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 after _beun'_ a cuke? Now, sor,
which wahs ut? Out wfd ut! Don't be thinkun' ye can throw dust in our
eyes because we're Irishmen!" A threatening tone prevails in Mr.
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