THE CONDUCTOR (entering the car, and stopping before THE PORTER, and looking at MR. ROBERTS). Gentleman want a berth?
THE PORTER (grinning). Well, no, sah. He’s lookin’ for his wife.
THE CONDUCTOR (with suspicion). Is she aboard this car?
MR. ROBERTS (striving to propitiate THE CONDUCTOR by a dastardly amiability). Oh, yes, yes. There’s no mistake about the car—the Governor Marcy. She telegraphed the name just before you left Albany, so that I could find her at Boston in the morning. Ah!
THE CONDUCTOR. At Boston. [Sternly.] Then what are you trying to find her at Worcester in the middle of the night for?
MR. ROBERTS. Why—I—that is—
THE PORTER (taking compassion on MR. ROBERTS’S inability to continue). Says he wanted to surprise her.
MR. ROBERTS. Ha—yes, exactly. A little caprice, you know.
THE CONDUCTOR. Well, that may all be so. [MR. ROBERTS continues to smile in agonized helplessness against THE CONDUCTOR’S injurious tone, which becomes more and more offensively patronizing.] But I can’t do anything for you. Here are all these people asleep in their berths, and I can’t go round waking them up because you want to surprise your wife.
MR. ROBERTS. No, no; of course not. I never thought—