"Humph!" snorts old Busbee. "Have you?"

"Yes," says Mr. Robert, smilin' mushy. "I--er--the fact is, I am going to be married."

"The bonehead!" I whispers husky.

Old Lawson T. Ryder, the one with the bushy white eyebrows and the heavy dewlaps, he puffs out his cheeks and works that under jaw of his menacin'.

"Really!" says he. "But what about the _Balboa_? Eh?"

"Oh!" says Mr. Robert casual. "The _Balboa_? Yes, yes! Didn't I tell someone to attend to that? A charter, wasn't it? Torchy, were you----"

I shakes my head.

"Perhaps it was Mr. Piddie, then," says he. "Anyway, I thought I asked----"

"Here's Piddie now, sir," says I. "Looks like he'd been after something."

He's a wreck, that's all. His derby is caved in, his black cutaway all smooched with lime or something, and one eye is tinted up lovely. In his right fist, though, he has a long yellow envelope.

"The charter!" he gasps out dramatic. "_Balboa!_"

And, by piecin' out more jerky bulletins, it's clear that Piddie has pulled off the prize stunt of his whole career. He'd gone out after that charter at lunchtime the day before, been stalled off by office clerks probably subsidized by the opposition, spent the night hangin' around the water-front, and got mixed up with a dock gang; but, by bein' on hand early, he'd caught one of the shippin' firm and closed the option barely two hours before it lapsed. And as he sinks limp into a chair he glances appealin' at Mr. Robert, no doubt expectin' to be decorated on the spot.

"By George!" says Mr. Robert. "Good work! But you haven't heard of my great luck meantime. Listen, Piddie. I am to be married!"

I thought Piddie would croak.

"Think of that, gentlemen," cuts in old Busbee sarcastic. "He is to be married!"

But it needs more 'n a little jab like that to bring Mr. Robert out of his Romeo trance. Honest, the way he carries on is amazin'. You might have thought this was the first case on record where a girl who'd said she wouldn't had changed her mind. And, so far as any other happenin's was concerned, he might have been deaf, dumb, and blind. The entire news of the world that mornin' he could boil down into one official statement: Elsa had said she'd have him! Hip, hip! Banzai! Elsa forever!

He flashed that miniature of her and pa.s.sed it around. He nudges Lawson T. Ryder playful in the short ribs, hammers Deacon Larkin on the back, and then groups himself, beamin' foolish, with one arm around old Busbee and the other around Mr. Hyde.

Maybe you know how catchin' that sort of thing is? It's got the measles or barber's itch beat seven ways. That bunch of grouches just couldn't resist. Inside of five minutes they was grinnin' with him, and when I finally shoos 'em out they was formin' a committee to shake each other down for two hundred per towards a weddin' present.

I finds it about as much use tryin' to get Mr. Robert to settle down to business as it would be teachin' a hummin'-bird to sit for his photograph. So I gives up, and asks for details of the big event.

"When does it come off?" says I.

"Oh, right away," says he. "I don't know just when; but soon--very soon."

"Home or church?" says I.

"Oh, either," says he. "It doesn't matter in the least."

"Maybe it don't," says I, "but it's a point someone has to settle, you know."

"Yes, yes," says he, wavin' careless. "I've no doubt someone will."

He was right. Up to then I hadn't heard much about Miss Hampton's fam'ly except that she was an orphan, and I expect Mr. Robert had an idea there wa'n't any nosey relations to b.u.t.t in. But it ain't three days after the engagement got noised around that a cousin of Elsa's shows up, a Mrs.

Montgomery Pulsifer--a swell party with a big place in the Berkshires.

Seems she'd been kind of cold and distant to Miss Hampton on account of her bein' a concert singer; but, now that Elsa has drawn down a prize like Robert Ellins, here comes Mrs. Pulsifer flutterin' to town, all smiles and greatly excited. Where was the wedding to be? And the reception? Not in this stuffy little hotel suite, she hopes! Why not at Crag Oaks, her place near Lenox? There was the dearest little ivy-covered church! And a perfectly charming rector!

Then Sister Marjorie is called in. Sure, she was strong for the frilly stuff. If Brother Robert had finally decided to be married, it must be done properly. And Mrs. Pulsifer's country house would be just the place. Only, she had an idea that their old fam'ly friend, the Bishop, ought to be asked to officiate. The perfectly charming rector might a.s.sist.

"Why, to be sure!" says Mrs. Pulsifer. "The Bishop, by all means."

Anyway, it went something like that; and the first thing Mr. Robert knows, they've doped out for him a regulation three-ring splicefest with all the trimmin's, from a gold-braided carriage caller to a special train for the Newport guests. And, bein' still busy with his rosy dreams, Mr. Robert don't get wise to what's been framed up for him until here Sat.u.r.day afternoon out at Marjorie's, when they start to spring the programme on him.

"Why, see here, sis," says he, "you've put this three weeks off!"

"The bridesmaids' gowns can't be finished a day sooner," says Marjorie.

"Besides, the invitations must be engraved; you can't get a caterer like Ma.r.s.elli at a moment's notice; and there is the organ to be installed, you know."

"Organ!" protests Mr. Robert. "Oh, I say!"

"You don't expect the Lohengrin March to be played on drums, I hope,"

said Marjorie. "Do be sensible! You've been best man times enough to know that----"

"Great Scott, yes," says Mr. Robert. "But really, sis, I don't want to go through all that dreary business--dragging in to the wedding-march, with everyone looking solemn and holding their breath while they stare at you! Why, it's deadly! Gloomy, you know; a relic of barbarism worthy of some savage tribe."

"Why, Robert!" protests Marjorie.

"But it is," he goes on. "Haven't I pitied the poor victims who had to go through with it? Think of having to run that gauntlet--morbidly curious old women, silly girls, bored men--and trying to keep step to that confounded dirge. Wedding march, indeed! They make it sound more like the march of the condemned. _Tum-tum-te-dum!_ Ugh! I tell you, Marjorie, I'm not going to have it. Nor any of this stodgy, grewsome fuss. I mean to have a cheerful wedding."

"Humph!" says Marjorie. "I suppose you would like to hop-skip-and-jump down to the altar?"

"Why not?" asks Mr. Robert.

"Don't be absurd, Robert," says she. "You'll be married quite respectably and sanely, as other people are. Anyway, you'll just have to. Mrs. Pulsifer and I are managing the affair, remember."

"Are you?" says Mr. Robert, lettin' out the first growl I'd heard from him in over a week.

I nudges Vee and we exchanges grins.

"The groom always takes on that way," she whispers. "It's the usual thing."

I was sorry for the Boss, too. He'd been havin' such a good time before.

But now he goes off with his chin down and his brow all wrinkled up.

Course we knew he'd go straight to Elsa and tell her his troubles. But I couldn't see where that was goin' to do him any good. You know how women are about such things. They may be willin' to take a chance along some lines, but when it comes to weddin's and funerals they're stand-patters.

So Sunday afternoon, when I gets a 'phone call from Mr. Robert askin' me to meet him at Miss Hampton's apartment, and he adds that he's decided to duck the whole Crag Oaks proposition and do it his own way, I demands suspicious:

"But how about Miss Elsa?"

"She feels just as I do about it," says he. "Come up. She will tell you so herself."

And she does.