What is your
idea?'
WILLIS: 'Oh, just come into the room with a laugh when we go back,
and say, in an offhand way, "By the way, Agnes, Willis and I made a
remarkable discovery in my dressing-room; we found my watch there on
the bureau. Ha, ha, ha!" Do you think you could do it?'
ROBERTS: 'I--I don't know.'
WILLIS: 'Try the laugh now.'
ROBERTS: 'I'd rather not--now.'
WILLIS: 'Well, try it, anyway.'
ROBERTS: 'Ha, ha, ha!'
WILLIS: 'Once more.'
ROBERTS: 'Ha, ha, ha!'
WILLIS: 'Pretty ghastly; but I guess you can come it.'
ROBERTS: 'I'll try. And then what?'
WILLIS: 'And then you say, "I hadn't put it on when I went out, and
when I got after that fellow and took it back, I was simply getting
somebody else's watch!" Then you hold out both watches to her, and
laugh again. Everybody laughs, and crowds round you to examine the
watches, and you make fun and crack jokes at your own expense all
the time, and pretty soon old Bemis says, "Why, this is MY watch,
NOW!" and you laugh more than ever--'
ROBERTS: 'I'm afraid I couldn't laugh when he said that. I don't
believe I could laugh. It would make my blood run cold.'
WILLIS: 'Oh no, it wouldn't. You'd be in the spirit of it by that
time.'
ROBERTS: 'Do you think so? Well?'
WILLIS: 'And then you say, "Well, this is the most remarkable
coincidence I ever heard of. I didn't get my own watch from the
fellow, but I got yours, Mr.


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