"So am I," gasped Mrs. Wellington, rushing forward, only to be faced by the slam of the door and the click of the key. She whirled back to demandof Marjorie: "Did you ever hear of such impudence?"
"I never did."
"I'll never be ready for Reno," Mrs. Wellington wailed, "and I haven't had my breakfast."
"You'd better order it in advance," said Marjorie. "It takes that chef an hour to boil an egg three minutes."
"I will, if I can ever get my face washed," sighed Mrs. Wellington.
And now Mrs. Anne Lathrop, after much hesitation, called timidly: "Porter—porter—please!"
"Yes—miss—missus!" he amended.
"Will you call my—" she gulped—"my husband?"
"Yes, ma'am," the porter chuckled, and putting his grinning head in at the men's door, he bowed to Ira and said: "Excuse me, but you are sent for by the lady in number One."
Ashton slapped him on the back and roared: "Oh, you married man!"
"Well," said Ira, in self-defence, "I don't hear anybody sending for you." Wedgewood grinned at Ashton. "I rather fancy he had you theah, old top, eh, what?"
Ira appeared at number One, and bending over his treasure-trove, spoke in a voice that was pure saccharine: "Are you ready for breakfast, dear?"
"Yes, Ira."
"Come along to the dining-car."
"It's cosier here," she said. "Couldn't we have it served here?"
"But it'll get all cold, and I'm hungry," pouted the old bachelor, to whom breakfast was a sacred institution.
"All right, Ira," said Anne, glad to be meek; "come along," and she rose.
Ira hesitated. "Still, if you'd rather, we'll eat here." He sat down.
"Oh, not at all," said Anne; "we'll go where you want to go."
"But I want to do what you want to do."
"So do I—we'll go," said Anne.
"We'll stay."
"No, I insist on the dining-car."
"Oh, all right, have your own way," said Ira, as if he were being bullied, and liked it. Anne smiled at the contrariness of men, and Ira smiled at the contrariness of women, and when they reached the vestibule they kissed each other in mutual forgiveness.
As Wedgewood stropped an old-fashioned razor, he said to Ashton, who was putting up his safety equipment: "I say, old party, are those safety razors safe? Can't you really cut yourself?"
"Cut everything but hair," said Ashton, pointing to his wounded chin.
Mallory put out his hand: "Would you be kind enough to lend me your razor again this morning?"
"Sure thing," said Ashton. "You'll find your blade in the box there."
Mallory then negotiated the loan of one more fresh shirt from the Englishman, and a clean collar from Ashton. He rejoiced that the end of the day would bring him in touch with his own baggage. Four days of foraging on the country was enough for this soldier.
Also he felt, now that he and Marjorie had lived thus long, they could survive somehow till evening brought them to San Francisco, where there were hundreds of ministers. And then the conductor must ruin his early morning optimism, though he made his appearance in the washroom with genial good mornings for all.
Mallory acknowledged the greeting, and asked offhandedly: "By the way, how's she running?"
The conductor answered even more offhandedly: "About two hours late—and losin'."
Mallory was transfixed with a new fear: "Good Lord, my transport sails at sunrise."
"Oh, we ought to make 'Frisco by midnight, anyway."
"Midnight, and sail at daylight!"
"Unless we lose a little more time."
Mallory realized that every new day managed to create its own anxieties. With the regularity of a milkman, each morning left a fresh crisis on his doorstep.
The other passengers were growing nervous with their own troubles. The next stop was Reno, and in spite of all the wit that is heaped upon the town, it is a solemn place to those who must go there in purgatorial penance for matrimonial error.
Some honest souls regard such divorce-emporiums as dens of evil, where the wicked make a mockery of the sacrament and assail the foundations of society, by undermining the home. Other equally honest souls, believing that marriage is a human institution whose mishaps and mistakes should be rectified as far as possible, regard the divorce courts as cities of refuge for ill-treated or ill-mated women and men whose lives may be saved from utter ruination by the intervention of high-minded judges.
But, whichever view is right, the ordeal by divorce is terrifying enough to the poor sinners or martyrs who must undergo it.
Little Jimmie Wellington turned pale, and stammered, as he tried to ask the conductor casually:
"What kind of a place is that Reno?"
The conductor, somewhat cynical from close associationwith the divorce-mill and its grist, grinned: "That depends on what you're leaving behind. Most folks seem to get enough of it in about six months."
Then he went his way, leaving Wellington red, agape and perplexed. The trouble with Wellington was that he had brought along what he was leaving behind. Or, as Ashton impudently observed: "You ought to enjoy your residence there, Wellington, with your wife on hand."
The only repartee that Wellington could think of was a rather uninspired: "You go to ——."
"So long as it isn't Reno," Ashton laughed, and walked away.
Wedgewood laid a sympathetic hand on Little Jimmie's shoulder, and said:
"That Ashton is no end of a bounder, what?"
Wellington wrote his epitaph in these words:
"Well, the worst I can say of him is, he's the kind of man that doesn't lift the plug out when he's through with the basin."
He liked this so well that he wished he had thought of it in time to crack it over Ashton's head. He decided to hand it to him anyway. He forgot that the cardinal rule for repartee, is "Better never than late."
As he swung out of the men's room he was buttonholed by an individual new to the little Trans-American colony. One of the camp-followers and sutlers who prosper round the edges of all greatenterprises had waylaid him on the way to the battleground of marital freedom.
The stranger had got on at an earlier stop and worked his way through the train to the car named "Snowdrop." Wellington was his first victim here. His pushing manner, the almost vulture-like rapacity of his gleaming eyes, and the very vulturine contour of his profile, his palmy gestures, his thick lisp, and everything about him gave Wellington his immediate pedigree.
It ill behooves Christendom to need reminding that the Jewish race has adorned and still adorns humanity with some of its noblest specimens; but this interloper was of the type that must have irritated Voltaire into answering the platitude that the Jews are God's chosen people with that other platitude, "Tastes differ."
Little Jimmie Wellington, hot in pursuit of Ashton, found himself checked in spite of himself; in spite of himself deposited somehow into a seat, and in spite of himself confronted with a curvilinear person, who said:
"Excoose, pleass! but are you gettink off at R-r-reno?"
"I am," Wellington answered, curtly, essaying to rise, only to be delicately restored to his place with a gesture and a phrase:
"Then you neet me."
"Oh, I need you, do I? And who are you?"
"Who ain't I? I am Baumann and Blumen. Our cart, pleass."
Wellington found a pasteboard in his hand and read the legend:
Real Estate Agents. Baggage Transfer.Baumann & BlumenDIVORCE OUTFITTERS,212 Alimony Avenue, Reno, Nev.Notary Public. Divorces Secured.Justice of the Peace. Satisfaction Guaranteed.
Real Estate Agents. Baggage Transfer.
Baumann & Blumen
DIVORCE OUTFITTERS,
212 Alimony Avenue, Reno, Nev.
Notary Public. Divorces Secured.
Justice of the Peace. Satisfaction Guaranteed.
Wellington looked from the crowded card to the zealous face. "Divorce Outfitters, eh? I don't quite get you."
"Vell, in the foist place——"
"'The foist place,' eh? You're from New York."
"Yes, oritchinally. How did you know it? By my feshionable clothink?"
"Yes," laughed Wellington. "But you say I need you. How?"
"Vell, you've got maybe some beggetch, some trunks—yes?"
"Yes."
"Vell, in the foist place, I am an expressman. I deliver 'em to your address—yes? Vere iss it?"
"I haven't got any yet."
"Also I am addressman. Do you vant it a nice hotel?—or a fine house?—or an apartment?—or maybe a boarding-house?—yes? How long do you make a residence?"
"Six months."
"No longer?"
"Not a minute."
"Take a fine house, den. I got some beauties just wacated."
"For a year?—no thanks."
"All the leases in Reno run for six months only."
"Well, I'd like to look around a little first."
"Good. Don't forget us. You come out here for six months. You vant maybe a good quick divorce—yes?"
"The quickest I can get."
"Do you vant it confidential? or very nice and noisy?"
"What's that?"
"Ve are press agents and also suppress agents. Some likes 'em one way, some likes 'em anudder. Vich do you vant it?"
"Quick and quiet."
"Painless divorce is our specialty. If you pay me an advence deposit now, I file your claim de minute de train stops and your own vife don't know you're divorced."
"I'll think it over," said Wellington, rising with resolution.
"Don't forget us. Baumann and Blumen. Satisfaction guaranteed or your wife refunded. Avoid substitoots." And then, seeing that he could not extract any cash from Little Jimmie, Mr. Baumann descended upon Mallory, who was just finishing his shave. Laying his hand on Mallory's arm, he began:
"Excoose, pleass. Can I fit you out vit a nice divorce?"
"Divorce?—me!—that's good," laughed Mallory at the vision of it. Then a sudden idea struck him. It took no great genius to see that Mr. Baumann was not a clergyman, but there were other marriers to be had. "You don't perform marriages, do you?" he asked.
Mr. Baumann drew himself up: "Who says I don't? Ain't I a justice of the peaces?"
Mallory put out his hand in welcome: then a new anxiety chilled him. He had a license for Chicago, but Chicago was far away: "Do I need a license in Nevada?"
"Why shouldn't you?" said Mr. Baumann. "Don't all sorts of things got to have a license in Nevada, saloons, husbands, dogs——"
"How could I get one?" Mallory asked as he went on dressing.
"Ain't I got a few vit me? Do you vant to get a nice re-marriage license?"
"Re-marriage?—huh!" he looked round and, seeing that no one else was near: "I haven't taken the first step yet."
Mr. Baumann layed his hands in one another: "A betchelor? Ah, I see you vant to marry a nice divorcee lady in R-r-reno?"
"She isn't in Reno and she has never been married, either."
This simple statement seemed to astound Mr. Baumann:
"A betcheller marry a maiden!—in Reno!—oi, oi, oi! It hasn't been done yet, but it might be."
Mallory looked him over and a twinge of distaste disturbed him: "You furnish the license, but—er—ah—is there any chance of a clergyman—a Christian clergyman—being at the station?"
"Vy do you vant it a cloigyman? Can't I do it just as good? Or a nice fat alderman I can get you?"
Mallory pondered: "I don't think she'd like anything but a clergyman."
"Vell," Baumann confessed, "a lady is liable to be particular about her foist marriage. Anyvay I sell you de license."
"All right."
Mr. Baumann whipped out a portfolio full of documents, and as he searched them, philosophized: "A man ought alvays to carry a good marriage license.It might be he should need it in a hurry." He took a large iron seal from his side-pocket and stamped the paper and then, with fountain pen poised, pleaded: "Vat is the names, pleass?"
"Not so loud!" Mallory whispered.
Baumann put his finger to his nose, wisely: "I see, it is a confidential marriage. Sit down once."
When he had asked Mallory the necessary questions and taken his fee, he passed over the document by which the sovereign state of Nevada graciously permitted two souls to be made more or less one in the eyes of the law.
"Here you are," said Mr. Baumann. "Vit dat you can get married anyvere in Nevada."
Mallory realized that Nevada would be a thing of the past in a few hours more and he asked:
"It's no good in California?"
"Himmel, no. In California you bot' gotta go and be examined."
"Examined!" Mallory gasped, in dire alarm.
"Vit questions, poissonally," Mr. Baumann hastened to explain.
"Oh!"
"In Nevada," Baumann insinuated, still hopeful, "I could marry you myself—now, right here."
"Could you marry us in this smoking room?"
"In a cattle car, if you vant it."
"It's not a bad idea," said Mallory. "I'll let you know."
Seeing Marjorie coming down the aisle, he hastened to her, and hugged her good-morning with a new confidence.
Dr. and Mrs. Temple, who had returned to their berth, witnessed this greeting with amazement. After the quarrel of the night before surely some explanation should have been overheard, but the puzzling Mallorys flew to each other's arms without a moment's delay. The mystery was exciting the passengers to such a point that they were vowing to ask a few questions point blank. Nobody had quite dared to approach either of them, but frank curiosity was preferable to nervous prostration, and the secret could not be kept much longer. Fellow-passengers have some rights. Not even a stranger can be permitted to outrage their curiosity with impunity forever.
Seeing them together, Mrs. Temple watched the embrace with her daily renewal of joy that the last night's quarrel had not proved fatal. She nudged her husband:
"See, they're making up again."
Dr. Temple was moved to a violent outburst for him: "Well, that's the darnedest bridal couple—I only said darn, my dear."
He was still more startled when Mr. Baumann, cruising along the aisle, bent over to murmur: "Can I fix you a nice divorce?"
Dr. Temple rose in such an attitude of horror ashe assumed in the pulpit when denouncing the greatest curse of society, and Mr. Baumann retired. As he passed Mallory he cast an appreciative glance at Marjorie and, tapping Mallory's shoulder, whispered: "No vonder you want a marriage license. I'll be in the next car, should you neet me." Then he went on his route.
Marjorie stared after him in wonder and asked: "What did that person mean by what he said?"
"It's all right, Marjorie," Mallory explained, in the highest cheer: "We can get married right away."
Marjorie declined to get her hopes up again: "You're always saying that."
"But here's the license—see?"
"What good is that?" she said, "there's no preacher on board."
"But that man is a justice of the peace and he'll marry us."
Marjorie stared at him incredulously: "That creature!—before all these passengers?"
"Not at all," Mallory explained. "We'll go into the smoking room."
Marjorie leaped to her feet, aghast: "Elope two thousand miles to be married in a smoking room by a Yiddish drummer! Harry Mallory, you're crazy."
Put just that way, the proposition did not look so alluring as at first. He sank back with a sigh: "I guess I am. I resign."
He was as weary of being "foiled again" as the villain of a cheap melodrama. The two lovers sat in a twilight of deep melancholy, till Marjorie's mind dug up a new source of alarm:
"Harry, I've just thought of something terrible."
"Let's have it," he sighed, drearily.
"We reach San Francisco at midnight and you sail at daybreak. What becomes of me?"
Mallory had no answer to this problem, except a grim: "I'll not desert you."
"But we'll have no time to get married."
"Then," he declared with iron resolve, "then I'll resign from the Army."
Marjorie stared at him with awe. He was so wonderful, so heroic. "But what will the country do without you?"
"It will have to get along the best it can," he answered with finality. "Do you think I'd give you up?"
But this was too much to ask. In the presence of a ruined career and a hero-less army, Marjorie felt that her own scruples were too petty to count. She could be heroic, too.
"No!" she said, in a deep, low tone, "No, we'll get married in the smoking room. Go call your drummer!"
This opened the clouds and let in the sun again with such a radiant blaze that Mallory hesitated no longer. "Fine!" he cried, and leaped to hisfeet, only to be detained again by Marjorie's clutch:
"But first, what about that bracelet?"
"She's got it," Mallory groaned, slumping from the heights again.
"Do you mean to say she's still wearing it?"
"How was I to get it?"
"Couldn't you have slipped into her car last night and stolen it?"
"Good Lord, I shouldn't think you'd want me to go—why, Marjorie—I'd be arrested!"
But Marjorie set her jaw hard: "Well, you get that bracelet, or you don't get me." And then her smouldering jealousy and grief took a less hateful tone: "Oh, Harry!" she wailed, "I'm so lonely and so helpless and so far from home."
"But I'm here," he urged.
"You're farther away than anybody," she whimpered, huddling close to him.
"Poor little thing," he murmured, soothing her with voice and kiss and caress.
"Put your arm round me," she cooed, like a mourning dove, "I don't care if everybody is looking. Oh, I'm so lonely."
"I'm just as lonely as you are," he pleaded, trying to creep into the company of her misery.
"Please marry me soon," she implored, "won't you, please?"
"I'd marry you this minute if you'd say the word," he whispered.
"I'd say it if you only had that bracelet," she sobbed, like a tired child. "I should think you would understand my feelings. That awful person is wearing your bracelet and I have only your ring, and her bracelet is ten times as big as my r-i-ing, boo-hoo-hoo-oo!"
"I'll get that bracelet if I have to chop her arm off," Mallory vowed.
The sobs stopped short, as Marjorie looked up to ask: "Have you got your sword with you?"
"It's in my trunk," he said, "but I'll manage."
"Now you're speaking like a soldier," Marjorie exclaimed, "my brave, noble, beautiful, fearless husband. I'll tell you! That creature will pass through this car on her way to breakfast. You grab her and take the bracelet away from her."
"I grab her, eh?" he stammered, his heroism wavering a trifle.
"Yes, just grab her."
"Suppose she hasn't the bracelet on?" he mused.
"Grab her anyway," Marjorie answered, fiercely. "Besides, I've no doubt it's wished on." He said nothing. "You did wish it on, didn't you?"
"No, no—never—of course not—" he protested "If you'll only be calm. I'll get it if I have to throttle her."
Like a young Lady Macbeth, Marjorie gave him her utter approval in any atrocity, and they sat in ambush for their victim to pass into view.
They had not had their breakfast, but they forgot it. A dusky waiter went by chanting his "Lass call for breakfuss in Rining Rar." He chanted it thrice in their ears, but they never heard. Marjorie was gloating over the discomfiture of the odious creature who had dared to precede her in the acquaintance of her husband-to-be. The husband-to-be was miserably wishing that he had to face a tribe of bolo-brandishing Moros, instead of this trivial girl whom he had looked upon when her cheeks were red.
Mrs. Sammy Whitcomb had longed for the sweet privilege of squaring matters with Mrs. Jimmie Wellington. Sneers and back-biting, shrugs and shudders of contempt were poor compensation for the ever-vivid fact that Mrs. Wellington had proved attractive to her Sammy while Mrs. Wellington's Jimmie never looked at Mrs. Whitcomb. Or if he did, his eyes had been so blurred that he had seen two of her—and avoided both.
Yesterday she had overheard Jimmie vow sobriety. To-day his shining morning face showed that he had kept his word. She could hardly wait to begin the flirtation which, she trusted, would render Mrs. Wellington helplessly furious for six long Reno months.
The Divorce Drummer interposed and held Jimmie prisoner for a time, but as soon as Mr. Baumann released him, Mrs. Whitcomb apprehended him. With a smile that beckoned and with eyes that went out like far-cast fishhooks, she drew Leviathan into her net.
She reeled him in and he plounced in the seat opposite. What she took for bashfulness was reluctance. To add the last charm to her success, Mrs. Wellington arrived to see it. Mrs. Whitcomb saw the lonely Ashton rise and offer her the seat facing him. Mrs. Wellington took it and sat down with the back of her head so close to the back of Mr. Wellington's head that the feather in her hat tickled his neck.
Jimmie Wellington had seen his wife pass by. To his sober eyes she was a fine sight as she moved up the aisle. In his alcohol-emancipated mind the keen sense of wrong endured that had driven him forth to Reno began to lose its edge. His own soul appealed from Jimmie drunk to Jimmie sober. The appellate judge began to reverse the lower court's decision, point by point.
He felt a sudden recrudescence of jealousy as he heard Ashton's voice unctuously, flirtatiously offering his wife hospitality. He wanted to trounce Ashton. But what right had he to defend from gallantry the woman he was about to forswear before the world? Jimmie's soul was in turmoil, and Mrs. Whitcomb's pretty face and alluring smile only annoyed him.
She had made several gracious speeches before he quite comprehended any of them. Then he realized that she was saying: "I'm so glad you're going to stop at Reno, Mr. Wellington."
"Thank you. So am I," he mumbled, trying to look interested and wishing that his wife's plume would not tickle his neck.
Mrs. Whitcomb went on, leaning closer: "We two poor mistreated wretches must try to console one another, musn't we?"
"Yes,—yes,—we must," Wellington nodded, with a sickly cheer.
Mrs. Whitcomb leaned a little closer. "Do you know that I feel almost related to you, Mr. Wellington?"
"Related?" he echoed, "you?—to me? How?"
"My husband knew your wife so well."
Somehow a wave of jealous rage surged over him, and he growled: "Your husband is a scoundrel."
Mrs. Whitcomb's smile turned to vinegar: "Oh, I can't permit you to slander the poor boy behind his back. It was all your wife's fault."
Wellington amazed himself by his own bravery when he heard himself volleying back: "And I can't permit you to slander my wife behind her back. It was all your husband's fault."
Mrs. Jimmie overheard this behind her back, and it strangely thrilled her. She ignored Ashton's existence and listened for Mrs. Whitcomb's next retort. It consisted of a simple, icy drawl: "I think I'll go to breakfast."
She seemed to pick up Ashton with her eyes as she glided by, for, finding himself unnoticed, he rosewith a careless: "I think I'll go to breakfast," and followed Mrs. Whitcomb. The Wellingtons satdos-à-dosfor some exciting seconds, and then on a sudden impulse, Mrs. Jimmie rose, knelt in the seat and spoke across the back of it:
"It was very nice of you to defend me, Jimmie—er—James."
Wellington almost dislocated several joints in rising quickly and whirling round at the cordiality of her tone. But his smile vanished at her last word. He protested, feebly: "James sounds so like a—a butler. Can't you call me Little Jimmie again?"
Mrs. Wellington smiled indulgently: "Well, since it's the last time. Good-bye, Little Jimmie." And she put out her hand. He seized it hungrily and clung to it: "Good-bye?—aren't you getting off at Reno?"
"Yes, but——"
"So am I—Lucretia."
"But we can't afford to be seen together."
Still holding her hand, he temporized: "We've got to stay married for six months at least—while we establish a residence. Couldn't we—er—couldn't we establish a residence—er—together?"
Mrs. Wellington's eyes grew a little sad, as she answered: "It would be too lonesome waiting for you to roll home."
Jimmie stared at her. He felt the regret in her voice and took strange courage from it. He hauledfrom his pocket his huge flask, and said quickly: "Well, if you're jealous of this, I'll promise to cork it up forever."
She shook her head skeptically: "You couldn't."
"Just to prove it," he said, "I'll chuck it out of the window." He flung up the sash and made ready to hurl his enemy into the flying landscape.
"Bravo!" cried Mrs. Wellington.
But even as his hand was about to let go, he tightened his clutch again, and pondered: "It seems a shame to waste it."
"I thought so," said Mrs. Jimmie, drooping perceptibly. Her husband began to feel that, after all, she cared what became of him.
"I'll tell you," he said, "I'll give it to old Doc Temple. He takes his straight."
"Fine!"
He turned towards the seat where the clergyman and his wife were sitting, oblivious of the drama of reconciliation playing so close at hand. Little Jimmie paused, caressed the flask, and kissed it. "Good-bye, old playmate!" Then, tossing his head with bravado, he reached out and touched the clergyman's shoulder. Dr. Temple turned and rose with a questioning look. Wellington put the flask in his hand and chuckled: "Merry Christmas!"
"But, my good man——" the preacher objected, finding in his hand a donation about as welcomeand as wieldy as a strange baby. Wellington winked: "It may come in handy for—your patients."
And now, struck with a sudden idea, Mrs. Wellington spoke: "Oh, Mrs. Temple."
"Yes, my dear," said the little old lady, rising. Mrs. Wellington placed in her hand a small portfolio and laughed: "Happy New Year!"
Mrs. Temple stared at her gift and gasped: "Great heavens! Your cigars!"
"They'll be such a consolation," Mrs. Wellington explained, "while the Doctor is out with his patients."
Dr. Temple and Mrs. Temple looked at each other in dismay, then at the flask and the cigars, then at the Wellingtons, then they stammered: "Thank you so much," and sank back, stupefied.
Wellington stared at his wife: "Lucretia, are you sincere?"
"Jimmie, I promise you I'll never smoke another cigar."
"My love!" he cried, and seized her hand. "You know I always said you were a queen among women, Lucretia."
She beamed back at him: "And you always were the prince of good fellows, Jimmie." Then she almost blushed as she murmured, almost shyly: "May I pour your coffee for you again this morning?"
"For life," he whispered, and they moved up theaisle, arm in arm, bumping from seat to seat and not knowing it.
When Mrs. Whitcomb, seated in the dining-car, saw Mrs. Little Jimmie pour Mr. Little Jimmie's coffee, she choked on hers. She vowed that she would not permit those odious Wellingtons to make fools of her and her Sammy. She resolved to telegraph Sammy that she had changed her mind about divorcing him, and order him to take the first train West and meet her half-way on her journey home.
All this while Marjorie and Mallory had sat watching, as kingfishers shadow a pool, the door wherethrough the girl with the bracelet must pass on her way to breakfast.
"She's taking forever with her toilet," sniffed Marjorie. "Probably trying to make a special impression on you."
"She's wasting her time," said Mallory. "But what if she brings her mother along? No, I guess her mother is too fat to get there and back."
"If her mother comes," Marjorie decided, "I'll hold her while you take the bracelet away from the—the—from that creature. Quick, here she comes now! Be brave!"
Mallory wore an aspect of arrant cowardice: "Er—ah—I—I——"
"You just grab her!" Marjorie explained. Then they relapsed into attitudes of impatient attention. Kathleen floated in and, seeing Mallory, she greeted him with radiant warmth: "Good morning!" and then, catching sight of Marjorie, gave her a "Good morning!" coated with ice. She flounced past andMallory sat inert, till Marjorie gave him a ferocious pinch, whereupon he leaped to his feet:
"Oh, Miss—er—Miss Kathleen." Kathleen whirled round with a most hospitable smile. "May I have a word with you?"
"Of course you can, you dear boy." Marjorie winced at this and writhed at what followed: "Shan't we take breakfast together?"
Mallory stuttered: "I—I—no, thank you—I've had breakfast."
Kathleen froze up again as she snapped: "With that—train-acquaintance, I suppose."
"Oh, no," Mallory amended, "I mean I haven't had breakfast."
But Kathleen scowled with a jealousy of her own: "You seem to be getting along famously for mere train-acquaintances."
"Oh, that's all we are, and hardly that," Mallory hastened to say with too much truth. "Sit down here a moment, won't you?"
"No, no, I haven't time," she said, and sat down. "Mamma will be waiting for me. You haven't been in to see her yet?"
"No. You see——"
"She cried all night."
"For me?"
"No, for papa. He's such a good traveler—and he had such a good start. She really kept the whole car awake."
"Too bad," Mallory condoled, perfunctorily, then with sudden eagerness, and a trial at indifference: "I see you have that bracelet still."
"Of course, you dear fellow. I wouldn't be parted from it for worlds."
Marjorie gnashed her teeth, but Kathleen could not hear that. She gushed on: "And now we have met again! It looks like Fate, doesn't it?"
"It certainly does," Mallory assented, bitterly; then again, with zest: "Let me see that old bracelet, will you?"
He tried to lay hold of it, but Kathleen giggled coyly: "It's just an excuse to hold my hand." She swung her arm over the back of the seat coquettishly, and Marjorie made a desperate lunge at it, but missed, since Kathleen, finding that Mallory did not pursue the fugitive hand, brought it back at once and yielded it up:
"There—be careful, someone might look."
Mallory took her by the wrist in a gingerly manner, and said, "So that's the bracelet? Take it off, won't you?"
"Never!—it's wished on," Kathleen protested, sentimentally. "Don't you remember that evening in the moonlight?"
Mallory caught Marjorie's accusing eye and lost his head. He made a ferocious effort to snatch the bracelet off. When this onset failed, he had recourse to entreaty: "Just slip it off." Kathleenshook her head tantalizingly. Mallory urged more strenuously: "Please let me see it."
Kathleen shook her head with sophistication: "You'd never give it back. You'd pass it along to that—train-acquaintance."
"How can you think such a thing?" Mallory demurred, and once more made his appeal: "Please please, slip it off."
"What on earth makes you so anxious?" Kathleen demanded, with sudden suspicion. Mallory was stumped, till an inspiration came to him: "I'd like to—to get you a nicer one. That one isn't good enough for you."
Here was an argument that Kathleen could appreciate. "Oh, how sweet of you, Harry," she gurgled, and had the bracelet down to her knuckles, when a sudden instinct checked her: "When you bring the other, you can have this."
She pushed the circlet back, and Mallory's hopes sank at the gesture. He grew frantic at being eternally frustrated in his plans. He caught Kathleen's arm and, while his words pleaded, his hands tugged: "Please—please let me take it—for the measure—you know!"
Kathleen read the determination in his fierce eyes, and she struggled furiously: "Why, Richard—Chauncey!—er—Billy! I'm amazed at you! Let go or I'll scream!"
Let go, or I'll scream!"WHY, RICHARD—CHAUNCEY!—ER—BILLY! I'M AMAZED AT YOU! LET GO, OR I'LL SCREAM!"
"WHY, RICHARD—CHAUNCEY!—ER—BILLY! I'M AMAZED AT YOU! LET GO, OR I'LL SCREAM!"
She rose and, twisting her arm from his grasp,confronted him with bewildered anger. Mallory cast toward Marjorie a look of surrender and despair. Marjorie laid her hand on her throat and in pantomime suggested that Mallory should throttle Kathleen, as he had promised.
But Mallory was incapable of further violence; and when Kathleen, with all her coquetry, bent down and murmured: "You are a very naughty boy, but come to breakfast and we'll talk it over," he was so addled that he answered: "Thanks, but I never eat breakfast."
Just as Kathleen flung her head in baffled vexation, and Mallory started to slink back to Marjorie, with another defeat, there came an abrupt shock as if that gigantic child to whom our railroad trains are toys, had reached down and laid violent hold on the Trans-American in full career.
Its smooth, swift flight became suddenly such a spasm of jars, shivers and thuds that Mallory cried:
"We're off the track."
He was sent flopping down the aisle like a bolster hurled through the car. He brought up with a sickening slam across the seat into which Marjorie had been jounced back with a breath-taking slam. And then Kathleen came flying backwards and landed in a heap on both of them.
Several of the other passengers were just returning from breakfast and they were shot and scattered all over the car as if a great chain of human beads had burst.
Women screamed, men yelled, and then while they were still struggling against the seats and one another, the train came to a halt.
"Thank God, we stopped in time!" Mallorygasped, as he tried to disengage himself and Marjorie from Kathleen.
The passengers began to regain their courage with their equilibrium. Little Jimmie Wellington had flown the whole length of the car, clinging to his wife as if she were Francesca da Rimini, and he Paolo, flitting through Inferno. The flight ended at the stateroom door with such a thump that Mrs. Fosdick was sure a detective had come for her at last, and with a battering ram.
But when Jimmie got back breath enough to talk, he remembered the train-stopping excitement of the day before and called out:
"Has Mrs. Mallory lost that pup again?"
Everybody laughed uproariously at this. People will laugh at anything or nothing when they have been frightened almost to death and suddenly relieved of anxiety.
Everybody was cracking a joke at Marjorie's expense. Everybody felt a good-natured grudge against her for being such a mystery. The car was ringing with hilarity, when the porter came stumbling in and paused at the door, with eyes all white, hands waving frantically, and lips flapping like flannel, in a vain effort to speak.
The passengers stopped laughing at Marjorie, to laugh at the porter. Ashton sang out:
"What's the matter with you, Porter? Are you trying to crow?"
Everybody roared at this, till the porter finally managed to articulate:
"T-t-t-train rob-rob-robbers!"
Silence shut down as if the whole crowd had been smitten with paralysis. From somewhere outside and ahead came a pop-popping as of firecrackers. Everybody thought, "Revolvers!" The reports were mingled with barbaric yells that turned the marrow in every bone to snow.
These regions are full of historic terror. All along the Nevada route the conductor, the brakemen and old travelers had pointed out scene after scene where the Indians had slaked the thirst of the arid land with white man's blood. Ashton, who had traveled this way many times, had made himself fascinatingly horrifying the evening before and ruined several breakfasts that morning in the dining-car, by regaling the passengers with stories of pioneer ordeals, men and women massacred in burning wagons, or dragged away to fiendish cruelty and obscene torture, staked out supine on burning wastes with eyelids cut off, bound down within reach of rattlesnakes, subjected to every misery that human deviltry could devise.
Ashton had brought his fellow passengers to a state of ecstatic excitability, and, like many a recounter of burglar stories at night, had tuned his own nerves to high tension.
The violent stopping of the train, the heart-shakingyells and shots outside, found the passengers already apt to respond without delay to the appeals of fright. After the first hush of dread, came the reaction to panic.
Each passenger showed his own panic in his own way. Ashton whirled round and round, like a horse with the blind staggers, then bolted down the aisle, knocking aside men and women. He climbed on a seat, pulled down an upper berth, and, scrambling into it, tried to shut it on himself. Mrs. Whitcomb was so frightened that she assailed Ashton with fury and seizing his feet, dragged him back into the aisle, and beat him with her fists, demanding that he protect her and save her for Sammy's sake.
Mrs. Fosdick, rushing out of her stateroom and not finding her luscious-eyed husband, laid hold of Jimmie Wellington and ordered him to go to the rescue of her spouse. Mrs. Wellington tore her hands loose, crying: "Let him go, madam. He has a wife of his own to defend."
Jimmie was trying to pour out dying messages, and only sputtering, forgetting that he had put his watch in his mouth to hide it, though its chain was still attached to his waistcoat.
Anne Gattle, who had read much about Chinese atrocities to missionaries, gave herself up to death, yet rejoiced greatly that she had provided a timely man to lean on and should not have to enter Paradise a spinster, providing she could manage to convertIra in the next few seconds, before it was everlastingly too late. She was begging her first heathen to join her in a gospel hymn. But Ira was roaring curses like a pirate captain in a hurricane, and swearing that the villains should not rob him of his bride.
Mrs. Temple wrung her twitching hands and tried to drag her husband to his knees, crying:
"Oh, Walter, Walter, won't you please say a prayer?—a good strong prayer?"
But the preacher was so confused that he answered: "What's the use of prayer in an emergency like this?"
"Walter!" she shrieked.
"I'm on my va-vacation, you know," he stammered.
Marjorie was trying at the same time to compel Mallory to crawl under a seat and to find a place to hide Snoozleums, whom she was warning not to say a word. Snoozleums, understanding only that his mistress was in some distress, refused to stay in his basket and kept offering his services and his attentions.
Suddenly Marjorie realized that Kathleen was trying to faint in Mallory's arms, and forgot everything else in a determined effort to prevent her.
After the first blood-sweat of abject fright had begun to cool, the passengers came to realize that the invaders were not after lives, but loot. Then came a panic of miserly effort to conceal treasure.
Kathleen, finding herself banished from Mallory's protection, ran to Mrs. Whitcomb, who had given Ashton up as a hopeless task.
"What shall we do, oh, what, oh what shall we do, dear Mrs. Wellington?" she cried.
"Don't you dare call me Mrs. Wellington!" Mrs. Whitcomb screamed; then she began to flutter. "But we'd better hide what we can. I hope the rah-rah-robbers are ge-gentlemen-men."
She pushed a diamond locket containing a small portrait of Sammy into her back hair, leaving part of the chain dangling. Then she tried to stuff a large handbag into her stocking.
Mrs. Fosdick found her husband at last, for he made a wild dash to her side, embraced her, called her his wife and defied all the powers of Nevada to tear them apart. He had a brilliant idea. In order to save his fat wallet from capture, he tossed it through an open window. It fell at the feet of one of the robbers as he ran along the side of the car, shooting at such heads as were put out of windows. He picked it up and dropped it into the feed-bag he had swung at his side. Then running on, he clambered over the brass rail of the observation platform and entered the rear of the train, as his confederate, driving the conductor ahead of him, forged his way aft from the front, while a third masquerader aligned the engineer, the fireman, the brakeman and the baggagemen.
All this time Lieutenant Mallory had been thinking as hard as an officer in an ambuscade. His harrowing experiences and incessant defeats of the past days had unnerved him and shattered his self-confidence. He was not afraid, but intensely disgusted. He sat absent-mindedly patting Marjorie on the back and repeating:
"Don't worry, honey, they're not going to hurt anybody. They don't want anything but our money. Don't worry, I won't let 'em hurt you."
But he could not shake off a sense of nausea. He felt himself a representative of the military prowess of the country, and here he was as helpless as a man on parole.
The fact that Mallory was a soldier occurred to a number of the passengers simultaneously. They had been trained by early studies in those beautiful works of fiction, the school histories of the United States, and by many Fourths of July, to believe that the American soldier is an invincible being, who has never been defeated and never known fear.
They surged up to Mallory in a wave of hope. Dr. Temple, being nearest, spoke first. Havinglearned by experience that his own prayers were not always answered as he wished, had an impulse to try some weapon he had never used.
"Young man," he pleaded across the back of a seat, "will you kindly lend me a gun?"
Mallory answered sullenly: "Mine is in my trunk on the train ahead, damn it. If I had it I'd have a lot of fun."
Mrs. Whitcomb had an inspiration. She ran to her berth, and came back with a tiny silver-plated revolver.
"I'll lend you this. Sammy gave it to me to protect myself in Nevada!"
Mallory smiled at the .22-calibre toy, broke it open, and displayed an empty cylinder.
"Where are the pills that go with it?" he said.
"Oh, Sammy wouldn't let me have any bullets. He was afraid I'd hurt myself."
Mallory returned it, with a bow. "It would make an excellent nut-cracker."
"Aren't you going to use it?" Mrs. Whitcomb gasped.
"It's empty," Mallory explained.
"But the robbers don't know that! Couldn't you just overawe them with it?"
"Not with that," said Mallory, "unless they died laughing."
Mrs. Wellington pushed forward: "Then what the devil are you going to do when they come?"
Mallory answered meekly: "If they request it, I shall hold up my hands."
"And you won't resist?" Kathleen gasped.
"Not a resist."
"And he calls himself a soldier!" she sneered.
Mallory writhed, but all he said was: "A soldier doesn't have to be a jackass. I know just enough about guns not to monkey with the wrong end of 'em."
"Coward!" she flung at him. He turned white, but Marjorie red, and made a leap at her, crying: "He's the bravest man in the world. You say a word, and I'll scratch your eyes out."
This reheartened Mallory a little, and he laughed nervously, as he restrained her. Kathleen retreated out of danger, with a parting shot: "Our engagement is off."
"Thanks," Mallory said, and put out his hand: "Will you return the bracelet?"
"I never return such things," said Kathleen.
The scene was so painful and such an anachronism that Dr. Temple tried to renew a more pressing subject: "It's your opinion then that we'd best surrender?"
"Of course—since we can't run."
Wedgewood broke in impatiently: "Well, I consider it a dastardly outrage. I'll not submit to it. I'm a subject of His Majesty the——"
"You're a subject of His Majesty the Man Behind the Gun," said Mallory.
"I shall protest, none the less," Wedgewood insisted.
Mallory grinned a little. "Have you any last message to send home to your mother?"
Wedgewood was a trifle chilled at this. "D-don't talk of such things," he said.
And by this time the train-robbers had hastily worked their way through the other passengers, and reached the frantic inhabitants of the sleeper, "Snowdrop."
"Hands up! Higher!! Hands up!"
With a true sense of the dramatic, the robbers sent ahead of them the most hair-raising yells. They arrived simultaneously at each end of the aisle, and with a few short sharp commands, straightened the disorderly rabble into a beautiful line, with all palms aloft and all eyes wide and wild.
One robber drove ahead of him the conductor and the other drove in Mr. Manning, whom he had found trying to crawl between the shelves of the linen-closet.
The marauders were apparently cattlemen, from their general get-up. Their hats were pulled low, and just beneath their eyes they had drawn big black silk handkerchiefs, tied behind the ears and hanging to the breast.
Over their shoulders they had slung the feed-bagsof their horses, to serve as receptacles for their swag. Their shirts were chalky with alkali dust. Their legs were encased in heavy chaparejos, and they carried each a pair of well-used Colt's revolvers that looked as big as artillery.
When the passengers had shoved and jostled into line, one of the men jabbed the conductor in the back with the muzzle of his gun, and snarled: "Now speak your little piece, like I learned it to you."
The conductor, like an awkward schoolboy, grinned sheepishly, and spoke, his hands in the air the while:
"Ladies and Gents, these here parties in the black tidies says they want everybody to hold his or her hands as high as possible till you git permission to lower 'em; they advise you not to resist, because they hate the sight of blood, but prefer it to argument."
The impatient robbers, themselves the prey of fearful anxieties, broke in, barking like a pair of coyotes in a jumble of commands: "Now, line up with your backs that way, and no back talk. These guns shoot awful easy. And remember, as each party is finished with, they are to turn round and keep their hands up, on penalty of gittin' 'em shot off. Line up! Hands up! Give over there!"
Mrs. Jimmie Wellington took her time about moving into position, and her deliberation brought ahowl of wrath from the robber: "Get into that line, you!"
Mrs. Wellington whirled on him: "How dare you, you brute?" And she turned up her nose at the gun.
The anxious conductor intervened: "Better obey, madame; he's an ugly lad."
"I don't mind being robbed," said Mrs. Jimmie, "but I won't endure rudeness."
The robber shook his head in despair, and he tried to wither her with sarcasm: "Pardong, mamselly, would you be so kind and condescendin' as to step into that there car before I blow your husband's gol-blame head off."
This brought her to terms. She hastened to her place, but put out a restraining hand on Jimmie, who needed no restraint. "Certainly, to save my dear husband. Don't strike him, Jimmie!"
Then each man stuck one revolver into its convenient holster, and, covering the passengers with the other, proceeded to frisk away valuables with a speed and agility that would have looked prettier if those impatient-looking muzzles had not pointed here, there and everywhere with such venomous threats.
And so they worked from each end of the car toward the middle. Their hands ran swiftly over bodies with a loathsome familiarity that could only be resented, not revenged. Their hands dived intopockets, and up sleeves, and into women's hair, everywhere that a jewel or a bill might be secreted. And always a rough growl or a swing of the revolver silenced any protest.
Their heinous fingers had hardly begun to ply, when the solemn stillness was broken by a chuckle and low hoot of laughter, a darkey's unctuous laughter. At such a place it was more shocking than at a funeral.
"What ails you?" was the nearest robber's demand.
The porter tried to wipe his streaming eyes without lowering his hands, as he chuckled on: "I—I—just thought of sumpum funny."
"Funny!" was the universal groan.
"I was just thinking," the porter snickered, "what mighty poor pickings you-all are goin' to git out of me. Whilst if you had 'a' waited till I got to 'Frisco, I'd jest nachelly been oozin' money."
The robber relieved him of a few dimes and quarters and ordered him to turn round, but the black face whirled back as he heard from the other end of the car Wedgewood's indignant complaint: "I say, this is an outrage!"
"Ah, close your trap and turn round, or I'll——"
The porter's smile died away. "Good Lawd," he sighed, "they're goin' to skin that British lion! And I just wore myself out on him."
The far-reaching effect of the whole procedurewas just beginning to dawn on the porter. This little run on the bank meant a period of financial stringency for him. He watched the hurrying hands a moment or two, then his wrath rose to terrible proportions:
"Look here, man," he shouted at the robber, "ain't you-all goin' to leave these here passengers nothin' a tall?"
"Not on purpose, nigger."
"No small change, or nothin'?"
"Nary a red."
"Then, passengers," the porter proclaimed, while the robber watched him in amazement; "then, passengers, I want to give you-all fair warnin' heah and now: No tips, no whisk-broom!"
Perhaps because their hearts were already overflowing with distress, the passengers endured this appalling threat without comment, and when there was a commotion at the other end of the line, all eyes rolled that way.
Mr. Baumann was making an effort to take his leave, with great politeness.
"Excoose, pleass. I vant to get by, pleass!"
"Get by!" the other robber gasped. "Why, you——"
"But I'm not a passenger," Mr. Baumann urged, with a confidential smile, "I've been going through the train myself."
"Much obliged! Hand over!" And a rude handrummaged his pockets. It was a heart-rending sight.
"Oi oi!" he wailed, "don't you allow no courtesies to the profession?" And when the inexorable thief continued to pluck his money, his watch, his scarf-pin, he grew wroth indeed. "Stop, stop, I refuse to pay. I'll go into benkruptcy foist." But still the larceny continued; fingers even lifted three cigars from his pockets, two for himself and a good one for a customer. This loss was grievous, but his wildest protest was: "Oh, here, my frient, you don't vant my business carts."
"Keep 'em!" growled the thief, and then, glancing up, he saw on the tender inwards of Mr. Baumann's upheld palms two huge glisteners, which their owner had turned that way in a misguided effort to conceal the stones. The robber reached up for them.
"Take 'em. You're velcome!" said Mr. Baumann, with rare presence of mind. "Those Nevada nearlies looks almost like real."
"Keep 'em," said the robber, as he passed on, and Mr. Baumann almost swooned with joy, for, as he whispered to Wedgewood a moment later: "They're really real!"
Now the eye-chain rolled the other way, for Little Jimmie Wellington was puffing with rage. The other robber, having massaged him thoroughly, but without success, for his pocketbook, noticed that Jimmie's left heel was protruding from his left shoe, and made Jimmie perform the almost incredible featof standing on one foot, while he unshod him and took out the hidden wealth.
"There goes our honeymoon, Lucretia," he moaned. But she whispered proudly: "Never mind, I have my rings to pawn."
"Oh, you have, have you? Well, I'll be your little uncle," the kneeling robber laughed, as he overheard, and he continued his outrageous search till he found them, knotted in a handkerchief, under her hat.
She protested: "You wouldn't leave me in Reno without a diamond, would you?"
"I wouldn't, eh?" he grunted. "Do you think I'm in this business for my health?"
And he snatched off two earrings she had forgotten to remove. Fortunately, they were affixed to her lobes with fasteners.
Mrs. Jimmie was thoroughbred enough not to wince. She simply commented: "You brutes are almost as bad as the Customs officers at New York."
And now another touch of light relieved the gloom. Kathleen was next in line, and she had been forcing her lips into their most attractive smile, and keeping her eyes winsomely mellow, for the robber's benefit. Marjorie could not see the smile; she could only see that Kathleen was next. She whispered to Mallory:
"They'll get the bracelet! They'll get the bracelet!"
And Mallory could have danced with glee. But Kathleen leaned coquettishly toward the masked stranger, and threw all her art into her tone as she murmured:
"I'm sure you're too brave to take my things. I've always admired men with the courage of Claude Duval."
The robber was taken a trifle aback, but he growled: "I don't know the party you speak of—but cough up!"
"Listen to her," Marjorie whispered in horror; "she's flirting with the train-robber."
"What won't some women flirt with!" Mallory exclaimed.
The robber studied Kathleen a little more attentively, as he whipped off her necklace and her rings. She looked good to him, and so willing, that he muttered: "Say, lady, if you'll give me a kiss, I'll give you that diamond ring you got on."
"All right!" laughed Kathleen, with triumphant compliance.
"My God!" Mallory groaned, "what won't some women do for a diamond!"
The robber bent close, and was just raising his mask to collect his ransom, when his confederate glanced his way, and knowing his susceptible nature, foresaw his intention, and shouted: "Stop it, Jake. You 'tend strictly to business, or I'll blow your nose off."
"Oh, all right," grumbled the reluctant gallant, as he drew the ring from her finger. "Sorry, miss, but I can't make the trade," and he added with an unwonted gentleness: "You can turn round now."
Kathleen was glad to hide the blushes of defeat, but Marjorie was still more bitterly disappointed. She whispered to Mallory: "He didn't get the bracelet, after all."
Mallory's heart sank to its usual depth, but Marjorie had another of her inspirations. She startled everybody by suddenly beckoning and calling: "Excuse me, Mr. Robber. Come here, please."
The curious gallant edged her way, keeping a sharp watch along the line: "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, and grunted: "Much obliged." Then he went back, and tapped Kathleen on the shoulder. When she turned round, in the hope that he had reconsidered his 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, and accomplished 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 heap in 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 he said: "Say, you'd oughter have a pocketbook somewheres. Where's it at?"
Mrs. Whitcomb brushed furiously: "None of your business, you low brute."
"Perdooce, madame," the scoundrel snorted, "perdooce the purse, or I'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 no gentleman, sir!"
"If I was, I'd be in Wall Street," he laughed. "Now you can turn round." And when she turned, he saw a bit of chain depending from her back hair. He tugged, and brought away the locket, and with laying the tress on her shoulder, and proceeded to sound Ashton for hidden wealth.
And now Mrs. Temple began to sob, as she parted with an old-fashioned brooch and two old-fashioned rings that had been her little vanities for the quarter of a century and more. The old clergyman could have wept with her at the vandalism. He turned on the wretch with a heartsick appeal:
"Can't you spare those? Didn't you ever have a mother?"
The robber started, his fierce eyes softened, his voice choked, and he gulped 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 remind me of me poor old mo-mo-mother——"
But the one called Jake—the Claude Duval who had been prevented from a display of human sentiment, did not intend to be cheated. He thundered: "Stop it, Bill. You 'tend strictly to business, or I'll blow 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 to work ruthlessly. "Oh, all right, Jake. Sorry, ma'am, but business is business." And he dumped Mrs. Temple's trinkets into the satchel. It was too much for the little old lady's little old husband. He fairly shrieked:
"Young man, you're a damned scoundrel, and the best argument I ever saw 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 right to 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 thatthe robbers had relieved him of his guilty secret along with the rest of his private properties. 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. Fosdick called 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 sudden oblivion they had fallen into. They focussed the attention on themselves again, however, with a ferocious: "Here, hands up!" But they did not see Mr. and Mrs. Fosdick steal a kiss behind their upraised arms, for the robber to whose lot Mallory fell was gloating over his well-filled wallet. Mallory saw it go with fortitude, but noting a piece of legal paper, he said: "Say, old man, you don't want that marriage license, do you?"
The robber handled it as if it were hot—as if he had burned his fingers on some such document once before, and he stuffed it back in Mallory's pocket. "I should say not. Keep it. Turn round."