Campbell, sobered: “You don’t?”
Both Ladies: “No.”
Campbell: “Well, by Jove! Then perhaps you don’t see anything to laugh at in Roberts’s having to guess who the cook was; and going up to the wrong woman, and her getting mad, and going out and bringing back her little fiery-red tipsy Irishman of a husband, that wanted to fight Roberts; and my having to lie out of it for him; and their going off again, and the husband coming back four or five times between drinks, and having to be smoothed up each time—”
Both Ladies: “No!”
Mrs. Roberts: “It was simply horrid.”
Mrs. Campbell: “It wasn’t funny at all; it was simply disgusting. Poor Mr. Roberts!”
Campbell: “Well, by the holy poker! This knocks me out! The next time I’ll marry a man, and have somebody around that can appreciate a joke. The Irishman said himself it would make a cow laugh.”
Mrs. Campbell: “I congratulate you on being of the same taste, Willis. And I dare say you tried to heighten the absurdity, and add to poor Mr. Roberts’s perplexity.”
Roberts: “No, no! I assure you, Amy, if it hadn’t been for Willis, I shouldn’t have known how to manage. I was quite at my wits’ end.”
Mrs. Campbell: “You are very generous, I’m sure, Mr. Roberts; and I suppose I shall have to believe you.”