you--by immediately leaving--

JOHN. [_Smiling and going to_ PHILIP.] Oh, come, come, Judge--suppose
I _am_ here? Who has a better right to attend his wife's obsequies!
Certainly, I come as a mourner--for _you_!

SIR WILFRID. I say, is it the custom?

JOHN. No, no--of course it's not the custom, no. But we'll make it the
custom. After all,--what's a divorced wife among friends?

PHILIP. Sir, your humour is strained!

JOHN. Humour,--Judge?

PHILIP. It is, sir, and I'll not be bantered! Your both being here
is--it is--gentlemen, there is a decorum which the stars in their
courses do not violate.

JOHN. Now, Judge, never you mind what the stars do in their divorces!
Get down to earth of the present day. Rufus Choate and Daniel Webster
are dead. You must be modern. You must let peroration and poetry
alone! Come along now. Why shouldn't I give the lady away?

SIR WILFRID. Hear! Hear! Oh, I beg your pardon!

JOHN. And why shouldn't we both be here? American marriage is a new
thing. We've got to strike the pace, and the only trouble is, Judge,
that the judiciary have so messed the thing up that a man can't be
sure he _is_ married until he's divorced. It's a sort of
marry-go-round, to be sure! But let it go at that! Here we all are,
and we're ready to marry my wife to you, and start her on her way to
him!

PHILIP. [_Brought to a standstill._] Good Lord! Sir, you cannot trifle
with monogamy!

JOHN. Now, now, Judge, monogamy is just as extinct as knee-breeches.
The new woman has a new idea, and the new idea is--well, it's just the
opposite of the old Mormon one. Their idea is one man, ten wives and a
hundred children. Our idea is one woman, a hundred husbands and one
child.

PHILIP. Sir, this is polyandry.

JOHN. Polyandry? A hundred to one it's polyandry; and that's it,
Judge! Uncle Sam has established consecutive polyandry,--but there's
got to be an interval between husbands! The fact is, Judge, the modern
American marriage is like a wire fence. The woman's the wire--the
posts are the husbands. [_He indicates himself, and then_ SIR WILFRID
_and_ PHILIP.] One--two--three! And if you cast your eye over the
future you can count them, post after post, up hill, down dale, all
the way to Dakota!

PHILIP. All very amusing, sir, but the fact remains--

JOHN. [_Going to_ PHILIP _who at once moves away._] Now, now, Judge, I
like you. But you're asleep; you're living in the dark ages. You want
to call up Central. "He