"Mebbe it wouldn't exactly work like that—"
He was puzzling out some deep problem. Just what, I didn't know. I was too busy to quiz him about it. And then came the day when wedding bells were to peal.
I went to the church to see that everything was in apple-pie order. I left Hank wandering in a sort of daze, impressed on him the necessity of being there at eleven sharp, told him to take a drink and stop looking like Sydney Carton, and wondered if he'd stop the ceremony to tell the preacher his words were unreasonable.
Time zipped by. The guests began to arrive. The organist came in and started practicing. The preacher came. Helen arrived, surrounded by a bevy of chattering bridesmaids. But no Hank. I called the apartment; the phone continued to laugh at me. Dr. MacDowell came back to the vestry room and pouted,
"Where is he, Jim? It's getting near eleven."
"He must be on his way," I said hopefully.
But eleven came—and still no Hank. And then it was eleven-fifteen, and eleven-thirty, and people were beginning to cough and get restless. One of the bridesmaids got hysterical. Helen shot Emily Post to the four winds and came to me in the vestry room almost in tears.
"Jim," she pleaded, "he's not here! He must have been hurt or something. Can't you find out?"
"I'll try," I told her. She left, and her old man came in. He was upset, and I don't mean he had a hangover. His eyes bulged like bumps on a cucumber.