gratify that grudge I myself personally write articles against all her most sacred ideals under the pseudonym of Sampson Straight. I've pointed out to her that I'm a newspaper proprietor, and no newspaper proprietor ever could write. No use! She won't listen.
HILDEGARDE. Then she thinks you're a liar.
TRANTO. Oh, not at all. Only a journalist. But you perceive the widening rift in the family lute. ( A silence .) Pardon this glimpse into the secret history of the week.
HILDEGARDE ( formidably ). Mr. Tranto, you and I are sitting on the edge of a volcano.
TRANTO. We are. I like it. Thrilling, and yet so warm and cosy.
HILDEGARDE. I used to like it once. But I don't think I like it any more.
TRANTO. Now please don't let Auntie Joe worry you. She's my cross, not yours.
HILDEGARDE. Yes. But considered as a cross, your Auntie Joe is nothing to my brother John, who quite justly calls his sister's cookery stuff 'tripe.' It was a most ingenious camouflage of yours to have me pretending to be the author of that food economy 'tripe,' so as to cover my writing quite different articles for The Echo and
your coming here to see me so often. Most ingenious. Worthy of a newspaper proprietor. But why should I be saddled with 'tripe' that isn't mine?
TRANTO. Why, indeed! Then you think we ought to encourage the volcano with a lighted match—and run?