"Well, well! Even admitting that such a thing could have happened, it must have been only by way of a lark." Dunwoodie whipped out his towel. "You don't say so!" Carelessly Jeroloman surveyed him. He was certainly senile, yet, because of his laurels, entitled to all the honours of war. "Look here, Mr. Dunwoodie. You are not by any chance serious, are you?" "Oh, I'm looking. While I was about it, I looked into the case. Per verba de praesenti, my client consented to be young Paliser's wife. Now she is his widow." Jeroloman weighed it. The weighing took but an instant. Dunwoodie was living in the past, but there was no use in beating about the bush and he said as much. "You are thinking of the common law, sir." Absently Dunwoodie creased his towel. "Now you mention it, I believe I am." Jeroloman glanced at his watch. It was getting late. His residence was five miles away. He was to dress, dine early and take his wife to the theatre. He would have to hurry and he reached for his hat. "The common law was abrogated long ago." Dunwoodie rumpled the towel. "Why, so it was!" Jeroloman took the hat and with a gloved finger rubbed at the brim. "Even otherwise, the term common-law wife is not legally recognised. The law looks with no favour on the connection indicated by it. The term is synonymous for a woman who, having lived illicitly with a man, seeks to assume the relationship of wife after his death and thereby share in the proceeds of his property." From under beetling brows, Dunwoodie looked at him. "Thanks for the lecture, Jeroloman. My client has no such desire. In this office, an hour ago, she refused them." Jeroloman stood up. "Very sensible of her, I'm sure." He twirled the hat. "Who is she?" "I thought I told you. She is Mrs. Paliser." Jeroloman waved that hat. "Well, well! I thought I told you. As it is, if you will take the trouble to look at the laws of 1901, you will find that common-law marriages are inhibited." "Hum! Ha! And if you will trouble to look at the Laws of 1907, you will find they are inhibited no longer." Jeroloman stared. "I have yet to learn of it." Dunwoodie repocketed his towel. "Is it possible? Then when the opportunity occurs you might inform yourself. At the same time let me recommend the Court of Appeals for March. You may find there additional instruction. But I see you are going. Don't let me detain you." Jeroloman sat down. "What case are you referring to?" "The Matter of Ziegler." Uncertainly Jeroloman's steel-blue eyes shifted. "It seems to me I read the syllabus." "Then your powers of concealment are admirable." "But just what does it hold?" "Can it be that you don't remember? Well, well!--to borrow your own agreeable mode of expression--it holds that common-law marriages that were valid before and until the enactments which you were good enough to cite, were again made valid by their appeal in Chapter 742 of the Laws of 1907."