David Lockwin--The People's Idol Part 36

"Run for your lives, gentlemen," cries the a.s.sistant telegraph editor, making believe to hold down his shears. There is an explosion. It is accompanied with many distinguishable noises--the hissing of steam, the routing of hogs from their wallow, the screech of tug whistles and the yell of Indians.

The door stands open to the great composing-room, where eighty typesetters--eighty cynics--eighty nervous, high-strung, well-paid workmen--stand at their intellectual toil. They are all in a hurry, but each rasps his iron type-stick across a thin part.i.tion of his type case. It is a small horse-fiddle. The combined effect is impressive, chaotic.

The night foreman rages internally. He stalks about with baleful eye.

"Buck in, you fellows," he says. "The paper is behind."

"I wish it would kill him," the night foreman says of Corkey.

There is silence in the telegraph-room. The tinkle of the horse-cars comes up audibly from the street. The night editor knows what has happened, to the slightest detail. He mentally sees the night foreman standing in the shadows of the parlor (wash-place) laughing to kill.

The night editor grows still more unctuous.

"From earthquakes, hailstorms and early frosts," he prays, "good Lord, deliver us."

"Good Lord, deliver us!" comes the solemn antiphone of the telegraph editor, the a.s.sistant telegraph editor, Corkey and the copy boy.

The chinchilla coat is off. This is manifestly a hard way to earn a living for a candidate for Congress, a dark horse for the legislature and a marine editor who has run his legs off all day.

"He's been moving," the boy whispers to the night editor.

The night editor scans the dark face. It is serious enough. It is the night editor's method to rule his people by the moderation of his speech. In this way they do all the work and thank him for keeping his nose out of affairs.

"We hear, commodore, that you have moved your household G.o.ds."

"Yes," grunts Corkey. To the jam-jorum Corkey must be civil, as he will tell you.

"Where to?"

"Top flat, across the alley from the Grand Pacific."

"That's a five-story building, isn't it?"

"That's what it is."

Corkey is busy fixing his telegrams for the printer. He is trying to learn what the current date is, and is unwilling to ask.

The night editor is thinking of Mrs. Corkey, a handsome little woman, for whom the "boys in the office" have a pleasant regard.

"Is there an elevator?"

"I didn't see no elevator when I was carrying the kitchen stove in."

"How will Mrs. Corkey get up?"

This is too much. Corkey has made a hundred trips to the new abode, each time laden with some heavy piece of furniture or package of goods.

How will Mrs. Corkey get there, when Corkey has been up and down the docks from the north pier to the lumber district on Ashland avenue, and all since supper?

The marine editor sits back rigidly in his chair. The head quakes, the tongue plays, he looks defiantly at the night editor.

"She's coming," says the a.s.sistant telegraph editor, holding down his shears and paste-pot.

The head quakes, but it is not a sneeze. It is a deliverance, _ex cathedra_. The night editor wants to hear it.

"You bet your sweet life, Mrs. Corkey," says the commodore, "screw her nut up four flight of stairs. That's what Mrs. Corkey do!"

The compliments of the evening are over. It is a straining of every nerve now to get a good first edition for the fast train.

"Gale to-night, Corkey," says the telegraph editor. "We've taken most of your stuff for the front page. The display head isn't long enough.

Write me another line for it."

"Hain't got nothing to write," Corkey doesn't like to have his report taken out of its customary place. When there are blood-curdling wrecks he wants the news in small type along with his port list.

"Hain't got nothing to write," he repeats sullenly. He gapes and stretches. He knows he must obey the telegraph editor.

"Hurry! Give it to me. Give me the idea." Corkey's eye brightens.

He is a man of ideas, not of words. He has an idea. His head quakes.

The tongue begins its whirring like the fan-wheel before the clock strikes.

"You can say that the life-saving service display a great act," says the marine editor, relieved of a grievous duty.

His pile of telegrams grows smaller. The dreaded work will soon be over.

"How's your rich widow?"

Corkey has not failed to plume himself on his aristocratic and familiar acquaintance. His a.s.sociates are themselves flattered. Corkey is to take the telegraph editor to call on Mrs. Lockwin. The night editor is jealously regarded as too smooth with the ladies. He will be left to his own devices.

"How's your rich widow?" is repeated. But Corkey cannot hear. He is reading a telegram that astonishes, electrifies and confuses him.

"COLLINGWOOD, 14.--After wading ten miles along sh.o.r.e found yawl Africa sunk in three feet water, filled with sand and hundreds stone. Can take you to spot. What reward? What shall we do?"

Corkey seizes the dispatch, puts on his coat, and rides downstairs. On the street he finds it is midnight. He looks for a carriage. He sets his watch by a jeweler's chronometer, over which a feeble gas flame burns all night.

He changes his mind and rides back upstairs. He enters the telegraph operators' room, where five men are at work receiving special intelligence.

"Get Collingwood, boys."

"That drops off at Detroit. Collingwood's a day job."

The instrument is clicking. The operator takes each word as the laborious Corkey, with short pencil, presses it into the buff-colored paper.

CHICAGO, 14.--Let it be! Will be at Collingwood to-morrow.

CORKEY.

CHAPTER VII

A RASH ACT