Evening Republican, Volume 16, Number 282, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 25 November 1912 — EXCUSE ME! [ARTICLE]

EXCUSE ME!

By Rupert Hughes

Novelized from tho Comedy of the Same Name

ILLUSTRATED Frssi Photographs of the Play as Produced By Hoary W. Savage

Oop/right, iMi, by H. K. FI7 00. 23 SYNOPSIS. Lieut. Harry Mallory Is ordered to the Philippines. He and Marjorie Newton decide to elope, but wreck of taxicab prevents their seeing minister on the way to the train. Transcontinental train is taking on 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. "Little Jimmie” Wellington, bound for Reno to get a divorce, boards train in maudlin condition. Later Mrs. Jimmie appears. She is also bound for Reno with same object. Likewise Mrs. Sammy Whitcomb. Latter blames Mrs. Jimmie for her marital troubles. Classmates of Mallory decorate bridal berth. Rev. and Mrs. Temple start on a vacation. They decide to cut loose and Temple removes evidence of his calling. Marjorie decides to let Mallory proceed alone, but train starts while they are lost tn farewell. Passers gers Join Mallory’s classmates In giving couple wedding hasing. Marjorie is distracted. —Ira Lathrop. woman-hating bachelor, discovers an old sweetheart. Annis Gattle, a fellow passenger. Mallory vainly hunts for a preacher among the passengers. Mrs. Wellington hears Little Jimmie’s voice. Later she meets Mrs. Whitcomb. Mallory reports to Marjorie his failure to find a preacher. They decide to pretend a quarrel and Mallory finds a vacant berth. Mrs. Jimmie discovers Wellington on the train. Mallory again makes an unsuccessful hunt for a preacher. Dr. Temple poses as a physician. Mrs- Temple is Induced by Mrs. Wellington to Bmoke a cigar. Sight of preacher on a station platform raises Mallory’s hopes, but he takes another train. Missing hand baggage compels the couple to borrow from passengers. Jimmie gets a cinder in his eye and Mrs. Jimmie gives first aid. Coolness is then resumed. Still no clergyman. More borrowing. Dr. Temple puzzled by behavior of different couples. Marjorie's jealousy aroused by Mallory’s baseball jargon. Marjorie suggests wrecking the train in hopes that accident will produce a preacher. Also tries to induce the conductor to hold the train so she can shop. Marjorie’s dog is missing. She pulls the cord, stopping the train. Conductor restores dog and lovers quarrel. Lathrop wires for a preacher to marry him and*Miss Gattle. Mallory tells Lathrop of his predicament and arranges to borrow the preacher. Kitty Lewellyn, former sweetheart of Mallory’s, appears and arouses Marjorie’s Jealousy. Preacher boards train. After marrying Lathrop and Miss Gattle the preacher escapes Mallory by leaping from moving train. Mallory’s dejection moves Marjorie to reconciliation.

CHAPTER XXXlll.—Continued. About the same time, man who was still her husband according to the law, rolled out of berth number two. There was an amazing clarity to his vision. He lurched as he made his way to the men’s room, but it was plainly the train’s swerve and not an inner lurch -that twisted the forthright of his progress. He squeezed into the men’s. room like a whole crowd at once, and sang out, “Good morning, all!” with a wonderful heartiness. Then he paused over a wash basin, rubbed his hands gleefully and proclaimed, like another Chantecler advertising's new day: “Well —I’m sober again!” vThree cheers for you,” said his rival in radiance, bridegroom Lathrop. "How does it feel?” demanded Ashton, smiling so broadly that he encountered the lather on his brush. While he sputtered Wellington was flipping water over his hot head and incidentally over. Ashton. “I feel,” he chortled, “I feel like the first little robin redbreast of the merry springtime. Tweet! Tweet!” When the excitement over his redemption had somewhat calmed, Ashton reopened the old topic of conversation : “Well, I see they had another scrap last night.” ‘They—who?” said Ira, through his flying toothbrush. 'The Mallorys. Once more he occupied number three and she number seven.” “Well, well, I can’t understand these modern marriages.” said Little Jimmie, with a side glance at Ira. Ira suddenly remembered the plight of the Mallorys and was tempted to defend them, but he saw the young lieutenant himself just entering the washroom. This was more than Wellington saw, for he went on talking from behind a towel: “Well, if I were a bridegroom and had a bride like that, it would take more than a quarrel to send me to another berth." The others made gestures which he could not see. His enlightenment came when Mallory snapped the towel from his hands and glared into hlt> face with all the righteous wrath of a man bearing his domestic affairs publicly discussed. , “Were you alluding to me, , Mr. Wellington?" he demanded, hotly. Little Jimmie almost perished with apoplexy: “You, you?” he mumbled. "Why, of .eeerse not. You’re not the only bridegroom on the train.” Mallory tossed him the towel again: "You meant Mr. Lathrop then?” “Me! Not much!" roared the indignant Mallory returned to Wellington with a fleroer: "Whom, then?” He was in a dangerous mood, and Ashton came to the recue: “Oh,' don’t mind Wellington. He’s not sober yet.” * This Inspired suggestion came like a life-buoy to the -hard-pressed Wellington. lie seizod.it and spoke thick-

ly: •Don’t mind me —l’m not shober yet.” ‘"Well, it’s a good thing was Mallory’s final growl as he began his own toilet, f The porter’s bell began to ring furiously, with a touch they had already come to recognize as the ■Englishman’s. The porter had learned to recognize It. too, and he always took double the necessary time to answer It. He was sauntering down the aisle at his most leisurely gait when Wedgewood’s rumpled mane shot out from the curtains like a lion’s from a jungle, and he bellowed: "Pawtah! Pawtah!” 1 “Still on the train,” said the porter. “You may give me my “portmanteau/’ “Yassah.” He dragged It from the upper berth, and set It inside Wedgewood’s berth without special care as to Its destination. “Does you desire anything else, sir?” “Yes, your absence,” said Wedgewood. “The same to you and many of them,” the porter muttered to himself, and added to Marjorie, who was just starting down the aisle: “I*ll suttainly be interested in that man glttln’ where he’s goin’ to git to.” Noting that she carried Snoozleums, he said: “We’re cornin’ into a station right soon.” Witrfout further discussion she handed him the dog, and he hobbled away. When she reached the women’s door, she found Mrs. Wellington waiting with increasing exasperation: “Come, join the line at the box office,” she said. “Good morning. Who’s in there?” said Marjorie, and Mrs. Wellington, not noting that Mrs. Whitcomb had come out of bes berth and fallen into line, answered "sharply: “I don’t know. She’s been there forever. I’m sure It’s that cat of a Mrs. Whitcomb.” “Good morning, Mrs. Mallory," snapped Mrs. Whitcomb. Mrs. Wellington was rather proud that the random shot landed, but Marjorie felt uneasy between the two “Good morning, Mrs. Whitcomb,” she said. There was a disagreeable silence,’ broken finally by Mrs. Wellington’s: “Oh, Mrs. Mallory, would you be angelic enough to hook my gown?” “Of course I will,” said Marjorie. “May 1 hook you?” said Mrs. Whitcomb.

“You’re awfully kind,” said Marjorie, presenting her shoulders to Mrs. Whitcomb, who asked with malicious sweetness: “Why didn’t your husband do thfs for you this morning?” "I —I don’t remember,” Marjorie stammered, and Mrs. Wellington tossed over-shoulder an apothegm: “He’s no husband till he’s hook-bro-ken.” . Just then Mrs. Fosdick came out of her stateroom. Seeing Mrs. Whitcomb’s waist agape, she went at it with a brief, “Good morning, everybody. Permit me.” Mrs. Wellington twisted her head to say “Good morning” and to ask, “Are you hooked, Mrs. Fosdick?” “Not yet,” pouted Mrs. Fosdick. “Turn round and back up,” said Mrs. Wellington. After some maneuvering, the women formed a complete circle, .and fingers plied hooks and eyes in a veritable Ladies’ Mutual. Aid Society. By now, Wedgewood was ready to appear in a bathrobe about as gaudy as the royal standard of Great Britain. He stalked down the aisle, and answered the male chorus’s cheery “Good morning” with a ramlike “Baw.” Ira Lathrop felt amiable even toward the foreigner, and he observed: “Glorious morning this morning.” “I dare say,” growled Wedgewood. “I don’t go in much for mawnings—especially when I have no tub." Wellington felt called upon to squelch him: Englishmen never had a real tub tj|l we Americans sold ’em to you.” T "I dare say,” said Wedgewood indifferently. “You sell ’em. We use ’em. But, do you know, I’ve just thought out a ripping idea. I shall have my cold bath this mawnlng after all.” “What are you going to do?” growiejj? fcathrop. “Crawl in the icewater tank?”

“Oh, dear, no. I shouldn’t be let,” and he. produced from his pocket a rubber hose. “I simply affix this little tube to one end of the spigot and wave the sprinklah hyah over my—er —my person.” Lathrop stared at him pityingly, and demanded: “What happens to the water, then?” “What do 1 care?” said Wedgewood. “You durned fool, you’d flood the car.” Wedgewood’s high hopes withered. “I hadn't thought of that,” be sighed. “I suppose I must continue just as 1 am till 1 I reach San Francisco. The first thing I shall order tonight will be tour cold tubs and a lemon squash.” While the men continued to make themselves presentable in a huddle, the hook-and-eye society at the other end of the car finished with the four waists, and Mrs. Fosdick hurried away to kep her tryst in the diningcar. The three remaining relapsed into dreary attitudes. Mrs. Wellington shook the knob of the forbidding door, and turned to complain: “What In heaven’s name ails the creature in there. She must have fallen out of the Window.” "ft’s outrageous,” paid Marjorie, “the way women violate women'* rights.” Mrs. Whitcomb saw an opportunity to insert a stiletto. She observed to Marjorie, with an innocent air: "Why, Mrs. Mallory, I’ve even knows

women to lock themelves In there and smoke!” While Mrs. Wellington was rummaging her brain for a titling retort, the door opened, and out stepped Miss Gattle, as was.' j She blushed furioiisly at sight of the committee waiting to greet her, but they repented their criticisms and tried to make up for them by the excessive warmth with which they all exclaimed at once: “Good morning, Mrs. Lathrop!” “Good morning, who?” said Anne, then blushed yet redder: “Oh, I can’t seem to get used to that name! 1 hope I haven’t kept you waiting?” “Oh, not at all!” the women insisted, and Anne fled to number six, remembered that this was no longer her home, and moved on to number one. Here the porter was just finishing his restoring tasks, and laying aside with some diffidence two garments which Anne hastily stuffed into her own valise. * >■ Meanwhile Marjorie was pushing Mrs. Wellington ahead: “You go in first, Mrs. Wellington." “You go first. I have no husband waiting for me,” said Mrs. Wellington. “Oh, I insist,” said Marjorie. “I couldn’t think of it,” persisted Mrs. Wellington. “I won't allow you.” And then Mrs. Whitcomb pushed them both aside: “Pardon me, won’t you? I’m getting off at Keno.” “So am I,” gasped Mrs. Wellington, rushing forward, only to be faced by the slam of the door and the click of the key. She whirled back to demand *of Marjorie: Did you ever hear of such impudence?” “I never did.” , , “I’ll never be ready for Reno,” Mrs. Wellington wailed, “and I haven’t had my breakfast.” “You’d better order it in advance," said Marjorie. “It takes that chef an hour to boil an egg three minutes.” “I will, if I can ever get my face washed,” sighed Mr&Wellington. And now Mrs. Lathrop, after much hesitation, caWed timidly, "Por-ter-porter—please! ” „ “Yes —miss—missus!” he amended. “Will you call my—” she gulped—“my husband?” “Yes, jna’am,” the porter chuckled, and putting his grinning head in at the men’s door, he bowed to Ira and said: “Excuse me, but you are sent for by the lady in number one.” Ashton slapped him on the back and roared: “Oh, you married man!” “Well,” said Ira, In self-defense, “1 don’t hear anybody sending for you.” Wedgewood grinned at Ashton. ”1 rather fancy he had you theah, old top, eh, what?” Ira appeared at number one, and bending over his treasure-trove, spoke in h voice that was pure saccharine: “Are you ready for breakfast, dear?” “Yes, Ira/’ “Come along to the dining-car/’ “It’s cosier here,” she said. “Couldn’t we have it served here?” ’• "But it’ll get all cold, and I’m hungry,” pouted the old bachelor, to whom breakfast was a sacred lnstltutiOßr — “All right, Ira,” said Anne, glad to be meek; "come along,” and she rose. Ira hesitated. “Still, if you’d rather, we’ll eat here.” He sat down. “Oh, not at all,” said Anne; “we’ll go where you want to go.” ’ .“But I want to do what you want to do.” “So do I —we’ll go,” said Anne. “We’ll stay.” “No, I Insist on the dining-car/ “Oh, all right, have your own way,” said Ira, as if he were being bullied, and liked it. Anne smiled at the contrariness of men, and Ira smiled at the contrariness of women, and when they reached the vestibule they kissed each other in mutual forgiveness. As Wedgewood stropped an old-fash-ioned razor, ho said to Ashton, who was putting up his safety equipment: "I say, old party, are those safety razors safe? Can’t you really cut yourself?” “Cut everything but hair,” said Ashton, pointing to his wounded chin. (TO BE CONTINUED.)