We reach the dining car.

The clergyman is seated at the little table, on which is the certificate of marriage he has prepared according to the customary form.  He looks as though he was accustomed to this sort of thing, which is as much commercial as matrimonial.

The bride and bridegroom have not appeared.

“Ah!” said I to the actor, “perhaps they have changed their minds.”

“If they have,” said Caterna, laughing, “the reverend gentleman can marry me and my wife over again.  We are in wedding garments, and it is a pity to have had all this fuss for nothing, isn’t it, Caroline?”

“Yes, Adolphe—­”

But this pleasing second edition of the wedding of the Caternas did not come off.  Here is Mr. Fulk Ephrinell, dressed this morning just as he was dressed yesterday—­and—­detail to note—­with a pencil behind the lobe of his left ear, for he has just been making out an account for his New York house.

Here is Miss Horatia Bluett, as thin, as dry, as plain as ever, her dust cloak over her traveling gown, and in place of jewelry a noisy bunch of keys, which hangs from her belt.

The company politely rise as the bride and bridegroom enter.  They “mark time,” as Caterna says.  Then they advance toward the clergyman, who is standing with his hand resting on a Bible, open probably at the place where Isaac, the son of Abraham, espouses Rebecca, the daughter of Rachel.

We might fancy we were in a chapel if we only had a harmonium.

And the music is here!  If it is not a harmonium, it is the next thing to it.  An accordion makes itself heard in Caterna’s hands.  As an ancient mariner, he knows how to manipulate this instrument of torture, and here he is swinging out the andante from Norma with the most accordionesque expression.

It seems to give great pleasure to the natives of Central Asia.  Never have their ears been charmed by the antiquated melody that the pneumatic apparatus was rendering so expressively.

But everything must end in this world, even the andante from Norma. and the Reverend Nathaniel Morse began to favor the young couple with the speech which had clone duty many times before under similar circumstances.  “The two souls that blend together—­Flesh of my flesh—­Increase and multiply—­”

In my opinion he had much better have got to work like a notary:  “Before us, there has been drawn up a deed of arrangement regarding Messrs. Ephrinell, Bluett & Co.—­”

My thought remained unfinished.  There are shouts from the engine.  The brakes are suddenly applied with a scream and a grind.  Successive shocks accompany the stoppage of the train.  Then, with a violent bump, the cars pull up in a cloud of sand.

What an interruption to the nuptial ceremony!

Everything is upset in the dining car, men, furniture, bride, bridegroom and witnesses.  Not one kept his equilibrium.  It is an indescribable pell-mell, with cries of terror and prolonged groans.  But I hasten to point out that there was nothing serious, for the stoppage was not all at once.