Chester met Mildred aboard the 8:48 train for New York City the next
morning.
Mildred, clasping a small straw suit-case, had misgivings. But Chester
reassured her.
"Don't worry, Mildred, please don't worry," he pleaded. "My cousin, Phil
Snyder, who is at Princeton and knows all about such things, says it's a
cinch to get married in New York. All you do is walk up to a window, pay
a dollar, and you're married. And if we can't get married there, we can
go to Hoboken. Anybody, anybody at all, can get married in Hoboken, Phil
told me so."
She smiled at him.
"Our wedding day," she said, softly.
"Why are you so pensive?" he asked, after a while.
"I haven't had my breakfast," she said. "I always feel sort of weak and
funny till I've had my breakfast."
Chester bought several large slabs of nut-studded chocolate from the
train boy. When they passed Harmon, at Mildred's suggestion he bought a
package of butter-scotch. Her flagging spirits were revived by these
repasts. "I could just DIE eating butter-scotch," she said, dimpling.
"We'll always keep some in the house, little woman," Chester promised
her, mentally adding butter-scotch to the menu of watercress salad, tea,
ice-cream and an occasional lady-finger.
The human torrent in the Grand Central station whirled the elopers with
it along the ramp and out under the zodiac dome of the great, busy hall.
They stood there, wide-eyed. "New York," said Mildred.
"Our New York," said Chester.
He steered a roundabout course for the subway, for he wanted to reach
the Municipal Building as soon as possible. He had fears, the worldly
Phil Snyder to the contrary notwithstanding, that he might encounter
difficulties in getting a marriage license there. And he and Mildred
would then have to go to Hoboken. He had only a sketchy idea of where
Hoboken was. And it was then nearly eleven.
But Mildred was not to be hurried.
"Couldn't we have just one little fudge sundae first?" she asked. "I
haven't had my regular breakfast, you know. And I do feel so sort of
weak and funny when I haven't had my regular breakfast."
To Schuyler's they went, and consumed precious minutes and two fudge
sundaes. On the way out, Mildred stopped short.
"Oh, look," she exclaimed, "real New Orleans pralines. I just adore
them. And you can't get them in Clintonia."
Chester looked at her a little nervously.
"It's getting sort of late," he suggested.
"All right, Mr. Hurry," Mildred pouted, "just you go on to the horrid
old City Hall by your lonesome. I'm going to stop and have a praline."
Chester capitulated, contritely, so Mildred had two.
They started for the subway which was to take them far down-town to the
Municipal Building. On Forty-second Street they passed a shiny, white
edifice in the window of which an artist in immaculate white duck was
deftly tossing griddle cakes into the air so that they described a
graceful parabola and flopped on a soapstone griddle where they sizzled
brownly and crisply. A faint but provoking aroma floated through the
open door. Mildred's footsteps slackened, then she paused, then she came
to a dead stop.
"Ummm-mmm! What a heavenly smell!" she said. "Don't you just adore
griddle cakes?"
"Yes, yes," said Chester, a little desperately. "Let's have some for
lunch. It's twenty-five minutes to twelve. Let's hurry."
"Why, Chester Jessup, you know I haven't had my regular breakfast yet. I
just couldn't go away down to that old City Hall and get married and
everything without having had some nourishment. It won't take a minute
to have a little breakfast."
"Oh, all right," said Chester.
The griddle cakes tasted like rubber to Chester. Mildred ate hers with
great relish and insisted on having them decorated with country sausage.
"It's so nourishing," she explained. "I could just die eating sausage."
Chester paid the check and forgot to take the change from a two-dollar
bill.
"I could just die eating sausage. I could just die eating sausage." The
wheels of the subway train seemed to click to this refrain as it sped
down-town.
It was nearly one o'clock when the elopers at last reached the Municipal
Building. They found a sign which read, "MARRIAGE LICENSES. KEEP TO THE
RIGHT."
With his heart just under his collar button and his dollar grasped
tightly in his hand, Chester knocked timidly. The door was opened by a
stout minor politician with a cap on the back of his head.
"I want a marriage license, please," said Chester. He dropped his voice
a full octave below his normal speaking-tone.
The minor politician blinked at Chester and Mildred. Then he guffawed,
hoarsely.
"Say," he said, "in the foist place, you'll have to get a little more
age on yuh, and in the second place, this is Satiddy and this joint
closes at noon. Come back Thoisday between ten and four about eight
years from now." He closed the door.
Chester turned miserably to Mildred.
"That means Hoboken," he said.
"I don't care," she said, "as long as I'm with you."
They went out into the canyons of lower Manhattan, in search of the way
to Hoboken. Their wanderings took them past a restaurant whose windows
were adorned with vicious-looking, green, live lobsters, scrambling
about pugnaciously on cakes of ice.
"Oh, LOBSTERS," cried Mildred, her eye brightening. "I've only had
lobster once in my life. Couldn't you just DIE eating lobster?"
"I suppose so," said Chester, gloomily.
"Couldn't we stop in and have a teeny, weeny bit of lunch?" she asked,
eyeing the lobsters wistfully. "It makes me feel sort of queer to go on
long trips without food."
"I'm not hungry," said Chester.
"But I am," said Mildred. They went in.
A superior waiter handed Mildred a large menu card. "May I order just
anything I want?" she asked eagerly.
"Wouldn't you like some nice watercress salad and some tea and
lady-fingers?" Chester asked, hopefully.
"Pooh! Why, there's no nourishment in that at all!" Mildred was studying
the menu card. "I want a great big lobster, and some asparagus. And then
I want some nice chicken salad with mayonnaise. And then some pistache
ice-cream. And, oh, yes, a piece of huckleberry pie."
To Chester that lunch seemed the longest experience of his life. It
seemed to him that no lobster ever looked redder, no mayonnaise
yellower, no pistache ice-cream greener and no huckleberry pie purpler.
Mildred ate steadily. Now and then she made little joyful noises of
approbation.
When lunch was over at last, they started for Hoboken.
"It's a nice pleasant trip by ferry-boat," a policeman told them.
"I don't think I'd care for a boat trip," said Mildred.
"But we have to go to Hoboken," Chester expostulated.
"Couldn't we walk?" she asked.
"No, no, of course we couldn't. It's across the river."
"I feel sort of queer, somehow," said Mildred, faintly.
The North River was choppy from darting tugs and gliding barges as the
ferry-boat bore the elopers toward the Jersey side. Leaning on the rail,
Chester gazed morosely at the retreating metropolitan sky-line. Mildred
plucked at his coat sleeve. He turned and looked at her. Her face was
pale. "Oh, Chester, I want to go back. I want to go home," she said,
tearfully.
"Why, Mildred," exclaimed Chester, and for the first time there was
impatience in his voice, "what's the matter?"
"I'm going to be sick," she said.
She was.