MRS. ROBERTS: 'What! Your watch? The watch Willis gave you? Made out of the gold that he mined himself when he first went out to California? Don't ask me to believe it, Edward! But I'm only too glad that you escaped with your life. Let them have the watch and welcome. Oh, nay dear, dear husband!' She approaches him with extended arms, and then suddenly arrests herself. 'But you've got it on!'
ROBERTS, with as much returning dignity as can comport with his dishevelled appearance: 'Yes; I took it from him.' At his wife's speechless astonishment: 'I went after him and took it from him.'
He sits down, and continues with resolute calm, while his wife remains standing before him motionless: 'Agnes, I don't know how I came to do it. I wouldn't have believed I could do it. I've never thought that I had much courage--physical courage; but when I felt my watch was gone, a sort of frenzy came over me. I wasn't hurt; and for the first time in my life I realised what an abominable outrage theft was. The thought that at six o'clock in the evening, in the very heart of a great city like Boston, an inoffensive citizen could be assaulted and robbed, made me furious. I didn't call out. I simply buttoned my coat tight round me and turned and ran after the fellow.'
MRS. ROBERTS: 'Edward!'
ROBERTS: 'Yes, I did. He hadn't got half-a-dozen rods away--it all took place in a flash--and I could easily run him down. He was considerably larger than I--'
MRS. ROBERTS: 'Oh!'
ROBERTS: '--and he looked young and very athletic; but these things didn't seem to make any impression on me.'
MRS. ROBERTS: 'Oh, I wonder that you live to tell the tale, Edward!'
ROBERTS: 'Well, I wonder a little at myself. I don't set up for a great deal of--'
MRS. ROBERTS: 'But I always knew you had it! Go on. Oh, when I tell Willis of this! Had the robber any accomplices? Were there many of them?'
ROBERTS: 'I only saw one. And I saw that my only chance was to take him at a disadvantage. I sprang upon him, and pulled him over on his back. I merely said, "I'll trouble you for that watch of mine, if you please," jerked open his coat, snatched the watch from his pocket--I broke the chain, I see--and then left him and ran again. He didn't make the slightest resistance nor utter a word.
Of course it wouldn't do for him to make any noise about it, and I dare say he was glad to get off so easily.' With affected nonchalance: 'I'm pretty badly rumpled, I see. He fell against me, and a scuffle like that doesn't improve one's appearance.'
MRS. ROBERTS, very solemnly: 'Edward! I don't know what to say!
Of course it makes my blood run cold to realise what you have been through, and to think what might have happened; but I think you behaved splendidly. Why, I never heard of such perfect heroism!
You needn't tell ME that he made no resistance. There was a deadly struggle--your necktie and everything about you shows it. And you needn't think there was only one of them--'
ROBERTS, modestly: 'I don't believe there was more.'
MRS. ROBERTS: 'Nonsense! There are ALWAYS two! I've read the accounts of those garottings. And to think you not only got out of their clutches alive, but got your property back--Willis's watch!
Oh, what WILL Willis say? But I know how proud of you he'll be.
Oh, I wish I could scream it from the house-tops. Why didn't you call the police?'
ROBERTS: 'I didn't think--I hadn't time to think.'
MRS. ROBERTS: 'No matter. I'm glad you have ALL the glory of it.
I don't believe you half realise what you've been through now. And perhaps this was the robbers' first attempt, and it will be a lesson to them. Oh yes! I'm glad you let them escape, Edward. They may have families. If every one behaved as you've done, there would soon be an end of garotting. But, oh! I can't bear to think of the danger you've run. And I want you to promise me never, never to undertake such a thing again!'
ROBERTS: 'Well, I don't know--'
MRS. ROBERTS: 'Yes, yes; you must! Suppose you had got killed in that awful struggle with those reckless wretches tugging to get away from you! Think of the children! Why, you might have burst a blood-vessel! Will you promise, Edward? Promise this instant, on your bended knees, just as if you were in a court of justice!' Mrs.
Roberts's excitement mounts, and she flings herself at her husband's feet, and pulls his face down to hers with the arm she has thrown about his neck. 'Will you promise?'
