CHAPTER I_David Lockwin—The People's Idol

Produced by Al Haines

[Frontispiece: He appears on the balcony. There is a cheer that may

be heard all over the South Side.]

DAVID LOCKWIN

The People's Idol

JOHN McGOVERN,

AUTHOR OF

"Daniel Trentworthy," "Burritt Durand," "Geoffrey," "Jason Hortner,"

"King Darwin," etc.

CHICAGO:

DONOHUE, HENNEBERRY & CO.

TABLE OF CONTENTS

Book I - Davy

Chapter

I. Harpwood and Lockwin

II. The People's Idol

III. Of Sneezes

IV. Bad News All Around

V. Dr. Floddin's Patient

VI. A Reign of Terror

VII. The Primaries

VIII. Fifty Kegs of Beer

IX. The Night Before Election

X. Elected

XI. Lynch-Law for Corkey

XII. In Georgian Bay

XIII. Off Cape Croker

XIV. In the Conventional Days

Book II - Esther Lockwin

I. Extra! Extra!

II. Corkey's Fear of a Widow's Grief

III. The Cenotaph

IV. A Knolling Bell

Book III - Robert Chalmers

I. A Difficult Problem

II. A Complete Disguise

III. Before the Telegraph Office

IV. "A Sound of Revelry by Night"

V. Letters of Consolation

VI. The Yawl

VII. A Rash Act

VIII. A Good Scheme

IX. A Heroic Act

X. Esther as a Liberal Patron

Book IV - George Harpwood

I. Corkey's Good Scheme

II. Happiness and Peace

III. At 3 in the Morning

IV. The Bridegroom

V. At Six O'clock

LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS

Frontispiece: He appears on the balcony. There is a cheer that may be

heard all over the South Side.

Three of the most bashful arise and come to be kissed.

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

Her eye returns in satisfaction to the glittering black granite letters

over the portal.

"It's a good scheme, Corkey."

But the bride still stands under the lamp on the portico, statuesque as

Zenobia or Medea.

DAVID LOCKWIN

THE PEOPLE'S IDOL

BOOK I

DAVY

CHAPTER I

HARPWOOD AND LOCKWIN

Esther Wandrell, of Chicago, will be worth millions of dollars.

It is a thought that inspires the young men of all the city with

momentous ambitions. Why does she wait so long? Whom does she favor?

To-night the carriages are trolling and rumbling to the great mansion

of the Wandrells on Prairie Avenue. The women are positive in their

exclamations of reunion, and this undoubted feminine joy exhilarates,

and entertains the men. The lights are brilliant, the music is far

away and clever, the flowers and decorations are novel.

If you look in the faces of the guests you shall see that the affair

cannot fail. Everybody has personally assured the success of the

evening.

Many times has this hospitable home opened to its companies of selected

men, and women. Often has the beautiful Esther Wandrell smiled upon

the young men--upon rich and poor alike. Why is she, at twenty-seven

years of age, rich, magnificent and unmarried?

Ask her mother, who married at fifteen. Ask the father, who for ten

years worried to think his only child might go away from him at any day.

"I tell you," says Dr. Tarpion, "Harpwood will get her, and get her

to-night. That is what this party is for. I've seen them together,

and I know what's in the air."

"Is that so?" says David Lockwin.

"Yes, it is so, and you know you don't like Harpwood any too well since

he got your primary in the Eleventh."

"I should say I didn't!" says Lockwin, half to himself.

At a distance, Esther Wandrell passes on Harpwood's arm.

"Who is Harpwood?" asks Lockwin.

"I'm blessed if I know," answers Dr. Tarpion.

"How long has he been in town?"

"Not over two years."

"Do you know anybody who knows him?"

"He owes me a bill."

"What was he sick of?"

"Worry."

The man and woman repass. The woman looks toward Lockwin and his dear

friend the renowned Dr. Irenaeus Tarpion. Guests speak of Harpwood.

His suit is bold. The lady is apparently interested.

"I should not think you would like that?" says the doctor.

"Why should I care, after all?" asks Lockwin.

"Well, if ever I have seen two men whose destinies are hostile, it

seems to me that you and Harpwood fill the condition. If he gets into

Wandrell's family you might as well give up politics."

"Perhaps I might do that anyhow."

"Well, you are an odd man. I'll not dispute that. What you will do at

any given time I'll not try to prophesy."

The twain separate. However, of any two men in Chicago, perhaps David

Lockwin and Dr. Tarpion are most agreeable to each other. From boyhood

they have been familiar. If one has said to the other, "Do that!" it

has been done.

"I fear you cannot be spared from your other guests, Esther," says

Lockwin.

"I fear you are trying to escape to that dear doctor of yours. Now,

are you not?"

"No. I have been with him for half an hour already. Esther, you are a

fine-looking woman. Upon my honor, now--"

She will not tolerate it, yet she never looked so pleased before.

"Tell me," she says, "of your little boy."

"Of my foundling?"

"Yes, I love to hear you speak of him."

"Well, Esther, the truest thing I have heard of my boy was said by old

Richard Tarbelle. He stopped me the other day. You know our houses

adjoin. 'Mr. Lockwin,' said he, as he came home with his basket--he

goes to his son's hotel each day for family stores--'I often say to

Mary that the happiest moment in my day is when I give an apple or an

orange to your boy, for the look on that child's face is the nearest we

ever get to heaven on this earth."

"O, beautiful! beautiful! Mr. Lockwin."

"Yes, indeed, Esther. I took that little fellow three years ago. I

had no idea he would grow so pretty. Folks said it was the oddest of

pranks, but if I had bought fifteen more horses than I could use, or

dogs enough to craze the neighborhood, or even a parrot, like my good

neigbor Tarbelle, everybody would have been satisfied. Of course, I

had to take a house and keep a number of people for whom a bachelor has

no great need. But, Esther, when I go home there is framed in my

window the most welcome picture human eye has ever seen--that little

face, Esther!"

The man is enwrapped. The woman joins in the man's exaltation.

"He is the most beautiful child I have ever seen anywhere. It is the

talk of everybody. You are so proud of him when you ride together!"

"Esther, I have seen him in the morning when he came to rouse me--his

face as white as his gown; his golden hair long, and so fleecy that it

would stand all about his head; his mouth arched like the Indian's bow;

his great blue eyes bordered with dark brows and lashed with jet-black

hairs a half-inch long. That picture, Esther, I fear no painter can

get. I marvel why I do not make the attempt."

"He is as bright as he is beautiful," she says.

"Yes, Esther, I have looked over this world. Childhood is always

beautiful--always sweet to me--but my boy is without equal, and nearly

everybody admits it."

"He is not yours, David."

The man looks inquiringly.

"I have as good a right to love him as you have. I do love him."

The man has been eloquent and self-forgetful. The woman has lost her

command. Tears are coming in her eyes. Shame is mantling her cheeks.

David Lockwin is startled.

George Harpwood passes in the distance with Esther's mother on his arm.

"Esther, you know me, with all my faults. I think we could be happy

together--we three--you and I and the boy. Will you marry me? Will

you be a mother to my little boy? He is lonesome while I am gone!"

The matter is settled. It has come by surprise. If David Lockwin had

foreseen it, he would have left the field open to Harpwood.

If Esther Wandrell had foreseen it, she would have shunned David

Lockwin. It is her dearest hope, and yet--