"That only means," said Renier—but there was a kind of awe in his voice—"that this particular tree has indigestion."

And they sat for a time in silence and looked at the leaf. And lo! Arthur came upon them, smiling.

"I was looking for you two," he said. "I thought maybe you'd do me a great favor. I've got to play host, and—"

"Nobody would miss us!" exclaimed Lee.

"They wouldn't?" said Arthur. "I'll bet you anything you like that, during your absence, you will both be mentioned among the missing, by name, at least five times."

"What'll you bet?" asked Lee eagerly. "Nobody ever thinks of us. Nobody ever mentions us. Nobody even loves us. What'll you bet?"

"Anything you like," said Arthur, "and if necessary I will take charge of the five personal mentionings and make them myself!"

Lee shook her head sadly, and said: "Once an accepted lover, always a sure thing, man. Oh, Arthur, how low you have fallen! You used to engineer bets with me for the sheer joy of seeing me win them. But now you are on the make, and it looks as if there was no justice under heaven— Where do you want us to go and what do you want us to do when we get there? Of course, we'll go; we always do. Everybody sends us on errands, and we always go. The longer the errands the oftener we go. But nobody seems to realize that we might enjoy spending one single solitary afternoon sitting under a striped maple and watching the green leaves turn yellow. Nobody even loves us! But when we are dead there will be the most frightful remorse and sorrow."

Arthur leaned heavily against the stem of the striped maple.

"Your sad case," he said, "certainly cries aloud for justice and redress—"

"'Kid us along, Bo,'" said Lee; "we love it!"

"I want two people," said Arthur, "for whom I have affection and in whom I have confidence, to go at once to Carrytown in the Streak and consult a lawyer upon a matter of paramount importance and delicacy—" He hesitated, and Lee said:

"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.