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“It’s his privilege to get married if he wants to.”

“When I finish with him,” said Tish, grimly, “he won’t want to.”

All the way to the court house Tish’s lips were moving, and I knew she was rehearsing what she meant to say. I think that even then her shrewd and active mind had some foreboding of what was to come, for she called back unexpectedly to Aggie:

“Look in the right-hand pocket and see if there is a box of tacks there.”

“Tacks?” said Aggie. “Why, what in the world—-“

“I had tacks to nail up flags this morning. Well?”

“They are here, Tish, but no hammer.”

“I shan’t need a hammer,” Tish replied, cryptically.

I am afraid I had expected Tish to lead the way into the license court and break out into patriotic fury. But how little, after all, I knew her! Already in that wonderful brain of hers was seething the plot which was so to alter certain lives, and was to leave an officer of the law–but that comes later on.

Mr. Culver was at the desk. Just as we arrived, a clerk handed him a paper, and he walked across the room to an ice-water cooler and took a drink.

“The slacker!” said Tish, from clenched teeth. “The coward! The poltroon! The—-“

At that moment Mr. Culver, with a paper cup in his hand, saw us and stared at us fixedly. The next moment he had whipped off his hat, and was coming toward us.

“Well!” he said, as he came up to us, “so it really did happen!”

Tish took a deep breath, to begin on him, but he went on blithely:

“You see, when I got back home that day, I felt it hadn’t really been true. I had not gone rabbit-shooting, and found three ladies half-buried in a haystack. And of course I had not driven an automobile along a creek bed and through the old swimming hole, with my own gun levelled at my back.”

Tish took another breath and opened her mouth.

“Then, the other day,” he went on, smiling cheerfully, “I thought I had had a return of the hallucination, because I fancied I saw you all on a wagon. But the next moment the wagon was driving on, and you were nowhere in sight.”

“That was because,” said Aggie, “when the wagon started we all sat down unexpectedly, and—-“

“Aggie!” Tish said, in a savage tone. “Now, young man, I want to say something to you, and I’d thank you—-“

“Oh, I say!” he broke in, looking suddenly depressed, “I can see you are still down on me. But don’t scold me. Please don’t. Because I am a sensitive person, and you will ruin what was going to be a perfect day. I know I was wrong. I apologize. I eat my words. And now I’ll leave you, because if you should vanish into thin air again I should have to go and lock myself up.”

Well, with all his gaiety he did not look particularly gay, and he was rather hollow in the cheeks. I came to the conclusion that he was going to marry another young woman, partly to keep out of going to war, but partly to spite the first. I must say I felt rather sorry for him, especially when I saw the way he looked at her. Oh, yes, I picked her out at once, because she never took her eyes off him.

I didn’t think she was fooled much, either, because she looked as if she needed to go off into a corner and have a good cry. Well, she got her wish later, if that was what she wanted.

But Tish is a woman of one idea. While he chattered with one eye on the girl, Tish was eyeing him coldly. At last she caught him by the arm.

“I have something to say to you, young man,” she commenced. “I want to ask you what you think of any one who—-“