nt 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 shipwrecks 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 shipwreck 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 glass. He looks with affection on the mascot and ruminates.
Then he brings his adamantine fist down on the bar to the peril of all
glassware.

"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
passed out of a single state