Is it the bright face of Esther Lockwin that spurs Corkey to his grand enterprise?  What has kept the short man so many months in silence?  Why is it he has never gotten beyond the matter of the lounge in the fore-cabin of the Africa?  This afternoon he will speak.  It is a good scheme.  It can be fixed—­especially by a woman.

“She can stand it if he can,” says Corkey, who reckons on the resurrection of David Lockwin.

So the face that was dark at State street becomes self-satisfied at Prairie avenue.  Corkey is picturesque as he raps his cane on the marble stairs.

“Bet your sweet life none of this don’t scare me!” he soliloquizes, touching the stateliness of the premises.

He enters.  He comes forth later, meeting another caller in the vestibule.  It is a dark face that the Commodore carries to the bedside of David Lockwin, around on State street.

Corkey sits down.  Then he stands up.  He concludes he will not talk, but it is a false conclusion.  He will talk on the patient’s case.

“How slow you git on, old man.”

“Not at all.  I am getting well,” is the cheerful reply.  Corkey is in trouble.  It is, therefore, time for Lockwin to give him sympathy.  “Corkey is a good fellow,” thinks Lockwin, gazing contentedly on his caller.

“I’m afraid it ain’t no use,” says Corkey, half to himself.  “I ain’t had no luck since I let the mascot go to the league nine,” he says, more audibly.

“I am quite happy,” Lockwin says.  “It will be a sufficient reward to look like other folks.  Only a few weeks of this.  But it is a trial.”

“It’s more of a trial, old man, than I like to see you undertake.”

“Yet I am happy.  It will be a success.  Wonderful, isn’t it?”

“Pretty wonderful!” Yet Corkey does not look it.

The man in the bandages thinks upon what he has suffered with his face.  He blesses the day he was permitted by Providence to stop that runaway.  All is coming about in good order.  It needed the patience of love—­of love, the impatient.  He is so sanguine to-day that he must push Corkey a little regarding that scheme.

“Yes, it is wonderful!” says Corkey with affected animation, recovering his presence of mind.

“Have you been over at our friend’s lately?” The question comes with the deepest excitement.  The countenance of Corkey falls instantly.

“Yes, just come from there.”

“Are things all smiling over there?”

“Yes.  They’re too smiling.”

“Did you see Dr. Tarpion?”

“Oh, I never see him!  Things are too smiling!  You’ll never catch me there again.”

Lockwin starts.

“She can’t play none of her high games onto me.  Bet your sweet life!  If she don’t want to listen to reason, it’s none of my funeral.  I say to her—­and I ought to say it afore—­I say to her how would she like to see her old man.”