Alas! I have forgotten the kettle! The tea is not yet ready. (To Roger.) Do thee and Benjamin Franklin talk while I prepare it. Show him the volumes lately come from London. Thee knows the print and paper is most pleasing.
[Roger Burchard and Benjamin Franklin sit at right in the high-backed chairs, the volumes upon their knees. That they are true book-lovers is instantly apparent. They are lost to everything that goes on about them. They sit with their backs towards the door at left, quite screened from the view of any one entering there. There is a pause. Then Deborah Read taps softly at the door at left. Elizabeth turns and opens the door.
DEBORAH
(finger on lip).
S-ssh! Not a word! (Glances towards the back of Roger's chair.) I've crept up the stairs on tip-toe!
ELIZABETH.
Sweet rogue! Thee startled me to the point of dropping the kettle! Yonder is my husband so deep in a book that the crack o' doom would scarce rouse him. And with him is a young printer whom we have bid to be our guest. Roger and I have finished our evening meal, so perhaps thee will keep our young guest company while I prepare for meeting.
DEBORAH
(holding up warning finger).
Primp not too much for meeting, fair friend Elizabeth! A grave demeanor goes with Quaker bonnets! (Laughs.) Yes, yes, I'll serve your printer, play hostess, or aught else that will please you, and you can call me when 'tis time to leave him. (Throws off her cloak, and sits by hearth on footstool.) La! such a day! This very morn I saw the strangest sight! I went to the door to get a breath of air, and as I stood there what should I see approaching down the street but a lad with dusty clothes and bulging pockets—nay, wait, Elizabeth! The drollest part is yet to come! I vow he had stuffed one pocket full of stockings, and from the other protruded a loaf of bread! And in his hand was a great fat roll, and he was eating it! Gnawing it off, an you please, as if there were no one to see him! Then he looked up, and——
ELIZABETH
(shocked).
Deborah! Thee did not laugh at him! Thee did not mock at him!