An All Around Mistake
John Goody and his wife have been married for ten years, and during that time they have never been separated for more than ten seconds. Mrs. Goody is called from the city by the illness of her mother. John sees her to the train, and her parting admonition is that he remain in at nights. This John promises to do, but on the way back from the depot he meets an old friend of his bachelor days, who insists that he take supper with him in a nearby cabaret. John reluctantly agrees, and while there he imbibes a little too freely. He disgraces the friend, who leaves. After he and a new-found acquaintance have been thrown out of the place, he insists that the latter spend the rest of the night at his house. On the way home they have a fight with an Italian peanut vendor. Mrs. Goody has been to see her mother, and finding the latter has recovered from her recent illness, leaves immediately for home and arrives just in time the next morning to be hit in the face with a toupée, thrown from the window by John's friend. This is seen by a policeman, who demands to know the cause of the racket. While he is questioning her a lady friend of Mrs. Goody's comes to call on her. They all adjourn to the dining room, the lady caller leaving her hat and boa on the hat-rack in the hall. John in the meantime has arisen, and in looking through the morning papers, reads an account of a horrible murder committed the night before. He believes that he committed the crime, and is overcome with horror. On his way from the bedroom he sees the hat and boa on the hat-rack, and, thinking they belong to his murdered victim, placed there by himself he nearly collapses. The wife, finding a strange man in the bedroom, calls in the policeman, who arrests the whole lot of them. John has given his wife a note confessing himself a murderer. During her hearing at the station house the note is found and read by the sergeant, who immediately gives John the "third degree." John confesses everything he thinks he has done and shows the sergeant the newspaper. The latter, on looking at the date finds the paper to be a year old. Everybody has a good laugh and John and his wife are reconciled.
