VANDERGELDER:

Patting her hand.

Mrs. Molloy, I’d like for you to come up to Yonkers.

MRS. MOLLOY:

That would be very nice.

He hands her the box of chocolates.

Oh, thank you. As a matter of fact, I know someone from Yonkers, someone else.

VANDERGELDER:

Hangs hat on the cheval mirror.

Oh? Who’s that?

MRS. MOLLOY puts chocolates on table and brings gilt chair forward and sits center at table facing the audience.

MRS. MOLLOY:

Someone quite well-to-do, I believe, though a little free and easy in his behavior. Mr. Vandergelder, do you know Mr. Cornelius Hackl in Yonkers?

VANDERGELDER:

I know him like I know my own boot. He’s my head clerk.

MRS. MOLLOY:

Is that so?

VANDERGELDER:

He’s been in my store for ten years.

MRS. MOLLOY:

Well, I never!

VANDERGELDER:

Where would you have known him?

MRS. MOLLOY is in silent confusion. She looks for help to Mrs. Levi, seated at right end of table.

MRS. LEVI:

Groping for means to help Mrs. Molloy.

Err . . . blah . . . err . . . bl . . . er . . . Oh, just one of those chance meetings, I suppose.

MRS. MOLLOY:

Yes, oh yes! One of those chance meetings.

VANDERGELDER:

What? Chance meetings? Cornelius Hackl has no right to chance meetings. Where was it?

MRS. MOLLOY:

Really, Mr. Vandergelder, it’s very unlike you to question me in such a way. I think Mr. Hackl is better known than you think he is.

VANDERGELDER:

Nonsense.

MRS. MOLLOY:

He’s in New York often, and he’s very well liked.

MRS. LEVI:

Having found her idea, with decision.

Well, the truth might as well come out now as later. Mr. Vandergelder, Irene is quite right. Your head clerk is often in New York. Goes everywhere; has an army of friends. Everybody knows Cornelius Hackl.

VANDERGELDER:

Laughs blandly and sits in chair at left of table.

He never comes to New York. He works all day in my store and at nine o’clock at night he goes to sleep in the bran room.

MRS. LEVI:

So you think. But it’s not true.

VANDERGELDER:

Dolly Gallagher, you’re crazy.

MRS. LEVI:

Listen to me. You keep your nose so deep in your account books you don’t know what goes on. Yes, by day, Cornelius Hackl is your faithful trusted clerk—that’s true; but by night! Well, he leads a double life, that’s all! He’s here at the opera; at the great restaurants; in all the fashionable homes . . . why, he’s at the Harmonia Gardens Restaurant three nights a week. The fact is, he’s the wittiest, gayest, naughtiest, most delightful man in New York. Well, he’s just the famous Cornelius Hackl!

VANDERGELDER:

Sure of himself.

It ain’t the same man. If I ever thought Cornelius Hackl came to New York, I’d discharge him.

MRS. LEVI:

Who took the horses out of Jenny Lind’s carriage and pulled her through the streets?

MRS. MOLLOY:

Who?

MRS. LEVI:

Cornelius Hackl! Who dressed up as a waiter at the Fifth Avenue Hotel the other night and took an oyster and dropped it right down Mrs . . .