Evening Republican, Volume 16, Number 237, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 3 October 1912 — EXCUSE ME! [ARTICLE+ILLUSTRATION]

EXCUSE ME!

By Rupert Hughes

Nevelnod from the Comedy of the Seme Name ILLUSTRATED From PtotoSrapha o( the P!«y ■» Prodeced By Beary W. Savage

O**grxl*M, MU, to M. X. Dy oa I SYNOPSIS. Lieut Harry Mallory Is ordered to the Philippine*. He ,and Marjorie Newton decide to elope, but wreck of taxicab prevents their seeln* minister on the way to th* train. Transcontinental train la taking en passengers. POrter has a lively time with an Englishman and Ira Lathrop, a Yankee business man. The elopers have an exciting time getting to the train. CHAPTER 111. (Continued-) Her nether Up trembled and her •yes were filmed, but they were brave, and her voice was so tender that It wooed bls mind from bls watch. He Eased at her, and found her so dear,’ so devoted and so pitifully exquisite, that he was almost overcome by an impulse to gather her Into his arms there and then. Indifferent to the lm> mediate passengers or to his far-off military superiors. An hour ago they were young lovers In all the lire and thrill of elopement. She had clung to him In the gloaming of their taxicab, as It aped like a genie at their whim to the place where the minister would unite their hands and raise his own in blessing. Thence the new husband would have carried the new wife away, his very own, soul and body, duty and beauty. Then, ah, then In their minds the future was an unwaning honeymoon, the journey across the continent, a stroll along a lover's lane, the Pacific ocean a garden lake, and the Philippines a chain of Fortunate Isles decreed especially for their Eden. And then the taxicab encountered a lamppost. They thought they had merely wrecked a motor car—and 10, they had wrecked a Paradise.

The railroad eeased to be a lover's lane and became a lingering torment; the ocean was a weltering Sahara, and the Philippines a Dry Tortugas at exile.

Mallory realised for the first time what heavy burdens he had taken on with his shoulder straps; what a dismal life of restrictions and hardships an officer's life is bound to be. Perhaps young Mr. Montague and young Miss Capulet. Instead of walling, “No, that 1s not the lark whose notes do beat the vaulty heaven so high above our heads,’* would have done no better than Mr. Mallory and Miss Newton. In any case, the best these two could squeeze out was: "It’s just too bad, honey.” "But I guess it can’t be helped, dear.”

‘lt’s a mean old world, isn’t it?" "Awful!” And then they must pile out into the street again so lost in woe that they did not know how they were trampled or elbowed. Marjorie’s despair was so complete that It paralyzed Instinct. She forgot Snoozleums! A thoughtful passenger ran out and tossed the basket into Mallory’s arms even as the car moved off. Fortune relented |a moment and they found a taxicab waiting where they had expected to find it Once more they were cosy in the flying twilight, but their grief was their only baggage, and the clasp of their hands talked all the talk there was. Anxiety within anxiety tormented them and they feared another wreck. But as they swooped down upon the station, akind-faced —tower dock beamed the reassurance that they had throe minutes to spare. The taxicab drew up and halted, but they did not get out. They were kissing good-byes, fervidly and numerously, while a grinning stationporter winked at the winking chauffeur. Marjorie simply could not have done with farewells. “I’ll go to the gate with you,” she said.

He told the chauffeur to wait and take the young lady home. The lieutenant looked so honest and the girl bo sad that the chauffeur simply touched his cap, though it was not his custom to allow strange fares to vanish into crowded stations, leaving behind nothing more negotiable than instructions to wait.

CHAPTER* IV. A Mouse and a Mountain’. AU the while the foiled elopers were eloping, the San Francisco , sleeper was filling up. It had been the receptacle of assorted lots ofhumanlty tumbling into it from all di- . rections, with all sorts of souls, bodies and destinations The porter received each with that expert eye of his. His car was his laboratory. A railroad journey Is a sort of test-tube of character; strange elements meet under strange conditions and make strange combinations. The porter could never foresee the ingredients of any trip, nor their notions and reactions. * He had no sooner established Mr.

Wedgewood bf London and Mr. Ira Lathrop of Chicago, In comparative repose, than his car was Invaded by a woman who flung herself into the first seat. She was flushed with running, and breathing hard, but she managed one gasp of relief: ‘Thank goodness, I made It in time.” The mere sound of a woman’s voice In the seat back of him was enough to disperse Ira Lathrop. With not so much as a glance backward to see what manner of woman it might be, he jammed his contract Into his pocket, seized his newspapers and retreat; ed to the farthest end of the car, bouncing down Into berth number one, like a sullen snapping turtle. Miss Anne Gattie’s modest and homely valise had been brought aboard by a leisurely station usher, who set it down and waited with a speaking palm outstretched. She bad her tickets In her hand, but transferred them to her teeth while she searched for money In a handbag oldfashioned enough to be called a reticule.

The usher closed his fist on the pittance she dropped Into It and. departed without comment. The porter advanced on her with a demand for ‘Tickets, please.” She began to ransack her reticule with flurried haste, taking out of It; a small purse, opening 'that, closing it, putting it back, taking it out, searchIng the reticule through, turning out a handkerchief, a few hairpins, a few trunk keys, a baggage check, a bottle of salts, a card or two and numerous other maidenly articles, restoring them to place, looking In the purse again, restoring that, closing the reticule, setting it down, shaking out a book she carried, opening her old valise, going through certain white things blushingly, closing It again, shaking her skirts, and shaking her head in bewilderment. She was about to open the reticule again, when the porter exclaimed: “I see It! Don’t look no mo’. I see It!” When she cast up her eyes in despair, her hatbrim had been elevated enough to disclose the whereabouts of the tickets. With a murmured apology, he removed them from her teeth and held them under the light. After a time he said: “A* neah as I can make out from the —the undigested po’tlon of this ticket, yo’ numba Is six." “That’s It—six!” “That’s right up this way." “Let me sit here till I get my breath," she pleaded. “I ran so hard to catch the train.” "Well, you caught It good' and strong.” “I’m so glad. How soon do we start?” Tn about half a houah "Really? Well, better half an hour

too soon than half a minute too late.” She said it with such a copy-book primness that the porter set her down as a school-teacher. It was not a bad guess. She was a missionary. With a pupil-like shyness ne volunteered: “To’ berth is all ready whenever you wishes to go to bald.” He caught her swift blush and amended it to—“to retiah.” “Retire? —before all the car?” said Miss Anne Gattie, with prim timidity. “No, thank you! I intend to sit up till everybody else has retired." The porter retired. Miss Gattie took out a bit of more or less useful fancy stitching and set to work like another Dorcas. Her needle had not dived in and emerged many times before she was holding it up as a weapon of defense against a sudden human mountain that, threatened to crush her. A vague round face, huge and red as a rising moon, dawned before her eyes and from it came an uncertain voice: “Esscuzhe me, mad’m, no *fensh intended.” v v The words and the breath that carried them gave the startled spinster an Instant proof that her vis-a-vis did not share her prohibition principles or practices. She regarded the elephant with mousedike terror, and the elephant regarded the mouse with elephantine fright, then he removed himself from her landscape as quickly as be could and lurched along the aisle, calling out merrily to the porter: I

"Chauffeur! chauffeur; don’t go M fasht ’round these corners." He collided with a small train-boy singing his nasal lay, but It was the behemoth and not the train-boy that collapsed Into a seat, sprawling as helplessly as a mammoth oyster on a table-cloth. The porter rushed to hls aid and hoisted him to his feet with ajruneasy sense of impending trouble. He felt as If someone had left a monstrous baby on hls doorstep, but all he said was: - ‘Tickets, please.” f There ensued a long search, fat, flabby hands flopping and fumbling from pocket to pocket. Once more the porter was the discoverer. “I see It. Don’t look no mo’. Here ft l*-*up In yo’ hatband." He lifted It out and chuckled. “Had it right next hls brains and couldn’t rememba!” He took up the appropriately huge luggage of the bibulous wanderer and led him to the other end of the aisle. “Numba two is yours, sah. Right heah —all nice and cosy, and already jnade up.” The big man looked through the curtains Into the cabined confinemenL and groaned: “That! Haven’t you got a man** size berth?” “Sorry, sah. That’s a* big a bunk as they Is on the train.” “Have I got to be locked up In that pigeon-hole for—for how many days is it to Reno?" “Reno?” The porter greeted that meaningful name with a smile. “We’re doo In Reno the —the —mawnln’ of the fo’th day, sah. Yassah.” He put the baggage down and started away, but the fat man seized his hand, with great emotion: “Don’t leave me all alone in there, porter, for'l’m a broken-hearted man.” "Is that so? Too Dad, sah." “Were you ever a broken-hearted man, porter?” “Always, sah.” "Did you ever put your trust in a false-hearted woman T’ “Often, sah." "Was she ever true to you, porter?”

"Never, sah.” "Porter, we are partners in mis-sls-ery,” And he wrung the rough, black hand with a solemnity that embarrassed the porter almost as much as It would have embarrassed the passenger himself if he could have understood what he was doing. The porter disengaged himself with a patient but hasty: “I’m afraid you’ll have to ’scuse me. I got to he’p the other passengers on bode."

"Don’t let me keep you from your duty. Duty Is the —the—’’ But he could not remember what duty was, and he would have dropped off to sleep, If he had not been startled by a familiar voice which the porter had luckily escaped. “Pawtah! Pawtah! Can’t you raise this light—or rather can’t you lower it? Pawtah! This light is so infernally dim I can’t read." To the Englishman’s intense amazement his call brought to him not the porter, but a rising moon with the profound query: “Whass a 11’1 thing like dim light, when the light of your life has gone out?" "I beg your pardon?" Without further invitation, the mammoth descended on the Englishman’s territory. “I’m a broken-hearted man, Mr.— Mr.—l didn’t get your name?’ “Er—ah—l dare say." “Thanks, I will sit down.” He lifted a great carry-all and airily tossed it into the aisle, set the Gladstone on the lap of the infuriated Englishman, and squeezed into the seat op poslte, making a sad mix-up of knees. “My name’s Wellington. Ever hea> of li’l Jimmie Wellington? That’s me.” “Any relationto the Duke?” "Nagh!" He no longer interested Mr. Wedgewood. But Mr. Wellington was not aware that he was being snubbed. He went right on getting acquainted: “Are you married, Mr. —Mr.— t* "No!”

Hang on to your luck, my boy. Don’t let any female take it away from you." He slapped the Englishman on the elbow amiably, and his prisoner was too stifled with wrath to emit more than one feeble “Pawtah!” Mr. Wellington mused on aloud: “Oh, if I had only remained single. But she was so beautiful and she swore to love, honor and obey. Mrs. Wellington is a queen among women, mind you, and I have nothing to say against her except that she has the temper of a tarantula.” He italicized the word with a light fillip of his left hand along the back of the seat. He did not notice that he filliped the angry head of Mr. Ira Lathrop in the next seat He went on with his portrait of his wife. “She has the ’stravaganza of a sultana” —another fillip for Mr. Lathrop—“the zhealousy of a cobra, the filrtatlousneßs of a humming bird.” Mr. Lathrop was glaring round like a man-eating tiger, but Wellington talked on. “She drinks, ■ swears and smokes cigars, other w Ise she’s fine —a queen among women.” Neither this amazing vision of womankind, nor thia beautiful example of longing for confession and sympathy awakened a response. Then as Mr. Wellington shook with jby at the prospect of “Dear old Reno!** he began unconsciously to draw Ira Lathrop’s head after his hair across the seat The pain of it shot the tears into Lathrop’s eyes, and as he writhed and twisted he was too full of profanity to get any one word oat. 5 (TO BB CQNTXNUKDJ

Mrs. Jimmie Wellington.