he's
garroted Edward. I _know_ he has!"

_Mrs. Campbell:_ "Willis, if this is any of your tricks--if it's one of
your miserable practical jokes--"

_Mrs. Roberts:_ "Oh, I wonder what they're keeping so quiet for! Edward,
are you safe? Do you need _me_? If you do, just speak, and I will--go
for a policeman, myself!"

_Mrs. Campbell:_ "If you don't answer, Willis--" Whimpering: "Oh, he
just wants to make me take my life in my hand! He wouldn't like anything
better." The two men, during this rapid colloquy, remain silently
aghast, staring at each other and at the scene of confusion around
them.

_Mrs. Roberts:_ "Well, then, do it, Amy! You have so much more courage
than I have, and you have no children; and if you'll only go to the door
and peep in I'll stay here, and keep screaming as loud as ever I can.
I'll begin now--"

_Roberts:_ "No, no; don't call out, Agnes. It's all right. We've just
had a little accident with one of the bureau drawers. It's perfectly
safe; but don't come in till we--" He dashes madly about the room,
trying to put it in shape. Both ladies instantly show themselves at the
door.

_Mrs. Roberts_, in dismay at the spectacle: "Why, what in the world has
happened, Edward?"

_Mrs. Campbell:_ "It's something Willis has put him up to. I knew it
was from the way he kept so still. Where is he?"

_Campbell_, coming boldly forward out of Roberts's dressing-room, where
he had previously taken refuge: "I've saved Roberts's life. If it hadn't
been for me he couldn't have moved hand or foot. He was dead asleep when
I came here, and I've been helping him look for his dress-suit." At
these words Mrs. Roberts abandons herself to despair in one of the
chairs overflowing with clothes. "Hello! What's the matter with Agnes?"

_Mrs. Roberts:_ "I never can look any one in the face again! To think of
my doing such a thing when I've always prided myself on being so
thoughtful, and remembering things so perfectly! And here I've been
reproaching Edward and poor Willis the whole evening for not coming to
that horrid musicale, and accusing them of all kinds of things, and all
the time I knew I'd forgotten something and couldn't think what it was!
Oh, dear! I shall simply never forgive myself! But it was all because I
wanted him to look so nice in it, and I got it pressed while he was
away, and I folded it up in the tissue-paper myself, and took the
greatest care of it; and then to have it turn out the way it has!"