"You're going to do no such dam' thing;" Mr. Atwood told his son.

I'll beat the stuffing out o' you if you don't come home this minute!" Mr. Holmes threatened his daughter.

Alice and Eric emerged from the adjoining 'phone booths from which they'd called their respective homes.

"How'd they take it?" Alice asked.

"Not too happily," Eric answered.

"How'd your dad receive the glad news?"

Alice giggled. "He promised to beat me."

However, the youngsters found that deciding to get married and carrying out the decision were very different things.

When they applied to a rural justice of the peace he gave them a shrewd, cynical look. "How old are you?" he asked.

"I'm twenty-one and the young lady is nineteen," Eric lied.

"Yeah? And I'm the President of France," the justice answered. Now get going and don't try any tricks on any other J.P. Don't you know it's perjury to misstate your age when applying for a marriage license?

The youngsters were president, and every squire to whom they applied refused them. By the time they made their third attempt the first justice had reported them, and a police lookout had been set up.

The third justice to whom they applied invited them to wait a few minutes while he filled out the necessary forms, slipped out of the room, and telephoned the nearest police station. Alice and Eric suffered the indignity of waiting under guard at the police barracks until their fathers came for them.

***

"You're not going to Radcliffe," Mr. Holmes told Alice next day. "I've made arrangements with a convent school over at Waterville. The sisters will see that you behave yourself."