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!"