Willis: ‘Do you know what it means, Aunt Mary?’
Mrs. Crashaw: ‘Not in the least! But I’ve no doubt that Edward can explain, after he’s changed his linen—’
Mrs. Roberts: ‘Oh yes, do go, Edward! Not but what I should be proud and happy to have you appear just as you are before the whole world, if it was only to put Willis down with his jokes about your absent-mindedness, and his boasts about those California desperadoes of his.’
Roberts: ‘Come, come, Agnes! I must protest against your—’
Mrs. Roberts: ‘Oh, I know it doesn’t become me to praise your courage, darling! But I should like to know what Willis would have done, with all his California experience, if a garotter had taken his watch?’
Willis: ‘I should have let him keep it, and pay five dollars a quarter himself for getting it cleaned and spoiled. Anybody but a literary man would. How many of them were there, Roberts?’
Roberts: ‘I only saw one.’
Mrs. Roberts: ‘But of course there were more. How could he tell, in the dark and excitement? And the one he did see was a perfect giant; so you can imagine what the rest must have been like.’
Willis: ‘Did you really knock him down?’
Mrs. Roberts: ‘Knock him down? Of course he did.’