Campbell: “Distinguished public character. Well, we’re out of that, Roberts. I had to crowd the truth a little for you, but I fetched the belligerent McIlheny. What are you going in for next?”
Roberts: “I—upon my word, I haven’t the least idea. I think I shall give up trying to identify the cook. Agnes must do it herself when she comes here.”
Campbell: “Oh no! That won’t do, old fellow. The cook may come here and give you the slip before Agnes gets back.”
Roberts: “What would you do?”
Campbell: “Well, I don’t know; I don’t like to advise, exactly; but it seems to me you’ve got to keep trying. You’ve got to keep your eye out for respectable butter-balls, and not let them slip through your fingers.”
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.”