The only place where a man can do things up as soon as he thinks of 'em is on the blue water.

We don't have red tape on shipboard, I can tell you.

The skipper's the law and the government." "Could you marry people ?" "Well, I ain't to say in the habit of it, but it's the law that I could." "Then if we get tangled up with the consul," said Peter, "we'll have to fall back on you," and they took it as an excellent piece of fooling which they were later to come back to as a matter of serious resort.
"Of course," said the consul, "I could marry you and it would be legal if you chose to count it so at home, but if you are thinking of taking a house here and of making an extended residence I shouldn't advise it.

As to Captain Dunham's suggestion, it's not wholly a bad one.

Not being in Italy, the Italians can't take exception to it, and if it is properly witnessed and recorded at home it ought to stand." They couldn't of course take it in all at once that they were simply to sail out there into the ethereal blueness and to come back from it with the right to live together.