"Clad to meet you. My name is Chalmers. I have read the account."
"Yes, I've got tired of telling it. But it's a singular thing, about Lockwin's yawl. Next week I go out again. I'll find that boat, you hear me? I'll find it. I tell the dame that, the other day."
"Mrs. Lockwin?"
"I tell her the other day that I find the yawl. I'll never forget that boat. Lord! how unsteady she was! I'm sorry for the dame. Women don't generally feel so bad as she does. It's a great act, this monument--all her--every bit! These prominent citizens--say, they make me weary! You've heard about the hospital--the memorial hospital. She blow hundred and fifty thousand straight cases against that hospital--the David Lockwin Annex. Oh, it's a cooler. It's all iron and stone and terra cotta. She's spent a fortune already. She doesn't cry much--none, I reckon. But no one can bluff her out."
Robert Chalmers is pleased in a thousand ways. He is so glad that he scarcely notes the facts about the annex. Since he was cast away no other person has talked freely with him. The open Western manner rejoices his very blood.
"Lockwin was a pretty fair-sized man, like you. I guess you remind me of him a trifle. They was a fine pair. I never was stuck on him, for I was in politics against him; but somehow or other I've hearn the dame praise him so much, and he die in the yawl, and so on, until I feel like a brother to him. Just cut across with me," as they leave the car. "Want a seat with the reporters? Oh, that will be all right out here. Say you're from the outside--where is it? Eau Claire? Say Eau Claire. Here is some copy paper. Sit side of me. Screw your nut out of my place, young feller," to a mere sight-seer. "Bet your life. Don't take that seat neither! Go on, now!"
David Lockwin is to report the dedication of his own monument. He trembles and grows thankful that Corkey has ceased to talk. The audience gathers slowly. David Lockwin wonders it he be a madman thus to expose himself. A memorial hospital! Did not Corkey speak of that? The David Lockwin Annex!
This is awful! Lockwin has not read a word of it. Ay, but the apartments are still at Gramercy Square. Why did he come? What fate led him away? What devil has lured him back? Hold! Hold! There is Esther! Lift her veil! Give her air! Esther, the beautiful!
The reporter for the Eau Claire paper groans with the people. His heart falls to the bottom of the sea. She loves him! God bless her! She loves him! Why did he not believe it at home? God bless her! Is she not noble?
"She's a great dame," Corkey whispers loudly. "Special friend of mine. You bet your sweet life I'd do anything for her. I'll find that yawl, too!"