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."