"Yes."

"Then she didn't want to go into the arrangement."

"You bet she didn't."

"It was a hold-up, then?"

"Yes."

"But how could you hold her after she married Fargus?"

Bofinger, in his misery, related without a gleam of pride what had once seemed to him a master stroke.

"I made her sign a common-law marriage with me, had it witnessed, and told her if she squealed I'd produce it and claim her."

"Alonzo," Groll said with a nod of approval, "you've had hard luck."

"Luck! I've been up against a fiend; that's what!"