ROBERTS: ''Sh, Edward! What's he been doing? What does he
look as if he had been doing?'
MRS. CRASHAW: 'Agnes--'
WILLIS: 'He looks as if he had been signing the pledge. And he--
smells like it.'
MRS. ROBERTS: 'For shame, Willis! I should think you'd sink
through the floor. Edward, not a word! I AM ashamed of him, if he
IS my brother.'
WILLIS: 'Why, what in the world's up, Agnes?'
MRS. ROBERTS: 'Up? He's been ROBBED!--robbed on the Common, not
five minutes ago! A whole gang of garotters surrounded him under
the Old Elm--or just where it used to be--and took his watch away!
And he ran after them, and knocked the largest of the gang down, and
took it back again. He wasn't hurt, but we're afraid he's been
injured internally; he may be bleeding internally NOW--Oh, do you
think he is, Willis? Don't you think we ought to send for a
physician?--That, and the cologne I gave him to drink. It's the
brandy I poured on his head makes him smell so. And he all so
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.
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