At the last moment when the tension of our minds was very great, the clerk became obstreperous. He asked parson Scriven in a significant undertone for the special licence that was to marry us, as the banns had not been put up and cried in church. Of course we were not furnished with anything of the kind. Parson Scriven, as became his amiable casual character, was not at all disconcerted by such an informality. "Pooh and faugh!" says he. "Banns and licence, John, stuff and nonsense! Why should an honest couple be hedged about in this way? If they have no licence, upon my soul I will marry them without." The clerk was scandalized. The parson, however, would hear no argument. He was not the person to allow his head to interfere with the dictates of his heart. "Parson's main obstinate," said the clerk, scratching his head. "And I do believe he cares no more for law an' regulation than the gypsies on the common. It won't be legal, this won't, but bless you what'll parson care!" So long as we could get this awkward business over we cared as little for law and regulation as this singular old clergyman. Therefore, when he disdained the opinions of the clerk, and reiterated his intention to marry us, we breathed again. At last all was ready, and the parson came out of the vestry with his book and his gown, and smiled upon us with benevolent self-possession. We strung ourselves for the great ordeal. Yet as a preliminary we were confronted with one that we found vastly the more awkward of the two, and one that we had not anticipated either. How we both came to overlook it, I know not, unless the palpitation that our minds were in was the secret of it. It had never occurred to us that the parson could not marry us unless he was informed of our names. But when he made that very obvious and natural stipulation it came upon us as a thunderbolt. What a pair of arrant fools we were, not to have thought of that contingency, and to have provided for it! When the parson bluntly demanded this of us, we stood staring open-mouthed at one another, a pair of zanies. I pursued a bold course, however. To give our own was out of the question in that public place, and more particularly as the newspaper had just acquainted the reverend gentleman of my black history. Therefore, says I, with an impudent assurance: "John Smith and Jane Jones." "How truly national!" says the officiating clergyman in a rapture of sentiment. "How exquisitely English are these names, to be sure!"