David Lockwin--The People's Idol Part 26

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. G.o.d bless you for it!"

Corkey is feeling in all his pockets.

"Take this handkerchief, Mr. Corkey, if it will help you. G.o.d bless you always! G.o.d 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 gla.s.s. 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 advertis.e.m.e.nt 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.