LAST CALL FOR BREAKFAST
It was still Iowa when Mallory awoke. Into his last moments of heavy
sleep intruded a voice like a town-crier's voice, crying:
"Lass call for breakfuss in the Rining Rar," and then, again louder,
"Lass call for breakfuss in Rinin-rar," and, finally and faintly,
"Lasscall breakfuss ri'rar."
Mallory pushed up his window shade. The day was broad on rolling
prairies like billows established in the green soil. He peeked through
his curtains. Most of the other passengers were up and about, their
beds hidden and beddings stowed away behind the bellying veneer of the
upperworks of the car. All the berths were made up except his own and
number two, in the corner, where Little Jimmie Wellington's nose still
played a bagpipe monody, and one other berth, which he recognized as
Marjorie's.
His belated sleep and hers had spared them both the stares and
laughing chatter of the passengers. But this bridal couple's two
berths, standing like towers among the seats had provided
conversation for everybody, had already united the casual group of
strangers into an organized gossip-bee.
Mallory got into his shoes and as much of his clothes as was necessary
for the dash to the washroom, and took on his arm the rest of his
wardrobe. Just as he issued from his lonely chamber, Marjorie appeared
from hers, much disheveled and heavy-eyed. The bride and groom
exchanged glances of mutual terror, and hurried in opposite
directions.
The spickest and spannest of lieutenants soon realized that he was
reduced to wearing yesterday's linen as well as yesterday's beard.
This was intolerable. A brave man can endure heartbreaks, loss of
love, honor and place, but a neat man cannot abide the traces of time
in his toilet. Lieutenant Mallory had seen rough service in camp and
on long hikes, when he gloried in mud and disorder, and he was to see
campaigns in the Philippines, when he should not take off his shoes or
his uniform for three days at a time. But that was the field, and this
car was a drawing room.
In this crisis in his affairs, Little Jimmie Wellington waddled into
the men's room, floundering about with every lurch of the train, like
a cannon loose in the hold of a ship. He fumbled with the handles on a
basin, and made a crazy toilet, trying to find some abatement of his
fever by filling a glass at the ice-water tank and emptying it over
his head.
These drastic measures restored him to some sort of coherency, and
Mallory appealed to him for help in the matter of linen. Wellington
effusively offered him everything he had, and Mallory selected from
his store half a dozen collars, any one of which would have gone round
his neck nearly twice.
Wellington also proffered his safety razor, and made him a present of
a virgin wafer of steel for his very own.
With this assistance, Mallory was enabled to make himself fairly
presentable. When he returned to his seat, the three curtained rooms
had been whisked away by the porter. There was no place now to hide
from the passengers.
He sat down facing the feminine end of the car, watching for Marjorie.
The passengers were watching for her, too, hoping to learn what
unheard-of incident could have provoked the quarrel that separated a
bride and groom at this time, of all times.
To the general bewilderment, when Marjorie appeared, Mallory and she
rushed together and clasped hands with an ardor that suggested a
desire for even more ardent greeting. The passengers almost sprained
their ears to hear how they would make up such a dreadful feud. But
all they heard was: "We'll have to hurry, Marjorie, if we want to get
any breakfast."
"All right, honey. Come along."
Then the inscrutable couple scurried up the aisle, and disappeared in
the corridor, leaving behind them a mighty riddle. They kissed in the
corridor of that car, kissed in the vestibule, kissed in the two
corridors of the next car, and were caught kissing in the next
vestibule by the new conductor.
The dining car conductor, who flattered himself that he knew a bride
and groom when he saw them, escorted them grandly to a table for two;
and the waiter fluttered about them with extraordinary consideration.
They had a plenty to talk of in prospect and retrospect. They both
felt sure that a minister lurked among the cars somewhere, and they
ate with a zest to prepare for the ceremony, arguing the best place
for it, and quarreling amorously over details. Mallory was for one of
the vestibules as the scene of their union, but Marjorie was for the
baggage car, till she realized that Snoozleums might be unwilling to
attend. Then she swung round to the vestibule, but Mallory shifted to
the observation platform.
Marjorie had left Snoozleums with Mrs. Temple, who promised to hide
him when the new conductor passed through the car, and she reminded
Harry to get the waiter to bring them a package of bones for their
only "child," so far.
On the way back from the dining car they kissed each other good-bye
again at all the trysting places they had sanctified before. The sun
was radiant, the world good, and the very train ran with jubilant
rejoicing. They could not doubt that a few more hours would see them
legally man and wife.
Mallory restored Marjorie to her place in their car, and with smiles
of assurance, left her for another parson-hunt through the train. She
waited for him in a bridal agitation. He ransacked the train forward
in vain, and returned, passing Marjorie with a shake of the head and a
dour countenance. He went out to the observation platform, where he
stumbled on Ira Lathrop and Anne Gattle, engaged in a conversation of
evident intimacy, for they jumped when he opened the door, as if they
were guilty of some plot.
Mallory mumbled his usual, "Excuse me," whirled on his heel, and
dragged his discouraged steps back through the Observation Room, where
various women and a few men of evident unclericality were draped
across arm chairs and absorbed in lazy conversation or bobbing their
heads over magazines that trembled with the motion of the train.
Mrs. Wellington was busily writing at the desk, but he did not know
who she was, and he did not care whom she was writing to. He did not
observe the baleful glare of Mrs. Whitcomb, who sat watching Mrs.
Wellington, knowing all too well who she was, and suspecting the
correspondent--Mrs. Whitcomb was tempted to spell the word with one
"r."
Mallory stumbled into the men's portion of the composite car. Here he
nodded with a sickly cheer to the sole occupant, Dr. Temple, who was
looking less ministerial than ever in an embroidered skull cap. The
old rascal was sitting far back on his lumbar vertebræ. One of his
hands clasped a long glass filled with a liquid of a hue that
resembled something stronger than what it was--mere ginger ale. The
other hand toyed with a long black cigar. The smoke curled round the
old man's head like the fumes of a sultan's narghilé, and through the
wisps his face was one of Oriental luxury.
Mallory's eyes were caught from this picture of beatitude by the
entrance, at the other door, of a man who had evidently swung aboard
at the most recent stop--for Mallory had not seen him. His gray hair
was crowned with a soft black hat, and his spare frame was swathed in
a frock coat that had seen better days. His soft gray eyes seemed to
search timidly the smoke-clouded atmosphere, and he had a bashful air
which Mallory translated as one of diffidence in a place where liquors
and cigars were dispensed.
With equal diffidence Mallory advanced, and in a low tone accosted the
newcomer cautiously:
"Excuse me--you look like a clergyman."
"The hell you say!"
Mallory pursued the question no further.