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Excuse Me! (Dramatic Reading)

16 <h3 class="p6">CHAPTER II THE EARLY BIRDS AND THE WORM</h3> In the enormous barn of the railroad station stood many strings of cars, as if a gigantic young Gulliver stabled his toys there and invisibly amused himself; now whisking this one away, now backing that other in. Some of the trains were noble equipages, fitted to glide across the whole map with cargoes of Lilliputian millionaires and their Lilliputian ladies. Others were humble and shabby linked-up day-coaches and dingy smoking-cars, packed with workers, like ants. Cars are mere vehicles, but locomotives have souls. The express engines roll in or stalk out with grandeur and ease. They are like emperors. They seem to look with scorn at the suburban engines snorting and grunting and shaking the arched roof with their plebeian choo-choo as they puff from shop to cottage and back. The trainmen take their cue from the behavior of their locomotives. The conductor of a transcontinental 17 nods to the conductor of a shuttle-train with less cordiality than to a brakeman of his own. The engineers of the limiteds look like senators in overalls. They are far-traveled men, leading a mighty life of adventure. They are pilots of land-ships across land-oceans. They have a right to a certain condescension of manner. But no one feels or shows so much arrogance as the sleeping car porters. They cannot pronounce "supercilious," but they can be it. Their disdain for the entire crew of any train that carries merely day-coaches or half-baked chair-cars, is expressed as only a darkey in a uniform can express disdain for poor white trash. Of all the haughty porters that ever curled a lip, the haughtiest by far was the dusky attendant in the San Francisco sleeper on the Trans-American Limited. His was the train of trains in that whole system. His car the car of cars. His passengers the surpassengers of all. His train stood now waiting to set forth upon a voyage of two thousand miles, a journey across seven imperial States, a journey that should end only at that marge where the continent dips and vanishes under the breakers of the Pacific Ocean. At the head of his car, with his little box-step waiting for the foot of the first arrival, the porter stood, his head swelling under his cap, his breast swelling beneath his blue blouse, with its brass buttons like 18 reflections of his own eyes. His name was Ellsworth Jefferson, but he was called anything from "Poarr-turr" to "Pawtah," and he usually did not come when he was called. To-night he was wondering perhaps what passengers, with what dispositions, would fall to his lot. Perhaps he was wondering what his Chicago sweetheart would be doing in the eight days before his return. Perhaps he was wondering what his San Francisco sweetheart had been doing in the five days since he left her, and how she would pass the three days that must intervene before he reached her again. He had Othello's ebon color. Did he have Othello's green eye? Whatever his thoughts, he chatted gaily enough with his neighbor and colleague of the Portland sleeper. Suddenly he stopped in the midst of a soaring chuckle. "Lordy, man, looky what's a-comin'!" The Portland porter turned to gaze. "I got my fingers crossed." "I hope you git him." "I hope I don't." "He'll work you hard and cuss you out, and he won't give you even a Much Obliged." "That's right. He ain't got a usher to carry his things. And he's got enough to fill a van." 19 The oncomer was plainly of English origin. It takes all sorts of people to make up the British Empire, and there is no sort lacking—glorious or pretty, or sour or sweet. But this was the type of English globe-trotter that makes himself as unpopular among foreigners as he is among his own people. He is almost as unendurable as the Americans abroad who twang their banjo brag through Europe, and berate France and Italy for their innocence of buckwheat cakes. The two porters regarded Mr. Harold Wedgewood with dread, as he bore down on them. He was almost lost in the plethora of his own luggage. He asked for the San Francisco sleeper, and the Portland porter had to turn away to smother his gurgling relief. Ellsworth Jefferson's heart sank. He made a feeble effort at self-protection. The Pullman conductor not being present at the moment, he inquired: "Have you got yo' ticket?" "Of cawse." "Could I see it?" "Of cawse not. Too much trouble to fish it out." The porter was fading. "Do you remember yo' numba?" "Of cawse. Take these." He began to pile things on the porter like a mountain unloading an avalanche. The porter stumbled as he clambered up the steps, and squeezed through the strait path of 20 the corridor into the slender aisle. He turned again and again to question the invader, but he was motioned and bunted down the car, till he was halted with a "This will do." The Englishman selected section three for his own. The porter ventured: "Are you sho' this is yo' numba?" "Of cawse I'm shaw. How dare you question my——" "I wasn't questionin' you, boss, I was just astin' you." He resigned himself to the despot, and began to transfer his burdens to the seat. But he did nothing to the satisfaction of the Englishman. Everything must be placed otherwise; the catch-all here, the portmanteau there, the Gladstone there, the golfsticks there, the greatcoat there, the raincoat there. The porter was puffing like a donkey-engine, and mutiny was growing in his heart. His last commission was the hanging up of the bowler hat. He stood on the arm of the seat to reach the high hook. From here he paused to glare down with an attempt at irony. "Is they anything else?" "No. You may get down." The magnificent patronage of this wilted the porter completely. He returned to the lower level, and shuffled along the aisle in a trance. He was quickly recalled by a sharp: 21 "Pawtah!" "Yassah!" "What time does this bally train start?" "Ten-thutty, sah." "But it's only ten now." "Yassah. It'll be ten-thutty a little later." "Do you mean to tell me that I've got to sit hyah for half an hour—just waitin'?" The porter essayed another bit of irony: "Well," he drawled, "I might tell the conducta you're ready. And mebbe he'd start the train. But the time-table says ten-thutty." He watched the effect of his satire, but it fell back unheeded from the granite dome of the Englishman, whose only comment was: "Oh, never mind. I'll wait." The porter cast his eyes up in despair, and turned away, once more to be recalled. "Oh, pawtah!" "Yassah!" "I think we'll put on my slippahs." "Will we?" "You might hand me that large bag. No, stupid, the othah one. You might open it. No, its in the othah one. Ah, that's it. You may set it down." Mr. Wedgewood brought forth a soft cap and a pair of red slippers. The porter made another effort 22 to escape, his thoughts as black as his face. Again the relentless recall: "Oh, pawtah, I think we'll unbutton my boots." He was too weak to murmur "Yassah." He simply fell on one knee and got to work. There was a witness to his helpless rage—a newcomer, the American counterpart of the Englishman in all that makes travel difficult for the fellow travelers. Ira Lathrop was zealous to resent anything short of perfection, quick and loud of complaint, apparently impossible to please. In everything else he was the opposite of the Englishman. He was burly, middle-aged, rough, careless in attire, careless of speech—as uncouth and savage as one can well be who is plainly a man of means. It was not enough that a freeborn Afro-American should be caught kneeling to an Englishman. But when he had escaped this penance, and advanced hospitably to the newcomer, he must be greeted with a snarl. "Say, are you the porter of this car, or that man's nurse?" "I can't tell yet. What's yo' numba, please?" The answer was the ticket. The porter screwed up his eyes to read the pencilled scrawl. "Numba se'm. Heah she is, boss." "Right next to a lot of women, I'll bet. Couldn't you put me in the men's end of the car?" 23 "Not ve'y well, suh. I reckon the cah is done sold out." With a growl of rage, Ira Lathrop slammed into the seat his entire hand baggage, one ancient and rusty valise. The porter gazed upon him with increased depression. The passenger list had opened inauspiciously with two of the worst types of travelers the Anglo-Saxon race has developed. But their anger was not their worst trait in the porter's eyes. He was, in a limited way, an expert in human character. When you meet a stranger you reveal your own character in what you ask about his. With some, the first question is, "Who are his people?" With others, "What has he achieved?" With others, "How much is he worth?" Each gauges his cordiality according to his estimate. The porter was not curious on any of these points. He showed a democratic indifference to them. His one vital inquiry was: "How much will he tip?" His inspection of his first two charges promised small returns. He buttoned up his cordiality, and determined to waste upon them the irreducible minimum of attention. It would take at least a bridal couple to restore the balance. But bridal couples in their first bloom rarely fell to the lot of that porter, for what bridal 24 couple wants to lock itself in with a crowd of passengers for the first seventy-two hours of wedded bliss? The porter banished the hope as a vanity. Little he knew how eagerly the young castaways from that wrecked taxicab desired to be a bridal couple, and to catch this train. But the Englishman was restive again: "Pawtah! I say, pawtah!" "Yassah!" "What time are we due in San Francisco?" "San Francisco? San Francisco? We are doo thah the evenin' of the fo'th day. This bein' Monday, that ought to bring us in abote Thuzzday evenin'." The Yankee felt called upon to check the foreign usurper. "Porrterr!" "Yassah!" "Don't let that fellow monopolize you. He probably won't tip you at all." The porter grew confidential: "Oh, I know his kind, sah. They don't tip you for what you do do, but they're ready letter writers to the Sooperintendent for what you don't do." "Pawtah! I say, pawtah!" "Here, porrterr." The porter tried to imitate the Irish bird, and be in two places at once. The American had a coin in 25 his hand. The porter caught the gleam of it, and flitted thither. The Yankee growled: "Don't forget that I'm on the train, and when we get to 'Frisco there may be something more." The porter had the coin in his hand. Its heft was light. He sighed: "I hope so." The Englishman was craning his head around owlishly to ask: "I say, pawtah, does this train ever get wrecked?" "Well, it hasn't yet," and he murmured to the Yankee, "but I has hopes." The Englishman's voice was querulous again. "I say, pawtah, open a window, will you? The air is ghastly, abso-ripping-lutely ghastly." The Yankee growled: "No wonder we had the Revolutionary War!" Then he took from his pocket an envelope addressed to Ira Lathrop & Co., and from the envelope he took a contract, and studied it grimly. The envelope bore a Chinese stamp. The porter, as he struggled with an obstinate window, wondered what sort of passenger fate would send him next. <div style="break-after:column;"></div>

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