Excuse Me!

  CHAPTER IX

  ALL ABOARD!

  The starting of the train surprised the ironical decorators in thelast stages of their work. Their smiles died out in a sudden shame, asit came over them that the joke had recoiled on their own heads. Theyhad done their best to carry out the time-honored rite of making anewly married couple as miserable as possible--and the newly marriedcouple had failed to do its share.

  The two lieutenants glared at each other in mutual contempt. They hadstudied much at West Point about ambushes, and how to avoid them.Could Mallory have escaped the pit they had digged for him? Theylooked at their handiwork in disgust. The cosy-corner effect of whiteribbons and orange flowers, gracefully masking the concealedrice-trap, had seemed the wittiest thing ever devised. Now it lookedthe silliest.

  The other passengers were equally downcast. Meanwhile the two loversin the corridor were kissing good-byes as if they were hoping to storeup honey enough to sustain their hearts for a three years' fast. Andthe porter was studying them with perplexity.

  He was used, however, to waking people out of dreamland, and he beganto fear that if he were discovered spying on the lovers, he mightsuffer. So he coughed discreetly three or four times.

  Since the increasing racket of the train made no effect on the twohearts beating as one, the small matter of a cough was as nothing.

  Finally the porter was compelled to reach forward and tap Mallory'sarm, 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 awakenedthem. She felt called upon to say something, so she said, ascarelessly as if she had not just emerged from a young gentleman'sarms:

  "Oh, porter, how long before the train starts?"

  "Train's done started, Missy."

  This simple statement struck the wool from her eyes and the cottonfrom her ears, and she was wide enough awake when she cried: "Oh, stopit--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." Feelingthat he had safely checkmated any rashness, the porter squeezed pastthe dumbfounded pair, and went to change his blue blouse for the whitecoat of his chambermaidenly duties. Mallory's first wondering thoughtwas a rapturous feeling that circumstances had forced his dream into areality. 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. Marjoriecame back to earth with a bump: "Are you really sure there's aminister 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 beganto quake with alarm: "Suppose there shouldn't be?"

  "Oh, then," Mallory answered carelessly, "there's bound to be oneto-morrow."

  Marjorie realized at once the enormous abyss between then and themorrow, and she gasped: "Tomorrow! And no chaperon! Oh, I'll jump outof 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 firstinspiration.

  "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 himunder her arm, and tried to compose her bridal face into a merelyfriendly countenance before they entered the car. But she must pausefor one more kiss, one more of those bittersweet good-byes. AndMallory was nothing loath.

  Hudson and Shaw were still glumly perplexed, when the porter returnedin his white jacket.

  "I bet they missed the train; all this work for nothing," Hudsongrumbled. But Shaw, seeing the porter, caught a gleam of hope, andasked anxiously:

  "Say, porter, have you seen anything anywhere that looks like afreshly married pair?"

  "Well," and the porter rubbed his eyes with the back of his hand ashe chuckled, "well, they's a mighty lovin' couple out theah in thecorridor."

  "That's them--they--it!"

  Instantly everything was alive and in action. It was as if a bugle hadshrilled 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 thisnarrow car."

  "There's a kazoo for everyone, too," said Shaw, as the outstretchedhands were equipped with wedding ammunition. "Do you know the 'WeddingMarch'?"

  "I ought to by this time," said Mrs. Whitcomb.

  Right into the tangle of preparation, old Ira Lathrop stalked, on hisway back to his seat to get more cigars.

  "Have some rice for the bridal couple?" said Ashton, offering him ofhis 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 justtoo late to escape a neck-filling, hair-filling shower. An old shoetook him a clip abaft the ear, and the old woman-hater dropped raginginto the same berth where the spinster, Anne Gattle, was trying tododge 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 andprepared for nothing on earth less than for a wedding charivari.

  Mallory should have done better than to entrust his plans to fellowslike Hudson and Shaw, whom he had known at West Point for diabolicallyjoyous hazers and practical jokers. Even as he sputtered rice andwinced from the impact of flying footgear, he was cursing himself as adouble-dyed idiot for asking such men to engage his berth for him. Hehad a sudden instinct that they had doubtless bedecked his trunk andMarjorie's with white satin furbelows and ludicrous labels. But hecould not shelter himself from the white sleet and the black thumps.He could hardly shelter Marjorie, who cowered behind him and shriekedeven louder than the romping tormentors.

  When the assailants had exhausted the rice and shoes, they chargeddown the aisle for the privilege of kissing the bride. Mallory wasdragged and bunted and shunted here and there, and he had to fight hisway back to Marjorie with might and main. He was tugging and strikinglike 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 combatantsdraped themselves limply about the seats. Mallory glared at the twinBenedict 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 KedzieAvenue, just to start the honeymoon properly."

  If either of the elopers had been calmer, the solution of the problemwould have been simple. Marjorie could get off at this suburbanstation 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 whitesatin atrocity. "Love in a bungalow," said Hudson. "Sit down--makeyourselves perfectly at ho
me."

  "No--never--oh, oh, oh!" cried Marjorie, darting away and throwingherself into the first empty seat--Ira Lathrop's berth. Malloryfollowed 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 initiationceremony as well as anyone. But when the little bride began to cry,she remembered the pitiful terror and shy shame she had undergone as agirl-wife, and she hastened to Marjorie's side, brushing the men awaylike gnats.

  "You poor thing," she comforted. "Come, my child, lean on me, and havea good cry."

  Hudson grinned, and put out his own arms: "She can lean on me, ifshe'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 twoimps 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 itwas gone."

  "And here are your baggage checks," laughed Shaw, forcing into hisfists a few pasteboards. "We got your trunks on the train ahead, allright. 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 stepsmart. We're slowin' up now."

  Marjorie was sobbing too audibly to hear, and Mallory swearing tooinaudibly to heed the opportunity Kedzie Avenue offered. And Hudsonwas yelling: "Well, good-bye, old boy and old girl. Sorry we can't goall 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 themoff. He elbowed and shouldered them down the aisle, and sent afterthem one of his own shoes. But it just missed Shaw's flying coattails.

  Mallory stood glaring after the departing traitors. He was glad thatthey at least were gone, till he realized with a sickening slump inhis vitals, that they had not taken with them his awful dilemma. Andnow the train was once more clickety-clicking into the night and theWest.