Part 4 (1/2)

Mrs. Roberts: ”Went out and got him?”

Roberts: ”When I spoke to her.”

Mrs. Roberts: ”When you spoke to her? But you said you didn't see her!”

Roberts: ”Of _course_ I didn't see her. How should I see her, when I never saw her before? I went up and spoke to her, and she said she wasn't the one. She was very angry, and she went out and got her husband. He was tipsy, and he's been coming back ever since. I don't know what to do about the wretched creature. He says I've insulted his abominable wife!”

Campbell, laughing: ”O Lord! Lord! This will be the death of me!”

Mrs. Campbell: ”This is one of your tricks, Willis; one of your vile practical jokes.”

Campbell: ”No, no, my dear! I couldn't invent anything equal to _this_.

Oh my! oh my!”

Mrs. Campbell, seizing him by the arm: ”Well, if you don't tell, instantly, what it is--”

Campbell: ”But I _can't_ tell. I promised Roberts I wouldn't.”

Roberts, wildly: ”Oh, tell, tell!”

Campbell: ”About the cook, too, Agnes?”

Mrs. Roberts: ”Yes, yes; everything! Only tell!”

Campbell, struggling to recover himself: ”Why, you see, Agnes engaged a cook, up-town--”

Mrs. Roberts: ”I didn't want you to know it, Amy. I thought you would be troubled if you knew you were coming to visit me just when I was trying to break in a new cook, and so I told Edward not to let Willis know. Go on, Willis.”

Mrs. Campbell: ”And I understand just how you felt about it, Agnes; you knew he'd laugh. Go on, Willis.”

Campbell: ”And she sent her down here, and told Roberts to keep her till she came herself.”

Both Ladies: ”Well?”

Campbell: ”And I found poor old Roberts here, looking out for a cook that he'd never seen before, and expecting to recognize a woman that he'd never met in his life.” He explodes in another fit of laughter.

The ladies stare at him in mystification.

Mrs. Roberts: ”I would have stayed myself to meet her, but I'd left my plush bag with my purse in it at Stearns's, and I had to go back after it.”

Mrs. Campbell: ”She _had_ to leave him. What is there to laugh at?”

Mrs. Roberts: ”I see nothing to laugh at, Willis.”

Campbell, sobered: ”You _don't_?”

Both Ladies: ”No.”

Campbell: ”Well, by Jove! Then perhaps you don't see anything to laugh at in Roberts's having to guess who the cook was; and going up to the wrong woman, and her getting mad, and going out and bringing back her little fiery-red tipsy Irishman of a husband, that wanted to fight Roberts; and my having to lie out of it for him; and their going off again, and the husband coming back four or five times between drinks, and having to be smoothed up each time--”

Both Ladies: ”No!”