Bob equipped himself with a license, returned to June, and reported progress.
The bride-to-be was simmering with indignation. In those days she had not yet cultivated a sense of humor.
“I saw what they did to you—the brutes,” she snapped.
“Sho! That wasn’t nothin’, June. The boys was only funnin’. Well, I got things fixed. We gotta go to the J. P.”
The justice was having forty winks when they entered his office. He was enormously fat, a fact notable in a country of lean men. Moreover, he had neither eyebrows nor hair, though his face announced him not more than thirty in spite of its triple chin. Mr. Haines was slumped far down in a big armchair out of which he overflowed prodigally. His feet were on a second chair.
Bob wakened him ruthlessly. He sat up blinking. Bob started to speak. He stopped him with a fat uplifted hand.
“I r-reckon I know what you want, y-young man,” he said.