"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."

So they went up a narrow flight of stairs and knocked on the door of room Number Five. There was no answer. So they pushed open the door and entered a square room bound in sheepskin with red-and-black labels. There was nobody in the room, and Lee exclaimed:

"Nobody even loves us."

"He'll be in the back room," said Renier. "I know. Once I swiped a muskmelon from a lawyer's melon-patch, and had to see him about it. He was in the back room—"

"'Counting out his money'?"

"No; he was drinking whiskey with a judge and a livery-stable keeper, and they were all spitting on a red-hot stove."

"What did he do about the melon?"

"He told me to can the melon and have a drink. I had already canned the melon as well as I could (I wasn't educated along scientific lines) and my grandmother had promised me any watch I wanted if I didn't drink till I was twenty-one."

"Did you?"

"I did not."

"Did you get the watch?"

"I did not."

"Why not?"

"Grandma reneged. She said she didn't remember making any such promise."

They pushed open a swinging door and entered the back room.

Here, in a revolving chair, sat a stout young man with a red face. Upon his knees sat a stout young woman with a red face. And with something of the consistency with which a stamp adheres to an envelope so the one red face appeared glued to the other red face.

The red face of the stout young man had one free eye which detected the presence of intruders. And the stout young man said:

"Caught with the goods! Jump up, Minnie, and behave yourself!"

Minnie's upspring was almost a record-breaker.

Renier began to stammer:

"I b-b-beg your pardon," he said, "but I thought you might b-b-be able to tell me how to g-g-get married in New York State."

The stout young man rose from his revolving chair; he was embarrassed almost to the point of paralysis, but his mind and mouth continued to work.

"You've come to just the right man," he said, "at just the right time, for information of that sort. First, you hire a stenographer; then you get a mash on her. Then she sits in your lap—she will do it—and then you kiss her. And then you get a license, and then you curse laws and red tape for a while, and then you wed. Now, what you want is a license?"

"Exactly," said Renier. "It—it's for another fellow."