"Yes; do you come from there?"
"To be sure I do. I knew you when you were a boy; and is his lordship in good health?"
Frank replied that Lord Mount Rorke was in excellent health, and feeling himself obliged to be civil, he asked the clerk his name, and how long it was since he had been in Ireland.
"Well, this is odd," the clerk began, and then in an irritating undertone Mr. Scanlon proceeded to tell how he and four others were driving through Portarlington to take the train to Dublin, when one of them, Michael Carey he thought it was, proposed to stop the car and have some refreshment at the Royal Hotel.
Frank tried several times to return to the question of the license, but the imperturbable clerk was not to be checked.
"I was just telling you," he interposed.
It seemed hard luck that he should find a native of Cashel in the Pimlico registrar's office. He had intended to keep his marriage a secret, as did Willy Brookes, and for a moment the new danger thrilled him. It was intolerable to have to put up with this creature's idle loquacity, but not wishing to offend him he endured it a little longer.
When the clerk paused in his narrative of the four gentlemen who had stopped the car to have some refreshment, Frank made a resolute stand against any fresh developments of the story, and succeeded in extracting some particulars concerning the marriage laws. And within the next few days all formalities were completed, and Frank's marriage fixed for the end of the week—for Friday, at a quarter to eleven. He slept lightly that night, was out of bed before eight, and mistaking the time, arrived at the office a few minutes before ten. He met the old man in gray clothes in the passage, and this time he was not to be evaded.
"Are you the gentleman who's come to be married by special license, sir?"
"Yes."