"Oh, tell me about it!" says Mrs. Hatch.
"Well," says the Missus, "it ain't really a party; it's just a kind of a party; some old friends that's visitin' in town."
"Maybe they'll play bridge with you," says Mrs. Hatch.
"Oh, no," says the Missus, blushin'. "It'll probably be rummy or pedro; or maybe we'll just go to the pitchers."
"Why don't you go over to the Acme?" says Mrs. Hatch. "They got Chaplin in The Street Sweeper. We're goin', and we could meet you and all go together."
"N-no," says the Wife. "You see, one of our friends has just lost his wife and I know he wouldn't feel like goin' to see somethin' funny."
"He's already laughed himself sick," I says.
Well, we wouldn't make no date with 'em and they finally blew with the understandin' that we was to go to their house and play some night soon. When they'd went the Missus says:
"I feel like a criminal, deceivin' 'em like that. But I just couldn't tell 'em the truth. Bertha Hatch is the most jealous thing in the world and it would just about kill her to know that we was in on somethin' good without she and Jim."
"If you hadn't ast 'em over," I says, "we'd of been just as well off and you wouldn't of had to make a perjure out o' yourself."