"Did he?" says Sadie. "I wouldn't have thought it of Pinckney. Well, just to show him that he was wrong, I would put this affair off until you can have a regular church wedding; with invitations, and ushers, and pretty flower girls. And you ought to have a gray-silk wedding-gown--you'd look perfectly stunning in gray silk, you know. Wouldn't all that be much nicer than running off like this, as though you were ashamed of something?" Say, it was a slick game of talk that Sadie handed out then, for she was playin' for time. But Aunt Tillie was no come-on. "Mulli doesn't want to wait another day," says she, "and neither do I, so that settles it. And here comes the rector, now." "Looks like we'd played out our hand, don't it?" I whispered to Sadie. "Wait!" says she. "I want to get a good look at the man." He was trailin' along after the minister, and it wa'n't until he was within six feet of me that I saw who it was. "Hello, Doc!" says I. "So you're the dear Mulli, are you?" He near jumped through his collar, Pinphoodle did, when he gets his lamps on me. It only lasted a minute, though, for he was a quick recoverer. "Why, professor!" says he. "This is an unexpected pleasure." "I guess some of that's right," says I. And say, but he was dressed for the joyful bridegroom part--striped trousers, frock coat, white puff tie, and white gloves! He'd had a close shave and a shampoo, and the massage artist had rubbed out some of the swellin' from under his eyes. Didn't look much like the has-been that done the dive under the couch at the Studio. "Well, well!" says I. "This is where the private cinch comes in, eh? Doc, you've got a head like a horse." "I should think he'd be ashamed of himself," says Sadie, "running off with a silly old woman who might be his mother." The Sullivan temper had got the best of her. After that the deep lard was all over the cook stove. Aunt Tillie throws four cat-fits to the minute, and lets loose on Sadie with all kinds of polite jabs that she can lay her tongue to. Then Doc steps up, puts a manly arm half-way round her belt line, and lets her weep on the silk facing of his Sunday coat. By this time the preacher was all broke up. He was a nice healthy-lookin' young chap, one of the strawb'ry-blond kind, with pink and white cheeks, and hair as soft as a toy spaniel's. It turns out that he was new to the job, and this was his first call to spiel off the splicin' service. "I trust," says he, "that there is nothing--er--that no one has any valid objection to the uniting of this couple?" "I will convince you of that," says Doc Pinphoodle, speakin' up brisk and cocky, "by putting to this young lady a few pertinent questions." Well, he did. As a cross-examiner for the defense he was a regular Joe Choate. Inside of two minutes he'd made torn mosquito netting of Sadie's kick, shown her up for a rank outsider, and put us both through the ropes.