Excuse Me! Part 17

CHAPTER XIV

THE DORMITORY ON WHEELS

Of all the shocking inst.i.tutions 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 fas.h.i.+on of the famous country whose inhabitants earned a meagre sustenance by taking in each other's was.h.i.+ng, 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 j.a.pan, 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 portieres. Behind most of the portieres, fluttering in the lightest breeze, and perilously following the hasty pa.s.ser-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 s.h.i.+rt 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 part.i.tion now erected between her and the abode of Doctor and Mrs. Temple, Marjorie s.h.i.+vered anew, and asked with all anxiety:

"Did you find a minister?"

Perhaps the Recording Angel overlooked Mallory's answer: "Not a d.a.m.n'

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 pa.s.sed 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, "Ya.s.sah!"

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?"