Excuse Me! Part 18

"No--of course not."

"Ex--excuse me, I thought----"

"Don't you dare to think!" Mallory thundered. "Isn't there another lower berth?"

The porter breathed hard, and gave this bridal couple up as a riddle that followed no known rules. He went to find the sleeping car conductor, and returned with the information that the diagram showed n.o.body a.s.signed to number three.

"Then I'll take number three," said Mallory, poking money at the porter. And still the porter could not understand.

"Now, lemme onderstan' you-all," he stammered. "Does you both move over to numba three, or does yo'--yo' lady remain heah, while jest you preambulates?"

"Just I preambulate, you black hound!" Mallory answered, in a threatening tone. The porter could understand that, at least, and he bristled away with a meek: "Ya.s.sah. Numba three is yours, sah."

The troubled features of the baffled porter cleared up as by magic when he arrived at number three, for there he found his tyrant and tormentor, the English invader.

He remembered how indignantly Mr. Wedgewood had refused to show his ticket, how c.o.c.ksure he was of his number, how he had leased the porter's services as a sort of private nurse, and had paid no advance royalties.

And now he was sprawled and snoring majestically among his many luggages, like a sleeping lion. Revenge tasted good to the humble porter; it tasted like a candied yam smothered in 'possum gravy. He smacked his thick lips over this revenge. With all the insolence of a servant in brief authority, he gloated over his prey, and prodded him awake. Then murmured with hypocritical deference: "Excuse me, but could I see yo' ticket for yo' seat?"

"Certainly not! It's too much trouble," grumbled the half asleeper.

"Confound you!"

The porter lured him on: "Is you sho' you got one?"

Wedgewood was wide awake now, and surly as any Englishman before breakfast: "Of cawse I'm shaw. How dare you?"

"Too bad, but I'm 'bleeged to ask you to gimme a peek at it."

"This is an outrage!"

"Ya.s.sah, but I just nach.e.l.ly got to see it."

Wedgewood gathered himself together, and ransacked his many pockets with increasing anger, muttering under his breath. At length he produced the ticket, and thrust it at the porter: "Thah, you idiot, are you convinced now?"

The porter gazed at the billet with ill-concealed triumph. "Ya.s.sah.

I's convinced," Mr. Wedgewood settled back and closed his eyes. "I's convinced that you is in the wrong berth!"

"Impossible! I won't believe you!" the Englishman raged, getting to his feet in a fury.

"Perhaps you'll believe Mista Ticket," the porter chortled. "He says numba ten, and that's ten across the way and down the road a piece."

"This is outrageous! I decline to move."

"You may decline, but you move just the same," the porter said, reaching out for his various bags and carryalls. "The train moves and you move with it."

Wedgewood stood fast: "You had no right to put me in here in the first place."

The porter disdained to refute this slander. He stumbled down the aisle with the bundles. "It's too bad, it's sutt'nly too bad, but you sholy must come along."

Wedgewood followed, gesticulating violently.

"Here--wait--how dare you! And that berth is made up. I don't want to go to bed now!"

"Mista Ticket says, 'Go to baid!'"

"Of all the disgusting countries! Heah, don't put that thah--heah."

The porter flung his load anywhere, and absolved himself with a curt, "I's got otha pa.s.sengers to wait on now."

"I shall certainly report you to the company," the Englishman fumed.

"Ya.s.sah, I p'sume so."

"Have I got to go to bed now? Really, I----" but the porter was gone, and the irate foreigner crawled under his curtains, muttering: "I shall write a letter to the _London Times_ about this."

To add to his misery, Mrs. Whitcomb came from the Women's Room, and as she pa.s.sed him, she prodded him with one sharp elbow and twisted the corner of her heel into his little toe. He thrust his head out with his fiercest, "How dare you!" But Mrs. Whitcomb was fresh from a prolonged encounter with Mrs. Wellington, and she flung back a venomous glare that sent the Englishman to cover.

The porter reveled in his victory till he had to dash out to the vestibule to give vent to hilarious yelps of laughter. When he had regained composure, he came back to Mallory, and bent over him to say:

"Yo' berth is empty, sah. Shall I make it up?"

Mallory nodded, and turned to Marjorie, with a sad, "Good night, darling."

The porter rolled his eyes again, and turned away, only to be recalled by Marjorie's voice: "Porter, take this old handbag out of here."

The porter thought of the vanquished Lathrop, exiled to the smoking room, and he answered: "That belongs to the gemman what owns this berth."

"Put it in number one," Marjorie commanded, with a queenly gesture.

The porter obeyed meekly, wondering what would happen next. He had no sooner deposited Lathrop's valise among the incongruous white ribbons, than Marjorie recalled him to say: "And, Porter, you may bring me my own baggage."

"Yo' what--missus?"

"Our handbags, idiot," Mallory explained, peevishly.

"I ain't seen no handbags of you-alls," the porter protested. "You-all didn't have no handbags when you got on this cah."

Mallory jumped as if he had been shot. "Good Lord, I remember! We left 'em in the taxicab!"

The porter cast his hands up, and walked away from the tragedy.

Marjorie stared at Mallory in horror.

"We had so little time to catch the train," Mallory stammered.

Marjorie leaped to her feet: "I'm going up in the baggage car."

"For the dog?"

"For my trunk."