Chapter V

At eleven the next morning George Banks awoke in his room in the Sportsmen's Club. He found his eyes burning and his vision blurred. He found his head throbbing with an ache which radiated from one particular spot inside of his forehead. He found his lips and tongue parched as though he had slept all day in the middle of a desert with his mouth wide open to the blistering sun. An experiment in rising showed conclusively that his knees were weak and that his equilibrial nerves were functioning badly, if at all.

But worse than all this physical disability was a sickening sense of unpleasantness to be faced, which was firmly fixed in the back of his mind. He tried to think, but memories slipped away from him and disappeared like so many slippery pieces of soap under a bathtub. Presently he gave up and lay face downward on the bed, partly conscious, knowing only that his head was throbbing, throbbing, throbbing.

Half an hour later he mustered his courage again and sat up. The room whirled dangerously and he grasped the side of the bed. The edges of his vision were a little clearer. He looked about him. On the desk he saw salvation--a half-full bottle of Scotch. Shakily, supporting himself by whatever came to hand, he made his way to the desk. He carried the bottle to the bathroom and poured a drink of heroic proportions. He drank.

For a minute he sputtered. His eyes blurred again worse than before. He was not entirely sure that he had not wasted the whisky. Then he became stronger, blinked a few times, placed one foot timidly before the other and walked.

Just as he got back to the bed and sat down, he remembered. He had written a letter to Mildred. He had told her what he thought--of her and of his engagement to her and everything. He had asked her to call it all off. Of that much he was sure. And past that his memory would not carry him. Had he told her she was the world's dumbest woman? Had he told her that he had much rather marry a book of etiquette because that, at least, could be left home? Probably. He didn't know, and it didn't make much difference. The import of the letter, however he had worded it, was enough.

He rolled across the bed to the telephone and got Bill Lincoln on the wire.

What George Banks said to Bill Lincoln is neither printable nor essential. It is enough that Bill rushed to the Sportsmen's Club to confer with his ex-roommate, and that the result of the hasty conference was that George Banks found himself, in almost no time, on a train which was due at Grand Central Station at 9 A.M., September fifth.

For it had been decided that he must beat his _fiancée_ to his letter or be forever damned, socially and as a gentleman, and this was the only way the thing could be done. His father's business was unfinished, but that could be explained somehow. The point now was to save Mildred Trudeau's feelings and George Banks's soul. To that end all else must be sacrificed.

George Banks slept soundly in the club car while the train bore him many miles from Chicago. It was close to dinner time when he snorted, gulped five times in rapid succession, and awoke feeling clearer in the head, but clearer, too, in the realization of what he had to face. It was then that he remembered a bottle which had never been taken from his suit case, and bethought himself, in this connection, of an old proverb having to do with the hair of the dog that bites one. A few minutes later the club-car porter was pouring bubbly water into a glass the lower half of which was filled with ice and an amber colored fluid.

After the first, George Banks felt stronger. As the treatment progressed he began to become friendlier toward his fellow wanderers through this vale of tears. When it was time for the fourth, he felt moved to alleviate the sufferings of a young man who sat at his left, separated from him by only one vacant chair. The young man accepted. On investigation he proved to be none other than Harry Powers, who had graduated from Princeton only three years before George. So there they were. They found reminiscences enough to last nearly through dinner; and by the time these began to pall on them they were ready to philosophize on whatever subjects presented themselves, which offered a wide range indeed.

The upshot was that they spent the evening together over George's bottle. Nor did they consider the evening at an end until the bottle had been emptied beyond the possibility of miscalculation. Even then the club-car porter had to plead with them to let him close up for the night.

By showing his Pullman check to the various porters he encountered, George found his way to his own berth. He flung himself in headlong. He undressed lying on his stomach, and wriggling out of his clothes, after what must be the manner of Houdini in a strait-jacket at the bottom of a river. By a miracle he found his pajamas and got himself into them.

For some time he had not thought of what awaited him in the morning. Suddenly the realization came back to him with a vividness that shook him. He would have to kiss the bearded cheek of Mrs. Trudeau. He would have to stare hungrily for hours and hours at her inane daughter--his _fiancée_. And--good Lord!--first he would have to dash to the Ritz and get that letter before she did. Suppose the ship should dock at daybreak. He had heard they did sometimes. He would have to be early all right.

His reasoning led him to the conclusion that the porter must be admonished to call him early--if the porter was waking. If you're waking, call me early, call me early, mother dear. Oh yes, by all means. The porter must be waking, and if he was waking, he must call George early.

With the refrain of Tennyson's worst poem running through his head, George Banks, neatly clad in blue silk pajamas, rolled from his berth into the dimly lighted aisle. If you're waking, call me early, call me early, porter dear. He stumbled over the prominently displayed shoes of the snoring gentleman in the next section. If you're waking, call me early.... He arrived at the men's wash room and pushed the curtain aside. The porter was not there.

George Banks rang a bell and waited a moment, but no one appeared. Porter probably gone to sleep in the caboose or whatever arrangement they have for porters to sleep in. Better find the conductor, anyway. More dependable fellows, these conductors.... If you're waking, call me early, call me early, conductor dear. Not so good. Meter all wrong. But a wise hunch to tell the conductor.

If you're waking, call me early.... George Banks found his way through the next car to the confusion of the shoes parked neatly along the aisle. No porter there, either. He went on. Another car yielded neither porter nor conductor, and George was sick of this business. Chances were some one would call him too early, anyway. They always did.

He gave up the expedition and started back. Through one car--two, three. And then he began to have misgivings. What was the name of his car? Santa Clara? Middleditch? Marianola? Spencersfield? None of them sounded familiar. For that matter, what was the number of his berth? Lower--Lower Five? Seven? Twelve? Ten? That bit of information, too, escaped him. He went through another car to see if any of the green curtains looked familiar. Then he went back through three or four cars. The cars were all alike. The curtains were all alike. The numbers meant nothing.

The train threw itself round a curve just as George Banks came opposite the curtained entrance to the men's room of the good car Gwendoline. George's feet forsook him. He was catapulted through the curtain and saved himself from destruction only by a lucky grab at a passing wash basin. He pulled himself upright. The shock was great. He eased himself to a position of comfort on the long leather seat. It had been a long walk through all those cars, back and forth.

In fact he was remarkably sleepy. A tiring journey it had been.... Oh, well, the train was going to New York. Some porter could be persuaded to find him his berth in the morning. He drew his feet up and stretched out as far as possible on the seat. Presently he slept.