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CAMPBELL. “What in the world are you talking about?”

MRS. ROBERTS. “Why, Edward’s dress-suit, of course!”

MRS. CAMPBELL. “Of course she is. But you always have to have things put in words of one syllable for you.”

CAMPBELL. “No irrelevant insults, Mrs. Campbell, if you please! Now, Agnes, try to collect yourself. When you had folded his dress-suit in tissue-paper so nicely, what did you do with it?”

MRS. ROBERTS. “Why, I wrapped it in my white Chuddah shawl, and put it away back on the top shelf in his closet, and I forgot to tell him where it was.” Visible sensation on all sides. “And if Edward were to say now that he couldn’t forgive me, I should just simply fall down and worship him.”

CAMPBELL. “He can forgive you, probably, but he cannot forget; we must leave that to women. And here we were, searching every nook and corner of the house, and every hole and cranny, for that dress-suit, which you’d poked away in tissue-paper and Chuddah, while you were enjoying yourself at Mrs. Miller’s.”

MRS. CAMPBELL. “We weren’t enjoying ourselves. It was the deadliest thing that ever was, and you were very lucky to escape.”

CAMPBELL. “That is all very well; but the credit of that belongs entirely to a merciful Providence. What I want to know is how Agnes is going to excuse herself for hiding her husband’s clothes, so that if this musicale had been the most delightful affair of the season he would have missed it just the same.”

MRS. ROBERTS, regarding her husband’s strange figure in the youthful waistcoat and trousers: “Why, Edward, dear, what in the world have you got on?”

CAMPBELL. “She doesn’t even remember the dress-suit in which poor Roberts first met her! Well, Agnes, you’re a pretty wife and mother! Look at that man!” He takes Roberts by the elbow and turns him round. “Did you ever see devotion like that? He’s buttoned in so tight that he can’t draw a full breath to save him, but he would have gone to the party, if he had expired to slow music after he got there; only he couldn’t find the coat. You’d given that away.”

MRS. CAMPBELL, fishing up a garment from the tempestuous sea of clothes: “Why, here’s a dress-coat, now!”

CAMPBELL. “Yes, that’s Merrick’s. It was rather snug for Roberts.”

MRS. ROBERTS. “And here’s another!”

CAMPBELL. “Yes, that’s Baker’s. It was rather roomy for Roberts.”

MRS. ROBERTS. “But how did you get them?”

CAMPBELL, lightly: “Oh, we sent and borrowed them.”

ROBERTS, less lightly: “We had to do something, Agnes. I knew you would be terribly anxious if I didn’t come–“

MRS. ROBERTS, with abject contrition: “Oh, don’t speak a word, you poor suffering martyr!”

CAMPBELL. “We should have borrowed every coat in the block if you hadn’t got back.”

MRS. CAMPBELL. “Yes, and I’ve no doubt you’d have taken a perfectly fiendish enjoyment in every failure.”

CAMPBELL, with a wild, spluttering laugh: “Well, the disappointments certainly had their compensations. Roberts, just let them see how well you look in Merrick’s coat! Or, no: try Baker’s first; I think Baker’s is a little more swell on you, if anything.”

BELLA , at the door: “Supper is served, Mrs. Roberts.”

CAMPBELL. “Supper?”

MRS. ROBERTS. “Oh, yes! Mrs. Miller never gives you anything but ice-cream; and I thought we should all need something hot when we got back, and so I had a few–But I forgot all about the supper!”

CAMPBELL. “I’m glad Bella didn’t. Better let Bella put Roberts’s clothes away, after this.”

MRS. ROBERTS, in extreme dejection: “Yes, I think I really had, Willis. I’m not fit to be Edward’s wife, if I behave that way to him.”