"She made no protest?"

"No."

"The reverse rather?"

"Yes."

"Then why do you come here to me?"

"To get your consent."

"I suppose you arranged with Sissie that you should come here?"

"Yes, I did. We thought it would be best if I came alone."

"Well, all I can say is that you're a very old-fashioned pair. I'm
afraid that you must have forgotten to alter your date calendar when the
twentieth century started. Let me assure you that this is not by any
means the nineteenth. I admit that I only altered my own date calendar
this afternoon, and even then only as the result of an unusual dream."

"Yes?" said Ozzie politely, and he said nothing else, but it seemed to
Mr. Prohack that Ozzie was thinking: "This queer old stick is taking
advantage of his position to make a fool of himself in his queer old
way."

"Let us examine the circumstances," Mr. Prohack proceeded. "You want to
marry Sissie. Therefore you respect her. Therefore you would not have