Prince or Chauffeur?

by Lawrence Perry.

CHAPTER I

THE MIDNIGHT EXPRESS

John Armitage, Lieutenant U. S. N., followed the porter into the rear car of the midnight express for Boston, and after seeing his bag deposited under a lower berth, stood for a minute in frowning indecision. A half-hour must elapse before the train started. He was not a bit sleepy; he had, in fact, dozed most of the way from Washington, and the idea of threshing about in the hot berth was not agreeable. Finally, he took a short thick pipe from his pocket, and picking his way gingerly between the funereal swaying curtains and protruding shoes, he went outside to talk to the porter.

The features of this functionary relaxed, from the ineffable dignity and self-containment of a dozing saurian, into an expression of open interest as Armitage ranged alongside, with the remark that it was cooler than earlier in the evening.

"Ya'as, suh," agreed the porter, "it sut'nly am mighty cooler, jes'

now, suh." He c.o.c.ked his head at the young officer. "You 's in de navy, suh, ain't you, suh? I knowed," he added, as Armitage nodded a bored affirmative, "dat you was 'cause I seen de 'U. S. N.' on yo'

grip. So when dat man a minute ago asked me was dere a navy gen'lman on my cyar, why I said--"

"Eh!" Armitage turned upon him so quickly that the negro recoiled.

"Asked for me! Who? What did he say? When did he ask?"

"I came outen the cyar after cahying in yo' bag, Majah," replied the porter, unctuously, "and dey was a man jes' come up an' ask me what I tole you. 'Ya'as, suh,' says I, 'I jes' took in de Kunnel's bag.' So he goes in an' den out he comes again, givin' me fifty cents, an'

hoofed it out through de gates, like he was in a hurry."

Armitage regarded the negro strangely.

"What did he look like?" he asked. "Quick!"

"He was a lean, lanky man wid a mustache and eye-gla.s.ses. He looked like a foreigner. He--"

But Armitage had started on a run for the iron gates. In the big waiting-room there were, perhaps, a score of persons, dozing or reading, no one of whom resembled the man described by the porter. He pa.s.sed across to the telephone booths and as he did so the one for whom he was searching emerged from the telegraph office, walked rapidly to the Forty-second Street doors, and jumped into a taxi-cab waiting at the curb.

And so Armitage missed him. He walked back to the train with a peculiar smile, emotions of pleasurable excitement and a sense of something mysterious conflicting.

"Missed him," he said in answer to the porter's look of inquiry.

"Friend of yo's, suh?"

"Well," said the officer, smiling grimly, "I should have liked to shake hands with him."

His desire would have been keener could he in any way have known the nature of the message which the curious stranger had sent to a squalid little house on William Street in Newport:

A. leaves here for torpedo station on midnight train.

Though he did not know it, despatches of a similar nature had been following or preceding him these past three months, a fact certainly not uncomplimentary to an officer who had been out of the academy a scant ten years, whatever the additional aspects.

As it was, Armitage, not given to worrying, dismissed the incident for the time being and yielded full attention to the voluble porter. The young officer was from Kentucky, had been raised with negroes, and understood and liked them thoroughly.

With five minutes remaining before midnight he was about to knock the fire from his pipe when a bustle at the gate attracted his attention.

A party, two women, their maids, and a footman bearing some luggage, was approaching the train. The older woman was of distinguished bearing and evidently in no amiable mood; the younger was smiling, trying to pacify her.

"Well, mother," she said, as the party stopped at Armitage's car, "the worst of the ordeal is over. It has all been so funny and quite exciting, really."

That she was an interesting girl, Armitage could see even in the ghastly effulgence of the arc lamps. Slightly above the medium height, with a straight, slim figure, she was, he judged, about twenty-two or three years old. Her light hair flowed and rippled from under a smart hat; her face, an expressive oval; her mouth not small, the lips full and red. Armitage could not tell about the eyes, but considering her hair and vivid complexion they were, he decided, probably hazel. From his purely scientific or rather artistic investigation of the girl's face, he started suddenly to find that those eyes were viewing him with an unmistakably humorous disdain. But only for a second. Then as though some mental picture had been vaguely limned in her mind, she looked at him again, quickly, this time with a curious expression, as of a person trying to remember, not quite certain whether she should bow. She did n't. Instead, she turned to her mother, who was advancing toward the porter, voicing her disapproval of her daughter's characterization of the situation.

"Funny! exciting!" she exclaimed. "You are quite impossible, Anne.

Porter, is this our car?"

The negro examined the tickets and waved his hand toward the steps.

"Ya'as'm, cyar five; state room A, an' upper 'n lower ten, for dem ladies," indicating the maids. "Ya'as'm, jes' step dis way."

With a few directions to the footman, who thereupon retraced his steps to the station, the woman followed her daughter and the maids into the car. A minute or so later the train was rolling out into the yard with its blazing electric lights, and Armitage, now hopelessly wakeful, was in the smoking compartment, regarding an unlighted cigar. Here the porter found him.

"Say, Gen'ral," he said, "dem folks is of de vehy fust quality. Dey had got abo'd dey yacht dis ebenin', so dey was sayin', an' somethin'

was broke in de mashinery. So dey come asho' from whar dey went on de ship at de yacht club station. Dey simply hab got ter get to Newport to-morrow, kase dey gwine receive some foreign king or other an'--"

"Sam," interrupted Armitage, "did you find out who they are?"

"Ya'as, suh. Ah sut'nly did," was the pompous reply. "Dey is de Wellingtons."

"Wellington," Armitage regarded the porter gravely. "Sam, I have been in Newport off and on for some time, but have been too busy to study the social side. Still, I happen to know you have the honor of having under your excellent care, the very elect of society."

"Well, dey only gib me fifty cents," grimaced the porter, "an' dat don'

elect 'em to nothin' wid me."

Armitage laughed.

"You were lucky," he said. "You should have paid them for the honor."

The porter shook his head gloomily. "Two bits," he growled. "I don'

see no sa.s.siety partiality in dat."

"No," Armitage reached into his pocket; "Here, Sam, is fifty cents for hefting that young woman's bag." He paused and smiled. "It is the nearest I have ever come to paying the bills for such a beautiful creature. I like the experience. Now don't forget to call me at Wickford Junction, or the other people either; for when I get them aboard the _General_ I am going to start a mutiny, throw the mater overboard, and go to sea. For, Sam, I rather imagine Miss Wellington glanced at me as she boarded the train."

The porter laughed, pocketing the silver piece, and left Armitage to his own devices. He sat for a long time, still holding the unlighted cigar, smiling quizzically. Some underlying, romantic emotion, which had prompted his vicarious tip to the porter, still thrilled him; and it was not until the train had flashed by Larchmont, that he went to his berth.

The full moon was swimming in the east, bathing the countryside in a light which caused trees and hills, fences and bowlders to stand out in soft distinctness. Armitage raised the window curtain and lying with face pressed almost against the pane, watched the ever-changing scenes of a veritable fairyland. He was anything but a sn.o.b. He was not lying awake because a few select representatives of the Few Hundred happened to be in his car. Not by a long shot. But that girl, he admitted, irrespective of caste, was a cause for insomnia, good and sufficient.

"Anne!" He muttered the name to himself. By George, it fitted her!

He did not know they bred her sort in the Newport cottage colony.

Armitage was sufficiently conceited to believe that he knew a great deal about girls. He had this one placed precisely. She was a good fellow, that he would wager, and unaffected and unspoiled, which, if he were correct in his conjectures, was a wonderful thing, he told himself, considering the environment in which she had been reared.

"I may be wrong, Anne Wellington," he said to himself, "but I 've an idea we 're going to know each other better. At any rate, we, speaking in an editorial sense, shall strive to that end."

He chose to ignore the obvious difficulties which presented themselves in this regard. Who were the Wellingtons? His great, great grandfather was signing the Declaration of Independence when the Wellingtons were shoeing horses or carrying sedan chairs in London.

His father was a United States Senator, and while Ronald Wellington might own one or two such, he could not own Senator Armitage, nor could any one else.

The train flashed around the curve into Greenwich and the Sound appeared in the distance, a vast pool of shimmering silver. Armitage started.