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Excuse Me! (Dramatic Reading)

164 <h3 class="p6">CHAPTER XXIII THROUGH A TUNNEL</h3> Mrs. Jimmie Wellington, who had traveled much abroad and learned in England the habit of smoking in the corridors of expensive hotels, had acquired also the habit, as travelers do, of calling England freer than America. She determined to do her share toward the education of her native country, and chose, for her topic, tobacco as a feminine accomplishment. She had grown indifferent to stares and audible comment and she could fight a protesting head waiter to a standstill. If monuments and tablets are ever erected to the first woman who smoked publicly in this place or that, Mrs. Jimmie Wellington will be variously remembered and occupy a large place in historical record. The narrow confines of the women's room on the sleeping car soon palled on her, and she objected to smoking there except when she felt the added luxury of keeping some other woman outside—fuming, but not smoking. And now Mrs. Jimmie had staked out a claim on the observation platform. She sat there, 165 puffing like a major-general, and in one portion of Nebraska two farmers fell off their agricultural vehicles at the sight of her cigar-smoke trailing after the train. In Wyoming three cowboys followed her for a mile, yipping and howling their compliments. Feeling the smoke mood coming on, Mrs. Wellington invited Mrs. Temple to smoke with her, but Mrs. Temple felt a reminiscent qualm at the very thought, so Mrs. Jimmie sauntered out alone, to the great surprise of Ira Lathrop, whose motto was, "Two heads are better than one," and who was apparently willing to wait till Anne Gattle's head grew on his shoulder. "I trust I don't intrude," Mrs. Wellington said. "Oh, no. Oh, yes." Anne gasped in fiery confusion as she fled into the car, followed by the purple-faced Ira, who slammed the door with a growl: "That Wellington woman would break up anything." The prim little missionary toppled into the nearest chair: "Oh, Ira, what will she think?" "She can't think!" Ira grumbled. "In a little while she'll know." "Don't you think we'd better tell everybody before they begin to talk?" Ira glowed with pride at the thought and murmured with all the ardor of a senile Romeo: "I suppose so, ducky darling. I'll break it—I mean I'll tell it to the men, and you tell the women." 166 "All right, dear, I'll obey you," she answered, meekly. "Obey me!" Ira laughed with boyish swagger. "And you a missionary!" "Well, I've converted one heathen, anyway," said Anne as she darted down the corridor, followed by Ira, who announced his intention to "go to the baggage car and dig up his old Prince Albert." In their flight forward they passed the mysterious woman in the stateroom. They were too full of their own mystery to give thought to hers. Mrs. Fosdick went timidly prowling toward the observation car, suspecting everybody to be a spy, as Mallory suspected everybody to be a clergyman in disguise. As she stole along the corridor past the men's clubroom she saw her husband—her here-and-there husband—wearily counting the telegraph posts and summing them up into miles. She tapped on the glass and signalled to him, then passed on. He answered with a look, then pretended not to have noticed, and waited a few moments before he rose with an elaborate air of carelessness. He beckoned the porter and said: "Let me know the moment we enter Utah, will you?" "Yassah. We'll be comin' along right soon now. We got to pass through the big Aspen tunnel, after that, befo' long, we splounce into old Utah." 167 "Don't forget," said Fosdick, as he sauntered out. Ashton perked up his ears at the promise of a tunnel and kept his eye on his watch. Fosdick entered the observation room with a hungry look in his luscious eyes. His now-and-then wife put up a warning finger to indicate Mrs. Whitcomb's presence at the writing desk. Fosdick's smile froze into a smirk of formality and he tried to chill his tone as if he were speaking to a total stranger. "Good afternoon." Mrs. Fosdick answered with equal ice: "Good afternoon. Won't you sit down?" "Thanks. Very picturesque scenery, isn't it?" "Isn't it?" Fosdick seated himself, looked about cautiously, noted that Mrs. Whitcomb was apparently absorbed in her letter, then lowered his voice confidentially. His face kept up a strained pretense of indifference, but his whisper was passionate with longing: "Has my poor little wifey missed her poor old hubby?" "Oh, so much!" she whispered. "Has poor little hubby missed his poor old wife?" "Horribly. Was she lonesome in that dismal stateroom all by herself?" "Oh, so miserable! I can't stand it much longer." Fosdick's face blazed with good news: "In just 168 a little while we come to the Utah line—then we're safe." "God bless Utah!" The rapture died from her face as she caught sight of Dr. Temple, who happened to stroll in and go to the bookshelves, and taking out a book happened to glance near-sightedly her way. "Be careful of that man, dearie," Mrs. Fosdick hissed out of one side of her mouth. "He's a very strange character." Her husband was infected with her own terror. He asked, huskily: "What do you think he is?" "A detective! I'm sure he's watching us. He followed you right in here." "We'll be very cautious—till we get to Utah." The old clergyman, a little fuzzy in brain from his début in beer, continued innocently to confirm the appearance of a detective by drifting aimlessly about. He was looking for his wife, but he kept glancing at the uneasy Fosdicks. He went to the door, opened it, saw Mrs. Wellington finishing a cigar, and retreated precipitately. Seeing Mrs. Temple wandering in the corridor, he motioned her to a chair near the Fosdicks and she sat by his side, wondering at his filmy eyes. The Fosdicks, glancing uncomfortably at Dr. Temple, rose and selected other chairs further away. Then Roger Ashton sauntered in, his eyes searching for a proper companion through the tunnel. 169 He saw Mrs. Wellington returning from the platform, just tossing away her cigar and blowing out the last of its grateful vapor. With an effort at sarcasm, he went to her and offered her one of his own cigars, smiling: "Have another." She took it, looked it over, and parried his irony with a formula she had heard men use when they hate to refuse a gift-cigar: "Thanks. I'll smoke it after dinner, if you don't mind." "Oh, I don't mind," he laughed, then bending closer he murmured: "They tell me we are coming to a tunnel, a nice, long, dark, dismal tunnel." Mrs. Wellington would not take a dare. She felt herself already emancipated from Jimmie. So she answered Ashton's hint with a laughing challenge: "How nice of the conductor to arrange it." Ashton smacked his lips over the prospect. And now the porter, having noted Ashton's impatience to reach the tunnel, thought to curry favor and a quarter by announcing its approach. He bustled in and made straight for Ashton just as the tunnel announced itself with a sudden swoop of gloom, a great increase of the train-noises and a far-off clang of the locomotive bell. Out of the Egyptian darkness came the unmistakable sounds of osculation in various parts of the room. Doubtless, it was repeated in other parts of the train. There were numerous cooing sounds, too, 170 but nobody spoke except Mrs. Temple, who was heard to murmur: "Oh, Walter, dear, what makes your breath so funny!" Next came a little yowl of pain in Mrs. Fosdick's voice, and then daylight flooded the car with a rush, as if time had made an instant leap from midnight to noon. There were interesting disclosures. Mrs. Temple was caught with her arms round the doctor's neck, and she blushed like a spoony girl. Mrs. Fosdick was trying to disengage her hair from Mr. Fosdick's scarf-pin. Mrs. Whitcomb alone was deserted. Mr. Ashton was gazing devotion at Mrs. Wellington and trying to tell her with his eyes how velvet he had found her cheek. But she was looking reproachfully at him from a chair, and saying, not without regret: "I heard everybody kissing everybody, but I was cruelly neglected." Ashton's eyes widened with unbelief, he heard a snicker at his elbow, and whirled to find the porter rubbing his black velvet cheek and writhing with pent-up laughter. Mrs. Wellington glanced the same way, and a shriek of understanding burst from her. It sent the porter into a spasm of yah-yahs till he caught Ashton's eyes and saw murder in them. The porter fled to the platform and held the door fast, expecting to be lynched. 171 But Ashton dashed away in search of concealment and soap. The porter remained on the platform for some time, planning to leap overboard and take his chances rather than fall into Ashton's hands, but at length, finding himself unpursued, he peered into the car and, seeing that Ashton had gone, he returned to his duties. He kept a close watch on Ashton, but on soberer thoughts Ashton had decided that the incident would best be consigned to silence and oblivion. But for all the rest of that day he kept rubbing his lips with his handkerchief. The porter, noting that the train had swept into a granite gorge like an enormously magnified aisle in a made-up sleeping car, recognized the presence of Echo Canyon, and with it the entrance into Utah. He hastened to impart the tidings to Mr. Fosdick and held out his hand as he extended the information. Fosdick could hardly believe that his twelve-hundred-mile exile was over. "We're in Utah?" he exclaimed. "Yassah," and the porter shoved his palm into view. Fosdick filled it with all his loose change, then whirled to his wife and cried: "Edith! We are in Utah now! Embrace me!" She flung herself into his arms with a gurgle of bliss. The other passengers gasped with amazement. This sort of thing was permissible enough 172 in a tunnel, but in the full light of day——! Fosdick, noting the sensation he had created, waved his hand reassuringly and called across his wife's shoulder: "Don't be alarmed, ladies and gentlemen. She's my wife!" He added in a whisper meant for her ear alone: "At least till we get to Nevada!" Then she whispered something in his ear and they hurried from the car. They left behind them a bewilderment that eclipsed the wonder of the Mallories. That couple spoke to each other at least during the day time. Here was a married pair that did not speak at all for two days and two nights and then made a sudden and public rush to each other's arms! Dr. Temple summed up the general feeling when he said: "I don't believe in witches, but if I did, I'd believe that this train is bewitched." Later he decided that Fosdick was a Mormon elder and that Mrs. Fosdick was probably a twelfth or thirteenth spouse he was smuggling in from the East. The theory was not entirely false, for Fosdick was one of the many victims of the crazy-quilt of American divorce codes, though he was the most unwilling of polygamists. And Dr. Temple gave up his theory in despair the next morning when he found the Fosdicks still on the train, and once more keeping aloof from each other. <div style="break-after:column;"></div>

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