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

[Illustration: Her eye returns in satisfaction to the glittering black

granite letters over the portal.]

"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."

The air and the ride revive the man. He even enters a restaurant and

tries to eat a _table d'hote_ dinner with a bottle of Jersey wine, all

for 50 cents, To do a perfunctory act seems to resuscitate him. He

takes up his heavy load of newspapers and finds a boy to carry them.

He remembers that he is a book-keeper on a small salary, and discharges

the boy at half-way.

He reaches his apartments and prepares for the long perusal of his

files of Chicago news. Each item seems to feed his self-love. He is

not Robert Chalmers. He is David Lockwin.

Hour by hour the reader goes on. Paper after paper falls aside, to be

followed by the succeeding issue. At last the tale is complete. David

Lockwin, dead, is the idol of the day at Chicago.

The man stretches his legs, puts one ankle over the other, sinks his

hands deep in his pockets, a newspaper entering with the left arm, and

lowers his head far down on his chest. The clock strikes and recalls

him to action.

"I can reach Chicago in time for that dedication," he says. "I guess,

after all, that I am David Lockwin's chief mourner."

Ah, yes! Why has not this second life brought more joy? The man

ponders and questions himself.

"I am Davy's chief mourner, too!" he says, and sobs. "By heaven, it is

Davy that has made me unhappy! I thought it was Chicago. I thought it

was politics. I thought it was Esther. It must have been Davy!"

"If it were Davy," he says, an hour later, "I have made a mistake."

Down he looks into his heart, whither he has not dared to search

before. He is homesick. Nobody loves Robert Chalmers. Nobody

respects Robert Chalmers. David Lockwin dead is great and good. How

about David Lockwin living?

His hands go deeper in his pockets at this. The motion rustles the

newspaper. He strives to shake free of the sheet. His eye rests on

the railway timetables.

He falls into profound meditation again. He considers himself

miserable. He is, in fact, happy, if absence of dreadful pain and

turmoil be a human blessing. At last his eye lights up, and the heavy

face grows cheerful.

"I will go to Chicago!" he says.

CHAPTER III

BEFORE THE TELEGRAPH OFFICE

Robert Chalmers is in Chicago this morning of the dedication, and has

slept well. He tossed in his bed at New York. He snores at the

Western inn.

He asks himself why this is so, and his logic tells him that nature

hopes to re-establish him as David Lockwin. There is a programme in

such a course. At New York there was neither chart nor compass. It

was like the Africa in mid-sea, foundering.

Now Robert Chalmers is nearing land. And the land is David Lockwin.

The welcoming shore is the old life of respectability. Banish the

difficulties! They will evaporate. Listen to the bands, and the

marching of troops!

He goes to the window. The intent of these ceremonies smites him and

he falls on the bed. But nature restores him. Bad as it is, here is

Chicago. David Lockwin is not dead. That is certain. He is not

pursued by the law, for another congressman has been chosen. David

Lockwin has tried to kill himself, but he has not committed murder.

Is it not bravado to return and court discovery? But is not Robert

Chalmers in the mood to be discovered? "What disguise is so real as

mine?" he asks, as friend after friend passes him by.

True, he wears a heavy watch-chain and a fashionable collar. His garb

was once that of a professional man. Now his face is entirely altered.

Gouts of carmine are spotted over his cheeks; wounds are visible on his

forehead. His nose is crooked and his teeth are misshapen. His voice

is husky.

He enters a street-car for the north. It startles him somewhat to have

Corkey take a seat beside him.

"Will this car take me to the dedication?" Chalmers makes bold to ask

the conductor.

"That's what it will!" answered Corkey. "Going there? I'm going up

myself. I reckon it will be a big thing. Takes a big thing to git me

out of bed this time of day. I'm a great friend of Mrs. Lockwin's!"

"You are?"

"That's what I am. I was on the old tub when she go down. May be

you've heard of me. My name is Corkey."

"Clad to meet you. My name is Chalmers. I have read the account."

"Yes, I've got tired of telling it. But it's a singular thing, about

Lockwin's yawl. Next week I go out again. I'll find that boat, you

hear me? I'll find it. I tell the dame that, the other day."

"Mrs. Lockwin?"

"I tell her the other day that I find the yawl. I'll never forget that

boat. Lord! how unsteady she was! I'm sorry for the dame. Women

don't generally feel so bad as she does. It's a great act, this

monument--all her--every bit! These prominent citizens--say, they make

me weary! You've heard about the hospital--the memorial hospital. She

blow hundred and fifty thousand straight cases against that

hospital--the David Lockwin Annex. Oh, it's a cooler. It's all iron

and stone and terra cotta. She's spent a fortune already. She doesn't

cry much--none, I reckon. But no one can bluff her out."

Robert Chalmers is pleased in a thousand ways. He is so glad that he

scarcely notes the facts about the annex. Since he was cast away no

other person has talked freely with him. The open Western manner

rejoices his very blood.

"Lockwin was a pretty fair-sized man, like you. I guess you remind me

of him a trifle. They was a fine pair. I never was stuck on him, for

I was in politics against him; but somehow or other I've hearn the dame

praise him so much, and he die in the yawl, and so on, until I feel

like a brother to him. Just cut across with me," as they leave the

car. "Want a seat with the reporters? Oh, that will be all right out

here. Say you're from the outside--where is it? Eau Claire? Say Eau

Claire. Here is some copy paper. Sit side of me. Screw your nut out

of my place, young feller," to a mere sight-seer. "Bet your life.

Don't take that seat neither! Go on, now!"

David Lockwin is to report the dedication of his own monument. He

trembles and grows thankful that Corkey has ceased to talk. The

audience gathers slowly. David Lockwin wonders it he be a madman thus

to expose himself. A memorial hospital! Did not Corkey speak of that?

The David Lockwin Annex!

This is awful! Lockwin has not read a word of it. Ay, but the

apartments are still at Gramercy Square. Why did he come? What fate

led him away? What devil has lured him back? Hold! Hold! There is

Esther! Lift her veil! Give her air! Esther, the beautiful!

The reporter for the Eau Claire paper groans with the people. His

heart falls to the bottom of the sea. She loves him! God bless her!

She loves him! Why did he not believe it at home? God bless her! Is

she not noble?

"She's a great dame," Corkey whispers loudly. "Special friend of mine.

You bet your sweet life I'd do anything for her. I'll find that yawl,

too!"

"The late honorable David Lockwin," begins the pastor of the

fashionable church.

"The late honorable David Lockwin," write the reporters.

"The late honorable David Lockwin," writes David Lockwin.

He grows ill and dizzy once more. The exercises proceed. He will fall

if he do not look at Esther's face.

"I know," cries the shrill soprano, "that my--Redeemer liveth."

There comes upon the widow's face an ecstatic look of hope. She will

meet her husband in heaven, and he will praise her love and fidelity.

"God bless her!" writes the Eau Claire reporter, and hastily scratches

the sentence as he reads it.

A messenger approaches the reporters. A note is passed along.

"I got to go!" whispers Corkey, "you can stay. They sent for me at the

office. I guess something's up."

David Lockwin is only too glad to escape. He dreads to leave Esther,

yet what is Esther to him? He will hurry away to New York before he

falls into the abyss that opens before him.

"Do you suppose she loved her husband as much as it seems?" he asks.

"I wish she'd love me a quarter as much, though I'm a married man.

Love him! Well, I should say!"

Corkey tries to be loquacious. But his dark face grows darker.

"Oh! it's bad business. I'm sorry for her, and it knocks me out, I

ain't my old self. I got up feeling beautiful, and it just knocks me.

I don't think she ought to build no monument, nor no hospital, for it

keeps her hoping. What's the use of hoping? I'll find that yawl.

Curious about that yawl. Wouldn't it be great stuff if he should show

up? Wonder what he'd think of his monument and his hospital? A

hospital, now, ain't so bad. You could take his name off it. They'll

do that some day, anyhow, I reckon. I've seen the name changed on a

good many signs in Chicago. But what's a monument good for after the

duck has showed up? Old man, wouldn't it be a sensation? Seven

columns!"

Corkey slaps his leg. He quakes his head. The little tongue plays

about the black tobacco. He sneezes. The passengers are generally

upset.

A substantial woman of fifty, out collecting her rents, expostulates in

a sharp voice.

A girl of seventeen laughs in a manner foreboding hysteria.

The conductor flies to the scene.

"None o' that in here!" he cries, frowning majestically on Corkey.

"Don't you be so gay, or I'll get you fired off the road," answers the

cause of all the commotion.

"Randolph street!" yells the conductor in a great voice.

The irate and insulted Corkey debarks with Lockwin.

"Pardner, I wouldn't like to see him come back, though. I'd be sorry

for him. Think of the racket he'd have to take!"

"What time does the train start for New York?" asks Lockwin.

"Panic! Panic! Panic!" is the deafening cry of the newsboys.

The two men join a crowd in front of a telegraph office. Bulletins are

on a board and in the windows. Men are rushing about. The scene is in

strange contrast with the sylvan drama which is closing far to the

north, where the choir is singing "Asleep in Jesus."

There is a financial crash on the New York Stock Exchange. Bank after

bank is failing. "The New State's Fund Closes," is the latest bulletin.

"I got pretty near a thousand cases," says Corkey, "but you bet your

sweet life she ain't in no bank. I put my money in the vaults."

"Banks are better," says Lockwin. He has a bank-book somewhere in his

pockets. He pulls forth a mass of letters gray with wear. The visible

letter reads:

"HON. DAVID LOCKWIN,

Washington,

D. C."

His thought is that he should destroy these telltale documents. Then

he wonders what may be in these envelopes. There flashes over him a

new feeling--a sharp, lightning-like stroke passes across his

shoulder-blade and down his arm.

It is Esther's handwriting, faded but familiar. The envelope is still

sealed. It is a letter he got at Washington.

The man trembles violently.

"'Fraid you're stuck?" asks Corkey.

The man hurriedly separates his bank-book from the letters. He

displays the fresh and legible name of Robert Chalmers on the bank-book.

"I have a little in a New York bank," he says.

Corkey looks on the book. "The Coal and Oil Trust Company's

Institution," he reads, "in account with Robert Chalmers. Well, money

is a good thing. Glad you're fixed. Glad to know you. I'm fixed

myself."

Corkey examines the list of failures. "I'm glad you're heeled," he

says.

A boy is fastening a new bulletin on the window.

"_There_ you be, now!" says Corkey.

"The Coal and Oil Trust Company's Institution Goes Down," is on the

bulletin.

"I'll lend you money enough to git home," says Corkey.

"Panic! Panic! Panic!!" bawls a large boy, who beats his small rivals

ruthlessly aside and makes his way to Lockwin.

The man is still trembling. He is trying to put away his worthless

bank-book and cannot gain the entrance of the pocket.

"'Ere's your panic! Buy of me, mister. Say, mister, won't you buy of

me? Ah! git out, you great big coward!"

It is the sympathetic Corkey, smartly cuffing the invader.

"Strike somebody of your size, you great big coward! Ah! git out, you

great big coward!"

CHAPTER IV

"A SOUND OF REVELRY BY NIGHT"

"Poverty," says Ben Franklin, "often deprives a man of all spirit and

virtue. It is hard for an empty bag to stand upright."

David Lockwin has but one familiar acquaintance in the world and that

is Corkey. Corkey will now start in search of the body of David

Lockwin!

David Lockwin has but a few hundred dollars in cash. His fortune is in

a ruined bank. He hopes to get something out of it. His experience

tells him he may expect several thousand dollars.

Is it wise to return to New York? Yes. A situation awaits him there.

He can protect his rights as a depositor. He can enjoy the pleasant

apartments at Gramercy Park.

But the expense! Ah! yes, he must take cheaper quarters. It is the

first act of despotism which poverty has ever ventured to impose on

David Lockwin.

It makes New York seem inhospitable. It makes Chicago seem like home.

Still, as David Lockwin seeks his hotel, noting always the complete

solitude in which he dwells among the vast crowds that once knew him

familiarly or by sight, it chills him to the marrow.

He enters the hotel dining-room. The head waiter seats his guest at a

table where three men are eating. Every one of them is a business

acquaintance of Lockwin.

The excitement of the moment drives away the brain terrors which were

entering the man's head. The men regard the newcomer with that look

which is given to an uninvited banqueter whose appearance is not

imposing. The best-natured of the group, however, breaks the silence.

He speaks to the diner on his left.

"Where did you get the stone for that sarcophagus you put up yesterday?"

"In Vermont."

"Who ordered the job--Lockwin or the widow?"

"She did."

"Well, it's a pretty thing. I wish I were rich. I lost a little boy

too."

The monument-maker at this begins a discourse on the economies of his

business and shows that he can meet the requirements of any income or

purse.

"Did you see Lockwin's portrait at the institute?" asks the third party,

"No. Is it good?"

"I hardly think so. I don't remember that he ever looked just like it.

Everybody knew Lockwin, yet I doubt if he had more than one close

acquaintance and that was Tarpion--Doc. Tarpion."

"Does the doctor act as her adviser in all these affairs? Did you read

about the dedication? Did you know about the hospital? She had better

keep her money. She'll need it."

"She? Not much. She had a big estate from Judge Wandell's sister who

died. The judge himself has no other heir. I shouldn't wonder if he

advised the erection of the hospital to give her the credit of what he

intended to do for himself."

"Well, I never knew a town to be so full of one man as this town is of

Lockwin. You'd think he was Douglas or Lincoln."

"Worse than that! Douglas and Lincoln are way behind. Take this city

to-day and it's all Lockwin. Going to the banquet to-night?"

David Lockwin has finished his meal. He rises.

"Coming back," says the monument-maker confidentially to his inquirer,

"I can fix you a beautiful memorial for much less money and it will

answer every purpose."

"I'll see you again," says the customer, cooling rapidly away from the

business. "I must go to the North Side and get back here by 9 o'clock."

Why shall not David Lockwin take the night train and leave this living

tomb in which the world has put him?

"In which I put myself!" he corrects.

It all hurts him yet it delights him. "She loved me after I was dead,"

he vows and forgets the sting of poverty.

Now about this going to New York to-night. He would like to be

prevented from that journey. What shall do that for David Lockwin?

"Davy's sarcophagus!"

The thought seizes him with violence. Of course he cannot go. He

seeks his room. He throws himself on his bed and gives way to all his

grief. It takes the form of love for Davy. David Lockwin weeps for

golden-head. He weeps for the past. He is living. He ought to be

dead. He is poor. He is misshapen in feature. He is hungry for human

sympathy. The world is giving him a stone. Oh, Davy! Davy!

The outside electric lights make a thousand monuments, hospitals,

sarcophagi, portraits and panics on the chamber walls. The hours go

past. There is a bustle in the hotel. There is a sound of merriment

in the banqueting hall, directly below. The satisfaction of having

dealt tenderly by the beloved dead is expressing itself in choice

libations and eloquent addresses.

The man listens for these noises. There is a loud clapping of hands.

An address has concluded.

The glasses tinkle. Doors open and shut. Waiters and servants run

through the hall giving orders and carrying on those quarrels which

pertain to the unseen parts of public festivities.

"Why did I not go?" David Lockwin asks. "Ah! yes. Davy! Davy's tomb.

I will see it, if it shall kill me to live until then. But how shall I

pass this night? What shall I do? What shall I do?"