Chapter 18

IN THE CONVENTIONAL DAYS

One congressman, a hundred wood-choppers and fourteen miscellaneous lives have been lost in Georgian Bay.

It is the epoch of sensational news. A life is a life. The valiant night editor places before his readers the loss of 115 congressmen, for a wood-chopper is as good as a congressman.

And while the theory that 115 congressmen have gone down astounds and horrifies the subscriber, it might be different if that many congressmen of the opposite party should really be sent to the bottom.

The conditions for conventional news are, therefore, perfect. Upon the length of the report depends the reputation of the newspaper. The newspaper with the widest circulation must have the longest string of type and the blackest letters in its headings.

Corkey works for that paper.

"Give us your full story," demand his four saviors.

The mascot stammers so that communication with him is restricted to his answers of yes and no.

It is therefore Corkey's duty to the nation to tell all he has witnessed. He conceals nothing.

"It ain't much I know about it," he says; "she was rotten and she go down."

"Yes, but begin with the thrilling scenes."

"There 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 hurries to the telegraph office. He buys a half-dozen tales of the sea. He finds a shipwreck to suit his needs. He describes in a column the happy scenes in the cabin before the calamity is feared. He depicts the stern face of the commander as he stands, pistols in hand, to keep the passengers from the boats. The full moon rises. The wind abates. A raft is constructed at a cost of one column and a half of out and out plagiarism. Corkey, Lockwin and forty wood-choppers are saved on the raft. The captain goes down on his ship, refusing to live longer.

"You bet!" comments the laboring, perspiring Corkey. Corkey is a short man, short in speech. This "full account" is a grievous responsibility, for marine reporters are taught to "boil it down."

The raft goes to pieces in mid-sea, and the survivors take to the yawl.

Then Corkey returns and interpolates a column death scene on the raft.

"Too bad there wasn't no starving," he laments. "I was hungry enough to starve."

The boat comes ashore in the breakers, and as the result of an all-night's struggle with the muse of conventionality Corkey has seven columns of double-leaded copy.

Meantime the telegraph operator at Wiarton at Corkey's order has been sending the Covode Investigation from an antique copy of the "Congressional Globe." There is an office rule that dispatches must take their turn on the file. The four interviewers have filed their accounts and their accounts will be sent after the Covode Investigation. When Corkey's dispatch is ready he joins it to a sheet of the Covode Investigation, and therefore the operator has been busy on one dispatch all the time.

The night editor of Corkey's paper begins getting the Covode Investigation from Wiarton. He enjoins the foreman to start more type-setters. Reprint copy is freely set all night, and at dawn the real stuff begins to arrive.

"Appalling Calamity. Loss of 115 Lives on Georgian Bay. Only Two Saved. Graphic and Exciting Account of Our Special Survivor. Unparalleled Feat in Journalism."

Such are some of the many headings. They fill a column.

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 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.