IV

On the evening of September third George Banks was told by the

doorman of the Sportsmen's Club in Chicago that Mr. Lincoln was

awaiting him in the bar. Going through the main lounge and taking

the first turn to the left, he found that the doorman had spoken at

least part of the truth.

Mr. Lincoln was awaiting him. So was the bartender of the

Sportsmen's Club. So were a great many Sportsmen's Specials, which

were made of gin and lime juice and dashes of things from several

bottles, the whole being shaken until it became greenish and frothy.

The mixture was efficacious. After the fifth, or possibly the sixth,

Mr. Lincoln and his guest, Mr. Banks, might fairly have been said to

have reached the ole-fella state. After the eighth, or possibly the

twelfth, they felt themselves sufficiently fortified for dinner, and

left the bar with promises of a speedy return.

In the dining room, when the waiter, wrinkling his brow over his

orders, was fairly started toward the kitchen, Bill Lincoln came to

the point.

"Phooey," he said, "whus this I hear 'bout you being engaged?"

He leaned across the table slightly, looking out of the tops of his

eyes. His guest drank water.

"Yes," said George Banks.

"Yes, what? Yes, you're engaged? I shu'say you pro'bly are engaged.

Seems's though I haven't read anything else in months but George

Banks engaged. What I mean's, who's the girl? Whus she like? Is

she downhearted or does she keep the spirit of conviv'al'ty in the

home? Tell me about her."

"Oh, she's all right."

"Well, tha's a big send-off you give her. 'She's all right,' he

says. I didn't ask you if she's sick. I ask you whus she like? Is

she a good egg? Tha's what I mean. Is she a good egg?" He stared

across the table at George. "Phooey," he said after a moment,

"y'understand I didn't mean any harm. I hope I didn't offend you or

anything. 'S jus' friendlies' kin' of interes'. 'F course a fella

gets a drink or two, he doesn't talk so nice as he might. But Lord!

I didn't mean any harm!" His voice trailed off and he stared.

"It isn't that, Bill. You didn't say anything wrong. 'S jus' th' I

wan'ed to keep on pleasant topics. I don't want to talk about whus

she like. Le's talk about you."

George Banks reached for the water again.

"Wait!" said Bill Lincoln. "Wait! Don' touch that stuff. Good

Scotch in my pocket."

He called a captain and ordered sparkling water, glasses and ice.

When these necessities arrived he made two drinks and pushed one

across the table.

"Now," he said, "what's all this talk about pleasant topics?" The

oysters arrived and interrupted him, but he waited. "Tell me," he

said as a father commands his erring son.

And so it was that George Banks divulged, for the first time, his

inmost thoughts about marriage and women and Mildred Trudeau. With

eloquence that waned and waxed as food sobered him and Scotch buoyed

him up, he told the whole story of nearly a year of engagement. He

told of the enthusiasm that had robbed him of discretion, of the

dreadful months of engagement to beauty unmarred by brains. He

explained the conventions that the fact of being a gentleman forces

upon one engaged by mistake, and how he was just gentleman enough to

go through with the thing. He omitted entirely any reference to

Barbara Kittridge, and, at that, his story was not finished until

they were ready to return to the bar--which they did.

At eleven, when the bar closed, they went, supplied with water and

ice, to a corner of the lounge and talked further. All I can say of

their conversation is that it was earnest. To reproduce it would be

to endanger the world's supply of apostrophes and possibly to make

this story unfit for publication.

Eliminating nonessentials, the thing simmered down to an argument as

to whether a gentleman must necessarily be a damn fool. Mr. Lincoln

saw no sense in Mr. Banks's theories of social ethics, and Mr. Banks

had no defense except a series of dogmas about what a gentleman might

not do. Therefore Mr. Lincoln won the debate and Mr. Banks agreed

that, gentleman or no gentleman, it was up to him, for the good of

all concerned, especially old Bill Lincoln, to break his engagement

into a thousand pieces.

So firm was his conviction that it held him after he had safely

attained his room. He found writing materials in the desk and

proceeded not to put off till tomorrow what he had the nerve to do

tonight. For nearly an hour he sat and wrote and tore up paper and

chewed the penholder and smoked cigarettes. And finally he was

satisfied. He folded the paper and put it into an envelope. He

picked his way carefully down the hall and rang for the elevator.

When it came he handed his letter and fifty cents to the astonished

elevator boy, with strict orders that this letter must be posted at

once. The boy bowed and agreed that it should be so. George Banks

found his room and went to bed. Let us read the letter into the

evidence:

MY DEAR MILDRED: I sent a letter to you at the Ritz yesterday to

explain how I happened to be in Chicago when you got home. In that

letter I said a lot of things I did not honestly mean. The things I

mean I did not mean were the things I said about--erasure--loving

you. I know that a gentleman does not ever jilt a lady and I hope

you will accept my apologies and I hope you will forgive me and I

hope that you will understand that I am not jilting you exactly, but

only telling you the truth for your good and my good both. You see,

it would be a hell of a mess if we got married and we would both be

unhappy and so I do not see any sense in being a gentleman about it.

It would be pretty hard to be a gentleman and be married to you,

anyway, as a friend of mine was saying to me only this evening.

You see, when I asked you to marry me I did not know you very well

and I thought you were different from the way you are. I do not mean

to say that you are not great the way you are, and everybody seems to

think you are great, and my family likes you; but what I mean is I

think you would probably be a wonderful wife for somebody that thinks

woman's place is in the home, or probably almost anybody but me.

But, you see, I cannot talk to you, because I never think you

understand what I say and I do not believe you do now. Anyway, I do

not think that would be a very good way to commence being married,

not understanding each other when we talk and not talking very much.

So what I want to suggest if you do not mind too much is that we do

not announce that we will get married in October or any time at all,

but just quietly forget it and let bygones be bygones and you speak

to me when you see me around even if you know I am not a gentleman,

because this is the only time I have not been a gentleman with you or

anybody else. And you will know that I am sorry, because I have been

thinking of what a mess we would make of it for months; and I have

not said anything about it before, because I did not want to be not a

gentleman. And I want to impress on you that I am perfectly stone

cold sober when I am writing this and that I would never write it at

all if it wasn't for the best of both of us.

Hoping to see you soon.

Sincerely yours,

GEORGE BANKS.

V

At eleven the next morning George Banks awoke in his room in the

Sportsmen's Club. He found his eyes burning and his vision blurred.

He found his head throbbing with an ache which radiated from one

particular spot inside of his forehead. He found his lips and tongue

parched as though he had slept all day in the middle of a desert with

his mouth wide open to the blistering sun. An experiment in rising

showed conclusively that his knees were weak and that his equilibrial

nerves were functioning badly, if at all.

But worse than all this physical disability was a sickening sense of

unpleasantness to be faced, which was firmly fixed in the back of his

mind. He tried to think, but memories slipped away from him and

disappeared like so many slippery pieces of soap under a bathtub.

Presently he gave up and lay face downward on the bed, partly

conscious, knowing only that his head was throbbing, throbbing,

throbbing.

Half an hour later he mustered his courage again and sat up. The

room whirled dangerously and he grasped the side of the bed. The

edges of his vision were a little clearer. He looked about him. On

the desk he saw salvation--a half-full bottle of Scotch. Shakily,

supporting himself by whatever came to hand, he made his way to the

desk. He carried the bottle to the bathroom and poured a drink of

heroic proportions. He drank.

For a minute he sputtered. His eyes blurred again worse than before.

He was not entirely sure that he had not wasted the whisky. Then he

became stronger, blinked a few times, placed one foot timidly before

the other and walked.

Just as he got back to the bed and sat down, he remembered. He had

written a letter to Mildred. He had told her what he thought--of her

and of his engagement to her and everything. He had asked her to

call it all off. Of that much he was sure. And past that his memory

would not carry him. Had he told her she was the world's dumbest

woman? Had he told her that he had much rather marry a book of

etiquette because that, at least, could be left home? Probably. He

didn't know, and it didn't make much difference. The import of the

letter, however he had worded it, was enough.

He rolled across the bed to the telephone and got Bill Lincoln on the

wire.

What George Banks said to Bill Lincoln is neither printable nor

essential. It is enough that Bill rushed to the Sportsmen's Club to

confer with his ex-roommate, and that the result of the hasty

conference was that George Banks found himself, in almost no time, on

a train which was due at Grand Central Station at 9 A.M., September

fifth.

For it had been decided that he must beat his _fiancée_ to his letter

or be forever damned, socially and as a gentleman, and this was the

only way the thing could be done. His father's business was

unfinished, but that could be explained somehow. The point now was

to save Mildred Trudeau's feelings and George Banks's soul. To that

end all else must be sacrificed.

George Banks slept soundly in the club car while the train bore him

many miles from Chicago. It was close to dinner time when he

snorted, gulped five times in rapid succession, and awoke feeling

clearer in the head, but clearer, too, in the realization of what he

had to face. It was then that he remembered a bottle which had never

been taken from his suit case, and bethought himself, in this

connection, of an old proverb having to do with the hair of the dog

that bites one. A few minutes later the club-car porter was pouring

bubbly water into a glass the lower half of which was filled with ice

and an amber colored fluid.

After the first, George Banks felt stronger. As the treatment

progressed he began to become friendlier toward his fellow wanderers

through this vale of tears. When it was time for the fourth, he felt

moved to alleviate the sufferings of a young man who sat at his left,

separated from him by only one vacant chair. The young man accepted.

On investigation he proved to be none other than Harry Powers, who

had graduated from Princeton only three years before George. So

there they were. They found reminiscences enough to last nearly

through dinner; and by the time these began to pall on them they were

ready to philosophize on whatever subjects presented themselves,

which offered a wide range indeed.

The upshot was that they spent the evening together over George's

bottle. Nor did they consider the evening at an end until the bottle

had been emptied beyond the possibility of miscalculation. Even then

the club-car porter had to plead with them to let him close up for

the night.

By showing his Pullman check to the various porters he encountered,

George found his way to his own berth. He flung himself in headlong.

He undressed lying on his stomach, and wriggling out of his clothes,

after what must be the manner of Houdini in a strait-jacket at the

bottom of a river. By a miracle he found his pajamas and got himself

into them.

For some time he had not thought of what awaited him in the morning.

Suddenly the realization came back to him with a vividness that shook

him. He would have to kiss the bearded cheek of Mrs. Trudeau. He

would have to stare hungrily for hours and hours at her inane

daughter--his _fiancée_. And--good Lord!--first he would have to

dash to the Ritz and get that letter before she did. Suppose the

ship should dock at daybreak. He had heard they did sometimes. He

would have to be early all right.

His reasoning led him to the conclusion that the porter must be

admonished to call him early--if the porter was waking. If you're

waking, call me early, call me early, mother dear. Oh yes, by all

means. The porter must be waking, and if he was waking, he must call

George early.

With the refrain of Tennyson's worst poem running through his head,

George Banks, neatly clad in blue silk pajamas, rolled from his berth

into the dimly lighted aisle. If you're waking, call me early, call

me early, porter dear. He stumbled over the prominently displayed

shoes of the snoring gentleman in the next section. If you're

waking, call me early.... He arrived at the men's wash room and

pushed the curtain aside. The porter was not there.

George Banks rang a bell and waited a moment, but no one appeared.

Porter probably gone to sleep in the caboose or whatever arrangement

they have for porters to sleep in. Better find the conductor,

anyway. More dependable fellows, these conductors.... If you're

waking, call me early, call me early, conductor dear. Not so good.

Meter all wrong. But a wise hunch to tell the conductor.

If you're waking, call me early.... George Banks found his way

through the next car to the confusion of the shoes parked neatly

along the aisle. No porter there, either. He went on. Another car

yielded neither porter nor conductor, and George was sick of this

business. Chances were some one would call him too early, anyway.

They always did.

He gave up the expedition and started back. Through one car--two,

three. And then he began to have misgivings. What was the name of

his car? Santa Clara? Middleditch? Marianola? Spencersfield?

None of them sounded familiar. For that matter, what was the number

of his berth? Lower--Lower Five? Seven? Twelve? Ten? That bit of

information, too, escaped him. He went through another car to see if

any of the green curtains looked familiar. Then he went back through

three or four cars. The cars were all alike. The curtains were all

alike. The numbers meant nothing.

The train threw itself round a curve just as George Banks came

opposite the curtained entrance to the men's room of the good car

Gwendoline. George's feet forsook him. He was catapulted through

the curtain and saved himself from destruction only by a lucky grab

at a passing wash basin. He pulled himself upright. The shock was

great. He eased himself to a position of comfort on the long leather

seat. It had been a long walk through all those cars, back and forth.

In fact he was remarkably sleepy. A tiring journey it had been....

Oh, well, the train was going to New York. Some porter could be

persuaded to find him his berth in the morning. He drew his feet up

and stretched out as far as possible on the seat. Presently he slept.