 Horace explains to his two clerks, Cornelius Hackl and Barnaby Tucker, that he is going to get married because "It Takes a Woman" to cheerfully do all the household chores.He plans to travel with Dolly to New York City to march in the Fourteenth Street Association Parade and propose to the widow Irene Molloy, who owns a hat shop there.Dolly arrives in Yonkers and "accidentally" mentions that Irene's first husband might not have died of natural causes, and also mentions that she knows an heiress, Ernestina Money, who may be interested in Horace.