The Albany Depot

Book Excerpt, with an angry glance backward at him over her shoulder. He returns crestfallen to Campbell. Campbell, looking up from his magazine, in affected surprise: "Where's your cook? You don't mean to say she was the wrong woman?"Roberts, gloomily: "She wasn't the right one."Campbell: "How do you know? What did you say to her?"Roberts: "I asked her if she had an appointment to meet a gentleman here."Campbell: "You _did_? And what did she say?"Roberts: "She said 'No!' very sharply. She seemed to take it in dudgeon; she fired up."Campbell: "I should think so. Sounded like an improper advertisement."Roberts, in great distress: _"Don't_, Willis, for Heaven's sake!"Campbell: "Why, you must see it had a very clandestine look. How did you get out of it?"Roberts: "I didn't. I got into it further. I told her my wife had made an appointment for me to meet a cook here that she'd engaged--"Campbell: "You added insult to injury. Go on!"Roberts: "And that she corresponded somewhat to