David Lockwin--The People's Idol Part 22

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 s.h.i.+pwrecks 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 s.h.i.+pwreck 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 gla.s.s. He looks with affection on the mascot and ruminates.

Then he brings his adamantine fist down on the bar to the peril of all gla.s.sware.

"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 pa.s.sed 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 pa.s.s 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 pa.s.s 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.