Campbell: “Yes, I know. You’d have to drink with him; and you’ve got no head at all. You’d probably get drunk first, and I don’t know what I should say to Agnes.”
Roberts: “That isn’t the point, Willis. I couldn’t ask the man to drink; I should consider it immoral. Besides, what should you do if the cook came while I was away? You wouldn’t know her.”
Campbell: “Well, neither would you, if you stayed.”
Roberts: “That’s true. There doesn’t seem to be any end of it, or any way out of it. I must just stay and bear it.”
Campbell: “Of course you must stay. And when McIlheny comes back, you’d better ask him out to look upon the wine when it is red.”
Roberts: “No; that’s impossible, quite. I shouldn’t mind the association—though it isn’t very pleasant; but to offer drink to a man already—Do you suppose it would do to ask him out for a glass of soda? Plain soda would be good for him. Or I could order claret in it, if the worst came to the worst.”
Campbell: “Claret! What Mr. McIlheny requires is forty-rod whiskey in a solution of sulphuric acid. You must take that, or fourth-proof brandy straight, with him.”
Roberts, miserably: “I couldn’t; you know I couldn’t.”
Campbell: “What are you going to do, then?”
Roberts: “I don’t know; I don’t know. I—I’ll give him in charge to a policeman.”