Excuse Me! Part 41

said Dr. Temple.

"I can't imagine," said his wife, "we old couples are the only normal ones."

"Some more coffee, please, mother," he said.

"But your nerves," she protested.

"It's my vacation," he insisted.

Mrs. Temple stared at him and shook her head: "I wonder what mischief you'll be up to to-day? You've already been smoking, gambling, drinking--have you been swearing, yet?"

"Not yet," the old clergyman smiled, "I've been saving that up for a good occasion. Perhaps it will rise before the day's over."

And his wife choked on her tea at the wonderful train-change that had come over the best man in Ypsilanti.

By this time Fosd.i.c.k had reached the stateroom from which he had been banished again at the Nevada state-line. He knocked cautiously. From within came an anxious voice: "Who's there?"

"Whom did you expect?"

Mrs. Fosd.i.c.k popped her head out like a Jill in the box. "Oh, it's you, Arthur. Kiss me good morning."

He glanced round stealthily and obeyed instructions: "I guess its safe--my darling."

"Did you sleep, dovie?" she yawned.

"Not a wink. They took off the Portland car at Granger and I had to sleep in one of the chairs in the observation room."

Mrs. Fosd.i.c.k shook her head at him in mournful sympathy, and asked: "What state are we in now?"

"A dreadful state--Nevada."

"Just what are we in Nevada?"

"I'm a bigamist, and you've never been married at all."

"Oh, these awful divorce laws!" she moaned, then left the general for the particular: "Won't you come in and hook me up?"

Fosd.i.c.k looked shocked: "I don't dare compromise you."

"Will you take breakfast with me--in the dining-car?" she pleaded.

"Do we dare?"

"We might call it luncheon," she suggested.

He seized the chance: "All right, I'll go ahead and order, and you stroll in and I'll offer you the seat opposite me."

"But can't you hook me up?"

He was adamant: "Not till we get to California. Do you think I want to compromise my own wife? Shh! Somebody's coming!" And he darted off to the vestibule just as Mrs. Jimmie Wellington issued from number ten with hair askew, eyes only half open, and waist only half shut at the back. She made a quick spurt to the women's room, found it locked, stamped her foot, swore under her breath, and leaned against the wall of the car to wait.

About the same time, the man who was still her husband according to the law, rolled out of berth number two. There was an amazing clarity to his vision. He lurched as he made his way to the men's room, but it was plainly the train's swerve and not an inner lurch that twisted the forthright of his progress.

He squeezed into the men's room like a whole crowd at once, and sang out, "Good morning, all!" with a wonderful heartiness. Then he paused over a wash basin, rubbed his hands gleefully and proclaimed, like another Chantecler advertising a new day:

"Well--I'm sober again!"

"Three cheers for you," said his rival in radiance, bridegroom Lathrop.

"How does it feel?" demanded Ashton, smiling so broadly that he encountered the lather on his brush.

While he sputtered Wellington was flipping water over his hot head and incidentally over Ashton.

"I feel," he chortled, "I feel like the first little robin redbreast of the merry springtime. Tweet! Tweet!"

When the excitement over his redemption had somewhat calmed, Ashton reopened the old topic of conversation:

"Well, I see they had another sc.r.a.p last night."

"They--who?" said Ira, through his flying toothbrush.

"The Mallorys. Once more he occupied number three and she number seven."

"Well, well, I can't understand these modern marriages," said Little Jimmie, with a side glance at Ira. Ira suddenly remembered the plight of the Mallorys and was tempted to defend them, but he saw the young lieutenant himself just entering the washroom. This was more than Wellington saw, for he went on talking from behind a towel:

"Well, if I were a bridegroom and had a bride like that, it would take more than a quarrel to send me to another berth."

The others made gestures which he could not see. His enlightenment came when Mallory snapped the towel from his hands and glared into his face with all the righteous wrath of a man hearing his domestic affairs publicly discussed.

"Were you alluding to me, Mr. Wellington?" he demanded, hotly.

Little Jimmie almost perished with apoplexy: "You, you?" he mumbled.

"Why, of course not. You're not the only bridegroom on the train."

Mallory tossed him the towel again: "You meant Mr. Lathrop then?"

"Me! Not much!" roared the indignant Lathrop.

Mallory returned to Wellington with a fiercer: "Whom, then?"

He was in a dangerous mood, and Ashton came to the rescue: "Oh, don't mind Wellington. He's not sober yet."

This inspired suggestion came like a life-buoy to the hard-pressed Wellington. He seized it and spoke thickly: "Don't mind me--I'm not shober yet."

"Well, it's a good thing you're not," was Mallory's final growl as he began his own toilet.

The porter's bell began to ring furiously, with a touch they had already come to recognize as the Englishman's. The porter had learned to recognize it, too, and he always took double the necessary time to answer it. He was sauntering down the aisle at his most leisurely gait when Wedgewood's rumpled mane shot out from the curtains like a lion's from a jungle, and he bellowed: "Pawtah! Pawtah!"

"Still on the train," said the porter.