"'Is thar time,' asks Nell of Enright, 'for me to round up Missis Rucker an' Tucson Jennie? Listenin' to love tales, that a-way, is duck soup to both of 'em.'
"'You-all can tell 'em later, Nellie,' returns Enright. Then, to the Turner person, 'Roll your game, amigo, an' if you needs refreshment, yere it is.'
"'It ain't no mighty reecital,' says the Turner person loogubriously, 'an' yet it ought to go some distance, among fa'r-minded gents, in explainin' them vain elements of the weird an' ranikaboo which more or less enters into my recent conduct. I'm from Missouri; an' for a livelihood, an' to give the wolf a stand-off, I follows the profession of a fooneral director. My one weakness is my love for Peggy Parks, 206 who lives with her folks out in the Sni-a-bar hills.
"'The nuptual day is set, an' I goes hibernatin' off to Kansas City to fetch the license.'
"'How old be you?' breaks in Enright.
"'Me? I'm twenty-six the last Joone rise of the old Missouri. As I was sayin', I hitches my hoss in Market Squar', an' takes to reeconoiterin' along Battle Row, wonderin' wharever them licenses is for sale, anyway. Final, I discovers a se'f satisfied lookin' party, who's pattin' a dog. I goes to talkin' about the dog, an' allowin' I'm some on dogs myse'f, all by way of commencin' a conversation; an' winds up by askin' whar I go for to get a license. "Over thar," says the dog party p'intin' across to a edifice he asshores me is a City Hall. "First floor, first door, an' the damage is a dollar."
"'Thus steered, I goes streakin' it across, an' follows directions. I boards my dollar, an' demands action. The outcast who's dealin' the license game writes in my name, an' shoves the paper across. In a blur of bliss I files it away in my jeans, mounts my hoss, an' goes 207 gambodin' back to Peggy, waitin' at ancestral Sni-a-bar.'
"'Is your Peggy sweetheart pretty?' asks Nell.
"'She's a lamp of loveliness! Sweet? Beetrees is gall an' wormwood to her.
"'As to the weddin', it's settled Peggy an' me is to come flutterin' from our respective perches the next day. Doubtless we'd have done so, only them orange blossom rites strikes the onexpected an' goes glancin' off.