The druggist is filling a small graduate with whisky for Corkey. What is Corkey about to say?
"They're having high old times in Russia. That was a great bomb they git in on his nobs last winter."
"The czar? Yes."
"I reckon they're going to git the feller they've got on top there now, too, don't you? They say he put on ten crowns yesterday. What do they call it? The coronation, yes. What's the name of the place? Moscow, yes."
The druggist is less confused.
"Wouldn't it be funny if the czar wasn't dead. But say, pardner, what would you say if I went over there and told my widow I didn't believe her old man was dead at all? Would she give me the gaff? Would she git mad?"
The druggist is busy finding a cork for a bottle. At last he comes to the light to try the cork. He is behind a show-case. Corkey is in front of the, case holding a newspaper in hand, out of which he has been reading of the coronation. His black eyes seem to pierce David Lockwin's face. David Lockwin looks back--in hope, if any feeling can show itself in that veiled countenance. "He ain't dead! Not much! Can't tell me! I don't bury boats for nothing. I tell you I think a heap of her, and she slung herself so on that hospital and on that other thing there, out north, that I'd hate to give her away. What was that yawl buried for? Nobody see it and it was worth money, too. What was it buried for? Now I never tell you the story of the night on the old tub. He sit just so."
Corkey takes a seat behind the stove and imitates David Lockwin.
The druggist gazes as in a stupor. He steps to his little room and removes the chair. He must not sit and cogitate.
"Something ail him. I guess he was crazy."