David Lockwin--The People's Idol Part 32

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! G.o.d bless her!

She loves him! Why did he not believe it at home? G.o.d bless her! Is she not n.o.ble?

"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 fas.h.i.+onable 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.

"G.o.d bless her!" writes the Eau Claire reporter, and hastily scratches the sentence as he reads it.

A messenger approaches the reporters. A note is pa.s.sed 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 pa.s.sengers 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 rus.h.i.+ng 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 ma.s.s of letters gray with wear. The visible letter reads:

"HON. DAVID LOCKWIN, Was.h.i.+ngton, D. C."

His thought is that he should destroy these telltale doc.u.ments. Then he wonders what may be in these envelopes. There flashes over him a new feeling--a sharp, lightning-like stroke pa.s.ses 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 Was.h.i.+ngton.

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 Inst.i.tution," 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 Inst.i.tution 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.