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.”