After the first outburst over Spoof's arrival had subsided an embarrassing silence yawned across the path of our conversation. There were great things to be said and no one to say them. The girls glanced shyly at each other, and at us, and Jack, by pantomime behind Spoof's back, sought to convey the information that I was elected spokesman. So for lack of preparation I plunged in bodily as one may take a cold dip when he lacks the will power to do it slowly. "Jack and I have also had a misfortune, of a sort," I said. "We, too, have lost the use of our organs of speech, permanently." Spoof narrowed his eyebrows quizzically. "Then my ears make up for it," he said. "I hear you as usual." "It isn't in effect yet," I explained. "We are to be married at Christmas. Behold the parties of the first part," and I waved a hand at Jean and Marjorie while I turned a phrase of Jake's to good account. Spoof sprang to his feet. "Oh, by Jove, how wonderful! What lucky dogs! Your pardon, ladies, that my first word was to them; I fear my envy out-weighed my good manners--if I have any left. A bachelor's shack is not exactly a school of polite behavior. It is my visits at Fourteen which have saved me from becoming quite a savage. I--I feel that I should make a speech." He was as good as his word. Mounting a chair he gave us a bantering dissertation on the joys and perils of married life, to which we listened with much seriousness. But underneath, and running through his words, was something which all his banter did not hide. Spoof was playing the game, but I wondered how many little yellow devils were skewering his heart. The practical part of it was Spoof's ready offer of his help in arranging details. The problems of securing the services of a minister and buying the marriage licenses demanded attention. Even so ethereal a thing as marriage cannot entirely escape the humdrum of the material, but it was a time when we felt strangely incapacitated for the common-place. We were flying too high for earth worms; larks or eagles were our prey. Jack suggested that we had thought of driving to the nearest railway station, some thirty miles distant, for the ceremony. We understood that a minister was located there and that the young man who ran the pool room was intrusted with the duty of issuing marriage licenses. He carried a small stock of tobacco as an auxiliary to his pool business and a small stock of jewelry as an auxiliary to his tobacco business and a small stock of wedding licenses as an auxiliary to his jewelry business.