The Albany Depot | Page 6

hopes she could help him out of the difficulty. I suppose he bungled it; he only wanted to ask her if she'd seen a cook here, who had an appointment to go out of town with a gentleman. I'd been joking him about it, and he thought he must do something; and I fancy he made a mess of it. He was a good deal worked up. Ha, ha, ha! Ah, ha, ha, ha!" Mr. and Mrs. McIlheny join in his laugh, and finally Roberts himself.
The Colored Man who calls the Trains, coming and going: "Cars for Auburndale, Riverside, Pine Grove, and Newton Lower Falls. Express to Auburndale, Track No. 7."
Mrs. McIlheny: "There's our train. Mike! Come!"
McIlheny: "So 'tis, Mary! Well, I'm hawpy to make yer acquaintance, gentlemen; and if ye're ever in the City Hahl when the Council is sittun', and ye'll send in yer names to Mike McIlheny, I'll be pl'ased to show ye ahl the attintion in me power. Ye must excuse me _now_; we're jist runnun' out to the Fahls to pass Sunday at a cousin's of Mrs. McIlheny's." He snakes hands with Roberts and Campbell, and runs out, followed by his wife.

IV
ROBERTS AND CAMPBELL Campbell: "Distinguished public character. Well, we're out of that, Roberts. I had to crowd the truth a little for you, but I fetched the belligerent McIlheny. What are you going in for next?"
Roberts: "I--upon my word, I haven't the least idea. I think I shall give up trying to identify the cook. Agnes must do it herself when she comes here."
Campbell: "Oh no! That won't do, old fellow. The cook may come here and give you the slip before Agnes gets back."
Roberts: "What would you do?"
Campbell: "Well, I don't know; I don't like to advise, exactly; but it seems to me you've got to keep trying. You've got to keep your eye out for respectable butter-balls, and not let them slip through your fingers."
Roberts: "You mean, go up and speak to them? I _couldn't_ do that again."
Campbell: "Well, of course you didn't make a howling success with Mrs. McIlheny; but it wasn't a dead-failure either. But you must use a little more diplomacy--lead up to the subject gently. Don't go and ask a woman if she's a cook, or had an appointment to meet a gentleman here. That won't do. I'll tell you! You might introduce the business by asking if she had happened to see a lady coming in or going out; and then describe Agnes, and say you had expected to meet her here. And she'll say she hadn't seen her here, but such a lady had just engaged her as a cook. And then you'll say you're the lady's husband, and you're sure she'll be in in a moment. And there you are! That's the way you ought to have worked it with Mrs. McIlheny. Then it would have come out all right."
Roberts, pessimistically: "I don't see how it would have made her the cook."
Campbell: "It couldn't have done that, of course; but it would have done everything short of that. But we're well enough out of it, anyway. It was mighty lucky I came in with my little amendment just when I did. There's all the difference in the world between asking a lady whether she is a cook and whether she's seen a cook. That difference just saved the self-respect of the McIlhenys, and saved your life. It gave the truth a slight twist in the right direction. You can't be too careful about the truth, Roberts. You can't offer it to people in the crude state; it's got to be prepared. If you'd carried it through the way I wanted you to, the night you and old Bemis garroted each other, you'd have come out perfectly triumphant. What you want is not the real truth, but the ideal truth; not what you _did,_ but what you ought to have done. Heigh? Now, you see, those McIlhenys have gone off with their susceptibilities in perfect repair, simply because I substituted a for for an _if,_ and made you inquire for a cook instead of if she was a cook. Perhaps you did ask for instead of ask if?"
Roberts: "No, no. I asked her if she was a cook."
Campbell: "Well, I'm glad the McIlhenys had too much sense to believe that. They're happy, anyway. They're enjoying the hobble that you and Agnes are in, with lofty compassion. They--hello! here's that fellow coming back again!"
Roberts: "Who? Which? Where?" He starts nervously about, and confronts Mr. McIlheny bearing down upon him with a countenance of provisional severity.
McIlheny: "Just wan word more wid you, sor. Mrs. McIlheny has been thinkun' it oover, and she says you didn't ask her if she was after seeun a cuke, but whether she was