exhausted he couldn't speak, and I didn't know what I was doing,
either; but he's promised--oh yes, he's promised!--never, never to
do it again.' She again flings her arms about her husband, and then
turns proudly to her brother.

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,