Excuse Me!

  CHAPTER XXXIX

  WOLVES IN THE FOLD

  Mallory's heart sank to its usual depth, but Marjorie had another ofher inspirations. She startled everybody by suddenly beckoning andcalling: "Excuse me, Mr. Robber. Come here, please."

  The curious gallant edged her way, keeping a sharp watch along theline: "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, andgrunted: "Much obliged." Then he went back, and tapped Kathleen on theshoulder. When she turned round, in the hope that he had reconsideredhis 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, andaccomplished 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 heapin 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 hesaid: "Say, you'd oughter have a pocketbook somewheres. Where's itat?"

  Mrs. Whitcomb brushed furiously: "None of your business, you lowbrute."

  "Perdooce, madame," the scoundrel snorted, "perdooce the purse, orI'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 nogentleman, sir!"

  "If I was, I'd be in Wall Street," he laughed. "Now you can turnround." And when she turned, he saw a bit of chain depending from herback hair. He tugged, and brought away the locket, and with laying thetress on her shoulder, and proceeded to sound Ashton for hiddenwealth.

  And now Mrs. Temple began to sob, as she parted with an old-fashionedbrooch and two old-fashioned rings that had been her little vanitiesfor the quarter of a century and more. The old clergyman could havewept with her at the vandalism. He turned on the wretch with aheartsick appeal:

  "Can't you spare those? Didn't you ever have a mother?"

  The robber started, his fierce eyes softened, his voice choked, and hegulped 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 remindme of me poor old mo-mo-mother----"

  But the one called Jake--the Claude Duval who had been prevented froma display of human sentiment, did not intend to be cheated. Hethundered: "Stop it, Bill. You 'tend strictly to business, or I'llblow 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 towork ruthlessly. "Oh, all right, Jake. Sorry, ma'am, but business isbusiness." And he dumped Mrs. Temple's trinkets into the satchel. Itwas too much for the little old lady's little old husband. He fairlyshrieked:

  "Young man, you're a damned scoundrel, and the best argument I eversaw 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 rightto 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 hadrelieved him of his guilty secret along with the rest of his privateproperties. 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. Fosdickcalled 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 suddenoblivion they had fallen into. They focussed the attention onthemselves again, however, with a ferocious: "Here, hands up!" Butthey did not see Mr. and Mrs. Fosdick steal a kiss behind theirupraised arms, for the robber to whose lot Mallory fell was gloatingover his well-filled wallet. Mallory saw it go with fortitude, butnoting a piece of legal paper, he said: "Say, old man, you don't wantthat marriage license, do you?"

  The robber handled it as if it were hot--as if he had burned hisfingers on some such document once before, and he stuffed it back inMallory's pocket. "I should say not. Keep it. Turn round."

  Meanwhile the other felon turned up another beautiful pile of bills inDr. Temple's pocket. "Not so worse for a parson," he grinned. "Youmust 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 thirtylong years. Please don't take that."

  Her appeals seemed always to find the tender spot of this robber'sheart, for he hesitated, and called out: "Shall we overlook theparson's wad, podner?"

  "Take it, and shut up, you mollycoddle!" was the answer he got, andthe vacation funds joined the old gewgaws.

  And now everybody had been robbed but Marjorie. She happened to be atthe center of the line, and both men reached her at the same time: "Iseen 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 theirrevolvers seemed to meet, like two game cocks, beak to beak.

  The porter voiced the general hope, when he sighed: "Oh, Lawd, ifthey'd only shoot each other."

  This brought the rivals to their evil senses, and they swept the linewith those terrifying muzzles and that heart-stopping yelp: "Handsup!"

  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 ather throat, the jewelled pin that Mallory had given her as the firsttoken of his love.

  The young soldier had foreseen this. He had foreseen the wild rage thatwould unseat his reason when he saw the dirty hands of thieves laidrudely on the sacred body of his beloved. But his soldier-schoolinghad drilled him to govern his impulses, to play the coward when therewas no hope of successful battle, and to strike only when the momentwas ripe with perfect opportunity.

  He had kept telling himself that when the finger of one of these mentouched so much as Marjorie's hem, he would be forced to fling himselfon the profane miscreant. And he kept telling himself that the momenthe did this, the other man would calmly blow a hole through him, anddrop him at Marjorie's feet, while the other passengers shrank away interror.

  He told himself that, while it might be a fine impulse to leap to herdefence, it was a fool impulse to leap off a precipice and leaveMarjorie alone among strangers, with a dead man and a scandal, as theonly rewards for his impulse. He vowed that he would hold himself incheck, and let the robbers take everything, leaving him only the nameof coward, provided they left him also the power to defend Marjoriebetter at another time.

  And now that he saw the clumsy-handed thugs rifling his sweetheart'sjewelry, he felt all that he had foreseen, and his head fought almostin vain against the white fire of his heart. Between them he trembledlike a leaf, and the sweat globed on his forehead.

  The worst of it was the shivering terror of Marjorie, and the pitifuleyes she turned on him. But he clenched his teeth and waited, thinkingfiercely, watching, like a hovering eagle, a chance to swoop.

  But the robbers kept glancing this way and that, and one motion wouldmean death. They themselves were so overwrought with their own ordealand its immediate conclusion, that they would have killed anybody.Mallory shifted his foot cautiously, and instantly a gun was jabbedinto his stomach, with a snarl: "Don't you move
!"

  "Who's moving?" Mallory answered, with a poor imitation of a carelesslaugh.

  And now the man called Bill had reached Marjorie's right hand. Hechortled: "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 hadthe license, and the minister at last--and now the fiends were goingto carry off the wedding ring. He controlled himself with a desperateeffort, and stooped to plead: "Say, old man, don't take that. That'snot fair."

  "Shut up, both of you," Jake growled, and jabbed him again with thegun.

  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 soviciously that she gave a little cry of pain.

  That broke Mallory's heart. With a wild, bellowing, "Damn you!" hehurled himself at the man, with only his bare hands for weapons.