"Ain"t I got a few vit me? Do you vant to get a nice re-marriage license?"
"Re-marriage?--huh!" he looked round and, seeing that no one else was near: "I haven"t taken the first step yet."
Mr. Baumann layed his hands in one another: "A betchelor? Ah, I see you vant to marry a nice divorcee lady in R-r-reno?"
"She isn"t in Reno and she has never been married, either."
This simple statement seemed to astound Mr. Baumann:
"A betch.e.l.ler marry a maiden!--in Reno!--oi, oi, oi! It hasn"t been done yet, but it might be."
Mallory looked him over and a twinge of distaste disturbed him: "You furnish the license, but--er--ah--is there any chance of a clergyman--a Christian clergyman--being at the station?"
"Vy do you vant it a cloigyman? Can"t I do it just as good? Or a nice fat alderman I can get you?"
Mallory pondered: "I don"t think she"d like anything but a clergyman."
"Vell," Baumann confessed, "a lady is liable to be particular about her foist marriage. Anyvay I sell you de license."
"All right."
Mr. Baumann whipped out a portfolio full of doc.u.ments, and as he searched them, philosophized: "A man ought alvays to carry a good marriage license. It might be he should need it in a hurry." He took a large iron seal from his side-pocket and stamped the paper and then, with fountain pen poised, pleaded: "Vat is the names, plea.s.s?"
"Not so loud!" Mallory whispered.
Baumann put his finger to his nose, wisely: "I see, it is a confidential marriage. Sit down once."
When he had asked Mallory the necessary questions and taken his fee, he pa.s.sed over the doc.u.ment by which the sovereign state of Nevada graciously permitted two souls to be made more or less one in the eyes of the law.
"Here you are," said Mr. Baumann. "Vit dat you can get married anyvere in Nevada."
Mallory realized that Nevada would be a thing of the past in a few hours more and he asked:
"It"s no good in California?"
"Himmel, no. In California you bot" gotta go and be examined."
"Examined!" Mallory gasped, in dire alarm.
"Vit questions, poissonally," Mr. Baumann hastened to explain.
"Oh!"
"In Nevada," Baumann insinuated, still hopeful, "I could marry you myself--now, right here."
"Could you marry us in this smoking room?"
"In a cattle car, if you vant it."
"It"s not a bad idea," said Mallory. "I"ll let you know."
Seeing Marjorie coming down the aisle, he hastened to her, and hugged her good-morning with a new confidence.
Dr. and Mrs. Temple, who had returned to their berth, witnessed this greeting with amazement. After the quarrel of the night before surely some explanation should have been overheard, but the puzzling Mallorys flew to each other"s arms without a moment"s delay. The mystery was exciting the pa.s.sengers to such a point that they were vowing to ask a few questions point blank. n.o.body had quite dared to approach either of them, but frank curiosity was preferable to nervous prostration, and the secret could not be kept much longer. Fellow-pa.s.sengers have some rights. Not even a stranger can be permitted to outrage their curiosity with impunity forever.
Seeing them together, Mrs. Temple watched the embrace with her daily renewal of joy that the last night"s quarrel had not proved fatal. She nudged her husband:
"See, they"re making up again."
Dr. Temple was moved to a violent outburst for him: "Well, that"s the darnedest bridal couple--I only said darn, my dear."
He was still more startled when Mr. Baumann, cruising along the aisle, bent over to murmur: "Can I fix you a nice divorce?"
Dr. Temple rose in such an att.i.tude of horror as he a.s.sumed in the pulpit when denouncing the greatest curse of society, and Mr. Baumann retired. As he pa.s.sed Mallory he cast an appreciative glance at Marjorie and, tapping Mallory"s shoulder, whispered: "No vonder you want a marriage license. I"ll be in the next car, should you neet me."
Then he went on his route.
Marjorie stared after him in wonder and asked: "What did that person mean by what he said?"
"It"s all right, Marjorie," Mallory explained, in the highest cheer: "We can get married right away."
Marjorie declined to get her hopes up again: "You"re always saying that."
"But here"s the license--see?"
"What good is that?" she said, "there"s no preacher on board."
"But that man is a justice of the peace and he"ll marry us."
Marjorie stared at him incredulously: "That creature!--before all these pa.s.sengers?"
"Not at all," Mallory explained. "We"ll go into the smoking room."
Marjorie leaped to her feet, aghast: "Elope two thousand miles to be married in a smoking room by a Yiddish drummer! Harry Mallory, you"re crazy."
Put just that way, the proposition did not look so alluring as at first. He sank back with a sigh: "I guess I am. I resign."
He was as weary of being "foiled again" as the villain of a cheap melodrama. The two lovers sat in a twilight of deep melancholy, till Marjorie"s mind dug up a new source of alarm:
"Harry, I"ve just thought of something terrible."
"Let"s have it," he sighed, drearily.
"We reach San Francisco at midnight and you sail at daybreak. What becomes of me?"
Mallory had no answer to this problem, except a grim: "I"ll not desert you."
"But we"ll have no time to get married."