Excuse Me! Part 20

"We must not be seen together, honey. Go away, I'll see you in the morning."

And Mallory was saying with bitterest resignation: "Good night--my friend."

And they were shaking hands! This incredible bridal couple was shaking hands with itself--disintegrating! Then Wellington determined to do at least his duty by the sacred rites.

The gaping pa.s.sengers saw what was probably the largest pair of pyjamas in Chicago. They saw Little Jimmie, smothering back his giggles like a schoolboy, tiptoe from his berth, enter the next berth, brushing the porter aside, climb on the seat, and clutch the ribbon that pulled the stopper from the trap.

Down upon the unsuspecting elopers came this miraculous cloudburst of ironical rice, and with it came Little Jimmie Wellington, who lost what little balance he had, and catapulted into their midst like the offspring of an iceberg.

It was at this moment that Mrs. Wellington, hearing the loud cries of the panic-stricken Marjorie, rushed from the Women's Room, absent-mindedly combing a totally detached section of her hair. She recognized familiar pyjamas waving in air, and with one faint gasp: "Jimmie! on this train!" she swooned away. She would have fallen, but seeing that no one paid any attention to her, she recovered consciousness on her own hook, and vanished into her berth, to meditate on the whys and wherefores of her husband's presence in this car.

[Ill.u.s.tration: DOWN UPON THE UNSUSPECTING ELOPERS CAME THIS MIRACULOUS CLOUDBURST OF IRONICAL RICE....]

Dr. Temple in a nightgown and trousers, Roger Ashton in a collarless estate, and the porter, managed to extricate Mr. Wellington from his plight, and stow him away, though it was like putting a whale to bed.

Mallory, seeing that Marjorie had fled, vented his wild rage against fate in general, and rice traps in particular, by tearing the bridal bungalow to pieces, and then he stalked into the smoking room, where Ira Lathrop, homeless and dispossessed, was sound asleep, with his feet in the chair.

He was dreaming that he was a boy in Brattleboro, the worst boy in Brattleboro, trying to get up the courage to spark pretty Anne Gattle, and throwing rocks at the best boy in town, Charlie Selby, who was always at her side. The porter woke Ira, an hour later, and escorted him to the late bridal section.

Marjorie had fled with her dog, as soon as she could grope her way through the deluge of rice. She hopped into her berth, and spent an hour trying to clear her hair of the mult.i.tudinous grains. And as for Snoozleums, his thick wool was so be-riced that for two days, whenever he shook himself, he snew.

Eventually, the car quieted, and nothing was heard but the rumble and click of the wheels on the rails, the creak of timbers, and the frog-like chorus of a few well-trained snorers. As the porter was turning down the last of the lights, a rumpled pate was thrust from the stateroom, and the luscious-eyed man whispered:

"Porter, what time did you say we crossed the Iowa State line?"

"Two fifty-five A.M."

From within the stateroom came a deep sigh, then with a dismal groan: "Call me at two fifty-five A.M.," the door was closed.

Poor Mallory, pyjamaless and night-shirtless, lay propped up on his pillows, staring out of the window at the swiftly shifting night scene. The State of Illinois was being pulled out from under the train like a dark rug.

Farmhouses gleamed or dreamed lampless. The moonlight rippled on endless seas of wheat and Indian corn. Little towns slid up and away.

Large towns rolled forward, and were left behind. Ponds, marshes, brooks, pastures, thickets and great gloomy groves flowed past as on a river. But the same stars and the moon seemed to accompany the train.

If the flying witness had been less heavy of heart, he would have found the reeling scene full of grace and night beauty. But he could not see any charm in all the world, except his tantalizing other self, from whom a great chasm seemed to divide him, though she was only two windows away.

He had not yet fallen asleep, and he was still pondering how to attain his unmarried, unmarriable bride, when the train rolled out in air above a great wide river, very n.o.ble under the stars. He knew it for the Mississippi. He heard a faint knocking on a door at the other end of the car. He heard sounds as of kisses, and then somebody tiptoed along the aisle stealthily. He did not know that another bridegroom was being separated from his bride because they were too much married.

Somewhere in Iowa he fell asleep.

CHAPTER XVII

LAST CALL FOR BREAKFAST

It was still Iowa when Mallory awoke. Into his last moments of heavy sleep intruded a voice like a town-crier's voice, crying:

"La.s.s call for breakfuss in the Rining Rar," and then, again louder, "La.s.s call for breakfuss in Rinin-rar," and, finally and faintly, "La.s.scall breakfuss ri'rar."

Mallory pushed up his window shade. The day was broad on rolling prairies like billows established in the green soil. He peeked through his curtains. Most of the other pa.s.sengers were up and about, their beds hidden and beddings stowed away behind the bellying veneer of the upperworks of the car. All the berths were made up except his own and number two, in the corner, where Little Jimmie Wellington's nose still played a bagpipe monody, and one other berth, which he recognized as Marjorie's.

His belated sleep and hers had spared them both the stares and laughing chatter of the pa.s.sengers. But this bridal couple's two berths, standing like towers among the seats had provided conversation for everybody, had already united the casual group of strangers into an organized gossip-bee.

Mallory got into his shoes and as much of his clothes as was necessary for the dash to the washroom, and took on his arm the rest of his wardrobe. Just as he issued from his lonely chamber, Marjorie appeared from hers, much disheveled and heavy-eyed. The bride and groom exchanged glances of mutual terror, and hurried in opposite directions.

The spickest and spannest of lieutenants soon realized that he was reduced to wearing yesterday's linen as well as yesterday's beard.

This was intolerable. A brave man can endure heartbreaks, loss of love, honor and place, but a neat man cannot abide the traces of time in his toilet. Lieutenant Mallory had seen rough service in camp and on long hikes, when he gloried in mud and disorder, and he was to see campaigns in the Philippines, when he should not take off his shoes or his uniform for three days at a time. But that was the field, and this car was a drawing room.

In this crisis in his affairs, Little Jimmie Wellington waddled into the men's room, floundering about with every lurch of the train, like a cannon loose in the hold of a ship. He fumbled with the handles on a basin, and made a crazy toilet, trying to find some abatement of his fever by filling a gla.s.s at the ice-water tank and emptying it over his head.

These drastic measures restored him to some sort of coherency, and Mallory appealed to him for help in the matter of linen. Wellington effusively offered him everything he had, and Mallory selected from his store half a dozen collars, any one of which would have gone round his neck nearly twice.

Wellington also proffered his safety razor, and made him a present of a virgin wafer of steel for his very own.

With this a.s.sistance, Mallory was enabled to make himself fairly presentable. When he returned to his seat, the three curtained rooms had been whisked away by the porter. There was no place now to hide from the pa.s.sengers.

He sat down facing the feminine end of the car, watching for Marjorie.

The pa.s.sengers were watching for her, too, hoping to learn what unheard-of incident could have provoked the quarrel that separated a bride and groom at this time, of all times.

To the general bewilderment, when Marjorie appeared, Mallory and she rushed together and clasped hands with an ardor that suggested a desire for even more ardent greeting. The pa.s.sengers almost sprained their ears to hear how they would make up such a dreadful feud. But all they heard was: "We'll have to hurry, Marjorie, if we want to get any breakfast."

"All right, honey. Come along."

Then the inscrutable couple scurried up the aisle, and disappeared in the corridor, leaving behind them a mighty riddle. They kissed in the corridor of that car, kissed in the vestibule, kissed in the two corridors of the next car, and were caught kissing in the next vestibule by the new conductor.

The dining car conductor, who flattered himself that he knew a bride and groom when he saw them, escorted them grandly to a table for two; and the waiter fluttered about them with extraordinary consideration.

They had a plenty to talk of in prospect and retrospect. They both felt sure that a minister lurked among the cars somewhere, and they ate with a zest to prepare for the ceremony, arguing the best place for it, and quarreling amorously over details. Mallory was for one of the vestibules as the scene of their union, but Marjorie was for the baggage car, till she realized that Snoozleums might be unwilling to attend. Then she swung round to the vestibule, but Mallory shifted to the observation platform.

Marjorie had left Snoozleums with Mrs. Temple, who promised to hide him when the new conductor pa.s.sed through the car, and she reminded Harry to get the waiter to bring them a package of bones for their only "child," so far.

On the way back from the dining car they kissed each other good-bye again at all the trysting places they had sanctified before. The sun was radiant, the world good, and the very train ran with jubilant rejoicing. They could not doubt that a few more hours would see them legally man and wife.

Mallory restored Marjorie to her place in their car, and with smiles of a.s.surance, left her for another parson-hunt through the train. She waited for him in a bridal agitation. He ransacked the train forward in vain, and returned, pa.s.sing Marjorie with a shake of the head and a dour countenance. He went out to the observation platform, where he stumbled on Ira Lathrop and Anne Gattle, engaged in a conversation of evident intimacy, for they jumped when he opened the door, as if they were guilty of some plot.

Mallory mumbled his usual, "Excuse me," whirled on his heel, and dragged his discouraged steps back through the Observation Room, where various women and a few men of evident unclericality were draped across arm chairs and absorbed in lazy conversation or bobbing their heads over magazines that trembled with the motion of the train.

Mrs. Wellington was busily writing at the desk, but he did not know who she was, and he did not care whom she was writing to. He did not observe the baleful glare of Mrs. Whitcomb, who sat watching Mrs.

Wellington, knowing all too well who she was, and suspecting the correspondent--Mrs. Whitcomb was tempted to spell the word with one "r."

Mallory stumbled into the men's portion of the composite car. Here he nodded with a sickly cheer to the sole occupant, Dr. Temple, who was looking less ministerial than ever in an embroidered skull cap. The old rascal was sitting far back on his lumbar vertebrae. One of his hands clasped a long gla.s.s filled with a liquid of a hue that resembled something stronger than what it was--mere ginger ale. The other hand toyed with a long black cigar. The smoke curled round the old man's head like the fumes of a sultan's narghile, and through the wisps his face was one of Oriental luxury.

Mallory's eyes were caught from this picture of beat.i.tude by the entrance, at the other door, of a man who had evidently swung aboard at the most recent stop--for Mallory had not seen him. His gray hair was crowned with a soft black hat, and his spare frame was swathed in a frock coat that had seen better days. His soft gray eyes seemed to search timidly the smoke-clouded atmosphere, and he had a bashful air which Mallory translated as one of diffidence in a place where liquors and cigars were dispensed.

With equal diffidence Mallory advanced, and in a low tone accosted the newcomer cautiously:

"Excuse me--you look like a clergyman."