he w-w-was."

"'Want to send some word home, old man?' says I, to cheer him up; for
don't you see, I allowed we was all in the drink--just tumble to what
an old tub she was--117 of us at the start, and we all croak but me and
the moke--the coon, I should say."

The woman is afraid to interrupt.

Suddenly the eye of Corkey moistens. He has escaped a great error. "I
didn't hear his last words, nohow."

"He said to p-p-put a st-st-stone over D-Davy's grave," says the lad

The man turns on the boy. The brows beetle. The mouth gives a
squaring movement, significant beyond words.

The listener still waits.

"And then," says Corkey, "he whisper his good-bye to you. 'Tell her
good-bye for me.' _That's_ what he said, you moke!"

"Yessah."

Esther Lockwin grasps those short hands. She thanks the commodore for
saving her husband, for living to tell her his last words. She can
herself live to find her husband's body.

But it is far too much for the navigator.

His sobs resound through the room. The woman cannot weep. Her eyes
are dry,

"I had such feelings as no decent man ever gits," he explains, "but
I'll never forgive myself that it was me who steered him agin it."

"You have a better heart than most men, Mr. Corkey."

"I'd give seven hundred cases in bar gelt if he was in Congress to-day,
Mrs. Lockwin."

"I know you would, you poor man. God bless you for it!"

Corkey is feeling in all his pockets.

"Take this handkerchief, Mr. Corkey, if it will help you. God bless
you always! God bless you always! Come and see me often. I shall
never get tired of hearing how my husband died. He must have been
brave to cling to the boat."

"You bet he _was_, and if ever you need money, you come to me, for I'm
the boy that's got it in the yellow!"

Corkey bows himself down the steps. There two managers of museums
implore a few moments' conversation. They tender their cards.

"Naw!" says Corkey, "we don't want no museum."

The managers persist.

"No use o' your chinning us! Go on, now!"

The heroes escape from their persecutors. The mind of Corkey reverts
to the parlors of Esther Lockwin.

"Great Caesar!" he exclaims.

"Yessah!"

"Steer me to a bar!"

A few moments later Corkey leans sidewise against a whisky counter, his
left foot on the iron rail, his hand on the glass. A mouthful of
tobacco is gnawed from the biggest and blackest of plugs. The mascot
stands by the stove.

The barte