It was still Iowa when Mallory awoke. Into his last moments of heavy sleep intruded a voice like a town-crier's voice, crying:
"Lass call for breakfuss in the Rining Rar," and then, again louder, "Lass call for breakfuss in Rinin-rar," and, finally and faintly, "Lasscall breakfuss ri'rar."
Mallory pushed up his window shade. The day was broad on rolling prairies like billows established in the green soil. He peeked through his curtains. Most of the other passengers were up and about, their beds hidden and beddings stowed away behind the bellying veneer of the upperworks of the car. All the berths were made up except his own and number two, in the corner, where Little Jimmie Wellington's nose still played a bagpipe monody, and one other berth, which he recognized as Marjorie's.
His belated sleep and hers had spared them both the stares and laughing chatter of the passengers. But this bridal couple's two berths, standing like towers among the seats had provided conversation for everybody, had already united the casual group of strangers into an organized gossip-bee.
Mallory got into his shoes and as much of his clothes as was necessary for the dash to the washroom, and took on his arm the rest of his wardrobe. Just as he issued from his lonely chamber, Marjorie appeared from hers, much disheveled and heavy-eyed. The bride and groom exchanged glances of mutual terror, and hurried in opposite directions.
The spickest and spannest of lieutenants soon realized that he was reduced to wearing yesterday's linen as well as yesterday's beard. This was intolerable. A brave man can endure heartbreaks, loss of love, honor and place, but a neat man cannot abide the traces of time in his toilet. Lieutenant Mallory had seen rough service in camp and on long hikes, when he gloried in mud and disorder, and he was to see campaigns in the Philippines, when he should not take off his shoes or his uniform for three days at a time. But that was the field, and this car was a drawing room.
In this crisis in his affairs, Little Jimmie Wellington waddled into the men's room, floundering about with every lurch of the train, like a cannon loose in the hold of a ship. He fumbled with the handles on a basin, and made a crazy toilet, trying to find some abatement of his fever by filling a glass at the ice-water tank and emptying it over his head.
These drastic measures restored him to some sort of coherency, and Mallory appealed to him for help in the matter of linen. Wellington effusively offered him everything he had, and Mallory selected from his store half a dozen collars, any one of which would have gone round his neck nearly twice.
Wellington also proffered his safety razor, and made him a present of a virgin wafer of steel for his very own.
With this assistance, Mallory was enabled to make himself fairly presentable. When he returned to his seat, the three curtained rooms had been whisked away by the porter. There was no place now to hide from the passengers.