Transcriber's Note:
Inconsistent hyphenation and spelling in the original document have
been preserved. Obvious typographical errors have been corrected.
The book uses both "Doc." and "Doc".
Italic text is denoted by _underscores_.
EXCUSE ME!
[Illustration]
EXCUSE ME!
_By_ RUPERT HUGHES
Author of "The Old Nest"
WITH FIVE ILLUSTRATIONS
A. L. BURT COMPANY
PUBLISHERS NEW YORK
Copyright, 1911, by
THE H. K. FLY COMPANY
CONTENTS
CHAPTER PAGE
I. The Wreck of the Taxicab 9
II. The Early Birds and the Worm 16
III. In Darkest Chicago 26
IV. A Mouse and a Mountain 35
V. A Queen Among Women 47
VI. A Conspiracy in Satin 53
VII. The Masked Minister 60
VIII. A Mixed Pickle 65
IX. All Aboard! 75
X. Excess Baggage 84
XI. A Chance Rencounter 88
XII. The Needle in the Haystack 92
XIII. Hostilities Begin 99
XIV. The Dormitory on Wheels 103
XV. A Premature Divorce 106
XVI. Good Night, All! 115
XVII. Last Call for Breakfast 122
XVIII. In the Composite Car 128
XIX. Foiled! 139
XX. Foiled Again! 142
XXI. Matrimony To and Fro 147
XXII. In the Smoking Room 156
XXIII Through a Tunnel 164
XXIV. The Train Butcher 173
XXV. The Train Wrecker 180
XXVI. Delilah and the Conductor 186
XXVII. The Dog-on Dog Again 191
XXVIII. The Woman-Hater's Relapse 203
XXIX. Jealousy Comes Aboard 213
XXX. A Wedding on Wheels 222
XXXI. Foiled Yet Again 227
XXXII. The Empty Berth 233
XXXIII. Fresh Trouble Daily 237
XXXIV. The Complete Divorcer 252
XXXV. Mr. and Mrs. Little Jimmie 266
XXXVI. A Duel for a Bracelet 273
XXXVII. Down Brakes! 278
XXXVIII. Hands Up! 284
XXXIX. Wolves in the Fold 296
XL. A Hero in Spite of Himself 304
XLI. Clickety-Clickety-Clickety 308
ILLUSTRATIONS
No tips were to be expected from such
transients _Frontispiece_
PAGE
"Now it's my vacation, and I'm going to smoke
up" 62
Marjorie fairly forced the dog on him 94
Down upon the unsuspecting elopers came this
miraculous cloudburst of ironical rice 118
"Why, Richard--Chauncey!--er--Billy! I'm
amazed at you! Let go, or I'll scream!" 276
EXCUSE ME!
CHAPTER I
THE WRECK OF THE TAXICAB
The young woman in the taxicab scuttling frantically down the dark
street, clung to the arm of the young man alongside, as if she were
terrified at the lawbreaking, neck-risking speed. But evidently some
greater fear goaded her, for she gasped:
"Can't he go a little faster?"
"Can't you go a little faster?" The young man alongside howled as he
thrust his head and shoulders through the window in the door.
But the self-created taxi-gale swept his voice aft, and the taut
chauffeur perked his ear in vain to catch the vanishing syllables.
"What's that?" he roared.
"Can't you go a little faster?"
The indignant charioteer simply had to shoot one barbed glare of
reproach into that passenger. He turned his head and growled:
"Say, do youse want to lose me me license?"
For just one instant he turned his head. One instant was just enough.
The unguarded taxicab seized the opportunity, bolted from the track,
and flung, as it were, its arms drunkenly around a perfectly
respectable lamppost attending strictly to its business on the curb.
There ensued a condensed Fourth of July. Sparks flew, tires exploded,
metals ripped, two wheels spun in air and one wheel, neatly severed at
the axle, went reeling down the sidewalk half a block before it leaned
against a tree and rested.
A dozen or more miracles coincided to save the passengers from injury.
The young man found himself standing on the pavement with the unhinged
door still around his neck. The young woman's arms were round his
neck. Her head was on his shoulder. It had reposed there often enough,
but never before in the street under a lamppost. The chauffeur found
himself in the road, walking about on all fours, like a bewildered
quadruped.
Evidently some overpowering need for speed possessed the young woman,
for even now she did not scream, she did not faint, she did not
murmur, "Where am I?" She simply said:
"What time is it, honey?"
And the young man, not realizing how befuddled he really was, or how
his hand trembled, fetched out his watch and held it under the glow of
the lamppost, which was now bent over in a convenient but disreputable
attitude.
"A quarter to ten, sweetheart. Plenty of time for the train."
"But the minister, honey! What about the minister? How are we going to
get to the minister?"
The consideration of this riddle was interrupted by a muffled hubbub
of yelps, whimpers, and canine hysterics. Immediately the young woman
forgot ministers, collisions, train-schedules--everything. She showed
her first sign of panic.
"Snoozleums! Get Snoozleums!"
They groped about in the topsy-turvy taxicab, rummaged among a jumble
of suitcases, handbags, umbrellas and minor _impedimenta_, and fished
out a small dog-basket with an inverted dog inside. Snoozleums was
ridiculous in any position, but as he slid tail foremost from the
wicker basket, he resembled nothing so much as a heap of tangled yarn
tumbling out of a work-basket. He was an indignant skein, and had much
to say before he consented to snuggle under his mistress' chin.
About this time the chauffeur came prowling into view. He was too
deeply shocked to emit any language of the garage. He was too deeply
shocked to achieve any comment more brilliant than:
"That mess don't look much like it ever was a taxicab, does it?"
The young man shrugged his shoulders, and stared up and down the long
street for another. The young woman looked sorrowfully at the wreck,
and queried:
"Do you think you can make it go?"
The chauffeur glanced her way, more in pity for her whole sex than in
scorn for this one type, as he mumbled:
"Make it go? It'll take a steam winch a week to unwrap it from that
lamppost."
The young man apologized.
"I oughtn't to have yelled at you."
He was evidently a very nice young man. Not to be outdone in courtesy,
the chauffeur retorted:
"I hadn't ought to have turned me head."
The young woman thought, "What a nice chauffeur!" but she gasped:
"Great heavens, you're hurt!"
"It's nuttin' but a scratch on me t'umb."
"Lend me a clean handkerchief, Harry."
The young man whipped out his reserve supply, and in a trice it was a
bandage on the chauffeur's hand. The chauffeur decided that the young
woman was even nicer than the young man. But he could not settle on a
way to say to it. So he said nothing, and grinned sheepishly as he
said it.
The young man named Harry was wondering how they were to proceed. He
had already studied the region with dismay, when the girl resolved:
"We'll have to take another taxi, Harry."
"Yes, Marjorie, but we can't take it till we get it."
"You might wait here all night wit'out ketchin' a glimp' of one," the
chauffeur ventured. "I come this way because you wanted me to take a
short cut."
"It's the longest short cut I ever saw," the young man sighed, as he
gazed this way and that.
The place of their shipwreck was so deserted that not even a crowd had
gathered. The racket of the collision had not brought a single
policeman. They were in a dead world of granite warehouses, wholesale
stores and factories, all locked and forbidding, and full of silent
gloom.
In the daytime this was a big trade-artery of Chicago, and all day
long it was thunderous with trucks and commerce. At night it was
Pompeii, so utterly abandoned that the night watchmen rarely slept
outside, and no footpad found it worth while to set up shop.
The three castaways stared every which way, and every which way was
peace. The ghost of a pedestrian or two hurried by in the far
distance. A cat or two went furtively in search of warfare or romance.
The lampposts stretched on and on in both directions in two forevers.
In the faraway there was a muffled rumble and the faint clang of a
bell. Somewhere a street car was bumping along its rails.
"Our only hope," said Harry. "Come along, Marjorie."
He handed the chauffeur five dollars as a poultice to his wounds,
tucked the girl under one arm and the dog-basket under the other, and
set out, calling back to the chauffeur:
"Good night!"
"Good night!" the girl called back.
"Good night!" the chauffeur echoed. He stood watching them with the
tender gaze that even a chauffeur may feel for young love hastening to
a honeymoon.
He stood beaming so, till their footsteps died in the silence. Then he
turned back to the chaotic remnants of his machine. He worked at it
hopelessly for some time, before he had reason to look within. There
he found the handbags and suitcases, umbrellas and other equipment. He
ran to the corner to call after the owners. They were as absent of
body as they had been absent of mind.
He remembered the street-number they had given him as their
destination. He waited till at last a yawning policeman sauntered that
way like a lonely beach patrol, and left him in charge while he went
to telephone his garage for a wagon and a wrecking crew.
It was close on midnight before he reached the number his fares had
given him. It was a parsonage leaning against a church. He rang the
bell and finally produced from an upper window a nightshirt topped by
a frowsy head. He explained the situation, and his possession of
certain properties belonging to parties unknown except by their first
names. The clergyman drowsily murmured:
"Oh, yes. I remember. The young man was Lieutenant Henry Mallory, and
he said he would stop here with a young lady, and get married on the
way to the train. But they never turned up."
"Lieutenant Mallory, eh? Where could I reach him?"
"He said he was leaving to-night for the Philippines."
"The Philippines! Well, I'll be----"
The minister closed the window just in time.