LET. And Letitia

EMILY. Must be the most terrible scamp in the universe! LET. The most terrible scamps!

EMILY. Thus, if you know Jimmy Culverin

LET. And Tom Ashbrook

EMILY. Say to them that Emily Ten Eyck

LET. And her sister Letitia

EMILY. Simply abominate them and would rather beg from door to door, than accept one penny of their Cousin Jeremy's fortune under the imposed qualifications! (They fan themselves with their aprons and walk back.)

TOм. This is enough to make me curse my sponsors in baptism for bestowing upon me the name of Tom Ashbrook. Jimmy, I won't stand it. (To Letty, sternly.) Ma'am!

LET. When he said ma'am before, it was like an Eolian harp my grandmother and great-grandmother might have listened to. Now it sounds like an old bag-pipe which my most remote ancestress took the headache from. (The girls come front.)

TOм. Allow me to say that Miss Letitia Ten Eyck is extremely harsh in her determinations.

JIM. As is her sister. You apparently do not know the gentlemen upon whom they sit in judgment?

BOTH GIRLS. We do not.

JIM. If you knew them your opinion of them would not be identical with that of the Ten Eyck girls.

BOTH GIRLS. It would.

JIM. Phew!

TOM. You presumably know the young ladies very well,

ma'am?

BOTH GIRLS. We do!

Toм (aside). Mercy! What revolverish vixens they are. (Aloud.) Then, perhaps it is useless for me to say that Miss Letitia is a most preposterous young person for forming an opinion of a gentleman whom she has never met

LET. And never desires to meet!

JIM. If Miss Emily presumes to despise Jimmy Culverin without ever having set eyes on him

EMILY. She would only despise him the more had her eyes ever been contaminated with a glimpse of him!

JIM (aside). And this is the same girl who put music in

'geese!" (Aloud.) And yet I may know a little more than you think relative to Miss Emily. What would you say if I were to tell you that she at this very moment expects a visit from Jimmy Culverin?

TOм. And that Miss Letitia expects Tom Ashbrook at the same time?

EMILY (tearing her apron). I should say that it is all their Uncle Toby's fault-that he is the greatest of practical jokers, and that even you two gentlemen

LET. (with a little scream, and tearing her apron, aside to Emily.) Would you tell them who we are? Don't say that they are the victims of a joke. (Aloud.) The Ten Eyck girls have a hard enough life with their Uncle Toby (crying). EMILY (crying). Indeed they have!

TOM. What beautiful sympathy!

JIM. What is more lovable than sympathy?

TOм. Nothing, except the sympathizer!

LET. (weeping in her apron.) The poor girls have as hard a life with their u-un-cle

EMILY (weeping in her apron). As we have. (Aside to Let.) How ever will we get out of this scrape Uncle Toby has brought us into? I like his blue eyes more and more every minute, and every minute it grows more difficult to leave him; and I hate Jimmy Culverin with my whole heart, while I feel that heart going out in little pieces to Blue Eyes.

LET. But to think of them knowing about us and the will- they must have come down here as the agents of those frightful men.

EMILY. Oh, oh, oh!

JIM. Don't cry.

EMILY (spitefully). I will. I like to cry. I always cry. They're my own eyes, aren't they?

LET. (hysterically.) It is just terrible that poor Letitia Ten. Eyck should be treated so miserably!

Tом. She deserves such treatment.

LET. She don't! She's as nice a girl as need be.

TOм. She invited Tom Ashbrook down here.

LET. Oh, she did nothing of the sort! She hates him; she would like to--to stick her hair-pins in him. There! Tом. She wouldn't!

LET. She would! If I had him here I should-sweep him out with my broom!

EMILY. As I should Jimmy Culverin!

JIM. You shouldn't!

EMILY. I should! I'd poison him with painted mintsticks-or broom-sticks! For poor Emily TenEyck (Breaks down, and she and Letty sob in each other's arms.)

TOM (rams his hands in his pockets). This is getting to be more than a man can stand. I shall certainly have to hold the tall one; I can't help it.

JIM (hands in his pockets). The one with the dimple will surely fall unless she has the support of a manly arm. I don't know how I shall ever have the courage to go away. One thing I am determined on-I shall never meet Emily TenEyck; already I despise her.

TOM. As I do Letitia. And one other thing I shall never do--I shall never forget nor forgive the White Mountains. Jimmy, I am in love!

JIM. And I! And I'm going to get out of it. Where is the money to come from with which to support a wife? A poor young man who has been a lawyer for exactly six months is not a Midas. And I'd like to come across that old man who directed us to this inn.

TOM. Yes, it is all his fault. And yet but for him we should not have seen these dear ones. All the same, we must get away from this. A medical student who has not earned his sheep-skin, and who has no bank account, has no right to fall in love. Come, we must make a rush for it, and try to forget that the saddest words of lip or pen are, "It might have been." Let us pay the reckoning. I'll shut my eyes so as not to see the tall girl, and I'll yell for my bill, and be unhappy all the rest of my life.

JIM. And I'll stuff my handkerchief in my mouth-my heart's already there-and I'll settle with her of the dimple for my luncheon, and go out into the world a blighted man, They feel for their pocket-books, and, missing them, simultaneously cry out. Emily and Letty hearing them, drop their aprons from their eyes and start forward.

TOM. Ma'am!

LET. (aside.) In that tone of voice I hear my great-grandmother's aunt playing upon the base-drum.

TOM. I-I-is there no one else in this inn-no man? I have something to say to him.

LET. Say it to me; oh, say it to me!

JIM. I, too, have something to say to him.

EMILY. Say it to me!

TOM. Where is the proprietor? You surely are not the proprietors?

LET. We are but maids.

JIM. As we are but men. Let us see the proprietor; Mahomet must come to the

ALL.

White Mountains!

The girls run off in confusion.

TOM. I have been robbed.

JIM. So have I.

TOм. I could not explain it to the tall girl.

JIM. Nor I to the dimpled one.

TOM. Can we explain to the proprietor after we have partaken of his fare? Will he not take us both for tramps? Especially as the girls may say that we have almost flirted with them. Nay, we have been inquisitive about the TenEyck girls-we may be considered dangerous individuals. What shall we do? Is there not sufficient unhappiness for us but that this must come? Halloa!

Uncle Toby is pushed in at the back by the girls, who close the door on him; he is sharpening a carving-knife and does not notice the men.

TOM. This is the old fellow who directed us here.
JIM. And how fierce he looks.

UNCLE T. The man who never made a joke will never appreciate the misery of being a funny man! Has not enough happened to me without my dinner being delayed? I'll have something to carve, if it is only the unknown men who were foolish enough to take my advice and come here. The girls say those men want to see me: what can they want of me? They may have sent for me to upbraid me about my silly joke of sending them here. Let them beware! I am not in a condition to be sported with. I have made a pet fool of myself once this day, and it shall not be said that I allowed two strangers to hoist me into prominence as their pet fool also. (Notices men.) What do you

want of me? (He raves up and down the room, and throws the brooms out at the door. Tom and Jim pretend not to see him.)

Tом. An ugly customer. How will he take it when we tell him we have no money to pay our bill?

JIM. He will never believe that we have been robbed. It would be a pretty bold pick-pocket who would venture near his person.

TOм. I don't like the looks of that knife. Come! I have it! I have said that there is a possibility of our being mistaken for dangerous individuals. To save our skins we must be desperadoes. Get the old gentleman off his high horse, cow him, make him lamb-like; then take a bold leap for liberty, and to-morrow we can send him what we owe him. No philosophic explanation will ever get us past that knife. Don't notice him, and follow my line of action. Now for it. (Aloud.) Jimmy, did you hurt the old chap much? JIM. Not more than could be helped; the-the slip-knot was tight and he couldn't wriggle.

UNCLE T. (listening.) Eh?

TOм. I had a hard time with the bank president last week; I put six bullets in him before he'd consent to be quiet.

JIM. And I wasted a pound of good powder before the fire-proof would open.

UNCLE T. (dropping the carving-knife.) Merciful Powers! they are assassins! and I have been trying to impress them so that they would not hold me accountable for sending them here!

TOM (to Jim). Get as near the door as you can. (Aloud.) And now my hand is in, I hope to settle with the Colonel. JIM. And I'll take care of the Captain. (Aside.) Nearer the door; nearer, nearer; and then make a rush for it.

They approach the door, toward which Uncle Toby backs in fear.

TOM (to Jim). Make a spring over him when you get close he is more dangerous than I supposed he'd be. (Aloud.) And when I took the old lady and delicately strangled her between the head and the shoulders, how she did scratch, to be sure.

JIM (to Tom). Kick the carving-knife out of his reach.