"Friend of yours?" queried the stout young man.

"Yes."

"And you want a license for him, not for yourself?"

Renier nodded.

"At this moment," said the stout young man, "there are assembled on the long wharf, chewin' tobacco and cursin', some twenty-five or thirty marines. Would you mind just stepping down and telling that to them?"

"I am quite serious," said Renier. "It is my friend who wants to get married."

"And you don't?"

Renier stammered ineffectually.

"Then," said the stout young man, with a glance at Lee (of the highest admiration), "you're a gol-darn fool."

And forthwith he was so vulgar as to burst into a sudden snatch of song:

"Old man Rule was a gol-darn fool,
For he couldn't see the water in the gol-darn pool!"

At the finish of this improvisation the dreadfully confused Minnie went, "Tee-hee!"

And, horror of horrors, that charming boylike companion, Lee Darling, behind whom were well-bred generations, also went suddenly, "Tee-hee."

"Licenses," said the stout young man, "are applied for in room Five. After you, sir; after you, miss."

And, with a waggish expression, he turned to Minnie.

"Be back in five minutes," he said; "try not to forget me, my flighty one."

When they were in the front room, he said:

"Before a license is issued, the licensor must be satisfied as to the preliminaries. Now, then, what can you tell me as to lap sitting and kissings?"

"You," cried Lee, in a sudden blaze of indignation, "are the freshest, most objectionable American I ever set eyes on."

The stout young man turned appealingly to Renier.

"You wouldn't say that," he said; "you'd say I was just typical, wouldn't you, now? And I wish you would tell her that, though in these backwoods I have been obliged to eschew my Chesterfield, I've got a great big heart in me and mean well."

During the last words of this speech he became appealingly wistful.

"Why," said he to Lee, "just because Minnie and me is stout, don't you think we know heaven when we see it—the empyrean! Yesterday she threw me down, and I says to her: 'Since all my life seems meant for "fails"—since this was written and needs must be—my whole soul rises up to bless your name in pride and thankfulness. Who knows but the world may end to-night?' To-day she sits in my lap and we see which can hug the hardest. Ever try that?"

And suddenly the creature's voice melted and shook. He was a genuine orator, as we Americans understand it, having that within his powers of voice that defies logic and melts the heart.

"Wouldn't you," he said, "even like to sit in his lap? Wouldn't you love to sit in his lap and be hugged?"

Lee looked to Renier for help, as he to her. And they took a step apiece directly toward each other, and another step. It was as if they had been hypnotized. Suddenly Renier caught Lee's hand in his, and after a moment of looking into his eyes she turned to the stout man, and sang in miraculous imitation of him: