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+*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 40607 ***
+
+Transcriber's Note:
+
+  Inconsistent hyphenation and spelling in the original document have
+  been preserved. Obvious typographical errors have been corrected.
+
+  The book uses both "Doc." and "Doc".
+
+  Italic text is denoted by _underscores_.
+
+
+
+
+EXCUSE ME!
+
+  [Illustration]
+
+
+
+
+     EXCUSE ME!
+
+     _By_ RUPERT HUGHES
+     Author of "The Old Nest"
+
+     WITH FIVE ILLUSTRATIONS
+
+     A. L. BURT COMPANY
+     PUBLISHERS     NEW YORK
+
+
+
+
+     Copyright, 1911, by
+     THE H. K. FLY COMPANY
+
+
+
+
+CONTENTS
+
+
+     CHAPTER                                   PAGE
+
+     I.       The Wreck of the Taxicab            9
+
+     II.      The Early Birds and the Worm       16
+
+     III.     In Darkest Chicago                 26
+
+     IV.      A Mouse and a Mountain             35
+
+     V.       A Queen Among Women                47
+
+     VI.      A Conspiracy in Satin              53
+
+     VII.     The Masked Minister                60
+
+     VIII.    A Mixed Pickle                     65
+
+     IX.      All Aboard!                        75
+
+     X.       Excess Baggage                     84
+
+     XI.      A Chance Rencounter                88
+
+     XII.     The Needle in the Haystack         92
+
+     XIII.    Hostilities Begin                  99
+
+     XIV.     The Dormitory on Wheels           103
+
+     XV.      A Premature Divorce               106
+
+     XVI.     Good Night, All!                  115
+
+     XVII.    Last Call for Breakfast           122
+
+     XVIII.   In the Composite Car              128
+
+     XIX.     Foiled!                           139
+
+     XX.      Foiled Again!                     142
+
+     XXI.     Matrimony To and Fro              147
+
+     XXII.    In the Smoking Room               156
+
+     XXIII    Through a Tunnel                  164
+
+     XXIV.    The Train Butcher                 173
+
+     XXV.     The Train Wrecker                 180
+
+     XXVI.    Delilah and the Conductor         186
+
+     XXVII.   The Dog-on Dog Again              191
+
+     XXVIII.  The Woman-Hater's Relapse         203
+
+     XXIX.    Jealousy Comes Aboard             213
+
+     XXX.     A Wedding on Wheels               222
+
+     XXXI.    Foiled Yet Again                  227
+
+     XXXII.   The Empty Berth                   233
+
+     XXXIII.  Fresh Trouble Daily               237
+
+     XXXIV.   The Complete Divorcer             252
+
+     XXXV.    Mr. and Mrs. Little Jimmie        266
+
+     XXXVI.   A Duel for a Bracelet             273
+
+     XXXVII.  Down Brakes!                      278
+
+     XXXVIII. Hands Up!                         284
+
+     XXXIX.   Wolves in the Fold                296
+
+     XL.      A Hero in Spite of Himself        304
+
+     XLI.     Clickety-Clickety-Clickety        308
+
+
+
+
+ILLUSTRATIONS
+
+
+     No tips were to be expected from such
+     transients                             _Frontispiece_
+
+                                                     PAGE
+
+     "Now it's my vacation, and I'm going to smoke
+     up"                                               62
+
+     Marjorie fairly forced the dog on him             94
+
+     Down upon the unsuspecting elopers came this
+     miraculous cloudburst of ironical rice           118
+
+     "Why, Richard--Chauncey!--er--Billy! I'm
+     amazed at you! Let go, or I'll scream!"          276
+
+
+
+
+EXCUSE ME!
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER I
+
+THE WRECK OF THE TAXICAB
+
+
+The young woman in the taxicab scuttling frantically down the dark
+street, clung to the arm of the young man alongside, as if she were
+terrified at the lawbreaking, neck-risking speed. But evidently some
+greater fear goaded her, for she gasped:
+
+"Can't he go a little faster?"
+
+"Can't you go a little faster?" The young man alongside howled as he
+thrust his head and shoulders through the window in the door.
+
+But the self-created taxi-gale swept his voice aft, and the taut
+chauffeur perked his ear in vain to catch the vanishing syllables.
+
+"What's that?" he roared.
+
+"Can't you go a little faster?"
+
+The indignant charioteer simply had to shoot one barbed glare of
+reproach into that passenger. He turned his head and growled:
+
+"Say, do youse want to lose me me license?"
+
+For just one instant he turned his head. One instant was just enough.
+The unguarded taxicab seized the opportunity, bolted from the track,
+and flung, as it were, its arms drunkenly around a perfectly
+respectable lamppost attending strictly to its business on the curb.
+There ensued a condensed Fourth of July. Sparks flew, tires exploded,
+metals ripped, two wheels spun in air and one wheel, neatly severed at
+the axle, went reeling down the sidewalk half a block before it leaned
+against a tree and rested.
+
+A dozen or more miracles coincided to save the passengers from injury.
+The young man found himself standing on the pavement with the unhinged
+door still around his neck. The young woman's arms were round his
+neck. Her head was on his shoulder. It had reposed there often enough,
+but never before in the street under a lamppost. The chauffeur found
+himself in the road, walking about on all fours, like a bewildered
+quadruped.
+
+Evidently some overpowering need for speed possessed the young woman,
+for even now she did not scream, she did not faint, she did not
+murmur, "Where am I?" She simply said:
+
+"What time is it, honey?"
+
+And the young man, not realizing how befuddled he really was, or how
+his hand trembled, fetched out his watch and held it under the glow of
+the lamppost, which was now bent over in a convenient but disreputable
+attitude.
+
+"A quarter to ten, sweetheart. Plenty of time for the train."
+
+"But the minister, honey! What about the minister? How are we going to
+get to the minister?"
+
+The consideration of this riddle was interrupted by a muffled hubbub
+of yelps, whimpers, and canine hysterics. Immediately the young woman
+forgot ministers, collisions, train-schedules--everything. She showed
+her first sign of panic.
+
+"Snoozleums! Get Snoozleums!"
+
+They groped about in the topsy-turvy taxicab, rummaged among a jumble
+of suitcases, handbags, umbrellas and minor _impedimenta_, and fished
+out a small dog-basket with an inverted dog inside. Snoozleums was
+ridiculous in any position, but as he slid tail foremost from the
+wicker basket, he resembled nothing so much as a heap of tangled yarn
+tumbling out of a work-basket. He was an indignant skein, and had much
+to say before he consented to snuggle under his mistress' chin.
+
+About this time the chauffeur came prowling into view. He was too
+deeply shocked to emit any language of the garage. He was too deeply
+shocked to achieve any comment more brilliant than:
+
+"That mess don't look much like it ever was a taxicab, does it?"
+
+The young man shrugged his shoulders, and stared up and down the long
+street for another. The young woman looked sorrowfully at the wreck,
+and queried:
+
+"Do you think you can make it go?"
+
+The chauffeur glanced her way, more in pity for her whole sex than in
+scorn for this one type, as he mumbled:
+
+"Make it go? It'll take a steam winch a week to unwrap it from that
+lamppost."
+
+The young man apologized.
+
+"I oughtn't to have yelled at you."
+
+He was evidently a very nice young man. Not to be outdone in courtesy,
+the chauffeur retorted:
+
+"I hadn't ought to have turned me head."
+
+The young woman thought, "What a nice chauffeur!" but she gasped:
+"Great heavens, you're hurt!"
+
+"It's nuttin' but a scratch on me t'umb."
+
+"Lend me a clean handkerchief, Harry."
+
+The young man whipped out his reserve supply, and in a trice it was a
+bandage on the chauffeur's hand. The chauffeur decided that the young
+woman was even nicer than the young man. But he could not settle on a
+way to say to it. So he said nothing, and grinned sheepishly as he
+said it.
+
+The young man named Harry was wondering how they were to proceed. He
+had already studied the region with dismay, when the girl resolved:
+
+"We'll have to take another taxi, Harry."
+
+"Yes, Marjorie, but we can't take it till we get it."
+
+"You might wait here all night wit'out ketchin' a glimp' of one," the
+chauffeur ventured. "I come this way because you wanted me to take a
+short cut."
+
+"It's the longest short cut I ever saw," the young man sighed, as he
+gazed this way and that.
+
+The place of their shipwreck was so deserted that not even a crowd had
+gathered. The racket of the collision had not brought a single
+policeman. They were in a dead world of granite warehouses, wholesale
+stores and factories, all locked and forbidding, and full of silent
+gloom.
+
+In the daytime this was a big trade-artery of Chicago, and all day
+long it was thunderous with trucks and commerce. At night it was
+Pompeii, so utterly abandoned that the night watchmen rarely slept
+outside, and no footpad found it worth while to set up shop.
+
+The three castaways stared every which way, and every which way was
+peace. The ghost of a pedestrian or two hurried by in the far
+distance. A cat or two went furtively in search of warfare or romance.
+The lampposts stretched on and on in both directions in two forevers.
+
+In the faraway there was a muffled rumble and the faint clang of a
+bell. Somewhere a street car was bumping along its rails.
+
+"Our only hope," said Harry. "Come along, Marjorie."
+
+He handed the chauffeur five dollars as a poultice to his wounds,
+tucked the girl under one arm and the dog-basket under the other, and
+set out, calling back to the chauffeur:
+
+"Good night!"
+
+"Good night!" the girl called back.
+
+"Good night!" the chauffeur echoed. He stood watching them with the
+tender gaze that even a chauffeur may feel for young love hastening to
+a honeymoon.
+
+He stood beaming so, till their footsteps died in the silence. Then he
+turned back to the chaotic remnants of his machine. He worked at it
+hopelessly for some time, before he had reason to look within. There
+he found the handbags and suitcases, umbrellas and other equipment. He
+ran to the corner to call after the owners. They were as absent of
+body as they had been absent of mind.
+
+He remembered the street-number they had given him as their
+destination. He waited till at last a yawning policeman sauntered that
+way like a lonely beach patrol, and left him in charge while he went
+to telephone his garage for a wagon and a wrecking crew.
+
+It was close on midnight before he reached the number his fares had
+given him. It was a parsonage leaning against a church. He rang the
+bell and finally produced from an upper window a nightshirt topped by
+a frowsy head. He explained the situation, and his possession of
+certain properties belonging to parties unknown except by their first
+names. The clergyman drowsily murmured:
+
+"Oh, yes. I remember. The young man was Lieutenant Henry Mallory, and
+he said he would stop here with a young lady, and get married on the
+way to the train. But they never turned up."
+
+"Lieutenant Mallory, eh? Where could I reach him?"
+
+"He said he was leaving to-night for the Philippines."
+
+"The Philippines! Well, I'll be----"
+
+The minister closed the window just in time.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER II
+
+THE EARLY BIRDS AND THE WORM
+
+
+In the enormous barn of the railroad station stood many strings of
+cars, as if a gigantic young Gulliver stabled his toys there and
+invisibly amused himself; now whisking this one away, now backing that
+other in.
+
+Some of the trains were noble equipages, fitted to glide across the
+whole map with cargoes of Lilliputian millionaires and their
+Lilliputian ladies. Others were humble and shabby linked-up
+day-coaches and dingy smoking-cars, packed with workers, like ants.
+
+Cars are mere vehicles, but locomotives have souls. The express
+engines roll in or stalk out with grandeur and ease. They are like
+emperors. They seem to look with scorn at the suburban engines
+snorting and grunting and shaking the arched roof with their plebeian
+choo-choo as they puff from shop to cottage and back.
+
+The trainmen take their cue from the behavior of their locomotives.
+The conductor of a transcontinental nods to the conductor of a
+shuttle-train with less cordiality than to a brakeman of his own. The
+engineers of the limiteds look like senators in overalls. They are
+far-traveled men, leading a mighty life of adventure. They are pilots
+of land-ships across land-oceans. They have a right to a certain
+condescension of manner.
+
+But no one feels or shows so much arrogance as the sleeping car
+porters. They cannot pronounce "supercilious," but they can be it.
+Their disdain for the entire crew of any train that carries merely
+day-coaches or half-baked chair-cars, is expressed as only a darkey in
+a uniform can express disdain for poor white trash.
+
+Of all the haughty porters that ever curled a lip, the haughtiest by
+far was the dusky attendant in the San Francisco sleeper on the
+Trans-American Limited. His was the train of trains in that whole
+system. His car the car of cars. His passengers the surpassengers of
+all.
+
+His train stood now waiting to set forth upon a voyage of two thousand
+miles, a journey across seven imperial States, a journey that should
+end only at that marge where the continent dips and vanishes under the
+breakers of the Pacific Ocean.
+
+At the head of his car, with his little box-step waiting for the foot
+of the first arrival, the porter stood, his head swelling under his
+cap, his breast swelling beneath his blue blouse, with its brass
+buttons like reflections of his own eyes. His name was Ellsworth
+Jefferson, but he was called anything from "Poarr-turr" to "Pawtah,"
+and he usually did not come when he was called.
+
+To-night he was wondering perhaps what passengers, with what
+dispositions, would fall to his lot. Perhaps he was wondering what his
+Chicago sweetheart would be doing in the eight days before his return.
+Perhaps he was wondering what his San Francisco sweetheart had been
+doing in the five days since he left her, and how she would pass the
+three days that must intervene before he reached her again.
+
+He had Othello's ebon color. Did he have Othello's green eye?
+
+Whatever his thoughts, he chatted gaily enough with his neighbor and
+colleague of the Portland sleeper.
+
+Suddenly he stopped in the midst of a soaring chuckle.
+
+"Lordy, man, looky what's a-comin'!"
+
+The Portland porter turned to gaze.
+
+"I got my fingers crossed."
+
+"I hope you git him."
+
+"I hope I don't."
+
+"He'll work you hard and cuss you out, and he won't give you even a
+Much Obliged."
+
+"That's right. He ain't got a usher to carry his things. And he's got
+enough to fill a van."
+
+The oncomer was plainly of English origin. It takes all sorts of
+people to make up the British Empire, and there is no sort
+lacking--glorious or pretty, or sour or sweet. But this was the type
+of English globe-trotter that makes himself as unpopular among
+foreigners as he is among his own people. He is almost as unendurable
+as the Americans abroad who twang their banjo brag through Europe, and
+berate France and Italy for their innocence of buckwheat cakes.
+
+The two porters regarded Mr. Harold Wedgewood with dread, as he bore
+down on them. He was almost lost in the plethora of his own luggage.
+He asked for the San Francisco sleeper, and the Portland porter had to
+turn away to smother his gurgling relief.
+
+Ellsworth Jefferson's heart sank. He made a feeble effort at
+self-protection. The Pullman conductor not being present at the
+moment, he inquired:
+
+"Have you got yo' ticket?"
+
+"Of cawse."
+
+"Could I see it?"
+
+"Of cawse not. Too much trouble to fish it out."
+
+The porter was fading. "Do you remember yo' numba?"
+
+"Of cawse. Take these." He began to pile things on the porter like a
+mountain unloading an avalanche. The porter stumbled as he clambered
+up the steps, and squeezed through the strait path of the corridor
+into the slender aisle. He turned again and again to question the
+invader, but he was motioned and bunted down the car, till he was
+halted with a "This will do."
+
+The Englishman selected section three for his own. The porter
+ventured: "Are you sho' this is yo' numba?"
+
+"Of cawse I'm shaw. How dare you question my----"
+
+"I wasn't questionin' you, boss, I was just astin' you."
+
+He resigned himself to the despot, and began to transfer his burdens
+to the seat. But he did nothing to the satisfaction of the Englishman.
+Everything must be placed otherwise; the catch-all here, the
+portmanteau there, the Gladstone there, the golfsticks there, the
+greatcoat there, the raincoat there. The porter was puffing like a
+donkey-engine, and mutiny was growing in his heart. His last
+commission was the hanging up of the bowler hat.
+
+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!"
+
+"Yassah!"
+
+"What time does this bally train start?"
+
+"Ten-thutty, sah."
+
+"But it's only ten now."
+
+"Yassah. 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!"
+
+"Yassah!"
+
+"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 unbutton my boots."
+
+He was too weak to murmur "Yassah." 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 passenger
+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
+buttoned 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 passengers 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!"
+
+"Yassah!"
+
+"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!"
+
+"Yassah!"
+
+"Don't let that fellow monopolize you. He probably won't tip you at
+all."
+
+The porter grew confidential:
+
+"Oh, I know his kind, sah. They don't tip you for what you do do, but
+they're ready letter writers to the Sooperintendent for what you don't
+do."
+
+"Pawtah! I say, pawtah!"
+
+"Here, porrterr."
+
+The porter tried to imitate the Irish bird, and be in two places at
+once. The American had a coin in his hand. The porter caught the
+gleam of it, and flitted thither. The Yankee growled:
+
+"Don't forget that I'm on the train, and when we get to 'Frisco there
+may be something more."
+
+The porter had the coin in his hand. Its heft was light. He sighed: "I
+hope so."
+
+The Englishman was craning his head around owlishly to ask:
+
+"I say, pawtah, does this train ever get wrecked?"
+
+"Well, it hasn't yet," and he murmured to the Yankee, "but I has
+hopes."
+
+The Englishman's voice was querulous again.
+
+"I say, pawtah, open a window, will you? The air is ghastly,
+abso-ripping-lutely ghastly."
+
+The Yankee growled:
+
+"No wonder we had the Revolutionary War!"
+
+Then he took from his pocket an envelope addressed to Ira Lathrop &
+Co., and from the envelope he took a contract, and studied it grimly.
+The envelope bore a Chinese stamp.
+
+The porter, as he struggled with an obstinate window, wondered what
+sort of passenger fate would send him next.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER III
+
+IN DARKEST CHICAGO
+
+
+The castaways from the wrecked taxicab hurried along the doleful
+street. Both of them knew their Chicago, but this part of it was not
+their Chicago.
+
+They hailed a pedestrian, to ask where the nearest street car line
+might be, and whither it might run. He answered indistinctly from a
+discreet distance, as he hastened away. Perhaps he thought their
+question merely a footpad's introduction to a sandbagging episode. In
+Chicago at night one never knows.
+
+"As near as I can make out what he said, Marjorie," the lieutenant
+pondered aloud, "we walk straight ahead till we come to Umtyump
+Street, and there we find a Rarara car that will take us to Bloptyblop
+Avenue. I never heard of any such streets, did you?"
+
+"Never," she panted, as she jog-trotted alongside his military pace.
+"Let's take the first car we meet, and perhaps the conductor can put
+us off at the street where the minister lives."
+
+"Perhaps." There was not much confidence in that "perhaps."
+
+When they reached the street-carred street, they found two tracks, but
+nothing occupying them, as far as they could peer either way. A small
+shopkeeper in a tiny shop proved to be a delicatessen merchant so
+busily selling foreign horrors to aliens, that they learned nothing
+from him.
+
+At length, in the far-away, they made out a headlight, and heard the
+grind and squeal of a car. Lieutenant Mallory waited for it, watch in
+hand. He boosted Marjorie's elbow aboard and bombarded the conductor
+with questions. But the conductor had no more heard of their street
+than they had of his. Their agitation did not disturb his stoic calm,
+but he invited them to come along to the next crossing, where they
+could find another car and more learned conductors; or, what promised
+better, perhaps a cab.
+
+He threw Marjorie into a panic by ordering her to jettison Snoozleums,
+but the lieutenant bought his soul for a small price, and overlooked
+the fact that he did not ring up their fares.
+
+The young couple squeezed into a seat and talked anxiously in sharp
+whispers.
+
+"Wouldn't it be terrible, Harry, if, just as we got to the minister's,
+we should find papa there ahead of us, waiting to forbid the bands, or
+whatever it is? Wouldn't it be just terrible?"
+
+"Yes, it would, honey, but it doesn't seem probable. There are
+thousands of ministers in Chicago. He could never find ours. Fact is.
+I doubt if we find him ourselves."
+
+Her clutch tightened till he would have winced, if he had not been a
+soldier.
+
+"What do you mean, Harry?"
+
+"Well, in the first place, honey, look what time it is. Hardly more
+than time enough to get the train, to say nothing of hunting for that
+preacher and standing up through a long rigmarole."
+
+"Why, Harry Mallory, are you getting ready to jilt me?"
+
+"Indeed I'm not--not for worlds, honey, but I've got to get that
+train, haven't I?"
+
+"Couldn't you wait over one train--just one tiny little train?"
+
+"My own, own honey love, you know it's impossible! You must remember
+that I've already waited over three trains while you tried to make up
+your mind."
+
+"And you must remember, darling, that it's no easy matter for a girl
+to decide to sneak away from home and be married secretly, and go all
+the way out to that hideous Manila with no trousseau and no wedding
+presents and no anything."
+
+"I know it isn't, and I waited patiently while you got up the courage.
+But now there are no more trains. I shudder to think of this train
+being late. We're not due in San Francisco till Thursday evening, and
+my transport sails at sunrise Friday morning. Oh, Lord, what if I
+should miss that transport! What if I should!"
+
+"What if we should miss the minister?"
+
+"It begins to look a great deal like it."
+
+"But, Harry, you wouldn't desert me now--abandon me to my fate?"
+
+"Well, it isn't exactly like abandonment, seeing that you could go
+home to your father and mother in a taxicab."
+
+She stared at him in horror.
+
+"So you don't want me for your wife! You've changed your mind! You're
+tired of me already! Only an hour together, and you're sick of your
+bargain! You're anxious to get rid of me! You----"
+
+"Oh, honey, I want you more than anything else on earth, but I'm a
+soldier, dearie, a mere lieutenant in the regular army, and I'm the
+slave of the Government. I've gone through West Point, and they won't
+let me resign respectably and if I did, we'd starve. They wouldn't
+accept my resignation, but they'd be willing to courtmartial me and
+dismiss me the service in disgrace. Then you wouldn't want to marry
+me--and I shouldn't have any way of supporting you if you did. I only
+know one trade, and that's soldiering."
+
+"Don't call it a trade, beloved, it's the noblest profession in all
+the world, and you're the noblest soldier that ever was, and in a year
+or two you'll be the biggest general in the army."
+
+He could not afford to shatter such a devout illusion or quench the
+light of faith in those beloved and loving eyes. He tacitly admitted
+his ability to be promoted commander-in-chief in a year or two. He
+allowed that glittering possibility to remain, used it as a basis for
+argument.
+
+"Then, dearest, you must help me to do my duty."
+
+She clasped his upper arm as if it were an altar and she an Iphigenia
+about to be sacrificed to save the army. And she murmured with utter
+heroism:
+
+"I will! Do what you like with me!"
+
+He squeezed her hand between his biceps and his ribs and accepted the
+offering in a look drenched with gratitude. Then he said,
+matter-of-factly:
+
+"We'll see how much time we have when we get to--whatever the name of
+that street is."
+
+The car jolted and wailed on its way like an old drifting rocking
+chair. The motorman was in no hurry. The passengers seemed to have no
+occasion for haste. Somebody got on or got off at almost every corner,
+and paused for conversation while the car waited patiently. But
+eventually the conductor put his head in and drawled:
+
+"Hay! here's where you get off at."
+
+They hastened to debark and found themselves in a narrow,
+gaudily-lighted region where they saw a lordly transfer-distributor, a
+profound scholar in Chicago streets. He informed them that the
+minister's street lay far back along the path they had come; they
+should have taken a car in the opposite direction, transferred at some
+remote center, descended at some unheard-of street, walked three
+blocks one way and four another, and there they would have been.
+
+Mallory looked at his watch, and Marjorie's hopes dropped like a
+wrecked aeroplane, for he grimly asked how long it would take them to
+reach the railroad station.
+
+"Well, you'd ought to make it in forty minutes," the transfer agent
+said--and added, cynically, "if the car makes schedule."
+
+"Good Lord, the train starts in twenty minutes!"
+
+"Well, I tell you--take this here green car to Wexford Avenoo--there's
+usually a taxicab or two standin' there."
+
+"Thank you. Hop on, Marjorie."
+
+Marjorie hopped on, and they sat down, Mallory with eyes and thoughts
+on nothing but the watch he kept in his hand.
+
+During this tense journey the girl perfected her soul for graceful
+martyrdom.
+
+"I'll go to the train with you, Harry, and then you can send me home
+in a taxicab."
+
+Her nether lip trembled and her eyes were filmed, but they were brave,
+and her voice was so tender that it wooed his mind from his watch. He
+gazed at her, and found her so dear, so devoted and so pitifully
+exquisite, that he was almost overcome by an impulse to gather her
+into his arms there and then, indifferent to the immediate passengers
+or to his far-off military superiors. An hour ago they were young
+lovers in all the lilt and thrill of elopement. She had clung to him
+in the gloaming of their taxicab, as it sped like a genie at their
+whim to the place where the minister would unite their hands and raise
+his own in blessing. Thence the new husband would have carried the new
+wife away, his very own, soul and body, duty and beauty. Then, ah,
+then in their minds the future was an unwaning honeymoon, the journey
+across the continent a stroll along a lover's lane, the Pacific ocean
+a garden lake, and the Philippines a chain of Fortunate Isles decreed
+especially for their Eden. And then the taxicab encountered a
+lamppost. They thought they had merely wrecked a motor car--and lo,
+they had wrecked a Paradise.
+
+The railroad ceased to be a lover's lane and became a lingering
+torment; the ocean was a weltering Sahara, and the Philippines a Dry
+Tortugas of exile.
+
+Mallory realized for the first time what heavy burdens he had taken on
+with his shoulder straps; what a dismal life of restrictions and
+hardships an officer's life is bound to be. It was hard to obey the
+soulless machinery of discipline, to be a brass-buttoned slave. He
+felt all the hot, quick resentment that turns a faithful soldier into
+a deserter. But it takes time to evolve a deserter, and Mallory had
+only twenty minutes. The handcuffs and leg-irons of discipline hobbled
+him. He was only a little cog in a great clock, and the other wheels
+were impinging on him and revolving in spite of himself.
+
+In the close-packed seats where they were jostled and stared at, the
+soldier could not even attempt to explain to his fascinated bride the
+war of motives in his breast. He could not voice the passionate
+rebellion her beauty had whipped up in his soul. Perhaps if Romeo and
+Juliet had been forced to say farewell on a Chicago street car instead
+of a Veronese balcony, their language would have lacked savor, too.
+
+Perhaps young Mr. Montague and young Miss Capulet, instead of wailing,
+"No, that is not the lark whose notes do beat the vaulty heaven so
+high above our heads," would have done no better than Mr. Mallory and
+Miss Newton. In any case, the best these two could squeeze out was:
+
+"It's just too bad, honey."
+
+"But I guess it can't be helped, dear."
+
+"It's a mean old world, isn't it?"
+
+"Awful!"
+
+And then they must pile out into the street again so lost in woe that
+they did not know how they were trampled or elbowed. Marjorie's
+despair was so complete that it paralyzed instinct. She forgot
+Snoozleums! A thoughtful passenger ran out and tossed the basket into
+Mallory's arms even as the car moved off.
+
+Fortune relented a moment and they found a taxicab waiting where they
+had expected to find it. Once more they were cosy in the flying
+twilight, but their grief was their only baggage, and the clasp of
+their hands talked all the talk there was.
+
+Anxiety within anxiety tormented them and they feared another wreck.
+But as they swooped down upon the station, a kind-faced tower clock
+beamed the reassurance that they had three minutes to spare.
+
+The taxicab drew up and halted, but they did not get out. They were
+kissing good-byes, fervidly and numerously, while a grinning
+station-porter winked at the winking chauffeur.
+
+Marjorie simply could not have done with farewells.
+
+"I'll go to the gate with you," she said.
+
+He told the chauffeur to wait and take the young lady home. The
+lieutenant looked so honest and the girl so sad that the chauffeur
+simply touched his cap, though it was not his custom to allow strange
+fares to vanish into crowded stations, leaving behind nothing more
+negotiable than instructions to wait.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER IV
+
+A MOUSE AND A MOUNTAIN
+
+
+All the while the foiled elopers were eloping, the San Francisco
+sleeper was filling up. It had been the receptacle of assorted lots of
+humanity tumbling into it from all directions, with all sorts of
+souls, bodies, and destinations.
+
+The porter received each with that expert eye of his. His car was his
+laboratory. A railroad journey is a sort of test-tube of character;
+strange elements meet under strange conditions and make strange
+combinations. The porter could never foresee the ingredients of any
+trip, nor their actions and reactions.
+
+He had no sooner established Mr. Wedgewood of London and Mr. Ira
+Lathrop of Chicago, in comparative repose, than his car was invaded by
+a woman who flung herself into the first seat. She was flushed with
+running, and breathing hard, but she managed one gasp of relief:
+
+"Thank goodness, I made it in time."
+
+The mere sound of a woman's voice in the seat back of him was enough
+to disperse Ira Lathrop. With not so much as a glance backward to see
+what manner of woman it might be, he jammed his contract into his
+pocket, seized his newspapers and retreated to the farthest end of the
+car, jouncing down into berth number one, like a sullen snapping
+turtle.
+
+Miss Anne Gattle's modest and homely valise had been brought aboard by
+a leisurely station usher, who set it down and waited with a speaking
+palm outstretched. She had her tickets in her hand, but transferred
+them to her teeth while she searched for money in a handbag old
+fashioned enough to be called a reticule.
+
+The usher closed his fist on the pittance she dropped into it and
+departed without comment. The porter advanced on her with a demand for
+"Tickets, please."
+
+She began to ransack her reticule with flurried haste, taking out of
+it a small purse, opening that, closing it, putting it back, taking it
+out, searching the reticule through, turning out a handkerchief, a few
+hairpins, a few trunk keys, a baggage check, a bottle of salts, a card
+or two and numerous other maidenly articles, restoring them to place,
+looking in the purse again, restoring that, closing the reticule,
+setting it down, shaking out a book she carried, opening her old
+valise, going through certain white things blushingly, closing it
+again, shaking her skirts, and shaking her head in bewilderment.
+
+She was about to open the reticule again, when the porter exclaimed:
+
+"I see it! Don't look no mo'. I see it!"
+
+When she cast up her eyes in despair, her hatbrim had been elevated
+enough to disclose the whereabouts of the tickets. With a murmured
+apology, he removed them from her teeth and held them under the light.
+After a time he said:
+
+"As neah as I can make out from the--the undigested po'tion of this
+ticket, yo' numba is six."
+
+"That's it--six!"
+
+"That's right up this way."
+
+"Let me sit here till I get my breath," she pleaded, "I ran so hard to
+catch the train."
+
+"Well, you caught it good and strong."
+
+"I'm so glad. How soon do we start?"
+
+"In about half a houah."
+
+"Really? Well, better half an hour too soon than half a minute too
+late." She said it with such a copy-book primness that the porter set
+her down as a school-teacher. It was not a bad guess. She was a
+missionary. With a pupil-like shyness he volunteered:
+
+"Yo' berth is all ready whenever you wishes to go to baid." He caught
+her swift blush and amended it to--"to retiah."
+
+"Retire?--before all the car?" said Miss Anne Gattle, with prim
+timidity. "No, thank you! I intend to sit up till everybody else has
+retired."
+
+The porter retired. Miss Gattle took out a bit of more or less useful
+fancy stitching and set to work like another Dorcas. Her needle had
+not dived in and emerged many times before she was holding it up as a
+weapon of defense against a sudden human mountain that threatened to
+crush her.
+
+A vague round face, huge and red as a rising moon, dawned before her
+eyes and from it came an uncertain voice:
+
+"Esscuzhe me, mad'm, no 'fensh intended."
+
+The words and the breath that carried them gave the startled spinster
+an instant proof that her vis-à-vis did not share her Prohibition
+principles or practices. She regarded the elephant with mouselike
+terror, and the elephant regarded the mouse with elephantine fright,
+then he removed himself from her landscape as quickly as he could and
+lurched along the aisle, calling out merrily to the porter:
+
+"Chauffeur! chauffeur! don't go so fasht 'round these corners."
+
+He collided with a small train-boy singing his nasal lay, but it was
+the behemoth and not the train-boy that collapsed into a seat,
+sprawling as helplessly as a mammoth oyster on a table-cloth.
+
+The porter rushed to his aid and hoisted him to his feet with an
+uneasy sense of impending trouble. He felt as if someone had left a
+monstrous baby on his doorstep, but all he said was:
+
+"Tickets, please."
+
+There ensued a long search, fat, flabby hands flopping and fumbling
+from pocket to pocket. Once more the porter was the discoverer.
+
+"I see it. Don't look no mo'. Here it is--up in yo' hatband." He
+lifted it out and chuckled. "Had it right next his brains and couldn't
+rememba!" He took up the appropriately huge luggage of the bibulous
+wanderer and led him to the other end of the aisle.
+
+"Numba two is yours, sah. Right heah--all nice and cosy, and already
+made up."
+
+The big man looked through the curtains into the cabined confinement,
+and groaned:
+
+"That! Haven't you got a man's size berth?"
+
+"Sorry, sah. That's as big a bunk as they is on the train."
+
+"Have I got to be locked up in that pigeon-hole for--for how many days
+is it to Reno?"
+
+"Reno?" The porter greeted that meaningful name with a smile. "We're
+doo in Reno the--the--the mawnin' of the fo'th day, sah. Yassah." He
+put the baggage down and started away, but the sad fat man seized his
+hand, with great emotion:
+
+"Don't leave me all alone in there, porter, for I'm a broken-hearted
+man."
+
+"Is that so? Too bad, sah."
+
+"Were you ever a broken-hearted man, porter?"
+
+"Always, sah."
+
+"Did you ever put your trust in a false-hearted woman?"
+
+"Often, sah."
+
+"Was she ever true to you, porter?"
+
+"Never, sah."
+
+"Porter, we are partners in mis-sis-ery."
+
+And he wrung the rough, black hand with a solemnity that embarrassed
+the porter almost as much as it would have embarrassed the passenger
+himself if he could have understood what he was doing. The porter
+disengaged himself with a patient but hasty:
+
+"I'm afraid you'll have to 'scuse me. I got to he'p the other
+passengers on bode."
+
+"Don't let me keep you from your duty. Duty is the--the----" But he
+could not remember what duty was, and he would have dropped off to
+sleep, if he had not been startled by a familiar voice which the
+porter had luckily escaped.
+
+"Pawtah! Pawtah! Can't you raise this light--or rather can't you lower
+it? Pawtah! This light is so infernally dim I can't read."
+
+To the Englishman's intense amazement his call brought to him not the
+porter, but a rising moon with the profound query:
+
+"Whass a li'l thing like dim light, when the light of your life has
+gone out?"
+
+"I beg your pardon?"
+
+Without further invitation, the mammoth descended on the Englishman's
+territory.
+
+"I'm a broken-hearted man, Mr.--Mr.--I didn't get your name."
+
+"Er--ah--I dare say."
+
+"Thanks, I will sit down." He lifted a great carry-all and airily
+tossed it into the aisle, set the Gladstone on the lap of the
+infuriated Englishman, and squeezed into the seat opposite, making a
+sad mix-up of knees.
+
+"My name's Wellington. Ever hear of li'l Jimmie Wellington? That's
+me."
+
+"Any relation to the Duke?"
+
+"Nagh!"
+
+He no longer interested Mr. Wedgewood. But Mr. Wellington was not
+aware that he was being snubbed. He went right on getting acquainted:
+
+"Are you married, Mr.--Mr.----?"
+
+"No!"
+
+"My heartfelt congrashlations. Hang on to your luck, my boy. Don't let
+any female take it away from you." He slapped the Englishman on the
+elbow amiably, and his prisoner was too stifled with wrath to emit
+more than one feeble "Pawtah!"
+
+Mr. Wellington mused on aloud: "Oh, if I had only remained shingle.
+But she was so beautiful and she swore to love, honor and obey. Mrs.
+Wellington is a queen among women, mind you, and I have nothing to say
+against her except that she has the temper of a tarantula." He
+italicized the word with a light fillip of his left hand along the
+back of the seat. He did not notice that he filliped the angry head of
+Mr. Ira Lathrop in the next seat. He went on with his portrait of his
+wife. "She has the 'stravaganza of a sultana"--another fillip for Mr.
+Lathrop--"the zhealousy of a cobra, the flirtatiousness of a humming
+bird." Mr. Lathrop was glaring round like a man-eating tiger, but
+Wellington talked on. "She drinks, swears, and smokes cigars,
+otherwise she's fine--a queen among women."
+
+Neither this amazing vision of womankind, nor this beautiful example
+of longing for confession and sympathy awakened a response in the
+Englishman's frozen bosom. His only action was another violent effort
+to disengage his cramped knees from the knees of his tormentor; his
+only comment a vain and weakening cry for help, "Pawtah! Pawtah!"
+
+Wellington's bleary, teary eyes were lighted with triumph. "Finally I
+saw I couldn't stand it any longer so I bought a tic-hic-et to Reno. I
+'stablish a residensh in six monfths--get a divorce--no shcandal. Even
+m'own wife won't know anything about it."
+
+The Englishman was almost attracted by this astounding picture of the
+divorce laws in America. It sounded so barbarically quaint that he
+leaned forward to hear more, but Mr. Wellington's hand, like a
+mischievous runaway, had wandered back into the shaggy locks atop of
+Mr. Lathrop. His right hand did not let his left know what it was
+doing, but proceeded quite independently to grip as much of Lathrop's
+hair as it would hold.
+
+Then as Mr. Wellington shook with joy at the prospect of "Dear old
+Reno!" he began unconsciously to draw Ira Lathrop's head after his
+hair across the seat. The pain of it shot the tears into Lathrop's
+eyes, and as he writhed and twisted he was too full of profanity to
+get any one word out.
+
+When he managed to wrench his skull free, he was ready to murder his
+tormentor. But as soon as he confronted the doddering and blinking
+toper, he was helpless. Drunken men have always been treated with
+great tenderness in America, and when Wellington, seeing Lathrop's
+white hair, exclaimed with rapture: "Why, hello, Pop! here's Pop!" the
+most that Lathrop could do was to tear loose those fat, groping hands,
+slap them like a school teacher, and push the man away.
+
+But that one shove upset Mr. Wellington and sent him toppling down
+upon the pit of the Englishman's stomach.
+
+For Wedgewood, it was suddenly as if all the air had been removed from
+the world. He gulped like a fish drowning for lack of water. He was a
+long while getting breath enough for words, but his first words were
+wild demands that Mr. Wellington remove himself forthwith.
+
+Wellington accepted the banishment with the sorrowful eyes of a dying
+deer, and tottered away wagging his fat head and wailing:
+
+"I'm a broken-hearted man, and nobody gives a ----." At this point he
+caromed over into Ira Lathrop's berth and was welcomed with a savage
+roar:
+
+"What the devil's the matter with you?"
+
+"I'm a broken-hearted man, that's all."
+
+"Oh, is that all," Lathrop snapped, vanishing behind his newspaper.
+The desperately melancholy seeker for a word of human kindness bleared
+at the blurred newspaper wall a while, then waded into a new attempt
+at acquaintance. Laying his hand on Lathrop's knee, he stammered:
+"Esscuzhe me, Mr.--Mr.----"
+
+From behind the newspaper came a stingy answer: "Lathrop's my name--if
+you want to know."
+
+"Pleased to meet you, Mr. Lothrop."
+
+"Lathrop!"
+
+"Lathrop! My name's Wellington. Li'l Jimmie Wellington. Ever hear of
+me?"
+
+He waited with the genial smile of a famous man; the smile froze at
+Lathrop's curt, "Don't think so."
+
+He tried again: "Ever hear of well-known Chicago belle, Mrs. Jimmie
+Wellington?"
+
+"Yes, I've heard of her!" There was an ominous grin in the tone.
+
+Wellington waved his hand with modest pride. "Well, I'm Jimmie."
+
+"Serves you right."
+
+This jolt was so discourteous that Wellington decided to protest:
+"Mister Latham!"
+
+"Lathrop!"
+
+The name came out with a whip-snap. He tried to echo it, "La-_throp_!"
+"I don't like that Throp. That's a kind of a seasick name, isn't it?"
+Finding the newspaper still intervening between him and his prey, he
+calmly tore it down the middle and pushed through it like a moon
+coming through a cloud. "But a man can't change his name by marrying,
+can he? That's the worst of it. A woman can. Think of a heartless
+cobra di capello in woman's form wearing my fair name--and wearing it
+out. Mr. La-_throp_, did you ever put your trust in a false-hearted
+woman?"
+
+"Never put my trust in anybody."
+
+"Didn't you ever love a woman?"
+
+"No!"
+
+"Well, then, didn't you ever marry a woman?"
+
+"Not one. I've had the measles and the mumps, but I've never had
+matrimony."
+
+"Oh, lucky man," beamed Wellington. "Hang on to your luck."
+
+"I intend to," said Lathrop, "I was born single and I like it."
+
+"Oh, how I envy you! You see, Mrs. Wellington--she's a queen among
+women, mind you--a queen among women, but she has the 'stravagance of
+a----"
+
+Lathrop had endured all he could endure, even from a privileged
+character like little Jimmy Wellington. He rose to take refuge in the
+smoking-room. But the very vigor of this departure only served to help
+Wellington to his feet, for he seized Lathrop's coat and hung on,
+through the door, down the little corridor, always explaining:
+
+"Mrs. Wellington is a queen among women, mind you, but I can't stand
+her temper any longer."
+
+He had hardly squeezed into the smoking-room when the porter and an
+usher almost invisible under the baggage they carried brought in a new
+passenger. Her first question was:
+
+"Oh, porter, did a box of flowers, or candy, or anything, come for
+me?"
+
+"What name would they be in, miss?"
+
+"Mrs. Wellington--Mrs. James Wellington."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER V
+
+A QUEEN AMONG WOMEN
+
+
+Miss Anne Gattle, seated in Mrs. Jimmie Wellington's seat, had not
+heard Mr. Jimmie Wellington's sketch of his wife. But she needed
+hardly more than a glance to satisfy herself that she and Mrs. Jimmie
+were as hopelessly antipathetic as only two polite women can be.
+
+Mrs. Jimmie was accounted something of a snob in Chicago society, but
+perhaps the missionary was a trifle the snobbisher of the two when
+they met.
+
+Miss Gattle could overlook a hundred vices in a Zulu queen more easily
+than a few in a fellow countrywoman. She did not like Mrs. Jimmie, and
+she was proud of it.
+
+When the porter said, "I'm afraid you got this lady's seat," Miss
+Gattle shot one glance at the intruder and rose stiffly. "Then I
+suppose I'll have to----"
+
+"Oh, please don't go, there's plenty of room," Mrs. Wellington
+insisted, pressing her to remain. This nettled Miss Gattle still more,
+but she sank back, while the porter piled up expensive traveling-bags
+and hat boxes till there was hardly a place to sit. But even at that
+Mrs. Jimmie felt called on to apologize:
+
+"I haven't brought much luggage. How I'll ever live four days with
+this, I can't imagine. It will be such a relief to get my trunks at
+Reno."
+
+"Reno?" echoed Miss Gattle. "Do you live there?"
+
+"Well, theoretically, yes."
+
+"I don't understand you."
+
+"I've got to live there to get it."
+
+"To get it? Oh!" A look of sudden and dreadful realization came over
+the missionary. Mrs. Wellington interpreted it with a smile of gay
+defiance:
+
+"Do you believe in divorces?"
+
+Anne Gattle stuck to her guns. "I must say I don't. I think a law
+ought to be passed stopping them."
+
+"So do I," Mrs. Wellington amiably agreed, "and I hope they'll pass
+just such a law--after I get mine." Then she ventured a little shaft
+of her own. "You don't believe in divorces. I judge you've never been
+married."
+
+"Not once!" The spinster drew herself up, but Mrs. Wellington disarmed
+her with an unexpected bouquet:
+
+"Oh, lucky woman! Don't let any heartless man delude you into taking
+the fatal step."
+
+Anne Gattle was nothing if not honest. She confessed frankly: "I must
+say that nobody has made any violent efforts to compel me to. That's
+why I'm going to China."
+
+"To China!" Mrs. Wellington gasped, hardly believing her ears. "My
+dear! You don't intend to marry a laundryman?"
+
+"The idea! I'm going as a missionary."
+
+"A missionary? Why leave Chicago?" Mrs. Wellington's eye softened more
+or less convincingly: "Oh, lovely! How I should dote upon being a
+missionary. I really think that after I get my divorce I might have a
+try at it. I had thought of a convent, but being a missionary must be
+much more exciting." She dismissed the dream with an abrupt shake of
+the head. "Excuse me, but do you happen to have any matches?"
+
+"Matches! I never carry them!"
+
+"They never have matches in the women's room, and I've used my last
+one."
+
+Miss Gattle took another reef in her tight lips. "Do you smoke
+cigarettes?"
+
+Mrs. Wellington's echoed disgust with disgust: "Oh, no, indeed. I
+loathe them. I have the most dainty little cigars. Did you ever try
+one?"
+
+Miss Gattle stiffened into one exclamation point: "Cigars! Me!"
+
+Mrs. Jimmie was so well used to being disapproved of that it never
+disturbed her. She went on as if the face opposite were not alive
+with horror: "I should think that cigars might be a great consolation
+to a lady missionary in the long lone hours of--what do missionaries
+do when they're not missionarying?"
+
+"That depends."
+
+There was something almost spiritual in Mrs. Jimmie's beatific look:
+"I can't tell you what consolation my cigars have given me in my
+troubles. Mr. Wellington objected--but then Mr. Wellington objected to
+nearly everything I did. That's why I am forced to this dreadful
+step."
+
+"Cigars?"
+
+"Divorces."
+
+"Divorces!"
+
+"Well, this will be only my second--my other was such a nuisance. I
+got that from Jimmie, too. But it didn't take. Then we made up and
+remarried. Rather odd, having a second honeymoon with one's first
+husband. But remarriage didn't succeed any better. Jimmie fell off the
+water-wagon with an awful splash, and he quite misunderstood my purely
+platonic interest in Sammy Whitcomb, a nice young fellow with a fool
+of a wife. Did you ever meet Mrs. Sammy Whitcomb--no? Oh, but you are
+a lucky woman! Indeed you are! Well, when Jimmie got jealous, I just
+gave him up entirely. I'm running away to Reno. I sent a note to my
+husband's club, saying that I had gone to Europe, and he needn't try
+to find me. Poor fellow, he will. He'll hunt the continent high and
+low for me, but all the while I'll be in Nevada. Rather good joke on
+little Jimmie, eh?"
+
+"Excruciating!"
+
+"But now I must go. Now I must go. I've really become quite addicted
+to them."
+
+"Divorces?"
+
+"Cigars. Do stay here till I come back. I have so much to say to you."
+
+Miss Gattle shook her head in despair. She could understand a dozen
+heathen dialects better than the speech of so utter a foreigner as her
+fellow-countrywoman. Mrs. Jimmie hastened away, rather pleased at the
+shocks she had administered. She enjoyed her own electricity.
+
+In the corridor she administered another thrill--this time to a tall
+young man--a stranger, as alert for flirtation as a weasel for
+mischief. He huddled himself and his suitcases into as flat a space as
+possible, murmuring:
+
+"These corridors are so narrow, aren't they?"
+
+"Aren't they?" said Mrs. Jimmie. "So sorry to trouble you."
+
+"Don't mention it."
+
+She passed on, their glances fencing like playful foils. Then she
+paused:
+
+"Excuse me. Could you lend me a match? They never have matches in the
+Women's Room."
+
+He succeeded in producing a box after much shifting of burdens, and he
+was rewarded with a look and a phrase:
+
+"You have saved my life."
+
+He started to repeat his "Don't mention it," but it seemed
+inappropriate, so he said nothing, and she vanished behind a door. He
+turned away, saying to himself that it promised to be a pleasant
+journey. He was halted by another voice--another woman's voice:
+
+"Pardon me, but is this the car for Reno?"
+
+He turned to smile, "I believe so!" Then his eyes widened as he
+recognized the speaker.
+
+"Mrs. Sammy Whitcomb!"
+
+It promised to be a curious journey.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VI
+
+A CONSPIRACY IN SATIN
+
+
+The tall man emptied one hand of its suitcase to clasp the hand the
+newcomer granted him. He held it fast as he exclaimed: "Don't tell me
+that you are bound for Reno!" She whimpered: "I'm afraid so, Mr.
+Ashton."
+
+He put down everything to take her other hand, and tuned his voice to
+condolence: "Why, I thought you and Sam Whitcomb were--"
+
+"Oh, we were until that shameless Mrs. Wellington----"
+
+"Mrs. Wellington? Don't believe I know her."
+
+"I thought everybody had heard of Mrs. Jimmie Wellington."
+
+"Mrs. Jimmie--oh, yes, I've heard of her!" Everybody seemed to have
+heard of Mrs. Jimmie Wellington.
+
+"What a dance she has led her poor husband!" Mrs. Whitcomb said. "And
+my poor Sammy fell into her trap, too."
+
+Ashton, zealous comforter, took a wrathful tone: "I always thought
+your husband was the most unmitigated----" But Mrs. Whitcomb bridled
+at once. "How dare you criticize Sammy! He's the nicest boy in the
+world."
+
+Ashton recovered quickly. "That's what I started to say. Will he
+contest the--divorce?"
+
+"Of course not," she beamed. "The dear fellow would never deny me
+anything. Sammy offered to get it himself, but I told him he'd better
+stay in Chicago and stick to business. I shall need such a lot of
+alimony."
+
+"Too bad he couldn't have come along," Ashton insinuated.
+
+But the irony was wasted, for she sighed: "Yes, I shall miss him
+terribly. But we feared that if he were with me it might hamper me in
+getting a divorce on the ground of desertion."
+
+She was trying to look earnest and thoughtful and heartbroken, but the
+result was hardly plausible, for Mrs. Sammy Whitcomb could not
+possibly have been really earnest or really thoughtful; and her heart
+was quite too elastic to break. She proved it instantly, for when she
+heard behind her the voice of a young man asking her to let him pass,
+she turned to protest, but seeing that he was a handsome young man,
+her starch was instantly changed to sugar. And she rewarded his good
+looks with a smile, as he rewarded hers with another.
+
+Then Ashton intervened like a dog in the manger and dragged her off to
+her seat, leaving the young man to exclaim:
+
+"Some tamarind, that!"
+
+Another young man behind him growled: "Cut out the tamarinds and get
+to business. Mallory will be here any minute."
+
+"I hate to think what he'll do to us when he sees what we've done to
+him."
+
+"Oh, he won't dare to fight in the presence of his little
+bridey-widey. Do you see the porter in there?"
+
+"Yes, suppose he objects."
+
+"Well, we have the tickets. We'll claim it's our section till Mallory
+and Mrs. Mallory come."
+
+They moved on into the car, where the porter confronted them. When he
+saw that they were loaded with bundles of all shapes and sizes, he
+waved them away with scorn:
+
+"The emigrant sleepa runs only Toosdays and Thuzzdays."
+
+From behind the first mass of packages came a brisk military answer:
+
+"You black hound! About face--forward march! Section number one."
+
+The porter retreated down the aisle, apologizing glibly. "'Scuse me
+for questionin' you, but you-all's baggage looked kind o' eccentric at
+first."
+
+The two young men dumped their parcels on the seats and began to
+unwrap them hastily.
+
+"If Mallory catches us, he'll kill us," said Lieutenant Shaw.
+Lieutenant Hudson only laughed and drew out a long streamer of white
+satin ribbon. Its glimmer, and the glimmering eyes of the young man
+excited Mrs. Whitcomb so much that after a little hesitance she moved
+forward, followed by the jealous Ashton.
+
+"Oh, what's up?" she ventured. "It looks like something bridal."
+
+"Talk about womanly intuition!" said Lieutenant Hudson, with an
+ingratiating salaam.
+
+And then they explained to her that their classmate at West Point,
+being ordered suddenly to the Philippines, had arranged to elope with
+his beloved Marjorie Newton; had asked them to get the tickets and
+check the baggage while he stopped at a minister's to "get spliced and
+hike for Manila by this train."
+
+Having recounted this plan in the full belief that it was even at that
+moment being carried out successfully, Lieutenant Hudson, with a
+ghoulish smile, explained:
+
+"Being old friends of the bride and groom, we want to fix their
+section up in style and make them truly comfortable."
+
+"Delicious!" gushed Mrs. Whitcomb. "But you ought to have some rice
+and old shoes."
+
+"Here's the rice," said Hudson.
+
+"Here's the old shoes," said Shaw.
+
+"Lovely!" cried Mrs. Whitcomb, but then she grew soberer. "I should
+think, though, that they--the young couple--would have preferred a
+stateroom."
+
+"Of course," said Hudson, almost blushing, "but it was taken. This was
+the best we could do for them."
+
+"That's why we want to make it nice and bridelike," said Shaw.
+"Perhaps you could help us--a woman's touch----"
+
+"Oh, I'd love to," she glowed, hastening into the section among the
+young men and the bundles. The unusual stir attracted the porter's
+suspicions. He came forward with a look of authority:
+
+"'Scuse me, but wha--what's all this?"
+
+"Vanish--get out," said Hudson, poking a coin at him. As he turned to
+obey, Mrs. Whitcomb checked him with: "Oh, Porter, could you get us a
+hammer and some nails?"
+
+The porter almost blanched: "Good Lawd, Miss, you ain't allowin' to
+drive nails in that woodwork, is you?" That woodwork was to him what
+the altar is to the priest.
+
+But Hudson, resorting to heroic measures, hypnotized him with a
+two-dollar bill: "Here, take this and see nothing, hear nothing, say
+nothing." The porter caressed it and chuckled: "I'm blind, deaf and
+speechless." He turned away, only to come back at once with a timid
+"'Scuse me!"
+
+"You here yet?" growled Hudson.
+
+Anxiously the porter pleaded: "I just want to ast one question. Is
+you all fixin' up for a bridal couple?"
+
+"Foolish question, number eight million, forty-three," said Shaw.
+"Answer, no, we are."
+
+The porter's face glistened like fresh stove polish as he gloated over
+the prospect. "I tell you, it'll be mahty refreshin' to have a bridal
+couple on bode! This dog-on old Reno train don't carry nothin' much
+but divorcees. I'm just nachally hongry for a bridal couple."
+
+"Brile coup-hic-le?" came a voice, like an echo that had somehow
+become intoxicated in transit. It was Little Jimmie Wellington looking
+for more sympathy. "Whass zis about brile couple?"
+
+"Why, here's Little Buttercup!" sang out young Hudson, looking at him
+in amazed amusement.
+
+"Did I un'stan' somebody say you're preparing for a brile coupl'?"
+
+Lieutenant Shaw grinned. "I don't know what you understood, but that's
+what we're doing."
+
+Immediately Wellington's great face began to churn and work like a big
+eddy in a river. Suddenly he was weeping. "Excuse these tears,
+zhentlemen, but I was once--I was once a b-b-bride myself."
+
+"He looks like a whole wedding party," was Ashton's only comment on
+the copious grief. It was poor Wellington's fate to hunt as vainly for
+sympathy as Diogenes for honesty. The decorators either ignored him or
+shunted him aside. They were interested in a strange contrivance of
+ribbons and a box that Shaw produced.
+
+"That," Hudson explained, "is a little rice trap. We hang that up
+there and when the bridal couple sit down--biff! a shower of rice all
+over them. It's bad, eh?"
+
+Everybody agreed that it was a happy thought and even Jimmie
+Wellington, like a great baby, bounding from tears to laughter on the
+instant, was chortling: "A rishe trap? That's abslootly
+splendid--greates' invensh' modern times. I must stick around and see
+her when she flops." And then he lurched forward like a too-obliging
+elephant. "Let me help you."
+
+Mrs. Whitcomb, who had now mounted a step ladder and poised herself as
+gracefully as possible, shrieked with alarm, as she saw Wellington's
+bulk rolling toward her frail support.
+
+If Hudson and Shaw had not been football veterans at West Point and
+had not known just what to do when the center rush comes bucking the
+line, they could never have blocked that flying wedge. But they
+checked him and impelled him backward through his own curtains into
+his own berth.
+
+Finding himself on his back, he decided to remain there. And there he
+remained, oblivious of the carnival preparations going on just outside
+his canopy.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VII
+
+THE MASKED MINISTER
+
+
+Being an angel must have this great advantage at least, that one may
+sit in the grandstand overlooking the earth and enjoy the ludicrous
+blunders of that great blind man's buff we call life.
+
+This night, if any angels were watching Chicago, the Mallory mix-up
+must have given them a good laugh, or a good cry--according to their
+natures.
+
+Here were Mallory and Marjorie, still merely engaged, bitterly
+regretting their inability to get married and to continue their
+journey together. There in the car were the giggling conspirators
+preparing a bridal mockery for their sweet confusion.
+
+Then the angels might have nudged one another and said:
+
+"Oh, it's all right now. There goes a minister hurrying to their very
+car. Mallory has the license in his pocket, and here comes the parson.
+Hooray!"
+
+And then the angelic cheer must have died out as the one great hurrah
+of a crowded ball-ground is quenched in air when the home team's
+vitally needed home run swerves outside the line and drops useless as
+a stupid foul ball.
+
+In a shabby old hack, were two of the happiest runaways that ever
+sought a train. They were not miserable like the young couple in the
+taxicab. They were white-haired both. They had been married for thirty
+years. Yet this was their real honeymoon, their real elopement.
+
+The little woman in the timid gray bonnet clapped her hands and
+tittered like a schoolgirl.
+
+"Oh, Walter, I can't believe we're really going to leave Ypsilanti for
+a while. Oh, but you've earned it after thirty years of being a
+preacher."
+
+"Hush. Don't let me hear you say the awful word," said the little old
+man in the little black hat and the close-fitting black bib. "I'm so
+tired of it, Sally, I don't want anybody on the train to know it."
+
+"They can't help guessing it, with your collar buttoned behind."
+
+And then the amazing minister actually dared to say, "Here's where I
+change it around." What's more, he actually did it. Actually took off
+his collar and buttoned it to the front. The old carriage seemed
+almost to rock with the earthquake of the deed.
+
+"Why, Walter Temple!" his wife exclaimed. "What would they say in
+Ypsilanti?"
+
+"They'll never know," he answered, defiantly.
+
+"But your bib?" she said.
+
+"I've thought of that, too," he cried, as he whipped it off and
+stuffed it into a handbag. "Look, what I've bought." And he dangled
+before her startled eyes a long affair which the sudden light from a
+passing lamppost revealed to be nothing less than a flaring red tie.
+
+The little old lady touched it to make sure she was not dreaming it.
+Then, omitting further parley with fate, she snatched it away, put it
+round his neck, and, since her arms were embracing him, kissed him
+twice before she knotted the ribbon into a flaming bow. She sat back
+and regarded the vision a moment, then flung her arms around him and
+hugged him till he gasped:
+
+"Watch out-watch out. Don't crush my cigars."
+
+"Cigars! Cigars!" she echoed, in a daze.
+
+And then the astounding husband produced them in proof.
+
+"Genuine Lillian Russells--five cents straight."
+
+"But I never saw you smoke."
+
+"Haven't taken a puff since I was a young fellow," he grinned, wagging
+his head. "But now it's my vacation, and I'm going to smoke up."
+
+She squeezed his hand with an earlier ardor: "Now you're the old
+Walter Temple I used to know."
+
+  [Illustration: "NOW IT'S MY VACATION, AND I'M GOING TO SMOKE UP"....]
+
+"Sally," he said, "I've been traveling through life on a half-fare
+ticket. Now I'm going to have my little fling. And you brace up, too,
+and be the old mischievous Sally I used to know. Aren't you glad to be
+away from those sewing circles and gossip-bees, and----"
+
+"Ugh! Don't ever mention them," she shuddered. Then she, too, felt a
+tinge of recurring springtide. "If you start to smoking, I think I'll
+take up flirting once more."
+
+He pinched her cheek and laughed. "As the saying is, go as far as you
+desire and I'll leave the coast clear."
+
+He kept his promise, too, for they were no sooner on the train and
+snugly bestowed in section five, than he was up and off.
+
+"Where are you going?" she asked.
+
+"To the smoking-room," he swaggered, brandishing a dangerous looking
+cigar.
+
+"Oh, Walter," she snickered, "I feel like a young runaway."
+
+"You look like one. Be careful not to let anybody know that you're
+a"--he lowered his voice--"an old preacher's wife."
+
+"I'm as ashamed of it as you are," she whispered. Then he threw her a
+kiss and a wink. She threw him a kiss and winked, too. And he went
+along the aisle eyeing his cigar gloatingly. As he entered the
+smoking-room, lighted the weed and blew out a great puff with a sigh
+of rapture, who could have taken him, with his feet cocked up, and
+his red tie rakishly askew, for a minister?
+
+And Sally herself was busy disguising herself, loosening up her hair
+coquettishly, smiling the primness out of the set corners of her mouth
+and even--let the truth be told at all costs--even passing a
+pink-powdered puff over her pale cheeks with guilty surreptition.
+
+Thus arrayed she was soon joining the conspirators bedecking the bower
+for the expected bride and groom. She was the youngest and most
+mischievous of the lot. She felt herself a bride again, and vowed to
+protect this timid little wife to come from too much hilarity at the
+hands of the conspirators.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VIII
+
+A MIXED PICKLE
+
+
+Mrs. Whitcomb had almost blushed when she had murmured to Lieutenant
+Hudson:
+
+"I should think the young couple would have preferred a stateroom."
+
+And Mr. Hudson had flinched a little as he explained:
+
+"Yes, of course. We tried to get it, but it was gone."
+
+It was during the excitement over the decoration of the bridal
+section, that the stateroom-tenants slipped in unobserved.
+
+First came a fluttering woman whose youthful beauty had a certain hue
+of experience, saddening and wisering. The porter brought her in from
+the station-platform, led her to the stateroom's concave door and
+passed in with her luggage. But she lingered without, a Peri at the
+gate of Paradise. When the porter returned to bow her in, she shivered
+and hesitated, and then demanded:
+
+"Oh, Porter, are you sure there's nobody else in there?"
+
+The porter chuckled, but humored her panic.
+
+"I ain't seen nobody. Shall I look under the seat?"
+
+To his dismay, she nodded her head violently. He rolled his eyes in
+wonderment, but returned to the stateroom, made a pretense of
+examination, and came back with a face full of reassurance. "No'm,
+they's nobody there. Take a mighty small-size burglar to squeeje unda
+that baid--er--berth. No'm, nobody there."
+
+"Oh!"
+
+The gasp was so equivocal that he made bold to ask:
+
+"Is you pleased or disappointed?"
+
+The mysterious young woman was too much agitated to rebuke the
+impudence. She merely sighed: "Oh, porter, I'm so anxious."
+
+"I'm not--now," he muttered, for she handed him a coin.
+
+"Porter, have you seen anybody on board that looks suspicious?"
+
+"Evvabody looks suspicious to me, Missy. But what was you
+expecting--especial?"
+
+"Oh, porter, have you seen anybody that looks like a detective in
+disguise?"
+
+"Well, they's one man looks 's if he was disguised as a balloon, but I
+don't believe he's no slooch-hound."
+
+"Well, if you see anything that looks like a detective and he asks for
+Mrs. Fosdick----"
+
+"Mrs. What-dick?"
+
+"Mrs. Fosdick! You tell him I'm not on board." And she gave him
+another coin.
+
+"Yassum," said the porter, lingering willingly on such fertile soil.
+"I'll tell him Mrs. Fosdick done give me her word she wasn't on bode."
+
+"Yes!--and if a woman should ask you."
+
+"What kind of a woman?"
+
+"The hideous kind that men call handsome."
+
+"Oh, ain't they hideous, them handsome women?"
+
+"Well, if such a woman asks for Mrs. Fosdick--she's my husband's first
+wife--but of course that doesn't interest you."
+
+"No'm--yes'm."
+
+"If she comes--tell her--tell her--oh, what shall we tell her?"
+
+The porter rubbed his thick skull: "Lemme see--we might say you--I
+tell you what we'll tell her: we'll tell her you took the train for
+New York; and if she runs mighty fast she can just about ketch it."
+
+"Fine, fine!" And she rewarded his genius with another coin. "And,
+porter." He had not budged. "Porter, if a very handsome man with
+luscious eyes and a soulful smile asks for me----"
+
+"I'll th'ow him off the train!"
+
+"Oh, no--no!--that's my husband--my present husband. You may let him
+in. Now is it all perfectly clear, porter?"
+
+"Oh, yassum, clear as clear." Thus guaranteed she entered the
+stateroom, leaving the porter alone with his problem. He tried to work
+it out in a semi-audible mumble: "Lemme see! If your present husband's
+absent wife gits on bode disguised as a handsome hideous woman I'm to
+throw him--her--off the train and let her--him--come in--oh, yassum,
+you may rely on me." He bowed and held out his hand again. But she was
+gone. He shuffled on into the car.
+
+He had hardly left the little space before the stateroom when a
+handsome man with luscious eyes, but without any smile at all, came
+slinking along the corridor and tapped cautiously on the door. Silence
+alone answered him at first, then when he had rapped again, he heard a
+muffled:
+
+"Go away. I'm not in."
+
+He put his lips close and softly called: "Edith!"
+
+At this Sesame the door opened a trifle, but when he tried to enter, a
+hand thrust him back and a voice again warned him off. "You musn't
+come in."
+
+"But I'm your husband."
+
+"That's just why you musn't come in." The door opened a little wider
+to give him a view of a downcast beauty moaning:
+
+"Oh, Arthur, I'm so afraid."
+
+"Afraid?" he sniffed. "With your husband here?"
+
+"That's the trouble, Arthur. What if your former wife should find us
+together?"
+
+"But she and I are divorced."
+
+"In some states, yes--but other states don't acknowledge the divorce.
+That former wife of yours is a fiend to pursue us this way."
+
+"She's no worse than your former husband. He's pursuing us, too. My
+divorce was as good as yours, my dear."
+
+"Yes, and no better."
+
+The angels looking on might have judged from the ready tempers of the
+newly married and not entirely unmarried twain that their new alliance
+promised to be as exciting as their previous estates. Perhaps the man
+subtly felt the presence of those eternal eavesdroppers, for he tried
+to end the love-duel in the corridor with an appeasing caress and a
+tender appeal: "But let's not start our honeymoon with a quarrel."
+
+His partial wife returned the caress and tried to explain: "I'm not
+quarreling with you, dear heart, but with the horrid divorce laws.
+Why, oh, why did we ever interfere with them?"
+
+He made a brave effort with: "We ended two unhappy marriages, Edith,
+to make one happy one."
+
+"But I'm so unhappy, Arthur, and so afraid."
+
+He seemed a trifle afraid himself and his gaze was askance as he
+urged: "But the train will start soon, Edith--and then we shall be
+safe."
+
+Mrs. Fosdick had a genius for inventing unpleasant possibilities.
+"But what if your former wife or my former husband should have a
+detective on board?"
+
+"A detective?--poof!" He snapped his fingers in bravado. "You are with
+your husband, aren't you?"
+
+"In Illinois, yes," she admitted, very dolefully. "But when we come to
+Iowa, I'm a bigamist, and when we come to Nebraska, you're a bigamist,
+and when we come to Wyoming, we're not married at all."
+
+It was certainly a tangled web they had woven, but a ray of light shot
+through it into his bewildered soul. "But we're all right in Utah.
+Come, dearest."
+
+He took her by the elbow to escort her into their sanctuary, but still
+she hung back.
+
+"On one condition, Arthur--that you leave me as soon as we cross the
+Iowa state line, and not come back till we get to Utah. Remember, the
+Iowa state line!"
+
+"Oh, all right," he smiled. And seeing the porter, he beckoned him
+close and asked with careless indifference: "Oh, Porter, what time do
+we reach the Iowa state line?"
+
+"Two fifty-five in the mawning, sah."
+
+"Two fifty-five A.M.?" the wretch exclaimed.
+
+"Two fifty-five A.M., yassah," the porter repeated, and wondered why
+this excerpt from the time-table should exert such a dramatic effect
+on the luscious-eyed Fosdick.
+
+He had small time to meditate the puzzle, for the train was about to
+be launched upon its long voyage. He went out to the platform, and
+watched a couple making that way. As their only luggage was a
+dog-basket he supposed that they were simply come to bid some of his
+passengers good-bye. No tips were to be expected from such transients,
+so he allowed them to help themselves up the steps.
+
+Mallory and his Marjorie had tried to kiss the farewell of farewells
+half a dozen times, but she could not let him go at the gate. She
+asked the guard to let her through, and her beauty was bribe enough.
+
+Again and again, she and Mallory paused. He wanted to take her back to
+the taxicab, but she would not be so dismissed. She must spend the
+last available second with him.
+
+"I'll go as far as the steps of the car," she said. When they were
+arrived there, two porters, a sleeping car conductor and several
+smoking saunterers profaned the tryst. So she whispered that she would
+come aboard, for the corridor would be a quiet lane for the last
+rites.
+
+And now that he had her actually on the train, Mallory's whole soul
+revolted against letting her go. The vision of her standing on the
+platform sad-eyed and lorn, while the train swept him off into space
+was unendurable. He shut his eyes against it, but it glowed inside the
+lids.
+
+And then temptation whispered him its old "Why not?" While it was
+working in his soul like a fermenting yeast, he was saying:
+
+"To think that we should owe all our misfortune to an infernal
+taxicab's break-down."
+
+Out of the anguish of her loneliness crept one little complaint:
+
+"If you had really wanted me, you'd have had two taxicabs."
+
+"Oh, how can you say that? I had the license bought and the minister
+waiting."
+
+"He's waiting yet."
+
+"And the ring--there's the ring." He fished it out of his waistcoat
+pocket and held it before her as a golden amulet.
+
+"A lot of good it does now," said Marjorie. "You won't even wait over
+till the next train."
+
+"I've told you a thousand times, my love," he protested, desperately,
+"if I don't catch the transport, I'll be courtmartialed. If this train
+is late, I'm lost. If you really loved me you'd come along with me."
+
+Her very eyes gasped at this astounding proposal.
+
+"Why, Harry Mallory, you know it's impossible."
+
+Like a sort of benevolent Satan, he laid the ground for his abduction:
+"You'll leave me, then, to spend three years without you--out among
+those Manila women."
+
+She shook her head in terror at this vision. "It would be too horrible
+for words to have you marry one of those mahogany sirens."
+
+He held out the apple. "Better come along, then."
+
+"But how can I? We're not married."
+
+He answered airily: "Oh, I'm sure there's a minister on board."
+
+"But it would be too awful to be married with all the passengers
+gawking. No, I couldn't face it. Good-bye, honey."
+
+She turned away, but he caught her arm: "Don't you love me?"
+
+"To distraction. I'll wait for you, too."
+
+"Three years is a long wait."
+
+"But I'll wait, if you will."
+
+With such devotion he could not tamper. It was too beautiful to risk
+or endanger or besmirch with any danger of scandal. He gave up his
+fantastic project and gathered her into his arms, crowded her into his
+very soul, as he vowed: "I'll wait for you forever and ever and ever."
+
+Her arms swept around his neck, and she gave herself up as an exile
+from happiness, a prisoner of a far-off love:
+
+"Good-bye, my husband-to-be."
+
+"Good-bye my wife-that-was-to-have-been-and-will-be-yet-maybe."
+
+"Good-bye."
+
+"Good-bye."
+
+"Good-bye."
+
+"Good-bye."
+
+"I must go."
+
+"Yes, you must."
+
+"One last kiss."
+
+"One more--one long last kiss."
+
+And there, entwined in each other's arms, with lips wedded and eyelids
+clinched, they clung together, forgetting everything past, future, or
+present. Love's anguish made them blind, mute, and deaf.
+
+They did not hear the conductor crying his, "All Aboard!" down the
+long wall of the train. They did not hear the far-off knell of the
+bell. They did not hear the porters banging the vestibules shut. They
+did not feel the floor sliding out with them.
+
+And so the porter found them, engulfed in one embrace, swaying and
+swaying, and no more aware of the increasing rush of the train than we
+other passengers on the earth-express are aware of its speed through
+the ether-routes on its ancient schedule.
+
+The porter stood with his box-step in his hand, and blinked and
+wondered. And they did not even know they were observed.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER IX
+
+ALL ABOARD!
+
+
+The starting of the train surprised the ironical decorators in the
+last stages of their work. Their smiles died out in a sudden shame, as
+it came over them that the joke had recoiled on their own heads. They
+had done their best to carry out the time-honored rite of making a
+newly married couple as miserable as possible--and the newly married
+couple had failed to do its share.
+
+The two lieutenants glared at each other in mutual contempt. They had
+studied much at West Point about ambushes, and how to avoid them.
+Could Mallory have escaped the pit they had digged for him? They
+looked at their handiwork in disgust. The cosy-corner effect of white
+ribbons and orange flowers, gracefully masking the concealed
+rice-trap, had seemed the wittiest thing ever devised. Now it looked
+the silliest.
+
+The other passengers were equally downcast. Meanwhile the two lovers
+in the corridor were kissing good-byes as if they were hoping to store
+up honey enough to sustain their hearts for a three years' fast. And
+the porter was studying them with perplexity.
+
+He was used, however, to waking people out of dreamland, and he began
+to fear that if he were discovered spying on the lovers, he might
+suffer. So he coughed discreetly three or four times.
+
+Since the increasing racket of the train made no effect on the two
+hearts beating as one, the small matter of a cough was as nothing.
+
+Finally the porter was compelled to reach forward and tap Mallory's
+arm, and stutter:
+
+"'Scuse me, but co-could I git b-by?"
+
+The embrace was untied, and the lovers stared at him with a dazed,
+where-am-I? look. Marjorie was the first to realize what awakened
+them. She felt called upon to say something, so she said, as
+carelessly as if she had not just emerged from a young gentleman's
+arms:
+
+"Oh, porter, how long before the train starts?"
+
+"Train's done started, Missy."
+
+This simple statement struck the wool from her eyes and the cotton
+from her ears, and she was wide enough awake when she cried: "Oh, stop
+it--stop it!"
+
+"That's mo'n I can do, Missy," the porter expostulated.
+
+"Then I'll jump off," Marjorie vowed, making a dash for the door.
+
+But the porter filled the narrow path, and waved her back.
+
+"Vestibule's done locked up--train's going lickety-split." Feeling
+that he had safely checkmated any rashness, the porter squeezed past
+the dumbfounded pair, and went to change his blue blouse for the white
+coat of his chambermaidenly duties. Mallory's first wondering thought
+was a rapturous feeling that circumstances had forced his dream into a
+reality. He thrilled with triumph: "You've got to go with me now."
+
+"Yes--I've got to go," Marjorie assented meekly; then, sublimely,
+"It's fate. Kismet!"
+
+They clutched each other again in a fiercely blissful hug. Marjorie
+came back to earth with a bump: "Are you really sure there's a
+minister on board?"
+
+"Pretty sure," said Mallory, sobering a trifle.
+
+"But you said you were sure?"
+
+"Well, when you say you're sure, that means you're not quite sure."
+
+It was not an entirely satisfactory justification, and Marjorie began
+to quake with alarm: "Suppose there shouldn't be?"
+
+"Oh, then," Mallory answered carelessly, "there's bound to be one
+to-morrow."
+
+Marjorie realized at once the enormous abyss between then and the
+morrow, and she gasped: "Tomorrow! And no chaperon! Oh, I'll jump out
+of the window."
+
+Mallory could prevent that, but when she pleaded, "What shall we do?"
+he had no solution to offer. Again it was she who received the first
+inspiration.
+
+"I have it," she beamed.
+
+"Yes, Marjorie?" he assented, dubiously.
+
+"We'll pretend not to be married at all."
+
+He seized the rescuing ladder: "That's it! Not married--just friends."
+
+"Till we can get married----"
+
+"Yes, and then we can stop being friends."
+
+"My love--my friend!" They embraced in a most unfriendly manner.
+
+An impatient yelp from the neglected dog-basket awoke them.
+
+"Oh, Lord, we've brought Snoozleums."
+
+"Of course we have." She took the dog from the prison, tucked him
+under her arm, and tried to compose her bridal face into a merely
+friendly countenance before they entered the car. But she must pause
+for one more kiss, one more of those bittersweet good-byes. And
+Mallory was nothing loath.
+
+Hudson and Shaw were still glumly perplexed, when the porter returned
+in his white jacket.
+
+"I bet they missed the train; all this work for nothing," Hudson
+grumbled. But Shaw, seeing the porter, caught a gleam of hope, and
+asked anxiously:
+
+"Say, porter, have you seen anything anywhere that looks like a
+freshly married pair?"
+
+"Well," and the porter rubbed his eyes with the back of his hand as
+he chuckled, "well, they's a mighty lovin' couple out theah in the
+corridor."
+
+"That's them--they--it!"
+
+Instantly everything was alive and in action. It was as if a bugle had
+shrilled in a dejected camp.
+
+"Get ready!" Shaw commanded. "Here's rice for everybody."
+
+"Everybody take an old shoe," said Hudson. "You can't miss in this
+narrow car."
+
+"There's a kazoo for everyone, too," said Shaw, as the outstretched
+hands were equipped with wedding ammunition. "Do you know the 'Wedding
+March'?"
+
+"I ought to by this time," said Mrs. Whitcomb.
+
+Right into the tangle of preparation, old Ira Lathrop stalked, on his
+way back to his seat to get more cigars.
+
+"Have some rice for the bridal couple?" said Ashton, offering him of
+his own double-handful.
+
+But Lathrop brushed him aside with a romance-hater's growl.
+
+"Watch out for your head, then," cried Hudson, and Lathrop ducked just
+too late to escape a neck-filling, hair-filling shower. An old shoe
+took him a clip abaft the ear, and the old woman-hater dropped raging
+into the same berth where the spinster, Anne Gattle, was trying to
+dodge the same downpour.
+
+Still there was enough of the shrapnel left to overwhelm the two young
+"friends," who marched into the aisle, trying to look indifferent and
+prepared for nothing on earth less than for a wedding charivari.
+
+Mallory should have done better than to entrust his plans to fellows
+like Hudson and Shaw, whom he had known at West Point for diabolically
+joyous hazers and practical jokers. Even as he sputtered rice and
+winced from the impact of flying footgear, he was cursing himself as a
+double-dyed idiot for asking such men to engage his berth for him. He
+had a sudden instinct that they had doubtless bedecked his trunk and
+Marjorie's with white satin furbelows and ludicrous labels. But he
+could not shelter himself from the white sleet and the black thumps.
+He could hardly shelter Marjorie, who cowered behind him and shrieked
+even louder than the romping tormentors.
+
+When the assailants had exhausted the rice and shoes, they charged
+down the aisle for the privilege of kissing the bride. Mallory was
+dragged and bunted and shunted here and there, and he had to fight his
+way back to Marjorie with might and main. He was tugging and striking
+like a demon, and yelling, "Stop it! stop it!"
+
+Hudson took his punishment with uproarious good nature, laughing:
+
+"Oh, shut up, or we'll kiss you!"
+
+But Shaw was scrubbing his wry lips with a seasick wail of:
+
+"Wow! I think I kissed the dog."
+
+There was, of necessity, some pause for breath, and the combatants
+draped themselves limply about the seats. Mallory glared at the twin
+Benedict Arnolds and demanded:
+
+"Are you two thugs going to San Francisco with us?"
+
+"Don't worry," smiled Hudson, "we're only going as far as Kedzie
+Avenue, just to start the honeymoon properly."
+
+If either of the elopers had been calmer, the solution of the problem
+would have been simple. Marjorie could get off at this suburban
+station and drive home from there. But their wits were like pied type,
+and they were further jumbled, when Shaw broke in with a sudden:
+"Come, see the little dovecote we fixed for you."
+
+Before they knew it, they were both haled along the aisle to the white
+satin atrocity. "Love in a bungalow," said Hudson. "Sit down--make
+yourselves perfectly at home."
+
+"No--never--oh, oh, oh!" cried Marjorie, darting away and throwing
+herself into the first empty seat--Ira Lathrop's berth. Mallory
+followed to console her with caresses and murmurs of, "There, there,
+don't cry, dearie!"
+
+Hudson and Shaw followed close with mawkish mockery: "Don't cry,
+dearie."
+
+And now Mrs. Temple intervened. She had enjoyed the initiation
+ceremony as well as anyone. But when the little bride began to cry,
+she remembered the pitiful terror and shy shame she had undergone as a
+girl-wife, and she hastened to Marjorie's side, brushing the men away
+like gnats.
+
+"You poor thing," she comforted. "Come, my child, lean on me, and have
+a good cry."
+
+Hudson grinned, and put out his own arms: "She can lean on me, if
+she'd rather."
+
+Mrs. Temple glanced up with indignant rebuke: "Her mother is far away,
+and she wants a mother's breast to weep on. Here's mine, my dear."
+
+The impudent Shaw tapped his own military chest: "She can use mine."
+
+Infuriated at this bride-baiting, Mallory rose and confronted the two
+imps with clenched fists: "You're a pretty pair of friends, you are!"
+
+The imperturbable Shaw put out a pair of tickets as his only defence:
+"Here are your tickets, old boy."
+
+And Hudson roared jovially: "We tried to get you a stateroom, but it
+was gone."
+
+"And here are your baggage checks," laughed Shaw, forcing into his
+fists a few pasteboards. "We got your trunks on the train ahead, all
+right. Don't mention it--you're entirely welcome."
+
+It was the porter that brought the first relief from the ordeal.
+
+"If you gemmen is gettin' off at Kedzie Avenue, you'd better step
+smart. We're slowin' up now."
+
+Marjorie was sobbing too audibly to hear, and Mallory swearing too
+inaudibly to heed the opportunity Kedzie Avenue offered. And Hudson
+was yelling: "Well, good-bye, old boy and old girl. Sorry we can't go
+all the way." He had the effrontery to try to kiss the bride good-bye,
+and Shaw was equally bold, but Mallory's fury enabled him to beat them
+off. He elbowed and shouldered them down the aisle, and sent after
+them one of his own shoes. But it just missed Shaw's flying coattails.
+
+Mallory stood glaring after the departing traitors. He was glad that
+they at least were gone, till he realized with a sickening slump in
+his vitals, that they had not taken with them his awful dilemma. And
+now the train was once more clickety-clicking into the night and the
+West.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER X
+
+EXCESS BAGGAGE
+
+
+Never was a young soldier so stumped by a problem in tactics as
+Lieutenant Harry Mallory, safely aboard his train, and not daring to
+leave it, yet hopelessly unaware of how he was to dispose of his
+lovely but unlabelled baggage.
+
+Hudson and Shaw had erected a white satin temple to Hymen in berth
+number one, had created such commotion, and departed in such
+confusion, that there had been no opportunity to proclaim that he and
+Marjorie were "not married--just friends."
+
+And now the passengers had accepted them as that enormous fund of
+amusement to any train, a newly wedded pair. To explain the mistake
+would have been difficult, even among friends. But among
+strangers--well, perhaps a wiser and a colder brain than Harry
+Mallory's could have stood there and delivered a brief oration
+restoring truth to her pedestal. But Mallory was in no condition for
+such a stoic delivery.
+
+He mopped his brow in agony, lost in a blizzard of bewilderments. He
+drifted back toward Marjorie, half to protect and half for
+companionship. He found Mrs. Temple cuddling her close and mothering
+her as if she were a baby instead of a bride.
+
+"Did the poor child run away and get married?"
+
+Marjorie's frantic "Boo-hoo-hoo" might have meant anything. Mrs.
+Temple took it for assent, and murmured with glowing reminiscence:
+
+"Just the way Doctor Temple and I did."
+
+She could not see the leaping flash of wild hope that lighted up
+Mallory's face. She only heard his voice across her shoulder:
+
+"Doctor? Doctor Temple? Is your husband a reverend doctor?"
+
+"A reverend doctor?" the little old lady repeated weakly.
+
+"Yes--a--a preacher?"
+
+The poor old congregation-weary soul was abruptly confronted with the
+ruination of all the delight in her little escapade with her
+pulpit-fagged husband. If she had ever dreamed that the girl who was
+weeping in her arms was weeping from any other fright than the usual
+fright of young brides, fresh from the preacher's benediction, she
+would have cast every other consideration aside, and told the truth.
+
+But her husband's last behest before he left her had been to keep
+their precious pretend-secret. She felt--just then--that a woman's
+first duty is to obey her husband. Besides, what business was it of
+this young husband's what her old husband's business was? Before she
+had fairly begun to debate her duty, almost automatically, with the
+instantaneous instinct of self-protection, her lips had uttered the
+denial:
+
+"Oh--he's--just a--plain doctor. There he is now."
+
+Mallory cast one miserable glance down the aisle at Dr. Temple coming
+back from the smoking room. As the old man paused to stare at the
+bridal berth, whose preparation he had not seen, he was just enough
+befuddled by his first cigar for thirty years to look a trifle tipsy.
+The motion of the train and the rakish tilt of his unwonted crimson
+tie confirmed the suspicion and annihilated Mallory's new-born hope,
+that perhaps repentant fate had dropped a parson at their very feet.
+
+He sank into the seat opposite Marjorie, who gave him one terrified
+glance, and burst into fresh sobs:
+
+"Oh--oh--boo-hoo--I'm so unhap--hap--py."
+
+Perhaps Mrs. Temple was a little miffed at the couple that had led her
+astray and opened her own honeymoon with a wanton fib. In any case,
+the best consolation she could offer Marjorie was a perfunctory pat,
+and a cynicism:
+
+"There, there, dear! You don't know what real unhappiness is yet. Wait
+till you've been married a while."
+
+And then she noted a startling lack of completeness in the bride's
+hand.
+
+"Why--my dear!--where's your wedding ring?"
+
+With what he considered great presence of mind, Mallory explained:
+"It--it slipped off--I--I picked it up. I have it here." And he took
+the little gold band from his waistcoat and tried to jam it on
+Marjorie's right thumb.
+
+"Not on the thumb!" Mrs. Temple cried. "Don't you know?"
+
+"You see, it's my first marriage."
+
+"You poor boy--this finger!" And Mrs. Temple, raising Marjorie's limp
+hand, selected the proper digit, and held it forward, while Mallory
+pressed the fatal circlet home.
+
+And then Mrs. Temple, having completed their installation as man and
+wife, utterly confounded their confusion by her final effort at
+comfort: "Well, my dears, I'll go back to my seat, and leave you alone
+with your dear husband."
+
+"My dear what?" Marjorie mumbled inanely, and began to sniffle again.
+Whereupon Mrs. Temple resigned her to Mallory, and consigned her to
+fate with a consoling platitude:
+
+"Cheer up, my dear, you'll be all right in the morning."
+
+Marjorie and Mallory's eyes met in one wild clash, and then both
+stared into the window, and did not notice that the shades were down.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XI
+
+A CHANCE RENCOUNTER
+
+
+While Mrs. Temple was confiding to her husband that the agitated
+couple in the next seat had just come from a wedding-factory, and had
+got on while he was lost in tobacco land, the people in the seat on
+the other side of them were engaged in a little drama of their own.
+
+Ira Lathrop, known to all who knew him as a woman-hating
+snapping-turtle, was so busily engaged trying to drag the farthest
+invading rice grains out of the back of his neck, that he was late in
+realizing his whereabouts. When he raised his head, he found that he
+had crowded into a seat with an uncomfortable looking woman, who
+crowded against the window with old-maidenly timidity.
+
+He felt some apology to be necessary, and he snarled: "Disgusting
+things, these weddings!" After he heard this, it did not sound
+entirely felicitous, so he grudgingly ventured: "Excuse me--you
+married?"
+
+She denied the soft impeachment so heartily that he softened a
+little:
+
+"You're a sensible woman. I guess you and I are the only sensible
+people on this train."
+
+"It--seems--so," she giggled. It was the first time her spinstership
+had been taken as material for a compliment. Something in the girlish
+giggle and the strangely young smile that swept twenty years from her
+face and belied the silver lines in her hair, seemed to catch the old
+bachelor's attention. He stared at her so fiercely that she looked
+about for a way of escape. Then a curiously anxious, almost a hungry,
+look softened his leonine jowls into a boyish eagerness, and his growl
+became a sort of gruff purr:
+
+"Say, you look something like an old sweetheart--er--friend--of mine.
+Were you ever in Brattleboro, Vermont?"
+
+A flush warmed her cheek, and a sense of home warmed her prim speech,
+as she confessed:
+
+"I came from there originally."
+
+"So did I," said Ira Lathrop, leaning closer, and beaming like a big
+sun: "I don't suppose you remember Ira Lathrop?"
+
+The old maid stared at the bachelor as if she were trying to see the
+boy she had known, through the mask that time had modeled on his face.
+And then she was a girl again, and her voice chimed as she cried:
+
+"Why, Ira!--Mr. Lathrop!--is it you?"
+
+She gave him her hand--both her hands, and he smothered them in one
+big paw and laid the other on for extra warmth, as he nodded his
+savage head and roared as gentle as a sucking dove:
+
+"Well, well! Annie--Anne--Miss Gattle! What do you think of that?"
+
+They gossiped across the chasm of years about people and things, and
+knew nothing of the excitement so close to them, saw nothing of
+Chicago slipping back into the distance, with its many lights shooting
+across the windows like hurled torches.
+
+Suddenly a twinge of ancient jealousy shot through the man's heart,
+recurring to old emotions.
+
+"So you're not married, Annie. Whatever became of that fellow who used
+to hang round you all the time?"
+
+"Charlie Selby?" She blushed at the name, and thrilled at the luxury
+of meeting jealousy. "Oh, he entered the church. He's a minister out
+in Ogden, Utah."
+
+"I always knew he'd never amount to much," was Lathrop's epitaph on
+his old rival. Then he started with a new twinge: "You bound for
+Ogden, too?"
+
+"Oh, no," she smiled, enraptured at the new sensation of making a man
+anxious, and understanding all in a flash the motives that make
+coquettes. Then she told him her destination. "I'm on my way to
+China."
+
+"China!" he exclaimed. "So'm I!"
+
+She stared at him with a new thought, and gushed: "Oh, Ira--are you a
+missionary, too?"
+
+"Missionary? Hell, no!" he roared. "Excuse me--I'm an importer--Anne,
+I--I----"
+
+But the sonorous swear reverberated in their ears like a smitten bell,
+and he blushed for it, but could not recall it.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XII
+
+THE NEEDLE IN THE HAYSTACK
+
+
+The almost-married couple sat long in mutual terror and a common
+paralysis of ingenuity. Marjorie, for lack of anything better to do,
+was absent-mindedly twisting Snoozleums's ears, while he, that pocket
+abridgment of a dog, in a well meaning effort to divert her from her
+evident grief, made a great pretence of ferocity, growling and
+threatening to bite her fingers off. The new ring attracted his
+special jealousy. He was growing discouraged at the ill-success of his
+impersonation of a wolf, and dejected at being so crassly ignored,
+when he suddenly became, in his turn, a center of interest.
+
+Marjorie was awakened from her trance of inanition by the porter's
+voice. His plantation voice was ordinarily as thick and sweet as his
+own New Orleans sorghum, but now it had a bitterness that curdled the
+blood:
+
+"'Scuse me, but how did you-all git that theah dog in this heah cah?"
+
+"Snoozleums is always with me," said Marjorie briskly, as if that
+settled it, and turned for confirmation to the dog himself, "aren't
+you, Snoozleums?"
+
+"Well," the porter drawled, trying to be gracious with his great
+power, "the rules don't 'low no live stock in the sleepin' cars,
+'ceptin' humans."
+
+Marjorie rewarded his condescension with a blunt: "Snoozleums is more
+human than you are."
+
+"I p'sume he is," the porter admitted, "but he can't make up berths.
+Anyway, the rules says dogs goes with the baggage."
+
+Marjorie swept rules aside with a defiant: "I don't care. I won't be
+separated from my Snoozleums."
+
+She looked to Mallory for support, but he was too sorely troubled with
+greater anxieties to be capable of any action.
+
+The porter tried persuasion: "You betta lemme take him, the conducta
+is wuss'n what I am. He th'owed a couple of dogs out the window trip
+befo' last."
+
+"The brute!"
+
+"Oh, yassum, he is a regulah brute. He just loves to hear 'm splosh
+when they light."
+
+Noting the shiver that shook the girl, the porter offered a bit of
+consolation:
+
+"Better lemme have the pore little thing up in the baggage cah. He'll
+be in charge of a lovely baggage-smasher."
+
+"Are you sure he's a nice man?"
+
+"Oh, yassum, he's death on trunks, but he's a natural born angel to
+dogs."
+
+"Well, if I must, I must," she sobbed. "Poor little Snoozleums! Can he
+come back and see me to-morrow?" Marjorie's tears were splashing on
+the puzzled dog, who nestled close, with a foreboding of disaster.
+
+"I reckon p'haps you'd better visit him."
+
+"Poor dear little Snoozleums--good night, my little darling. Poor
+little child--it's the first night he's slept all by his 'ittle
+lonesome, and----"
+
+The porter was growing desperate. He clapped his hands together
+impatiently and urged: "I think I hear that conducta comin'."
+
+The ruse succeeded. Marjorie fairly forced the dog on him.
+"Quick--hide him--hurry!" she gasped, and sank on the seat completely
+crushed. "I'll be so lonesome without Snoozleums."
+
+Mallory felt called upon to remind her of his presence. "I--I'm here,
+Marjorie." She looked at him just once--at him, the source of all her
+troubles--buried her head in her arms, and resumed her grief. Mallory
+stared at her helplessly, then rose and bent over to whisper:
+
+"I'm going to look through the train."
+
+"Oh, don't leave me," she pleaded, clinging to him with a dependence
+that restored his respect.
+
+"I must find a clergyman," he whispered. "I'll be back the minute I
+find one, and I'll bring him with me."
+
+  [Illustration: MARJORIE FAIRLY FORCED THE DOG ON HIM....]
+
+The porter thought he wanted the dog back, and quickened his pace
+till he reached the corridor, where Mallory overtook him and asked, in
+an effort at casual indifference, if he had seen anything of a
+clergyman on board.
+
+"Ain't seen nothin' that even looks like one," said the porter. Then
+he hastened ahead to the baggage car with the squirming Snoozleums,
+while Mallory followed slowly, going from seat to seat and car to car,
+subjecting all the males to an inspection that rendered some of them
+indignant, others of them uneasy.
+
+If dear old Doctor Temple could only have known what Mallory was
+hunting, he would have snatched off the mask, and thrown aside the
+secular scarlet tie at all costs. But poor Mallory, unable to
+recognize a clergyman so dyed-in-the-wool as Doctor Temple, sitting in
+the very next seat--how could he be expected to pick out another in
+the long and crowded train?
+
+All clergymen look alike when they are in convention assembled, but
+sprinkled through a crowd they are not so easily distinguished.
+
+In the sleeping car bound for Portland, Mallory picked one man as a
+clergyman. He had a lean, ascetic face, solemn eyes, and he was
+talking to his seat-mate in an oratorical manner. Mallory bent down
+and tapped the man's shoulder.
+
+The effect was surprising. The man jumped as if he were stabbed, and
+turned a pale, frightened face on Mallory, who murmured:
+
+"Excuse me, do you happen to be a clergyman?"
+
+A look of relief stole over the man's features, followed closely by a
+scowl of wounded vanity:
+
+"No, damn you, I don't happen to be a parson. I have chosen to
+be--well, if you had watched the billboards in Chicago during our run,
+you would not need to ask who I am!"
+
+Mallory mumbled an apology and hurried on, just overhearing his
+victim's sigh:
+
+"Such is fame!"
+
+He saw two or three other clerical persons in that car, but feared to
+touch their shoulders. One man in the last seat held him specially,
+and he hid in the turn of the corridor, in the hope of eavesdropping
+some clue. This man was bent and scholastic of appearance, and wore
+heavy spectacles and a heavy beard, which Mallory took for a guaranty
+that he was not another actor. And he was reading what appeared to be
+printer's proofs. Mallory felt certain that they were a volume of
+sermons. He lingered timorously in the environs for some time before
+the man spoke at all to the dreary-looking woman at his side. Then the
+stranger spoke. And this is what he said and read:
+
+"I fancy this will make the bigots sit up and take notice, mother: 'If
+there ever was a person named Moses, it is certain, from the writings
+ascribed to him, that he disbelieved the Egyptian theory of a life
+after death, and combated it as a heathenish superstition. The Judaic
+idea of a future existence was undoubtedly acquired from the
+Assyrians, during the captivity.'"
+
+He doubtless read much more, but Mallory fled to the next car. There
+he found a man in a frock coat talking solemnly to another of equal
+solemnity. The seat next them was unoccupied, and Mallory dropped into
+it, perking his ears backward for news.
+
+"Was you ever in Moline?" one voice asked.
+
+"Was I?" the other muttered. "Wasn't I run out of there by one of my
+audiences. I was givin' hypnotic demonstrations, and I had a run-in
+with one of my 'horses,' and he done me dirt. Right in the midst of
+one of his cataleptic trances, he got down from the chairs where I had
+stretched him out and hollered: 'He's a bum faker, gents, and owes me
+two weeks' pay.' Thank Gawd, there was a back door openin' on a dark
+alley leadin' to the switch yard. I caught a caboose just as a freight
+train was pullin' out."
+
+Mallory could hardly get strength to rise and continue his search. On
+his way forward he met the conductor, crossing a vestibule between
+cars. A happy thought occurred to Mallory. He said:
+
+"Excuse me, but have you any preachers on board?"
+
+"None so far."
+
+"Are you sure?"
+
+"Positive."
+
+"How can you tell?"
+
+"Well, if a grown man offers me a half-fare ticket, I guess that's a
+pretty good sign, ain't it?"
+
+Mallory guessed that it was, and turned back, hopeless and helpless.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XIII
+
+HOSTILITIES BEGIN
+
+
+During Mallory's absence, Marjorie had met with a little adventure of
+her own. Ira Lathrop finished his re-encounter with Anne Gattle
+shortly after Mallory set out stalking clergymen. In the mingled
+confusion of finding his one romantic flame still glowing on a vestal
+altar, and of shocking her with an escape of profanity, he backed away
+from her presence, and sank into his own berth.
+
+He realized that he was not alone. Somebody was alongside. He turned
+to find the great tear-sprent eyes of Marjorie staring at him. He rose
+with a recrudescence of his woman-hating wrath, and dashing up the
+aisle, found the porter just returning from the baggage car. He seized
+the black factotum and growled:
+
+"Say, porter, there's a woman in my berth."
+
+The porter chuckled, incredulous:
+
+"Woman in yo' berth!"
+
+"Yes--get her out."
+
+"Yassah," the porter nodded, and advanced on Marjorie with a gentle,
+"'Scuse me, missus--ye' berth is numba one."
+
+"I don't care," snapped Marjorie, "I won't take it."
+
+"But this un belongs to that gentleman."
+
+"He can have mine--ours--Mr. Mallory's," cried Marjorie, pointing to
+the white-ribboned tent in the farther end of the car. Then she
+gripped the arms of the seat, as if defying eviction. The porter
+stared at her in helpless chagrin. Then he shuffled back and murmured:
+"I reckon you'd betta put her out."
+
+Lathrop withered the coward with one contemptuous look, and strode
+down the aisle with a determined grimness. He took his ticket from his
+pocket as a clinching proof of his title, and thrust it out at
+Marjorie. She gave it one indifferent glance, and then her eyes and
+mouth puckered, as if she had munched a green persimmon, and a long
+low wail like a distant engine-whistle, stole from her lips. Ira
+Lathrop stared at her in blank wrath, doddered irresolutely, and
+roared:
+
+"Agh, let her have it!"
+
+The porter smiled triumphantly, and said: "She says you kin have her
+berth." He pointed at the bridal arbor. Lathrop almost exploded at the
+idea.
+
+Now he felt a hand on his shoulder, and turned to see Little Jimmie
+Wellington emerging from his berth with an enormous smile:
+
+"Say, Pop, have you seen lovely rice-trap? Stick around till she
+flops."
+
+But Lathrop flung away to the smoking room. Little Jimmie turned to
+the jovial negro:
+
+"Porter, porter."
+
+"I'm right by you."
+
+"What time d'you say we get to Reno?"
+
+"Mawnin' of the fo'th day, sah."
+
+"Well, call me just before we roll in."
+
+And he rolled in. His last words floated down the aisle and met Mrs.
+Little Jimmie Wellington just returning from the Women's Room, where
+she had sought nepenthe in more than one of her exquisite little
+cigars. The familiar voice, familiarly bibulous, smote her ear with
+amazement. She beckoned the porter to her anxiously.
+
+"Porter! Porter! Do you know the name of the man who just hurried in?"
+
+"No'm," said the porter. "I reckon he's so broken up he ain't got any
+name left."
+
+"It couldn't be," Mrs. Jimmie mused.
+
+"Things can be sometimes," said the porter.
+
+"You may make up my berth now," said Mrs. Wellington, forgetting that
+Anne Gattle was still there. Mrs. Wellington hastened to apologize,
+and begged her to stay, but the spinster wanted to be far away from
+the disturbing atmosphere of divorce. She was dreaming already with
+her eyes open, and she sank into number six in a lotus-eater's
+reverie.
+
+Mrs. Wellington gathered certain things together and took up her
+handbag, to return to the Women's Room, just as Mrs. Whitcomb came
+forth from the curtains of her own berth, where she had made certain
+preliminaries to disrobing, and put on a light, decidedly negligée
+negligée.
+
+The two women collided in the aisle, whirled on one another, as women
+do when they jostle, recognized each other with wild stares of
+amazement, set their teeth, and made a simultaneous dash along the
+corridor, shoulder wrestling with shoulder. They reached the door
+marked "Women" at the same instant, and as neither would have dreamed
+of offering the other a courtesy, they squeezed through together in a
+Kilkenny jumble.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XIV
+
+THE DORMITORY ON WHEELS
+
+
+Of all the shocking institutions in human history, the sleeping car is
+the most shocking--or would be, if we were not so used to it. There
+can be no doubt that we are the most moral nation on earth, for we
+admit it ourselves. Perhaps we prove it, too, by the Arcadian
+prosperity of these two-story hotels on wheels, where miscellaneous
+travelers dwell in complete promiscuity, and sleep almost side by
+side, in apartments, or compartments, separated only by a plank and a
+curtain, and guarded only by one sleepy negro.
+
+After the fashion of the famous country whose inhabitants earned a
+meagre sustenance by taking in each other's washing, so in Sleeping
+Carpathia we attain a meagre respectability by everybody's chaperoning
+everybody else.
+
+So topsy-turvied, indeed, are our notions, once we are aboard a train,
+that the staterooms alone are regarded with suspicion; we question the
+motives of those who must have a room to themselves!--a room with a
+real door! that locks!!
+
+And, now, on this sleeping car, prettily named "Snowdrop," scenes were
+enacting that would have thrown our great-grandmothers into
+fits--scenes which, if we found them in France, or Japan, we should
+view with alarm as almost unmentionable evidence of the moral
+obliquity of those nations.
+
+But this was our own country--the part of it which admits that it is
+the best part--the moralest part, the staunch Middle West. This was
+Illinois. Yet dozens of cars were beholding similar immodesties in
+chastest Illinois, and all over the map, thousands of people, in
+hundreds of cars, were permitting total strangers to view preparations
+which have always, hitherto, been reserved for the most intimate and
+legalized relations.
+
+The porter was deftly transforming the day-coach into a narrow lane
+entirely surrounded by portières. Behind most of the portières,
+fluttering in the lightest breeze, and perilously following the hasty
+passer-by, homely offices were being enacted. The population of this
+little town was going to bed. The porter was putting them to sleep as
+if they were children in a nursery, and he a black mammy.
+
+The frail walls of little sanctums were bulging with the bodies of
+people disrobing in the aisle, with nothing between them and the
+beholder's eye but a clinging curtain that explained what it did not
+reveal. From apertures here and there disembodied feet were protruding
+and mysterious hands were removing shoes and other things.
+
+Women in risky attire were scooting to one end of the car, and men in
+shirt sleeves, or less, were hastening to the other.
+
+When Mallory returned to the "Snowdrop," his ear was greeted by the
+thud of dropping shoes. He found Marjorie being rapidly immured, like
+Poe's prisoner, in a jail of closing walls.
+
+She was unspeakably ill at ease, and by the irony of custom, the one
+person on whom she depended for protection was the one person whose
+contiguity was most alarming--and all for lack of a brief trialogue,
+with a clergyman, as the _tertium quid_.
+
+When Mallory's careworn face appeared round the edge of the partition
+now erected between her and the abode of Doctor and Mrs. Temple,
+Marjorie shivered anew, and asked with all anxiety:
+
+"Did you find a minister?"
+
+Perhaps the Recording Angel overlooked Mallory's answer: "Not a damn'
+minister."
+
+When he dropped at Marjorie's side, she edged away from him, pleading:
+"Oh, what shall we do?"
+
+He answered dismally and ineffectively: "We'll have to go on
+pretending to be--just friends."
+
+"But everybody thinks we're married."
+
+"That's so!" he admitted, with the imbecility of fatigued hope. They
+sat a while listening to the porter slipping sheets into place and
+thumping pillows into cases, a few doors down the street. He would be
+ready for them at any moment. Something must be done, but what? what?
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XV
+
+A PREMATURE DIVORCE
+
+
+Suddenly Marjorie's heart gave a leap of joy. She was having another
+idea. "I'll tell you, Harry. We'll pretend to quarrel, and then----"
+
+"And then you can leave me in high dudgeon."
+
+The ruse struck him as a trifle unconvincing. "Don't you think it
+looks kind of improbable on--on--such an occasion?"
+
+Marjorie blushed, and lowered her eyes and her voice: "Can you suggest
+anything better?"
+
+"No, but----"
+
+"Then, we'll have to quarrel, darling."
+
+He yielded, for lack of a better idea: "All right, beloved. How shall
+we begin?"
+
+On close approach, the idea did seem rather impossible to her. "How
+could I ever quarrel with you, my love?" she cooed.
+
+He gazed at her with a rush of lovely tenderness: "And how could I
+ever speak crossly to you?"
+
+"We never shall have a harsh word, shall we?" she resolved.
+
+"Never!" he seconded. So that resolution passed the House
+unanimously.
+
+They held hands in luxury a while, then she began again: "Still, we
+must pretend. You start it, love."
+
+"No, you start it," he pleaded.
+
+"You ought to," she beamed. "You got me into this mess."
+
+The word slipped out. Mallory started: "Mess! How is it my fault? Good
+Lord, are you going to begin chucking it up?"
+
+"Well, you must admit, darling," Marjorie urged, "that you've bungled
+everything pretty badly."
+
+It was so undeniable that he could only groan: "And I suppose I'll
+hear of this till my dying day, dearest."
+
+Marjorie had a little temper all her own. So she defended it: "If you
+are so afraid of my temper, love, perhaps you'd better call it all off
+before it's too late."
+
+"I didn't say anything about your temper, sweetheart," Mallory
+insisted.
+
+"You did, too, honey. You said I'd chuck this up till your dying day.
+As if I had such a disposition! You can stay here." She rose to her
+feet. He pressed her back with a decisive motion, and demanded: "Where
+are you going?"
+
+"Up in the baggage car with Snoozleums," she sniffled. "He's the only
+one that doesn't find fault with me."
+
+Mallory was stung to action by this crisis: "Wait," he said. He leaned
+out and motioned down the alley. "Porter! Wait a moment, darling.
+Porter!"
+
+The porter arrived with a half-folded blanket in his hands, and his
+usual, "Yassah!"
+
+Beckoning him closer, Mallory mumbled in a low tone: "Is there an
+extra berth on this car?"
+
+The porter's eyes seemed to rebuke his ears. "Does you want this upper
+made up?"
+
+"No--of course not."
+
+"Ex--excuse me, I thought----"
+
+"Don't you dare to think!" Mallory thundered. "Isn't there another
+lower berth?"
+
+The porter breathed hard, and gave this bridal couple up as a riddle
+that followed no known rules. He went to find the sleeping car
+conductor, and returned with the information that the diagram showed
+nobody assigned to number three.
+
+"Then I'll take number three," said Mallory, poking money at the
+porter. And still the porter could not understand.
+
+"Now, lemme onderstan' you-all," he stammered. "Does you both move
+over to numba three, or does yo'--yo' lady remain heah, while jest you
+preambulates?"
+
+"Just I preambulate, you black hound!" Mallory answered, in a
+threatening tone. The porter could understand that, at least, and he
+bristled away with a meek: "Yassah. Numba three is yours, sah."
+
+The troubled features of the baffled porter cleared up as by magic
+when he arrived at number three, for there he found his tyrant and
+tormentor, the English invader.
+
+He remembered how indignantly Mr. Wedgewood had refused to show his
+ticket, how cocksure he was of his number, how he had leased the
+porter's services as a sort of private nurse, and had paid no advance
+royalties.
+
+And now he was sprawled and snoring majestically among his many
+luggages, like a sleeping lion. Revenge tasted good to the humble
+porter; it tasted like a candied yam smothered in 'possum gravy. He
+smacked his thick lips over this revenge. With all the insolence of a
+servant in brief authority, he gloated over his prey, and prodded him
+awake. Then murmured with hypocritical deference: "Excuse me, but
+could I see yo' ticket for yo' seat?"
+
+"Certainly not! It's too much trouble," grumbled the half asleeper.
+"Confound you!"
+
+The porter lured him on: "Is you sho' you got one?"
+
+Wedgewood was wide awake now, and surly as any Englishman before
+breakfast: "Of cawse I'm shaw. How dare you?"
+
+"Too bad, but I'm 'bleeged to ask you to gimme a peek at it."
+
+"This is an outrage!"
+
+"Yassah, but I just nachelly got to see it."
+
+Wedgewood gathered himself together, and ransacked his many pockets
+with increasing anger, muttering under his breath. At length he
+produced the ticket, and thrust it at the porter: "Thah, you idiot,
+are you convinced now?"
+
+The porter gazed at the billet with ill-concealed triumph. "Yassah.
+I's convinced," Mr. Wedgewood settled back and closed his eyes. "I's
+convinced that you is in the wrong berth!"
+
+"Impossible! I won't believe you!" the Englishman raged, getting to
+his feet in a fury.
+
+"Perhaps you'll believe Mista Ticket," the porter chortled. "He says
+numba ten, and that's ten across the way and down the road a piece."
+
+"This is outrageous! I decline to move."
+
+"You may decline, but you move just the same," the porter said,
+reaching out for his various bags and carryalls. "The train moves and
+you move with it."
+
+Wedgewood stood fast: "You had no right to put me in here in the first
+place."
+
+The porter disdained to refute this slander. He stumbled down the
+aisle with the bundles. "It's too bad, it's sutt'nly too bad, but you
+sholy must come along."
+
+Wedgewood followed, gesticulating violently.
+
+"Here--wait--how dare you! And that berth is made up. I don't want to
+go to bed now!"
+
+"Mista Ticket says, 'Go to baid!'"
+
+"Of all the disgusting countries! Heah, don't put that thah--heah."
+
+The porter flung his load anywhere, and absolved himself with a curt,
+"I's got otha passengers to wait on now."
+
+"I shall certainly report you to the company," the Englishman fumed.
+
+"Yassah, I p'sume so."
+
+"Have I got to go to bed now? Really, I----" but the porter was gone,
+and the irate foreigner crawled under his curtains, muttering: "I
+shall write a letter to the _London Times_ about this."
+
+To add to his misery, Mrs. Whitcomb came from the Women's Room, and as
+she passed him, she prodded him with one sharp elbow and twisted the
+corner of her heel into his little toe. He thrust his head out with
+his fiercest, "How dare you!" But Mrs. Whitcomb was fresh from a
+prolonged encounter with Mrs. Wellington, and she flung back a
+venomous glare that sent the Englishman to cover.
+
+The porter reveled in his victory till he had to dash out to the
+vestibule to give vent to hilarious yelps of laughter. When he had
+regained composure, he came back to Mallory, and bent over him to say:
+
+"Yo' berth is empty, sah. Shall I make it up?"
+
+Mallory nodded, and turned to Marjorie, with a sad, "Good night,
+darling."
+
+The porter rolled his eyes again, and turned away, only to be
+recalled by Marjorie's voice: "Porter, take this old handbag out of
+here."
+
+The porter thought of the vanquished Lathrop, exiled to the smoking
+room, and he answered: "That belongs to the gemman what owns this
+berth."
+
+"Put it in number one," Marjorie commanded, with a queenly gesture.
+
+The porter obeyed meekly, wondering what would happen next. He had no
+sooner deposited Lathrop's valise among the incongruous white ribbons,
+than Marjorie recalled him to say: "And, Porter, you may bring me my
+own baggage."
+
+"Yo' what--missus?"
+
+"Our handbags, idiot," Mallory explained, peevishly.
+
+"I ain't seen no handbags of you-alls," the porter protested. "You-all
+didn't have no handbags when you got on this cah."
+
+Mallory jumped as if he had been shot. "Good Lord, I remember! We left
+'em in the taxicab!"
+
+The porter cast his hands up, and walked away from the tragedy.
+Marjorie stared at Mallory in horror.
+
+"We had so little time to catch the train," Mallory stammered.
+Marjorie leaped to her feet: "I'm going up in the baggage car."
+
+"For the dog?"
+
+"For my trunk."
+
+And now Mallory annihilated her completely, for he gasped: "Our
+trunks went on the train ahead!"
+
+Marjorie fell back for one moment, then bounded to her feet with
+shrill commands: "Porter! Porter! I want you to stop this train this
+minute!"
+
+The porter called back from the depths of a berth: "This train don't
+stop till to-morrow noon."
+
+Marjorie had strength enough for only one vain protest: "Do you mean
+to say that I've got to go to San Francisco in this waist--a waist
+that has seen a whole day in Chicago?"
+
+The best consolation Mallory could offer was companionship in misery.
+He pushed forward one not too immaculate cuff. "Well, this is the only
+linen I have."
+
+"Don't speak to me," snapped Marjorie, beating her heels against the
+floor.
+
+"But, my darling!"
+
+"Go away and leave me. I hate you!"
+
+Mallory rose up, and stumbling down the aisle, plounced into berth
+number three, an allegory of despair.
+
+About this time, Little Jimmie Wellington, having completed more or
+less chaotic preparations for sleep, found that he had put on his
+pyjamas hindside foremost. After vain efforts to whirl round quickly
+and get at his own back, he put out a frowsy head, and called for
+help.
+
+"Say, Porter, Porter!"
+
+"I'm still on the train," answered the porter, coming into view.
+
+"You'll have to hook me up."
+
+The porter rendered what aid and correction he could in Wellington's
+hippopotamine toilet. Wellington was just wide enough awake to discern
+the undisturbed bridal-chamber. He whined:
+
+"Say, Porter, that rice-trap. Aren't they going to flop the
+rice-trap?"
+
+The porter shook his head sadly. "Don't look like that floppers
+a'goin' to flip. That dog-on bridal couple is done divorced a'ready!"
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XVI
+
+GOOD NIGHT, ALL!
+
+
+The car was settling gradually into peace. But there was still some
+murmur and drowsy energy. Shoes continued to drop, heads to bump
+against upper berths, the bell to ring now and then, and ring again
+and again.
+
+The porter paid little heed to it; he was busy making up number five
+(Ira Lathrop's berth) for Marjorie, who was making what preparations
+she could for her trousseauless, husbandless, dogless first night out.
+
+Finally the Englishman, who had almost rung the bell dry of
+electricity, shoved from his berth his indignant and undignified head.
+Once more the car resounded with the cry of "Pawtah! Pawtah!"
+
+The porter moved up with noticeable deliberation. "Did you ring, sah?"
+
+"Did I ring! Paw-tah, you may draw my tub at eight-thutty in the
+mawning."
+
+"Draw yo'--what, sah?" the porter gasped.
+
+"My tub."
+
+"Ba-ath tub?"
+
+"Bahth tub."
+
+"Lawdy, man. Is you allowin' to take a ba-ath in the mawnin'?"
+
+"Of course I am."
+
+"Didn't you have one befo' you stahted?"
+
+"How dare you! Of cawse I did."
+
+"Well, that's all you git."
+
+"Do you mean to tell me that there is no tub on this beastly train?"
+Wedgewood almost fell out of bed with the shock of this news.
+
+"We do not carry tubs--no, sah. There's a lot of tubs in San
+Francisco, though."
+
+"No tub on this train for four days!" Wedgewood sighed. "But whatever
+does one do in the meanwhile?"
+
+"One just waits. Yassah, one and all waits."
+
+"It's ghahstly, that's what it is, ghahstly."
+
+"Yassah," said the porter, and mumbled as he walked away, "but the
+weather is gettin' cooler."
+
+He finished preparing Marjorie's bunk, and was just suggesting that
+Mallory retreat to the smoking room while number three was made up,
+when there was a commotion in the corridor, and a man in checked
+overalls dashed into the car.
+
+His ear was slightly red, and he held at arm's length, as if it were a
+venomous monster, Snoozleums. And he yelled:
+
+"Say, whose durn dog is this? He bit two men, and he makes so much
+noise we can't sleep in the baggage car."
+
+Marjorie went flying down the aisle to reclaim her lost lamb in wolf's
+clothing, and Snoozleums, the returned prodigal, yelped and leaped,
+and told her all about the indignities he had been subjected to, and
+his valiant struggle for liberty.
+
+Marjorie, seeing only Snoozleums, stepped into the fatal berth number
+one, and paid no heed to the dangling ribbons. Mallory, eager to
+restore himself to her love by loving her dog, crowded closer to her
+side, making a hypocritical ado over the pup.
+
+Everybody was popping his or her face out to learn the cause of such
+clamor. Among the bodiless heads suspended along the curtains, like
+Dyak trophies, appeared the great mask of Little Jimmie Wellington. He
+had been unable to sleep for mourning the wanton waste of that lovely
+rice-trap.
+
+When he peered forth, his eyes hardly believed themselves. The elusive
+bride and groom were actually in the trap--the hen pheasant and the
+chanticleer. But the net did not fall. He waited to see them sit down,
+and spring the infernal machine. But they would not sit.
+
+In fact, Marjorie was muttering to Harry--tenderly, now, since he had
+won her back by his efforts to console Snoozleums--she was muttering
+tenderly:
+
+"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 passengers 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.
+
+  [Illustration: 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 multitudinous 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 noble 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:
+
+"Lass call for breakfuss in the Rining Rar," and then, again louder,
+"Lass call for breakfuss in Rinin-rar," and, finally and faintly,
+"Lasscall 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 passengers 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 passengers. 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 glass 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 assistance, 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 passengers.
+
+He sat down facing the feminine end of the car, watching for Marjorie.
+The passengers 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 passengers 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 passed 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 assurance, 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, passing 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 vertebræ. One of his
+hands clasped a long glass 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 narghilé, and through the
+wisps his face was one of Oriental luxury.
+
+Mallory's eyes were caught from this picture of beatitude 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."
+
+"The hell you say!"
+
+Mallory pursued the question no further.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XVIII
+
+IN THE COMPOSITE CAR
+
+
+It was the gentle stranger's turn to miss his guess. He bent over the
+chair into which Mallory had flopped, and said in a tense, low tone:
+"You look like a t'oroughbred sport. I'm trying to make up a game of
+stud poker. Will you join me?"
+
+Mallory shook his heavy head in refusal, and with dull eyes watched
+the man, whose profession he no longer misunderstood, saunter up to
+the blissful Doctor from Ypsilanti, and murmur again:
+
+"Will you join me?"
+
+"Join you in what, sir?" said Dr. Temple, with alert courtesy.
+
+"A little game."
+
+"I don't mind," the doctor smiled, rising with amiable readiness. "The
+checkers are in the next room."
+
+"Quit your kiddin'," the stranger coughed. "How about a little
+freeze-out?"
+
+"Freeze-out?" said Dr. Temple. "It sounds interesting. Is it something
+like authors?"
+
+The newcomer shot a quick glance at this man, whose innocent air he
+suspected. But he merely drawled: "Well, you play it with cards."
+
+"Would you mind teaching me the rules?" said the old sport from
+Ypsilanti.
+
+The gambler was growing suspicious of this too, too childlike
+innocence. He whined: "Say, what's your little game, eh?" but decided
+to risk the venture. He sat down at a table, and Dr. Temple, bringing
+along his glass, drew up a chair. The gambler took a pack of cards
+from his pocket, and shuffled them with a snap that startled Dr.
+Temple and a dexterity that delighted him.
+
+"Go on, it's beautiful to see," he exclaimed. The gambler set the pack
+down with the one word "Cut!" but since the old man made no effort to
+comply, the gambler did not insist. He took up the pack again and ran
+off five cards to each place with a grace that staggered the doctor.
+
+Mallory was about to intervene for the protection of the guileless
+physician when the conductor chanced to saunter in.
+
+The gambler, seeing him, snatched Dr. Temple's cards from his hand and
+slipped the pack into his pocket.
+
+"What's the matter now?" Dr. Temple asked, but the newcomer huskily
+answered: "Wait a minute. Wait a minute."
+
+The conductor took in the scene at a glance and, stalking up to the
+table, spoke with the grimness of a sea-captain: "Say, I've got my eye
+on you. Don't start nothin'."
+
+The stranger stared at him wonderingly and demanded: "Why, what you
+drivin' at?"
+
+"You know all right," the conductor growled, and then turned on the
+befuddled old clergyman, "and you, too."
+
+"Me, too?" the preacher gasped.
+
+"Yes, you, too," the conductor repeated, shaking an accusing
+forefinger under his nose. "Your actions have been suspicious from the
+beginning. We've all been watching you."
+
+Dr. Temple was so agitated that he nearly let fall his secret. "Why,
+do you realize that I'm a----"
+
+"Ah, don't start that," sneered the conductor, "I can spot a gambler
+as far as I can see one. You and your side partner here want to look
+out, that's all, or I'll drop you at the next tank." Then he walked
+out, his very shoulder blades uttering threats.
+
+Dr. Temple stared after him, but the gambler stared at Dr. Temple with
+a mingling of accusation and of homage. "So you're one of us," he
+said, and seizing the old man's limp hand, shook it heartily: "I got
+to slip it to you. Your make-up is great. You nearly had me for a
+come-on. Great!"
+
+And then he sauntered out, leaving the clergyman's head swimming. Dr.
+Temple turned to Mallory for explanations, but Mallory only waved him
+away. He was not quite convinced himself. He was convinced only that
+whatever else anybody might be, nobody apparently desired to be a
+clergyman in these degenerate days.
+
+The conductor returned and threw into Dr. Temple the glare of two
+basilisk eyes. The old man put out a beseeching hand and began:
+
+"My good man, you do me a grave injustice."
+
+The conductor snapped back: "You say a word to me and I'll do you
+worse than that. And if I spot you with a pack of cards in your hand
+again, I'll tie you to the cow-ketcher."
+
+Then he marched off again. The doctor fell back into a chair, trying
+to figure it out. Then Ashton and Fosdick and little Jimmie Wellington
+and Wedgewood strolled in and, dropping into chairs, ordered drinks.
+Before the doctor could ask anybody to explain, Ashton was launched on
+a story. His mind was a suitcase full of anecdotes, mostly of the
+smoking-room order.
+
+Wherever three or four men are gathered together, they rapidly
+organize a clearing-house of off-color stories. The doctor listened in
+spite of himself, and in spite of himself he was amused, for stories
+that would be stupid if they were decent, take on a certain verve and
+thrill from their very forbiddenness.
+
+The dear old clergyman felt that it would be priggish to take flight,
+but he could not make the corners of his mouth behave. Strange
+twitchings of the lips and little steamy escapes of giggle-jets
+disturbed him. And when Ashton, who was a practiced raconteur,
+finished a drolatic adventure with the epilogue, "And the next morning
+they were at Niagara Falls," the old doctor was helpless with
+laughter. Some superior force, a devil no doubt, fairly shook him with
+glee.
+
+"Oh, that's bully," he shrieked, "I haven't heard a story like that
+for ages."
+
+"Why, where have you been, Dr. Temple?" asked Ashton, who could not
+imagine where a man could have concealed himself from such stories.
+But he laughed loudest of all when the doctor answered: "You see, I
+live in Ypsilanti. They don't tell me stories like that."
+
+"They--who?" said Fosdick.
+
+"Why, my pa--my patients," the doctor explained, and laughed so hard
+that he forgot to feel guilty, laughed so hard that his wife in the
+next room heard him and giggled to Mrs. Whitcomb:
+
+"Listen to dear Walter. He hasn't laughed like that since he was a--a
+medical student." Then she buried her face guiltily in a book.
+
+"Wasn't it good?" Dr. Temple demanded, wiping his streaming eyes and
+nudging the solemn-faced Englishman, who understood his own nation's
+humor, but had not yet learned the Yankee quirks.
+
+Wedgewood made a hollow effort at laughter and answered:
+"Extremely--very droll, but what I don't quite get was--why the
+porter said----" The others drowned him in a roar of laughter, but
+Ashton was angry. "Why, you blamed fool, that's where the joke came
+in. Don't you see, the bridegroom said to the bride----" then he
+lowered his voice and diagrammed the story on his fingers.
+
+Mrs. Temple was still shaking with sympathetic laughter, never
+dreaming what her husband was laughing at. She turned to Mrs.
+Whitcomb, but Mrs. Whitcomb was still glaring at Mrs. Wellington, who
+was still writing with flying fingers and underscoring every other
+word.
+
+"Some people seem to think they own the train," Mrs. Whitcomb raged.
+"That creature has been at the writing desk an hour. The worst of it
+is, I'm sure she's writing to _my_ husband."
+
+Mrs. Temple looked shocked, but another peal of laughter came through
+the partition between the male and female sections of the car, and she
+beamed again. Then Mrs. Wellington finished her letter, glanced it
+over, addressed an envelope, sealed and stamped it with a deliberation
+that maddened Mrs. Whitcomb. When at last she rose, Mrs. Whitcomb was
+in the seat almost before Mrs. Wellington was out of it.
+
+Mrs. Wellington paused at another wave of laughter from the men's
+room. She commented petulantly:
+
+"What good times men have. They've formed a club in there already. We
+women can only sit around and hate each other."
+
+"Why, I don't hate anybody, do you?" Mrs. Temple exclaimed, looking up
+from the novel she had found on the book shelves. Mrs. Wellington
+dropped into the next chair:
+
+"On a long railroad journey I hate everybody. Don't you hate long
+journeys?"
+
+"It's the first I ever took," Mrs. Temple apologized, radiantly, "And
+I'm having the--what my oldest boy would call the time of my life. And
+dear Walter--such goings on for him! A few minutes ago I strolled by
+the door and I saw him playing cards with a stranger, and smoking and
+drinking, too, all at once."
+
+"Boys will be boys," said Mrs. Wellington.
+
+"But for Dr. Temple of all people----"
+
+"Why shouldn't a doctor? It's a shame the way men have everything.
+Think of it, a special smoking room. And women have no place to take a
+puff except on the sly."
+
+Mrs. Temple stared at her in awe: "The woman in this book
+smokes!--perfumed things!"
+
+"All women smoke nowadays," said Mrs. Wellington, carelessly. "Don't
+you?"
+
+The politest thing Mrs. Temple could think of in answer was: "Not
+yet."
+
+"Really!" said Mrs. Wellington, "Don't you like tobacco?"
+
+"I never tried it."
+
+"It's time you did. I smoke cigars myself."
+
+Mrs. Temple almost collapsed at this double shock: "Ci--cigars?"
+
+"Yes; cigarettes are too strong for me; will you try one of my pets?"
+
+Mrs. Temple was about to express her repugnance at the thought, but
+Mrs. Wellington thrust before her a portfolio in which nestled such
+dainty shapes of such a warm and winsome brown, that Mrs. Temple
+paused to stare, and, like Mother Eve, found the fruit of knowledge
+too interesting once seen to reject with scorn. She hung over the
+cigar case in hesitant excitement one moment too long. Then she said
+in a trembling voice: "I--I should like to try once--just to see what
+it's like. But there's no place."
+
+Mrs. Wellington felt that she had already made a proselyte to her own
+beloved vice, and she rushed her victim to the precipice: "There's the
+observation platform, my dear. Come on out."
+
+Mrs. Temple was shivering with dismay at the dreadful deed: "What
+would they say in Ypsilanti?"
+
+"What do you care? Be a sport. Your husband smokes. If it's right for
+him, why not for you?"
+
+Mrs. Temple set her teeth and crossed the Rubicon with a resolute "I
+will!"
+
+Mrs. Wellington led the timid neophyte along the wavering floor of
+the car and flung back the door of the observation car. She found Ira
+Lathrop holding Anne Gattle's hand and evidently explaining something
+of great importance, for their heads were close together. They rose
+and with abashed faces and confused mumblings of half swallowed
+explanations, left the platform to Mrs. Wellington and her new pupil.
+
+Shortly afterward Little Jimmie Wellington grew restive and set out
+for a brief constitutional and a breath of air. He carried a siphon to
+which he had become greatly attached, and made heavy going of the
+observation room, but reached the door in fairly good order. He swung
+it open and brought in with it the pale and wavering ghost of Mrs.
+Temple, who had been leaning against it for much-needed support.
+Wellington was stupefied to observe smoke pouring round Mrs. Temple's
+form, and he resolved to perform a great life-saving feat. He decided
+that the poor little woman was on fire and he poised the siphon like a
+fire extinguisher, with the noble intention of putting her out.
+
+He pressed the handle, and a stream of vichy shot from the nozzle.
+
+Fortunately, his aim was so very wobbly that none of the extinguisher
+touched Mrs. Temple.
+
+Wellington was about to play the siphon at her again when he saw her
+take from her lips a toy cigar and emit a stream of cough-shaken
+smoke. The poor little experimentalist was too wretched to notice
+even so large a menace as Wellington. She threw the cigar away and
+gasped:
+
+"I think I've had enough."
+
+From the platform came a voice very well known to Little Jimmie. It
+said: "You'll like the second one better."
+
+Mrs. Temple shuddered at the thought, but Wellington drew himself up
+majestically and called out:
+
+"Like second one better, eh? I suppozhe it's the same way with
+husbandsh."
+
+Then he stalked back to the smoking room, feeling that he had
+annihilated his wife, but knowing from experience that she always had
+a come-back. He knew it would be good, but he was afraid to hear it.
+He rolled into the smoking room, and sprawling across Doctor Temple's
+shoulders, dragged him from the midst of a highly improper story with
+alarming news.
+
+"Doc., your wife looks kind o' seedy. Better go to her at once."
+
+Dr. Temple leaped to his feet and ran to his wife's aid. He found her
+a dismal, ashen sight.
+
+"Sally! What on earth ails you?"
+
+"Been smok-oking," she hiccoughed.
+
+The world seemed to be crashing round Dr. Temple's head. He could only
+gurgle, "Sally!"
+
+Mrs. Temple drew herself up with weak defiance: "Well, I saw you
+playing cards and drinking."
+
+In the presence of such innocent deviltry he could only smile: "Aren't
+we having an exciting vacation? But to think of you smoking!--and a
+cigar!"
+
+She tossed her head in pride. "And it didn't make me sick--much." She
+clutched a chair. He tried to support her. He could not help
+pondering: "What would they say in Yp-hip-silanti?"
+
+"Who cares?" she laughed. "I--I wish the old train wouldn't rock so."
+
+"I--I've smoked too much, too," said Dr. Temple with perfect truth,
+but Mrs. Temple, remembering that long glass she had seen, narrowed
+her eyes at him: "Are you sure it was the smoke?"
+
+"Sally!" he cried, in abject horror at her implied suspicion.
+
+Then she turned a pale green. "Oh, I feel such a qualm."
+
+"In your conscience, Sally?"
+
+"No, not in my conscience. I think I'll go back to my berth and lie
+down."
+
+"Let me help you, Mother."
+
+And Darby and Joan hurried along the corridor, crowding it as they
+were crowding their vacation with belated experience.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XIX
+
+FOILED!
+
+
+It was late in the forenoon before the train came to the end of its
+iron furrow across that fertile space between two of the world's
+greatest rivers, which the Indians called "Iowa," nobody knows exactly
+why. In contrast with the palisades of the Mississippi, the Missouri
+twists like a great brown dragon wallowing in congenial mud. The water
+itself, as Bob Brudette said, is so muddy that the wind blowing across
+it raises a cloud of dust.
+
+A sonorous bridge led the way into Nebraska, and the train came to a
+halt at Omaha. Mallory and Marjorie got out to stretch their legs and
+their dog. If they had only known that the train was to stop there the
+quarter of an hour, and if they had only known some preacher there and
+had had him to the station, the ceremony could have been consummated
+then and there.
+
+The horizon was fairly saw-toothed with church spires. There were
+preachers, preachers everywhere, and not a dominie to do their deed.
+
+After they had strolled up and down the platform, and up and down,
+and up and down till they were fain of their cramped quarters again,
+Marjorie suddenly dug her nails into Mallory's arm.
+
+"Honey! look!--look!"
+
+Honey looked, and there before their very eyes stood as clerical a
+looking person as ever announced a strawberry festival.
+
+Mallory stared and stared, till Marjorie said:
+
+"Don't you see? stupid! it's a preacher! a preacher!"
+
+"It looks like one," was as far as Mallory would commit himself, and
+he was turning away. He had about come to the belief that anything
+that looked like a parson was something else. But Marjorie whirled him
+round again, with a shrill whisper to listen. And he overheard in
+tones addicted to the pulpit:
+
+"Yes, deacon, I trust that the harvest will be plentiful at my new
+church. It grieves me to leave the dear brothers and sisters in the
+Lord in Omaha, but I felt called to wider pastures."
+
+And a lady who was evidently Mrs. Deacon spoke up:
+
+"We'll miss you terrible. We all say you are the best pastor our
+church ever had."
+
+Mallory prepared to spring on his prey and drag him to his lair, but
+Marjorie held him back.
+
+"He's taking our train, Lord bless his dear old soul."
+
+And Mallory could have hugged him. But he kept close watch. To the
+rapture of the wedding-hungry twain, the preacher shook hands with
+such of his flock as had followed him to the station, picked up his
+valise and walked up to the porter, extending his ticket.
+
+But the porter said--and Mallory could have throttled him for saying
+it:
+
+"'Scuse me, posson, but that's yo' train ova yonda. You betta move
+right smaht, for it's gettin' ready to pull out."
+
+With a little shriek of dismay, the parson clutched his valise and set
+off at a run. Mallory dashed after him and Marjorie after Mallory.
+They shouted as they ran, but the conductor of the east-bound train
+sang out "All aboard!" and swung on.
+
+The parson made a sprint and caught the ultimate rail of the moving
+train. Mallory made a frantic leap at a flying coat-tail and missed.
+As he and Marjorie stood gazing reproachfully at the train which was
+giving a beautiful illustration of the laws of retreating perspective,
+they heard wild howls of "Hi! hi!" and "Hay! hay!" and turned to see
+their own train in motion, and the porter dancing a Zulu step
+alongside.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XX
+
+FOILED AGAIN
+
+
+Mallory tucked Marjorie under his arm and Marjorie tucked Snoozleums
+under hers, and they did a Sort of three-legged race down the
+platform. The porter was pale blue with excitement, and it was with
+the last gasp of breath in all three bodies that they scrambled up the
+steps of the only open vestibule.
+
+The porter was mad enough to give them a piece of his mind, and they
+were meek enough to take it without a word of explanation or
+resentment.
+
+And the train sped on into the heart of Nebraska, along the unpoetic
+valley of the Platte. When lunch-time came, they ate it together, but
+in gloomy silence. They sat in Marjorie's berth throughout the
+appallingly monotonous afternoon in a stupor of disappointment and
+helpless dejection, speaking little and saying nothing then.
+
+Whenever the train stopped, Mallory watched the on-getting passengers
+with his keenest eye. He had a theory that since most people who
+looked like preachers were decidedly lay, it might be well to take a
+gambler's chance and accost the least ministerial person next.
+
+So, in his frantic anxiety, he selected a horsey-looking individual
+who got on at North Platte. He looked so much like a rawhided ranchman
+that Mallory stole up on him and asked him to excuse him, but did he
+happen to be a clergyman? The man replied by asking Mallory if he
+happened to be a flea-bitten maverick, and embellished his question
+with a copious flow of the words ministers use, but with a secular
+arrangement of them. In fact he split one word in two to insert a
+double-barrelled curse. All that Mallory could do was to admit that he
+was a flea-bitten what-he-said, and back away.
+
+After that, if a vicar in full uniform had marched down the aisle
+heading a procession of choir-boys, Mallory would have suspected him.
+He vowed in his haste that Marjorie might die an old maid before he
+would approach anybody else on that subject.
+
+Nebraska would have been a nice long state for a honeymoon, but its
+four hundred-odd miles were a dreary length for the couple so near and
+yet so far. The railroad clinging to the meandering Platte made the
+way far longer, and Mallory and Marjorie felt like Pyramus and Thisbe
+wandering along an eternal wall, through which they could see, but not
+reach, one another.
+
+They dined together as dolefully as if they had been married for forty
+years. Then the slow twilight soaked them in its melancholy. The
+porter lighted up the car, and the angels lighted up the stars, but
+nothing lighted up their hopes.
+
+"We've got to quarrel again, my beloved," Mallory groaned to Marjorie.
+
+Somehow they were too dreary even to nag one another with an outburst
+for the benefit of the eager-eyed passengers.
+
+A little excitement bestirred them as they realized that they were
+confronted with another night-robeless night and a morrow without
+change of gear.
+
+"What a pity that we left our things in the taxicab," Marjorie sighed.
+And this time she said, "we left them," instead of "you left them." It
+was very gracious of her, but Mallory did not acknowledge the
+courtesy. Instead he gave a start and a gasp:
+
+"Good Lord, Marjorie, we never paid the second taxicab!"
+
+"Great heavens, how shall we ever pay him? He's been waiting there
+twenty-four hours. How much do you suppose we owe him?"
+
+"About a year of my pay, I guess."
+
+"You must send him a telegram of apology and ask him to read his
+meter. He was such a nice man--the kindest eyes--for a chauffeur."
+
+"But how can I telegraph him? I don't know his name, or his number,
+or his company, or anything."
+
+"It's too bad. He'll go through life hating us and thinking we cheated
+him."
+
+"Well, he doesn't know our names either."
+
+And then they forgot him temporarily for the more immediate need of
+clothes. All the passengers knew that they had left behind what
+baggage they had not sent ahead, and much sympathy had been expressed.
+But most people would rather give you their sympathy than lend you
+their clothes. Mallory did not mind the men, but Marjorie dreaded the
+women. She was afraid of all of them but Mrs. Temple.
+
+She threw herself on the little lady's mercy and was asked to help
+herself. She borrowed a nightgown of extraordinary simplicity, a shirt
+waist of an ancient mode, and a number of other things.
+
+If there had been anyone there to see she would have made a most
+anachronistic bride.
+
+Mallory canvassed the men and obtained a shockingly purple shirt from
+Wedgewood, who meant to put him at his ease, but somehow failed when
+he said in answer to Mallory's thanks:
+
+"God bless my soul, old top, don't you think of thanking me. I ought
+to thank you. You see, the idiot who makes my shirts, made that by
+mistake, and I'd be no end grateful if you'd jolly well take the
+loathsome thing off my hands. I mean to say, I shouldn't dream of
+being seen in it myself. You quite understand, don't you?"
+
+Ashton contributed a maroon atrocity in hosiery, with equal tact:
+
+"If they fit you, keep 'em. I got stung on that batch of socks. That
+pair was originally lavender, but they washed like that. Keep 'em. I
+wouldn't be found dead in 'em."
+
+The mysterious Fosdick, who lived a lonely life in the Observation car
+and slept in the other sleeper, lent Mallory a pair of pyjamas
+evidently intended for a bridegroom of romantic disposition. Mallory
+blushed as he accepted them and when he found himself in them, he
+whisked out the light, he was so ashamed of himself.
+
+Once more the whole car gaped at the unheard of behavior of its newly
+wedded pair. The poor porter had been hungry for a bridal couple, but
+as he went about gathering up the cast-off footwear of his large
+family and found Mallory's big shoes at number three and Marjorie's
+tiny boots at number five, he shook his head and groaned.
+
+"Times has suttainly changed for the wuss if this is a bridal couple,
+gimme divorcees."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXI
+
+MATRIMONY TO AND FRO
+
+
+And the next morning they were in Wyoming--well toward the center of
+that State. They had left behind the tame levels and the truly rural
+towns and they were among foothills and mountains, passing cities of
+wildly picturesque repute, like Cheyenne, and Laramie, Bowie, and
+Medicine Bow, and Bitter Creek, whose very names imply literature and
+war whoops, cow-boy yelps, barking revolvers, another redskin biting
+the dust, cattle stampedes, town-paintings, humorous lynchings and
+bronchos in epileptic frenzy.
+
+But the talk of this train was concerned with none of these wonders,
+which the novelists and the magazinist have perhaps a trifle
+overpublished. The talk of this train was concerned with the eighth
+wonder of the world, a semi-detached bridal couple.
+
+Mrs. Whitcomb was eager enough to voice the sentiment of the whole
+populace, when she looked up from her novel in the observation room
+and, nudging Mrs. Temple, drawled: "By the way, my dear, has that
+bridal couple made up its second night's quarrel yet?"
+
+"The Mallorys?" Mrs. Temple flushed as she answered, mercifully. "Oh,
+yes, they were very friendly again this morning."
+
+Mrs. Whitcomb's countenance was cynical: "My dear, I've been married
+twice and I ought to know something about honeymoons, but this
+honeyless honeymoon----" she cast up her eyes and her hands in
+despair.
+
+The women were so concerned about Mr. and "Mrs." Mallory, that they
+hardly noticed the uncomfortable plight of the Wellingtons, or the
+curious behavior of the lady from the stateroom who seemed to be
+afraid of something and never spoke to anybody. The strange behavior
+of Anne Gattle and Ira Lathrop even escaped much comment, though they
+were forever being stumbled on when anybody went out to the
+observation platform. When they were dislodged from there, they sat
+playing checkers and talking very little, but making eyes at one
+another and sighing like furnaces.
+
+They had evidently concocted some secret of their own, for Ira,
+looking at his watch, murmured sentimentally to Anne: "Only a few
+hours more, Annie."
+
+And Anne turned geranium-color and dropped a handful of checkers. "I
+don't know how I can face it."
+
+Ira growled like a lovesick lion: "Aw, what do you care?"
+
+"But I was never married before, Ira," Anne protested, "and on a
+train, too."
+
+"Why, all the bridal couples take to the railroads."
+
+"I should think it would be the last place they'd go," said Anne--a
+sensible woman, Anne! "Look at the Mallories--how miserable they are."
+
+"I thought they were happy," said Ira, whose great virtue it was to
+pay little heed to what was none of his business.
+
+"Oh, Ira," cried Anne, "I hope we shan't begin to quarrel as soon as
+we are married."
+
+"As if anybody could quarrel with you, Anne," he said.
+
+"Do you think I'll be so monotonous as that?" she retorted.
+
+Her spunk delighted him beyond words. He whispered: "Anne, you're so
+gol-darned sweet if I don't get a chance to kiss you, I'll bust."
+
+"Why, Ira--we're on the train."
+
+"Da--darn the train! Who ever heard of a fellow proposing and getting
+engaged to a girl and not even kissing her."
+
+"But our engagement is so short."
+
+"Well, I'm not going to marry you till I get a kiss."
+
+Perhaps innocent old Anne really believed this blood-curdling threat.
+It brought her instantly to terms, though she blushed: "But
+everybody's always looking."
+
+"Come out on the observation platform."
+
+"Oh, Ira, again?"
+
+"I dare you."
+
+"I take you--but" seeing that Mrs. Whitcomb was trying to overhear,
+she whispered: "let's pretend it's the scenery."
+
+So Ira rose, pushed the checkers aside, and said in an unusually
+positive tone: "Ah, Miss Gattle, won't you have a look at the
+landscape?"
+
+"Oh, thank you, Mr. Lathrop," said Anne, "I just love scenery."
+
+They wandered forth like the Sleeping Beauty and her princely
+awakener, and never dreamed what gigglings and nudgings and wise
+head-noddings went on back of them. Mrs. Wellington laughed loudest of
+all at the lovers whose heads had grown gray while their hearts were
+still so green.
+
+It was shortly after this that the Wellingtons themselves came into
+prominence in the train life.
+
+As the train approached Green River, and its copper-basined stream,
+the engineer began to set the air-brakes for the stop. Jimmie
+Wellington, boozily half-awake in the smoking room, wanted to know
+what the name of the station was. Everybody is always eager to oblige
+a drunken man, so Ashton and Fosdick tried to get a window open to
+look out.
+
+The first one they labored at, they could not budge after a
+biceps-breaking tug. The second flew up with such ease that they went
+over backward. Ashton put his head out and announced that the
+approaching depot was labelled "Green River." Wellington burbled:
+"What a beautiful name for a shtation."
+
+Ashton announced that there was something beautifuller still on the
+platform--"Oh, a peach!--a nectarine! and she's getting on this
+train."
+
+Even Doctor Temple declared that she was a dear little thing, wasn't
+she?
+
+Wellington pushed him aside, saying: "Stand back, Doc., and let me
+see; I have a keen sense of beau'ful."
+
+"Be careful," cried the doctor, "he'll fall out of the window."
+
+"Not out of that window," Ashton sagely observed, seeing the bulk of
+Wellington. As the train started off again, Little Jimmie distributed
+alcoholic smiles to the Green Riverers on the platform and called out:
+
+"Goo'bye, ever'body. You're all abslootly--ow! ow!" He clapped his
+hand to his eye and crawled back into the car, groaning with pain.
+
+"What's the matter," said Wedgewood. "Got something in your eye?"
+
+"No, you blamed fool. I'm trying to look through my thumb."
+
+"Poor fellow!" sympathized Doctor Temple, "it's a cinder!"
+
+"A cinder! It's at leasht a ton of coal."
+
+"I say, old boy, let me have a peek," said Wedgewood, screwing in his
+monocle and peering into the depths of Wellington's eye. "I can't see
+a bally thing."
+
+"Of course not, with that blinder on," growled the miserable wretch,
+weeping in spite of himself and rubbing his smarting orb.
+
+"Don't rub that eye," Ashton counselled, "rub the other eye."
+
+"It's my eye; I'll rub it if I want to. Get me a doctor, somebody. I'm
+dying."
+
+"Here's Doctor Temple," said Ashton, "right on the job." Wellington
+turned to the old clergyman with pathetic trust, and the deceiver
+writhed in his disguise. The best he could think of was: "Will
+somebody lend me a lead pencil?"
+
+"What for?" said Wellington, uneasily.
+
+"I am going to roll your upper lid up on it," said the Doctor.
+
+"Oh, no, you're not," said the patient. "You can roll your own lids!"
+
+Then the conductor, still another conductor, wandered on the scene and
+asked as if it were not a world-important matter: "What's the
+matter--pick up a cinder?"
+
+"Yes. Perhaps you can get it out," the alleged doctor appealed.
+
+The conductor nodded: "The best way is this--take hold of the
+winkers."
+
+"The what?" mumbled Wellington.
+
+"Grab the winkers of your upper eyelid in your right hand----"
+
+"I've got 'em."
+
+"Now grab the winkers of your lower eyelid in your left hand. Now
+raise the right hand, push the under lid under the overlid and haul
+the overlid over the underlid; when you have the overlid well over the
+under----"
+
+Wellington waved him away: "Say, what do you think I'm trying to do?
+stuff a mattress? Get out of my way. I want my wife--lead me to my
+wife."
+
+"An excellent idea," said Dr. Temple, who had been praying for a
+reconciliation.
+
+He guided Wellington with difficulty to the observation room and,
+finding Mrs. Wellington at the desk as usual, he began: "Oh, Mrs.
+Wellington, may I introduce you to your husband?"
+
+Mrs. Wellington rose haughtily, caught a sight of her suffering
+consort and ran to him with a cry of "Jimmie!"
+
+"Lucretia!"
+
+"What's happened--are you killed?"
+
+"I'm far from well. But don't worry. My life insurance is paid up."
+
+"Oh, my poor little darling," Mrs. Jimmie fluttered, "What on earth
+ails you?" She turned to the doctor. "Is he going to die?"
+
+"I think not," said the doctor. "It's only a bad case of
+cinder-in-the-eyetis."
+
+Thus reassured, Mrs. Wellington went into the patient's eye with her
+handkerchief. "Is that the eye?" she asked.
+
+"No!" he howled, "the other one."
+
+She went into that and came out with the cinder.
+
+"There! It's just a tiny speck."
+
+Wellington regarded the mote with amazement. "Is that all? It felt as
+if I had Pike's Peak in my eye." Then he waxed tender. "Oh, Lucretia,
+how can I ever----"
+
+But she drew away with a disdainful: "Give me back my hand, please."
+
+"Now, Lucretia," he protested, "don't you think you're carrying this
+pretty far?"
+
+"Only as far as Reno," she answered grimly, which stung him to retort:
+"You'd better take the beam out of your own eye, now that you've taken
+the cinder out of mine," but she, noting that they were the center of
+interest, observed: "All the passengers are enjoying this, my dear.
+You'd better go back to the café."
+
+Wellington regarded her with a revulsion to wrath. He thundered at
+her: "I will go back, but allow me to inform you, my dear madam, that
+I'll not drink another drop--just to surprise you."
+
+Mrs. Wellington shrugged her shoulders at this ancient threat and
+Jimmie stumbled back to his lair, whither the men followed him.
+Feeling sympathy in the atmosphere, Little Jimmie felt impelled to
+pour out his grief:
+
+"Jellmen, I'm a brok'n-heartless man. Mrs. Well'n'ton is a queen among
+women, but she has temper of tarant----"
+
+Wedgewood broke in: "I say, old boy, you've carried this ballast for
+three days now, wherever did you get it?"
+
+Wellington drew himself up proudly for a moment before he slumped back
+into himself. "Well, you see, when I announced to a few friends that I
+was about to leave Mrs. Well'n'ton forever and that I was going out
+to--to--you know."
+
+"Reno. We know. Well?"
+
+"Well, a crowd of my friends got up a farewell sort of divorce
+breakfast--and some of 'em felt so very sad about my divorce that they
+drank a little too much, and the rest of my friends felt so very glad
+about my divorce, that they drank a little too much. And, of course, I
+had to join both parties."
+
+"And that breakfast," said Ashton, "lasted till the train started,
+eh?"
+
+Wellington glowered back triumphantly. "Lasted till the train started?
+Jellmen, that breakfast is going yet!"
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXII
+
+IN THE SMOKING ROOM
+
+
+Wellington's divorce breakfast reminded Ashton of a story. Ashton was
+one of the great That-Reminds-Me family. Perhaps it was to the credit
+of the Englishman that he missed the point of this story, even though
+Jimmie Wellington saw it through his fog, and Dr. Temple turned red
+and buried his eyes in the eminently respectable pages of the
+_Scientific American_.
+
+Ashton and Wellington and Fosdick exchanged winks over the Britisher's
+stare of incomprehension, and Ashton explained it to him again in
+words of one syllable, with signboards at all the difficult spots.
+
+Finally a gleam of understanding broke over Wedgewood's face and he
+tried to justify his delay.
+
+"Oh, yes, of cawse I see it now. Yes, I rather fancy I get you. It's
+awfully good, isn't it? I think I should have got it before but I'm
+not really myself; for two mawnings I haven't had my tub."
+
+Wellington shook with laughter: "If you're like this now, what will
+you be when you get to Sin san frasco--I mean Frinsansisco--well, you
+know what I mean."
+
+Ashton reached round for the electric button as if he were conferring
+a favor: "The drinks are on you, Wedgewood. I'll ring." And he rang.
+
+"Awf'lly kind of you," said Wedgewood, "but how do you make that out?"
+
+"The man that misses the point, pays for the drinks." And he rang
+again. Wellington protested.
+
+"But I've jolly well paid for all the drinks for two days."
+
+Wellington roared: "That's another point you've missed." And Ashton
+rang again, but the pale yellow individual who had always answered the
+bell with alacrity did not appear. "Where's that infernal buffet
+waiter?" Ashton grumbled.
+
+Wedgewood began to titter. "We were out of Scotch, so I sent him for
+some more."
+
+"When?"
+
+"Two stations back. I fancy we must have left him behind."
+
+"Well, why in thunder didn't you say so?" Ashton roared.
+
+"It quite escaped my mind," Wedgewood grinned. "Rather good joke on
+you fellows, what?"
+
+"Well, I don't see the point," Ashton growled, but the triumphant
+Englishman howled: "That's where _you_ pay!"
+
+Wedgewood had his laugh to himself, for the others wanted to murder
+him. Ashton advised a lynching, but the conductor arrived on the scene
+in time to prevent violence.
+
+Fosdick informed him of the irretrievable loss of the useful buffet
+waiter. The conductor promised to get another at Ogden.
+
+Ashton wailed: "Have we got to sit here and die of thirst till then?"
+
+The conductor refused to "back up for a coon," but offered to send in
+a sleeping-car porter as a temporary substitute.
+
+As he started to go, Fosdick, who had been incessantly consulting his
+watch, checked him to ask: "Oh, conductor, when do we get to the
+State-line of dear old Utah?"
+
+"Dear old Utah!" the conductor grinned. "We'd 'a' been there already
+if we hadn't 'a' fell behind a little."
+
+"Just my luck to be late," Fosdick moaned.
+
+"What you so anxious to be in Utah for, Fosdick?" Ashton asked,
+suspiciously. "You go on to 'Frisco, don't you?"
+
+Fosdick was evidently confused at the direct question. He tried to
+dodge it: "Yes, but--funny how things have changed. When we started,
+nobody was speaking to anybody except his wife, now----"
+
+"Now," said Ashton, drily, "everybody's speaking to everybody except
+his wife."
+
+"You're wrong there," Little Jimmie interrupted. "I wasn't speaking
+to my wife in the first place. We got on as strangersh and we're
+strangersh yet. Mrs. Well'n'ton is a----"
+
+"A queen among women, we know! Dry up," said Ashton, and then they
+heard the querulous voice of the porter of their sleeping car: "I tell
+you, I don't know nothin' about the buffet business."
+
+The conductor pushed him in with a gruff command: "Crawl in that cage
+and get busy."
+
+Still the porter protested: "Mista Pullman engaged me for a sleepin'
+car, not a drinkin' car. I'm a berth-maker, not a mixer." He cast a
+resentful glance through the window that served also as a bar, and his
+whole tone changed: "Say, is you goin' to allow me loose amongst all
+them beautiful bottles? Say, man, if you do, I can't guarantee my
+conduck."
+
+"If you even sniff one of those bottles," the conductor warned him,
+"I'll crack it over your head."
+
+"That won't worry me none--as long as my mouf's open." He smacked his
+chops over the prospect of intimacy with that liquid treasury. "Lordy!
+Well, I'll try to control my emotions--but remember, I don't guarantee
+nothin'."
+
+The conductor started to go, but paused for final instructions: "And
+remember--after we get to Utah you can't serve any hard liquor at
+all."
+
+"What's that? Don't they 'low nothin' in that old Utah but ice-cream
+soda?"
+
+"That's about all. If you touch a drop, I'll leave you in Utah for
+life."
+
+"Oh, Lordy, I'll be good!"
+
+The conductor left the excited black and went his way. Ashton was the
+first to speak: "Say, Porter, can you mix drinks?"
+
+The porter ruminated, then confessed: "Well, not on the outside, no,
+sir. If you-all is thirsty you better order the simplest things you
+can think of. If you was to command anything fancy, Lord knows what
+you'd get. Supposin' you was to say, 'Gimme a Tom Collins.' I'd be
+just as liable as not to pass you a Jack Johnson."
+
+"Well, can you open beer?"
+
+"Oh, I'm a natural born beer-opener."
+
+"Rush it out then. My throat is as full of alkali dust as these
+windows."
+
+The porter soon appeared with a tray full of cotton-topped glasses.
+The day was hot and the alkali dust very oppressive, and the beer was
+cold. Dr. Temple looked on it when it was amber, and suffered himself
+to be bullied into taking a glass.
+
+He felt that he was the greatest sinner on earth, but worst of all was
+the fact that when he had fallen, the forbidden brew was not sweet. He
+was inexperienced enough to sip it and it was like foaming quinine on
+his palate. But he kept at it from sheer shame, and his luxurious
+transgression was its own punishment.
+
+The doleful Mallory was on his way to join the "club". Crossing the
+vestibule he had met the conductor, and had ventured to quiz him along
+the old lines:
+
+"Excuse me, haven't you taken any clergymen on board this train yet?"
+
+"Devil a one."
+
+"Don't you ever carry any preachers on this road?"
+
+"Usually we get one or two. Last trip we carried a whole Methodist
+convention."
+
+"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 Fosdick.
+
+"I say, Mr. Fosdick, what size collar do you wear?"
+
+"Fourteen and a half," said Fosdick.
+
+"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 peacock blue tie
+is very unhappy."
+
+"I think I can fit you out," said Fosdick.
+
+"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 passed the mysterious woman in the
+stateroom. They were too full of their own mystery to give thought to
+hers. Mrs. Fosdick 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 glass and
+signalled to him, then passed 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?"
+
+"Yassah. We'll be comin' along right soon now. We got to pass through
+the big Aspen tunnel, after that, befo' long, we splounce into old
+Utah."
+
+"Don't forget," said Fosdick, as he sauntered out. Ashton perked up
+his ears at the promise of a tunnel and kept his eye on his watch.
+
+Fosdick 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.
+
+Fosdick'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. Fosdick answered with equal ice: "Good afternoon. Won't you sit
+down?"
+
+"Thanks. Very picturesque scenery, isn't it?"
+
+"Isn't it?" Fosdick 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 passionate with longing:
+
+"Has my poor little wifey missed her poor old hubby?"
+
+"Oh, so much!" she whispered. "Has poor little hubby missed his poor
+old wife?"
+
+"Horribly. Was she lonesome in that dismal stateroom all by herself?"
+
+"Oh, so miserable! I can't stand it much longer."
+
+Fosdick's face blazed with good news: "In just a little while we come
+to the Utah line--then we're safe."
+
+"God bless Utah!"
+
+The rapture died from her face as she caught sight of Dr. Temple, who
+happened to stroll in and go to the bookshelves, and taking out a book
+happened to glance near-sightedly her way.
+
+"Be careful of that man, dearie," Mrs. Fosdick hissed out of one side
+of her mouth. "He's a very strange character."
+
+Her husband was infected with her own terror. He asked, huskily: "What
+do you think he is?"
+
+"A detective! I'm sure he's watching us. He followed you right in
+here."
+
+"We'll be very cautious--till we get to Utah."
+
+The old clergyman, a little fuzzy in brain from his début in beer,
+continued innocently to confirm the appearance of a detective by
+drifting aimlessly about. He was looking for his wife, but he kept
+glancing at the uneasy Fosdicks. He went to the door, opened it, saw
+Mrs. Wellington finishing a cigar, and retreated precipitately. Seeing
+Mrs. Temple wandering in the corridor, he motioned her to a chair near
+the Fosdicks and she sat by his side, wondering at his filmy eyes.
+
+The Fosdicks, glancing uncomfortably at Dr. Temple, rose and selected
+other chairs further away. Then Roger Ashton sauntered in, his eyes
+searching for a proper companion through the tunnel.
+
+He saw Mrs. Wellington returning from the platform, just tossing away
+her cigar and blowing out the last of its grateful vapor.
+
+With an effort at sarcasm, he went to her and offered her one of his
+own cigars, smiling: "Have another."
+
+She took it, looked it over, and parried his irony with a formula she
+had heard men use when they hate to refuse a gift-cigar: "Thanks. I'll
+smoke it after dinner, if you don't mind."
+
+"Oh, I don't mind," he laughed, then bending closer he murmured: "They
+tell me we are coming to a tunnel, a nice, long, dark, dismal tunnel."
+
+Mrs. Wellington would not take a dare. She felt herself already
+emancipated from Jimmie. So she answered Ashton's hint with a laughing
+challenge:
+
+"How nice of the conductor to arrange it."
+
+Ashton smacked his lips over the prospect.
+
+And now the porter, having noted Ashton's impatience to reach the
+tunnel, thought to curry favor and a quarter by announcing its
+approach. He bustled in and made straight for Ashton just as the
+tunnel announced itself with a sudden swoop of gloom, a great increase
+of the train-noises and a far-off clang of the locomotive bell.
+
+Out of the Egyptian darkness came the unmistakable sounds of
+osculation in various parts of the room. Doubtless, it was repeated in
+other parts of the train. There were numerous cooing sounds, too, but
+nobody spoke except Mrs. Temple, who was heard to murmur:
+
+"Oh, Walter, dear, what makes your breath so funny!"
+
+Next came a little yowl of pain in Mrs. Fosdick's voice, and then
+daylight flooded the car with a rush, as if time had made an instant
+leap from midnight to noon. There were interesting disclosures.
+
+Mrs. Temple was caught with her arms round the doctor's neck, and she
+blushed like a spoony girl. Mrs. Fosdick was trying to disengage her
+hair from Mr. Fosdick's scarf-pin. Mrs. Whitcomb alone was deserted.
+Mr. Ashton was gazing devotion at Mrs. Wellington and trying to tell
+her with his eyes how velvet he had found her cheek.
+
+But she was looking reproachfully at him from a chair, and saying, not
+without regret:
+
+"I heard everybody kissing everybody, but I was cruelly neglected."
+
+Ashton's eyes widened with unbelief, he heard a snicker at his elbow,
+and whirled to find the porter rubbing his black velvet cheek and
+writhing with pent-up laughter.
+
+Mrs. Wellington glanced the same way, and a shriek of understanding
+burst from her. It sent the porter into a spasm of yah-yahs till he
+caught Ashton's eyes and saw murder in them. The porter fled to the
+platform and held the door fast, expecting to be lynched.
+
+But Ashton dashed away in search of concealment and soap.
+
+The porter remained on the platform for some time, planning to leap
+overboard and take his chances rather than fall into Ashton's hands,
+but at length, finding himself unpursued, he peered into the car and,
+seeing that Ashton had gone, he returned to his duties. He kept a
+close watch on Ashton, but on soberer thoughts Ashton had decided that
+the incident would best be consigned to silence and oblivion. But for
+all the rest of that day he kept rubbing his lips with his
+handkerchief.
+
+The porter, noting that the train had swept into a granite gorge like
+an enormously magnified aisle in a made-up sleeping car, recognized
+the presence of Echo Canyon, and with it the entrance into Utah. He
+hastened to impart the tidings to Mr. Fosdick and held out his hand as
+he extended the information.
+
+Fosdick could hardly believe that his twelve-hundred-mile exile was
+over.
+
+"We're in Utah?" he exclaimed.
+
+"Yassah," and the porter shoved his palm into view. Fosdick filled it
+with all his loose change, then whirled to his wife and cried:
+
+"Edith! We are in Utah now! Embrace me!"
+
+She flung herself into his arms with a gurgle of bliss. The other
+passengers gasped with amazement. This sort of thing was permissible
+enough in a tunnel, but in the full light of day----!
+
+Fosdick, noting the sensation he had created, waved his hand
+reassuringly and called across his wife's shoulder:
+
+"Don't be alarmed, ladies and gentlemen. She's my wife!" He added in a
+whisper meant for her ear alone: "At least till we get to Nevada!"
+
+Then she whispered something in his ear and they hurried from the car.
+They left behind them a bewilderment that eclipsed the wonder of the
+Mallories. That couple spoke to each other at least during the day
+time. Here was a married pair that did not speak at all for two days
+and two nights and then made a sudden and public rush to each other's
+arms!
+
+Dr. Temple summed up the general feeling when he said:
+
+"I don't believe in witches, but if I did, I'd believe that this train
+is bewitched."
+
+Later he decided that Fosdick was a Mormon elder and that Mrs. Fosdick
+was probably a twelfth or thirteenth spouse he was smuggling in from
+the East. The theory was not entirely false, for Fosdick was one of
+the many victims of the crazy-quilt of American divorce codes, though
+he was the most unwilling of polygamists. And Dr. Temple gave up his
+theory in despair the next morning when he found the Fosdicks still on
+the train, and once more keeping aloof from each other.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXIV
+
+THE TRAIN BUTCHER
+
+
+Mallory was dragging out a miserable existence with a companion who
+was neither maid, wife, nor widow and to whom he was neither bachelor,
+husband, nor relict.
+
+They were suffering brain-fag from their one topic of conversation,
+and heart-fag from rapture deferred. Marjorie had pretended to take a
+nap and Mallory had pretended that he would leave her for her own
+sake. Their contradictory chains were beginning to gall.
+
+Mallory sat in the smoking room, and threw aside a half-finished
+cigar. Life was indeed nauseous when tobacco turned rank on his lips.
+He watched without interest the stupendous scenery whirling past the
+train; granite ravines, infernal grotesques of architecture and
+diablerie, the Giant's Teapot, the Devil's Slide, the Pulpit Rock, the
+Hanging Rock, splashes of mineral color, as if titanic paint pots had
+been spilled or flung against the cliffs, sudden hushes of green
+pine-worlds, dreary graveyards of sand and sagebrush, mountain streams
+in frothing panics.
+
+His jaded soul could not respond to any of these thrillers, the
+dime-novels and melodramatic third-acts of Nature. But with the
+arrival of a train-boy, who had got on at Evanston with a batch of
+Salt Lake City newspapers, he woke a little.
+
+The other men came trooping round, like sheep at a herd-boy's whistle
+or chickens when a pan of grain is brought into the yard. The train
+"butcher" had a nasal sing-song, but his strain might have been the
+Pied Piper's tune emptying Hamelin of its grown-ups. The charms of
+flirtation, matrimonial bliss and feminine beauty were forgotten, and
+the males flocked to the delights of stock-market reports, political
+or racing or dramatic or sporting or criminal news. Even Ashton braved
+the eyes of his fellow men for the luxury of burying his nose in a
+fresh paper.
+
+"Papers, gents? Yes? No?" the train butcher chanted. "Salt Lake
+papers, Ogden papers, all the latest papers, comic papers, magazines,
+periodicals."
+
+"Here, boy," said Ashton, snapping his fingers, "what's the latest New
+York paper?"
+
+"Last Sat'day's."
+
+"Six days old? I read that before I left New York. Well, give me that
+Salt Lake paper. It has yesterday's stock market, I suppose."
+
+"Yes, sir." He passed over the sheet and made change, without abating
+his monody: "Papers, gents. Yes? No? Salt Lake pa----"
+
+"Whash latesh from Chicago?" said Wellington.
+
+"Monday's."
+
+"I read that before--that breakfast began," laughed Little Jimmie.
+"Well, give me _Salt Lake Bazoo_. It has basheball news, I s'pose."
+
+"Yes, sir," the butcher answered, and his tone grew reverent as he
+said: "The Giants won. Mr. Mattyson was pitching. Papers, gents, all
+the latest papers, magazines, periodicals."
+
+Wedgewood extended a languid hand: "What's the latest issue of the
+_London Times_?"
+
+"Never heard of it."
+
+Wedgewood almost fainted, and returned to his Baedeker of the United
+States.
+
+Dr. Temple summoned the lad: "I don't suppose you have the _Ypsilanti
+Eagle_?"
+
+The butcher regarded him with pity, and sniffed: "I carry newspapers,
+not poultry."
+
+"Well, give me the----" he saw a pink weekly of rather picturesque
+appearance, and the adventure attracted him. "I'll take this--also the
+_Outlook_." He folded the pink within the green, and entered into a
+new and startling world--a sort of journalistic slumming tour.
+
+"Give me any old thing," said Mallory, and flung open an Ogden journal
+till he found the sporting page, where his eyes brightened. "By jove,
+a ten-inning game! Matthewson in the box!"
+
+"Mattie is most intelleckshal pitcher in the world," said Little
+Jimmie, and then everybody disappeared behind paper ramparts, while
+the butcher lingered to explain to the porter the details of the great
+event.
+
+About this time, Marjorie, tired of her pretence at slumber, strolled
+into the observation car, glancing into the men's room, where she saw
+nothing but newspapers. Then Mrs. Wellington saw her, and smiled:
+"Come in and make yourself at home."
+
+"Thanks," said Marjorie, bashfully, "I was looking for my--my----"
+
+"Husband?"
+
+"My dog."
+
+"How is he this morning?"
+
+"My dog?"
+
+"Your husband."
+
+"Oh, he's as well as could be expected."
+
+"Where did you get that love of a waist?" Mrs. Wellington laughed.
+
+"Mrs. Temple lent it to me. Isn't it sweet?"
+
+"Exquisite! The latest Ypsilanti mode."
+
+Marjorie, suffering almost more acutely from being badly frocked than
+from being duped in her matrimonial hopes, threw herself on Mrs.
+Wellington's mercy.
+
+"I'm so unhappy in this. Couldn't you lend me or sell me something a
+little smarter?"
+
+"I'd love to, my dear," said Mrs. Wellington, "but I left home on
+short notice myself. I shall need all my divorce trousseau in Reno.
+Otherwise--I--but here's your husband. You two ought to have some
+place to spoon. I'll leave you this whole room."
+
+And she swept out, nodding to Mallory, who had divined Marjorie's
+presence, and felt the need of being near her, though he also felt the
+need of finishing the story of the great ball game. Husband-like, he
+felt that he was conferring sufficient courtesy in throwing a casual
+smile across the top of the paper.
+
+Marjorie studied his motley garb, and her own, and groaned:
+
+"We're a sweet looking pair, aren't we?"
+
+"Mr. and Miss Fit," said Mallory, from behind the paper.
+
+"Oh, Harry, has your love grown cold?" she pleaded.
+
+"Marjorie, how can you think such a thing?" still from behind the
+paper.
+
+"Well, Mrs. Wellington said we ought to have some place to spoon, and
+she went away and left us, and--there you stand--and----"
+
+This pierced even the baseball news, and he threw his arms around her
+with glow of devotion.
+
+She snuggled closer, and cooed: "Aren't we having a nice long
+engagement? We've traveled a million miles, and the preacher isn't in
+sight yet. What have you been reading--wedding announcements?"
+
+"No--I was reading about the most wonderful exhibition. Mattie was in
+the box--and in perfect form."
+
+"Mattie?" Marjorie gasped uneasily.
+
+"Mattie!" he raved, "and in perfect form."
+
+And now the hidden serpent of jealousy, which promised to enliven
+their future, lifted its head for the first time, and Mallory caught
+his first glimpse of an unsuspected member of their household.
+Marjorie demanded with an ominous chill:
+
+"And who's Mattie? Some former sweetheart of yours?"
+
+"My dear," laughed Mallory.
+
+But Marjorie was up and away, with apt temper: "So Mattie was in the
+box, was she? What is it to you, where she sits? You dare to read
+about her and rave over her perfect form, while you neglect your
+wife--or your--oh, what am I, anyway?"
+
+Mallory stared at her in amazement. He was beginning to learn what
+ignorant heathen women are concerning so many of the gods and
+demi-gods of mankind. Then, with a tenderness he might not always
+show, he threw the paper down and took her in his arms: "You poor
+child. Mattie is a man--a pitcher--and you're the only woman I ever
+loved--and you are liable to be my wife any minute."
+
+The explanation was sufficient, and she crawled into the shelter of
+his arm with little noises that served for apology, forgiveness and
+reconciliation. Then he made the mistake of mentioning the sickening
+topic of deferred hope:
+
+"A minister's sure to get on at the next stop--or the next."
+
+Marjorie's nerves were frayed by too much enduring, and it took only a
+word to set them jangling: "If you say minister to me again, I'll
+scream." Then she tried to control herself with a polite: "Where is
+the next stop?"
+
+"Ogden."
+
+"Where's that? On the map?"
+
+"Well, it's in Utah."
+
+"Utah!" she groaned. "They marry by wholesale there, and we can't even
+get a sample."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXV
+
+THE TRAIN WRECKER
+
+
+The train-butcher, entering the Observation Room, found only a loving
+couple. He took in at a glance their desire for solitude. A large part
+of his business was the forcing of wares on people who did not want
+them.
+
+His voice and his method suggested the mosquito. Seeing Mallory and
+Marjorie mutually absorbed in reading each other's eyes, and evidently
+in need of nothing on earth less than something else to read, the
+train-butcher decided that his best plan of attack was to make himself
+a nuisance. It is a plan successfully adopted by organ-grinders,
+street pianists and other blackmailers under the guise of art, who
+have nothing so welcome to sell as their absence.
+
+Mallory and Marjorie heard the train-boy's hum, but they tried to
+ignore it.
+
+"Papers, gents and ladies? Yes? No? Paris fashions, lady?"
+
+He shoved a large periodical between their very noses, but Marjorie
+threw it on the floor, with a bitter glance at her own borrowed
+plumage:
+
+"Don't show me any Paris fashions!" Then she gave the boy his congé by
+resuming her chat with Mallory: "How long do we stop at Ogden?"
+
+The train-boy went right on auctioning his papers and magazines, and
+poking them into the laps of his prey. And they went right on talking
+to one another and pushing his papers and magazines to the floor.
+
+"I think I'd better get off at Ogden, and take the next train back.
+That's just what I'll do. Nothing, thank you!" this last to the
+train-boy.
+
+"But you can't leave me like this," Mallory urged excitedly, with a
+side glance of "No, no!" to the train-boy.
+
+"I can, and I must, and I will," Marjorie insisted. "I'll go pack my
+things now."
+
+"But, Marjorie, listen to me."
+
+"Will you let me alone!" This to the gadfly, but to Mallory a dejected
+wail: "I--I just remembered. I haven't anything to pack."
+
+"And you'll have to give back that waist to Mrs. Temple. You can't get
+off at Ogden without a waist."
+
+"I'll go anyway. I want to get home."
+
+"Marjorie, if you talk that way--I'll throw you off the train!"
+
+She gasped. He explained: "I wasn't talking to you; I was trying to
+stop this phonograph." Then he rose, and laid violent hands on the
+annoyer, shoved him to the corridor, seized his bundle of papers from
+his arm, and hurled them at his head. They fell in a shower about the
+train-butcher, who could only feel a certain respect for the one man
+who had ever treated him as he knew he deserved. He bent to pick up
+his scattered merchandise, and when he had gathered his stock
+together, put his head in, and sang out a sincere:
+
+"Excuse me."
+
+But Mallory did not hear him, he was excitedly trying to calm the
+excited girl, who, having eloped with him, was preparing now to elope
+back without him.
+
+"Darling, you can't desert me now," he pleaded, "and leave me to go on
+alone?"
+
+"Well, why don't you do something?" she retorted, in equal
+desperation. "If I were a man, and I had the girl I loved on a train,
+I'd get her married if I had to wreck the----" she caught her breath,
+paused a second in intense thought, and then, with sudden radiance,
+cried: "Harry, dear!"
+
+"Yes, love!"
+
+"I have an idea--an inspiration!"
+
+"Yes, pet," rather dubiously from him, but with absolute exultation
+from her: "Let's wreck the train!"
+
+"I don't follow you, sweetheart."
+
+"Don't you see?" she began excitedly. "When there are train wrecks a
+lot of people get killed, and things. A minister always turns up to
+administer the last something or other--well----"
+
+"Well?"
+
+"Well, stupid, don't you see? We wreck a train, a minister comes, we
+nab him, he marries us, and--there we are! Everything's lovely!"
+
+He gave her one of those looks with which a man usually greets what a
+woman calls an inspiration. He did not honor her invention with
+analysis. He simply put forward an objection to it, and, man-like,
+chose the most hateful of all objections:
+
+"It's a lovely idea, but the wreck would delay us for hours and hours,
+and I'd miss my transport----"
+
+"Harry Mallory, if you mention that odious transport to me again, I
+know I'll have hydrophobia. I'm going home."
+
+"But, darling," he pleaded, "you can't desert me now, and leave me to
+go on alone?" She had her answer glib:
+
+"If you really loved me, you'd----"
+
+"Oh, I know," he cut in. "You've said that before. But I'd be
+court-martialled. I'd lose my career."
+
+"What's a career to a man who truly loves?"
+
+"It's just as much as it is to anybody else--and more."
+
+She could hardly controvert this gracefully, so she sank back with
+grim resignation. "Well, I've proposed my plan, and you don't like
+it. Now, suppose you propose something."
+
+The silence was oppressive. They sat like stoughton bottles. There the
+conductor found them some time later. He gave them a careless look,
+selected a chair at the end of the car, and began to sort his tickets,
+spreading them out on another chair, making notes with the pencil he
+took from atop his ear, and shoved back from time to time.
+
+Ages seemed to pass, and Mallory had not even a suggestion. By this
+time Marjorie's temper had evaporated, and when he said: "If we could
+only stop at some town for half an hour," she said: "Maybe the
+conductor would hold the train for us."
+
+"I hardly think he would."
+
+"He looks like an awfully nice man. You ask him."
+
+"Oh, what's the use?"
+
+Marjorie was getting tired of depending on this charming young man
+with the very bad luck. She decided to assume command herself. She
+took recourse naturally to the original feminine methods: "I'll take
+care of him," she said, with resolution. "A woman can get a man to do
+almost anything if she flirts a little with him."
+
+"Marjorie!"
+
+"Now, don't you mind anything I do. Remember, it's all for love of
+you--even if I have to kiss him."
+
+"Marjorie, I won't permit----"
+
+"You have no right to boss me--yet. You subside." She gave him the
+merest touch, but he fell backward into a chair, utterly aghast at the
+shameless siren into which desperation had altered the timid little
+thing he thought he had chosen to love. He was being rapidly initiated
+into the complex and versatile and fearfully wonderful thing a woman
+really is, and he was saying to himself, "What have I married?"
+forgetting, for the moment, that he had not married her yet, and that
+therein lay the whole trouble.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXVI
+
+DELILAH AND THE CONDUCTOR
+
+
+Like the best of women and the worst of men, Marjorie was perfectly
+willing to do evil, that good might come of it. She advanced on the
+innocent conductor, as the lady from Sorek must have sidled up to
+Samson, coquetting with one arch hand and snipping the shears with the
+other.
+
+The stupefied Mallory saw Marjorie in a startling imitation of herself
+at her sweetest; only now it was brazen mimicry, yet how like! She
+went forward as the shyest young thing in the world, pursed her lips
+into an ecstatic simper, and began on the unsuspecting official:
+
+"Isn't the country perfectly----"
+
+"Yes, but I'm getting used to it," the conductor growled, without
+looking up.
+
+His curt indifference jolted Marjorie a trifle, but she rallied her
+forces, and came back with: "How long do we stop at Ogden?"
+
+"Five minutes," very bluntly.
+
+Marjorie poured maple syrup on her tone, as she purred: "This train of
+yours is an awfully fast train, isn't it?"
+
+"Sort of," said the conductor, with just a trace of thaw. What
+followed made him hold his breath, for the outrageous little hussy was
+actually saying: "The company must have a great deal of confidence in
+you to entrust the lives and welfare of so many people to your
+presence of mind and courage."
+
+"Well, of course, I can't say as to that----" Even Mallory could see
+that the man's reserve was melting fast as Marjorie went on with
+relentless treacle:
+
+"Talk about soldiers and firemen and life-savers! I think it takes a
+braver man than any of those to be a conductor--really."
+
+"Well, it is a kind of a responsible job." The conductor swelled his
+chest a little at that, and Marjorie felt that he was already hers.
+She hammered the weak spot in his armor:
+
+"Responsible! I should say it is. Mr. Mallory is a soldier, but
+soldiers are such ferocious, destructive people, while conductors save
+lives, and--if I were only a man I think it would be my greatest
+ambition to be a conductor--especially on an overland express."
+
+The conductor told the truth, when he confessed: "Well, I never heard
+it put just that way." Then he spoke with a little more pride, hoping
+to increase the impression he felt he was making: "The main thing, of
+course, is to get my train through On Time!"
+
+This was a facer. He was going to get his train through On Time just
+to oblige Marjorie. She stammered:
+
+"I don't suppose the train, by any accident, would be delayed in
+leaving Ogden?"
+
+"Not if I can help it," the hero averred, to reassure her.
+
+"I wish it would," Marjorie murmured.
+
+The conductor looked at her in surprise: "Why, what's it to you?" She
+turned her eyes on him at full candle power, and smiled:
+
+"Oh, I just wanted to do a little shopping there."
+
+"Shopping! While the train waits! Excuse me!"
+
+"You see," Marjorie fluttered, "by a sad mistake, my baggage isn't on
+the train. And I haven't any--any--I really need to buy some--some
+things very badly. It's awfully embarrassing to be without them."
+
+"I can imagine," the conductor mumbled. "Why don't you and your
+husband drop off and take the next train?"
+
+"My husb--Mr. Mallory has to be in San Francisco by to-morrow night.
+He just has to!"
+
+"So have I."
+
+"But to oblige me? To save me from distress--don't you think you
+could?" Like a sweet little child she twisted one of the brass buttons
+on his coat sleeve, and wheedled: "Don't you think you might hold the
+train just a little tiny half hour?"
+
+He was sorry, but he didn't see how he could. Then she took his
+breath away again by asking, out of a clear sky: "Are you married?"
+
+He was as awkward as if she had proposed to him, she answered for him:
+"Oh, but of course you are. The women wouldn't let a big, handsome,
+noble brave giant like you escape long." He mopped his brow in agony
+as she went on: "I'm sure you're a very chivalrous man. I'm sure you
+would give your life to rescue a maiden in distress. Well, here's your
+chance. Won't you please hold the train?"
+
+She actually had her cheek almost against his shoulder, though she had
+to poise atiptoe to reach him. Mallory's dismay was changing to a
+boiling rage, and the conductor was a pitiable combination of Saint
+Anthony and Tantalus. "I--I'd love to oblige you," he mumbled, "but it
+would be as much as my job's worth."
+
+"How much is that?" Marjorie asked, and added reassuringly, "If you
+lost your job I'm sure my father would get you a better one."
+
+"Maybe," said the conductor, "but--I got this one."
+
+Then his rolling eyes caught sight of the supposed husband
+gesticulating wildly and evidently clearing for action. He warned
+Marjorie: "Say, your husband is motioning at you."
+
+"Don't mind him," Marjorie urged, "just listen to me. I implore you.
+I----" Seeing that he was still resisting, she played her last card,
+and, crying, "Oh, you can't resist my prayers so cruelly," she threw
+her arms around his neck, sobbing, "Do you want to break my heart?"
+
+Mallory rushed into the scene and the conductor, tearing Marjorie's
+arms loose, retreated, gasping, "No! and I don't want your husband to
+break my head."
+
+Mallory dragged Marjorie away, but she shook her little fist at the
+conductor, crying: "Do you refuse? Do you dare refuse?"
+
+"I've got to," the conductor abjectly insisted.
+
+Marjorie blazed with fury and the siren became a Scylla. "Then I'll
+see that my father gets you discharged. If you dare to speak to me
+again, I'll order my husband to throw you off this train. To think of
+being refused a simple little favor by a mere conductor! of a stupid
+old emigrant train!! of all things!!!"
+
+Then she hurled herself into a chair and pounded her heels on the
+floor in a tantrum that paralyzed Mallory. Even the conductor tapped
+him on the shoulder and said: "You have my sympathy."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXVII
+
+THE DOG-ON DOG AGAIN
+
+
+As the conductor left the Mallorys to their own devices, it rushed
+over him anew what sacrilege had been attempted--a fool bride had
+asked him to stop the Trans-American of all trains!--to go shopping of
+all things!
+
+He stormed into the smoking room to open the safety valve of his
+wrath, and found the porter just coming out of the buffet cell with a
+tray, two hollow-stemmed glasses and a bottle swaddled in a napkin.
+
+"Say, Ellsworth, what in ---- do you suppose that female back there
+wants?--wants me to hold the Trans-American while----"
+
+But the porter was in a flurry himself. He was about to serve
+champagne, and he cut the conductor short:
+
+"'Scuse me, boss, but they's a lovin' couple in the stateroom forward
+that is in a powerful hurry for this. I can't talk to you now. I'll
+see you later." And he swaggered off, leaving the door of the buffet
+open. The conductor paused to close it, glanced in, started, stared,
+glared, roared: "What's this! Well, I'll be--a dog smuggled in here!
+I'll break that coon's head. Come out of there, you miserable or'nary
+hound." He seized the incredulous Snoozleums by the scruff of his
+neck, growling, "It's you for the baggage car ahead," and dashed out
+with his prey, just as Mallory, now getting new bearings on Marjorie's
+character, spoke across the rampart of his Napoleonically folded arms:
+
+"Well, you're a nice one!--making violent love to a conductor before
+my very eyes. A minute more and I would have----"
+
+She silenced him with a snap: "Don't you speak to me! I hate you! I
+hate all men. The more I know men the more I like----" this reminded
+her, and she asked anxiously: "Where is Snoozleums?"
+
+Mallory, impatient at the shift of subject, snapped back: "Oh, I left
+him in the buffet with the waiter. What I want to know is how you dare
+to----"
+
+"Was it a colored waiter?"
+
+"Of course. But I'm not speaking of----"
+
+"But suppose he should bite him?"
+
+"Oh, you can't hurt those nigger waiters. I started to say----"
+
+"But I can't have Snoozleums biting colored people. It might not agree
+with him. Get him at once."
+
+Mallory trembled with suppressed rage like an overloaded boiler, but
+he gave up and growled: "Oh, Lord, all right. I'll get him when I've
+finished----"
+
+"Go get him this minute. And bring the poor darling back to his
+mother."
+
+"His mother! Ye gods!" cried Mallory, wildly. He turned away and
+dashed into the men's room with a furious: "Where's that damned dog?"
+
+He met the porter just returning. The porter smiled: "He's right in
+heah, sir," and opened the buffet door. His eyes popped and his jaw
+sagged: "Why, I lef' him here just a minute ago."
+
+"You left the window open, too," Mallory observed. "Well, I guess he's
+gone."
+
+The porter was panic stricken: "Oh, I'm turrible sorry, boss, I
+wouldn't have lost dat dog for a fortune. If you was to hit me with a
+axe I wouldn't mind."
+
+To his utter befuddlement, Mallory grinned and winked at him, and
+murmured: "Oh, that's all right. Don't worry." And actually laid half
+a dollar in his palm. Leaving the black lids batting over the starting
+eyes, Mallory pulled his smile into a long face and went back to
+Marjorie like an undertaker: "My love, prepare yourself for bad news."
+
+Marjorie looked up, startled and apprehensive: "Snoozleums is ill. He
+did bite the darkey."
+
+"Worse than that--he--he--fell out of the window."
+
+"When!" she shrieked, "in heaven's name--when?"
+
+"He was there just a minute ago, the waiter says."
+
+Marjorie went into instant hysterics, wringing her hands and sobbing:
+"Oh, my darling, my poor child--stop the train at once!"
+
+She began to pound Mallory's shoulders and shake him frantically. He
+had never seen her this way either. He was getting his education in
+advance. He tried to calm her with inexpert words: "How can I stop the
+train? Now, dearie, he was a nice dog, but after all, he was only a
+dog."
+
+She rounded on him like a panther: "Only a dog! He was worth a dozen
+men like you. You find the conductor at once, command him to stop this
+train--and back up! I don't care if he has to go back ten miles. Run,
+tell him at once. Now, you run!"
+
+Mallory stared at her as if she had gone mad, but he set out to run
+somewhere, anywhere. Marjorie paced up and down distractedly, tearing
+her hair and moaning, "Snoozleums, Snoozleums! My child. My poor
+child!" At length her wildly roving eyes noted the bell rope. She
+stared, pondered, nodded her head, clutched at it, could not reach it,
+jumped for it several times in vain, then seized a chair, swung it
+into place, stood up in it, gripped the rope, and came down on it with
+all her weight, dropping to the floor and jumping up and down in a
+frenzied dance. In the distance the engine could be heard faintly
+whistling, whistling for every pull.
+
+The engineer, far ahead, could not imagine what unheard-of crisis
+could bring about such mad signals. The fireman yelled:
+
+"I bet that crazy conductor is attacked with an epilettic fit."
+
+But there was no disputing the command. The engine was reversed, the
+air brakes set, the sand run out and every effort made to pull the
+iron horse, as it were, back on its haunches.
+
+The grinding, squealing, jolting, shook the train like an earthquake.
+The shrieking of the whistle froze the blood like a woman's cry of
+"Murder!" in the night. The women among the passengers echoed the
+screams. The men turned pale and braced themselves for the shock of
+collision. Some of them were mumbling prayers. Dr. Temple and Jimmie
+Wellington, with one idea in their dissimilar souls, dashed from the
+smoking room to go to their wives.
+
+Ashton and Wedgewood, with no one to care for but themselves, seized
+windows and tried to fight them open. At last they budged a sash and
+knelt down to thrust their heads out.
+
+"I don't see a beastly thing ahead," said Wedgewood, "except the heads
+of other fools."
+
+"We're slowing down though," said Ashton, "she stops! We're safe.
+Thank God!" And he collapsed into a chair. Wedgewood collapsed into
+another, gasping: "Whatevah are we safe from, I wondah?"
+
+The train-crew and various passengers descended and ran alongside the
+train asking questions. Panic gave way to mystery. Even Dr. Temple
+came back into the smoking room to finish a precious cigar he had been
+at work on. He was followed by Little Jimmie, who had not quite
+reached his wife when the stopping of the train put an end to his
+excuse for chivalry. He was regretfully mumbling:
+
+"It would have been such a good shansh to shave my life's wife--I mean
+my--I don't know what I mean." He sank into a chair and ordered a
+drink; then suddenly remembered his vow, and with great heroism,
+rescinded the order.
+
+Mallory, finding that the train was checked just before he reached the
+conductor, saw that official's bewildered wrath at the stoppage and
+had a fearsome intuition that Marjorie had somehow done the deed. He
+hurried back to the observation room, where he found her charging up
+and down, still distraught. He paused at a safe distance and said:
+
+"The train has stopped, my dear. Somebody rang the bell."
+
+"I guess somebody did!" Marjorie answered, with a proud toss of the
+head. "Where's the conductor?"
+
+"He's looking for the fellow that pulled the rope."
+
+"You go tell him to back up--and slowly, too."
+
+"No, thank you!" said Mallory. He was a brave young man, but he was
+not bearding the conductors of stopped expresses. Already the
+conductor's voice was heard in the smoking room, where he appeared
+with the rush and roar of a Bashan bull. "Well!" he bellowed, "which
+one of you guys pulled that rope?"
+
+"It was nobody here, sir," Dr. Temple meekly explained. The conductor
+transfixed him with a baleful glare: "I wouldn't believe a gambler on
+oath. I bet you did it."
+
+"I assure you, sir," Wedgewood interposed, "he didn't touch it. I was
+heah."
+
+The conductor waved him aside and charged into the observation room,
+followed by all the passengers in an awe struck rabble. Here, too, the
+conductor thundered: "Who pulled that rope? Speak up somebody."
+
+Mallory was about to sacrifice himself to save Marjorie, but she met
+the conductor's black rage with the withering contempt of a young
+queen: "I pulled the old rope. Whom did you suppose?"
+
+The conductor almost dropped with apoplexy at finding himself with
+nobody to vent his immense rage on, but this pink and white slip.
+"You!" he gulped, "well, what in----Say, in the name of--why, don't
+you know it's a penitentiary offense to stop a train this way?"
+
+Marjorie tossed her head a little higher, grew a little calmer: "What
+do I care? I want you to back up."
+
+The conductor was reduced to a wet rag, a feeble echo: "Back up--the
+train up?"
+
+"Yes, back the train up," Marjorie answered, resolutely, "and go
+slowly till I tell you to stop."
+
+The conductor stared at her a moment, then whirled on Mallory: "Say,
+what in hell's the matter with your wife?"
+
+Mallory was saved from the problem of answering by Marjorie's abrupt
+change from a young Tsarina rebuking a serf, to a terrified mother.
+She flung out imploring palms and with a gush of tears pleaded: "Won't
+you please back up? My darling child fell off the train."
+
+The conductor's rage fell away in an instant. "Your child fell off the
+train!" he gasped. "Good Lord! How old was he?"
+
+With one hand he was groping for the bell cord to give the signal,
+with the other he opened the door to look back along the track.
+
+"He was two years old," Marjorie sobbed.
+
+"Oh, that's too bad!" the conductor groaned. "What did he look like?"
+
+"He had a pink ribbon round his neck."
+
+"A pink ribbon--oh, the poor little fellow! the poor little fellow!"
+
+"And a long curly tail."
+
+The conductor swung round with a yell: "A curly tail!--your son?"
+
+"My dog!" Marjorie roared back at him.
+
+The conductor's voice cracked weakly as he shrieked: "Your dog! You
+stopped this train for a fool dog?"
+
+"He wasn't a fool dog," Marjorie retorted, facing him down, "he knows
+more than you do."
+
+The conductor threw up his hands: "Well, don't you women beat----" He
+studied Marjorie as if she were some curious freak of nature. Suddenly
+an idea struck into his daze: "Say, what kind of a dog was it?--a
+measly little cheese-hound?"
+
+"He was a noble, beautiful soul with wonderful eyes and adorable
+ears."
+
+The conductor was growing weaker and weaker: "Well, don't worry. I got
+him. He's in the baggage car."
+
+Marjorie stared at him unbelievingly. The news seemed too gloriously
+beautiful to be true. "He isn't dead--Snoozleums is not dead!" she
+cried, "he lives! He lives! You have saved him." And once more she
+flung herself upon the conductor. He tried to bat her off like a gnat,
+and Mallory came to his rescue by dragging her away and shoving her
+into a chair. But she saw only the noble conductor: "Oh, you dear,
+good, kind angel. Get him at once."
+
+"He stays in the baggage car," the conductor answered, firmly and as
+he supposed, finally.
+
+"But Snoozleums doesn't like baggage cars," Marjorie smiled. "He won't
+ride in one."
+
+"He'll ride in this one or I'll wring his neck."
+
+"You fiend in human flesh!" Marjorie shrank away from him in horror,
+and he found courage to seize the bell rope and yank it viciously with
+a sardonic: "Please, may I start this train?"
+
+The whistle tooted faintly. The bell began to hammer, the train to
+creak and writhe and click. The conductor pulled his cap down hard and
+started forward. Marjorie seized his sleeve: "Oh, I implore you, don't
+consign that poor sweet child to the horrid baggage car. If you have a
+human heart in your breast, hear my prayer."
+
+The conductor surrendered unconditionally: "Oh, Lord, all right, all
+right. I'll lose my job, but if you'll keep quiet, I'll bring him to
+you." And he slunk out meekly, followed by the passengers, who were
+shaking their heads in wonderment at this most amazing feat of this
+most amazing bride.
+
+When they were alone once more, Marjorie as radiant as April after a
+storm, turned her sunshiny smile on Mallory:
+
+"Isn't it glorious to have our little Snoozleums alive and well?"
+
+But Mallory was feeling like a March day. He answered with a sleety
+chill: "You care more for the dog than you do for me."
+
+"Why shouldn't I?" Marjorie answered with wide eyes, "Snoozleums never
+would have brought me on a wild goose elopement like this. Heaven
+knows he didn't want to come."
+
+Mallory repeated the indictment: "You love a dog better than you love
+your husband."
+
+"My what?" Marjorie laughed, then she spoke with lofty condescension:
+"Harry Mallory, if you're going to be jealous of that dog, I'll never
+marry you the longest day I live."
+
+"So you'll let a dog come between us?" he demanded.
+
+"I wouldn't give up Snoozleums for a hundred husbands," she retorted.
+
+"I'm glad to know it in time," Mallory said. "You'd better give me
+back that wedding ring."
+
+Marjorie's heart stopped at this, but her pride was in arms. She drew
+herself up, slid the ring from her finger, and held it out as if she
+scorned it: "With pleasure. Good afternoon, Mr. Mallory."
+
+Mallory took it as if it were the merest trifle, bowed and murmured:
+"Good afternoon, Miss Newton."
+
+He stalked out and she turned her back on him. A casual witness would
+have said that they were too indifferent to each other even to feel
+anger. As a matter of romantic fact, each was on fire with love, and
+aching madly with regret. Each longed for strength to whirl round with
+outflung arms of reconciliation, and neither could be so brave. And so
+they parted, each harking back fiercely for one word of recall from
+the other. But neither spoke, and Marjorie sat staring at nothing
+through raining eyes, while Mallory strode into the Men's Room as
+melancholy as Hamlet with Yorick's skull in his hands.
+
+It was their first great quarrel, and they were convinced that the
+world might as well come to an end.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXVIII
+
+THE WOMAN-HATER'S RELAPSE
+
+
+The observation room was as lonely as a deserted battle-field and
+Marjorie as doleful as a wounded soldier left behind, and perishing of
+thirst, when the conductor came back with Snoozleums in his arms.
+
+He regarded with contemptuous awe the petty cause of so great an event
+as the stopping of the Trans-American. He expected to see Marjorie
+receive the returned prodigal with wild rapture, but she didn't even
+smile when he said:
+
+"Here's your powder-puff."
+
+She just took Snoozleums on her lap, and, looking up with wet eyes and
+a sad smile, murmured:
+
+"Thank you very much. You're the nicest conductor I ever met. If you
+ever want another position, I'll see that my father gets you one."
+
+It was like offering the Kaiser a new job, but the conductor swallowed
+the insult and sought to repay it with irony.
+
+"Thanks. And if you ever want to run this road for a couple of weeks,
+just let me know."
+
+Marjorie nodded appreciatively and said: "I will. You're very kind."
+
+And that completed the rout of that conductor. He retired in disorder,
+leaving Marjorie to fondle Snoozleums with a neglectful indifference
+that would have greatly flattered Mallory, if he could have seen
+through the partition that divided them.
+
+But he was witnessing with the cynical superiority of an aged and
+disillusioned man the, to him, childish behavior of Ira Lathrop, an
+eleventh-hour Orlando.
+
+For just as Mallory moped into the smoking-room at one door, Ira
+Lathrop swept in at the other, his face rubicund with embarrassment
+and ecstasy. He had donned an old frock coat with creases like ruts
+from long exile in his trunk. But he was feeling like an heir
+apparent; and he startled everybody by his jovial hail:
+
+"Well, boys--er--gentlemen--the drinks are on me. Waiter, take the
+orders."
+
+Little Jimmie woke with a start, rose hastily to his feet and saluted,
+saying: "Present! Who said take the orders?"
+
+"I did," said Lathrop, "I'm giving a party. Waiter, take the orders."
+
+"Sarsaparilla," said Dr. Temple, but they howled him down and ordered
+other things. The porter shook his head sadly: "Nothin' but sof'
+drinks in Utah, gemmen."
+
+A groan went up from the club-members, and Lathrop groaned loudest of
+all:
+
+"Well, we've got to drink something. Take the orders. We'll all have
+sarsaparilla."
+
+Little Jimmie Wellington came to the rescue.
+
+"Don't do anything desperate, gentlemen," he said, with a look of
+divine philanthropy. "The bar's closed, but Little Jimmie Wellington
+is here with the life preserver." From his hip-pocket he produced a
+silver flask that looked to be big enough to carry a regiment through
+the Alps. It was greeted with a salvo, and Lathrop said to Jimmie: "I
+apologize for everything I have said--and thought--about you." He
+turned to the porter: "There ain't any law against giving this away,
+is there?"
+
+The porter grinned: "Not if you-all bribe the exercise-inspector." And
+he held out a glass for the bribe, murmuring, "Don't git tired," as it
+was poured. He set it inside his sanctum and then bustled round with
+ice-filled glasses and a siphon.
+
+When Little Jimmie offered of the flask to Dr. Temple, the clergyman
+put out his hand with a politely horrified: "No, thank you."
+
+Lathrop frightened him with a sudden comment: "Look at that gesture!
+Doc, I'd almost swear you were a parson."
+
+Mallory whirled on him with the eyes of a hawk about to pounce, and
+"The very idea!" was the best disclaimer Dr. Temple could manage,
+suddenly finding himself suspected. Ashton put in with, "The only way
+to disprove it, Doc, is to join us."
+
+The poor old clergyman, too deeply involved in his deception to brave
+confession now, decided to do and dare all. He stammered,
+"Er--ah--certainly," and held out his hand for his share of the
+poison. Little Jimmie winked at the others and almost filled the
+glass. The innocent doctor bowed his thanks. When the porter reached
+him and prepared to fill the remainder of the glass from the siphon,
+the parson waved him aside with a misguided caution:
+
+"No, thanks. I'll not mix them."
+
+Mallory turned away with a sigh: "He takes his straight. He's no
+parson."
+
+Then they forgot the doctor in curiosity as to Lathrop's sudden spasm
+of generosity--with Wellington's liquor. Wedgewood voiced the general
+curiosity when he said:
+
+"What's the old woman-hater up to now?"
+
+"Woman-hater?" laughed Ira. "It's the old story. I'm going to follow
+Mallory's example--marriage."
+
+"I hope you succeed," said Mallory.
+
+"Wherever did you pick up the bride?" said Wedgewood, mellowing with
+the long glass in his hand.
+
+"Brides are easy," said Mallory, with surprising cynicism. "Where do
+you get the parson?"
+
+"Hang the parson," Wedgewood repeated, "Who's the gel?"
+
+"I'll bet I know who she is," Ashton interposed; "it's that nectarine
+of a damsel who got on at Green River."
+
+"Not the same!" Lathrop roared. "I found my bride blooming here all
+the while. Girl I used to spark back in Brattleboro, Vermont. I've
+been vowing for years that I'd live and die an old maid. I've kept my
+head out of the noose all this time--till I struck this train and met
+up with Anne. We got to talking over old times--waking up old
+sentiments. She got on my nerves. I got on hers. Finally I said, 'Aw,
+hell, let's get married. Save price of one stateroom to China anyway.'
+She says, 'Damned if I don't!'--or words to that effect."
+
+Mallory broke in with feverish interest: "But you said you were going
+to get married on this train."
+
+"Nothing easier. Here's How!" and he raised his glass, but Mallory
+hauled it down to demand: "How? that's what I want to know. How are
+you going to get married on this parsonless express. Have you got a
+little minister in your suitcase?"
+
+Ira beamed with added pride as he explained:
+
+"Well, you see, when I used to court Anne I had a rival--Charlie Selby
+his name was. I thought he cut me out, but he became a clergyman in
+Utah--Oh, Charlie! I telegraphed him that I was passing through
+Ogden, and would he come down to the train and marry me to a charming
+lady. He always wanted to marry Anne. I thought it would be a durned
+good joke to let him marry her--to me."
+
+"D-did he accept?" Mallory asked, excitedly, "is he coming?"
+
+"He is--he did--here's his telegram," said Ira. "He brings the license
+and the ring." He passed it over, and as Mallory read it a look of
+hope spread across his face. But Ira was saying: "We're going to have
+the wedding obsequies right here in this car. You're all invited. Will
+you come?"
+
+There was a general yell of acceptance and Ashton began to sing,
+"There was I waiting at the church." Then he led a sort of Indian
+war-dance round the next victim of the matrimonial stake. At the end
+of the hullaballoo all the men charged their glasses, and drained them
+with an uproarious "How!"
+
+Poor Doctor Temple had taken luxurious delight in the success of his
+disguise and in the prospect of watching some other clergyman working
+while he rested. He joined the dance as gaily, if not as gracefully,
+as any of the rest, and in a final triumph of recklessness, he tossed
+off a bumper of straight whisky.
+
+Instantly his "How!" changed to "Wow!" and then his throat clamped
+fast with a terrific spasm that flung the tears from his eyes. He bent
+and writhed in a silent paroxysm till he was pounded and shaken back
+to life and water poured down his throat to reopen a passage.
+
+The others thought he had merely choked and made no comment other than
+sympathy. They could not have dreamed that the old "physician" was as
+ignorant of the taste as of the vigor of pure spirits.
+
+After a riot of handshaking and good wishes, Ira was permitted to
+escape with his life. Mallory followed him to the vestibule, where he
+caught him by the sleeve with an anxious:
+
+"Excuse me."
+
+"Well, my boy----"
+
+"Your minister--after you get through with him--may I use him?"
+
+"May you--what? Why do you want a minister?"
+
+"To get married."
+
+"Again? Good Lord, are you a Mormon?"
+
+"Me a Mormon!"
+
+"Then what do you want with an extra wife? It's against the law--even
+in Utah."
+
+"You don't understand."
+
+"My boy, one of us is disgracefully drunk."
+
+"Well, I'm not," said Mallory, and then after a fierce inner debate,
+he decided to take Lathrop into his confidence. The words came hard
+after so long a duplicity, but at last they were out:
+
+"Mr. Lathrop, I'm not really married to my wife."
+
+"You young scoundrel!"
+
+But his fury changed to pity when he heard the history of Mallory's
+ill-fated efforts, and he promised not only to lend Mallory his
+minister at secondhand, but also to keep the whole affair a secret,
+for Mallory explained his intention of having his own ceremony in the
+baggage-car, or somewhere out of sight of the other passengers.
+
+Mallory's face was now aglow as the cold embers of hope leaped into
+sudden blaze. He wrung Lathrop's hand, saying: "Lord love you, you've
+saved my life--wife--both."
+
+Then he turned and ran to Marjorie with the good news. He had quite
+forgotten their epoch-making separation. And she was so glad to see
+him smiling at her again that she forgot it, too. He came tearing into
+the observation room and took her by the shoulders, whispering: "Oh,
+Marjorie, Marjorie, I've got him! I've got him!"
+
+"No, I've got him," she said, swinging Snoozleums into view.
+
+Mallory swung him back out of the way: "I don't mean a poodle, I mean
+a parson. I've got a parson."
+
+"No! I can't believe it! Where is he?" She began to dance with
+delight, but she stopped when he explained:
+
+"Well, I haven't got him yet, but I'm going to get one."
+
+"What--again?" she groaned, weary of this old bunco game of hope.
+
+"It's a real live one this time," Mallory insisted. "Mr. Lathrop has
+ordered a minister and he's going to lend him to me as soon as he's
+through with him, and we'll be married on this train."
+
+Marjorie was overwhelmed, but she felt it becoming in her to be a
+trifle coy. So she pouted: "But you won't want me for a bride now. I'm
+such a fright."
+
+He took the bait, hook and all: "I never saw you looking so adorable."
+
+"Honestly? Oh, but it will be glorious to be Mrs. First Lieutenant
+Mallory."
+
+"Glorious!"
+
+"I must telegraph home--and sign my new name. Won't mamma be pleased?"
+
+"Won't she?" said Mallory, with just a trace of dubiety.
+
+Then Marjorie grew serious with a new idea: "I wonder if mamma and
+papa have missed me yet?"
+
+Mallory laughed: "After three days' disappearance, I shouldn't be
+surprised."
+
+"Perhaps they are worrying about me."
+
+"I shouldn't be surprised."
+
+"The poor dears! I'd better write them a telegram at once."
+
+"An excellent idea."
+
+She ran to the desk, found blank forms and then paused with knitted
+brow: "It will be very hard to say all I've got to say in ten words."
+
+"Hang the expense," Mallory sniffed magnificently, "I'm paying your
+bills now."
+
+But Marjorie tried to look very matronly: "Send a night letter in the
+day time! No, indeed, we must begin to economize."
+
+Mallory was touched by this new revelation of her future housewifely
+thrift. He hugged her hard and reminded her that she could send a
+day-letter by wire.
+
+"An excellent idea," she said. "Now, don't bother me. You go on and
+read your paper, read about Mattie. I'll never be jealous of
+her--him--of anybody--again."
+
+"You shall never have cause for jealousy, my own."
+
+But fate was not finished with the initiation of the unfortunate pair,
+and already new trouble was strolling in their direction.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXIX
+
+JEALOUSY COMES ABOARD
+
+
+There was an air of domestic peace in the observation room, where
+Mallory and Marjorie had been left to themselves for some time. But
+the peace was like the ominous hush that precedes a tempest.
+
+Mallory was so happy with everything coming his way, that he was even
+making up with Snoozleums, stroking the tatted coat with one hand and
+holding up his newspaper with the other. He did not know all that was
+coming his way. The blissful silence was broken first by Marjorie:
+
+"How do you spell Utah?--with a y?"
+
+"Utah begins with You," he said--and rather liked his wit, listened
+for some recognition, and rose to get it, but she waved him away.
+
+"Don't bother me, honey. Can't you see I'm busy?"
+
+He kissed her hair and sauntered back, dividing his attention between
+Snoozleums and the ten-inning game.
+
+And now there was a small commotion in the smoking room. Through the
+glass along the corridor the men caught sight of the girl who had got
+on at Green River. Ashton saw her first and she saw him.
+
+"There she goes," Ashton hissed to the others, "look quick! There's
+the nectarine."
+
+"My word! She's a little bit of all right, isn't she?"
+
+Even Dr. Temple stared at her with approval: "Dear little thing, isn't
+she?"
+
+The girl, very consciously unconscious of the admiration, moved
+demurely along, with eyes downcast, but at such an angle that she
+could take in the sensation she was creating; she went along picking
+up stares as if they were bouquets.
+
+Her demeanor was a remarkable compromise between outrageous flirtation
+and perfect respectability. But she was looking back so intently that
+when she moved into the observation room she walked right into the
+newspaper Mallory was holding out before him.
+
+Both said: "I beg your pardon."
+
+When Mallory lowered the paper, both stared till their eyes almost
+popped. Her amazement was one of immediate rapture. He looked as if he
+would have been much obliged for a volcanic crater to sink into.
+
+"Harry!" she gasped, and let fall her handbag.
+
+"Kitty!" he gasped, and let fall his newspaper. Both bent, he handed
+her the newspaper and tossed the handbag into a chair; saw his
+mistake, withdrew the newspaper and proffered her Snoozleums. Marjorie
+stopped writing, pen poised in air, as if she had suddenly been
+petrified.
+
+The newcomer was the first to speak. She fairly gushed: "Harry
+Mallory--of all people."
+
+"Kitty! Kathleen! Miss Llewellyn!"
+
+"Just to think of meeting you again."
+
+"Just to think of it."
+
+"And on this train of all places."
+
+"On this train of all places!"
+
+"Oh, Harry, Harry!"
+
+"Oh, Kitty, Kitty, Kitty!"
+
+"You dear fellow, it's so long since I saw you last."
+
+"So long."
+
+"It was at that last hop at West Point, remember?--why, it seems only
+yesterday, and how well you are looking. You are well, aren't you?"
+
+"Not very." He was mopping his brow in anguish, and yet the room
+seemed strangely cold.
+
+"Of course you look much better in your uniform. You aren't wearing
+your uniform, are you?"
+
+"No, this is not my uniform."
+
+"You haven't left the army, have you?"
+
+"I don't know yet."
+
+"Don't ever do that. You are just beautiful in brass buttons."
+
+"Thanks."
+
+"Harry!"
+
+"What's the matter now?"
+
+"This tie, this green tie, isn't this the one I knitted you?"
+
+"I am sure I don't know, I borrowed it from the conductor."
+
+"Don't you remember? I did knit you one."
+
+"Did you? I believe you did! I think I wore it out."
+
+"Oh, you fickle boy. But see what I have. What's this?"
+
+He stared through the glassy eyes of complete helplessness. "It looks
+like a bracelet."
+
+"Don't tell me you don't remember this!--the little bangle bracelet
+you gave me."
+
+"D-did I give you a baygled branglet?"
+
+"Of course you did. And the inscription. Don't you remember it?"
+
+She held her wrist in front of his aching eyes and he perused as if it
+were his own epitaph, what she read aloud for him. "_From Harry to
+Kitty, the Only Girl I Ever Loved._"
+
+"Good night!" he sighed to himself, and began to mop his brow with
+Snoozleums.
+
+"You put it on my arm," said Kathleen, with a moonlight sigh, "and
+I've always worn it."
+
+"Always?"
+
+"Always! no matter whom I was engaged to."
+
+The desperate wretch, who had not dared even to glance in Marjorie's
+direction, somehow thought he saw a straw of self-defense. "You were
+engaged to three or four others when I was at West Point."
+
+"I may have been engaged to the others," said Kathleen, moon-eyeing
+him, "but I always liked you best, Clifford--er, Tommy--I mean Harry."
+
+"You got me at last."
+
+Kathleen fenced back at this: "Well, I've no doubt you have had a
+dozen affairs since."
+
+"Oh, no! My heart has only known one real love." He threw this over
+her head at Marjorie, but Kathleen seized it, to his greater
+confusion: "Oh, Harry, how sweet of you to say it. It makes me feel
+positively faint," and she swooned his way, but he shoved a chair
+forward and let her collapse into that. Thinking and hoping that she
+was unconscious, he made ready to escape, but she caught him by the
+coat, and moaned: "Where am I?" and he growled back:
+
+"In the Observation Car!"
+
+Kathleen's life and enthusiasm returned without delay: "Fancy meeting
+you again! I could just scream."
+
+"So could I."
+
+"You must come up in our car and see mamma."
+
+"Is Ma-mamma with you?" Mallory stammered, on the verge of imbecility.
+
+"Oh, yes, indeed, we're going around the world."
+
+"Don't let me detain you."
+
+"Papa is going round the world also."
+
+"Is papa on this train, too?"
+
+At last something seemed to embarrass her a trifle: "No, papa went on
+ahead. Mamma hopes to overtake him. But papa is a very good traveler."
+
+Then she changed the subject. "Do come and meet mamma. It would cheer
+her up so. She is so fond of you. Only this morning she was saying,
+'Of all the boys you were ever engaged to, Kathleen, the one I like
+most of all was Edgar--I mean Clarence--er--Harry Mallory."
+
+"Awfully kind of her."
+
+"You must come and see her--she's some stouter now!"
+
+"Oh, is she? Well, that's good."
+
+Mallory was too angry to be sane, and too helpless to take advantage
+of his anger. He wondered how he could ever have cared for this
+molasses and mucilage girl. He remembered now that she had always had
+these same cloying ways. She had always pawed him and, like everybody
+but the pawers, he hated pawing.
+
+It would have been bad enough at any time to have Kathleen hanging on
+his coat, straightening his tie, leaning close, smiling up in his
+eyes, losing him his balance, recapturing him every time he edged
+away. But with Marjorie as the grim witness it was maddening.
+
+He loathed and abominated Kathleen Llewellyn, and if she had only been
+a man, he could cheerfully have beaten her to a pulp and chucked her
+out of the window. But because she was a helpless little baggage, he
+had to be as polite as he could while she sat and tore his plans to
+pieces, embittered Marjorie's heart against him, and either ended all
+hopes of their marriage, or furnished an everlasting rancor to be
+recalled in every quarrel to their dying day. Oh, etiquette, what
+injustices are endured in thy name!
+
+So there he sat, sweating his soul's blood, and able only to spar for
+time and wonder when the gong would ring. And now she was off on a new
+tack:
+
+"And where are you bound for, Harry, dear?"
+
+"The Philippines," he said, and for the first time there was something
+beautiful in their remoteness.
+
+"Perhaps we shall cross the Pacific on the same boat."
+
+The first sincere smile he had experienced came to him: "I go on an
+army transport, fortu--unfortunately."
+
+"Oh, I just love soldiers. Couldn't mamma and I go on the transport?
+Mamma is very fond of soldiers, too."
+
+"I'm afraid it couldn't be arranged."
+
+"Too bad, but perhaps we can stop off and pay you a visit. I just
+love army posts. So does mamma."
+
+"Oh, do!"
+
+"What will be your address?"
+
+"Just the Philippines--just the Philippines."
+
+"But aren't there quite a few of them?"
+
+"Only about two thousand."
+
+"Which one will you be on?"
+
+"I'll be on the third from the left," said Mallory, who neither knew
+nor cared what he was saying. Marjorie had endured all that she could
+stand. She rose in a tightly leashed fury.
+
+"I'm afraid I'm in the way."
+
+Kathleen turned in surprise. She had not noticed that anyone was near.
+Mallory went out of his head completely. "Oh, don't go--for heaven's
+sake don't go," he appealed to Marjorie.
+
+"A friend of yours?" said Kathleen, bristling.
+
+"No, not a friend," in a chaotic tangle,
+"Mrs.--Miss--Miss--Er--er--er----"
+
+Kathleen smiled: "Delighted to meet you, Miss Ererer."
+
+"The pleasure is all mine," Marjorie said, with an acid smile.
+
+"Have you known Harry long?" said Kathleen, jealously, "or are you
+just acquaintances on the train?"
+
+"We're just acquaintances on the train!"
+
+"I used to know Harry very well--very well indeed."
+
+"So I should judge. You won't mind if I leave you to talk over old
+times together?"
+
+"How very sweet of you."
+
+"Oh, don't mention it."
+
+"But, Marjorie," Mallory cried, as she turned away. Kathleen started
+at the ardor of his tone, and gasped: "Marjorie! Then he--you----"
+
+"Not at all--not in the least," said Marjorie.
+
+At this crisis the room was suddenly inundated with people. Mrs.
+Whitcomb, Mrs. Wellington, Mrs. Temple and Mrs. Fosdick, all trying to
+look like bridesmaids, danced in, shouting:
+
+"Here they come! Make way for the bride and groom!"
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXX
+
+A WEDDING ON WHEELS
+
+
+The commotion of the matrimony-mad women brought the men trooping in
+from the smoking room and there was much circumstance of decorating
+the scene with white satin ribbons, a trifle crumpled and dim of
+luster. Mrs. Whitcomb waved them at Mallory with a laugh:
+
+"Recognize these?"
+
+He nodded dismally. His own funeral baked meats were coldly furnishing
+forth a wedding breakfast for Ira Lathrop. Mrs. Wellington was moving
+about distributing kazoos and Mrs. Temple had an armload of old shoes,
+some of which had thumped Mallory on an occasion which seemed so
+ancient as to be almost prehistoric.
+
+Fosdick was howling to the porter to get some rice, quick!
+
+"How many portions does you approximate?"
+
+"All you've got."
+
+"Boiled or fried?"
+
+"Any old way." The porter ran forward to the dining-car for the
+ammunition.
+
+Mrs. Temple whispered to her husband: "Too bad you're not officiating,
+Walter." But he cautioned silence:
+
+"Hush! I'm on my vacation."
+
+The train was already coming into Ogden. Noises were multiplying and
+from the increase of passing objects, the speed seemed to be taking on
+a spurt. The bell was clamoring like a wedding chime in a steeple.
+
+Mrs. Wellington was on a chair fastening a ribbon round one of the
+lamps, and Mrs. Whitcomb was on another chair braiding the bell rope
+with withered orange branches, when Ashton, with kazoo all ready,
+called out:
+
+"What tune shall we play?"
+
+"I prefer the Mendelssohn Wedding March," said Mrs. Whitcomb, but Mrs.
+Wellington glared across at her.
+
+"I've always used the Lohengrin."
+
+"We'll play 'em both," said Dr. Temple, to make peace.
+
+Mrs. Fosdick murmured to her spouse: "The old Justice of the Peace
+didn't give us any music at all," and received in reward one of his
+most luscious-eyed looks, and a whisper: "But he gave us each other."
+
+"Now and then," she pouted.
+
+"But where are the bride and groom?"
+
+"Here they come--all ready," cried Ashton, and he beat time while
+some of the guests kazooed at Mendelssohn's and some Wagner's bridal
+melodies, and others just made a noise.
+
+Ira Lathrop and Anne Gattle, looking very sheepish, crowded through
+the narrow corridor and stood shamefacedly blushing like two school
+children about to sing a duet.
+
+The train jolted to a dead stop. The conductor called into the car:
+"Ogden! All out for Ogden!" and everybody stood watching and waiting.
+
+Ira, seeing Mallory, edged close and whispered: "Stand by to catch the
+minister on the rebound."
+
+But Mallory turned away. What use had he now for ministers? His plans
+were shattered ruins.
+
+The porter came flying in with two large bowls of rice, and shouting,
+"Here comes the 'possum--er posson." Seeing Marjorie, he said: "Shall
+I perambulate Mista Snoozleums?"
+
+She handed the porter her only friend and he hurried out, as a lean
+and professionally sad ascetic hurried in. He did not recognize his
+boyish enemy in the gray-haired, red-faced giant that greeted him, but
+he knew that voice and its gloating irony:
+
+"Hello, Charlie."
+
+He had always found that when Ira grinned and was cordial, some
+trouble was in store for him. He wondered what rock Ira held behind
+his back now, but he forced an uneasy cordiality: "And is this you,
+Ira? Well, well! It is yeahs since last we met. And you're just
+getting married. Is this the first time, Ira?"
+
+"First offense, Charlie."
+
+The levity shocked Selby, but a greater shock was in store, for when
+he inquired: "And who is the--er--happy--bride?" the triumphant
+Lathrop snickered: "I believe you used to know her. Anne Gattle."
+
+This was the rock behind Ira's back, and Selby took it with a wince:
+"Not--my old----"
+
+"The same. Anne, you remember, Charlie."
+
+"Oh, yes," said Anne, "How do you do, Charlie?" And she put out a shy
+hand, which he took with one still shyer. He was so unsettled that he
+stammered: "Well, well, I had always hoped to marry you, Anne, but not
+just this way."
+
+Lathrop cut him short with a sharp: "Better get busy--before the train
+starts. And I'll pay you in advance before you set off the fireworks."
+
+The flippancy pained the Rev. Charles, but he was resuscitated by one
+glance at the bill that Ira thrust into his palm. If a man's gratitude
+for his wife is measured by the size of the fee he hands the enabling
+parson, Ira was madly in love with Anne. The Rev. Charles had a
+reminiscent suspicion that it was probably a counterfeit, but for once
+he did Ira an injustice.
+
+The minister was in such a flutter from losing his boyhood love, and
+gaining so much money all at once and from performing the marriage on
+a train, that he made numerous errors in the ceremony, but nobody
+noticed them, and the spirit, if not the letter of the occasion, was
+there and the contract was doubtless legal enough.
+
+The ritual began with the pleasant murmur of the preacher's voice, and
+the passengers crowded round in a solemn calm, which was suddenly
+violated by a loud yelp of laughter from Wedgewood, who emitted guffaw
+after guffaw and bent double and opened out again, like an agitated
+umbrella.
+
+The wedding-guests turned on him visages of horror, and hissed silence
+at him. Ashton seized him, shook him, and muttered:
+
+"What the--what's the matter with you?"
+
+The Englishman shook like a boy having a spasm of giggles at a
+funeral, and blurted out the explanation:
+
+"That story about the bridegroom--I just saw the point!"
+
+Ashton closed his jaw by brute force and watched over him through the
+rest of the festivity.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXXI
+
+FOILED YET AGAIN
+
+
+Mallory had fled from the scene at the first hum of the minister's
+words. His fate was like alkali on his palate. For twelve hundred
+miles he had ransacked the world for a minister. When one dropped on
+the train like manna through the roof, even this miracle had to be
+checkmated by a perverse miracle that sent to the train an early
+infatuation, a silly affair that he himself called puppy-love. And now
+Marjorie would never marry him. He did not blame her. He blamed fate.
+
+He was in solitude in the smoking room. The place reeked with drifting
+tobacco smoke and the malodor of cigar stubs and cigarette ends. His
+plans were as useless and odious as cigarette ends. He dropped into a
+chair his elbows on his knees and his head in his hands--Napoleon on
+St. Helena.
+
+And then, suddenly he heard Marjorie's voice. He turned and saw her
+hesitating in the doorway. He rose to welcome her, but the smile died
+on his lips at her chilly speech:
+
+"May I have a word with you, sir?"
+
+"Of course. The air's rather thick in here," he apologized.
+
+"Just wait!" she said, ominously, and stalked in like a young Zenobia.
+He put out an appealing hand: "Now, Marjorie, listen to reason. Of
+course I know you won't marry me now."
+
+"Oh, you know that, do you?" she said, with a squared jaw.
+
+"But, really, you ought to marry me--not merely because I love
+you--and you're the only girl I ever----" He stopped short and she
+almost smiled as she taunted him: "Go on--I dare you to say it."
+
+He swallowed hard and waived the point: "Well, anyway, you ought to
+marry me--for your own sake."
+
+Then she took his breath away by answering: "Oh, I'm going to marry
+you, never fear."
+
+"You are," he cried, with a rush of returning hope. "Oh, I knew you
+loved me."
+
+She pushed his encircling arms aside: "I don't love you, and that's
+why I'm going to marry you."
+
+"But I don't understand."
+
+"Of course not," she sneered, as if she were a thousand years old,
+"you're only a man--and a very young man."
+
+"You've ceased to love me," he protested, "just because of a little
+affair I had before I met you?"
+
+Marjorie answered with world-old wisdom: "A woman can forgive a man
+anything except what he did before he met her."
+
+He stared at her with masculine dismay at feminine logic: "If you
+can't forgive me, then why do you marry me?"
+
+"For revenge!" she cried. "You brought me on this train all this
+distance to introduce me to a girl you used to spoon with. And I don't
+like her. She's awful!"
+
+"Yes, she is awful," Mallory assented. "I don't know how I ever----"
+
+"Oh, you admit it!"
+
+"No."
+
+"Well, I'm going to marry you--now--this minute--with that preacher,
+then I'm going to get off at Reno and divorce you."
+
+"Divorce me! Good Lord! On what grounds?"
+
+"On the grounds of Miss Kitty--Katty--Llewellington--or whatever her
+name is."
+
+Mallory was groggy with punishment, and the vain effort to foresee her
+next blow. "But you can't name a woman that way," he pleaded, "for
+just being nice to me before I ever met you."
+
+"That's the worst kind of unfaithfulness," she reiterated. "You should
+have known that some day you would meet me. You should have saved your
+first love for me."
+
+"But last love is best," Mallory interposed, weakly.
+
+"Oh, no, it isn't, and if it is, how do I know I'm to be your last
+love? No, sir, when I've divorced you, you can go back to your first
+love and go round the world with her till you get dizzy."
+
+"But I don't want her for a wife," Mallory urged, "I want you."
+
+"You'll get me--but not for long. And one other thing, I want you to
+get that bracelet away from that creature. Do you promise?"
+
+"How can I get it away?"
+
+"Take it away! Do you promise?"
+
+Mallory surrendered completely. Anything to get Marjorie safely into
+his arms: "I promise anything, if you'll really marry me."
+
+"Oh, I'll marry you, sir, but not really."
+
+And while he stared in helpless awe at the cynic and termagant that
+jealousy had metamorphosed this timid, clinging creature into, they
+heard the conductor's voice at the rear door of the car: "Hurry
+up--we've got to start."
+
+They heard Lathrop's protest: "Hold on there, conductor," and Selby's
+plea: "Oh, I say, my good man, wait a moment, can't you?"
+
+The conductor answered with the gruffness of a despot: "Not a minute.
+I've my orders to make up lost time. All aboard!"
+
+While the minister was tying the last loose ends of the matrimonial
+knot, Mallory and Marjorie were struggling through the crowd to get at
+him. Just as they were near, they were swept aside by the rush of the
+bride and groom, for the parson's "I pronounce you man and wife,"
+pronounced as he backed toward the door, was the signal for another
+wedding riot.
+
+Once more Ira and Anne were showered with rice. This time it was their
+own. Ira darted out into the corridor, haling his brand-new wife by
+the wrist, and the wedding guests pursued them across the vestibule,
+through the next car, and on, and on.
+
+Nobody remained to notice what happened to the parson. Having
+performed his function, he was without further interest or use. But to
+Mallory and Marjorie he was vitally necessary.
+
+Mallory caught his hand as it turned the knob of the door and drew him
+back. Marjorie, equally determined, caught his other elbow:
+
+"Please don't go," Mallory urged, "until you've married us."
+
+The Reverend Charles stared at his captors in amazement:
+
+"But my dear man, the train's moving."
+
+Marjorie clung all the tighter and invited him to "Come on to the next
+stop."
+
+"But my dear lady," Selby gasped, "it's impossible."
+
+"You've just got to," Mallory insisted.
+
+"Release me, please."
+
+"Never!"
+
+"How dare you!" the parson shrieked, and with a sudden wriggle writhed
+out of his coat, leaving it in Marjorie's hands. He darted to the door
+and flung it open, with Mallory hot after him.
+
+The train was kicking up a cloud of dust and getting its stride. The
+kidnapped clergyman paused a moment, aghast at the speed with which
+the ground was being paid out. Then he climbed the brass rail and,
+with a hasty prayer, dropped overboard.
+
+Mallory lunged at him, and seized him by his reversed collar. But the
+collar alone remained in his clutch. The parson was almost lost in the
+dust he created as he struck, bounded and rolled till he came to a
+stop, with his stars and his prayers to thank for injuries to nothing
+worse than his dignity and other small clothes.
+
+Mallory returned to the observation room and flung the collar and bib
+to the floor in a fury of despair, howling:
+
+"He got away! He got away!"
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXXII
+
+THE EMPTY BERTH
+
+
+The one thing Mallory was beginning to learn about Marjorie was that
+she would never take the point of view he expected, and never proceed
+along the lines of his logic.
+
+She had grown furious at him for what he could not help. She had told
+him that she would marry him out of spite. She had commanded him to
+pursue and apprehend the flying parson. He failed and returned
+crestfallen and wondering what new form her rage would take.
+
+And, lo and behold, when she saw him so downcast and helpless, she
+rushed to him with caresses, cuddled his broad shoulders against her
+breast, and smothered him. It was the sincerity of his dejection and
+the complete helplessness he displayed that won her woman's heart.
+
+Mallory gazed at her with almost more wonderment than delight. This
+was another flashlight on her character. Most courtships are conducted
+under a rose-light in which wooer and wooed wear their best clothes or
+their best behavior; or in a starlit, moonlit, or gaslit twilight
+where romance softens angles and wraps everything in velvet shadow.
+Then the two get married and begin to live together in the cold, gray
+daylight of realism, with undignified necessities and harrowing
+situations at every step, and disillusion begins its deadly work.
+
+This young couple was undergoing all the inconveniences and
+temper-exposures of marriage without its blessed compensations. They
+promised to be well acquainted before they were wed. If they still
+wanted each other after this ordeal, they were pretty well assured
+that their marriage would not be a failure.
+
+Mallory rejoiced to see that the hurricane of Marjorie's jealousy had
+only whipped up the surface of her soul. The great depths were still
+calm and unmoved, and her love for him was in and of the depths.
+
+Soon after leaving Ogden, the train entered upon the great bridge
+across the Great Salt Lake. The other passengers were staring at the
+enormous engineering masterpiece and the conductor was pointing out
+that, in order to save forty miles and the crossing of two mountain
+chains, the railroad had devoted four years of labor and millions of
+dollars to stretching a thirty-mile bridge across this inland ocean.
+
+But Marjorie and Mallory never noticed it. They were absorbed in
+exploring each other's souls, and they had safely bridged the Great
+Salt Lake which the first big bitter jealousy spreads across every
+matrimonial route.
+
+They were undisturbed in their voyage, for all the other passengers
+had their noses flattened against the window panes of the other
+cars--all except one couple, gazing each at each through time-wrinkled
+eyelids touched with the magic of a tardy honeymoon.
+
+For all that Anne and Ira knew, the Great Salt Lake was a moon-swept
+lagoon, and the arid mountains of Nevada which the train went scaling,
+were the very hillsides of Arcadia.
+
+But the other passengers soon came trooping back into the observation
+room. Ira had told them nothing of Mallory's confession. In the first
+place, he was a man who had learned to keep a secret, and in the
+second place, he had forgotten that such persons as Mallory or his
+Marjorie existed. All the world was summed up in the fearsomely happy
+little spinster who had moved up into his section--the section which
+had begun its career draped in satin ribbons unwittingly prophetic.
+
+The communion of Mallory and Marjorie under the benison of
+reconciliation was invaded by the jokes of the other passengers,
+unconsciously ironic.
+
+Dr. Temple chaffed them amiably: "You two will have to take a back
+seat now. We've got a new bridal couple to amuse us."
+
+And Mrs. Temple welcomed them with: "You're only old married folks,
+like us."
+
+The Mallorys were used to the misunderstanding. But the misplaced
+witticisms gave them reassurance that their secret was safe yet a
+little while. At their dinner-table, however, and in the long evening
+that followed they were haunted by the fact that this was their last
+night on the train, and no minister to be expected.
+
+And now once more the Mallorys regained the star rôles in the esteem
+of the audience, for once more they quarreled at good-night-kissing
+time. Once more they required two sections, while Anne Gattle's berth
+was not even made up. It remained empty, like a deserted nest, for its
+occupant had flown South.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXXIII
+
+FRESH TROUBLE DAILY
+
+
+The following morning the daylight creeping into section number one
+found Ira and Anne staring at each other. Ira was tousled and Anne was
+unkempt, but her blush still gave her cheek at least an Indian summer
+glow.
+
+After a violent effort to reach the space between her shoulder blades,
+she was compelled to appeal to her new master to act as her new maid.
+
+"Oh, Mr. Lathrop," she stammered--"Ira," she corrected, "won't you
+please hook me up?" she pleaded.
+
+Ira beamed with a second childhood boyishness: "I'll do my best, my
+little ootsum-tootsums, it's the first time I ever tried it."
+
+"Oh, I'm so glad," Anne sighed, "it's the first time I ever was hooked
+up by a gentleman."
+
+He gurgled with joy and, forgetting the poverty of space, tried to
+reach her lips to kiss her. He almost broke her neck and bumped his
+head so hard that instead of saying, as he intended, "My darling," he
+said, "Oh, hell!"
+
+"Ira!" she gasped. But he, with all the proprietorship he had assumed,
+answered cheerily: "You'll have to get used to it, ducky darling. I
+could never learn not to swear." He proved the fact again and again by
+the remarks he addressed to certain refractory hooks. He apologized,
+but she felt more like apologizing for herself.
+
+"Oh, Ira," she said, "I'm so ashamed to have you see me like this--the
+first morning."
+
+"Well, you haven't got anything on me--I'm not shaved."
+
+"You don't have to tell me that," she said, rubbing her smarting
+cheek. Then she bumped her head and gasped: "Oh--what you said."
+
+This made them feel so much at home that she attained the heights of
+frankness and honesty by reaching in her handbag for a knob of
+supplementary hair, which she affixed dextrously to what was
+homegrown. Ira, instead of looking shocked, loved her for her honesty,
+and grinned:
+
+"Now, that's where you have got something on me. Say, we're like a
+couple of sardines trying to make love in a tin can."
+
+"It's cosy though," she said, and then vanished through the curtains
+and shyly ran the gauntlet of amused glances and over-cordial "Good
+mornings" till she hid her blushes behind the door of the women's room
+and turned the key. If she had thought of it she would have said, "God
+bless the man that invented doors--and the other angel that invented
+locks."
+
+The passengers this morning were all a little brisker than usual. It
+was the last day aboard for everybody and they showed a certain extra
+animation, like the inmates of an ocean liner when land has been
+sighted.
+
+Ashton was shaving when Ira swaggered into the men's room. Without
+pausing to note whom he was addressing, Ashton sang out:
+
+"Good morning. Did you rest well?"
+
+"What!" Ira roared.
+
+"Oh, excuse me!" said Ashton, hastily, devoting himself to a gash his
+safety razor had made in his cheek--even in that cheek of his.
+
+Ira scrubbed out the basin, filled it and tried to dive into it,
+slapping the cold water in double handfuls over his glowing face and
+puffing through it like a porpoise.
+
+Meanwhile the heavy-eyed Fosdick was slinking through the dining-car,
+regarded with amazement by Dr. Temple and his wife, who were already
+up and breakfasting.
+
+"What's the matter with the bridal couples on this train, anyway?"
+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 Fosdick 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. Fosdick 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. Fosdick 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?"
+
+Fosdick 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 scrap 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.
+
+"You may give me my portmanteau."
+
+"Yassah." He dragged it from the upper berth, and set it inside
+Wedgewood's berth without special care as to its destination. "Does
+you desire anything else, sir?"
+
+"Yes, your absence," said Wedgewood.
+
+"The same to you and many of them," the porter muttered to himself,
+and added to Marjorie, who was just starting down the aisle: "I'll
+suttainly be interested in that man gittin' where he's goin' to git
+to." Noting that she carried Snoozleums, he said: "We're comin' into a
+station right soon." Without further discussion she handed him the
+dog, and he hobbled away.
+
+When she reached the women's door, she found Mrs. Wellington waiting
+with increasing exasperation: "Come, join the line at the box office,"
+she said.
+
+"Good morning. Who's in there?" said Marjorie, and Mrs. Wellington,
+not noting that Mrs. Whitcomb had come out of her berth and fallen
+into line, answered sharply:
+
+"I don't know. She's been there forever. I'm sure it's that cat of a
+Mrs. Whitcomb."
+
+"Good morning, Mrs. Mallory," snapped Mrs. Whitcomb.
+
+Mrs. Wellington was rather proud that the random shot landed, but
+Marjorie felt most uneasy between the two tigresses: "Good morning,
+Mrs. Whitcomb," she said. There was a disagreeable silence, broken
+finally by Mrs. Wellington's: "Oh, Mrs. Mallory, would you be angelic
+enough to hook my gown?"
+
+"Of course I will," said Marjorie.
+
+"May I hook you?" said Mrs. Whitcomb.
+
+"You're awfully kind," said Marjorie, presenting her shoulders to Mrs.
+Whitcomb, who asked with malicious sweetness: "Why didn't your husband
+do this for you this morning?"
+
+"I--I don't remember," Marjorie stammered, and Mrs. Wellington tossed
+over-shoulder an apothegm: "He's no husband till he's hook-broken."
+
+Just then Mrs. Fosdick came out of her stateroom. Seeing Mrs.
+Whitcomb's waist agape, she went at it with a brief, "Good morning,
+everybody. Permit me."
+
+Mrs. Wellington twisted her head to say "Good morning," and to ask,
+"Are you hooked, Mrs. Fosdick?"
+
+"Not yet," pouted Mrs. Fosdick.
+
+"Turn round and back up," said Mrs. Wellington. After some
+maneuvering, the women formed a complete circle, and fingers plied
+hooks and eyes in a veritable Ladies' Mutual Aid Society.
+
+By now, Wedgewood was ready to appear in a bathrobe about as gaudy as
+the royal standard of Great Britain. He stalked down the aisle, and
+answered the male chorus's cheery "Good morning" with a ramlike "Baw."
+
+Ira Lathrop felt amiable even toward the foreigner, and he observed:
+"Glorious morning this morning."
+
+"I dare say," growled Wedgewood. "I don't go in much for
+mawnings--especially when I have no tub."
+
+Wellington felt called upon to squelch him: "You Englishmen never had
+a real tub till we Americans sold 'em to you."
+
+"I dare say," said Wedgewood indifferently. "You sell 'em. We use 'em.
+But, do you know, I've just thought out a ripping idea. I shall have
+my cold bath this mawning after all."
+
+"What are you going to do?" growled Lathrop. "Crawl in the icewater
+tank?"
+
+"Oh, dear, no. I shouldn't be let," and he produced from his pocket a
+rubber hose. "I simply affix this little tube to one end of the
+spigot and wave the sprinklah hyah over my--er--my person."
+
+Lathrop stared at him pityingly, and demanded: "What happens to the
+water, then?"
+
+"What do I care?" said Wedgewood.
+
+"You durned fool, you'd flood the car."
+
+Wedgewood's high hopes withered. "I hadn't thought of that," he
+sighed. "I suppose I must continue just as I am till I reach San
+Francisco. The first thing I shall order to-night will be four cold
+tubs and a lemon squash."
+
+While the men continued to make themselves presentable in a huddle,
+the hook-and-eye society at the other end of the car finished with the
+four waists and Mrs. Fosdick hurried away to keep her tryst in the
+dining-car. The three remaining relapsed into dreary attitudes. Mrs.
+Wellington shook the knob of the forbidding door, and turned to
+complain: "What in heaven's name ails the creature in there. She must
+have fallen out of the window."
+
+"It's outrageous," said Marjorie, "the way women violate women's
+rights."
+
+Mrs. Whitcomb saw an opportunity to insert a stiletto. She observed to
+Marjorie, with an innocent air: "Why, Mrs. Mallory, I've even known
+women to lock themselves in there and smoke!"
+
+While Mrs. Wellington was rummaging her brain for a fitting retort,
+the door opened, and out stepped Miss Gattle, as was.
+
+She blushed furiously at sight of the committee waiting to greet her,
+but they repented their criticisms and tried to make up for them by
+the excessive warmth with which they all exclaimed at once: "Good
+morning, Mrs. Lathrop!"
+
+"Good morning, who?" said Anne, then blushed yet redder: "Oh, I can't
+seem to get used to that name! I hope I haven't kept you waiting?"
+
+"Oh, not at all!" the women insisted, and Anne fled to number Six,
+remembered that this was no longer her home, and moved on to number
+One. Here the porter was just finishing his restoring tasks, and
+laying aside with some diffidence two garments which Anne hastily
+stuffed into her own valise.
+
+Meanwhile Marjorie was pushing Mrs. Wellington ahead:
+
+"You go in first, Mrs. Wellington."
+
+"You go first. I have no husband waiting for me," said Mrs.
+Wellington.
+
+"Oh, I insist," said Marjorie.
+
+"I couldn't think of it," persisted Mrs. Wellington. "I won't allow
+you."
+
+And then Mrs. Whitcomb pushed them both aside: "Pardon me, won't you?
+I'm getting off at Reno."
+
+"So am I," gasped Mrs. Wellington, rushing forward, only to be faced
+by the slam of the door and the click of the key. She whirled back to
+demand of Marjorie: "Did you ever hear of such impudence?"
+
+"I never did."
+
+"I'll never be ready for Reno," Mrs. Wellington wailed, "and I haven't
+had my breakfast."
+
+"You'd better order it in advance," said Marjorie. "It takes that chef
+an hour to boil an egg three minutes."
+
+"I will, if I can ever get my face washed," sighed Mrs. Wellington.
+
+And now Mrs. Anne Lathrop, after much hesitation, called timidly:
+"Porter--porter--please!"
+
+"Yes--miss--missus!" he amended.
+
+"Will you call my--" she gulped--"my husband?"
+
+"Yes, ma'am," the porter chuckled, and putting his grinning head in at
+the men's door, he bowed to Ira and said: "Excuse me, but you are sent
+for by the lady in number One."
+
+Ashton slapped him on the back and roared: "Oh, you married man!"
+
+"Well," said Ira, in self-defence, "I don't hear anybody sending for
+you." Wedgewood grinned at Ashton. "I rather fancy he had you theah,
+old top, eh, what?"
+
+Ira appeared at number One, and bending over his treasure-trove, spoke
+in a voice that was pure saccharine: "Are you ready for breakfast,
+dear?"
+
+"Yes, Ira."
+
+"Come along to the dining-car."
+
+"It's cosier here," she said. "Couldn't we have it served here?"
+
+"But it'll get all cold, and I'm hungry," pouted the old bachelor, to
+whom breakfast was a sacred institution.
+
+"All right, Ira," said Anne, glad to be meek; "come along," and she
+rose.
+
+Ira hesitated. "Still, if you'd rather, we'll eat here." He sat down.
+
+"Oh, not at all," said Anne; "we'll go where you want to go."
+
+"But I want to do what you want to do."
+
+"So do I--we'll go," said Anne.
+
+"We'll stay."
+
+"No, I insist on the dining-car."
+
+"Oh, all right, have your own way," said Ira, as if he were being
+bullied, and liked it. Anne smiled at the contrariness of men, and Ira
+smiled at the contrariness of women, and when they reached the
+vestibule they kissed each other in mutual forgiveness.
+
+As Wedgewood stropped an old-fashioned razor, he said to Ashton, who
+was putting up his safety equipment: "I say, old party, are those
+safety razors safe? Can't you really cut yourself?"
+
+"Cut everything but hair," said Ashton, pointing to his wounded chin.
+
+Mallory put out his hand: "Would you be kind enough to lend me your
+razor again this morning?"
+
+"Sure thing," said Ashton. "You'll find your blade in the box there."
+
+Mallory then negotiated the loan of one more fresh shirt from the
+Englishman, and a clean collar from Ashton. He rejoiced that the end
+of the day would bring him in touch with his own baggage. Four days of
+foraging on the country was enough for this soldier.
+
+Also he felt, now that he and Marjorie had lived thus long, they could
+survive somehow till evening brought them to San Francisco, where
+there were hundreds of ministers. And then the conductor must ruin his
+early morning optimism, though he made his appearance in the washroom
+with genial good mornings for all.
+
+Mallory acknowledged the greeting, and asked offhandedly: "By the way,
+how's she running?"
+
+The conductor answered even more offhandedly: "About two hours
+late--and losin'."
+
+Mallory was transfixed with a new fear: "Good Lord, my transport sails
+at sunrise."
+
+"Oh, we ought to make 'Frisco by midnight, anyway."
+
+"Midnight, and sail at daylight!"
+
+"Unless we lose a little more time."
+
+Mallory realized that every new day managed to create its own
+anxieties. With the regularity of a milkman, each morning left a fresh
+crisis on his doorstep.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXXIV
+
+THE COMPLETE DIVORCER
+
+
+The other passengers were growing nervous with their own troubles. The
+next stop was Reno, and in spite of all the wit that is heaped upon
+the town, it is a solemn place to those who must go there in
+purgatorial penance for matrimonial error.
+
+Some honest souls regard such divorce-emporiums as dens of evil, where
+the wicked make a mockery of the sacrament and assail the foundations
+of society, by undermining the home. Other equally honest souls,
+believing that marriage is a human institution whose mishaps and
+mistakes should be rectified as far as possible, regard the divorce
+courts as cities of refuge for ill-treated or ill-mated women and men
+whose lives may be saved from utter ruination by the intervention of
+high-minded judges.
+
+But, whichever view is right, the ordeal by divorce is terrifying
+enough to the poor sinners or martyrs who must undergo it.
+
+Little Jimmie Wellington turned pale, and stammered, as he tried to
+ask the conductor casually:
+
+"What kind of a place is that Reno?"
+
+The conductor, somewhat cynical from close association with the
+divorce-mill and its grist, grinned: "That depends on what you're
+leaving behind. Most folks seem to get enough of it in about six
+months."
+
+Then he went his way, leaving Wellington red, agape and perplexed. The
+trouble with Wellington was that he had brought along what he was
+leaving behind. Or, as Ashton impudently observed: "You ought to enjoy
+your residence there, Wellington, with your wife on hand."
+
+The only repartee that Wellington could think of was a rather
+uninspired: "You go to ----."
+
+"So long as it isn't Reno," Ashton laughed, and walked away.
+
+Wedgewood laid a sympathetic hand on Little Jimmie's shoulder, and
+said:
+
+"That Ashton is no end of a bounder, what?"
+
+Wellington wrote his epitaph in these words:
+
+"Well, the worst I can say of him is, he's the kind of man that
+doesn't lift the plug out when he's through with the basin."
+
+He liked this so well that he wished he had thought of it in time to
+crack it over Ashton's head. He decided to hand it to him anyway. He
+forgot that the cardinal rule for repartee, is "Better never than
+late."
+
+As he swung out of the men's room he was buttonholed by an individual
+new to the little Trans-American colony. One of the camp-followers and
+sutlers who prosper round the edges of all great enterprises had
+waylaid him on the way to the battleground of marital freedom.
+
+The stranger had got on at an earlier stop and worked his way through
+the train to the car named "Snowdrop." Wellington was his first victim
+here. His pushing manner, the almost vulture-like rapacity of his
+gleaming eyes, and the very vulturine contour of his profile, his
+palmy gestures, his thick lisp, and everything about him gave
+Wellington his immediate pedigree.
+
+It ill behooves Christendom to need reminding that the Jewish race has
+adorned and still adorns humanity with some of its noblest specimens;
+but this interloper was of the type that must have irritated Voltaire
+into answering the platitude that the Jews are God's chosen people
+with that other platitude, "Tastes differ."
+
+Little Jimmie Wellington, hot in pursuit of Ashton, found himself
+checked in spite of himself; in spite of himself deposited somehow
+into a seat, and in spite of himself confronted with a curvilinear
+person, who said:
+
+"Excoose, pleass! but are you gettink off at R-r-reno?"
+
+"I am," Wellington answered, curtly, essaying to rise, only to be
+delicately restored to his place with a gesture and a phrase:
+
+"Then you neet me."
+
+"Oh, I need you, do I? And who are you?"
+
+"Who ain't I? I am Baumann and Blumen. Our cart, pleass."
+
+Wellington found a pasteboard in his hand and read the legend:
+
+
+     Real Estate Agents.              Baggage Transfer.
+
+                      Baumann & Blumen
+
+                     DIVORCE OUTFITTERS,
+
+     212 Alimony Avenue,                    Reno, Nev.
+
+     Notary Public.            Divorces Secured.
+     Justice of the Peace.     Satisfaction Guaranteed.
+
+
+Wellington looked from the crowded card to the zealous face. "Divorce
+Outfitters, eh? I don't quite get you."
+
+"Vell, in the foist place----"
+
+"'The foist place,' eh? You're from New York."
+
+"Yes, oritchinally. How did you know it? By my feshionable clothink?"
+
+"Yes," laughed Wellington. "But you say I need you. How?"
+
+"Vell, you've got maybe some beggetch, some trunks--yes?"
+
+"Yes."
+
+"Vell, in the foist place, I am an expressman. I deliver 'em to your
+address--yes? Vere iss it?"
+
+"I haven't got any yet."
+
+"Also I am addressman. Do you vant it a nice hotel?--or a fine
+house?--or an apartment?--or maybe a boarding-house?--yes? How long do
+you make a residence?"
+
+"Six months."
+
+"No longer?"
+
+"Not a minute."
+
+"Take a fine house, den. I got some beauties just wacated."
+
+"For a year?--no thanks."
+
+"All the leases in Reno run for six months only."
+
+"Well, I'd like to look around a little first."
+
+"Good. Don't forget us. You come out here for six months. You vant
+maybe a good quick divorce--yes?"
+
+"The quickest I can get."
+
+"Do you vant it confidential? or very nice and noisy?"
+
+"What's that?"
+
+"Ve are press agents and also suppress agents. Some likes 'em one way,
+some likes 'em anudder. Vich do you vant it?"
+
+"Quick and quiet."
+
+"Painless divorce is our specialty. If you pay me an advence deposit
+now, I file your claim de minute de train stops and your own vife
+don't know you're divorced."
+
+"I'll think it over," said Wellington, rising with resolution.
+
+"Don't forget us. Baumann and Blumen. Satisfaction guaranteed or your
+wife refunded. Avoid substitoots." And then, seeing that he could not
+extract any cash from Little Jimmie, Mr. Baumann descended upon
+Mallory, who was just finishing his shave. Laying his hand on
+Mallory's arm, he began:
+
+"Excoose, pleass. Can I fit you out vit a nice divorce?"
+
+"Divorce?--me!--that's good," laughed Mallory at the vision of it.
+Then a sudden idea struck him. It took no great genius to see that Mr.
+Baumann was not a clergyman, but there were other marriers to be had.
+"You don't perform marriages, do you?" he asked.
+
+Mr. Baumann drew himself up: "Who says I don't? Ain't I a justice of
+the peaces?"
+
+Mallory put out his hand in welcome: then a new anxiety chilled him.
+He had a license for Chicago, but Chicago was far away: "Do I need a
+license in Nevada?"
+
+"Why shouldn't you?" said Mr. Baumann. "Don't all sorts of things got
+to have a license in Nevada, saloons, husbands, dogs----"
+
+"How could I get one?" Mallory asked as he went on dressing.
+
+"Ain't I got a few vit me? Do you vant to get a nice re-marriage
+license?"
+
+"Re-marriage?--huh!" he looked round and, seeing that no one else was
+near: "I haven't taken the first step yet."
+
+Mr. Baumann layed his hands in one another: "A betchelor? Ah, I see
+you vant to marry a nice divorcee lady in R-r-reno?"
+
+"She isn't in Reno and she has never been married, either."
+
+This simple statement seemed to astound Mr. Baumann:
+
+"A betcheller marry a maiden!--in Reno!--oi, oi, oi! It hasn't been
+done yet, but it might be."
+
+Mallory looked him over and a twinge of distaste disturbed him: "You
+furnish the license, but--er--ah--is there any chance of a
+clergyman--a Christian clergyman--being at the station?"
+
+"Vy do you vant it a cloigyman? Can't I do it just as good? Or a nice
+fat alderman I can get you?"
+
+Mallory pondered: "I don't think she'd like anything but a clergyman."
+
+"Vell," Baumann confessed, "a lady is liable to be particular about
+her foist marriage. Anyvay I sell you de license."
+
+"All right."
+
+Mr. Baumann whipped out a portfolio full of documents, and as he
+searched them, philosophized: "A man ought alvays to carry a good
+marriage license. It might be he should need it in a hurry." He took
+a large iron seal from his side-pocket and stamped the paper and then,
+with fountain pen poised, pleaded: "Vat is the names, pleass?"
+
+"Not so loud!" Mallory whispered.
+
+Baumann put his finger to his nose, wisely: "I see, it is a
+confidential marriage. Sit down once."
+
+When he had asked Mallory the necessary questions and taken his fee,
+he passed over the document by which the sovereign state of Nevada
+graciously permitted two souls to be made more or less one in the eyes
+of the law.
+
+"Here you are," said Mr. Baumann. "Vit dat you can get married anyvere
+in Nevada."
+
+Mallory realized that Nevada would be a thing of the past in a few
+hours more and he asked:
+
+"It's no good in California?"
+
+"Himmel, no. In California you bot' gotta go and be examined."
+
+"Examined!" Mallory gasped, in dire alarm.
+
+"Vit questions, poissonally," Mr. Baumann hastened to explain.
+
+"Oh!"
+
+"In Nevada," Baumann insinuated, still hopeful, "I could marry you
+myself--now, right here."
+
+"Could you marry us in this smoking room?"
+
+"In a cattle car, if you vant it."
+
+"It's not a bad idea," said Mallory. "I'll let you know."
+
+Seeing Marjorie coming down the aisle, he hastened to her, and hugged
+her good-morning with a new confidence.
+
+Dr. and Mrs. Temple, who had returned to their berth, witnessed this
+greeting with amazement. After the quarrel of the night before surely
+some explanation should have been overheard, but the puzzling Mallorys
+flew to each other's arms without a moment's delay. The mystery was
+exciting the passengers to such a point that they were vowing to ask a
+few questions point blank. Nobody had quite dared to approach either
+of them, but frank curiosity was preferable to nervous prostration,
+and the secret could not be kept much longer. Fellow-passengers have
+some rights. Not even a stranger can be permitted to outrage their
+curiosity with impunity forever.
+
+Seeing them together, Mrs. Temple watched the embrace with her daily
+renewal of joy that the last night's quarrel had not proved fatal. She
+nudged her husband:
+
+"See, they're making up again."
+
+Dr. Temple was moved to a violent outburst for him: "Well, that's the
+darnedest bridal couple--I only said darn, my dear."
+
+He was still more startled when Mr. Baumann, cruising along the aisle,
+bent over to murmur: "Can I fix you a nice divorce?"
+
+Dr. Temple rose in such an attitude of horror as he assumed in the
+pulpit when denouncing the greatest curse of society, and Mr. Baumann
+retired. As he passed Mallory he cast an appreciative glance at
+Marjorie and, tapping Mallory's shoulder, whispered: "No vonder you
+want a marriage license. I'll be in the next car, should you neet me."
+Then he went on his route.
+
+Marjorie stared after him in wonder and asked: "What did that person
+mean by what he said?"
+
+"It's all right, Marjorie," Mallory explained, in the highest cheer:
+"We can get married right away."
+
+Marjorie declined to get her hopes up again: "You're always saying
+that."
+
+"But here's the license--see?"
+
+"What good is that?" she said, "there's no preacher on board."
+
+"But that man is a justice of the peace and he'll marry us."
+
+Marjorie stared at him incredulously: "That creature!--before all
+these passengers?"
+
+"Not at all," Mallory explained. "We'll go into the smoking room."
+
+Marjorie leaped to her feet, aghast: "Elope two thousand miles to be
+married in a smoking room by a Yiddish drummer! Harry Mallory, you're
+crazy."
+
+Put just that way, the proposition did not look so alluring as at
+first. He sank back with a sigh: "I guess I am. I resign."
+
+He was as weary of being "foiled again" as the villain of a cheap
+melodrama. The two lovers sat in a twilight of deep melancholy, till
+Marjorie's mind dug up a new source of alarm:
+
+"Harry, I've just thought of something terrible."
+
+"Let's have it," he sighed, drearily.
+
+"We reach San Francisco at midnight and you sail at daybreak. What
+becomes of me?"
+
+Mallory had no answer to this problem, except a grim: "I'll not desert
+you."
+
+"But we'll have no time to get married."
+
+"Then," he declared with iron resolve, "then I'll resign from the
+Army."
+
+Marjorie stared at him with awe. He was so wonderful, so heroic. "But
+what will the country do without you?"
+
+"It will have to get along the best it can," he answered with
+finality. "Do you think I'd give you up?"
+
+But this was too much to ask. In the presence of a ruined career and a
+hero-less army, Marjorie felt that her own scruples were too petty to
+count. She could be heroic, too.
+
+"No!" she said, in a deep, low tone, "No, we'll get married in the
+smoking room. Go call your drummer!"
+
+This opened the clouds and let in the sun again with such a radiant
+blaze that Mallory hesitated no longer. "Fine!" he cried, and leaped
+to his feet, only to be detained again by Marjorie's clutch:
+
+"But first, what about that bracelet?"
+
+"She's got it," Mallory groaned, slumping from the heights again.
+
+"Do you mean to say she's still wearing it?"
+
+"How was I to get it?"
+
+"Couldn't you have slipped into her car last night and stolen it?"
+
+"Good Lord, I shouldn't think you'd want me to go--why, Marjorie--I'd
+be arrested!"
+
+But Marjorie set her jaw hard: "Well, you get that bracelet, or you
+don't get me." And then her smouldering jealousy and grief took a less
+hateful tone: "Oh, Harry!" she wailed, "I'm so lonely and so helpless
+and so far from home."
+
+"But I'm here," he urged.
+
+"You're farther away than anybody," she whimpered, huddling close to
+him.
+
+"Poor little thing," he murmured, soothing her with voice and kiss and
+caress.
+
+"Put your arm round me," she cooed, like a mourning dove, "I don't
+care if everybody is looking. Oh, I'm so lonely."
+
+"I'm just as lonely as you are," he pleaded, trying to creep into the
+company of her misery.
+
+"Please marry me soon," she implored, "won't you, please?"
+
+"I'd marry you this minute if you'd say the word," he whispered.
+
+"I'd say it if you only had that bracelet," she sobbed, like a tired
+child. "I should think you would understand my feelings. That awful
+person is wearing your bracelet and I have only your ring, and her
+bracelet is ten times as big as my r-i-ing, boo-hoo-hoo-oo!"
+
+"I'll get that bracelet if I have to chop her arm off," Mallory vowed.
+
+The sobs stopped short, as Marjorie looked up to ask: "Have you got
+your sword with you?"
+
+"It's in my trunk," he said, "but I'll manage."
+
+"Now you're speaking like a soldier," Marjorie exclaimed, "my brave,
+noble, beautiful, fearless husband. I'll tell you! That creature will
+pass through this car on her way to breakfast. You grab her and take
+the bracelet away from her."
+
+"I grab her, eh?" he stammered, his heroism wavering a trifle.
+
+"Yes, just grab her."
+
+"Suppose she hasn't the bracelet on?" he mused.
+
+"Grab her anyway," Marjorie answered, fiercely. "Besides, I've no
+doubt it's wished on." He said nothing. "You did wish it on, didn't
+you?"
+
+"No, no--never--of course not--" he protested "If you'll only be calm.
+I'll get it if I have to throttle her."
+
+Like a young Lady Macbeth, Marjorie gave him her utter approval in any
+atrocity, and they sat in ambush for their victim to pass into view.
+
+They had not had their breakfast, but they forgot it. A dusky waiter
+went by chanting his "Lass call for breakfuss in Rining Rar." He
+chanted it thrice in their ears, but they never heard. Marjorie was
+gloating over the discomfiture of the odious creature who had dared to
+precede her in the acquaintance of her husband-to-be. The
+husband-to-be was miserably wishing that he had to face a tribe of
+bolo-brandishing Moros, instead of this trivial girl whom he had
+looked upon when her cheeks were red.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXXV
+
+MR. AND MRS. LITTLE JIMMIE
+
+
+Mrs. Sammy Whitcomb had longed for the sweet privilege of squaring
+matters with Mrs. Jimmie Wellington. Sneers and back-biting, shrugs
+and shudders of contempt were poor compensation for the ever-vivid
+fact that Mrs. Wellington had proved attractive to her Sammy while
+Mrs. Wellington's Jimmie never looked at Mrs. Whitcomb. Or if he did,
+his eyes had been so blurred that he had seen two of her--and avoided
+both.
+
+Yesterday she had overheard Jimmie vow sobriety. To-day his shining
+morning face showed that he had kept his word. She could hardly wait
+to begin the flirtation which, she trusted, would render Mrs.
+Wellington helplessly furious for six long Reno months.
+
+The Divorce Drummer interposed and held Jimmie prisoner for a time,
+but as soon as Mr. Baumann released him, Mrs. Whitcomb apprehended
+him. With a smile that beckoned and with eyes that went out like
+far-cast fishhooks, she drew Leviathan into her net.
+
+She reeled him in and he plounced in the seat opposite. What she took
+for bashfulness was reluctance. To add the last charm to her success,
+Mrs. Wellington arrived to see it. Mrs. Whitcomb saw the lonely Ashton
+rise and offer her the seat facing him. Mrs. Wellington took it and
+sat down with the back of her head so close to the back of Mr.
+Wellington's head that the feather in her hat tickled his neck.
+
+Jimmie Wellington had seen his wife pass by. To his sober eyes she was
+a fine sight as she moved up the aisle. In his alcohol-emancipated
+mind the keen sense of wrong endured that had driven him forth to Reno
+began to lose its edge. His own soul appealed from Jimmie drunk to
+Jimmie sober. The appellate judge began to reverse the lower court's
+decision, point by point.
+
+He felt a sudden recrudescence of jealousy as he heard Ashton's voice
+unctuously, flirtatiously offering his wife hospitality. He wanted to
+trounce Ashton. But what right had he to defend from gallantry the
+woman he was about to forswear before the world? Jimmie's soul was in
+turmoil, and Mrs. Whitcomb's pretty face and alluring smile only
+annoyed him.
+
+She had made several gracious speeches before he quite comprehended
+any of them. Then he realized that she was saying: "I'm so glad you're
+going to stop at Reno, Mr. Wellington."
+
+"Thank you. So am I," he mumbled, trying to look interested and
+wishing that his wife's plume would not tickle his neck.
+
+Mrs. Whitcomb went on, leaning closer: "We two poor mistreated
+wretches must try to console one another, musn't we?"
+
+"Yes,--yes,--we must," Wellington nodded, with a sickly cheer.
+
+Mrs. Whitcomb leaned a little closer. "Do you know that I feel almost
+related to you, Mr. Wellington?"
+
+"Related?" he echoed, "you?--to me? How?"
+
+"My husband knew your wife so well."
+
+Somehow a wave of jealous rage surged over him, and he growled: "Your
+husband is a scoundrel."
+
+Mrs. Whitcomb's smile turned to vinegar: "Oh, I can't permit you to
+slander the poor boy behind his back. It was all your wife's fault."
+
+Wellington amazed himself by his own bravery when he heard himself
+volleying back: "And I can't permit you to slander my wife behind her
+back. It was all your husband's fault."
+
+Mrs. Jimmie overheard this behind her back, and it strangely thrilled
+her. She ignored Ashton's existence and listened for Mrs. Whitcomb's
+next retort. It consisted of a simple, icy drawl: "I think I'll go to
+breakfast."
+
+She seemed to pick up Ashton with her eyes as she glided by, for,
+finding himself unnoticed, he rose with a careless: "I think I'll go
+to breakfast," and followed Mrs. Whitcomb. The Wellingtons sat
+_dos-à-dos_ for some exciting seconds, and then on a sudden impulse,
+Mrs. Jimmie rose, knelt in the seat and spoke across the back of it:
+
+"It was very nice of you to defend me, Jimmie--er--James."
+
+Wellington almost dislocated several joints in rising quickly and
+whirling round at the cordiality of her tone. But his smile vanished
+at her last word. He protested, feebly: "James sounds so like a--a
+butler. Can't you call me Little Jimmie again?"
+
+Mrs. Wellington smiled indulgently: "Well, since it's the last time.
+Good-bye, Little Jimmie." And she put out her hand. He seized it
+hungrily and clung to it: "Good-bye?--aren't you getting off at Reno?"
+
+"Yes, but----"
+
+"So am I--Lucretia."
+
+"But we can't afford to be seen together."
+
+Still holding her hand, he temporized: "We've got to stay married for
+six months at least--while we establish a residence. Couldn't
+we--er--couldn't we establish a residence--er--together?"
+
+Mrs. Wellington's eyes grew a little sad, as she answered: "It would
+be too lonesome waiting for you to roll home."
+
+Jimmie stared at her. He felt the regret in her voice and took strange
+courage from it. He hauled from his pocket his huge flask, and said
+quickly: "Well, if you're jealous of this, I'll promise to cork it up
+forever."
+
+She shook her head skeptically: "You couldn't."
+
+"Just to prove it," he said, "I'll chuck it out of the window." He
+flung up the sash and made ready to hurl his enemy into the flying
+landscape.
+
+"Bravo!" cried Mrs. Wellington.
+
+But even as his hand was about to let go, he tightened his clutch
+again, and pondered: "It seems a shame to waste it."
+
+"I thought so," said Mrs. Jimmie, drooping perceptibly. Her husband
+began to feel that, after all, she cared what became of him.
+
+"I'll tell you," he said, "I'll give it to old Doc Temple. He takes
+his straight."
+
+"Fine!"
+
+He turned towards the seat where the clergyman and his wife were
+sitting, oblivious of the drama of reconciliation playing so close at
+hand. Little Jimmie paused, caressed the flask, and kissed it.
+"Good-bye, old playmate!" Then, tossing his head with bravado, he
+reached out and touched the clergyman's shoulder. Dr. Temple turned
+and rose with a questioning look. Wellington put the flask in his hand
+and chuckled: "Merry Christmas!"
+
+"But, my good man----" the preacher objected, finding in his hand a
+donation about as welcome and as wieldy as a strange baby. Wellington
+winked: "It may come in handy for--your patients."
+
+And now, struck with a sudden idea, Mrs. Wellington spoke: "Oh, Mrs.
+Temple."
+
+"Yes, my dear," said the little old lady, rising. Mrs. Wellington
+placed in her hand a small portfolio and laughed: "Happy New Year!"
+
+Mrs. Temple stared at her gift and gasped: "Great heavens! Your
+cigars!"
+
+"They'll be such a consolation," Mrs. Wellington explained, "while the
+Doctor is out with his patients."
+
+Dr. Temple and Mrs. Temple looked at each other in dismay, then at the
+flask and the cigars, then at the Wellingtons, then they stammered:
+"Thank you so much," and sank back, stupefied.
+
+Wellington stared at his wife: "Lucretia, are you sincere?"
+
+"Jimmie, I promise you I'll never smoke another cigar."
+
+"My love!" he cried, and seized her hand. "You know I always said you
+were a queen among women, Lucretia."
+
+She beamed back at him: "And you always were the prince of good
+fellows, Jimmie." Then she almost blushed as she murmured, almost
+shyly: "May I pour your coffee for you again this morning?"
+
+"For life," he whispered, and they moved up the aisle, arm in arm,
+bumping from seat to seat and not knowing it.
+
+When Mrs. Whitcomb, seated in the dining-car, saw Mrs. Little Jimmie
+pour Mr. Little Jimmie's coffee, she choked on hers. She vowed that
+she would not permit those odious Wellingtons to make fools of her and
+her Sammy. She resolved to telegraph Sammy that she had changed her
+mind about divorcing him, and order him to take the first train West
+and meet her half-way on her journey home.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXXVI
+
+A DUEL FOR A BRACELET
+
+
+All this while Marjorie and Mallory had sat watching, as kingfishers
+shadow a pool, the door wherethrough the girl with the bracelet must
+pass on her way to breakfast.
+
+"She's taking forever with her toilet," sniffed Marjorie. "Probably
+trying to make a special impression on you."
+
+"She's wasting her time," said Mallory. "But what if she brings her
+mother along? No, I guess her mother is too fat to get there and
+back."
+
+"If her mother comes," Marjorie decided, "I'll hold her while you take
+the bracelet away from the--the--from that creature. Quick, here she
+comes now! Be brave!"
+
+Mallory wore an aspect of arrant cowardice: "Er--ah--I--I----"
+
+"You just grab her!" Marjorie explained. Then they relapsed into
+attitudes of impatient attention. Kathleen floated in and, seeing
+Mallory, she greeted him with radiant warmth: "Good morning!" and
+then, catching sight of Marjorie, gave her a "Good morning!" coated
+with ice. She flounced past and Mallory sat inert, till Marjorie gave
+him a ferocious pinch, whereupon he leaped to his feet:
+
+"Oh, Miss--er--Miss Kathleen." Kathleen whirled round with a most
+hospitable smile. "May I have a word with you?"
+
+"Of course you can, you dear boy." Marjorie winced at this and writhed
+at what followed: "Shan't we take breakfast together?"
+
+Mallory stuttered: "I--I--no, thank you--I've had breakfast."
+
+Kathleen froze up again as she snapped: "With
+that--train-acquaintance, I suppose."
+
+"Oh, no," Mallory amended, "I mean I haven't had breakfast."
+
+But Kathleen scowled with a jealousy of her own: "You seem to be
+getting along famously for mere train-acquaintances."
+
+"Oh, that's all we are, and hardly that," Mallory hastened to say with
+too much truth. "Sit down here a moment, won't you?"
+
+"No, no, I haven't time," she said, and sat down. "Mamma will be
+waiting for me. You haven't been in to see her yet?"
+
+"No. You see----"
+
+"She cried all night."
+
+"For me?"
+
+"No, for papa. He's such a good traveler--and he had such a good
+start. She really kept the whole car awake."
+
+"Too bad," Mallory condoled, perfunctorily, then with sudden
+eagerness, and a trial at indifference: "I see you have that bracelet
+still."
+
+"Of course, you dear fellow. I wouldn't be parted from it for worlds."
+
+Marjorie gnashed her teeth, but Kathleen could not hear that. She
+gushed on: "And now we have met again! It looks like Fate, doesn't
+it?"
+
+"It certainly does," Mallory assented, bitterly; then again, with
+zest: "Let me see that old bracelet, will you?"
+
+He tried to lay hold of it, but Kathleen giggled coyly: "It's just an
+excuse to hold my hand." She swung her arm over the back of the seat
+coquettishly, and Marjorie made a desperate lunge at it, but missed,
+since Kathleen, finding that Mallory did not pursue the fugitive hand,
+brought it back at once and yielded it up:
+
+"There--be careful, someone might look."
+
+Mallory took her by the wrist in a gingerly manner, and said, "So
+that's the bracelet? Take it off, won't you?"
+
+"Never!--it's wished on," Kathleen protested, sentimentally. "Don't
+you remember that evening in the moonlight?"
+
+Mallory caught Marjorie's accusing eye and lost his head. He made a
+ferocious effort to snatch the bracelet off. When this onset failed,
+he had recourse to entreaty: "Just slip it off." Kathleen shook her
+head tantalizingly. Mallory urged more strenuously: "Please let me see
+it."
+
+Kathleen shook her head with sophistication: "You'd never give it
+back. You'd pass it along to that--train-acquaintance."
+
+"How can you think such a thing?" Mallory demurred, and once more made
+his appeal: "Please please, slip it off."
+
+"What on earth makes you so anxious?" Kathleen demanded, with sudden
+suspicion. Mallory was stumped, till an inspiration came to him: "I'd
+like to--to get you a nicer one. That one isn't good enough for you."
+
+Here was an argument that Kathleen could appreciate. "Oh, how sweet of
+you, Harry," she gurgled, and had the bracelet down to her knuckles,
+when a sudden instinct checked her: "When you bring the other, you can
+have this."
+
+She pushed the circlet back, and Mallory's hopes sank at the gesture.
+He grew frantic at being eternally frustrated in his plans. He caught
+Kathleen's arm and, while his words pleaded, his hands tugged:
+"Please--please let me take it--for the measure--you know!"
+
+Kathleen read the determination in his fierce eyes, and she struggled
+furiously: "Why, Richard--Chauncey!--er--Billy! I'm amazed at you! Let
+go or I'll scream!"
+
+  [Illustration: "WHY, RICHARD--CHAUNCEY!--ER--BILLY! I'M AMAZED AT YOU!
+   LET GO, OR I'LL SCREAM!"]
+
+She rose and, twisting her arm from his grasp, confronted him with
+bewildered anger. Mallory cast toward Marjorie a look of surrender and
+despair. Marjorie laid her hand on her throat and in pantomime
+suggested that Mallory should throttle Kathleen, as he had promised.
+
+But Mallory was incapable of further violence; and when Kathleen, with
+all her coquetry, bent down and murmured: "You are a very naughty boy,
+but come to breakfast and we'll talk it over," he was so addled that
+he answered: "Thanks, but I never eat breakfast."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXXVII
+
+DOWN BRAKES!
+
+
+Just as Kathleen flung her head in baffled vexation, and Mallory
+started to slink back to Marjorie, with another defeat, there came an
+abrupt shock as if that gigantic child to whom our railroad trains are
+toys, had reached down and laid violent hold on the Trans-American in
+full career.
+
+Its smooth, swift flight became suddenly such a spasm of jars, shivers
+and thuds that Mallory cried:
+
+"We're off the track."
+
+He was sent flopping down the aisle like a bolster hurled through the
+car. He brought up with a sickening slam across the seat into which
+Marjorie had been jounced back with a breath-taking slam. And then
+Kathleen came flying backwards and landed in a heap on both of them.
+
+Several of the other passengers were just returning from breakfast and
+they were shot and scattered all over the car as if a great chain of
+human beads had burst.
+
+Women screamed, men yelled, and then while they were still struggling
+against the seats and one another, the train came to a halt.
+
+"Thank God, we stopped in time!" Mallory gasped, as he tried to
+disengage himself and Marjorie from Kathleen.
+
+The passengers began to regain their courage with their equilibrium.
+Little Jimmie Wellington had flown the whole length of the car,
+clinging to his wife as if she were Francesca da Rimini, and he Paolo,
+flitting through Inferno. The flight ended at the stateroom door with
+such a thump that Mrs. Fosdick was sure a detective had come for her
+at last, and with a battering ram.
+
+But when Jimmie got back breath enough to talk, he remembered the
+train-stopping excitement of the day before and called out:
+
+"Has Mrs. Mallory lost that pup again?"
+
+Everybody laughed uproariously at this. People will laugh at anything
+or nothing when they have been frightened almost to death and suddenly
+relieved of anxiety.
+
+Everybody was cracking a joke at Marjorie's expense. Everybody felt a
+good-natured grudge against her for being such a mystery. The car was
+ringing with hilarity, when the porter came stumbling in and paused at
+the door, with eyes all white, hands waving frantically, and lips
+flapping like flannel, in a vain effort to speak.
+
+The passengers stopped laughing at Marjorie, to laugh at the porter.
+Ashton sang out:
+
+"What's the matter with you, Porter? Are you trying to crow?"
+
+Everybody roared at this, till the porter finally managed to
+articulate:
+
+"T-t-t-train rob-rob-robbers!"
+
+Silence shut down as if the whole crowd had been smitten with
+paralysis. From somewhere outside and ahead came a pop-popping as of
+firecrackers. Everybody thought, "Revolvers!" The reports were mingled
+with barbaric yells that turned the marrow in every bone to snow.
+
+These regions are full of historic terror. All along the Nevada route
+the conductor, the brakemen and old travelers had pointed out scene
+after scene where the Indians had slaked the thirst of the arid land
+with white man's blood. Ashton, who had traveled this way many times,
+had made himself fascinatingly horrifying the evening before and
+ruined several breakfasts that morning in the dining-car, by regaling
+the passengers with stories of pioneer ordeals, men and women
+massacred in burning wagons, or dragged away to fiendish cruelty and
+obscene torture, staked out supine on burning wastes with eyelids cut
+off, bound down within reach of rattlesnakes, subjected to every
+misery that human deviltry could devise.
+
+Ashton had brought his fellow passengers to a state of ecstatic
+excitability, and, like many a recounter of burglar stories at night,
+had tuned his own nerves to high tension.
+
+The violent stopping of the train, the heart-shaking yells and shots
+outside, found the passengers already apt to respond without delay to
+the appeals of fright. After the first hush of dread, came the
+reaction to panic.
+
+Each passenger showed his own panic in his own way. Ashton whirled
+round and round, like a horse with the blind staggers, then bolted
+down the aisle, knocking aside men and women. He climbed on a seat,
+pulled down an upper berth, and, scrambling into it, tried to shut it
+on himself. Mrs. Whitcomb was so frightened that she assailed Ashton
+with fury and seizing his feet, dragged him back into the aisle, and
+beat him with her fists, demanding that he protect her and save her
+for Sammy's sake.
+
+Mrs. Fosdick, rushing out of her stateroom and not finding her
+luscious-eyed husband, laid hold of Jimmie Wellington and ordered him
+to go to the rescue of her spouse. Mrs. Wellington tore her hands
+loose, crying: "Let him go, madam. He has a wife of his own to
+defend."
+
+Jimmie was trying to pour out dying messages, and only sputtering,
+forgetting that he had put his watch in his mouth to hide it, though
+its chain was still attached to his waistcoat.
+
+Anne Gattle, who had read much about Chinese atrocities to
+missionaries, gave herself up to death, yet rejoiced greatly that she
+had provided a timely man to lean on and should not have to enter
+Paradise a spinster, providing she could manage to convert Ira in the
+next few seconds, before it was everlastingly too late. She was
+begging her first heathen to join her in a gospel hymn. But Ira was
+roaring curses like a pirate captain in a hurricane, and swearing that
+the villains should not rob him of his bride.
+
+Mrs. Temple wrung her twitching hands and tried to drag her husband to
+his knees, crying:
+
+"Oh, Walter, Walter, won't you please say a prayer?--a good strong
+prayer?"
+
+But the preacher was so confused that he answered: "What's the use of
+prayer in an emergency like this?"
+
+"Walter!" she shrieked.
+
+"I'm on my va-vacation, you know," he stammered.
+
+Marjorie was trying at the same time to compel Mallory to crawl under
+a seat and to find a place to hide Snoozleums, whom she was warning
+not to say a word. Snoozleums, understanding only that his mistress
+was in some distress, refused to stay in his basket and kept offering
+his services and his attentions.
+
+Suddenly Marjorie realized that Kathleen was trying to faint in
+Mallory's arms, and forgot everything else in a determined effort to
+prevent her.
+
+After the first blood-sweat of abject fright had begun to cool, the
+passengers came to realize that the invaders were not after lives, but
+loot. Then came a panic of miserly effort to conceal treasure.
+
+Kathleen, finding herself banished from Mallory's protection, ran to
+Mrs. Whitcomb, who had given Ashton up as a hopeless task.
+
+"What shall we do, oh, what, oh what shall we do, dear Mrs.
+Wellington?" she cried.
+
+"Don't you dare call me Mrs. Wellington!" Mrs. Whitcomb screamed; then
+she began to flutter. "But we'd better hide what we can. I hope the
+rah-rah-robbers are ge-gentlemen-men."
+
+She pushed a diamond locket containing a small portrait of Sammy into
+her back hair, leaving part of the chain dangling. Then she tried to
+stuff a large handbag into her stocking.
+
+Mrs. Fosdick found her husband at last, for he made a wild dash to her
+side, embraced her, called her his wife and defied all the powers of
+Nevada to tear them apart. He had a brilliant idea. In order to save
+his fat wallet from capture, he tossed it through an open window. It
+fell at the feet of one of the robbers as he ran along the side of the
+car, shooting at such heads as were put out of windows. He picked it
+up and dropped it into the feed-bag he had swung at his side. Then
+running on, he clambered over the brass rail of the observation
+platform and entered the rear of the train, as his confederate,
+driving the conductor ahead of him, forged his way aft from the front,
+while a third masquerader aligned the engineer, the fireman, the
+brakeman and the baggagemen.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXXVIII
+
+HANDS UP!
+
+
+All this time Lieutenant Mallory had been thinking as hard as an
+officer in an ambuscade. His harrowing experiences and incessant
+defeats of the past days had unnerved him and shattered his
+self-confidence. He was not afraid, but intensely disgusted. He sat
+absent-mindedly patting Marjorie on the back and repeating:
+
+"Don't worry, honey, they're not going to hurt anybody. They don't
+want anything but our money. Don't worry, I won't let 'em hurt you."
+
+But he could not shake off a sense of nausea. He felt himself a
+representative of the military prowess of the country, and here he was
+as helpless as a man on parole.
+
+The fact that Mallory was a soldier occurred to a number of the
+passengers simultaneously. They had been trained by early studies in
+those beautiful works of fiction, the school histories of the United
+States, and by many Fourths of July, to believe that the American
+soldier is an invincible being, who has never been defeated and never
+known fear.
+
+They surged up to Mallory in a wave of hope. Dr. Temple, being
+nearest, spoke first. Having learned by experience that his own
+prayers were not always answered as he wished, had an impulse to try
+some weapon he had never used.
+
+"Young man," he pleaded across the back of a seat, "will you kindly
+lend me a gun?"
+
+Mallory answered sullenly: "Mine is in my trunk on the train ahead,
+damn it. If I had it I'd have a lot of fun."
+
+Mrs. Whitcomb had an inspiration. She ran to her berth, and came back
+with a tiny silver-plated revolver.
+
+"I'll lend you this. Sammy gave it to me to protect myself in Nevada!"
+
+Mallory smiled at the .22-calibre toy, broke it open, and displayed an
+empty cylinder.
+
+"Where are the pills that go with it?" he said.
+
+"Oh, Sammy wouldn't let me have any bullets. He was afraid I'd hurt
+myself."
+
+Mallory returned it, with a bow. "It would make an excellent
+nut-cracker."
+
+"Aren't you going to use it?" Mrs. Whitcomb gasped.
+
+"It's empty," Mallory explained.
+
+"But the robbers don't know that! Couldn't you just overawe them with
+it?"
+
+"Not with that," said Mallory, "unless they died laughing."
+
+Mrs. Wellington pushed forward: "Then what the devil are you going to
+do when they come?"
+
+Mallory answered meekly: "If they request it, I shall hold up my
+hands."
+
+"And you won't resist?" Kathleen gasped.
+
+"Not a resist."
+
+"And he calls himself a soldier!" she sneered.
+
+Mallory writhed, but all he said was: "A soldier doesn't have to be a
+jackass. I know just enough about guns not to monkey with the wrong
+end of 'em."
+
+"Coward!" she flung at him. He turned white, but Marjorie red, and
+made a leap at her, crying: "He's the bravest man in the world. You
+say a word, and I'll scratch your eyes out."
+
+This reheartened Mallory a little, and he laughed nervously, as he
+restrained her. Kathleen retreated out of danger, with a parting shot:
+"Our engagement is off."
+
+"Thanks," Mallory said, and put out his hand: "Will you return the
+bracelet?"
+
+"I never return such things," said Kathleen.
+
+The scene was so painful and such an anachronism that Dr. Temple tried
+to renew a more pressing subject: "It's your opinion then that we'd
+best surrender?"
+
+"Of course--since we can't run."
+
+Wedgewood broke in impatiently: "Well, I consider it a dastardly
+outrage. I'll not submit to it. I'm a subject of His Majesty the----"
+
+"You're a subject of His Majesty the Man Behind the Gun," said
+Mallory.
+
+"I shall protest, none the less," Wedgewood insisted.
+
+Mallory grinned a little. "Have you any last message to send home to
+your mother?"
+
+Wedgewood was a trifle chilled at this. "D-don't talk of such things,"
+he said.
+
+And by this time the train-robbers had hastily worked their way
+through the other passengers, and reached the frantic inhabitants of
+the sleeper, "Snowdrop."
+
+"Hands up! Higher!! Hands up!"
+
+With a true sense of the dramatic, the robbers sent ahead of them the
+most hair-raising yells. They arrived simultaneously at each end of
+the aisle, and with a few short sharp commands, straightened the
+disorderly rabble into a beautiful line, with all palms aloft and all
+eyes wide and wild.
+
+One robber drove ahead of him the conductor and the other drove in Mr.
+Manning, whom he had found trying to crawl between the shelves of the
+linen-closet.
+
+The marauders were apparently cattlemen, from their general get-up.
+Their hats were pulled low, and just beneath their eyes they had drawn
+big black silk handkerchiefs, tied behind the ears and hanging to the
+breast.
+
+Over their shoulders they had slung the feed-bags of their horses, to
+serve as receptacles for their swag. Their shirts were chalky with
+alkali dust. Their legs were encased in heavy chaparejos, and they
+carried each a pair of well-used Colt's revolvers that looked as big
+as artillery.
+
+When the passengers had shoved and jostled into line, one of the men
+jabbed the conductor in the back with the muzzle of his gun, and
+snarled: "Now speak your little piece, like I learned it to you."
+
+The conductor, like an awkward schoolboy, grinned sheepishly, and
+spoke, his hands in the air the while:
+
+"Ladies and Gents, these here parties in the black tidies says they
+want everybody to hold his or her hands as high as possible till you
+git permission to lower 'em; they advise you not to resist, because
+they hate the sight of blood, but prefer it to argument."
+
+The impatient robbers, themselves the prey of fearful anxieties, broke
+in, barking like a pair of coyotes in a jumble of commands: "Now, line
+up with your backs that way, and no back talk. These guns shoot awful
+easy. And remember, as each party is finished with, they are to turn
+round and keep their hands up, on penalty of gittin' 'em shot off.
+Line up! Hands up! Give over there!"
+
+Mrs. Jimmie Wellington took her time about moving into position, and
+her deliberation brought a howl of wrath from the robber: "Get into
+that line, you!"
+
+Mrs. Wellington whirled on him: "How dare you, you brute?" And she
+turned up her nose at the gun.
+
+The anxious conductor intervened: "Better obey, madame; he's an ugly
+lad."
+
+"I don't mind being robbed," said Mrs. Jimmie, "but I won't endure
+rudeness."
+
+The robber shook his head in despair, and he tried to wither her with
+sarcasm: "Pardong, mamselly, would you be so kind and condescendin' as
+to step into that there car before I blow your husband's gol-blame
+head off."
+
+This brought her to terms. She hastened to her place, but put out a
+restraining hand on Jimmie, who needed no restraint. "Certainly, to
+save my dear husband. Don't strike him, Jimmie!"
+
+Then each man stuck one revolver into its convenient holster, and,
+covering the passengers with the other, proceeded to frisk away
+valuables with a speed and agility that would have looked prettier if
+those impatient-looking muzzles had not pointed here, there and
+everywhere with such venomous threats.
+
+And so they worked from each end of the car toward the middle. Their
+hands ran swiftly over bodies with a loathsome familiarity that could
+only be resented, not revenged. Their hands dived into pockets, and
+up sleeves, and into women's hair, everywhere that a jewel or a bill
+might be secreted. And always a rough growl or a swing of the revolver
+silenced any protest.
+
+Their heinous fingers had hardly begun to ply, when the solemn
+stillness was broken by a chuckle and low hoot of laughter, a darkey's
+unctuous laughter. At such a place it was more shocking than at a
+funeral.
+
+"What ails you?" was the nearest robber's demand.
+
+The porter tried to wipe his streaming eyes without lowering his
+hands, as he chuckled on: "I--I--just thought of sumpum funny."
+
+"Funny!" was the universal groan.
+
+"I was just thinking," the porter snickered, "what mighty poor
+pickings you-all are goin' to git out of me. Whilst if you had 'a'
+waited till I got to 'Frisco, I'd jest nachelly been oozin' money."
+
+The robber relieved him of a few dimes and quarters and ordered him to
+turn round, but the black face whirled back as he heard from the other
+end of the car Wedgewood's indignant complaint: "I say, this is an
+outrage!"
+
+"Ah, close your trap and turn round, or I'll----"
+
+The porter's smile died away. "Good Lawd," he sighed, "they're goin'
+to skin that British lion! And I just wore myself out on him."
+
+The far-reaching effect of the whole procedure was just beginning to
+dawn on the porter. This little run on the bank meant a period of
+financial stringency for him. He watched the hurrying hands a moment
+or two, then his wrath rose to terrible proportions:
+
+"Look here, man," he shouted at the robber, "ain't you-all goin' to
+leave these here passengers nothin' a tall?"
+
+"Not on purpose, nigger."
+
+"No small change, or nothin'?"
+
+"Nary a red."
+
+"Then, passengers," the porter proclaimed, while the robber watched
+him in amazement; "then, passengers, I want to give you-all fair
+warnin' heah and now: No tips, no whisk-broom!"
+
+Perhaps because their hearts were already overflowing with distress,
+the passengers endured this appalling threat without comment, and when
+there was a commotion at the other end of the line, all eyes rolled
+that way.
+
+Mr. Baumann was making an effort to take his leave, with great
+politeness.
+
+"Excoose, pleass. I vant to get by, pleass!"
+
+"Get by!" the other robber gasped. "Why, you----"
+
+"But I'm not a passenger," Mr. Baumann urged, with a confidential
+smile, "I've been going through the train myself."
+
+"Much obliged! Hand over!" And a rude hand rummaged his pockets. It
+was a heart-rending sight.
+
+"Oi oi!" he wailed, "don't you allow no courtesies to the profession?"
+And when the inexorable thief continued to pluck his money, his watch,
+his scarf-pin, he grew wroth indeed. "Stop, stop, I refuse to pay.
+I'll go into benkruptcy foist." But still the larceny continued;
+fingers even lifted three cigars from his pockets, two for himself and
+a good one for a customer. This loss was grievous, but his wildest
+protest was: "Oh, here, my frient, you don't vant my business carts."
+
+"Keep 'em!" growled the thief, and then, glancing up, he saw on the
+tender inwards of Mr. Baumann's upheld palms two huge glisteners,
+which their owner had turned that way in a misguided effort to conceal
+the stones. The robber reached up for them.
+
+"Take 'em. You're velcome!" said Mr. Baumann, with rare presence of
+mind. "Those Nevada nearlies looks almost like real."
+
+"Keep 'em," said the robber, as he passed on, and Mr. Baumann almost
+swooned with joy, for, as he whispered to Wedgewood a moment later:
+"They're really real!"
+
+Now the eye-chain rolled the other way, for Little Jimmie Wellington
+was puffing with rage. The other robber, having massaged him
+thoroughly, but without success, for his pocketbook, noticed that
+Jimmie's left heel was protruding from his left shoe, and made Jimmie
+perform the almost incredible feat of standing on one foot, while he
+unshod him and took out the hidden wealth.
+
+"There goes our honeymoon, Lucretia," he moaned. But she whispered
+proudly: "Never mind, I have my rings to pawn."
+
+"Oh, you have, have you? Well, I'll be your little uncle," the
+kneeling robber laughed, as he overheard, and he continued his
+outrageous search till he found them, knotted in a handkerchief, under
+her hat.
+
+She protested: "You wouldn't leave me in Reno without a diamond, would
+you?"
+
+"I wouldn't, eh?" he grunted. "Do you think I'm in this business for
+my health?"
+
+And he snatched off two earrings she had forgotten to remove.
+Fortunately, they were affixed to her lobes with fasteners.
+
+Mrs. Jimmie was thoroughbred enough not to wince. She simply
+commented: "You brutes are almost as bad as the Customs officers at
+New York."
+
+And now another touch of light relieved the gloom. Kathleen was next
+in line, and she had been forcing her lips into their most attractive
+smile, and keeping her eyes winsomely mellow, for the robber's
+benefit. Marjorie could not see the smile; she could only see that
+Kathleen was next. She whispered to Mallory:
+
+"They'll get the bracelet! They'll get the bracelet!"
+
+And Mallory could have danced with glee. But Kathleen leaned
+coquettishly toward the masked stranger, and threw all her art into
+her tone as she murmured:
+
+"I'm sure you're too brave to take my things. I've always admired men
+with the courage of Claude Duval."
+
+The robber was taken a trifle aback, but he growled: "I don't know the
+party you speak of--but cough up!"
+
+"Listen to her," Marjorie whispered in horror; "she's flirting with
+the train-robber."
+
+"What won't some women flirt with!" Mallory exclaimed.
+
+The robber studied Kathleen a little more attentively, as he whipped
+off her necklace and her rings. She looked good to him, and so
+willing, that he muttered: "Say, lady, if you'll give me a kiss, I'll
+give you that diamond ring you got on."
+
+"All right!" laughed Kathleen, with triumphant compliance.
+
+"My God!" Mallory groaned, "what won't some women do for a diamond!"
+
+The robber bent close, and was just raising his mask to collect his
+ransom, when his confederate glanced his way, and knowing his
+susceptible nature, foresaw his intention, and shouted: "Stop it,
+Jake. You 'tend strictly to business, or I'll blow your nose off."
+
+"Oh, all right," grumbled the reluctant gallant, as he drew the ring
+from her finger. "Sorry, miss, but I can't make the trade," and he
+added with an unwonted gentleness: "You can turn round now."
+
+Kathleen was glad to hide the blushes of defeat, but Marjorie was
+still more bitterly disappointed. She whispered to Mallory: "He didn't
+get the bracelet, after all."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXXIX
+
+WOLVES IN THE FOLD
+
+
+Mallory's heart sank to its usual depth, but Marjorie had another of
+her inspirations. She startled everybody by suddenly beckoning and
+calling: "Excuse me, Mr. Robber. Come here, please."
+
+The curious gallant edged her way, keeping a sharp watch along the
+line: "What d'you want?"
+
+Marjorie leaned nearer, and spoke in a low tone with an amiable smile:
+"That lady who wanted to kiss you has a bracelet up her sleeve."
+
+The robber stared across his mask, and wondered, but laughed, and
+grunted: "Much obliged." Then he went back, and tapped Kathleen on the
+shoulder. When she turned round, in the hope that he had reconsidered
+his refusal to make the trade, he infuriated her by growling: "Excuse,
+me, miss, I overlooked a bet."
+
+He ran his hand along her arm, and found her bracelet, and
+accomplished what Mallory had failed in, its removal.
+
+"Don't, don't," cried Kathleen, "it's wished on."
+
+"I wish it off," the villain laughed, and it joined the growing heap
+in the feed-bag.
+
+Kathleen, doubly enraged, broke out viciously: "You're a common,
+sneaking----"
+
+"Ah, turn round!" the man roared, and she obeyed in silence.
+
+Then he explored Mrs. Whitcomb, but with such small reward that he
+said: "Say, you'd oughter have a pocketbook somewheres. Where's it
+at?"
+
+Mrs. Whitcomb brushed furiously: "None of your business, you low
+brute."
+
+"Perdooce, madame," the scoundrel snorted, "perdooce the purse, or
+I'll hunt for it myself."
+
+Mrs. Whitcomb turned away, and after some management of her skirts,
+slapped her handbag into the eager palm with a wrathful: "You're no
+gentleman, sir!"
+
+"If I was, I'd be in Wall Street," he laughed. "Now you can turn
+round." And when she turned, he saw a bit of chain depending from her
+back hair. He tugged, and brought away the locket, and with laying the
+tress on her shoulder, and proceeded to sound Ashton for hidden
+wealth.
+
+And now Mrs. Temple began to sob, as she parted with an old-fashioned
+brooch and two old-fashioned rings that had been her little vanities
+for the quarter of a century and more. The old clergyman could have
+wept with her at the vandalism. He turned on the wretch with a
+heartsick appeal:
+
+"Can't you spare those? Didn't you ever have a mother?"
+
+The robber started, his fierce eyes softened, his voice choked, and he
+gulped hard as he drew the back of his hand across his eyes.
+
+"Aw, hell," he whimpered, "that ain't fair. If you're goin' to remind
+me of me poor old mo-mo-mother----"
+
+But the one called Jake--the Claude Duval who had been prevented from
+a display of human sentiment, did not intend to be cheated. He
+thundered: "Stop it, Bill. You 'tend strictly to business, or I'll
+blow your mush-bowl off. You know your Maw died before you was born."
+
+This reminder sobered the weeping thief at once, and he went back to
+work ruthlessly. "Oh, all right, Jake. Sorry, ma'am, but business is
+business." And he dumped Mrs. Temple's trinkets into the satchel. It
+was too much for the little old lady's little old husband. He fairly
+shrieked:
+
+"Young man, you're a damned scoundrel, and the best argument I ever
+saw for hell-fire!"
+
+Mrs. Temple's grief changed to horror at such a bolt from the blue:
+"Walter!" she gasped, "such language!"
+
+But her husband answered in self-defence: "Even a minister has a right
+to swear once in his lifetime."
+
+Mallory almost dropped in his tracks, and Marjorie keeled over on him,
+as he gasped: "Good Lord, Doctor Temple, you are a--a minister?"
+
+"Yes, my boy," the old man confessed, glad that the robbers had
+relieved him of his guilty secret along with the rest of his private
+properties. Mallory looked at the collapsing Marjorie, and groaned:
+"And he was in the next berth all this time!"
+
+The unmasking of the old fraud made a second sensation. Mrs. Fosdick
+called from far down the aisle: "Dr. Temple, you're not a detective?"
+
+Mrs. Temple shouted back furiously: "How dare you?"
+
+But Mrs. Fosdick was crying to her luscious-eyed mate: "Oh, Arthur,
+he's not a detective. Embrace me!"
+
+And they embraced, while the robbers looked on aghast at the sudden
+oblivion they had fallen into. They focussed the attention on
+themselves again, however, with a ferocious: "Here, hands up!" But
+they did not see Mr. and Mrs. Fosdick steal a kiss behind their
+upraised arms, for the robber to whose lot Mallory fell was gloating
+over his well-filled wallet. Mallory saw it go with fortitude, but
+noting a piece of legal paper, he said: "Say, old man, you don't want
+that marriage license, do you?"
+
+The robber handled it as if it were hot--as if he had burned his
+fingers on some such document once before, and he stuffed it back in
+Mallory's pocket. "I should say not. Keep it. Turn round."
+
+Meanwhile the other felon turned up another beautiful pile of bills in
+Dr. Temple's pocket. "Not so worse for a parson," he grinned. "You
+must be one of them Fifth Avenue sky-shaffures."
+
+And now Mrs. Temple's gentle eyes and voice filled with tears again:
+"Oh, don't take that. That's the money for his vacation--after thirty
+long years. Please don't take that."
+
+Her appeals seemed always to find the tender spot of this robber's
+heart, for he hesitated, and called out: "Shall we overlook the
+parson's wad, podner?"
+
+"Take it, and shut up, you mollycoddle!" was the answer he got, and
+the vacation funds joined the old gewgaws.
+
+And now everybody had been robbed but Marjorie. She happened to be at
+the center of the line, and both men reached her at the same time: "I
+seen her first," the first one shouted.
+
+"You did not," the other roared.
+
+"I tell you I did."
+
+"I tell you I did." They glared threateningly at each other, and their
+revolvers seemed to meet, like two game cocks, beak to beak.
+
+The porter voiced the general hope, when he sighed: "Oh, Lawd, if
+they'd only shoot each other."
+
+This brought the rivals to their evil senses, and they swept the line
+with those terrifying muzzles and that heart-stopping yelp: "Hands
+up!"
+
+Bill said: "You take the east side of her, and I'll take the west."
+
+"All right."
+
+And they began to snatch away her side-combs, the little gold chain at
+her throat, the jewelled pin that Mallory had given her as the first
+token of his love.
+
+The young soldier had foreseen this. He had foreseen the wild rage that
+would unseat his reason when he saw the dirty hands of thieves laid
+rudely on the sacred body of his beloved. But his soldier-schooling
+had drilled him to govern his impulses, to play the coward when there
+was no hope of successful battle, and to strike only when the moment
+was ripe with perfect opportunity.
+
+He had kept telling himself that when the finger of one of these men
+touched so much as Marjorie's hem, he would be forced to fling himself
+on the profane miscreant. And he kept telling himself that the moment
+he did this, the other man would calmly blow a hole through him, and
+drop him at Marjorie's feet, while the other passengers shrank away in
+terror.
+
+He told himself that, while it might be a fine impulse to leap to her
+defence, it was a fool impulse to leap off a precipice and leave
+Marjorie alone among strangers, with a dead man and a scandal, as the
+only rewards for his impulse. He vowed that he would hold himself in
+check, and let the robbers take everything, leaving him only the name
+of coward, provided they left him also the power to defend Marjorie
+better at another time.
+
+And now that he saw the clumsy-handed thugs rifling his sweetheart's
+jewelry, he felt all that he had foreseen, and his head fought almost
+in vain against the white fire of his heart. Between them he trembled
+like a leaf, and the sweat globed on his forehead.
+
+The worst of it was the shivering terror of Marjorie, and the pitiful
+eyes she turned on him. But he clenched his teeth and waited, thinking
+fiercely, watching, like a hovering eagle, a chance to swoop.
+
+But the robbers kept glancing this way and that, and one motion would
+mean death. They themselves were so overwrought with their own ordeal
+and its immediate conclusion, that they would have killed anybody.
+Mallory shifted his foot cautiously, and instantly a gun was jabbed
+into his stomach, with a snarl: "Don't you move!"
+
+"Who's moving?" Mallory answered, with a poor imitation of a careless
+laugh.
+
+And now the man called Bill had reached Marjorie's right hand. He
+chortled: "Golly, look at the shiners."
+
+But Jake, who had chosen Marjorie's left hand, roared:
+
+"Say, you cheated. All I get is this measly plain gold band."
+
+"Oh, don't take that!" Marjorie gasped, clenching her hand.
+
+Mallory's heart ached at the thought of this final sacrilege. He had
+the license, and the minister at last--and now the fiends were going
+to carry off the wedding ring. He controlled himself with a desperate
+effort, and stooped to plead: "Say, old man, don't take that. That's
+not fair."
+
+"Shut up, both of you," Jake growled, and jabbed him again with the
+gun.
+
+He gave the ring a jerk, but Marjorie, in the very face of the weapon,
+would not let go. She struggled and tugged, weeping and imploring:
+"Oh, don't, don't take that! It's my wedding ring."
+
+"Agh, what do I care!" the ruffian snarled, and wrenched her finger so
+viciously that she gave a little cry of pain.
+
+That broke Mallory's heart. With a wild, bellowing, "Damn you!" he
+hurled himself at the man, with only his bare hands for weapons.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XL
+
+A HERO IN SPITE OF HIMSELF
+
+
+Passion sent Mallory into the unequal fight with two armed and
+desperate outlaws. But reason had planned the way. He had been
+studying the robber all the time, as if the villain were a war-map,
+studying his gestures, his way of turning, and how he held the
+revolver. He had noted that the man, as he frisked the passengers, did
+not keep his finger on the trigger, but on the guard.
+
+Marjorie's little battle threw the desperado off his balance a trifle;
+as he recovered, Mallory struck him, and swept him on over against the
+back of a seat. At the same instant, Mallory's right hand went like
+lightning to the trigger guard, and gripped the fingers in a vise of
+steel, while he drove the man's elbow back against his side. Mallory's
+left hand meanwhile flung around his enemy's neck, and gave him a
+spinning fall that sent his left hand out for balance. It fell across
+the back of the seat, and Mallory pinioned it with elbow and knee
+before it could escape.
+
+All in the same crowded moment, his left knuckles jolted the man's
+chin in air, and so bewildered him that his muscles relaxed enough
+for Mallory's right fingers to squirm their way to the trigger, and
+aim the gun at the other robber, and finally to get entire control of
+it.
+
+The thing had happened in such a flash that the second outlaw could
+hardly believe his eyes. The shriek of the astounded passengers, and
+the grunt of Mallory's prisoner, as he crashed backward, woke him to
+the need for action. He caught his other gun from its holster, and
+made ready for a double volley, but there was nothing to aim at.
+Mallory was crouched in the seat, and almost perfectly covered by a
+human shield.
+
+Still, from force of habit and foolhardy pluck, Bill aimed at
+Mallory's right eyebrow, just abaft Jake's right ear, and shouted his
+old motto:
+
+"Hands up! you!"
+
+"Hands up yourself!" answered Mallory, and his victim, shuddering at
+the fierce look in his comrade's eyes, gasped: "For God's sake, don't
+shoot, Bill!"
+
+Even then the fellow stood his ground, and debated the issue, till
+Mallory threw such ringing determination into one last: "Hands up, or
+by God, I'll fire!" that he caved in, lifted his fingers from the
+triggers, turned the guns up, and slowly raised both hands above his
+head.
+
+A profound "Ah!" of relief soughed through the car, and Mallory, still
+keeping his eye on Bill, got down cautiously from the seat. The
+moment he released Jake's left hand, it darted to the holster where
+his second gun was waiting. But before he could clutch the butt of it,
+Mallory jabbed the muzzle of his own revolver in the man's back, and
+growled: "Put 'em up!" And the robber's left hand joined the right in
+air, while Mallory's left hand lifted the revolver, and took
+possession of it.
+
+Mallory stood for a moment, breathing hard and a little incredulous at
+his own swift, sweet triumph. Then he made an effort to speak as if
+this sort of thing were quite common with him, as if he overpowered a
+pair of outlaws every morning before breakfast, but his voice cracked
+as he said, in a drawing-room tone:
+
+"Dr. Temple, would you mind relieving that man of those guns?"
+
+Dr. Temple was so set up by this distinction that he answered: "Not by
+a----"
+
+"Walter!" Mrs. Temple checked him, before he could utter the beautiful
+word, and Dr. Temple looked at her almost reproachfully, as he sighed:
+"Golly, I should like to swear just once more."
+
+Then he reached up and disarmed the man who had taken his wallet and
+his wife's keepsakes. But the doctor was not half so happy over the
+recovery of his property as over the unbelievable luxury of finding
+himself taking two revolvers away from a masked train-robber.
+
+American children breathe in this desperado romance with their
+earliest traditions, and Dr. Temple felt all his boyhood zest surge
+back with a boy's tremendous rapture in a deed of derring-do. And now
+nothing could check his swagger, as he said to Mallory:
+
+"What shall we do with these dam-ned sinners?"
+
+He felt like apologizing for the clerical relapse into a pulpitism,
+but Mallory answered briskly: "We'd better take them into the smoking
+room. They scare the ladies. But first, will the conductor take those
+bags and distribute the contents to their rightful owners?"
+
+The conductor was proud to act as lieutenant to this Lieutenant, and
+he quickly relieved the robbers of their loot-kits.
+
+Mallory smiled. "Don't give anybody my things," and then he jabbed his
+robber with one of the revolvers, and commanded: "Forward, march!"
+
+The little triumphal procession moved off, with Bill in the lead,
+followed by Dr. Temple, looking like a whole field battery, followed
+by Jake, followed by Mallory, followed by the porter and as many of
+the other passengers as could crowd into the smoking room.
+
+The rest went after those opulent feed-bags.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XLI
+
+CLICKETY-CLICKETY-CLICKETY
+
+
+Marjorie, as the supposed wife of the rescuing angel, was permitted
+first search, and the first thing she hunted for was a certain gold
+bracelet that was none of hers. She found it and seized it with a
+prayer of thanks, and concealed it among her own things.
+
+Mrs. Temple gave her a guilty start, by speaking across a barrier:
+
+"Mrs. Mallory, your husband is the bravest man on earth."
+
+"Oh, I know he is," Marjorie beamed, and added with a spasm of
+conscience: "but he isn't my husband!"
+
+Mrs. Temple gasped in horror, but Marjorie dragged her close, and
+poured out the whole story, while the other passengers recovered their
+properties with as much joy as if they were all new gifts found on a
+bush.
+
+Meanwhile, under Mallory's guidance, the porter fastened the outlaws
+together back to back with the straps of their own feed-bags. The
+porter was rejoicing that his harvest of tips was not blighted after
+all.
+
+Mallory completed his bliss, by giving him Dr. Temple's brace of guns,
+and establishing him as jailer, with a warning: "Now, porter, don't
+take your eye off 'em."
+
+"Lordy, I won't bat an eyelid."
+
+"If either of these lads coughs, put a hole through both of 'em."
+
+The porter chuckled: "My fingers is just a-itchin' fer them lovin'
+triggers."
+
+And now Mr. Baumann, having scrambled back his possessions, hastened
+into the smoking room, and regarded the two hangdog culprits with
+magnificent generosity; he forgave them their treatment. In fact, he
+went so far as to say: "You gents vill be gettin' off at Reno, yes?
+You'll be needing a good firm of lawyers. Don't forget us. Baumann"
+(he put a card in Bill's hat) "and Blumen" (he put a card in Jake's
+hat). "Avoid substitoots."
+
+Mallory pocketed two of the captured revolvers, lest a need might
+arise suddenly again. As he hurried down the aisle, he was received
+with cheers. The passengers gave him an ovation, but he only smiled
+timidly, and made haste to Marjorie's side.
+
+She regarded him with such idolatry that he almost regretted his deed.
+But this mood soon passed in her excitement, and in a moment she was
+surreptitiously showing him the bracelet. He became an accessory after
+the fact, and shared her guilt, for when she groaned with a sudden
+droop: "She'll get it back!" he grimly answered, "Oh, no she won't!"
+hoisted the window, and flung the bracelet into a little pool by the
+side of the track, with a farewell: "Good-bye, trouble!"
+
+As he drew his head in, a side glance showed him that up near the
+engine a third train-robber held the miserably weary train crew in
+line.
+
+He found the conductor just about to pull the bell-rope, to proceed.
+The conductor had forgotten all about the rest of the staff. Mallory
+took him aside, and told him the situation, then turned to Marjorie,
+said: "Excuse me a minute," and hurried forward. The conductor
+followed Mallory through the train into the baggage coach.
+
+The first news the third outlaw had of the counter-revolution
+occurring in the sleeping car was a mysterious bullet that flicked the
+dust near his heel, and a sonorous shout of "Hands up!" As he whirled
+in amaze, he saw two revolvers aimed point blank at him from behind a
+trunk. He hoisted his guns without parley, and the train crew trussed
+him up in short order.
+
+Mallory ran back to Marjorie, and the conductor followed more slowly,
+reassuring the passengers in the other cars, and making certain that
+the train was ready to move on its way.
+
+Mallory went straight to Dr. Temple, with a burning demand:
+
+"You dear old fraud, will you marry me?"
+
+Dr. Temple laughed and nodded. Marjorie and Mrs. Temple had been
+telling him the story of the prolonged elopement, and he was eager to
+atone for his own deception, by putting an end to their misery.
+
+"Just wait one moment," he said, and as a final proof of affection, he
+unbuttoned his collar and put it on backwards. Mrs. Temple brought out
+the discarded bib, and he donned it meekly. The transformation
+explained many a mystery the old man had enmeshed himself in.
+
+Even as he made ready for the ceremony, the conductor appeared, looked
+him over, grinned, and reached for the bell-cord, with a cheerful:
+"All aboard!"
+
+Mallory had a sort of superstitious dread, not entirely unfounded on
+experience, that if the train got under way again, it would run into
+some new obstacle to his marriage. He turned to the conductor:
+
+"Say, old man, just hold the train till after my wedding, won't you?"
+
+It was not much to ask in return for his services, but the conductor
+was tired of being second in command. He growled:
+
+"Not a minute. We're 'way behind time."
+
+"You might wait till I'm married," Mallory pleaded.
+
+"Not on your life!" the conductor answered, and he pulled the
+bell-rope twice; in the distance, the whistle answered twice.
+
+Mallory's temper flared again. He cried: "This train doesn't go
+another step till I'm married!" He reached up and pulled the bell-rope
+once; in the distance the whistle sounded once.
+
+This was high treason, and the conductor advanced on him
+threateningly, as he seized the cord once more. "You touch that rope
+again, and I'll----"
+
+"Oh, no, you won't," said Mallory, as he whisked a revolver from his
+right pocket and jammed it into the conductor's watch-pocket. The
+conductor came to attention.
+
+Then Mallory, standing with his right hand on military duty, put out
+his left hand, and gave the word: "Now, parson."
+
+He smiled still more as he heard Kathleen's voice wailing: "But I
+can't find my bracelet. Where's my bracelet?"
+
+"Silence! Silence!" Dr. Temple commanded, and then: "Join hands, my
+children."
+
+Marjorie shifted Snoozleums to her left arm, put her right hand into
+Mallory's, and Dr. Temple, standing between them, began to drone the
+ritual. Everybody said they made a right pretty picture.
+
+When the old clergyman had done his work, the young husband-at-last
+graciously rescinded military law, recalled the artillery from the
+conductor's very midst, and remembering Manila, smiled:
+
+"You may fire when ready, conductor."
+
+The conductor's rage had cooled, and he slapped the bridegroom on the
+back with one hand, as he pulled the cord with the other. The train
+began to creak and tug and shift. The ding-dong of the bell floated
+murmurously back as from a lofty steeple, and the clickety-click,
+click-clickety-click quickened and softened into a pleasant gossip, as
+the speed grew, and the way was so smooth for the wheels that they
+seemed to be spinning on rails of velvet.
+
+
+THE END
+
+
+
+
+
+End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of Excuse Me!, by Rupert Hughes
+
+*** END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 40607 ***