Excuse Me! Part 27

"A whole convention last trip! Just my luck!"

The unenlightened conductor turned to call back: "Say, up in the forward car we got a couple of undertakers. They be of any use to you?"

"Not yet."

Then Mallory dawdled on into the smoking room, where he found his own porter, who explained that he had been "promoted to the bottlery."

"Do we come to a station stop soon?" Mallory asked.

"Well, not for a considerable interval. Do you want to get out and walk up and down?"

"I don't," said Mallory, taking from under his coat Snoozleums, whom he had smuggled past the new conductor. "Meanwhile, Porter, could you give him something to eat to distract him?"

The porter grinned, and picking up a bill of fare held it out. "I got a meenuel. It ain't written in dog, but you can explain it to him.

What would yo' canine desiah, sah?"

Snoozleums put out a paw and Mallory read what it indicated: "He says he'd like a filet Chateaubriand, but if you have any old bones, he'll take those." The porter gathered Snoozleums in and disappeared with him into the buffet, Mallory calling after him: "Don't let the conductor see him."

Dr. Temple advanced on the disconsolate youth with an effort at cheer: "How is our bridegroom this beautiful afternoon?"

Mallory glanced at his costume: "I feel like a rainbow gone wrong.

Just my luck to have to borrow from everybody. Look at me! This collar of Mr. Wellington's makes me feel like a peanut in a rubber tire." He turned to Fosd.i.c.k.

"I say, Mr. Fosd.i.c.k, what size collar do you wear?"

"Fourteen and a half," said Fosd.i.c.k.

"Fourteen and a half!--why don't you get a neck? You haven't got a plain white shirt, have you? Our English friend lent me this, but it's purple, and Mr. Ashton's socks are maroon, and this peac.o.c.k blue tie is very unhappy."

"I think I can fit you out," said Fosd.i.c.k.

"And if you had an extra pair of socks," Mallory pleaded,--"just one pair of unemotional socks."

"I'll show you my repertoire."

"All right, I'll see you later." Then he went up to Wellington, with much hesitance of manner. "By the way, Mr. Wellington, do you suppose Mrs. Wellington could lend Miss--Mrs.--could lend Marjorie some--some----"

Wellington waved him aside with magnificent scorn: "I am no longer in Mrs. Wellington's confidence."

"Oh, excuse me," said Mallory. He had noted that the Wellingtons occupied separate compartments, but for all he knew their reason was as romantic as his own.

CHAPTER XXIII

THROUGH A TUNNEL

Mrs. Jimmie Wellington, who had traveled much abroad and learned in England the habit of smoking in the corridors of expensive hotels, had acquired also the habit, as travelers do, of calling England freer than America. She determined to do her share toward the education of her native country, and chose, for her topic, tobacco as a feminine accomplishment.

She had grown indifferent to stares and audible comment and she could fight a protesting head waiter to a standstill. If monuments and tablets are ever erected to the first woman who smoked publicly in this place or that, Mrs. Jimmie Wellington will be variously remembered and occupy a large place in historical record.

The narrow confines of the women's room on the sleeping car soon palled on her, and she objected to smoking there except when she felt the added luxury of keeping some other woman outside--fuming, but not smoking. And now Mrs. Jimmie had staked out a claim on the observation platform. She sat there, puffing like a major-general, and in one portion of Nebraska two farmers fell off their agricultural vehicles at the sight of her cigar-smoke trailing after the train. In Wyoming three cowboys followed her for a mile, yipping and howling their compliments.

Feeling the smoke mood coming on, Mrs. Wellington invited Mrs. Temple to smoke with her, but Mrs. Temple felt a reminiscent qualm at the very thought, so Mrs. Jimmie sauntered out alone, to the great surprise of Ira Lathrop, whose motto was, "Two heads are better than one," and who was apparently willing to wait till Anne Gattle's head grew on his shoulder.

"I trust I don't intrude," Mrs. Wellington said.

"Oh, no. Oh, yes." Anne gasped in fiery confusion as she fled into the car, followed by the purple-faced Ira, who slammed the door with a growl: "That Wellington woman would break up anything."

The prim little missionary toppled into the nearest chair: "Oh, Ira, what will she think?"

"She can't think!" Ira grumbled. "In a little while she'll know."

"Don't you think we'd better tell everybody before they begin to talk?"

Ira glowed with pride at the thought and murmured with all the ardor of a senile Romeo: "I suppose so, ducky darling. I'll break it--I mean I'll tell it to the men, and you tell the women."

"All right, dear, I'll obey you," she answered, meekly.

"Obey me!" Ira laughed with boyish swagger. "And you a missionary!"

"Well, I've converted one heathen, anyway," said Anne as she darted down the corridor, followed by Ira, who announced his intention to "go to the baggage car and dig up his old Prince Albert."

In their flight forward they pa.s.sed the mysterious woman in the stateroom. They were too full of their own mystery to give thought to hers. Mrs. Fosd.i.c.k went timidly prowling toward the observation car, suspecting everybody to be a spy, as Mallory suspected everybody to be a clergyman in disguise.

As she stole along the corridor past the men's clubroom she saw her husband--her here-and-there husband--wearily counting the telegraph posts and summing them up into miles. She tapped on the gla.s.s and signalled to him, then pa.s.sed on.

He answered with a look, then pretended not to have noticed, and waited a few moments before he rose with an elaborate air of carelessness. He beckoned the porter and said:

"Let me know the moment we enter Utah, will you?"

"Ya.s.sah. We'll be comin' along right soon now. We got to pa.s.s through the big Aspen tunnel, after that, befo' long, we splounce into old Utah."

"Don't forget," said Fosd.i.c.k, as he sauntered out. Ashton perked up his ears at the promise of a tunnel and kept his eye on his watch.

Fosd.i.c.k entered the observation room with a hungry look in his luscious eyes. His now-and-then wife put up a warning finger to indicate Mrs. Whitcomb's presence at the writing desk.

Fosd.i.c.k's smile froze into a smirk of formality and he tried to chill his tone as if he were speaking to a total stranger.

"Good afternoon."

Mrs. Fosd.i.c.k answered with equal ice: "Good afternoon. Won't you sit down?"

"Thanks. Very picturesque scenery, isn't it?"

"Isn't it?" Fosd.i.c.k seated himself, looked about cautiously, noted that Mrs. Whitcomb was apparently absorbed in her letter, then lowered his voice confidentially. His face kept up a strained pretense of indifference, but his whisper was pa.s.sionate with longing: