"I pray you, without further ado, continue your piquant narrative."
Then Arthur, in a tone of solemn, confidential eagerness:
"Look here, you two, go to Carrytown, will you, and find out how quickly two people can get married in the State of New York, and what they have to do about licenses and things? Will you? I'll be eternally obliged."
"Of course, we will," exclaimed Lee in sudden excitement. "Are you game?"
"You bet your sweet life I'm game!" cried the vulgar Renier. And a few minutes later the two inseparable school-boyesque chums, whom nobody mentioned, whom everybody sent on errands, and whom nobody even loved, were streaking across the lake in the Streak.
There was but the one lawyer in Carrytown and the one stenographer. Their shingles hang one above the other on the face of the one brick building.
At the door of this building Lee suddenly drew back.
"Look here!" she said. "Won't it look rather funny if we march in hand in hand and say: 'Beg pardon, sir, but how do you get married in the State of New York?'"
"It would look funny," said Renier, "and I shouldn't wonder if it made us feel funny. But the joke would really be on the lawyer. We could say 'Honi soit qui mal y pense' to him. Of course, if it would really embarrass you——"
"It wouldn't," said Lee, "really."