Roberts: “You mean, go up and speak to them? I couldn’t do that again.”
Campbell: “Well, of course you didn’t make a howling success with Mrs. McIlheny; but it wasn’t a dead-failure either. But you must use a little more diplomacy—lead up to the subject gently. Don’t go and ask a woman if she’s a cook, or had an appointment to meet a gentleman here. That won’t do. I’ll tell you! You might introduce the business by asking if she had happened to see a lady coming in or going out; and then describe Agnes, and say you had expected to meet her here. And she’ll say she hadn’t seen her here, but such a lady had just engaged her as a cook. And then you’ll say you’re the lady’s husband, and you’re sure she’ll be in in a moment. And there you are! That’s the way you ought to have worked it with Mrs. McIlheny. Then it would have come out all right.”
Roberts, pessimistically: “I don’t see how it would have made her the cook.”
Campbell: “It couldn’t have done that, of course; but it would have done everything short of that. But we’re well enough out of it, anyway. It was mighty lucky I came in with my little amendment just when I did. There’s all the difference in the world between asking a lady whether she is a cook and whether she’s seen a cook. That difference just saved the self-respect of the McIlhenys, and saved your life. It gave the truth a slight twist in the right direction. You can’t be too careful about the truth, Roberts. You can’t offer it to people in the crude state; it’s got to be prepared. If you’d carried it through the way I wanted you to, the night you and old Bemis garroted each other, you’d have come out perfectly triumphant. What you want is not the real truth, but the ideal truth; not what you did, but what you ought to have done. Heigh? Now, you see, those McIlhenys have gone off with their susceptibilities in perfect repair, simply because I substituted a for for an if, and made you inquire for a cook instead of if she was a cook. Perhaps you did ask for instead of ask if?”
Roberts: “No, no. I asked her if she was a cook.”
Campbell: “Well, I’m glad the McIlhenys had too much sense to believe that. They’re happy, anyway. They’re enjoying the hobble that you and Agnes are in, with lofty compassion. They—hello! here’s that fellow coming back again!”
Roberts: “Who? Which? Where?” He starts nervously about, and confronts Mr. McIlheny bearing down upon him with a countenance of provisional severity.
McIlheny: “Just wan word more wid you, sor. Mrs. McIlheny has been thinkun’ it oover, and she says you didn’t ask her if she was after seeun a cuke, but whether she was after beun’ a cuke? Now, sor, which wahs ut? Out wfd ut! Don’t be thinkun’ ye can throw dust in our eyes because we’re Irishmen!” A threatening tone prevails in Mr. McIlheny’s address at the mounting confusion and hesitation in Roberts. “Come! are ye deef, mahn?”
Roberts, in spite of Campbell’s dumb-show inciting him to fiction: “I—I—if you will kindly step apart here, I can explain. I was very confused when I spoke to Mrs. McIlheny.”
McIlheny, following him and Willis into the corner: “Fwhat made ye take my wife for a cuke? Did she luke anny more like a cuke than yer own wife? Her family is the best in County Mayo. Her father kept six cows, and she never put her hands in wather. And ye come up to her in a public place like this, where ye’re afraid to spake aboove yer own breath, and ask her if she’s after beun’ the cuke yer wife’s engaged. Fwhat do ye mane by ut?”