第4章 SCENE III

MR. CAMPBELL, MRS. CRASHAW, MR. AND MRS. ROBERTS

WILLIS, pausing in contemplation: 'Hello! What's the matter?

What's she trying to get out of you, Roberts? Don't you do it, anyway, old fellow.'

MRS. ROBERTS, in an ecstasy of satisfaction: 'Willis! Oh, you've come in time to see him just as he is. Look at him, Willis!' In the excess of her emotion she twitches her husband about, and with his arm fast in her clutch, presents him in the disadvantageous effect of having just been taken into custody. Under these circumstances Roberts's attempt at an expression of diffident heroism fails; he looks sneaking, he looks guilty, and his eyes fall under the astonished regard of his brother-in-law.

WILLIS: 'What's the matter with him? What's he been doing?'

MRS. ROBERTS: ''Sh, Edward! What's he been doing? What does he look as if he had been doing?'

MRS. CRASHAW: 'Agnes--'

WILLIS: 'He looks as if he had been signing the pledge. And he-- smells like it.'

MRS. ROBERTS: 'For shame, Willis! I should think you'd sink through the floor. Edward, not a word! I AM ashamed of him, if he IS my brother.'

WILLIS: 'Why, what in the world's up, Agnes?'

MRS. ROBERTS: 'Up? He's been ROBBED!--robbed on the Common, not five minutes ago! A whole gang of garotters surrounded him under the Old Elm--or just where it used to be--and took his watch away!

And he ran after them, and knocked the largest of the gang down, and took it back again. He wasn't hurt, but we're afraid he's been injured internally; he may be bleeding internally NOW--Oh, do you think he is, Willis? Don't you think we ought to send for a physician?--That, and the cologne I gave him to drink. It's the brandy I poured on his head makes him smell so. And he all so exhausted he couldn't speak, and I didn't know what I was doing, either; but he's promised--oh yes, he's promised!--never, never to do it again.' She again flings her arms about her husband, and then turns proudly to her brother.

WILLIS: 'Do you know what it means, Aunt Mary?'

MRS. CRASHAW: 'Not in the least! But I've no doubt that Edward can explain, after he's changed his linen--'

MRS. ROBERTS: 'Oh yes, do go, Edward! Not but what I should be proud and happy to have you appear just as you are before the whole world, if it was only to put Willis down with his jokes about your absent-mindedness, and his boasts about those California desperadoes of his.'

ROBERTS: 'Come, come, Agnes! I MUST protest against your--'

MRS. ROBERTS: 'Oh, I know it doesn't become me to praise your courage, darling! But I should like to know what Willis would have done, with all his California experience, if a garotter had taken his watch?'

WILLIS: 'I should have let him keep it, and pay five dollars a quarter himself for getting it cleaned and spoiled. Anybody but a literary man would. How many of them were there, Roberts?'

ROBERTS: 'I only saw one.'

MRS. ROBERTS: 'But of course there were more. How could he tell, in the dark and excitement? And the one he did see was a perfect giant; so you can imagine what the rest must have been like.'

WILLIS: 'Did you really knock him down?'

MRS. ROBERTS: 'Knock him down? Of course he did.'

MRS. CRASHAW: 'Agnes, WILL you hold your tongue, and let the men alone?'

MRS. ROBERTS, whimpering: 'I can't, Aunt Mary. And you couldn't, if it was yours.'

ROBERTS: 'I pulled him over backwards.'

MRS. ROBERTS: 'There, Willis!'

WILLIS: 'And grabbed your watch from him?'

ROBERTS: 'I was in quite a frenzy; I really hardly knew what I was doing--'

MRS. ROBERTS: 'And he didn't call for the police, or anything--'

WILLIS: 'Ah, that showed presence of mind! He knew it wouldn't have been any use.'

MRS. ROBERTS: 'And when he had got his watch away from them, he just let them go, because they had families dependent on them.'

WILLIS: 'I should have let them go in the first place, but you behaved handsomely in the end, Roberts; there's no denying that.

And when you came in she gave you cologne to drink, and poured brandy on your head. It must have revived you. I should think it would wake the dead.'

MRS. ROBERTS: 'I was all excitement, Willis--'

WILLIS: 'No, I should think from the fact that you had set the decanter here on the hearth, and put your cologne into the wood-box, you were perfectly calm, Agnes.' He takes them up and hands them to her. 'Quite as calm as usual.' The door-bell rings.

MRS. CRASHAW: 'Willis, WILL you let that ridiculous man go away and make himself presentable before people begin to come?' The bell rings violently, peal upon peal.

MRS. ROBERTS: 'Oh, my goodness, what's that? It's the garotters--I know it is; and we shall all be murdered in our beds!'

MRS. CRASHAW: 'What in the world can it--'

WILLIS: 'Why don't your girl answer the bell, Agnes? Or I'll go myself.' The bell rings violently again.

MRS. ROBERTS: 'NO, Willis, you sha'n't! Don't leave me, Edward!

Aunt Mary!--Oh, if we MUST die, let us all die together! Oh, my poor children! Ugh! What's that?' The servant-maid opens the outer door, and uttering a shriek, rushes in through the drawing- room portiere.

BELLA THE MAID: 'Oh, my goodness! Mrs. Roberts, it's Mr. Bemis!'

MRS. ROBERTS: 'Which Mr. Bemis?'

ROBERTS: 'What's the matter with him?'

MRS. CRASHAW: 'Why doesn't she show him in?'

WILLIS: 'Has HE been garotting somebody too?'