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 hu