Chapter 35

AT 3 IN THE MORNING

"Where is Chalmers?" asks Corkey.

"Mr. Chalmers is not in," answers the clerk.

"I want to see him," says Corkey, authoritatively.

"He is not in," retorts the clerk with spirit.

"Has he sold out?"

"No."

"When will he be in?"

"I can't tell you. Excuse me." A customer waits.

"Yes, yes, yes!" growls Corkey. But he never was busier. He is trying to do his work at the office and to get through election week.

"Where is Chalmers?" Again Corkey is at the drug store. "See here, my friend, I don't take no street-car way down here to have you do no cunning act. Is Chalmers in town?"

"I do not know."

The clerk is telling the truth, and is in turn offended. "I do not know," he says, resolutely.

Corkey is convinced. "I'll bet it's true," he says, suddenly summing up the situation.

He hurries away. The weather is wet and cold.

Corkey is drenched, and of all things he dreads a drenching. For that he wears the thickest of clothes.

Three hours later he is known to be badly beaten at the polls. He is denounced as a sore-head, a bolter, and a fool.

Corkey goes to his home. On the night of the fourth day he appears in the yellow light of the telegraph-room.

"Commodore, we're sorry for you. Take it easy, and get back to work. No man can live, doing as you've done. You were up all the time, weren't you?"

Corkey's light is burning because the other editors need it. He sits with his coat on, his face on his hands, his elbows on the table.

"I was up the last six days," he explains. "I just got out of bed now."

"Do you good to sleep," says the night editor.

"What day is it?"

"Saturday."

"Well, I go to sleep some time Wednesday. I sleep ever since."

There is a chorus of astonishment. "It will save your life, Corkey. We thought the election would kill you."

"I'm sleepy yet."

"Go back and sleep more."

"Good-bye, boys. I'm much obliged to you all. I'm out of politics. They got all my stuff. I'm worried over a friend, too."

"Too bad, Corkey, too bad."

These editors, whose very food is the human drama, have not lost sight of the terrible chapter of Corkey's activity, anxiety and inevitable disappointment.

"Too bad, isn't it!" the telegraph editor says. "Had any fires?"

"It makes me almost cry," answers the assistant telegraph editor. "Fires? Yes, I've enough for a display head."

"We must go and look after Corkey if he isn't here to-morrow night," observes the night editor. "He's bad off."

A little after midnight there is a loud rattle at the door of the drug store.

The prescription clerk at last opens the door.

"Is Chalmers home yet?"

The clerk is angry. "You have no right to call me up for that!" he avers. "I need my sleep."

"You don't need sleep no worse than I do, young feller."

The door is shut, and Corkey must go home.

When the comrades next see Corkey he is down with pneumonia. His fever rages. Sores break out about his mouth. "I have a friend I want to find awful bad," he says, fretting and rolling. "Chalmers! He runs a drug store at 803 State street, down beyond Eighteenth. But I'm afraid he ain't to be found. I'm afraid he's disappeared. I couldn't find him last week, nor last night, but it was pretty late when I git down there."

The doctor is grave. "He must not worry. Find this Chalmers. Tell him he must come at once if he wishes to make his friend easier."

"I must see Chalmers. I'm sicker than they think. I'm tired out. I can't stand such a fever. That pillow's wet. That's better. It's cold, though. I guess my fever's going. Now I'm getting hot again. I do want to see Chalmers."

The patient tosses and fumes. The comrades hurry to Chalmers' drug store, as others have done.

"The proprietor is out of the city," the clerk answers to all inquirers. "He left no address."

"If he arrives, tell him to hasten to Mr. Corkey's. Mr. Corkey is fatally ill with pneumonia. He must see Mr. Chalmers."

Twenty-four hours pass, with Corkey no better--moaning and asking for Chalmers. All other affairs are as nothing.

Chalmers does not come.

Twenty-four hours more go by. The doctor now allows none of the comrades to see the sick man.

He does not roll and toss so much. But he inquires feebly and constantly for Chalmers.

At midnight he calls his wife. "You've heard me speak of Chalmers, sissy," he says.

There is a ring on the door of the flat.

"That's him now."

But it is a neighbor, come to stay the night out.

"Lock the door. Open that drawer, sissy. Get out that big letter."

The trembling little woman obeys.

"Sissy, did you know we was broke?"

"Our gold?"

"Yes, it's all gone; every nickel. But I wouldn't bother you with that if Chalmers would come. Now, don't cry, and listen, for I'm awful sick. This letter here is to Mrs. Lockwin, and it will fix _you_. And I want to see Chalmers, to see that he stands by her. See?"

The wife listens. She knows there is a letter to Mrs. Lockwin.

"Now I'm going to give something away. When I see Chalmers in his drug store, he sits on his chair so I know it's a dead ringer on Lockwin. Chalmers is Lockwin, sissy. Don't you blow it. I've never told a soul till you. I've schemed and schemed to fix it up, but I never see a man in such a hole. He don't know I'm onto him. But I've no use for this Harpwood, that did me up when he had no need to. I wasn't in his way. A week from Thursday night Harpwood is to marry Mrs. Lockwin. It isn't no good. I want you to see Lockwin, and tell him for me that if his story gets out it wasn't me, and I want you to tell him for me that he mustn't let that poor widow commit no bigamy. It's an awful hole, that's what it is! It is tough on him!"

He has worked on the problem for years.

The man groans. There is a rap on the door. "Hold up a minute. I wouldn't mix in it, but I've done a good deal for the two of 'em, and I've lost a good deal by Harpwood's play on me. I expect Harpwood will set her against you, and I want her to do for you, pretty. So you tell Lockwin he must act quick, and mustn't let her commit no bigamy. She's too good a woman, and you need money bad, sissy. All my twenty-pieces! All my twenty-pieces! My yellow stuff! Will you see Chalmers, sissy? Call him Chalmers. He's Lockwin, just the same, but call him Chalmers."

The wife kisses her husband, and puts the letter back in the drawer.

"Sissy."

"Yes."

"I forgot one thing. Git a little mourning handkerchief out of my hip-pocket. There ain't no gun there. You needn't be afraid."

The woman at last secures a handkerchief which looks the worse for Corkey's long, though reverent, custody.

"Wash it, sissy, and show it up to Mrs. Lockwin. I reckon it will steer her back to the day when she felt pretty good toward me. Be careful of that Harpwood. He ain't no use. I know it. She give me that wipe her own self--yes, she did! God bless her."

The woman once more kisses the sick man.

"The gold, sissy!"

"Never mind it," she says.

"You think it's some good--this letter--don't you, sissy?"

"Of course I do."

"I'm much obliged to you, sissy. Let in those people, now."

The doctor enters. Corkey is at ease. He sinks into the wet pillow. He closes his eyes.

"Did Chalmers come?" asks the physician.

"Never mind him," says Corkey faintly.

The night goes on. The yellow lights still color the telegraph-room. At 3 o'clock the copy boy enters hurriedly.

"Corkey just died," he says, electrifying the comrades. "He just gave one of his most awful sneezes, and it killed him right off. The doctor says he burst a vein."

Eighty lights are burning in the composing-room. Eighty compositors--cross old dogs, most of them--are ending a long and weary day's toil. There are bunches of heads rising over the cases in eager inquiry.

"Corkey's sneeze killed him!" says Slug I.

"Glad of it," growls one cross dog.

"Glad of it," growls another cross dog

"Glad of it," goes from alley to alley about the broad floor.

"Who's got 48 X?" inquires the man with the last piece of copy. It is the end of Corkey's obituary.

"This will be a scoop," says the copy-cutter.

The father of the chapel has written some handsome resolutions to make the article longer.

"Come up here, all you fellows! Chapel meeting!"

The resolutions are passed with a mighty "Aye!" They are already in type. A long subscription paper for the widow finds ready signers. No one stands back.

The men wash their hands, standing like cattle at a manger.

"It's tough!" says Slug 1.

"You bet it's tough!" says Slug 10, the crossest old dog of the pack.

"They say he went broke at election," says Slug 50.

"If his widow could learn to distribute type she could do mighty well over here. I'd give her 4,000 to throw in every day," says Slug 10. "Oh, let go of that towel!"

The men return to their cases, put on their coats and wrap their white throats. This pneumonia is a bad thing, anyhow.

Tramp, tramp, the small army goes down the long, iron stairways.

"Did you hear about Corkey?" they ask as they go. "Corkey had a heart in him like an ox."

"Bet he had," echoes up from the nethermost iron stairway.