"No. You see," said Septimus confidentially, "marriage has been out of my
line. But perhaps you have been married, and might be able to tell me."

"Look here, sir," said the policeman, eyeing him kindly, but officially.
"Take my advice, sir; don't think of getting married. You go home to your
friends."

The policeman nodded knowingly and stalked away, leaving Septimus perplexed
by his utterance. Was he a Socrates of a constable with a Xantippe at home,
or did he regard him as a mild lunatic at large? Either solution was
discouraging. He turned and walked back down Holborn somewhat dejected.
Somewhere in London the air was thick with special licenses, but who would
direct his steps to the desired spot? On passing Gray's Inn one of his
brilliant ideas occurred to him. The Inn suggested law; the law,
solicitors, who knew even more about licenses than Hall Porters and
Policemen. A man he once knew had left him one day after lunch to consult
his solicitors in Gray's Inn. He entered the low, gloomy gateway and
accosted the porter.

"Are there any solicitors living in the Inn?"

"Not so many as there was. They're mostly architects. But still there's
heaps."

"Will you kindly direct me to one?"

The man gave him two or three addresses, and he went comforted across the
square to the east wing, whose Georgian mass merged without skyline into
the fuliginous vapor which Londoners call the sky. The lights behind the
blindless windows illuminated interiors and showed men bending over desks