Perkins. What’s the matter with Henderson?
Mrs. Perkins. He hasn’t withdrawn, has he?
Yardsley. That’s just what he has done. He sent me word this morning.
Mrs. Perkins. But what excuse does he offer? At the last moment, too!
Yardsley. None at all—absolutely. There was some airy persiflage in his note about having to go to Boston at six o’clock. Grandmother’s sick or something. He writes so badly I couldn’t make out whether she was rich or sick. I fancy it’s a little of both. Possibly if she wasn’t rich he wouldn’t care so much when she fell ill. That’s the trouble with these New-Englanders, anyhow—they’ve always got grandmothers to fall down at crucial moments. Next time I go into this sort of thing it’ll be with a crowd without known ancestors.
Perkins. ’Tisn’t Chet’s fault, though. You don’t suspect him of having poisoned his grandmother just to get out of playing, do you?
Mrs. Perkins. Oh, Thaddeus, do be serious!
Perkins. I was never more so, my dear. Poisoning one’s grandmother is no light crime.
Yardsley. Well, I’ve a notion that the whole thing is faked up. Henderson has an idea that he’s a little tin Booth, and just because I called him down the other night at our first rehearsal he’s mad. That’s the milk in the cocoanut, I think. He’s one of those fellows you can’t tell anything to, and when I kicked because he wore a white tie with a dinner coat, he got mad and said he was going to dress the part his own way or not at all.
Perkins. I think he was right.