Excuse Me! Part 6

He no longer interested Mr. Wedgewood. But Mr. Wellington was not aware that he was being snubbed. He went right on getting acquainted:

"Are you married, Mr.--Mr.----?"

"No!"

"My heartfelt congrashlations. Hang on to your luck, my boy. Don't let any female take it away from you." He slapped the Englishman on the elbow amiably, and his prisoner was too stifled with wrath to emit more than one feeble "Pawtah!"

Mr. Wellington mused on aloud: "Oh, if I had only remained s.h.i.+ngle.

But she was so beautiful and she swore to love, honor and obey. Mrs.

Wellington is a queen among women, mind you, and I have nothing to say against her except that she has the temper of a tarantula." He italicized the word with a light fillip of his left hand along the back of the seat. He did not notice that he filliped the angry head of Mr. Ira Lathrop in the next seat. He went on with his portrait of his wife. "She has the 'stravaganza of a sultana"--another fillip for Mr.

Lathrop--"the zhealousy of a cobra, the flirtatiousness of a humming bird." Mr. Lathrop was glaring round like a man-eating tiger, but Wellington talked on. "She drinks, swears, and smokes cigars, otherwise she's fine--a queen among women."

Neither this amazing vision of womankind, nor this beautiful example of longing for confession and sympathy awakened a response in the Englishman's frozen bosom. His only action was another violent effort to disengage his cramped knees from the knees of his tormentor; his only comment a vain and weakening cry for help, "Pawtah! Pawtah!"

Wellington's bleary, teary eyes were lighted with triumph. "Finally I saw I couldn't stand it any longer so I bought a tic-hic-et to Reno. I 'stablish a residensh in six monfths--get a divorce--no shcandal. Even m'own wife won't know anything about it."

The Englishman was almost attracted by this astounding picture of the divorce laws in America. It sounded so barbarically quaint that he leaned forward to hear more, but Mr. Wellington's hand, like a mischievous runaway, had wandered back into the s.h.a.ggy locks atop of Mr. Lathrop. His right hand did not let his left know what it was doing, but proceeded quite independently to grip as much of Lathrop's hair as it would hold.

Then as Mr. Wellington shook with joy at the prospect of "Dear old Reno!" he began unconsciously to draw Ira Lathrop's head after his hair across the seat. The pain of it shot the tears into Lathrop's eyes, and as he writhed and twisted he was too full of profanity to get any one word out.

When he managed to wrench his skull free, he was ready to murder his tormentor. But as soon as he confronted the doddering and blinking toper, he was helpless. Drunken men have always been treated with great tenderness in America, and when Wellington, seeing Lathrop's white hair, exclaimed with rapture: "Why, h.e.l.lo, Pop! here's Pop!" the most that Lathrop could do was to tear loose those fat, groping hands, slap them like a school teacher, and push the man away.

But that one shove upset Mr. Wellington and sent him toppling down upon the pit of the Englishman's stomach.

For Wedgewood, it was suddenly as if all the air had been removed from the world. He gulped like a fish drowning for lack of water. He was a long while getting breath enough for words, but his first words were wild demands that Mr. Wellington remove himself forthwith.

Wellington accepted the banishment with the sorrowful eyes of a dying deer, and tottered away wagging his fat head and wailing:

"I'm a broken-hearted man, and n.o.body gives a ----." At this point he caromed over into Ira Lathrop's berth and was welcomed with a savage roar:

"What the devil's the matter with you?"

"I'm a broken-hearted man, that's all."

"Oh, is that all," Lathrop snapped, vanis.h.i.+ng behind his newspaper.

The desperately melancholy seeker for a word of human kindness bleared at the blurred newspaper wall a while, then waded into a new attempt at acquaintance. Laying his hand on Lathrop's knee, he stammered: "Esscuzhe me, Mr.--Mr.----"

From behind the newspaper came a stingy answer: "Lathrop's my name--if you want to know."

"Pleased to meet you, Mr. Lothrop."

"Lathrop!"

"Lathrop! My name's Wellington. Li'l Jimmie Wellington. Ever hear of me?"

He waited with the genial smile of a famous man; the smile froze at Lathrop's curt, "Don't think so."

He tried again: "Ever hear of well-known Chicago belle, Mrs. Jimmie Wellington?"

"Yes, I've heard of her!" There was an ominous grin in the tone.

Wellington waved his hand with modest pride. "Well, I'm Jimmie."

"Serves you right."

This jolt was so discourteous that Wellington decided to protest: "Mister Latham!"

"Lathrop!"

The name came out with a whip-snap. He tried to echo it, "La-_throp_!"

"I don't like that Throp. That's a kind of a seasick name, isn't it?"

Finding the newspaper still intervening between him and his prey, he calmly tore it down the middle and pushed through it like a moon coming through a cloud. "But a man can't change his name by marrying, can he? That's the worst of it. A woman can. Think of a heartless cobra di capello in woman's form wearing my fair name--and wearing it out. Mr. La-_throp_, did you ever put your trust in a false-hearted woman?"

"Never put my trust in anybody."

"Didn't you ever love a woman?"

"No!"

"Well, then, didn't you ever marry a woman?"

"Not one. I've had the measles and the mumps, but I've never had matrimony."

"Oh, lucky man," beamed Wellington. "Hang on to your luck."

"I intend to," said Lathrop, "I was born single and I like it."

"Oh, how I envy you! You see, Mrs. Wellington--she's a queen among women, mind you--a queen among women, but she has the 'stravagance of a----"

Lathrop had endured all he could endure, even from a privileged character like little Jimmy Wellington. He rose to take refuge in the smoking-room. But the very vigor of this departure only served to help Wellington to his feet, for he seized Lathrop's coat and hung on, through the door, down the little corridor, always explaining:

"Mrs. Wellington is a queen among women, mind you, but I can't stand her temper any longer."

He had hardly squeezed into the smoking-room when the porter and an usher almost invisible under the baggage they carried brought in a new pa.s.senger. Her first question was:

"Oh, porter, did a box of flowers, or candy, or anything, come for me?"

"What name would they be in, miss?"

"Mrs. Wellington--Mrs. James Wellington."

CHAPTER V

A QUEEN AMONG WOMEN