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Excuse Me! (Dramatic Reading)

26 <h3 class="p6">CHAPTER III IN DARKEST CHICAGO</h3> The castaways from the wrecked taxicab hurried along the doleful street. Both of them knew their Chicago, but this part of it was not their Chicago. They hailed a pedestrian, to ask where the nearest street car line might be, and whither it might run. He answered indistinctly from a discreet distance, as he hastened away. Perhaps he thought their question merely a footpad's introduction to a sandbagging episode. In Chicago at night one never knows. "As near as I can make out what he said, Marjorie," the lieutenant pondered aloud, "we walk straight ahead till we come to Umtyump Street, and there we find a Rarara car that will take us to Bloptyblop Avenue. I never heard of any such streets, did you?" "Never," she panted, as she jog-trotted alongside his military pace. "Let's take the first car we meet, and perhaps the conductor can put us off at the street where the minister lives." "Perhaps." There was not much confidence in that "perhaps." 27 When they reached the street-carred street, they found two tracks, but nothing occupying them, as far as they could peer either way. A small shopkeeper in a tiny shop proved to be a delicatessen merchant so busily selling foreign horrors to aliens, that they learned nothing from him. At length, in the far-away, they made out a headlight, and heard the grind and squeal of a car. Lieutenant Mallory waited for it, watch in hand. He boosted Marjorie's elbow aboard and bombarded the conductor with questions. But the conductor had no more heard of their street than they had of his. Their agitation did not disturb his stoic calm, but he invited them to come along to the next crossing, where they could find another car and more learned conductors; or, what promised better, perhaps a cab. He threw Marjorie into a panic by ordering her to jettison Snoozleums, but the lieutenant bought his soul for a small price, and overlooked the fact that he did not ring up their fares. The young couple squeezed into a seat and talked anxiously in sharp whispers. "Wouldn't it be terrible, Harry, if, just as we got to the minister's, we should find papa there ahead of us, waiting to forbid the bands, or whatever it is? Wouldn't it be just terrible?" "Yes, it would, honey, but it doesn't seem probable. There are thousands of ministers in Chicago. 28 He could never find ours. Fact is. I doubt if we find him ourselves." Her clutch tightened till he would have winced, if he had not been a soldier. "What do you mean, Harry?" "Well, in the first place, honey, look what time it is. Hardly more than time enough to get the train, to say nothing of hunting for that preacher and standing up through a long rigmarole." "Why, Harry Mallory, are you getting ready to jilt me?" "Indeed I'm not—not for worlds, honey, but I've got to get that train, haven't I?" "Couldn't you wait over one train—just one tiny little train?" "My own, own honey love, you know it's impossible! You must remember that I've already waited over three trains while you tried to make up your mind." "And you must remember, darling, that it's no easy matter for a girl to decide to sneak away from home and be married secretly, and go all the way out to that hideous Manila with no trousseau and no wedding presents and no anything." "I know it isn't, and I waited patiently while you got up the courage. But now there are no more trains. I shudder to think of this train being late. We're not due in San Francisco till Thursday evening, and my transport sails at sunrise Friday morning. 29 Oh, Lord, what if I should miss that transport! What if I should!" "What if we should miss the minister?" "It begins to look a great deal like it." "But, Harry, you wouldn't desert me now—abandon me to my fate?" "Well, it isn't exactly like abandonment, seeing that you could go home to your father and mother in a taxicab." She stared at him in horror. "So you don't want me for your wife! You've changed your mind! You're tired of me already! Only an hour together, and you're sick of your bargain! You're anxious to get rid of me! You——" "Oh, honey, I want you more than anything else on earth, but I'm a soldier, dearie, a mere lieutenant in the regular army, and I'm the slave of the Government. I've gone through West Point, and they won't let me resign respectably and if I did, we'd starve. They wouldn't accept my resignation, but they'd be willing to courtmartial me and dismiss me the service in disgrace. Then you wouldn't want to marry me—and I shouldn't have any way of supporting you if you did. I only know one trade, and that's soldiering." "Don't call it a trade, beloved, it's the noblest profession in all the world, and you're the noblest soldier that ever was, and in a year or two you'll be the biggest general in the army." 30 He could not afford to shatter such a devout illusion or quench the light of faith in those beloved and loving eyes. He tacitly admitted his ability to be promoted commander-in-chief in a year or two. He allowed that glittering possibility to remain, used it as a basis for argument. "Then, dearest, you must help me to do my duty." She clasped his upper arm as if it were an altar and she an Iphigenia about to be sacrificed to save the army. And she murmured with utter heroism: "I will! Do what you like with me!" He squeezed her hand between his biceps and his ribs and accepted the offering in a look drenched with gratitude. Then he said, matter-of-factly: "We'll see how much time we have when we get to—whatever the name of that street is." The car jolted and wailed on its way like an old drifting rocking chair. The motorman was in no hurry. The passengers seemed to have no occasion for haste. Somebody got on or got off at almost every corner, and paused for conversation while the car waited patiently. But eventually the conductor put his head in and drawled: "Hay! here's where you get off at." They hastened to debark and found themselves in a narrow, gaudily-lighted region where they saw a lordly transfer-distributor, a profound scholar in Chicago streets. He informed them that the minister's street lay far back along the path they had 31 come; they should have taken a car in the opposite direction, transferred at some remote center, descended at some unheard-of street, walked three blocks one way and four another, and there they would have been. Mallory looked at his watch, and Marjorie's hopes dropped like a wrecked aeroplane, for he grimly asked how long it would take them to reach the railroad station. "Well, you'd ought to make it in forty minutes," the transfer agent said—and added, cynically, "if the car makes schedule." "Good Lord, the train starts in twenty minutes!" "Well, I tell you—take this here green car to Wexford Avenoo—there's usually a taxicab or two standin' there." "Thank you. Hop on, Marjorie." Marjorie hopped on, and they sat down, Mallory with eyes and thoughts on nothing but the watch he kept in his hand. During this tense journey the girl perfected her soul for graceful martyrdom. "I'll go to the train with you, Harry, and then you can send me home in a taxicab." Her nether lip trembled and her eyes were filmed, but they were brave, and her voice was so tender that it wooed his mind from his watch. He gazed at her, and found her so dear, so devoted and so pitifully exquisite, that he was almost overcome by an 32 impulse to gather her into his arms there and then, indifferent to the immediate passengers or to his far-off military superiors. An hour ago they were young lovers in all the lilt and thrill of elopement. She had clung to him in the gloaming of their taxicab, as it sped 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 lo, they had wrecked a Paradise. The railroad ceased to be a lover's lane and became a lingering torment; the ocean was a weltering Sahara, and the Philippines a Dry Tortugas of exile. Mallory realized 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. It was hard to obey the soulless machinery of discipline, to be a brass-buttoned slave. He felt all the hot, quick resentment that turns a faithful soldier into a deserter. But it takes time to evolve a deserter, and Mallory 33 had only twenty minutes. The handcuffs and leg-irons of discipline hobbled him. He was only a little cog in a great clock, and the other wheels were impinging on him and revolving in spite of himself. In the close-packed seats where they were jostled and stared at, the soldier could not even attempt to explain to his fascinated bride the war of motives in his breast. He could not voice the passionate rebellion her beauty had whipped up in his soul. Perhaps if Romeo and Juliet had been forced to say farewell on a Chicago street car instead of a Veronese balcony, their language would have lacked savor, too. Perhaps young Mr. Montague and young Miss Capulet, instead of wailing, "No, that is 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." "It'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. 34 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, a kind-faced tower clock beamed the reassurance that they had three 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 station-porter 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 so 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. <div style="break-after:column;"></div>

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