“They were becoming civilized when I left Juan Fernandez,” says Lightwood. “At least they were eating one another, which looked like it.”

“Tormentor!” returns the dear young creature. “You know what I mean, and you trifle with my impatience. Tell me something, immediately, about the married pair. You were at the wedding.”

“Was I, by the by?” Mortimer pretends, at great leisure, to consider. “So I was!”

“How was the bride dressed? In rowing costume?”

Mortimer looks gloomy, and declines to answer.

“I hope she steered herself, skiffed herself, paddled herself, larboarded and starboarded herself, or whatever the technical term may be, to the ceremony?” proceeds the playful Tippins.

“However she got to it, she graced it,” says Mortimer.