Mrs. Roberts, partially abandoning and then recovering herself: “Yes, it’s perfectly spoiled! Well, friends, I think we’d better go to dinner—that’s the only way to bring them. I’ll go out and interview the cook.” Sotto voce to her husband: “If I don’t go somewhere and have a cry, I shall break down here before everybody. Did you ever know anything so strange? It’s perfectly—pokerish.”
Lawton: “Yes, there’s nothing like serving dinner to bring the belated guest. It’s as infallible as going without an umbrella when it won’t rain.”
Campbell: “No, no! Wait a minute, Roberts. You might sit down without one guest, but you can’t sit down without five. It’s the old joke about the part of Hamlet. I’ll just step round to Aunt Mary’s house—why, I’ll be back in three minutes.”
Mrs. Roberts, with perfervid gratitude: “Oh, how good you are, Willis! You don’t know how much you’re doing! What presence of mind you have! Why couldn’t we have thought of sending for her? O Willis, I can never be grateful enough to you! But you always think of everything.”
Roberts: “I accept my punishment meekly, Willis, since it’s in your honor.”
Lawton: “It’s a simple and beautiful solution, Mrs. Roberts, as far as your aunt’s concerned; but I don’t see how it helps the rest of us.”
Mrs. Miller to Mr. Campbell: “If you meet Mr. Miller ”—
Curwen: “Or my wife”—
Bemis: “Or my son”—
Lawton: “Or my daughter”—