"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 bartender is proud to serve the only Corkey, the most famous man on the whole "Levee." While the bartender burns incense, the square mouth grows scornful, laconic, boastful. Corkey is himself again. The barkeeper goes to the oil-room for a small bottle. The handsome eyes of the navigator rest on his protege. The head sets up a vibration something like the movement of a rattlesnake before it strikes. The little tongue plays about the black tobacco. The speech comes forth. "It's a great act I play on the widow about the 'last words'. He didn't say nothing of the kind. I come near putting my foot right into it." "Yessah!" Corkey's right hand is in his side pocket. He ruminates. He feels an unfamiliar thing in his pocket. He draws out a dainty white-and-black handkerchief. There is a painful reaction in his mind. "I'll burn that female wipe right now!" he says. "Yessah." The stove is for soft coal and stands open. Corkey advances to toss the handkerchief in the fire. His eyes meet the crooked and quizzical orbs of the mascot. "You mourning-colored moke!" There is a huge threat in the deliverance. The hook-like finger tears the black tobacco out of the choking mouth. The great quid is thrown in the fire. The proposed motion is made, and the handkerchief is not burned. Down it goes in the hip pocket beside Corkey's revolver, out of harm's way. Corkey started to throw something in the fire, and has kept to his purpose. "Yessah!" says the mascot, sagaciously. "Bet your black life!" vows Corkey, as if great things hung by it. He looks with renewed affection on his protege. "I git you into the league nine, sure, Noey!" "Yessah!" It is plain that the mascot will preserve an admirable reticence. CHAPTER III THE CENOTAPH