Campbell: “Don’t mind me, Roberts.”
Roberts, looking up: “Heigh? What! Why, Willis! Glad to see you—”
Campbell: “Now that you do see me, yes, I suppose you are. What have you got there that makes you cut all your friends?” He looks at Roberts’s open page. “Oh! Popular Science Monthly. Isn’t Agnes a little afraid of your turning out an agnostic? By-the-way, where is Agnes?”
Roberts: “She left her purse at Stearns’s, and she’s gone back after it. Where’s Amy?”
Campbell: “Wherever she said she wouldn’t be at the moment. I expected to find her here with you and Agnes. What time did you say your train started?”
Roberts. “At ten minutes to four. And, by-the-way—I’d almost forgotten it—I must keep an eye out for the cook Agnes has been engaging. She was to meet us here before half-past two, and I shall have to receive her. You mustn’t tell Amy; Agnes doesn’t want her to know she’s been changing cooks; and I’ve got to be very vigilant not to let her give us the slip, or you won’t have any dinner to-night.”
Campbell: “Is that so? Well, that interests me. Were you expecting to find her in the Pop. Sci.?”
Roberts: “Oh, I’d only been reading a minute when you came in.”
Campbell: “I don’t believe you know how long you’d been reading. Very likely your cook’s come and gone.”
Roberts, with some alarm: “She couldn’t. I’d only just opened the book.”