The clerk was a slow man who deliberated upon each sentence, each signature.  Eager prospective bridegrooms could neither hurry him nor flurry him.  He took the pen from behind his ear as a small concession to Johnny’s demand, but he made no motion toward using it.

“Are you sure this is the couple?” he cautiously inquired of the sheriff.

“Sure, I am.  I knew this kid of Selmer’s—­have known her by sight ever since she could walk.  It’s the couple, all right.  The girl’s eighteen on the twenty-fourth day of next January, at five o’clock in the morning.  If you like, Robbins, I’ll call up Selmer.  I guess I’d better, anyway.  He may want to talk to these kids himself.”

The clerk put his pen behind his ear again and turned apologetically to Johnny.  “We’d better wait,” he said mildly.  “If the young lady’s age is questioned, I have no right—­” He waved his hand vaguely.

“You bet it’s questioned,” chuckled the sheriff.  “Her dad ’phoned the office and told us to watch out for ’em.  Made their getaway in that flying machine there’s been such a hullabaloo about.  He had a hunch they’d make for here.”  He turned to Johnny with a grin.  “Pretty cute, young man—­but the old man’s cuter.  Every town within flying distance has been notified to look out for you and stop you.  Your wings,” he added, “is clipped.”

Johnny opened his mouth for bitter retort, but thought better of it.  Nothing could be gained by arguing with the law.  He whirled instead on Bland and the three reporters, standing just within the open door.

“What the hell are you doing here?” he demanded hotly.  “Who asked you to tag around after me?  Get out!” Whereupon he bundled Bland out without ceremony or gentleness, and the three scribes with him; slammed the door shut and turned the key which the clerk had left in the lock.  “Now,” he stated truculently, “I want that marriage license and I want it quick!”

The sheriff was humped over the telephone waiting for his connection.  He cocked an eye toward Johnny, looked at his colleague, and jerked his head sidewise.  The man immediately stepped up alongside the irate one and tapped him on the arm.

“No rough stuff, see.  We can arrest—­”

“Don’t you dare arrest Johnny!” Mary Y cried indignantly.  “What has he done, for gracious sake?  Is it a crime for people to get married?  Johnny and I have been engaged for a long, long while.  A month, at least!—­and dad knows it, and has thought it was perfectly all right.  I told him just this afternoon that I intended to marry Johnny.  He has no right to tell everybody in the country that I am not old enough.  Why didn’t he tell me, if he thought I should wait until after my birthday?”

“If that’s my father you’re talking to,” she attacked the sheriff who was attempting to carry on a conversation and listen to Mary V also, “I’d just like to say a few things to him myself!”