The Sin of Monsieur Pettipon Part 34

"All right, Mr. Hurry," Mildred pouted, "just you go on to the horrid old City Hall by your lonesome. I'm going to stop and have a praline."

Chester capitulated, contritely, so Mildred had two.

They started for the subway which was to take them far down-town to the Munic.i.p.al Building. On Forty-second Street they pa.s.sed a shiny, white edifice in the window of which an artist in immaculate white duck was deftly tossing griddle cakes into the air so that they described a graceful parabola and flopped on a soapstone griddle where they sizzled brownly and crisply. A faint but provoking aroma floated through the open door. Mildred's footsteps slackened, then she paused, then she came to a dead stop.

"Ummm-mmm! What a heavenly smell!" she said. "Don't you just adore griddle cakes?"

"Yes, yes," said Chester, a little desperately. "Let's have some for lunch. It's twenty-five minutes to twelve. Let's hurry."

"Why, Chester Jessup, you know I haven't had my regular breakfast yet. I just couldn't go away down to that old City Hall and get married and everything without having had some nourishment. It won't take a minute to have a little breakfast."

"Oh, all right," said Chester.

The griddle cakes tasted like rubber to Chester. Mildred ate hers with great relish and insisted on having them decorated with country sausage.

"It's so nourishing," she explained. "I could just die eating sausage."

Chester paid the check and forgot to take the change from a two-dollar bill.

"I could just die eating sausage. I could just die eating sausage." The wheels of the subway train seemed to click to this refrain as it sped down-town.

It was nearly one o'clock when the elopers at last reached the Munic.i.p.al Building. They found a sign which read, "MARRIAGE LICENSES. KEEP TO THE RIGHT."

With his heart just under his collar b.u.t.ton and his dollar grasped tightly in his hand, Chester knocked timidly. The door was opened by a stout minor politician with a cap on the back of his head.

"I want a marriage license, please," said Chester. He dropped his voice a full octave below his normal speaking-tone.

The minor politician blinked at Chester and Mildred. Then he guffawed, hoa.r.s.ely.

"Say," he said, "in the foist place, you'll have to get a little more age on yuh, and in the second place, this is Satiddy and this joint closes at noon. Come back Thoisday between ten and four about eight years from now." He closed the door.

Chester turned miserably to Mildred.

"That means Hoboken," he said.

"I don't care," she said, "as long as I'm with you."

They went out into the canyons of lower Manhattan, in search of the way to Hoboken. Their wanderings took them past a restaurant whose windows were adorned with vicious-looking, green, live lobsters, scrambling about pugnaciously on cakes of ice.

"Oh, LOBSTERS," cried Mildred, her eye brightening. "I've only had lobster once in my life. Couldn't you just DIE eating lobster?"

"I suppose so," said Chester, gloomily.

"Couldn't we stop in and have a teeny, weeny bit of lunch?" she asked, eyeing the lobsters wistfully. "It makes me feel sort of queer to go on long trips without food."

"I'm not hungry," said Chester.

"But I am," said Mildred. They went in.

A superior waiter handed Mildred a large menu card. "May I order just anything I want?" she asked eagerly.

"Wouldn't you like some nice watercress salad and some tea and lady-fingers?" Chester asked, hopefully.

"Pooh! Why, there's no nourishment in that at all!" Mildred was studying the menu card. "I want a great big lobster, and some asparagus. And then I want some nice chicken salad with mayonnaise. And then some pistache ice-cream. And, oh, yes, a piece of huckleberry pie."

To Chester that lunch seemed the longest experience of his life. It seemed to him that no lobster ever looked redder, no mayonnaise yellower, no pistache ice-cream greener and no huckleberry pie purpler.

Mildred ate steadily. Now and then she made little joyful noises of approbation.

When lunch was over at last, they started for Hoboken.

"It's a nice pleasant trip by ferry-boat," a policeman told them.

"I don't think I'd care for a boat trip," said Mildred.

"But we have to go to Hoboken," Chester expostulated.

"Couldn't we walk?" she asked.

"No, no, of course we couldn't. It's across the river."

"I feel sort of queer, somehow," said Mildred, faintly.

The North River was choppy from darting tugs and gliding barges as the ferry-boat bore the elopers toward the Jersey side. Leaning on the rail, Chester gazed morosely at the retreating metropolitan sky-line. Mildred plucked at his coat sleeve. He turned and looked at her. Her face was pale. "Oh, Chester, I want to go back. I want to go home," she said, tearfully.

"Why, Mildred," exclaimed Chester, and for the first time there was impatience in his voice, "what's the matter?"

"I'm going to be sick," she said.

She was.

--4

"I hate you, Chester Jessup. I hate, hate, HATE you. And I'm going to go back," she said, tearfully.

The elopers had never reached Hoboken. Mildred refused to leave the ferry-boat and Chester did not urge her. It bore them back to the New York side. Their flight to Gretna Green was a failure.

"You take me right home, do you hear?" cried Mildred.

"We can get the 3:59 from the Grand Central," said Chester in an icy voice. "That will get you home in time for supper."

"Chester Jessup, you're a nasty, heartless boy to mention supper to me when I'm in this condition," said Mildred.

They made the trip from New York back to Clintonia in silence. Chester, watching the scenery flow by, was thinking deeply. He was wondering at what age young men are admitted to monasteries. He left Mildred at her house.

"Good night, Mr. Jessup," she said, coolly.

"Good night, Miss Wrigley," said Chester, and stalked home.