Excuse Me! Part 2

He stood on the arm of the seat to reach the high hook. From here he paused to glare down with an attempt at irony.

"Is they anything else?"

"No. You may get down."

The magnificent patronage of this wilted the porter completely. He returned to the lower level, and shuffled along the aisle in a trance.

He was quickly recalled by a sharp:

"Pawtah!"

"Ya.s.sah!"

"What time does this bally train start?"

"Ten-thutty, sah."

"But it's only ten now."

"Ya.s.sah. It'll be ten-thutty a little later."

"Do you mean to tell me that I've got to sit hyah for half an hour--just waitin'?"

The porter essayed another bit of irony:

"Well," he drawled, "I might tell the conducta you're ready. And mebbe he'd start the train. But the time-table says ten-thutty."

He watched the effect of his satire, but it fell back unheeded from the granite dome of the Englishman, whose only comment was:

"Oh, never mind. I'll wait."

The porter cast his eyes up in despair, and turned away, once more to be recalled.

"Oh, pawtah!"

"Ya.s.sah!"

"I think we'll put on my slippahs."

"Will we?"

"You might hand me that large bag. No, stupid, the othah one. You might open it. No, its in the othah one. Ah, that's it. You may set it down."

Mr. Wedgewood brought forth a soft cap and a pair of red slippers. The porter made another effort to escape, his thoughts as black as his face. Again the relentless recall:

"Oh, pawtah, I think we'll unb.u.t.ton my boots."

He was too weak to murmur "Ya.s.sah." He simply fell on one knee and got to work.

There was a witness to his helpless rage--a newcomer, the American counterpart of the Englishman in all that makes travel difficult for the fellow travelers. Ira Lathrop was zealous to resent anything short of perfection, quick and loud of complaint, apparently impossible to please.

In everything else he was the opposite of the Englishman. He was burly, middle-aged, rough, careless in attire, careless of speech--as uncouth and savage as one can well be who is plainly a man of means.

It was not enough that a freeborn Afro-American should be caught kneeling to an Englishman. But when he had escaped this penance, and advanced hospitably to the newcomer, he must be greeted with a snarl.

"Say, are you the porter of this car, or that man's nurse?"

"I can't tell yet. What's yo' numba, please?"

The answer was the ticket. The porter screwed up his eyes to read the pencilled scrawl.

"Numba se'm. Heah she is, boss."

"Right next to a lot of women, I'll bet. Couldn't you put me in the men's end of the car?"

"Not ve'y well, suh. I reckon the cah is done sold out."

With a growl of rage, Ira Lathrop slammed into the seat his entire hand baggage, one ancient and rusty valise.

The porter gazed upon him with increased depression. The pa.s.senger list had opened inauspiciously with two of the worst types of travelers the Anglo-Saxon race has developed.

But their anger was not their worst trait in the porter's eyes. He was, in a limited way, an expert in human character.

When you meet a stranger you reveal your own character in what you ask about his. With some, the first question is, "Who are his people?"

With others, "What has he achieved?" With others, "How much is he worth?" Each gauges his cordiality according to his estimate.

The porter was not curious on any of these points. He showed a democratic indifference to them. His one vital inquiry was:

"How much will he tip?"

His inspection of his first two charges promised small returns. He b.u.t.toned up his cordiality, and determined to waste upon them the irreducible minimum of attention.

It would take at least a bridal couple to restore the balance. But bridal couples in their first bloom rarely fell to the lot of that porter, for what bridal couple wants to lock itself in with a crowd of pa.s.sengers for the first seventy-two hours of wedded bliss?

The porter banished the hope as a vanity. Little he knew how eagerly the young castaways from that wrecked taxicab desired to be a bridal couple, and to catch this train.

But the Englishman was restive again:

"Pawtah! I say, pawtah!"

"Ya.s.sah!"

"What time are we due in San Francisco?"

"San Francisco? San Francisco? We are doo thah the evenin' of the fo'th day. This bein' Monday, that ought to bring us in abote Thuzzday evenin'."

The Yankee felt called upon to check the foreign usurper.

"Porrterr!"