud.

The captain looks at the hotel-keeper. The captain also sells the stuff aboard. But will the captain throw a stone into Mr. Troy's bar?

"I guess we have time," nods the captain.

The party drinks. The gale rises. One hundred wood-choppers, bound for Thunder Bay, go aboard. The craft rubs her fenders and strains the wavering pier. It is a dark night and cold.

"No sailor likes a north wind," says Corkey.

"I have no reason to like it," says Lockwin.

"I'll bet he couldn't be done up so very easy after all," thinks Corkey with a quick, loud guttural bark, due to his tobacco. "I wonder why he looks so blue? It can't be they won't trade at Washington."

The thought of no office at all frightens the marine reporter. He asks himself why he did not put the main question at the depot before the other folks met Lockwin. The paroxysm has made a coward of Corkey. He gets mental satisfaction by thoughts of the weather. The mate of the Africa is muttering that they ought to tie up for the night.

"What ye going to do?" asks Corkey of Captain Grant.

"The captain is well sprung with sour mash," says Corkey to himself.

"We're going to take these choppers to Thunder Bay to-night," says the captain with an oath.

Supper is set in the after-cabin. It is nine o'clock before the engine moves. There are few at table. After supper Corkey and Lockwin enter the forward cabin and take a sofa that sits across the little room. The sea is rough, but the motion of the boat is least felt at this place.

Lockwin has the appearance of a man who is utterly unwilling to be happy. Corkey has regarded this demeanor as a political wile.

"I'll fetch this feller!" Corkey has observed to himself.

But on broaching the question of politics, the commodore has found that Lockwin is scarcely able to speak. He sinks in profound meditation, and is slowly recalled to the most obvious matters.

The genial Corkey is puzzled. "He's going to resign, sure. He beats me—this feller does."

The boat lunges and groans. It lurches sidewise three or four times, and there are sudden moans of the sick on all sides beyond thin wooden partitions.

"I bet he gits sick," says Corkey. "Pard, are ye sick now? Excuse me, Mr. Lockwin, but are ye sick any?"

"No," says Lockwin, and he is not sick. He wishes he were.

"Well, let's git to business, then. You must excuse me, but—"

Corkey is seized with a paroxysm. He gives a screeching sneeze, and the cries of the sick grow furious.

"Who is that?" asks the mate, peering out of his room and then going on deck.

David Lockwin is at the end of his forces. This is life. This is politics. This is expediency. This is the way men become illustrious. He straightens his legs, sinks his chin and pushes his hands far in his pockets.

"Before I begin," says Corkey, "let me tell ye, that if you're sick I'd keep off the decks. You have a gold watch. Some one might nail ye."

"Is that so?" asks Lockwin, his thoughts far away.

"He beats me!" comments the contestant. "Well, pard, if you're not sick, I'd like to say a good many things. I suppose them ducks at Washington weakened. If they give me collector, here's my slate."

Corkey produces a long list of names, written on copy-paper.

"I bet she don't budge an inch," he remarks, as he hears the north wind and waves pounding at one end, and the engine pounding at the other.

"Needn't be afraid, pard. Sometimes they go out in Georgian Bay and burn some coal. Then if they can't git anywhere, they come back."

Corkey is pleased with his own remark. "Sometimes," he adds, "they don't come back. They are bluffed back by the wind."

Lockwin sits in the same uncommunicative attitude.

"Pardner, you didn't come out into Georgian Bay for nothing. I know that. So I will tell you what I am going to do with the collectorship. By the great jumping Jewhillikins, that's a wave in the stateroom windows! I never see anything like that."

The captain passes.

"High sea, cap'n!" It is not in good form for Corkey to rise. He is a passenger, with a navigator's reputation to sustain.

"High hell!" says the captain.

"What a hullabaloo them choppers is a-making," says Corkey to Lockwin. "I reckon they're about scared to death. Well, as I was a-saying, I want to know what the jam-jorum said."

Corkey is terrified. He does not fear that he will go down in Georgian Bay. He dreads to hear the bursting of the bladders that are supporting him in his sea of glory.

Lockwin starts as from a waking dream:

"I beg your pardon, Mr. Corkey, but I could have told you at the start that the administration, when it was confronted by the question whether or not it would give you anything, said; 'No!' It will give you nothing. The administration said it would not appoint you lightkeeper at Ozaukee."

"There hain't no light at Ozaukee," says Corkey.

"That's what the administration said, too," replies Lockwin.

"Did you tell 'em I got you fine?" asks Corkey.

"I told them I thought you had as good a case as I had."

"Did you tell 'em I'd knock seventeen kinds of stuffin' out of their whole party? That I'd—"

Corkey is at his wits ends. His challenge has been accepted. At the outset he had saved fifty twenty-dollar gold pieces out of his wages. He has spent fifteen already. The thought of a contest against the machine candidate carries with it the loss of the rest of the little hoard. He has boasted that he will retain Emery Storrs, the eminent advocate. Corkey grows black in the face. He hiccoughs. He strangles.

He unburdens himself with a supreme sneeze. The mate enters the cabin.

"I knew that sneeze would wreck us!" he cries savagely.

"Is your old tub sinking?" asks Corkey, in retort.

"That's what she is!" replies the mate.

Corkey looks like a man relieved. Politics is off his mind. He will not be laughed at on the docks now.

"Pardner, I'm sorry we're in this hole," he says, as the twain rush through the door to the deck. It was dim under that swinging lamp. It is dark out here. The wind is bitter. The second mate stands hard by.

"How much water is in?" asks Corkey.

"Plenty," says the second mate.

"What have ye done?" asks Corkey.

"Captain's blind, stavin' drunk, and won't do nothin'."

"Nice picnic!" says Corkey.

"Nice picnic!" says the second mate, warming up.

It is midnight in the middle of Georgian Bay. There is a fall gale such as comes only once in four or five years. In the morning there will be three hundred wrecks on the great lakes—the most inhospitable bodies of water in the world.

And of all stormy places let the sailor keep out of Georgian Bay.



CHAPTER XIII

OFF CAPE CROKER

Corkey has climbed to the upper deck and stands there alone in the darkness and the gale. The engine stops. The steamer falls into the trough of the sea.

The Africa carries two yawls attached to her davits. Corkey is feeling about one of these yawls. He suspects that the lines are old. He steps to the other side. He strains at a rope. He strives to unloose it from its cleat. The line is stiff and almost frozen.

"I'd be afraid to lower myself, anyhow," he observes, for he has the notion that everything about the Africa is insecure.

The ship gives another lurch. Something must be done. Almost before he knows it, Corkey has cut loose the stern. The rope seems strong.

Now he must unwind the bow line from its cleat, or he will lose his boat. He kicks at the cleat. He loosens a loop. He raises the boat and then lowers it. The tackle works.

The other yawl and its tackle roll and creak in the gale. Nobody else comes up the ladders.

The man aloft pulls his line out and fastens it to the cleat which he tried to kick off. He seizes the stern of the yawl and hoists it far over the upper deck. The yawl falls outside the gunwale below, with a great crash and splintering of oars.

"She's there!" says Corkey, feeling the taut line. "She's there, and the rope is good. The davit is good."

The people below seem to know that a boat is being put out. But Corkey is the only man on the ship who thinks the idea practicable. "Of what use to lower a small boat," say the sailors, "in Georgian Bay?"

The man above must descend on that little line. He doesn't want to do that. He goes to the other boat, and makes a feeble experiment of hoisting and lowering, by means of both davits, the man to sit in the yawl. "I couldn't do it!" he vows, and recrosses.

"What'll I do when I get down there?" he mutters. "How'll I get loose?"

He must make his descent knife in hand.

"I can't do it!" he says, and gets out his knife. It is a large fur-handled hunting knife—like Corkey in its style.

Corkey peers down on deck. The wood-choppers are fastening life-preservers about their bodies. Whether they be crying or shouting, cannot be told.

He sees human forms hurrying past the cabin window, and there is reflected the yellow, wooden, ribby thing which he knows to be a life-preserver.

It is a cheering thing in such a moment. "I wish I had one," he says, but he holds to the rope of his boat.

There is no crew, in the proper sense of the word. Not an officer or man on board feels a responsibility for the lives of the passengers. As at a country summer resort, each person must wait on himself.

"Nobody is better'n we are," says the captain.

The Africa is rapidly foundering.

"She must be as rotten as punk," sneers Corkey. He thinks of his cheerful desk at the newspaper office. He thinks of his marine register. He tries to recall the rating of this hulk of an Africa.

"Anyhow, it is tough!" he laments.

The wind is perhaps less boisterous since the engine slacked. The rays of light from the cabin lamps pierce and split the waves. Corkey never saw so much foam before.

"It's an easy good-bye for all of us," he says, and falls ill.

But shall he wait for the Africa to settle?

"She'll pull me down, sure!" he comments.

Shall he wait much longer, then?

"All them roosters will be up here, and then we can't do nothing. Yet I wish I had somebody with me. Oh, Lockwin! I say, hello! Old man! Lockwin! Come up this way!"

For a moment there is nothing to be heard but the furious whistling of the gale about the mast in front. There is nobody in the wheel-house to the best of Corkey's eyesight.

There are three or four booming sounds. Corkey is startled. They are repeated.

It is the yawl making its hollow sound.

But there are no noises of human beings. "Oddest thing I ever see!" says Corkey. "I didn't know a shipwreck was like this. Everything is different from what is printed—Lord save me!"

The Africa is rolling.

"Here goes!" It is now or never.

Corkey has short, tough fingers. He grasps that rope like a vise. He wraps his left leg well in the coils. He kicks the steamer with his right. The small boat does not touch the water when the steamer is sitting straight in the sea.

It is a horrible turmoil in which to enter. Perhaps he came down too soon!

"I wish I had some one with me now. Mebbe the two of us would get an advantage."

The second mate looks over the gunwale from the prow of the steamer. He knows a land-lubber is handling a yawl.

"D—— fool!" he mutters.

In the Georgian Bay, if the ship go down, all hands are to drown. Only sham sailors like Corkey are to make any effort, beyond fastening pieces of wood about their waists.

"I wonder if I'd come out here for this if I'd got onto it?" Then the grim features relax. "I wonder if his nobs would?"

Corkey's feet rest on the prow of the small boat. He asks if he fastened that rope securely at the cleat. He has asked that all the way down. Perhaps the steamer is not going to sink.

"Whoopy!"

Corkey is under the steamer's side, deep in the waves. He goes down suddenly, cold, frightened, benumbed. He feels that some one is trying to pull the rope out of his hands. It must be Lockwin. The drowning man clutches with a hundred forces. The tug increases. The struggling man will lose the rope. Lockwin is striking Corkey with a bludgeon. That is unfair! There is a last pull, and Corkey comes up out of the waves.

What has happened? The Africa has rolled nearly over, but is righting.

Corkey's wits return. "I've lost my knife!" he cries, in bitter disappointment. But, lo! his knife is in his hands. He can with difficulty unloose his fingers from the rope.

The Africa is listing upon him again. He dreads that abyss of waters. He cuts the rope far above him and he falls in the sea, the entire scope of his life passing in a red fire before his eyes.

Beside, there is a drowning thought that he has gone out to die before the rest. At the last, when he swung out as the Africa rolled toward him he wanted to climb back.

Now the red fire is gone and Corkey can think. He believes he is drowning. "It's because I wasn't a real sailor," he argues. "The sailors knew better."

Something pulls him. It is the rope which he holds. He knows now that he has a yawl on the end of that line. He pulls and pulls—and comes up to the air, a choking, sneezing, exceedingly active human being. The yawl is riding the water. He rolls into the boat at the prow. He feels quickly for the oars and finds two that are in their locks. Water is deep in the bottom. There is nothing to bail with.

But the joy of the little man is keen. "I'm saved! That's what I am! I'm saved!"

He thinks he hears a new noise—a great sough—the pouring of waters. He is moved sidewise in his boat. He wipes the mist from his eyes and peers in all directions for the ship.

"Where in God's name is she?" It is the most frightful thought Corkey has ever entertained.

The Africa has gone down. It is as sure as that Corkey sits in the yawl, safe for the moment. The spirit of the man sinks with the ship, and then rides high again.

"They're nothing to me!" he says. "I'm the only contestant, too!"

He is too brave. The thought seems sacrilegious. He grows faint with fear! All alone on Georgian Bay!

The boat leaps and settles, leaps and settles. The oars fly in his face, and are jerked away. The boat falls on something solid. What is that? It hits the boat again. An oar flies out of Corkey's hand. His hand seizes the gunwale for security. A warmer hand is felt. Corkey pulls on the hand—a head—a kinky head—comes next. The thing is alive, and is welcome. Corkey pulls with both hands. A small form comes over the gunwale just as a wave strikes the side of the yawl with the only noise that can be heard. The yawl does not capsize. The boy begins bailing with his hands.

It is the mascot. "Hooray!" cries the man. His confidence returns. He hears the boy paddling the water. The rebellious oars are seized with hope, but Corkey feels as if he were high on a fractious horse,

"Bail, you moke!" he commands in tones that are heard for a hundred yards.

"Bail, you cross-eyed, left-handed, two-thumbed, six-toed, stuttering moke!"

The boy paddles with his hands. The man, by spasmodic efforts, holds the boat against the wind for a minute, and then loses his control.

"Bail, you moke!" he screams, as the tide goes against him.

The hands fly faster.

The boat comes back against the wind and the great seas split on each side of the prow.

The swimmers hear Corkey.

"Lordy!" he says. "I know I hit a man then with that right oar. I felt it smash him. There! we're on him now! Bail, you moke! No stopping, or I throw you in! Stop that bailing and catch that duck there! Got him? Hang on!"

It is a wood-chopper.

This yawl is like a wild animal. It springs upward, it rolls, it flounders. It is like a wild bronco newly haltered. How can these many heads hope to get upon so spirited a steed? See it leap backward and on end! Now up, now sidewise, now vertically!

But the swimmers are also the sport of the waves. They, too, are thrown far aloft. They, too, sink deeply.

"There, I hit that man again, I know I did! Don't you feel him? They must be thick. Come this way, all you fellers! I can take ye!"

The boat is leaping high. These survivors are brave and good.

The wood-chopper, with his wooden life-preserver, is clumsy getting in. He angers Corkey.

"Bail, you moke! Let the other fellows fish for the floaters!"

It inspires Corkey, this frequent admonition of the boy. But the boat cavorts dizzily.

"Bail, you moke! You black devil! Don't you forget it!" The oars go fast and furious, often in the air, and each time with a volley of oaths.

The wood-chopper has seized a man. It is another wood-chopper. There are now four souls in the boat.

It leaps less like an athlete.

It has been half an hour since the Africa went down. There still are cries. To all these, Corkey replies: "Come on! all you fellers that has life-preservers!" But it is incredible that any more should get in the yawl.

Nevertheless, one, two, three, four, five, six wood-choppers arrive in the next half-hour, and all are saved. Tugging for dear life, Corkey holds his boat against the wind.

"There!" cries the commander. "I strike him again!"

A wood-chopper this time grasps a floating man who can make little effort for himself. A half-dozen pair of hands bring him aboard. He sinks on a seat. The boat is now full. It leaps less lightly. The commander is jubilant. He thinks himself safe. He returns to his favorite topic, the mascot.

"You're from the Africa, ain't you? Bail, you moke! He-oh-he! Golly, that was a big one!"

"Yessah!"

"You're Noah. Good name! Fine name! Where's Ararat? He-oh-he!"

"Never seed a-a-airy-rat."

"Bail, you moke! Don't you give me more o' your lip! Bail, you little devil! Don't you see—he-oh—Godsakes! Lookout! Bail, all you fellers! Other side! Quick! It's no good! Hang on! All you fellers."

The boat is turning. Hands grasp the gunwale. The gunwale sinks. Hands rise. The back of the boat rolls toward them. The hands scramble and pat the back of the boat. The gunwale comes over. The boat is right side up. She still leaps. She still struggles to be free. Hand after hand lets go. Six hands remain. The boat rises and ends about. Then the bow rises; next the stern. The yawl strives persistently to shake free from the daring creatures who have so far escaped the Africa and the storm. The boy turns on the gunwale, as it were a trapeze. He opens the locker. He finds a tin pie-plate. He bails.

Corkey gets in.

"Lord of heavens!" he ejaculates, "that was a close call. Them wood-choppers! They was no earthly use."

Two hands are yet on the gunwale.

"Suppose we can git him in?"

"Yessah!" stammers the boy.

The unknown man is evidently wounded, but is more active than when he was first picked up.

Every wood-chopper is gone. There are no sounds in Georgian Bay other than the noises of the boat, the wind and the great waves. There were 117 souls on the Africa. Now 114 are drowned. They perished like rats in a trap.

What moment will the boat overturn again?

"Bail, my son!"

"Yessah!" stammers the boy.

The boat is riding southward and backward at a fast rate. Three hours have passed—three hours of increasing effort and nerve-straining suspense.

The wounded survivor lies in the stern of the boat. The boy bails incessantly. The water is thrown in at the stern in passing over the boat from the prow.

"It's bad on that rooster!" says Corkey, as he hears the water dashing on the prostrate form. "Wonder if his head is out of the drink?"

"Yessah!" stammers the boy, feeling slowly in the stern.

The work and the fear settle into a sodden, unbroken period of three hours more. Growing familiarity with the seas aids Corkey in holding the craft to the wind. But how long can he last? How long can he defy the wind?

"Bail, my son!" he begs.

"Yessah," stammers the boy.

The gray light begins to touch the east. Corkey has lived an age since he saw that light. He is afraid of it now.

A cloud moves by and the morning bursts on the group.

Busy as he is, Corkey is eager to see the man in the stern.

"Holy smoke!" says the oarsman.

"Yessah!" stammers the obedient lad.

The face on the stern seat startles Corkey. The nose is broken, the lips are cut, some of the front teeth are gone and the face has been bloody. It is like a wound poulticed white. It has been wet and cold all night.

"Lockwin, isn't it you?" asks Corkey, greatly moved at a sight so affecting.

"It is," signals Lockwin. The voice is inaudible to Corkey.

The head rises and Corkey strains his ear.

"I'm dying, Corkey. God bless you. I wanted to thank you."

"God bless you, Lockwin. We're all in the same boat. I'm glad we caught you!"

The mascot moves toward the sinking man.

The head falls again on the stern seat. The body is in ten inches of water.

The boat is moving rapidly.

"Want to send any word home, Lockwin?"

There is a pause. There is an effort to speak of money. There is another effort.

"He s-a-ays put a st-st-stone at Davy's-s-s-s-s grave," interprets the stammerer.

"Who's Davy?" asks the oarsman. "What else did he say?"

"H-h-h-he's dead!" says the lad.

"Bail! bail!" answers the man. "Let's g-g-get 'im out!" suggests the boy in a half-hour. Corkey has been sobbing.

"I thought a heap of Lockwin," he answers.

"I d-d-don't like a d-d-dead man in the boat!"

"Bail, you moke! I'll throw you in!"

But Corkey's voice is far from menacing. Corkey is weak. Now he sees the boy's face in dreadful contortions. The lad is trying to speak quickly, and can make no noise at all.

He rises and points. He is frantic.

"He's crazy!" thinks Corkey, in alarm.

"L-l-land!" screams the lad.

"That is what it is, unless it's sucking us in." Corkey has heard of mirages in shipwreck.

"It's land!" he says, a moment later, as he sees a tamarack scrub.

It is, in reality, a long, narrow spit of sand that pushes out above Colpoy's Bay. Beyond that point is the black and open Georgian Bay for thirty miles.

The boat will ride by, and at least three hundred yards outside. Unless Corkey can get inside, what will become of him?

If he turn away from the wind he will capsize.

On comes the point. It is the abyss of death beyond.

"We never will get it!" cries the man.

The boy's face is all contortions. He is trying to say something.

"Bail, you moke!" commands the man. But his eyes look imploringly on the peninsula of sand.

The black face grows hideous. The eyes are white and protrude. The point is off the stern of the yawl.

"Not d-d-deep!" yells the mascot with an explosion.

"Sure enough!"

"S-s-s-s-see the sand in the wa-wa-ter!"

"Sure enough!"

The idea saves Corkey and the boy. Over the side Corkey goes. He touches bottom and is swept off.

The boat drags him. He catches the boy's hand.

"Let her go," is the command, and, boy in arms, Corkey stands on the bottom. The sea rages as if it were a thousand feet deep.

If Corkey wore a life-preserver he would be lost.

Now is he on a sand-bar? This is his last and most prostrating fear. Step by step he moves toward the point. The waves dash over his head, as they dash over the yawl. Step by step he learns that he is safe.

The boat is gone forever.

The water grows shallower. The great sea goes by. The bay beyond may look black now Corkey has escaped its jaws.

He puts down the lad.

"Walk, you moke!" he commands.

The twain labor hand in hand to the point.

The man sinks like a drunkard upon the sands wet with the tempest.

When Corkey regains his senses four men are lifting him in a wagon. The mascot sits on the front seat.

Four newspaper reporters want his complete account.



CHAPTER XIV

IN THE CONVENTIONAL DAYS

One congressman, a hundred wood-choppers and fourteen miscellaneous lives have been lost in Georgian Bay.

It is the epoch of sensational news. A life is a life. The valiant night editor places before his readers the loss of 115 congressmen, for a wood-chopper is as good as a congressman.

And while the theory that 115 congressmen have gone down astounds and horrifies the subscriber, it might be different if that many congressmen of the opposite party should really be sent to the bottom.

The conditions for conventional news are, therefore, perfect. Upon the length of the report depends the reputation of the newspaper. The newspaper with the widest circulation must have the longest string of type and the blackest letters in its headings.

Corkey works for that paper.

"Give us your full story," demand his four saviors.

The mascot stammers so that communication with him is restricted to his answers of yes and no.

It is therefore Corkey's duty to the nation to tell all he has witnessed. He conceals nothing.

"It ain't much I know about it," he says; "she was rotten and she go down."

"Yes, but begin with the thrilling scenes."

"There wa'n't no scenes. I never see anything like it."

"Of course you didn't."

"Well, dry up. The cap'n he came in and went out. The first mate—he wa'n't no good on earth—well—he—"

The remembrance of the first mate's indignities throws Corkey into a long fit of strangling, ending with a monstrous sneeze.

"That's what wrecked her," observes the witty reporter.

"Exactly. I was trying to give you what this Aleck of a first mate was a-saying. After that we start out on deck, and I go up on the hurricane, and stand there in the dark."

"What did you see up there?"

Corkey gazes scornfully at his inquisitors.

"As I was a-saying, I let down the yawl, and it was no good—it was good enough—it saved us. When I get in the wet, I screw my nut and the blooming old tub was gone down, I reckon!"

When Corkey screws his nut he turns his head. He can use no other phrase.

The interviewers are busy catching his exact words.

"Then I pick up the mascot, and he bail. Then we catch them wood-choppers, and they are no earthly good. But I'm mighty sorry for 'em. Then I reckon we take up Lockwin, and he ain't no congressman, neither. I'm the congressman. Don't you forget that. He die off the point in the boat. We see the point, and we sherry out of that yawl. Hey, there, you moke—ain't that about so?"

"Yessah!" stammers the mascot.

"He come from the Africa, and his name is Noah—good name for so much drink, I reckon."

"Yes," say the eager interviewers, "go on."

"Go on! Go on yourselves. That's all."

There is no profit in catechising Corkey. He has spoken. There is Indian blood in him. He saw nothing. It was dark.

"It wasn't no shipwreck, I tell you: not like a real shipwreck. She just drap. She's where she belongs now. But that first mate, he was a bird, and I guess the second mate wasn't no better. The cap'n—I don't like to mention it of him, for I stood up to the bar with his crowd—he was too full of budge to sail any ship at all. But don't say that, boys. It'd only make his old woman feel bad."

The Africa is lost. Ask Corkey over and over. He will bring up out of the sea of his memory that same short, matter-of-fact recital.

The rural interviewers, unused to the needs of the city service—faithful to the sources of their news—finish the concise tale. It covers a quarter of a column.

That will never do for Corkey's paper. He knows it well.

He reaches Wiarton. He hurries to the telegraph office. He buys a half-dozen tales of the sea. He finds a shipwreck to suit his needs. He describes in a column the happy scenes in the cabin before the calamity is feared. He depicts the stern face of the commander as he stands, pistols in hand, to keep the passengers from the boats. The full moon rises. The wind abates. A raft is constructed at a cost of one column and a half of out and out plagiarism. Corkey, Lockwin and forty wood-choppers are saved on the raft. The captain goes down on his ship, refusing to live longer.

"You bet!" comments the laboring, perspiring Corkey. Corkey is a short man, short in speech. This "full account" is a grievous responsibility, for marine reporters are taught to "boil it down."

The raft goes to pieces in mid-sea, and the survivors take to the yawl.

Then Corkey returns and interpolates a column death scene on the raft.

"Too bad there wasn't no starving," he laments. "I was hungry enough to starve."

The boat comes ashore in the breakers, and as the result of an all-night's struggle with the muse of conventionality Corkey has seven columns of double-leaded copy.

Meantime the telegraph operator at Wiarton at Corkey's order has been sending the Covode Investigation from an antique copy of the "Congressional Globe." There is an office rule that dispatches must take their turn on the file. The four interviewers have filed their accounts and their accounts will be sent after the Covode Investigation. When Corkey's dispatch is ready he joins it to a sheet of the Covode Investigation, and therefore the operator has been busy on one dispatch all the time.

The night editor of Corkey's paper begins getting the Covode Investigation from Wiarton. He enjoins the foreman to start more type-setters. Reprint copy is freely set all night, and at dawn the real stuff begins to arrive.

"Appalling Calamity. Loss of 115 Lives on Georgian Bay. Only Two Saved. Graphic and Exciting Account of Our Special Survivor. Unparalleled Feat in Journalism."

Such are some of the many headings. They fill a column.

The night editor, the telegraph editors, the proof-readers, the type-setters, the ring-men, the make-ups, the press-men, are thrilled to the marrow. The printers can scarcely set their portions, they are so desirous to read the other takes.

"I didn't know Corkey had it in him," says Slug 75.

"You'd have it in you," answers Slug 10, "if you went through the wet like he did. How do you end? What's your last word?"

The victorious newspaper is out and on the streets—the greatest chronicle of any age—the most devout function of the most conventional epoch of civilization.

The night editors of all other city newspapers look with livid faces on that front page. They scan the true and succinct account of Corkey's interview, which reaches them an hour later. They indignantly throw it in the waste-basket, cut off the correspondents by telegraph, and proceed hurriedly to re-write the front page of their exemplar.

The able editor comes down the next day and writes a leader on the great shipwrecks of past times, the raft scene and the heroism of Corkey.

Corkey and his mascot are still at Wiarton. Corkey is superintending the search for the yawl and Lockwin's body.

Superintending the search is but a phrase. Corkey is exhibiting his mascot, pounding on the hotel bar and accepting the congratulations of all who will take a drink.

The four correspondents fall back on the Special Survivor and hope for sympathy.

"We have been discharged by our papers," they cry in bitter anger and deep chagrin.

"Can't you get us re-instated?" they implore, in eager hope.

"The man," says Corkey, judicially, "who don't know no better than to send that shipwreck as it was—well, excuse me, gentlemen, but he ought to get fired, I suppose." Corkey stands sidewise to the bar, his hand on the glass. He looks with affection on the mascot and ruminates. Then he brings his adamantine fist down on the bar to the peril of all glassware.

"Yes, sir! Now I was out on that old tub. I was right there when she drapped in the drink. If anybody might make it just as it was, I might—mightn't I?"

"You might," they answer in admiration of a great man.

"Well, I didn't do no such foolish thing as you fellows, did I?"

"But why didn't you tell us, Mr. Corkey?"

"That isn't what my paper hired me to do. Is it, you cow-licked, cross-eyed, two-thumbed, six-toed stuttering moke?"

There is a terrifying report of knuckles on the counter. There are signs of strangling and a sneeze.

"N—n—n—noah," stammers the faithful son of swart Afric.



BOOK II

ESTHER LOCKWIN



CHAPTER I

EXTRA! EXTRA!

Esther Lockwin, the bride of a few months, has been hungrily happy.

She has been the wife of David Lockwin, the people's idol. She has passed out of a single state which had become wearisome. She has removed from a vast mansion to a less conspicuous home.

Of all the women in Chicago she would consider herself most fortunate.

People call her cold. It is certain that she is best pleased with a husband like Lockwin. It is his business to be famous.

"Go to Congress," she says. "Outlive your enemies. I think, David, that men are not the equals of women in defending themselves against the shafts of enmity. Outlive your enemies, David."

That Lockwin has the nature she required was to be seen in the death of Davy. An event which would have beclouded the life of common brides came to Esther as an important communication. She saw Lockwin's heart. She saw him kissing the soles of Davy's feet. There is something despotic in her nature which was satisfied in his act. There is also a devotion in her nature which might be as profound.

She would kiss the soles of David Lockwin's feet, were he dead. She could kiss his feet were he despised and rejected among men.

Yet she is counted the haughtiest woman that goes by.

"Mrs. Lockwin is a double-decker," the grocer declares to his head clerk. "She rides mighty high out of the water."

The grocer used to haul lumber from Muskegon. His metaphors smell of the deep.

For ten years young men of all temperaments had besieged this lady. The fame of her money had entranced them. Suitors who were afraid of her distinguished person still paid court, smitten by the love of money.

She was so proud that she must marry a proud man. She must marry a man conspicuous, tall, large, slow. She must banish from her mind that hateful fear of the man who might want her for her financial expectations.

Sometimes when she surveyed the matrimonial field she noted that the eligible suitors were few.

Men with blonde mustaches of extreme length would recite lovers' poems. Men with jet-black hair, eyes and beard would be equally foolish. The lady would listen politely to both.

"It is the Manitoba cold wave!" the lovers would lament as they left her.

To see Esther Wandrell pass by—beautiful, heroic, composed—was to feel she was the most magnetic of women. To recite verses to her—to lay siege to her heart—was to learn that her personal magnetism was from a repellant pole. The air grew heavy. There was a lack of ozone. The presumptuous beleaguerer withdrew and was glad to come off without capture.

There had been one man, and toward the last, two men, who did not meet these mystic difficulties. Esther Wandrell was pleased to be in the society of either David Lockwin or George Harpwood.

David Lockwin she knew. He was socially her equal. He had lived in Chicago as long as she. He was essentially the man she might love, for there was an element of unrest in his nature that corresponded with the turmoil underneath her calm exterior.

She knew nothing of George Harpwood other than that he was an acquaintance with whom she liked to pass an hour. He did not degrade her pride. He walked erectly, he scorned the common people, he presented an appearance sufficiently striking to enable her to accompany him without making a bad picture on the street or in the parlor.

All other men bored her, and she could not conceal the fact.

To promenade with Harpwood and notice that Lockwin was interested—this was indeed a tonic. The world of tuberoses and portes cocheres—the world of soft carpets and waltzes heard in the distance—this aromatic, conventional and dreary world became a paradise.

When David Lockwin declared his love, life became dramatic.

When David Lockwin won the primaries and carried the election, life became useful.

When David Lockwin held the little feet of the dead foundling life became noble. She, too, would bring from out the recesses of that man's better nature the treasures of love which lay there. She had not before known that she hungered and thirsted for love.

It might be the affection of a lioness. She might lick her cubs with the tongue of a tiger, but her temperament, stirring beneath her, was pleased.

She has a husband worthy of her worship. She who had not known that she wanted lover's verses, wants them from David Lockwin.

She who had never been jealous of Davy, grows jealous of politics. Yet, fearing her husband may guess her secret and despise her, she appears more Spartan.

She nursed the man sick of brain fever and buried little Davy. She brought her patient to his senses after nearly a month of alienation.

"Is Davy dead, Esther?" he had asked.

This was his first rational utterance.

"You are elected to Congress, David," she said. "Are you not glad?"

"Yes," he answered, and looked like death itself.

She dared not to throw herself upon his pillow and tell him how happy she was that he was restored. Her heart beat rebelliously that she did not declare to him the consuming passion of love which she felt.

Oh, let him resign his honors! Let him travel with her alone! Let her love him—love him as he loved Davy—as he must love her!

But the caution of love and experience had warned her to be still. Had not David waited until the child was dead before she saw the man as he really loved that child?

"I think I can do my duty," he said, wearily.

"I am so glad you were elected!" she said.

"Yes," he answered, and became whiter.

She had sat by the bed, growing uneasy. Ought she to have told him all? Ought she to have acknowledged her deep devotion? Why was he so sad? Surely they could mourn for Davy together! Tears had come in her eyes as she gazed on the couch where Davy's soul went away.

The man had been comforted. "Were you remembering Davy?" he asked.

"Yes, dear," she said.

He had put his weak hand in hers. She was the happiest she had ever been.

She had debated if she might deplore politics. She hated politics now. But she had not dared to be frank. In five minutes more the bridges were burned. The man and the woman were apart again, each in anguish, and neither able to aid the other.

That Lockwin needed a trip to Washington could not be denied. That Esther feared to speak of Davy was becoming very noticeable.

Yet no sooner is the husband gone than the woman laments the folly of letting him leave her.

"Go, David," she had commanded, when she was eager with a desire to keep him or to go with him.

"Shall I accompany you?" she asked, smiling and trembling.

"I must return by a lake steamer, and must see Corkey alone," the husband had replied.

"A lake steamer!" In October! The affair alarmed the wife. She must not let that fear be known.

"Live down your enemies, David!" she had said, as she kissed him.

The words were insincere. They had a false sound, or an unconvincing sound. They had jarred on David Lockwin.

"I can outlive my friends easily enough, it seems," he thought, as he recited the lines of holy fields over whose acres walked those blessed feet. "I can outlive poor Davy. I ought to be happy in politics. It cost me enough!"

And the man had wept.

At home the wife had also wept. She was afraid she had erred. She had not been frank. She accused herself, she defended herself, she noted that it was not yet too late to bid David good-bye, or beg him not to go until he should be stronger. She called a cab from the livery. It was Sunday. There was a long delay. She entered the vehicle and directed that haste should be made to the Canal street depot. She approached the bridge. She feared she had made a mistake. David would think she was silly. It was entirely unlike the cold Esther Lockwin to be acting in this manner.

The bridge bell had rung. The bridge swung. She had looked at her watch. The train would leave at five o'clock. It was 4:50. Could not the driver go round by the Washington street tunnel?

"It is closed for repairs," the driver had said—a falsehood.

When Esther reached the station the train had left. She had returned to her home to wait in dire anxiety until her husband should reach Washington. She had written a long letter unfolding her heart to him.

"Come back to me, my darling," she said in that letter, "and see how happy we shall be! Let the politics go; that killed Davy and makes us all so unhappy. You were made for something nobler. Let us go to Europe once more. Let us seek out the places where you and I have met in the past."

It had seemed too cold.

"I love you, I love you. I shall die without you! Come home to me and save me! I love you, I love you!"

So she had written for a page, and was satisfied.

If she might telegraph it! No! only advertisers and divorced people did that. She must wait.

He would not reply. He would come.

The newspaper announces the arrival of the congressman-elect at the White House. He had left almost immediately for the West.

Then he will not get the letter!

He may arrive in Chicago this night, but how and where? A gale is rising. The wife is terrified with waiting and with love. If she had some little clue of his route homeward. She is a woman, and does not know how to proceed. She goes to her father.

"Oh, fudge, puss! You mustn't let him go again. Ha! ha! you're just like your mother. She pretty near had a fit when I went away the first time. He went a little soon for his health, but our leading men tell us he was needed in Washington. They wanted to see him and get some pledges from him. He'll be home by some lake boat in the morning. They get in about daylight, but it's like a needle in a haystack. Why, the last time I came from Mackinaw they landed me on a pile of soft coal—blest if they didn't! Stay all night, puss. Or go home, if you want to be there."

"Wind blows like sixty!" says the old Chicagoan, after Esther has gone.

The mother harkens. She goes to the window.

"Is that the lake?" she asks.

"Yes; it's too late in the year for David to be on any boat."

The wife of David Lockwin cannot sleep. She cannot even write another letter. "How happy are lovers who may write to each other!" she says. The gale rises and she waits. It is midnight and David is not home. Now, if he should arrive, he would probably keep his state-room until morning.

She awakes at daylight. She dons a wrapper and creeps to the front door. There are the morning papers. She scans every paragraph. Ah! here is David!

"NIAGARA FALLS, Oct. 16.—Congressman Lockwin left here to-day for Owen Sound, on Georgian Bay."

Georgian Bay! Where is that? She seeks the library. She finds a map. Georgian Bay! Perhaps David has some lumber interest there.

The paper is scanned again. Owen Sound, Owen Sound. She is reading the marine intelligence. Yes, here is Owen Sound.

"OWEN SOUND, Oct. 16.—Cleared—Propeller Africa, merchandise, for Thunder Bay. Gale blowing, with snow."

Thunder Bay! It is still more incomprehensible.

There is a cry in the streets, hoarse and loud—a triumphant proclamation:

"Extra! Full account o' de shipwreck o' de Africa! Full account o' de big shipwreck!"

A white arm reaches from a front door. A dime is paid for two papers. The door must be held open for light to read.

"Appalling calamity! Unparalleled feat of journalism!"

Hideous it seems to Esther Lockwin. She clings to the newell-post.

"Death, off Cape Croker, of Congressman Lockwin!"

There may be two congressmen of that name.

There may be two! It is a dying hope. Can the eyes cling to the column long enough to read that paragraph?

"Congressman David Lockwin, of the First Illinois, died of his wounds about daylight in a yawl off Cape Croker. His body is lost with the yawl!"

There is a shriek that awakens the household. There is a white form lying in the hall near an open front door.

The servants rush up-stairs. There is a hubbub and a giving of orders.

The voices of the street come into the hall-way as winds into a cave:

"Extra! Extra! 'Palling calamity! Hundred and fifteen congressmen drowned! Extra! Extra!"



CHAPTER II

CORKEY'S FEAR OF A WIDOW'S GRIEF

Corkey and Noah are nearing the residence of Esther Lockwin.

"You bet your sweet life I don't want to see her nibs. It just breaks me all up to hear 'em take on, rip and snort and beller. Now, see here, you moke, when we git in you stand behind where I stand, and don't you begin to beller, too. If you do I'll shake you—I'll give you the clean lake breeze. If you walk up to the mark I'll get you into the league nine. You'll be their man to hoodoo the other ball clubs."

"Yessah!"

"You can't say nothing nohow, so all you've got to do is to see me face the music."

"Yessah!"

"There's the house now. They say he thought a powerful lot of her. Is there a saloon anywhere near?"

The twain look in vain for a beer sign, and resume their journey. They ascend the steps.

"There ain't no yawl up here! This is worse than the Africa. I believe I ain't so solid with myself as I was before she founder. Open that valve!"

Noah pulls the bell. There is no retreat now. Faces are peering from every window. Museum managers are on guard at the ends of the street. The story of Corkey and his mascot is on every tongue in Chicago.

Esther Lockwin opens the door. Corkey had hoped he might have a moment of grace. At best there is a hindrance in his voice. Now he is speechless.

"Step in," she says.

He rolls a huge quid of tobacco to the other side of his face, and then falls in a second panic. He introduces his first finger in his mouth as if it were a grappling iron and extracts the black tobacco. He trots down a step or two and heaves the tobacco into the street, resisting, at the last moment, a temptation to hit a mark. He returns up the steps, a bunchy figure, in an enormously heavy, chinchilla, short coat, with blue pantaloons,

"Step in," says the voice pleasantly.

The action has begun as Corkey has not wished. He is both angry and contused. A spasm seizes his throat. He strangles. He coughs. He sneezes.

There is an opening of street doors on this alarming report, and Corkey pushes Noah before him into Esther Lockwin's parlors. The man's jet-black hair is wet with perspiration. The boy strives to stand behind, but Corkey feels more secure if the companion be held in front.

"Let me take your hats," she says calmly. She goes to the hall-tree with the hats. She shuts the door as she re-enters.

"Take those seats," she says.

But Corkey must pull himself together. This affair is compromising the great Corkey himself. He does not sit. He must begin.

"Me and this coon, madam, we suppose you want to hear how Mr. Lockwin cashed in—how he—"

"You, of course, are Mr. Corkey, my husband's political opponent?"

"That's what I am, or was, madam; and you ain't no sorrier for that than me."

"The boy and you escaped?"

"I guess so."

"Now, Mr. Corkey, tell me why Mr. Lockwin went to Owen Sound?"

"I can't do that, nohow; and the less said about it the better. It would let a big political cat out of the bag."

"Politics! Was that the reason?"

"That's what it was, your honor, madam."

"Can you tell me something about my poor husband?"

It is a figure that by its mere presence over-awes Corkey. Of all women, he admires the heroic mold. The garb is black beyond the man's conception of mourning. The face is chastened with days of mental torture. There is an intoxication of grief in the aspect of the woman that hangs the house in woe.

The mascot slips away from Corkey. The Special Survivor is drifting into an open sea of sentiment. He feels he shall drown.

Yet the beautiful face seems to take pity on him—seems to read the heart which beats under that burry, bristly form—seems to reach forth a hand.

"Exactly as we catched onto Lockwin," thinks the grateful Corkey.

"It comes mighty hard for me, Mrs. Lockwin, for I never expected to be his friend, nohow. He was an aristocratic duck, and I will say that I thought it was his bar'l that beat me."

The widow is striving so hard to understand that the man speaks more slowly.

"But I meet him at Owen Sound. Between you and me he was to fix me—see?"

The woman does not see.

"You mustn't say it to nobody, but I went to Georgian Bay to show him my slate."

"Is it politics?"

"That's what it is, and it's mighty dirty work. But I don't think your husband was no politician."

It is a compliment, and the woman so receives it.

"He was late, and the old tub was rubbing the pier away when the jackleg train arrive."

"The st-st-steamer was wa-wa-waiting," explained the boy.

"Ah! yes," nods the listener.

"You see, the coon can't talk," says Corkey, "but he's got any number of points. Well, we wet our whistles, and it's raw stuff they sell over there—but you don't know nothing about that. I introduce him to the outfit, and we go aboard. We eat, but he don't eat nothing. I notice that. We take the lounge in the fore-cabin. You know where that would be?"

A nod, and Corkey is well pleased.

"We sit there all the time. I want to tell you just how he did. He sit back, out straight, like this, his hands deep in his pockets, his legs crossed onto each other, his hat down, and his chin way down—see?"

Corkey is regaining his presence of mind.

The widow attests the correctness of Corkey's illustration.

"You bet your sweet life, nobody could get nothing out of him, then. What ailded him I don't know, and I ain't calling the turn, but nobody could get nothing out of him, I know that. I talk and talk. I slap him on the shoulder, and pull his leg and sing to him—"

"S-s-say it over," suggests the mascot.

The widow cannot understand.

"Why, don't you know, I was expecting him to fix me?"

"Is it politics?"

"That's what it is. So I guess I sing to him an hour—two hours—I can't tell—when he comes to. 'Mr. Corkey,' says that feller—says Mr. Lockwin—'you don't get nothing; You don't get the light at Ozaukee.'

"'There ain't no lamp at Ozaukee,' says I.

"'That's what the First High said,' says he. So you see I was whipsawed. I get nothing."

"P-p-politics!" interprets the mascot."

"Perhaps I understand," says the widow. Withal, she can see David Lockwin sitting his last hours on that lounge. How unhappy he was! Ah! could he only have read her letter!

"I don't just remember what I did after I found I wasn't fixed. It flabbergasted me, don't you forget it! I know I sneezed—and you must excuse me out there a while ago—and a big first mate he tried to put the hoodoo on me. No, that's not politics, but life is too short. We go out on deck."

"To make the raft?"

"Oh, that's all poppycock! Don't you believe no newspaper yarn. You just listen to me. I'm giving it to you straight. We go out on deck, and then I don't see Lockwin till we git the wood-choppers. How many of them wood-choppers, Noey?"

"Ei-ei-eight!"

"Mrs. Lockwin, them wood-choppers was no earthly use. It didn't pay to pull 'em in. I know it was me who hurt Lockwin with the oars. I didn't know for hours that he was aboard. He showed up at daybreak, you see. I tell you he was awfully hurt."

The face of Esther is again miserably expectant. There will be no mystery of politics in it now. "I wouldn't know him, either by face or voice, Mrs. Lockwin. He lie in the stern and Noey try to help him, but the sea was fearful. I couldn't hear him speak. Noey—the coon here—hear him speak.

"'Are you a-dying, old man?' I asks.

"Noey says he answer that he was."

"Yessah, h-h-he done spoke that he w-w-was."

"'Want to send some word home, old man?' says I, to cheer him up; for don't you see, I allowed we was all in the drink—just tumble to what an old tub she was—117 of us at the start, and we all croak but me and the moke—the coon, I should say."

The woman is afraid to interrupt.

Suddenly the eye of Corkey moistens. He has escaped a great error. "I didn't hear his last words, nohow."

"He said to p-p-put a st-st-stone over D-Davy's grave," says the lad

The man turns on the boy. The brows beetle. The mouth gives a squaring movement, significant beyond words.

The listener still waits.

"And then," says Corkey, "he whisper his good-bye to you. 'Tell her good-bye for me.' That's what he said, you moke!"

"Yessah."

Esther Lockwin grasps those short hands. She thanks the commodore for saving her husband, for living to tell her his last words. She can herself live to find her husband's body.

But it is far too much for the navigator.

His sobs resound through the room. The woman cannot weep. Her eyes are dry,

"I had such feelings as no decent man ever gits," he explains, "but I'll never forgive myself that it was me who steered him agin it."

"You have a better heart than most men, Mr. Corkey."

"I'd give seven hundred cases in bar gelt if he was in Congress to-day, Mrs. Lockwin."

"I know you would, you poor man. God bless you for it!"

Corkey is feeling in all his pockets.

"Take this handkerchief, Mr. Corkey, if it will help you. God bless you always! God bless you always! Come and see me often. I shall never get tired of hearing how my husband died. He must have been brave to cling to the boat."

"You bet he was, and if ever you need money, you come to me, for I'm the boy that's got it in the yellow!"

Corkey bows himself down the steps. There two managers of museums implore a few moments' conversation. They tender their cards.

"Naw!" says Corkey, "we don't want no museum."

The managers persist.

"No use o' your chinning us! Go on, now!"

The heroes escape from their persecutors. The mind of Corkey reverts to the parlors of Esther Lockwin.

"Great Caesar!" he exclaims.

"Yessah!"

"Steer me to a bar!"

A few moments later Corkey leans sidewise against a whisky counter, his left foot on the iron rail, his hand on the glass. A mouthful of tobacco is gnawed from the biggest and blackest of plugs. The mascot stands by the stove.

The bartender is proud to serve the only Corkey, the most famous man on the whole "Levee." While the bartender burns incense, the square mouth grows scornful, laconic, boastful. Corkey is himself again. The barkeeper goes to the oil-room for a small bottle.

The handsome eyes of the navigator rest on his protege. The head sets up a vibration something like the movement of a rattlesnake before it strikes. The little tongue plays about the black tobacco. The speech comes forth.

"It's a great act I play on the widow about the 'last words'. He didn't say nothing of the kind. I come near putting my foot right into it."

"Yessah!"

Corkey's right hand is in his side pocket. He ruminates. He feels an unfamiliar thing in his pocket. He draws out a dainty white-and-black handkerchief. There is a painful reaction in his mind.

"I'll burn that female wipe right now!" he says.

"Yessah."

The stove is for soft coal and stands open. Corkey advances to toss the handkerchief in the fire.

His eyes meet the crooked and quizzical orbs of the mascot.

"You mourning-colored moke!"

There is a huge threat in the deliverance.

The hook-like finger tears the black tobacco out of the choking mouth. The great quid is thrown in the fire. The proposed motion is made, and the handkerchief is not burned. Down it goes in the hip pocket beside Corkey's revolver, out of harm's way.

Corkey started to throw something in the fire, and has kept to his purpose.

"Yessah!" says the mascot, sagaciously.

"Bet your black life!" vows Corkey, as if great things hung by it.

He looks with renewed affection on his protege. "I git you into the league nine, sure, Noey!"

"Yessah!"

It is plain that the mascot will preserve an admirable reticence.



CHAPTER III

THE CENOTAPH

"TEN THOUSAND DOLLARS REWARD.—This sum of money will be paid for the recovery of the body of the Hon. David Lockwin, lost in Georgian Bay the morning of Oct. 17. When last seen the body was afloat in the yawl of the propeller Africa, off Cape Croker. For full particulars and suggestions, address H. M. H. Wandrell, Chicago, Ill."

This advertisement may be seen everywhere. It increases the public excitement attending the death of the people's idol. There is a ferment of the whole body politic.

Of all the popular pastors who turn the catastrophe to their account the famous preacher at Esther Lockwin's church makes the most of it. To a vast gathering of the devout and the curious he dwells upon the uncertainties of life. Here, indeed, was a Chicagoan who but yesterday was almost certain to be President of the United States.

"Now his beloved body, my dear brethren and fellow-citizens, lies buried in the sands of an unfrequented sea."

There is suppressed emotion.

"And as for man," chants the harmonious choir, "his days are as grass."

"As a flower of the field," sounds the bass.

"So he flourisheth," answers the soft alto.

"For the wind passeth over it," sings the tenor.

"And it is gone," proclaims the treble.

"And the place thereof shall know it no more," breathes the full choir, preparing to shout that the mercy of the Lord is from everlasting to everlasting upon them that fear Him.

It is found that Lockwin had hosts of friends. There is so much inquiry on account of that strange journey to Owen Sound that the political boss is grievously disturbed.

Corkey is not blind to this general uneasiness. He reads the posters and the advertisements. He whistles. It is a sum of money worthy of deep consideration.

"You offered to l-le-end to her," observes the mascot.

"Well, if she had needed the stuff she'd a been after it soon enough, wouldn't she? I don't offer it to everybody. But that ain't the point. I'm going after that roll—ten thousand dollars! You want to come? If I win, you git $500. I reckon that's enough for a kid."

It is a project which is well conceived, for Corkey may easily arrange for a salary from his great newspaper. To find Lockwin's body would be a clever feat of journalism, inasmuch as the search has been abandoned by the other papers.

A delegation of dock-frequenters waits on Corkey to demand that he shall stand for Congress in the second special election, made necessary by the death of Lockwin.

"Gentlemen, I'm off on business. I beg to de—de—re—re—drop out! Please excuse me, and take something."

The touching committees cannot touch Corkey.

"The plant has been sprung," they comment, "His barrel is empty."

Corkey had once been rich when he did not know the value of wealth. He had been reduced to poverty. On becoming a reporter, he had laboriously saved $1,000 in gold coins. In a few weeks $300 of this store had been dissipated.

"And all the good work didn't cost nothing, either," thinks Corkey.

Would it not be wise now to keep the $700 that remain? When the vision of a contest, with Emery Storrs as advocate, had crossed poor Corkey's mind on the Africa, the Contestant could see that his gold was to be lost. He could not retreat without disgrace. Now he need not advance.

"You bet I won't!" thinks Corkey, as he expresses his regrets that enforced absence from Chicago will prevent his candidacy.

"You'd be elected!" chime the touching committees.

"You bet I would," says Corkey.

"Corkey is too smart," say the touching committees. "Wait till he gets into politics from the inside. Won't he wolf the candidates!"

Corkey is at last on the shores of Georgian Bay. The weather soon interferes with the search. But there are no signs of either body or yawl.

The wreck of the Africa, followed by daily conventional catastrophes, soon fades from public recollection. The will of David Lockwin is brought into court. The estate is surprisingly small.

It had been supposed that Lockwin was worth half a million. Wise men said Lockwin was probably good for $200,000. The probate shows that barely $75,000 have been left to the wife, and the estate thus bequeathed is in equities on mortgaged property. Mills that had always been clear of incumbrances are found to have been used for purposes of money-raising at the time of the election, or shortly thereafter.

The public conclusion is quick and unfavorable.

Lockwin ruined himself in carrying the primaries! The opposition papers, while professing the deepest pity for the dead, dip deep into the scandals of the election. "It is well the briber is out of the reach of further temptation," say they.

This tide of opprobrium would go higher but for the brave efforts of a single woman. She visits the political boss.

"You killed my husband!" she says deliberately.

The leader protests.

"Now you let these hyenas bark every day at his grave. And he has no grave!"

The woman grows white. The leader expostulates, The woman regains her anger.

"He has no grave, and yet your hyenas are barking, and barking. Do you think I do not read it? Do you think I intend to endure it?"

The leader makes his peace.

As a result there is a return to the question in the party press. Long eulogies of Lockwin appear. There is a movement for a monument. The memory of the dead man's oratory stirs the community. Several prominent citizens subscribe—when they learn that their subscriptions, however meager, will be made noteworthy from a source where money is not highly valued. The poor on every side touch the widow's heart with their sincere and generous offerings.

The philosophic discuss the character of Esther Lockwin.

"Her troubles have brought her out. These cold women are slow to strike fire, but I admire them," says the first philosopher.

"Don't you think our American widows make too much ado?" asks the second philosopher.

"They at least do not ascend the burning pyre of their dead husbands."

"To be sure. That's so. I don't know but I like Esther Lockwin the better. I never knew a man to lose so much as Lockwin did by dying."

"She declares his death was due to the little boy's death."

"Odd thing, wasn't it?"

"Yes, but he was a beautiful child. What was his name, now?"

"It was Lockwin's name—let me see—David."

"Oh, yes, Davy, they called him."

"Well, she has erected the prettiest sarcophagus in the whole cemetery for Davy. I tell you Esther Lockwin is a magnificent woman."

"She would have more critics, though, if she were not Wandrell's only daughter."

"Wandrell's only daughter! You don't tell me so! Ah, yes, yes! That accounts for it."

So, while the philosophers account for it, Esther Lockwin goes on with the black business of life. Every week she waits impatiently for news from Corkey. Every week he gives notice that he has found nothing.

"When spring comes, I'll find that yawl," he promises. He knows he can do that much with time.

How often has Esther Lockwin thrown herself on a couch, weeping and moaning as if her body would not hold her rebellious heart—as when Corkey left her in those black and earliest days of the great tempest of woe!

"It is marvelous that it is held to be dishonorable to die, and honorable to live," she cries.

"Oh, David, David, come back! come back! so noble, so good, so great! You who loved little Davy so! You who kissed his blessed little feet! Oh, my own! my husband!"

A fond old mother, knocking on the door, comes always in time to stop these brain-destroying paroxysms.

"And to think, mother, that they shall asperse his name! The people's idol! Faugh! The people! Oh, mother, mother!"

The mother deplores these months of persistent brooding. It is wrong.

"So they always say, who have not suffered, mother. How fortunate you are."

But the daughter must recollect that to-day is the dedication. A band has marched past. Kind friends have carried the subscription to undoubted success. Emery Storrs will deliver the oration. The papers are full of the programme, the line of march, the panegyric. There are many delicate references to the faithful widow, who has devoted her husband's estate and as much more to the erection of a vast fire-proof annex at a leading hospital.

The public ear is well pleased. The names of the men who have led in the memorial of to-day are rolled on everybody's tongue.

There appears at the scene of dedication a handsome woman. Her smile, though wofully sad, is sweet and sympathetic. She humbly and graciously thanks all the prominent citizens, who receive her assurances as so much accustomed tribute. The trowel rings. The soprano sings. The orator is at his best. Band after band takes up its air. The march begins again. Chicago is gratified. The great day ends with a banquet to the prominent citizens by the political leader.

The slander that republics and communities are ungrateful is hurled in the faces of the base caitiffs who have given it currency.

Behind all the gratulations of conventionality—in the unprinted, unreported, unconventional world—the devotion of Esther Lockwin is universally remarked upon.

Learned editors, noting this phase of the matter, discuss the mausoleums of Asia erected by loving relicts and score a point in journalism.

"The widow of the late Hon. David Lockwin, M. C., will soon sail for Europe," says the society paper.

But she will do no such thing. She will spend her nights and mornings lamenting her widowhood. She will be present every day to see that the work goes forward on the monument.

"I might die," she says, moodily.

There will be no cessation of labor at the ascending column. It is not in the order of things here that a committee should go to Springfield to urge an unwilling public conclusion of a grateful private beginning. Money pours like water. The memorial rises. It becomes a city lion. It is worth going to see.

Society waits with becoming patience. "Inasmuch as the prominent citizens saw fit to render Esther's sorrow conspicuous," says Mrs. Grundy, "it is perfectly decent that she should remain in complete retirement."

Nevertheless notice is secretly served on the entire matrimonial world.

Esther Lockwin will soon be worth not a penny less than five million dollars!



CHAPTER IV

A KNOLLING BELL

It seems to Esther Lockwin that her night of sorrow grows heavier. The books open to her a new world of emotions. Ere her bridal veil was dyed black she had read of life and creation as inexpressibly joyous. The lesson was always that she should look upon the glories of nature and give thanks.

Now the title of each chapter is "Sorrow." The omniscient Shakespeare preaches of sorrow. The tender and beautiful Richter teaches of the nightingale. Tennyson, Longfellow, Carlyle, Beecher, Bovee, the great ancient stoics, the Bible itself, becomes a discourse on that tragic phenomenon of the soul, where peace goes out, where longing takes the place of action, where the will sets itself against the universe.

"Sorrow," she reads, "like a heavy hanging bell, once set on ringing, with his own weight goes."

"How true! How true!" she weeps. She turns to "Hamlet." She reads that drama of sorrow. She accepts that eulogium of the dead as something worthy of her lost husband.

She gloomily reviews the mistakes of her earlier life. She had been restricted in nature to the attentions of a few men. She had found her lord and master. The sublime selfishness of human pride had driven her on the rocks of destruction. This she can now charge to herself. Had she sufficiently valued David Lockwin; had she counseled him to live for himself, to study those inclinations which she secretly understood and never encouraged—had she begged him to turn student rather than to court politics and popularity—then she might yet have had him with her.

The heavy bell of sorrow clangs loudly upon this article of her pride, ambition and lack of address to the true interests of her dead lord.

"Davy would not have died if politics had not been in the way. And then that dreadful fever! That month of vigil! How strangely he spoke in his delirium! How lonesome he was! How he begged for a companion to share his grief! Oh, David! David! David! Come back! Come back! Let me lay my head on your true heart and tell you how I love you. Let me tell you how I honor you above all men! You who had so much love for a foundling—oh, God bless you! Keep you in heaven for me! Forgive the hard heart of a foolish woman whose love was so slow! Come, holy spirit, heavenly dove, with all thy quickening power! Our Father, which art in heaven, which art in heaven!"

The knolling of the heavy bell grows softer. The paroxysm passes. Religion, the early refuge of the sex—the early refuge, too, of the higher types of the masculine sex—this solace has lit the taper of hope, the taper of hope that emits the brighter ray.

Esther Lockwin will meet her lord again. She will dwell with him where the clouds of pride and ambition do not obscure the path of duty.

She who a half hour ago could not live on must now live at all cost. She has other labors. She must visit the portrait painter's to-day. She would that the gifted orator might be portrayed as standing before the immense audiences which used to greet his voice, but it cannot be done. She must be contented with the posthumous portraits which forever gratify and disturb the lovers of the dead.

It is a day's labor done. The portrait will be praised on all hands, but it has not come without previous failures and despairs.

To return to the house out of which the light has gone—how Esther Lockwin dreads that nightly torment! Shall she linger at the parental home? Is it not the bitterer to feel that here the selfish life grew to the full? Is it not worse than sorrow to discover in this abode the same influences of estrangement? What is David Lockwin in the old home?

A dead man, to be forgotten as soon as possible!

No! no! Better to enter the door where the white arm reached out for the message of blackness. Better to go up and down the stairs searching for David, listening for Davy's organ—better to fling one's self on the couch, abandoning all to the tempest of regret and disappointment; to cry out to David; to apostrophize the unseen; to fall into the hideous abyss of hopelessness; to see once again the north star of religion; to call upon God for help; to doze; to awaken to the abominations of the reality; to remember the escape from perdition; to hasten to the duties of the day!

So goes the night. So comes the morning. She who would not live the evening before is terrified now for fear of death ere her last great labor shall be done.

She calls her carriage. She rides but a few squares. Every block in that noble structure represents a pang in her heart. Some of those great stones below must have been heavier than these sobs she now feels. "Oh, David! David! Every iron beam; every copestone, every coigne of vantage, every oriel window in this honorable edifice is for you! Every element has cost an agony in her who weeps for you."

The widow gazes far aloft. It has been promised for this date, and it is done. Something of the old look of pride comes to the calm and beautiful face which the architect and the workmen have always seen.

The vari-colored slate shingles are going on the roof.

Her eye returns in satisfaction to the glittering black granite letters over the portal. She reads:

THE DAVID LOCKWIN ANNEX



"A magnificent hospital," says an approving press, "the very dream of an intelligent philanthropy."



BOOK III

ROBERT CHALMERS

CHAPTER I

A DIFFICULT PROBLEM

David Lockwin is not dead.

Look into his heart and see what was there while he sat beside Corkey on the lounge in the forecabin of the Africa.

The time has come for momentous action. It is settled that at the other end of this journey David Lockwin shall cease to exist. Now, how to do it.

He may commit suicide.

He may disappear.

In furtherance of the latter plan there awaits the draft of Robert Chalmers, who bears letters from David Lockwin, the sum of $75,000. This deposit is in the Coal and Oil Trust Company's institution at New York. The amount is half of Lockwin's estate. Esther shall have the rest.

Serious matters are these, for a man to consider, who sits stretched out on a seat, one ankle over the other, his hands deep in pocket, his chin far down on his chest; and Corkey appealing in his dumb, yet eloquent way, for a share of the spoils of office.

This life of David Lockwin, the people's idol, is an unendurable fiasco.

David Lockwin is disconsolate. Davy is no more.

David Lockwin is sick and weak. Whether he be sane or daft, he scarcely knows, and he cares not at all.

He recoils from politics.

He loathes the reputation of a rich man with ambition—a rich man with a barrel.

He does not believe himself to be a true orator.

He is urged forward by unknown interests over which he has no control. He is morally and publicly responsible for the turpitude of the party leaders and the party hacks.

He is married to a cold and unsympathetic woman. Did he not wed her as a part of the political bargain?

Is life sweet? No. Then let Davy's path be followed. Now, therefore, let this affair of suicide be discussed.

Can David Lockwin, the people's idol, commit suicide? Does he desire to pay the full earthly penalty of that act? He is of first-class family. There has never been a suicide in the records.

His self-slaughter will be the first scandal in his strain.

He is happily married, so far as this world knows. If he be bored with the presence of Esther he alone possesses that secret. She does not. He is the husband of a lady to whom there will some day come an added fortune which will make her the richest woman in the West.

He is the reliance of the party. He is the one orator who remains unanswered in joint debate. Quackery as it is, no opponent dares to cross the path of David Lockwin. It is a common saying that to give an opponent a date with Lockwin is to foretell the serious illness of the opponent. It is a sham—this oratory—but it befools the city.

Can the fashionable church to which Esther belongs sustain the shock of Lockwin's suicide? Behold the funeral of such a wight, once the particular credit of the congregation, now the particular disgrace!

That forthcoming contest with Corkey!

Is it not uncomfortable? What is it Corkey is saying? Oh! yes, Corkey, to be sure! "Mr. Corkey, I should have told you they will do nothing. You must contest."

Here, therefore, are two men who are plunged into the deepest seethings of mental action. The one has missed greatness by the distance of a mere hand's grasp; the other is half crazed to find himself so fatally conspicuous in society.

Let the rich, respectable, beloved, ambitious and eloquent Lockwin hurry back to that problem: What to do when he shall arrive in Chicago?

Can the community be deceived? Let us see how it fared with Lockwin's friend Orthwaite, who found life to be insupportable. The respectability which so beclogs Lockwin had been secretly lost by Orthwaite.

His shame would soon be exposed. Orthwaite returned to his home on the last suburban train. He purposely appeared gay before his train-acquaintances. He left the train in high spirits. He pursued a lonely path toward home. He reached a stream. He set to work making many marks of a desperate struggle. He placed a revolver at his heart and fired. Then with unusual fortitude he threw the weapon in the stream.

But the ruse was ineffectual. The keen eyes of the detectives and the keener ear of scandal had the whole truth in a week's time. It was suicide, said the press—bald, cowardly, pitiful.

How difficult! How difficult! Now let us set at that device of mysterious disappearance. How far is that fair to a young wife? Why should she wait and search and hope, although Esther would not disturb herself much! She is too cold for that.

How difficult! How difficult! But why do the eyes of Corkey bulge with excitement? Oh, yes, the ship is foundering because Corkey is in the way of this great business. Corkey should be flung in the sea and well rid of him. As the ship is foundering we will go on deck, but when a man is so conspicuous as David Lockwin, how can he commit suicide—how can he disappear?

There are words, indistinctly heard. It is Corkey crying to Lockwin to climb up the steps to the hurricane deck. Indeed it is a clever riddance of that uncomfortable man. Ouf! that brutal sneeze, that jargon, that tobacco, that quaking of head and hesitancy of expression! It distracts one's thoughts from an insoluble problem; How to shuffle off this coil—not of life, but of respectability, conspicuity, environment!

But what is this? This is not a wave. If David Lockwin hold longer to this stanchion, he will go to the bottom of the sea. This must be what excited Corkey. Something has happened.

The red fire of drowning sets up its conflagration.

Lockwin has time for one regret. His estate has lost $75,000. He enters the holocaust and passes into nothingness, feeling heavy blows.

He awakes to find himself still with Corkey. His brain is dizzy and he relapses into lethargy. In the faint light of the dawn, totally benumbed by the night's exposure, he is again passing into nothingness.

Corkey questions the sinking man, and Lockwin tries to tell of the money—the deposit of $75,000 to the order of a fictitious person. He cannot do it.

"Put a stone over Davy's grave," he says, and goes into a region which seems still more cold, more desolate, more terrible.

There is a knocking, knocking, knocking. He hears it long before he replies to it. Let them knock! Let a man sleep a little longer! It is probably the chambermaid at the hotel in Washington.

But it is a persistent chambermaid. Ah, now the bed is lifted up and down. This must be seen to. We will open our eyes.

What a world of light and shimmer! The couch is the yawl of the Africa. The persistent chambermaid is the Georgian Bay.

The gale has subsided. The sun shines. Blackbirds are singing. The yawl is dancing on the waves near the shore.

David Lockwin sits up. How warm and pleasant to be alive!

Alive! Oh, yes! Chicago! The Africa! Is it not better?

Has he any face left? His nose seems flat. He must be desperately wounded. His eyes grow dim. He must be dying again.

He sleeps and is once more gently awakened by the sea—so fond now, so terrible last night.

He sits upright in the yawl, wet, sore, and yet whole in limb. He gathers his scattered faculties. He finds a handkerchief and ties up his face. He muses.

"I am the sole survivor! I, Robert Chalmers, of New York City, am the sole survivor, and nobody shall know even that. Corkey—let me see—Corkey and a boy—they must be at the bottom of Georgian Bay!"

He muses again. His face hurts him once more. He sees a cabin at a distance. He finds he has money in plenty. To heal his wounds will be easy. He must be greatly changed if his feelings may be credited. Two of his teeth are broken, and harass his curious tongue.

What plotter, cunning in exploits, could so well plan an honorable discharge from the bitterness of life in Chicago?

"Sing on, you birds! Fly off to Cuba! I am as free!"

The man is startled by his own voice. It sounds as if some one else were talking. Yet this surprise only increases his joy.

"Free! Free! Free!" The word has a complete charm. It is like the shimmer of the waters. All this expanse of hammered silver is free!

"I am as free!" exclaims Robert Chalmers, of New York City.

And again starting at the sound of his own voice, he seeks the cabin of a hospitable trapper, where his wounds healing without surgical attention, may disguise him all the better.



CHAPTER II

A COMPLETE DISGUISE

David Lockwin has undertaken that Robert Chalmers shall have no trouble. It was David Lockwin, in theory, who suffered all the ills of life. In this theory David Lockwin has seriously erred. Robert Chalmers must bear burdens.

The first burden is a broken nose and a facial appearance strangely inferior to the look of David Lockwin, the orator. Robert Chalmers need not disguise himself. He will never be identified. That broken nose is a distortion that no detective could fathom. Those scarlet fimbrications under the skin proclaim the toper. Those missing teeth complete a picture which men do not admire.

David Lockwin was courted. Robert Chalmers is shunned. It wounds a personal vanity that in David Lockwin's philosophy had not existed. It is the ideal of disguises, but it does not make Robert Chambers happy.

Why, too, should Robert Chalmers desire so many appurtenances of life that were in David Lockwin's quarters? If we find Chalmers housed in comfortable apartments at Gramercy Square, is it not inconsistent that he should gradually supply himself with cough medicine, turpentine, alcohol, ammonia, niter, mentholine, camphor spirits, cholagogue, cholera mixture, whisky, oil, acid, salves and all the aids to health and cleanliness by which David Lockwin flourished? How slight an annoyance is the lack of that old-time prescription of Dr. Tarpion, which alone will relieve the melancholia!

For Robert Chalmers finds that the weather still gives him a turn. If the lost prescription will alone lift the oppression, is not the annoyance considerable, providing Dr. Tarpion cannot be seen?

Robert Chalmers had planned a life at Florence. But now he is a man without a body. It is enough. He will not also be a man without a country. He will stay in New York.

In fact, a fortune of $75,000 is not so much! It will be well to husband it. The books must be bought. Day after day the search must go forward for copies like those in Chicago. Josephus! What other copy will satisfy Robert Chalmers? Here is a handsome Josephus—as fine as the one in Chicago. But did Davy's head ever lie on it?

Well, bear up then, Robert Chalmers. You are free at least. You need not lie and cheat at elections. You need not live with a woman whose heart is as cold as ice and whose pride is like the pride of an Egyptian Pharaoh. You sunk that yawl well in the sands of Georgian Bay! You filled it with stones!

You thought you were the sole survivor, yet how admirably the rescue of Corkey and the boy abetted your escape, Robert Chalmers. They saw David Lockwin die. They took his dying wishes. Fortunate that he could not mention the deposit at New York!

But why is David Lockwin so dear? Why not forget him?

Did he play a part that credits him? Why stop at Washington and take the mail that awaited in that long-advertised list? Truly, Robert Chalmers was strong enough to lay those letters aside without reading. That, at least, was prudent.

Let us read these newspaper accounts. There is intense excitement at Chicago. Lockwin is libeled. The election briberies are exposed. David Lockwin had spent nearly $200,000 to go to Congress, it is stated.

"Infamous!" cries Robert Chalmers, and vows he is glad he is out of a world so base. He puts forth for books.

Search as he may, he cannot find the editions that have grown dear to David Lockwin. He cannot abstain from more purchases of Chicago papers. They are familiar—like the books in David Lockwin's library at Chicago.

This is a dreary life, without a friend. He dares not to seek acquaintances. Not a soul, not even a restaurant keeper, has ventured to be familiar. The man with a broken nose and missing teeth—the man with a grotesque voice—is scarcely desired as a customer at select places on the avenues and Broadway. Let him find better accommodations among the Frenchmen and Italians on Sixth avenue.

"Probably," they say, "he has fallen in a duel."

But there are fits of melancholia. Return, Robert Chalmers, to your handsome apartments. Draw down your folding-bed, turn on the heat, study those Chicago papers. Live once again! What is this? A reaction at Chicago. Why, here is a page of panegyric. Here is a large portrait of the late Hon. David Lockwin, lost in Georgian Bay!

The man whisks off his bed, and runs it up to the wall, whereupon he may confront a handsome mirror. He compares the two faces.

"A change. A change, indeed!" he exclaims sadly. It is not alone in the features. The new man is growing meager. He is an inconsequential person. He is a character to be kept waiting in an ante-room while strutting personages walk into the desired presence.

He pulls the bed down. He cannot lie on it now. He takes a chair and greedily reads the apotheosis of David Lockwin.

As he reads he is seized with a surprising feeling. In all this eulogium he sees the hand of Esther Lockwin. Without her aid this great biography could not have been collated.

The sweat stands on his brow. He studies the type, to learn those confessions that the publishers make, one to another, but not to the world.

"It is paid for," he groans. He is wounded and unhappy.

"It is her cursed pride," he says. "I'm glad I'm out of it all."

He sits, week after week, hands deep in pockets, his legs stretched out, one ankle over the other, his chin far down on his chest.

"Funny man in the east parlor!" says the chambermaid.

"Isn't he ugly!" says her fellow-chambermaid.

But after this long discontent, Robert Chalmers finds that Chicago mourns for him. He is flattered. "I earned it!" he cries, and goes in search of the books that once eased him—the identical copies.

The movement for a cenotaph makes him smile. On the whole, he is glad men are so sentimental about monuments. He is glad, however, that no monument will be erected.

It is undoubtedly embarrassing.

He is thinking too much of Chicago. He must begin this second life on a new principle. He must forget David Lockwin. It grows apparent to the man that his brain will not bear the load which now rests upon it. He must rather dwell upon the miseries that he has escaped He must canvass the good fortune of a single and irresponsible citizen, Robert Chalmers, who has no less than $74,500 in bank. He must put his mind on business.

No!

One reason for quitting the old life was the desire to pass a studious life.

Well, then, he must wait patiently for that period when his mind will be quiet. A certain thought at last reanimates him.

Would it not be well to act as a clerk until the weariness of servitude should make freedom pleasing? This is both philosophical and thrifty.

Robert Chalmers therefore advertises for a situation as book-keeper. This occupation will support him in his determination to neglect the Chicago newspapers.

"Greatest man I ever saw to sit stretched out, his hands deep in his pockets, his feet crossed, his head far down on his shirt bosom," says the chambermaid at Gramercy Square. "He must be an inventor. He thinks, and thinks, and thinks. Dear sakes, but he is homely."

An advertisement secures to Robert Chalmers a book-keeper's place in a dry-goods agency on Walker street. The move is a wise one. The labor occupies his time, improves his spirits and emancipates him from the unpleasant conclusions that were forcing themselves on him. He is not liked by the other clerks because he is not social, but he is able to consider, once more, the humiliations which he escaped by avoiding a contested election, and by a successful evasion of a wedding compact which was a part of his foolish political ambition.

Several months pass away. If Chalmers is to be anything better than a book-keeper at nine hours' work each day he must move, but he who so willingly took the great step is now afraid to resign his book-keepership. He dreads life away from his tall desk. This problem is engaging his daily attention. This afternoon the clerks are arguing about Chicago. He cannot avoid hearing. He is the only party not engaged in the debate. They desire his arbitration. Does Clark street run both north and south of the river in Chicago? Here, for instance, is the route of a procession. Is it not clear that Clark street must run north if the procession shall follow this route?

They lay a Chicago Sunday paper on his desk. The portrait of David Lockwin confronts Robert Chalmers. There is a page of matter concerning the dedication of a monument on the following Saturday.

The arbiter stammers so wretchedly that the losing side withdraw their offer of arbitration.

"Chalmers doesn't know," they declare, and take away the paper while Chalmers strives to read to the last syllable.

He is sick. He cannot conclude his day's work. His evident distress secures a leave for the day.

"Get somebody in my place if I am not here tomorrow," he says, thoughtfully, for they have been his only friends, little as they suspect it. "Chicago in mourning for David Lockwin!" he cries in astonishment, as he purchases great files of old Chicago papers. "Chicago dedicating a monument to David Lockwin! It is beyond conception! And so soon! The monument of Douglas waited for twenty years."