“Lady and gent performers of this circus,” announced the ringmaster jovially, “I am sure we will all agree that a good time has been had by all. We will now bestow honor where honor is due by bestowing the prizes. Mrs. Townsend has asked me to bestow the prices. Now, fellow performers, the first prize is for that lady who has displayed this evening the most striking, becoming”—at this point the bearded lady sighed resignedly—“and original costume.” Here the bale of hay pricked up her ears. “Now I am sure that the decision which has been agreed upon will be unanimous with all here present. The first prize goes to Miss Betty Medill, the charming Egyptian snake-charmer.” There was a burst of applause, chiefly masculine, and Miss Betty Medill, blushing beautifully through her olive paint, was passed up to receive her award. With a tender glance the ringmaster handed down to her a huge bouquet of orchids.
“And now,” he continued, looking round him, “the other prize is for that man who has the most amusing and original costume. This prize goes without dispute to a guest in our midst, a gentleman who is visiting here but whose stay we all hope will be long and merry—in short, to the noble camel who has entertained us all by his hungry look and his brilliant dancing throughout the evening.”
He ceased and there was a violent clapping, and yeaing, for it was a popular choice. The prize, a large box of cigars, was put aside for the camel, as he was anatomically unable to accept it in person.
“And now,” continued the ringmaster, “we will wind up the cotillion with the marriage of Mirth to Folly!
“Form for the grand wedding march, the beautiful snake-charmer and the noble camel in front!”
Betty skipped forward cheerily and wound an olive arm round the camel’s neck. Behind them formed the procession of little boys, little girls, country jakes, fat ladies, thin men, sword-swallowers, wild men of Borneo, and armless wonders, many of them well in their cups, all of them excited and happy and dazzled by the flow of light and color round them, and by the familiar faces, strangely unfamiliar under bizarre wigs and barbaric paint. The voluptuous chords of the wedding march done in blasphemous syncopation issued in a delirious blend from the trombones and saxophones—and the march began.
“Aren’t you glad, camel?” demanded Betty sweetly as they stepped off. “Aren’t you glad we’re going to be married and you’re going to belong to the nice snake-charmer ever afterward?”
The camel’s front legs pranced, expressing excessive joy.
“Minister! Minister! Where’s the minister?” cried voices out of the revel. “Who’s going to be the clergyman?”
The head of Jumbo, obese negro, waiter at the Tally-ho Club for many years, appeared rashly through a half-opened pantry door.
“Oh, Jumbo!”
“Get old Jumbo. He’s the fella!”
“Come on, Jumbo. How ’bout marrying us a couple?”
“Yea!”
Jumbo was seized by four comedians, stripped of his apron, and escorted to a raised daïs at the head of the ball. There his collar was removed and replaced back side forward with ecclesiastical effect. The parade separated into two lines, leaving an aisle for the bride and groom.
“Lawdy, man,” roared Jumbo, “Ah got ole Bible ’n’ ev’ythin’, sho nuff.”
He produced a battered Bible from an interior pocket.
“Yea! Jumbo’s got a Bible!”
“Razor, too, I’ll bet!”
Together the snake-charmer and the camel ascended the cheering aisle and stopped in front of Jumbo.
“Where’s yo license, camel?”
A man near by prodded Perry.
“Give him a piece of paper. Anything’ll do.”
Perry fumbled confusedly in his pocket, found a folded paper, and pushed it out through the camel’s mouth. Holding it upside down Jumbo pretended to scan it earnestly.
“Dis yeah’s a special camel’s license,” he said. “Get you ring ready, camel.”
Inside the camel Perry turned round and addressed his worse half.
“Gimme a ring, for Heaven’s sake!”
“I ain’t got none,” protested a weary voice.
“You have. I saw it.”
“I ain’t goin’ to take it offen my hand.”
“If you don’t I’ll kill you.”
There was a gasp and Perry felt a huge affair of rhinestone and brass inserted into his hand.
Again he was nudged from the outside.
“Speak up!”
“I do!” cried Perry quickly.
He heard Betty’s responses given in a debonair tone, and even in this burlesque the sound thrilled him.
Then he had pushed the rhinestone through a tear in the camel’s coat and was slipping it on her finger, muttering ancient and historic words after Jumbo. He didn’t want any one to know about this ever. His one idea was to slip away without having to disclose his identity, for Mr. Tate had so far kept his secret well. A dignified young man, Perry—and this might injure his infant law practice.
“Embrace the bride!”
“Unmask, camel, and kiss her!”
Instinctively his heart beat high as Betty turned to him laughingly and began to stroke the card-board muzzle. He felt his self-control giving way, he longed to surround her with his arms and declare his identity and kiss those lips that smiled only a foot away—when suddenly the laughter and applause round them died off and a curious hush fell over the hall. Perry and Betty looked up in surprise. Jumbo had given vent to a huge “Hello!” in such a startled voice that all eyes were bent on him.
“Hello!” he said again. He had turned round the camel’s marriage license, which he had been holding upside down, produced spectacles, and was studying it agonizingly.
“Why,” he exclaimed, and in the pervading silence his words were heard plainly by every one in the room, “this yeah’s a sho-nuff marriage permit.”
“What?”
“Huh?”
“Say it again, Jumbo!”
“Sure you can read?”
Jumbo waved them to silence and Perry’s blood burned to fire in his veins as he realized the break he had made.
“Yassuh!” repeated Jumbo. “This yeah’s a sho-nuff license, and the pa’ties concerned one of ’em is dis yeah young lady, Miz Betty Medill, and th’ other’s Mistah Perry Pa’khurst.”
There was a general gasp, and a low rumble broke out as all eyes fell on the camel. Betty shrank away from him quickly, her tawny eyes giving out sparks of fury.
“Is you Mistah Pa’khurst, you camel?”
Perry made no answer. The crowd pressed up closer and stared at him. He stood frozen rigid with embarrassment, his cardboard face still hungry and sardonic as he regarded the ominous Jumbo.
“Y’all bettah speak up!” said Jumbo slowly, “this yeah’s a mighty serious mattah. Outside mah duties at this club ah happens to be a sho-nuff minister in the Firs’ Cullud Baptis’ Church. It done look to me as though y’all is gone an’ got married.”
V
The scene that followed will go down forever in the annals of the Tallyho Club. Stout matrons fainted, one hundred per cent Americans swore, wild-eyed débutantes babbled in lightning groups instantly formed and instantly dissolved, and a great buzz of chatter, virulent yet oddly subdued, hummed through the chaotic ballroom. Feverish youths swore they would kill Perry or Jumbo or themselves or some one, and the Baptis’ preacheh was besieged by a tempestuous covey of clamorous amateur lawyers, asking questions, making threats, demanding precedents, ordering the bonds annulled, and especially trying to ferret out any hint of prearrangement in what had occurred.
In the corner Mrs. Townsend was crying softly on the shoulder of Mr. Howard Tate, who was trying vainly to comfort her; they were exchanging “all my fault’s” volubly and voluminously. Outside on a snow-covered walk Mr. Cyrus Medill, the Aluminum Man, was being paced slowly up and down between two brawny charioteers, giving vent now to a string of unrepeatables, now to wild pleadings that they’d just let him get at Jumbo. He was facetiously attired for the evening as a wild man of Borneo, and the most exacting stage-manager would have acknowledged any improvement in casting the part to be quite impossible.
Meanwhile the two principals held the real centre of the stage. Betty Medill—or was it Betty Parkhurst?—storming furiously, was surrounded by the plainer girls—the prettier ones were too busy talking about her to pay much attention to her—and over on the other side of the hall stood the camel, still intact except for his headpiece, which dangled pathetically on his chest. Perry was earnestly engaged in making protestations of his innocence to a ring of angry, puzzled men. Every few minutes, just as he had apparently proved his case, some one would mention the marriage certificate, and the inquisition would begin again.
A girl named Marion Cloud, considered the second best belle of Toledo, changed the gist of the situation by a remark she made to Betty.
“Well,” she said maliciously, “it’ll all blow over, dear. The courts will annul it without question.”
Betty’s angry tears dried miraculously in her eyes, her lips shut tight together, and she looked stonily at Marion. Then she rose and, scattering her sympathizers right and left, walked directly across the room to Perry, who stared at her in terror. Again silence crept down upon the room.
“Will you have the decency to grant me five minutes’ conversation—or wasn’t that included in your plans?”
He nodded, his mouth unable to form words.
Indicating coldly that he was to follow her she walked out into the hall with her chin uptilted and headed for the privacy of one of the little card-rooms.
Perry started after her, but was brought to a jerky halt by the failure of his hind legs to function.
“You stay here!” he commanded savagely.
“I can’t,” whined a voice from the hump, “unless you get out first and let me get out.”
Perry hesitated, but unable any longer to tolerate the eyes of the curious crowd
