Excuse Me! Part 38

CHAPTER x.x.x

A WEDDING ON WHEELS

The commotion of the matrimony-mad women brought the men trooping in from the smoking room and there was much circ.u.mstance of decorating the scene with white satin ribbons, a trifle crumpled and dim of l.u.s.ter. Mrs. Whitcomb waved them at Mallory with a laugh:

"Recognize these?"

He nodded dismally. His own funeral baked meats were coldly furnis.h.i.+ng forth a wedding breakfast for Ira Lathrop. Mrs. Wellington was moving about distributing kazoos and Mrs. Temple had an armload of old shoes, some of which had thumped Mallory on an occasion which seemed so ancient as to be almost prehistoric.

Fosd.i.c.k was howling to the porter to get some rice, quick!

"How many portions does you approximate?"

"All you've got."

"Boiled or fried?"

"Any old way." The porter ran forward to the dining-car for the ammunition.

Mrs. Temple whispered to her husband: "Too bad you're not officiating, Walter." But he cautioned silence:

"Hus.h.!.+ I'm on my vacation."

The train was already coming into Ogden. Noises were multiplying and from the increase of pa.s.sing objects, the speed seemed to be taking on a spurt. The bell was clamoring like a wedding chime in a steeple.

Mrs. Wellington was on a chair fastening a ribbon round one of the lamps, and Mrs. Whitcomb was on another chair braiding the bell rope with withered orange branches, when Ashton, with kazoo all ready, called out:

"What tune shall we play?"

"I prefer the Mendelssohn Wedding March," said Mrs. Whitcomb, but Mrs.

Wellington glared across at her.

"I've always used the Lohengrin."

"We'll play 'em both," said Dr. Temple, to make peace.

Mrs. Fosd.i.c.k murmured to her spouse: "The old Justice of the Peace didn't give us any music at all," and received in reward one of his most luscious-eyed looks, and a whisper: "But he gave us each other."

"Now and then," she pouted.

"But where are the bride and groom?"

"Here they come--all ready," cried Ashton, and he beat time while some of the guests kazooed at Mendelssohn's and some Wagner's bridal melodies, and others just made a noise.

Ira Lathrop and Anne Gattle, looking very sheepish, crowded through the narrow corridor and stood shamefacedly blus.h.i.+ng like two school children about to sing a duet.

The train jolted to a dead stop. The conductor called into the car: "Ogden! All out for Ogden!" and everybody stood watching and waiting.

Ira, seeing Mallory, edged close and whispered: "Stand by to catch the minister on the rebound."

But Mallory turned away. What use had he now for ministers? His plans were shattered ruins.

The porter came flying in with two large bowls of rice, and shouting, "Here comes the 'possum--er posson." Seeing Marjorie, he said: "Shall I perambulate Mista Snoozleums?"

She handed the porter her only friend and he hurried out, as a lean and professionally sad ascetic hurried in. He did not recognize his boyish enemy in the gray-haired, red-faced giant that greeted him, but he knew that voice and its gloating irony:

"h.e.l.lo, Charlie."

He had always found that when Ira grinned and was cordial, some trouble was in store for him. He wondered what rock Ira held behind his back now, but he forced an uneasy cordiality: "And is this you, Ira? Well, well! It is yeahs since last we met. And you're just getting married. Is this the first time, Ira?"

"First offense, Charlie."

The levity shocked Selby, but a greater shock was in store, for when he inquired: "And who is the--er--happy--bride?" the triumphant Lathrop snickered: "I believe you used to know her. Anne Gattle."

This was the rock behind Ira's back, and Selby took it with a wince: "Not--my old----"

"The same. Anne, you remember, Charlie."

"Oh, yes," said Anne, "How do you do, Charlie?" And she put out a shy hand, which he took with one still shyer. He was so unsettled that he stammered: "Well, well, I had always hoped to marry you, Anne, but not just this way."

Lathrop cut him short with a sharp: "Better get busy--before the train starts. And I'll pay you in advance before you set off the fireworks."

The flippancy pained the Rev. Charles, but he was resuscitated by one glance at the bill that Ira thrust into his palm. If a man's grat.i.tude for his wife is measured by the size of the fee he hands the enabling parson, Ira was madly in love with Anne. The Rev. Charles had a reminiscent suspicion that it was probably a counterfeit, but for once he did Ira an injustice.

The minister was in such a flutter from losing his boyhood love, and gaining so much money all at once and from performing the marriage on a train, that he made numerous errors in the ceremony, but n.o.body noticed them, and the spirit, if not the letter of the occasion, was there and the contract was doubtless legal enough.

The ritual began with the pleasant murmur of the preacher's voice, and the pa.s.sengers crowded round in a solemn calm, which was suddenly violated by a loud yelp of laughter from Wedgewood, who emitted guffaw after guffaw and bent double and opened out again, like an agitated umbrella.

The wedding-guests turned on him visages of horror, and hissed silence at him. Ashton seized him, shook him, and muttered:

"What the--what's the matter with you?"

The Englishman shook like a boy having a spasm of giggles at a funeral, and blurted out the explanation:

"That story about the bridegroom--I just saw the point!"

Ashton closed his jaw by brute force and watched over him through the rest of the festivity.

CHAPTER x.x.xI

FOILED YET AGAIN

Mallory had fled from the scene at the first hum of the minister's words. His fate was like alkali on his palate. For twelve hundred miles he had ransacked the world for a minister. When one dropped on the train like manna through the roof, even this miracle had to be checkmated by a perverse miracle that sent to the train an early infatuation, a silly affair that he himself called puppy-love. And now Marjorie would never marry him. He did not blame her. He blamed fate.