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+The Project Gutenberg eBook of Indiscretions of Archie, by P. G. Wodehouse
+
+This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere in the United States and
+most other parts of the world at no cost and with almost no restrictions
+whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or re-use it under the terms
+of the Project Gutenberg License included with this eBook or online at
+www.gutenberg.org. If you are not located in the United States, you
+will have to check the laws of the country where you are located before
+using this eBook.
+
+Title: Indiscretions of Archie
+
+Author: P. G. Wodehouse
+
+Release Date: August 28, 2001 [eBook #3756]
+[Most recently updated: August 14, 2021]
+
+Language: English
+
+Character set encoding: UTF-8
+
+Produced by: Charles Franks, Chuck Greif and the Online Distributed Proofreading Team, and David Widger
+
+*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK INDISCRETIONS OF ARCHIE ***
+
+
+
+
+Indiscretions of Archie
+
+by P. G. Wodehouse
+
+
+Contents
+
+ CHAPTER I. DISTRESSING SCENE
+ CHAPTER II. A SHOCK FOR MR BREWSTER
+ CHAPTER III. MR BREWSTER DELIVERS SENTENCE
+ CHAPTER IV. WORK WANTED
+ CHAPTER V. STRANGE EXPERIENCES OF AN ARTIST’S MODEL
+ CHAPTER VI. THE BOMB
+ CHAPTER VII. MR ROSCOE SHERRIFF HAS AN IDEA
+ CHAPTER VIII. A DISTURBED NIGHT FOR DEAR OLD SQUIFFY
+ CHAPTER IX. A LETTER FROM PARKER
+ CHAPTER X. DOING FATHER A BIT OF GOOD
+ CHAPTER XI. SALVATORE CHOOSES THE WRONG MOMENT
+ CHAPTER XII. BRIGHT EYES—AND A FLY
+ CHAPTER XIII. RALLYING ROUND PERCY
+ CHAPTER XIV. THE SAD CASE OF LOONEY BIDDLE
+ CHAPTER XV. SUMMER STORMS
+ CHAPTER XVI. ARCHIE ACCEPTS A SITUATION
+ CHAPTER XVII. BROTHER BILL’S ROMANCE
+ CHAPTER XVIII. THE SAUSAGE CHAPPIE
+ CHAPTER XIX. REGGIE COMES TO LIFE
+ CHAPTER XX. THE-SAUSAGE-CHAPPIE-CLICKS
+ CHAPTER XXI. THE GROWING BOY
+ CHAPTER XXII. WASHY STEPS INTO THE HALL OF FAME
+ CHAPTER XXIII. MOTHER’S KNEE
+ CHAPTER XXIV. THE MELTING OF MR CONNOLLY
+ CHAPTER XXV. THE WIGMORE VENUS
+ CHAPTER XXVI. A TALE OF A GRANDFATHER
+
+
+
+
+It wasn’t Archie’s fault really. Its true he went to America and fell
+in love with Lucille, the daughter of a millionaire hotel proprietor
+and if he did marry her—well, what else was there to do?
+
+From his point of view, the whole thing was a thoroughly good egg; but
+Mr. Brewster, his father-in-law, thought differently, Archie had
+neither money nor occupation, which was distasteful in the eyes of the
+industrious Mr. Brewster; but the real bar was the fact that he had
+once adversely criticised one of his hotels.
+
+Archie does his best to heal the breach; but, being something of an
+ass, genus priceless, he finds it almost beyond his powers to placate
+“the man-eating fish” whom Providence has given him as a father-in-law
+
+
+
+
+P. G. Wodehouse
+
+AUTHOR OF “THE LITTLE WARRIOR,” “A DAMSEL IN DISTRESS,” “UNEASY MONEY,”
+ETC.
+
+NEW YORK GEORGE H. DORAN COMPANY COPYRIGHT,1921, BY GEORGE H, DORAN
+COMPANY COPYRIGHT, 1920, BY INTERNATIONAL MAGAZINE COMPANY
+(COSMOPOLITAN MAGAZINE)
+PRINTED IN THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA
+
+
+
+
+DEDICATION
+TO
+B. W. KING-HALL
+
+My dear Buddy,—
+
+We have been friends for eighteen years. A considerable proportion of
+my books were written under your hospitable roof. And yet I have never
+dedicated one to you. What will be the verdict of Posterity on this?
+The fact is, I have become rather superstitious about dedications. No
+sooner do you label a book with the legend—
+
+
+TO MY
+BEST FRIEND
+X
+
+than X cuts you in Piccadilly, or you bring a lawsuit against him.
+There is a fatality about it. However, I can’t imagine anyone
+quarrelling with you, and I am getting more attractive all the time, so
+let’s take a chance.
+
+Yours ever,
+P. G. WODEHOUSE.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER I.
+DISTRESSING SCENE
+
+
+“I say, laddie!” said Archie.
+
+“Sir?” replied the desk-clerk alertly. All the employes of the Hotel
+Cosmopolis were alert. It was one of the things on which Mr. Daniel
+Brewster, the proprietor, insisted. And as he was always wandering
+about the lobby of the hotel keeping a personal eye on affairs, it was
+never safe to relax.
+
+“I want to see the manager.”
+
+“Is there anything I could do, sir?”
+
+Archie looked at him doubtfully.
+
+“Well, as a matter of fact, my dear old desk-clerk,” he said, “I want
+to kick up a fearful row, and it hardly seems fair to lug you into it.
+Why you, I mean to say? The blighter whose head I want on a charger is
+the bally manager.”
+
+At this point a massive, grey-haired man, who had been standing close
+by, gazing on the lobby with an air of restrained severity, as if
+daring it to start anything, joined in the conversation.
+
+“I am the manager,” he said.
+
+His eye was cold and hostile. Others, it seemed to say, might like
+Archie Moffam, but not he. Daniel Brewster was bristling for combat.
+What he had overheard had shocked him to the core of his being. The
+Hotel Cosmopolis was his own private, personal property, and the thing
+dearest to him in the world, after his daughter Lucille. He prided
+himself on the fact that his hotel was not like other New York hotels,
+which were run by impersonal companies and shareholders and boards of
+directors, and consequently lacked the paternal touch which made the
+Cosmopolis what it was. At other hotels things went wrong, and clients
+complained. At the Cosmopolis things never went wrong, because he was
+on the spot to see that they didn’t, and as a result clients never
+complained. Yet here was this long, thin, string-bean of an Englishman
+actually registering annoyance and dissatisfaction before his very
+eyes.
+
+“What is your complaint?” he enquired frigidly.
+
+Archie attached himself to the top button of Mr. Brewster’s coat, and
+was immediately dislodged by an irritable jerk of the other’s
+substantial body.
+
+“Listen, old thing! I came over to this country to nose about in search
+of a job, because there doesn’t seem what you might call a general
+demand for my services in England. Directly I was demobbed, the family
+started talking about the Land of Opportunity and shot me on to a
+liner. The idea was that I might get hold of something in America—”
+
+He got hold of Mr. Brewster’s coat-button, and was again shaken off.
+
+“Between ourselves, I’ve never done anything much in England, and I
+fancy the family were getting a bit fed. At any rate, they sent me over
+here—”
+
+Mr. Brewster disentangled himself for the third time.
+
+“I would prefer to postpone the story of your life,” he said coldly,
+“and be informed what is your specific complaint against the Hotel
+Cosmopolis.”
+
+“Of course, yes. The jolly old hotel. I’m coming to that. Well, it was
+like this. A chappie on the boat told me that this was the best place
+to stop at in New York—”
+
+“He was quite right,” said Mr. Brewster.
+
+“Was he, by Jove! Well, all I can say, then, is that the other New York
+hotels must be pretty mouldy, if this is the best of the lot! I took a
+room here last night,” said Archie quivering with self-pity, “and there
+was a beastly tap outside somewhere which went drip-drip-drip all night
+and kept me awake.”
+
+Mr. Brewster’s annoyance deepened. He felt that a chink had been found
+in his armour. Not even the most paternal hotel-proprietor can keep an
+eye on every tap in his establishment.
+
+“Drip-drip-drip!” repeated Archie firmly. “And I put my boots outside
+the door when I went to bed, and this morning they hadn’t been touched.
+I give you my solemn word! Not touched.”
+
+“Naturally,” said Mr. Brewster. “My employés are honest.”
+
+“But I wanted them cleaned, dash it!”
+
+“There is a shoe-shining parlour in the basement. At the Cosmopolis
+shoes left outside bedroom doors are not cleaned.”
+
+“Then I think the Cosmopolis is a bally rotten hotel!”
+
+Mr. Brewster’s compact frame quivered. The unforgivable insult had been
+offered. Question the legitimacy of Mr. Brewster’s parentage, knock Mr.
+Brewster down and walk on his face with spiked shoes, and you did not
+irremediably close all avenues to a peaceful settlement. But make a
+remark like that about his hotel, and war was definitely declared.
+
+“In that case,” he said, stiffening, “I must ask you to give up your
+room.”
+
+“I’m going to give it up! I wouldn’t stay in the bally place another
+minute.”
+
+Mr. Brewster walked away, and Archie charged round to the cashier’s
+desk to get his bill. It had been his intention in any case, though for
+dramatic purposes he concealed it from his adversary, to leave the
+hotel that morning. One of the letters of introduction which he had
+brought over from England had resulted in an invitation from a Mrs. van
+Tuyl to her house-party at Miami, and he had decided to go there at
+once.
+
+“Well,” mused Archie, on his way to the station, “one thing’s certain.
+I’ll never set foot in _that_ bally place again!”
+
+But nothing in this world is certain.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER II.
+A SHOCK FOR MR. BREWSTER
+
+
+Mr. Daniel Brewster sat in his luxurious suite at the Cosmopolis,
+smoking one of his admirable cigars and chatting with his old friend,
+Professor Binstead. A stranger who had only encountered Mr. Brewster in
+the lobby of the hotel would have been surprised at the appearance of
+his sitting-room, for it had none of the rugged simplicity which was
+the keynote of its owner’s personal appearance. Daniel Brewster was a
+man with a hobby. He was what Parker, his valet, termed a connoozer.
+His educated taste in Art was one of the things which went to make the
+Cosmopolis different from and superior to other New York hotels. He had
+personally selected the tapestries in the dining-room and the various
+paintings throughout the building. And in his private capacity he was
+an enthusiastic collector of things which Professor Binstead, whose
+tastes lay in the same direction, would have stolen without a twinge of
+conscience if he could have got the chance.
+
+The professor, a small man of middle age who wore tortoiseshell-rimmed
+spectacles, flitted covetously about the room, inspecting its treasures
+with a glistening eye. In a corner, Parker, a grave, lean individual,
+bent over the chafing-dish, in which he was preparing for his employer
+and his guest their simple lunch.
+
+“Brewster,” said Professor Binstead, pausing at the mantelpiece.
+
+Mr. Brewster looked up amiably. He was in placid mood to-day. Two weeks
+and more had passed since the meeting with Archie recorded in the
+previous chapter, and he had been able to dismiss that disturbing
+affair from his mind. Since then, everything had gone splendidly with
+Daniel Brewster, for he had just accomplished his ambition of the
+moment by completing the negotiations for the purchase of a site
+further down-town, on which he proposed to erect a new hotel. He liked
+building hotels. He had the Cosmopolis, his first-born, a summer hotel
+in the mountains, purchased in the previous year, and he was toying
+with the idea of running over to England and putting up another in
+London, That, however, would have to wait. Meanwhile, he would
+concentrate on this new one down-town. It had kept him busy and
+worried, arranging for securing the site; but his troubles were over
+now.
+
+“Yes?” he said.
+
+Professor Binstead had picked up a small china figure of delicate
+workmanship. It represented a warrior of pre-khaki days advancing with
+a spear upon some adversary who, judging from the contented expression
+on the warrior’s face, was smaller than himself.
+
+“Where did you get this?”
+
+“That? Mawson, my agent, found it in a little shop on the east side.”
+
+“Where’s the other? There ought to be another. These things go in
+pairs. They’re valueless alone.”
+
+Mr. Brewster’s brow clouded.
+
+“I know that,” he said shortly. “Mawson’s looking for the other one
+everywhere. If you happen across it, I give you _carte blanche_ to buy
+it for me.”
+
+“It must be somewhere.”
+
+“Yes. If you find it, don’t worry about the expense. I’ll settle up, no
+matter what it is.”
+
+“I’ll bear it in mind,” said Professor Binstead. “It may cost you a lot
+of money. I suppose you know that.”
+
+“I told you I don’t care what it costs.”
+
+“It’s nice to be a millionaire,” sighed Professor Binstead.
+
+“Luncheon is served, sir,” said Parker.
+
+He had stationed himself in a statutesque pose behind Mr. Brewster’s
+chair, when there was a knock at the door. He went to the door, and
+returned with a telegram.
+
+“Telegram for you, sir.”
+
+Mr. Brewster nodded carelessly. The contents of the chafing-dish had
+justified the advance advertising of their odour, and he was too busy
+to be interrupted.
+
+“Put it down. And you needn’t wait, Parker.”
+
+“Very good, sir.”
+
+The valet withdrew, and Mr. Brewster resumed his lunch.
+
+“Aren’t you going to open it?” asked Professor Binstead, to whom a
+telegram was a telegram.
+
+“It can wait. I get them all day long. I expect it’s from Lucille,
+saying what train she’s making.”
+
+“She returns to-day?”
+
+“Yes, Been at Miami.” Mr. Brewster, having dwelt at adequate length on
+the contents of the chafing-dish, adjusted his glasses and took up the
+envelope. “I shall be glad—Great Godfrey!”
+
+He sat staring at the telegram, his mouth open. His friend eyed him
+solicitously.
+
+“No bad news, I hope?”
+
+Mr. Brewster gurgled in a strangled way.
+
+“Bad news? Bad—? Here, read it for yourself.”
+
+Professor Binstead, one of the three most inquisitive men in New York,
+took the slip of paper with gratitude.
+
+“‘Returning New York to-day with darling Archie,’” he read. “‘Lots of
+love from us both. Lucille.’” He gaped at his host. “Who is Archie?” he
+enquired.
+
+“Who is Archie?” echoed Mr. Brewster helplessly. “Who is—? That’s just
+what I would like to know.”
+
+“‘Darling Archie,’” murmured the professor, musing over the telegram.
+“‘Returning to-day with darling Archie.’ Strange!”
+
+Mr. Brewster continued to stare before him. When you send your only
+daughter on a visit to Miami minus any entanglements and she mentions
+in a telegram that she has acquired a darling Archie, you are naturally
+startled. He rose from the table with a bound. It had occurred to him
+that by neglecting a careful study of his mail during the past week, as
+was his bad habit when busy, he had lost an opportunity of keeping
+abreast with current happenings. He recollected now that a letter had
+arrived from Lucille some time ago, and that he had put it away
+unopened till he should have leisure to read it. Lucille was a dear
+girl, he had felt, but her letters when on a vacation seldom contained
+anything that couldn’t wait a few days for a reading. He sprang for his
+desk, rummaged among his papers, and found what he was seeking.
+
+It was a long letter, and there was silence in the room for some
+moments while he mastered its contents. Then he turned to the
+professor, breathing heavily.
+
+“Good heavens!”
+
+“Yes?” said Professor Binstead eagerly. “Yes?”
+
+“Good Lord!”
+
+“Well?”
+
+“Good gracious!”
+
+“What is it?” demanded the professor in an agony.
+
+Mr. Brewster sat down again with a thud.
+
+“She’s married!”
+
+“Married!”
+
+“Married! To an Englishman!”
+
+“Bless my soul!”
+
+“She says,” proceeded Mr. Brewster, referring to the letter again,
+“that they were both so much in love that they simply had to slip off
+and get married, and she hopes I won’t be cross. Cross!” gasped Mr.
+Brewster, gazing wildly at his friend.
+
+“Very disturbing!”
+
+“Disturbing! You bet it’s disturbing! I don’t know anything about the
+fellow. Never heard of him in my life. She says he wanted a quiet
+wedding because he thought a fellow looked such a chump getting
+married! And I must love him, because he’s all set to love me very
+much!”
+
+“Extraordinary!”
+
+Mr. Brewster put the letter down.
+
+“An Englishman!”
+
+“I have met some very agreeable Englishmen,” said Professor Binstead.
+
+“I don’t like Englishmen,” growled Mr. Brewster. “Parker’s an
+Englishman.”
+
+“Your valet?”
+
+“Yes. I believe he wears my shirts on the sly,’” said Mr. Brewster
+broodingly, “If I catch him—! What would you do about this, Binstead?”
+
+“Do?” The professor considered the point judicially. “Well, really,
+Brewster, I do not see that there is anything you can do. You must
+simply wait and meet the man. Perhaps he will turn out an admirable
+son-in-law.”
+
+“H’m!” Mr. Brewster declined to take an optimistic view. “But an
+Englishman, Binstead!” he said with pathos. “Why,” he went on, memory
+suddenly stirring, “there was an Englishman at this hotel only a week
+or two ago who went about knocking it in a way that would have amazed
+you! Said it was a rotten place! _My_ hotel!”
+
+Professor Binstead clicked his tongue sympathetically. He understood
+his friend’s warmth.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER III.
+MR. BREWSTER DELIVERS SENTENCE
+
+
+At about the same moment that Professor Binstead was clicking his
+tongue in Mr. Brewster’s sitting-room, Archie Moffam sat contemplating
+his bride in a drawing-room on the express from Miami. He was thinking
+that this was too good to be true. His brain had been in something of a
+whirl these last few days, but this was one thought that never failed
+to emerge clearly from the welter.
+
+Mrs. Archie Moffam, nee Lucille Brewster, was small and slender. She
+had a little animated face, set in a cloud of dark hair. She was so
+altogether perfect that Archie had frequently found himself compelled
+to take the marriage-certificate out of his inside pocket and study it
+furtively, to make himself realise that this miracle of good fortune
+had actually happened to him.
+
+“Honestly, old bean—I mean, dear old thing,—I mean, darling,” said
+Archie, “I can’t believe it!”
+
+“What?”
+
+“What I mean is, I can’t understand why you should have married a
+blighter like me.”
+
+Lucille’s eyes opened. She squeezed his hand.
+
+“Why, you’re the most wonderful thing in the world, precious!—Surely
+you know that?”
+
+“Absolutely escaped my notice. Are you sure?”
+
+“Of course I’m sure! You wonder-child! Nobody could see you without
+loving you!”
+
+Archie heaved an ecstatic sigh. Then a thought crossed his mind. It was
+a thought which frequently came to mar his bliss.
+
+“I say, I wonder if your father will think that!”
+
+“Of course he will!”
+
+“We rather sprung this, as it were, on the old lad,” said Archie
+dubiously. “What sort of a man _is_ your father?”
+
+“Father’s a darling, too.”
+
+“Rummy thing he should own that hotel,” said Archie. “I had a frightful
+row with a blighter of a manager there just before I left for Miami.
+Your father ought to sack that chap. He was a blot on the landscape!”
+
+It had been settled by Lucille during the journey that Archie should be
+broken gently to his father-in-law. That is to say, instead of bounding
+blithely into Mr. Brewster’s presence hand in hand, the happy pair
+should separate for half an hour or so, Archie hanging around in the
+offing while Lucille saw her father and told him the whole story, or
+those chapters of it which she had omitted from her letter for want of
+space. Then, having impressed Mr. Brewster sufficiently with his luck
+in having acquired Archie for a son-in-law, she would lead him to where
+his bit of good fortune awaited him.
+
+The programme worked out admirably in its earlier stages. When the two
+emerged from Mr. Brewster’s room to meet Archie, Mr. Brewster’s general
+idea was that fortune had smiled upon him in an almost unbelievable
+fashion and had presented him with a son-in-law who combined in almost
+equal parts the more admirable characteristics of Apollo, Sir Galahad,
+and Marcus Aurelius. True, he had gathered in the course of the
+conversation that dear Archie had no occupation and no private means;
+but Mr. Brewster felt that a great-souled man like Archie didn’t need
+them. You can’t have everything, and Archie, according to Lucille’s
+account, was practically a hundred per cent man in soul, looks,
+manners, amiability, and breeding. These are the things that count. Mr.
+Brewster proceeded to the lobby in a glow of optimism and geniality.
+
+Consequently, when he perceived Archie, he got a bit of a shock.
+
+“Hullo—ullo—ullo!” said Archie, advancing happily.
+
+“Archie, darling, this is father,” said Lucille.
+
+“Good Lord!” said Archie.
+
+There was one of those silences. Mr. Brewster looked at Archie. Archie
+gazed at Mr. Brewster. Lucille, perceiving without understanding why
+that the big introduction scene had stubbed its toe on some
+unlooked-for obstacle, waited anxiously for enlightenment. Meanwhile,
+Archie continued to inspect Mr. Brewster, and Mr. Brewster continued to
+drink in Archie.
+
+After an awkward pause of about three and a quarter minutes, Mr.
+Brewster swallowed once or twice, and finally spoke.
+
+“Lu!”
+
+“Yes, father?”
+
+“Is this true?”
+
+Lucille’s grey eyes clouded over with perplexity and apprehension.
+
+“True?”
+
+“Have you really inflicted this—_this_ on me for a son-in-law?” Mr.
+Brewster swallowed a few more times, Archie the while watching with a
+frozen fascination the rapid shimmying of his new relative’s
+Adam’s-apple. “Go away! I want to have a few words alone with
+this—This—_wassyourdamname?_” he demanded, in an overwrought manner,
+addressing Archie for the first time.
+
+“I told you, father. It’s Moom.”
+
+“Moom?”
+
+“It’s spelt M-o-f-f-a-m, but pronounced Moom.”
+
+“To rhyme,” said Archie, helpfully, “with Bluffinghame.”
+
+“Lu,” said Mr. Brewster, “run away! I want to speak to-to-to—”
+
+“You called me _this_ before,” said Archie.
+
+“You aren’t angry, father, dear?” said Lucilla.
+
+“Oh no! Oh no! I’m tickled to death!”
+
+When his daughter had withdrawn, Mr. Brewster drew a long breath.
+
+“Now then!” he said.
+
+“Bit embarrassing, all this, what!” said Archie, chattily. “I mean to
+say, having met before in less happy circs. and what not. Rum
+coincidence and so forth! How would it be to bury the jolly old
+hatchet—start a new life—forgive and forget—learn to love each
+other—and all that sort of rot? I’m game if you are. How do we go? Is
+it a bet?”
+
+Mr. Brewster remained entirely unsoftened by this manly appeal to his
+better feelings.
+
+“What the devil do you mean by marrying my daughter?”
+
+Archie reflected.
+
+“Well, it sort of happened, don’t you know! You know how these things
+_are!_ Young yourself once, and all that. I was most frightfully in
+love, and Lu seemed to think it wouldn’t be a bad scheme, and one thing
+led to another, and—well, there you are, don’t you know!”
+
+“And I suppose you think you’ve done pretty well for yourself?”
+
+“Oh, absolutely! As far as I’m concerned, everything’s topping! I’ve
+never felt so braced in my life!”
+
+“Yes!” said Mr. Brewster, with bitterness, “I suppose, from your
+view-point, everything _is_ ‘topping.’ You haven’t a cent to your name,
+and you’ve managed to fool a rich man’s daughter into marrying you. I
+suppose you looked me up in Bradstreet before committing yourself?”
+
+This aspect of the matter had not struck Archie until this moment.
+
+“I say!” he observed, with dismay. “I never looked at it like that
+before! I can see that, from your point of view, this must look like a
+bit of a wash-out!”
+
+“How do you propose to support Lucille, anyway?”
+
+Archie ran a finger round the inside of his collar. He felt
+embarrassed, His father-in-law was opening up all kinds of new lines of
+thought.
+
+“Well, there, old bean,” he admitted, frankly, “you rather have me!” He
+turned the matter over for a moment. “I had a sort of idea of, as it
+were, working, if you know what I mean.”
+
+“Working at what?”
+
+“Now, there again you stump me somewhat! The general scheme was that I
+should kind of look round, you know, and nose about and buzz to and fro
+till something turned up. That was, broadly speaking, the notion!”
+
+“And how did you suppose my daughter was to live while you were doing
+all this?”
+
+“Well, I think,” said Archie, “I _think_ we rather expected _you_ to
+rally round a bit for the nonce!”
+
+“I see! You expected to live on me?”
+
+“Well, you put it a bit crudely, but—as far as I had mapped anything
+out—that WAS what you might call the general scheme of procedure. You
+don’t think much of it, what? Yes? No?”
+
+Mr. Brewster exploded.
+
+“No! I do not think much of it! Good God! You go out of my hotel—_my_
+hotel—calling it all the names you could think of—roasting it to beat
+the band—”
+
+“Trifle hasty!” murmured Archie, apologetically. “Spoke without
+thinking. Dashed tap had gone _drip-drip-drip_ all night—kept me
+awake—hadn’t had breakfast—bygones be bygones—!”
+
+“Don’t interrupt! I say, you go out of my hotel, knocking it as no one
+has ever knocked it since it was built, and you sneak straight off and
+marry my daughter without my knowledge.”
+
+“Did think of wiring for blessing. Slipped the old bean, somehow. You
+know how one forgets things!”
+
+“And now you come back and calmly expect me to fling my arms round you
+and kiss you, and support you for the rest of your life!”
+
+“Only while I’m nosing about and buzzing to and fro.”
+
+“Well, I suppose I’ve got to support you. There seems no way out of it.
+I’ll tell you exactly what I propose to do. You think my hotel is a
+pretty poor hotel, eh? Well, you’ll have plenty of opportunity of
+judging, because you’re coming to live here. I’ll let you have a suite
+and I’ll let you have your meals, but outside of that—nothing doing!
+Nothing doing! Do you understand what I mean?”
+
+“Absolutely! You mean, ‘Napoo!’”
+
+“You can sign bills for a reasonable amount in my restaurant, and the
+hotel will look after your laundry. But not a cent do you get out of
+me. And, if you want your shoes shined, you can pay for it yourself in
+the basement. If you leave them outside your door, I’ll instruct the
+floor-waiter to throw them down the air-shaft. Do you understand? Good!
+Now, is there anything more you want to ask?”
+
+Archie smiled a propitiatory smile.
+
+“Well, as a matter of fact, I was going to ask if you would stagger
+along and have a bite with us in the grill-room?”
+
+“I will not!”
+
+“I’ll sign the bill,” said Archie, ingratiatingly. “You don’t think
+much of it? Oh, right-o!”
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER IV.
+WORK WANTED
+
+
+It seemed to Archie, as he surveyed his position at the end of the
+first month of his married life, that all was for the best in the best
+of all possible worlds. In their attitude towards America, visiting
+Englishmen almost invariably incline to extremes, either detesting all
+that therein is or else becoming enthusiasts on the subject of the
+country, its climate, and its institutions. Archie belonged to the
+second class. He liked America and got on splendidly with Americans
+from the start. He was a friendly soul, a mixer; and in New York, that
+city of mixers, he found himself at home. The atmosphere of
+good-fellowship and the open-hearted hospitality of everybody he met
+appealed to him. There were moments when it seemed to him as though New
+York had simply been waiting for him to arrive before giving the word
+to let the revels commence.
+
+Nothing, of course, in this world is perfect; and, rosy as were the
+glasses through which Archie looked on his new surroundings, he had to
+admit that there was one flaw, one fly in the ointment, one individual
+caterpillar in the salad. Mr. Daniel Brewster, his father-in-law,
+remained consistently unfriendly. Indeed, his manner towards his new
+relative became daily more and more a manner which would have caused
+gossip on the plantation if Simon Legree had exhibited it in his
+relations with Uncle Tom. And this in spite of the fact that Archie, as
+early as the third morning of his stay, had gone to him and in the most
+frank and manly way, had withdrawn his criticism of the Hotel
+Cosmopolis, giving it as his considered opinion that the Hotel
+Cosmopolis on closer inspection appeared to be a good egg, one of the
+best and brightest, and a bit of all right.
+
+“A credit to you, old thing,” said Archie cordially.
+
+“Don’t call me old thing!” growled Mr. Brewster.
+
+“Right-o, old companion!” said Archie amiably.
+
+Archie, a true philosopher, bore this hostility with fortitude, but it
+worried Lucille.
+
+“I do wish father understood you better,” was her wistful comment when
+Archie had related the conversation.
+
+“Well, you know,” said Archie, “I’m open for being understood any time
+he cares to take a stab at it.”
+
+“You must try and make him fond of you.”
+
+“But how? I smile winsomely at him and what not, but he doesn’t
+respond.”
+
+“Well, we shall have to think of something. I want him to realise what
+an angel you are. You _are_ an angel, you know.”
+
+“No, really?”
+
+“Of course you are.”
+
+“It’s a rummy thing,” said Archie, pursuing a train of thought which
+was constantly with him, “the more I see of you, the more I wonder how
+you can have a father like—I mean to say, what I mean to say is, I wish
+I had known your mother; she must have been frightfully attractive.”
+
+“What would really please him, I know,” said Lucille, “would be if you
+got some work to do. He loves people who work.”
+
+“Yes?” said Archie doubtfully. “Well, you know, I heard him
+interviewing that chappie behind the desk this morning, who works like
+the dickens from early morn to dewy eve, on the subject of a mistake in
+his figures; and, if he loved him, he dissembled it all right. Of
+course, I admit that so far I haven’t been one of the toilers, but the
+dashed difficult thing is to know how to start. I’m nosing round, but
+the openings for a bright young man seem so scarce.”
+
+“Well, keep on trying. I feel sure that, if you could only find
+something to do, it doesn’t matter what, father would be quite
+different.”
+
+It was possibly the dazzling prospect of making Mr. Brewster quite
+different that stimulated Archie. He was strongly of the opinion that
+any change in his father-in-law must inevitably be for the better. A
+chance meeting with James B. Wheeler, the artist, at the Pen-and-Ink
+Club seemed to open the way.
+
+To a visitor to New York who has the ability to make himself liked it
+almost appears as though the leading industry in that city was the
+issuing of two-weeks’ invitation-cards to clubs. Archie since his
+arrival had been showered with these pleasant evidences of his
+popularity; and he was now an honorary member of so many clubs of
+various kinds that he had not time to go to them all. There were the
+fashionable clubs along Fifth Avenue to which his friend Reggie van
+Tuyl, son of his Florida hostess, had introduced him. There were the
+businessmen’s clubs of which he was made free by more solid citizens.
+And, best of all, there were the Lambs’, the Players’, the Friars’, the
+Coffee-House, the Pen-and-Ink,—and the other resorts of the artist, the
+author, the actor, and the Bohemian. It was in these that Archie spent
+most of his time, and it was here that he made the acquaintance of J.
+B. Wheeler, the popular illustrator.
+
+To Mr. Wheeler, over a friendly lunch, Archie had been confiding some
+of his ambitions to qualify as the hero of one of the
+Get-on-or-get-out-young-man-step-lively-books.
+
+“You want a job?” said Mr. Wheeler.
+
+“I want a job,” said Archie.
+
+Mr. Wheeler consumed eight fried potatoes in quick succession. He was
+an able trencherman.
+
+“I always looked on you as one of our leading lilies of the field,” he
+said. “Why this anxiety to toil and spin?”
+
+“Well, my wife, you know, seems to think it might put me one-up with
+the jolly old dad if I did something.”
+
+“And you’re not particular what you do, so long as it has the outer
+aspect of work?”
+
+“Anything in the world, laddie, anything in the world.”
+
+“Then come and pose for a picture I’m doing,” said J. B. Wheeler. “It’s
+for a magazine cover. You’re just the model I want, and I’ll pay you at
+the usual rates. Is it a go?”
+
+“Pose?”
+
+“You’ve only got to stand still and look like a chunk of wood. You can
+do that, surely?”
+
+“I can do that,” said Archie.
+
+“Then come along down to my studio to-morrow.”
+
+“Right-o!” said Archie.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER V.
+STRANGE EXPERIENCES OF AN ARTIST’S MODEL
+
+
+“I say, old thing!”
+
+Archie spoke plaintively. Already he was looking back ruefully to the
+time when he had supposed that an artist’s model had a soft job. In the
+first five minutes muscles which he had not been aware that he
+possessed had started to ache like neglected teeth. His respect for the
+toughness and durability of artists’ models was now solid. How they
+acquired the stamina to go through this sort of thing all day and then
+bound off to Bohemian revels at night was more than he could
+understand.
+
+“Don’t wobble, confound you!” snorted Mr. Wheeler.
+
+“Yes, but, my dear old artist,” said Archie, “what you don’t seem to
+grasp—what you appear not to realise—is that I’m getting a crick in the
+back.”
+
+“You weakling! You miserable, invertebrate worm. Move an inch and I’ll
+murder you, and come and dance on your grave every Wednesday and
+Saturday. I’m just getting it.”
+
+“It’s in the spine that it seems to catch me principally.”
+
+“Be a man, you faint-hearted string-bean!” urged J. B. Wheeler. “You
+ought to be ashamed of yourself. Why, a girl who was posing for me last
+week stood for a solid hour on one leg, holding a tennis racket over
+her head and smiling brightly withal.”
+
+“The female of the species is more india-rubbery than the male,” argued
+Archie.
+
+“Well, I’ll be through in a few minutes. Don’t weaken. Think how proud
+you’ll be when you see yourself on all the bookstalls.”
+
+Archie sighed, and braced himself to the task once more. He wished he
+had never taken on this binge. In addition to his physical discomfort,
+he was feeling a most awful chump. The cover on which Mr. Wheeler was
+engaged was for the August number of the magazine, and it had been
+necessary for Archie to drape his reluctant form in a two-piece bathing
+suit of a vivid lemon colour; for he was supposed to be representing
+one of those jolly dogs belonging to the best families who dive off
+floats at exclusive seashore resorts. J. B. Wheeler, a stickler for
+accuracy, had wanted him to remove his socks and shoes; but there
+Archie had stood firm. He was willing to make an ass of himself, but
+not a silly ass.
+
+“All right,” said J. B. Wheeler, laying down his brush. “That will do
+for to-day. Though, speaking without prejudice and with no wish to be
+offensive, if I had had a model who wasn’t a weak-kneed,
+jelly-backboned son of Belial, I could have got the darned thing
+finished without having to have another sitting.”
+
+“I wonder why you chappies call this sort of thing ‘sitting,’” said
+Archie, pensively, as he conducted tentative experiments in osteopathy
+on his aching back. “I say, old thing, I could do with a restorative,
+if you have one handy. But, of course, you haven’t, I suppose,” he
+added, resignedly. Abstemious as a rule, there were moments when Archie
+found the Eighteenth Amendment somewhat trying.
+
+J. B. Wheeler shook his head.
+
+“You’re a little previous,” he said. “But come round in another day or
+so, and I may be able to do something for you.” He moved with a certain
+conspirator-like caution to a corner of the room, and, lifting to one
+side a pile of canvases, revealed a stout barrel, which he regarded
+with a fatherly and benignant eye. “I don’t mind telling you that, in
+the fullness of time, I believe this is going to spread a good deal of
+sweetness and light.”
+
+“Oh, ah,” said Archie, interested. “Home-brew, what?”
+
+“Made with these hands. I added a few more raisins yesterday, to speed
+things up a bit. There is much virtue in your raisin. And, talking of
+speeding things up, for goodness’ sake try to be a bit more punctual
+to-morrow. We lost an hour of good daylight to-day.”
+
+“I like that! I was here on the absolute minute. I had to hang about on
+the landing waiting for you.”
+
+“Well, well, that doesn’t matter,” said J. B. Wheeler, impatiently, for
+the artist soul is always annoyed by petty details. “The point is that
+we were an hour late in getting to work. Mind you’re here to-morrow at
+eleven sharp.”
+
+It was, therefore, with a feeling of guilt and trepidation that Archie
+mounted the stairs on the following morning; for in spite of his good
+resolutions he was half an hour behind time. He was relieved to find
+that his friend had also lagged by the wayside. The door of the studio
+was ajar, and he went in, to discover the place occupied by a lady of
+mature years, who was scrubbing the floor with a mop. He went into the
+bedroom and donned his bathing suit. When he emerged, ten minutes
+later, the charwoman had gone, but J. B. Wheeler was still absent.
+Rather glad of the respite, he sat down to kill time by reading the
+morning paper, whose sporting page alone he had managed to master at
+the breakfast table.
+
+There was not a great deal in the paper to interest him. The usual
+bond-robbery had taken place on the previous day, and the police were
+reported hot on the trail of the Master-Mind who was alleged to be at
+the back of these financial operations. A messenger named Henry Babcock
+had been arrested and was expected to become confidential. To one who,
+like Archie, had never owned a bond, the story made little appeal. He
+turned with more interest to a cheery half-column on the activities of
+a gentleman in Minnesota who, with what seemed to Archie, as he thought
+of Mr. Daniel Brewster, a good deal of resource and public spirit, had
+recently beaned his father-in-law with the family meat-axe. It was only
+after he had read this through twice in a spirit of gentle approval
+that it occurred to him that J. B. Wheeler was uncommonly late at the
+tryst. He looked at his watch, and found that he had been in the studio
+three-quarters of an hour.
+
+Archie became restless. Long-suffering old bean though he was, he
+considered this a bit thick. He got up and went out on to the landing,
+to see if there were any signs of the blighter. There were none. He
+began to understand now what had happened. For some reason or other the
+bally artist was not coming to the studio at all that day. Probably he
+had called up the hotel and left a message to this effect, and Archie
+had just missed it. Another man might have waited to make certain that
+his message had reached its destination, but not woollen-headed
+Wheeler, the most casual individual in New York.
+
+Thoroughly aggrieved, Archie turned back to the studio to dress and go
+away.
+
+His progress was stayed by a solid, forbidding slab of oak. Somehow or
+other, since he had left the room, the door had managed to get itself
+shut.
+
+“Oh, dash it!” said Archie.
+
+The mildness of the expletive was proof that the full horror of the
+situation had not immediately come home to him. His mind in the first
+few moments was occupied with the problem of how the door had got that
+way. He could not remember shutting it. Probably he had done it
+unconsciously. As a child, he had been taught by sedulous elders that
+the little gentleman always closed doors behind him, and presumably his
+subconscious self was still under the influence. And then, suddenly, he
+realised that this infernal, officious ass of a subconscious self had
+deposited him right in the gumbo. Behind that closed door, unattainable
+as youthful ambition, lay his gent’s heather-mixture with the green
+twill, and here he was, out in the world, alone, in a lemon-coloured
+bathing suit.
+
+In all crises of human affairs there are two broad courses open to a
+man. He can stay where he is or he can go elsewhere. Archie, leaning on
+the banisters, examined these alternatives narrowly. If he stayed where
+he was he would have to spend the night on this dashed landing. If he
+legged it, in this kit, he would be gathered up by the constabulary
+before he had gone a hundred yards. He was no pessimist, but he was
+reluctantly forced to the conclusion that he was up against it.
+
+It was while he was musing with a certain tenseness on these things
+that the sound of footsteps came to him from below. But almost in the
+first instant the hope that this might be J. B. Wheeler, the curse of
+the human race, died away. Whoever was coming up the stairs was
+running, and J. B. Wheeler never ran upstairs. He was not one of your
+lean, haggard, spiritual-looking geniuses. He made a large income with
+his brush and pencil, and spent most of it in creature comforts. This
+couldn’t be J. B. Wheeler.
+
+It was not. It was a tall, thin man whom he had never seen before. He
+appeared to be in a considerable hurry. He let himself into the studio
+on the floor below, and vanished without even waiting to shut the door.
+
+He had come and disappeared in almost record time, but, brief though
+his passing had been, it had been long enough to bring consolation to
+Archie. A sudden bright light had been vouchsafed to Archie, and he now
+saw an admirably ripe and fruity scheme for ending his troubles. What
+could be simpler than to toddle down one flight of stairs and in an
+easy and debonair manner ask the chappie’s permission to use his
+telephone? And what could be simpler, once he was at the ’phone, than
+to get in touch with somebody at the Cosmopolis who would send down a
+few trousers and what not in a kit bag. It was a priceless solution,
+thought Archie, as he made his way downstairs. Not even embarrassing,
+he meant to say. This chappie, living in a place like this, wouldn’t
+bat an eyelid at the spectacle of a fellow trickling about the place in
+a bathing suit. They would have a good laugh about the whole thing.
+
+“I say, I hate to bother you—dare say you’re busy and all that sort of
+thing—but would you mind if I popped in for half a second and used your
+’phone?”
+
+That was the speech, the extremely gentlemanly and well-phrased speech
+which Archie had prepared to deliver the moment the man appeared. The
+reason he did not deliver it was that the man did not appear. He
+knocked, but nothing stirred.
+
+“I say!”
+
+Archie now perceived that the door was ajar, and that on an envelope
+attached with a tack to one of the panels was the name “Elmer M. Moon”
+He pushed the door a little farther open and tried again.
+
+“Oh, Mr. Moon! Mr. Moon!” He waited a moment. “Oh, Mr. Moon! Mr. Moon!
+Are you there, Mr. Moon?”
+
+He blushed hotly. To his sensitive ear the words had sounded exactly
+like the opening line of the refrain of a vaudeville song-hit. He
+decided to waste no further speech on a man with such an unfortunate
+surname until he could see him face to face and get a chance of
+lowering his voice a bit. Absolutely absurd to stand outside a
+chappie’s door singing song-hits in a lemon-coloured bathing suit. He
+pushed the door open and walked in; and his subconscious self, always
+the gentleman, closed it gently behind him.
+
+“Up!” said a low, sinister, harsh, unfriendly, and unpleasant voice.
+
+“Eh?” said Archie, revolving sharply on his axis.
+
+He found himself confronting the hurried gentleman who had run
+upstairs. This sprinter had produced an automatic pistol, and was
+pointing it in a truculent manner at his head. Archie stared at his
+host, and his host stared at him.
+
+“Put your hands up,” he said.
+
+“Oh, right-o! Absolutely!” said Archie. “But I mean to say—”
+
+The other was drinking him in with considerable astonishment. Archie’s
+costume seemed to have made a powerful impression upon him.
+
+“Who the devil are you?” he enquired.
+
+“Me? Oh, my name’s—”
+
+“Never mind your name. What are you doing here?”
+
+“Well, as a matter of fact, I popped in to ask if I might use your
+’phone. You see—”
+
+A certain relief seemed to temper the austerity of the other’s gaze. As
+a visitor, Archie, though surprising, seemed to be better than he had
+expected.
+
+“I don’t know what to do with you,” he said, meditatively.
+
+“If you’d just let me toddle to the ’phone—”
+
+“Likely!” said the man. He appeared to reach a decision. “Here, go into
+that room.”
+
+He indicated with a jerk of his head the open door of what was
+apparently a bedroom at the farther end of the studio.
+
+“I take it,” said Archie, chattily, “that all this may seem to you not
+a little rummy.”
+
+“Get on!”
+
+“I was only saying—”
+
+“Well, I haven’t time to listen. Get a move on!”
+
+The bedroom was in a state of untidiness which eclipsed anything which
+Archie had ever witnessed. The other appeared to be moving house. Bed,
+furniture, and floor were covered with articles of clothing. A silk
+shirt wreathed itself about Archie’s ankles as he stood gaping, and, as
+he moved farther into the room, his path was paved with ties and
+collars.
+
+“Sit down!” said Elmer M. Moon, abruptly.
+
+“Right-o! Thanks,” said Archie, “I suppose you wouldn’t like me to
+explain, and what not, what?”
+
+“No!” said Mr. Moon. “I haven’t got your spare time. Put your hands
+behind that chair.”
+
+Archie did so, and found them immediately secured by what felt like a
+silk tie. His assiduous host then proceeded to fasten his ankles in a
+like manner. This done, he seemed to feel that he had done all that was
+required of him, and he returned to the packing of a large suitcase
+which stood by the window.
+
+“I say!” said Archie.
+
+Mr. Moon, with the air of a man who has remembered something which he
+had overlooked, shoved a sock in his guest’s mouth and resumed his
+packing. He was what might be called an impressionist packer. His aim
+appeared to be speed rather than neatness. He bundled his belongings
+in, closed the bag with some difficulty, and, stepping to the window,
+opened it. Then he climbed out on to the fire-escape, dragged the
+suit-case after him, and was gone.
+
+Archie, left alone, addressed himself to the task of freeing his
+prisoned limbs. The job proved much easier than he had expected. Mr.
+Moon, that hustler, had wrought for the moment, not for all time. A
+practical man, he had been content to keep his visitor shackled merely
+for such a period as would permit him to make his escape unhindered. In
+less than ten minutes Archie, after a good deal of snake-like writhing,
+was pleased to discover that the thingummy attached to his wrists had
+loosened sufficiently to enable him to use his hands. He untied himself
+and got up.
+
+He now began to tell himself that out of evil cometh good. His
+encounter with the elusive Mr. Moon had not been an agreeable one, but
+it had had this solid advantage, that it had left him right in the
+middle of a great many clothes. And Mr. Moon, whatever his moral
+defects, had the one excellent quality of taking about the same size as
+himself. Archie, casting a covetous eye upon a tweed suit which lay on
+the bed, was on the point of climbing into the trousers when on the
+outer door of the studio there sounded a forceful knocking.
+
+“Open up here!”
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VI.
+THE BOMB
+
+
+Archie bounded silently out into the other room and stood listening
+tensely. He was not a naturally querulous man, but he did feel at this
+point that Fate was picking on him with a somewhat undue severity.
+
+“In th’ name av th’ Law!”
+
+There are times when the best of us lose our heads. At this juncture
+Archie should undoubtedly have gone to the door, opened it, explained
+his presence in a few well-chosen words, and generally have passed the
+whole thing off with ready tact. But the thought of confronting a posse
+of police in his present costume caused him to look earnestly about him
+for a hiding-place.
+
+Up against the farther wall was a settee with a high, arching back,
+which might have been put there for that special purpose. He inserted
+himself behind this, just as a splintering crash announced that the
+Law, having gone through the formality of knocking with its knuckles,
+was now getting busy with an axe. A moment later the door had given
+way, and the room was full of trampling feet. Archie wedged himself
+against the wall with the quiet concentration of a clam nestling in its
+shell, and hoped for the best.
+
+It seemed to him that his immediate future depended for better or for
+worse entirely on the native intelligence of the Force. If they were
+the bright, alert men he hoped they were, they would see all that junk
+in the bedroom and, deducing from it that their quarry had stood not
+upon the order of his going but had hopped it, would not waste time in
+searching a presumably empty apartment. If, on the other hand, they
+were the obtuse, flat-footed persons who occasionally find their way
+into the ranks of even the most enlightened constabularies, they would
+undoubtedly shift the settee and drag him into a publicity from which
+his modest soul shrank. He was enchanted, therefore, a few moments
+later, to hear a gruff voice state that th’ mutt had beaten it down th’
+fire-escape. His opinion of the detective abilities of the New York
+police force rose with a bound.
+
+There followed a brief council of war, which, as it took place in the
+bedroom, was inaudible to Archie except as a distant growling noise. He
+could distinguish no words, but, as it was succeeded by a general
+trampling of large boots in the direction of the door and then by
+silence, he gathered that the pack, having drawn the studio and found
+it empty, had decided to return to other and more profitable duties. He
+gave them a reasonable interval for removing themselves, and then poked
+his head cautiously over the settee.
+
+All was peace. The place was empty. No sound disturbed the stillness.
+
+Archie emerged. For the first time in this morning of disturbing
+occurrences he began to feel that God was in his heaven and all right
+with the world. At last things were beginning to brighten up a bit, and
+life might be said to have taken on some of the aspects of a good egg.
+He stretched himself, for it is cramping work lying under settees, and,
+proceeding to the bedroom, picked up the tweed trousers again.
+
+Clothes had a fascination for Archie. Another man, in similar
+circumstances, might have hurried over his toilet; but Archie, faced by
+a difficult choice of ties, rather strung the thing out. He selected a
+specimen which did great credit to the taste of Mr. Moon, evidently one
+of our snappiest dressers, found that it did not harmonise with the
+deeper meaning of the tweed suit, removed it, chose another, and was
+adjusting the bow and admiring the effect, when his attention was
+diverted by a slight sound which was half a cough and half a sniff;
+and, turning, found himself gazing into the clear blue eyes of a large
+man in uniform, who had stepped into the room from the fire-escape. He
+was swinging a substantial club in a negligent sort of way, and he
+looked at Archie with a total absence of bonhomie.
+
+“Ah!” he observed.
+
+“Oh, _there_ you are!” said Archie, subsiding weakly against the chest
+of drawers. He gulped. “Of course, I can see you’re thinking all this
+pretty tolerably weird and all that,” he proceeded, in a propitiatory
+voice.
+
+The policeman attempted no analysis of his emotions, He opened a mouth
+which a moment before had looked incapable of being opened except with
+the assistance of powerful machinery, and shouted a single word.
+
+“Cassidy!”
+
+A distant voice gave tongue in answer. It was like alligators roaring
+to their mates across lonely swamps.
+
+There was a rumble of footsteps in the region of the stairs, and
+presently there entered an even larger guardian of the Law than the
+first exhibit. He, too, swung a massive club, and, like his colleague,
+he gazed frostily at Archie.
+
+“God save Ireland!” he remarked.
+
+The words appeared to be more in the nature of an expletive than a
+practical comment on the situation. Having uttered them, he draped
+himself in the doorway like a colossus, and chewed gum.
+
+“Where ja get him?” he enquired, after a pause.
+
+“Found him in here attimpting to disguise himself.”
+
+“I told Cap. he was hiding somewheres, but he would have it that he’d
+beat it down th’ escape,” said the gum-chewer, with the sombre triumph
+of the underling whose sound advice has been overruled by those above
+him. He shifted his wholesome (or, as some say, unwholesome) morsel to
+the other side of his mouth, and for the first time addressed Archie
+directly. “Ye’re pinched!” he observed.
+
+Archie started violently. The bleak directness of the speech roused him
+with a jerk from the dream-like state into which he had fallen. He had
+not anticipated this. He had assumed that there would be a period of
+tedious explanations to be gone through before he was at liberty to
+depart to the cosy little lunch for which his interior had been sighing
+wistfully this long time past; but that he should be arrested had been
+outside his calculations. Of course, he could put everything right
+eventually; he could call witnesses to his character and the purity of
+his intentions; but in the meantime the whole dashed business would be
+in all the papers, embellished with all those unpleasant flippancies to
+which your newspaper reporter is so prone to stoop when he sees half a
+chance. He would feel a frightful chump. Chappies would rot him about
+it to the most fearful extent. Old Brewster’s name would come into it,
+and he could not disguise it from himself that his father-in-law, who
+liked his name in the papers as little as possible, would be sorer than
+a sunburned neck.
+
+“No, I say, you know! I mean, I mean to say!”
+
+“Pinched!” repeated the rather larger policeman.
+
+“And annything ye say,” added his slightly smaller colleague, “will be
+used agenst ya ’t the trial.”
+
+“And if ya try t’escape,” said the first speaker, twiddling his club,
+“ya’ll getja block knocked off.”
+
+And, having sketched out this admirably clear and neatly-constructed
+scenario, the two relapsed into silence. Officer Cassidy restored his
+gum to circulation. Officer Donahue frowned sternly at his boots.
+
+“But, I say,” said Archie, “it’s all a mistake, you know. Absolutely a
+frightful error, my dear old constables. I’m not the lad you’re after
+at all. The chappie you want is a different sort of fellow altogether.
+Another blighter entirely.”
+
+New York policemen never laugh when on duty. There is probably
+something in the regulations against it. But Officer Donahue permitted
+the left corner of his mouth to twitch slightly, and a momentary
+muscular spasm disturbed the calm of Officer Cassidy’s granite
+features, as a passing breeze ruffles the surface of some bottomless
+lake.
+
+“That’s what they all say!” observed Officer Donahue.
+
+“It’s no use tryin’ that line of talk,” said Officer Cassidy.
+“Babcock’s squealed.”
+
+“Sure. Squealed ’s morning,” said Officer Donahue.
+
+Archie’s memory stirred vaguely.
+
+“Babcock?” he said. “Do you know, that name seems familiar to me,
+somehow. I’m almost sure I’ve read it in the paper or something.”
+
+“Ah, cut it out!” said Officer Cassidy, disgustedly. The two constables
+exchanged a glance of austere disapproval. This hypocrisy pained them.
+“Read it in th’ paper or something!”
+
+“By Jove! I remember now. He’s the chappie who was arrested in that
+bond business. For goodness’ sake, my dear, merry old constables,” said
+Archie, astounded, “you surely aren’t labouring under the impression
+that I’m the Master-Mind they were talking about in the paper? Why,
+what an absolutely priceless notion! I mean to say, I ask you, what!
+Frankly, laddies, do I look like a Master-Mind?”
+
+Officer Cassidy heaved a deep sigh, which rumbled up from his interior
+like the first muttering of a cyclone.
+
+“If I’d known,” he said, regretfully, “that this guy was going to turn
+out a ruddy Englishman, I’d have taken a slap at him with m’ stick and
+chanced it!”
+
+Officer Donahue considered the point well taken.
+
+“Ah!” he said, understandingly. He regarded Archie with an unfriendly
+eye. “I know th’ sort well! Trampling on th’ face av th’ poor!”
+
+“Ya c’n trample on the poor man’s face,” said Officer Cassidy,
+severely; “but don’t be surprised if one day he bites you in the leg!”
+
+“But, my dear old sir,” protested Archie, “I’ve never trampled—”
+
+“One of these days,” said Officer Donahue, moodily, “the Shannon will
+flow in blood to the sea!”
+
+“Absolutely! But—”
+
+Officer Cassidy uttered a glad cry.
+
+“Why couldn’t we hit him a lick,” he suggested, brightly, “an’ tell th’
+Cap. he resisted us in th’ exercise of our jooty?”
+
+An instant gleam of approval and enthusiasm came into Officer Donahue’s
+eyes. Officer Donahue was not a man who got these luminous inspirations
+himself, but that did not prevent him appreciating them in others and
+bestowing commendation in the right quarter. There was nothing petty or
+grudging about Officer Donahue.
+
+“Ye’re the lad with the head, Tim!” he exclaimed admiringly.
+
+“It just sorta came to me,” said Mr. Cassidy, modestly.
+
+“It’s a great idea, Timmy!”
+
+“Just happened to think of it,” said Mr. Cassidy, with a coy gesture of
+self-effacement.
+
+Archie had listened to the dialogue with growing uneasiness. Not for
+the first time since he had made their acquaintance, he became vividly
+aware of the exceptional physical gifts of these two men. The New York
+police force demands from those who would join its ranks an extremely
+high standard of stature and sinew, but it was obvious that jolly old
+Donahue and Cassidy must have passed in first shot without any
+difficulty whatever.
+
+“I say, you know,” he observed, apprehensively.
+
+And then a sharp and commanding voice spoke from the outer room.
+
+“Donahue! Cassidy! What the devil does this mean?”
+
+Archie had a momentary impression that an angel had fluttered down to
+his rescue. If this was the case, the angel had assumed an effective
+disguise—that of a police captain. The new arrival was a far smaller
+man than his subordinates—so much smaller that it did Archie good to
+look at him. For a long time he had been wishing that it were possible
+to rest his eyes with the spectacle of something of a slightly less
+out-size nature than his two companions.
+
+“Why have you left your posts?”
+
+The effect of the interruption on the Messrs. Cassidy and Donahue was
+pleasingly instantaneous. They seemed to shrink to almost normal
+proportions, and their manner took on an attractive deference.
+
+Officer Donahue saluted.
+
+“If ye plaze, sorr—”
+
+Officer Cassidy also saluted, simultaneously.
+
+“’Twas like this, sorr—”
+
+The captain froze Officer Cassidy with a glance and, leaving him
+congealed, turned to Officer Donahue.
+
+“Oi wuz standing on th’ fire-escape, sorr,” said Officer Donahue, in a
+tone of obsequious respect which not only delighted, but astounded
+Archie, who hadn’t known he could talk like that, “accordin’ to
+instructions, when I heard a suspicious noise. I crope in, sorr, and
+found this duck—found the accused, sorr—in front of the mirror,
+examinin’ himself. I then called to Officer Cassidy for assistance. We
+pinched—arrested um, sorr.”
+
+The captain looked at Archie. It seemed to Archie that he looked at him
+coldly and with contempt.
+
+“Who is he?”
+
+“The Master-Mind, sorr.”
+
+“The what?”
+
+“The accused, sorr. The man that’s wanted.”
+
+“You may want him. I don’t,” said the captain. Archie, though relieved,
+thought he might have put it more nicely. “This isn’t Moon. It’s not a
+bit like him.”
+
+“Absolutely not!” agreed Archie, cordially. “It’s all a mistake, old
+companion, as I was trying to—”
+
+“Cut it out!”
+
+“Oh, right-o!”
+
+“You’ve seen the photographs at the station. Do you mean to tell me you
+see any resemblance?”
+
+“If ye plaze, sorr,” said Officer Cassidy, coming to life.
+
+“Well?”
+
+“We thought he’d bin disguising himself, the way he wouldn’t be
+recognised.”
+
+“You’re a fool!” said the captain.
+
+“Yes, sorr,” said Officer Cassidy, meekly.
+
+“So are you, Donahue.”
+
+“Yes, sorr.”
+
+Archie’s respect for this chappie was going up all the time. He seemed
+to be able to take years off the lives of these massive blighters with
+a word. It was like the stories you read about lion-tamers. Archie did
+not despair of seeing Officer Donahue and his old college chum Cassidy
+eventually jumping through hoops.
+
+“Who are you?” demanded the captain, turning to Archie.
+
+“Well, my name is—”
+
+“What are you doing here?”
+
+“Well, it’s rather a longish story, you know. Don’t want to bore you,
+and all that.”
+
+“I’m here to listen. You can’t bore _me_.”
+
+“Dashed nice of you to put it like that,” said Archie, gratefully. “I
+mean to say, makes it easier and so forth. What I mean is, you know how
+rotten you feel telling the deuce of a long yarn and wondering if the
+party of the second part is wishing you would turn off the tap and go
+home. I mean—”
+
+“If,” said the captain, “you’re reciting something, stop. If you’re
+trying to tell me what you’re doing here, make it shorter and easier.”
+
+Archie saw his point. Of course, time was money—the modern spirit of
+hustle—all that sort of thing.
+
+“Well, it was this bathing suit, you know,” he said.
+
+“What bathing suit?”
+
+“Mine, don’t you know. A lemon-coloured contrivance. Rather bright and
+so forth, but in its proper place not altogether a bad egg. Well, the
+whole thing started, you know, with my standing on a bally pedestal
+sort of arrangement in a diving attitude—for the cover, you know. I
+don’t know if you have ever done anything of that kind yourself, but it
+gives you a most fearful crick in the spine. However, that’s rather
+beside the point, I suppose—don’t know why I mentioned it. Well, this
+morning he was dashed late, so I went out—”
+
+“What the devil are you talking about?”
+
+Archie looked at him, surprised.
+
+“Aren’t I making it clear?”
+
+“No.”
+
+“Well, you understand about the bathing suit, don’t you? The jolly old
+bathing suit, you’ve grasped that, what?”
+
+“No.”
+
+“Oh, I say,” said Archie. “That’s rather a nuisance. I mean to say, the
+bathing suit’s what you might call the good old pivot of the whole
+dashed affair, you see. Well, you understand about the cover, what?
+You’re pretty clear on the subject of the cover?”
+
+“What cover?”
+
+“Why, for the magazine.”
+
+“What magazine?”
+
+“Now there you rather have me. One of these bright little periodicals,
+you know, that you see popping to and fro on the bookstalls.”
+
+“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” said the captain. He looked
+at Archie with an expression of distrust and hostility. “And I’ll tell
+you straight out I don’t like the looks of you. I believe you’re a pal
+of his.”
+
+“No longer,” said Archie, firmly. “I mean to say, a chappie who makes
+you stand on a bally pedestal sort of arrangement and get a crick in
+the spine, and then doesn’t turn up and leaves you biffing all over the
+countryside in a bathing suit—”
+
+The reintroduction of the bathing suit motive seemed to have the worst
+effect on the captain. He flushed darkly.
+
+“Are you trying to josh me? I’ve a mind to soak you!”
+
+“If ye plaze, sorr,” cried Officer Donahue and Officer Cassidy in
+chorus. In the course of their professional career they did not often
+hear their superior make many suggestions with which they saw eye to
+eye, but he had certainly, in their opinion, spoken a mouthful now.
+
+“No, honestly, my dear old thing, nothing was farther from my
+thoughts—”
+
+He would have spoken further, but at this moment the world came to an
+end. At least, that was how it sounded. Somewhere in the immediate
+neighbourhood something went off with a vast explosion, shattering the
+glass in the window, peeling the plaster from the ceiling, and sending
+him staggering into the inhospitable arms of Officer Donahue.
+
+The three guardians of the Law stared at one another.
+
+“If ye plaze, sorr,” said Officer Cassidy, saluting.
+
+“Well?”
+
+“May I spake, sorr?”
+
+“Well?”
+
+“Something’s exploded, sorr!”
+
+The information, kindly meant though it was, seemed to annoy the
+captain.
+
+“What the devil did you think I thought had happened?” he demanded,
+with not a little irritation, “It was a bomb!”
+
+Archie could have corrected this diagnosis, for already a faint but
+appealing aroma of an alcoholic nature was creeping into the room
+through a hole in the ceiling, and there had risen before his eyes the
+picture of J. B. Wheeler affectionately regarding that barrel of his on
+the previous morning in the studio upstairs. J. B. Wheeler had wanted
+quick results, and he had got them. Archie had long since ceased to
+regard J. B. Wheeler as anything but a tumour on the social system, but
+he was bound to admit that he had certainly done him a good turn now.
+Already these honest men, diverted by the superior attraction of this
+latest happening, appeared to have forgotten his existence.
+
+“Sorr!” said Officer Donahue.
+
+“Well?”
+
+“It came from upstairs, sorr.”
+
+“Of course it came from upstairs. Cassidy!”
+
+“Sorr?”
+
+“Get down into the street, call up the reserves, and stand at the front
+entrance to keep the crowd back. We’ll have the whole city here in five
+minutes.”
+
+“Right, sorr.”
+
+“Don’t let anyone in.”
+
+“No, sorr.”
+
+“Well, see that you don’t. Come along, Donahue, now. Look slippy.”
+
+“On the spot, sorr!” said Officer Donahue.
+
+A moment later Archie had the studio to himself. Two minutes later he
+was picking his way cautiously down the fire-escape after the manner of
+the recent Mr. Moon. Archie had not seen much of Mr. Moon, but he had
+seen enough to know that in certain crises his methods were sound and
+should be followed. Elmer Moon was not a good man; his ethics were poor
+and his moral code shaky; but in the matter of legging it away from a
+situation of peril and discomfort he had no superior.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VII.
+MR. ROSCOE SHERRIFF HAS AN IDEA
+
+
+Archie inserted a fresh cigarette in his long holder and began to smoke
+a little moodily. It was about a week after his disturbing adventures
+in J. B. Wheeler’s studio, and life had ceased for the moment to be a
+thing of careless enjoyment. Mr. Wheeler, mourning over his lost
+home-brew and refusing, like Niobe, to be comforted, has suspended the
+sittings for the magazine cover, thus robbing Archie of his life-work.
+Mr. Brewster had not been in genial mood of late. And, in addition to
+all this, Lucille was away on a visit to a school-friend. And when
+Lucille went away, she took with her the sunshine. Archie was not
+surprised at her being popular and in demand among her friends, but
+that did not help him to become reconciled to her absence.
+
+He gazed rather wistfully across the table at his friend, Roscoe
+Sherriff, the Press-agent, another of his Pen-and-Ink Club
+acquaintances. They had just finished lunch, and during the meal
+Sherriff, who, like most men of action, was fond of hearing the sound
+of his own voice and liked exercising it on the subject of himself, had
+been telling Archie a few anecdotes about his professional past. From
+these the latter had conceived a picture of Roscoe Sherriff’s life as a
+prismatic thing of energy and adventure and well-paid withal—just the
+sort of life, in fact, which he would have enjoyed leading himself. He
+wished that he, too, like the Press-agent, could go about the place
+“slipping things over” and “putting things across.” Daniel Brewster, he
+felt, would have beamed upon a son-in-law like Roscoe Sherriff.
+
+“The more I see of America,” sighed Archie, “the more it amazes me. All
+you birds seem to have been doing things from the cradle upwards. I
+wish I could do things!”
+
+“Well, why don’t you?”
+
+Archie flicked the ash from his cigarette into the finger-bowl.
+
+“Oh, I don’t know, you know,” he said, “Somehow, none of our family
+ever have. I don’t know why it is, but whenever a Moffam starts out to
+do things he infallibly makes a bloomer. There was a Moffam in the
+Middle Ages who had a sudden spasm of energy and set out to make a
+pilgrimage to Jerusalem, dressed as a wandering friar. Rum ideas they
+had in those days.”
+
+“Did he get there?”
+
+“Absolutely not! Just as he was leaving the front door his favourite
+hound mistook him for a tramp—or a varlet, or a scurvy knave, or
+whatever they used to call them at that time—and bit him in the fleshy
+part of the leg.”
+
+“Well, at least he started.”
+
+“Enough to make a chappie start, what?”
+
+Roscoe Sherriff sipped his coffee thoughtfully. He was an apostle of
+Energy, and it seemed to him that he could make a convert of Archie and
+incidentally do himself a bit of good. For several days he had been,
+looking for someone like Archie to help him in a small matter which he
+had in mind.
+
+“If you’re really keen on doing things,” he said, “there’s something
+you can do for me right away.”
+
+Archie beamed. Action was what his soul demanded.
+
+“Anything, dear boy, anything! State your case!”
+
+“Would you have any objection to putting up a snake for me?”
+
+“Putting up a snake?”
+
+“Just for a day or two.”
+
+“But how do you mean, old soul? Put him up where?”
+
+“Wherever you live. Where do you live? The Cosmopolis, isn’t it? Of
+course! You married old Brewster’s daughter. I remember reading about
+it.”
+
+“But, I say, laddie, I don’t want to spoil your day and disappoint you
+and so forth, but my jolly old father-in-law would never let me keep a
+snake. Why, it’s as much as I can do to make him let me stop on in the
+place.”
+
+“He wouldn’t know.”
+
+“There’s not much that goes on in the hotel that he doesn’t know,” said
+Archie, doubtfully.
+
+“He mustn’t know. The whole point of the thing is that it must be a
+dead secret.”
+
+Archie flicked some more ash into the finger-bowl.
+
+“I don’t seem absolutely to have grasped the affair in all its aspects,
+if you know what I mean,” he said. “I mean to say—in the first
+place—why would it brighten your young existence if I entertained this
+snake of yours?”
+
+“It’s not mine. It belongs to Mme. Brudowska. You’ve heard of her, of
+course?”
+
+“Oh yes. She’s some sort of performing snake female in vaudeville or
+something, isn’t she, or something of that species or order?”
+
+“You’re near it, but not quite right. She is the leading exponent of
+high-brow tragedy on any stage in the civilized world.”
+
+“Absolutely! I remember now. My wife lugged me to see her perform one
+night. It all comes back to me. She had me wedged in an orchestra-stall
+before I knew what I was up against, and then it was too late. I
+remember reading in some journal or other that she had a pet snake,
+given her by some Russian prince or other, what?”
+
+“That,” said Sherriff, “was the impression I intended to convey when I
+sent the story to the papers. I’m her Press-agent. As a matter of fact,
+I bought Peter-its name’s Peter-myself down on the East Side. I always
+believe in animals for Press-agent stunts. I’ve nearly always had good
+results. But with Her Nibs I’m handicapped. Shackled, so to speak. You
+might almost say my genius is stifled. Or strangled, if you prefer it.”
+
+“Anything you say,” agreed Archie, courteously, “But how? Why is your
+what-d’you-call-it what’s-its-named?”
+
+“She keeps me on a leash. She won’t let me do anything with a kick in
+it. If I’ve suggested one rip-snorting stunt, I’ve suggested twenty,
+and every time she turns them down on the ground that that sort of
+thing is beneath the dignity of an artist in her position. It doesn’t
+give a fellow a chance. So now I’ve made up my mind to do her good by
+stealth. I’m going to steal her snake.”
+
+“Steal it? Pinch it, as it were?”
+
+“Yes. Big story for the papers, you see. She’s grown very much attached
+to Peter. He’s her mascot. I believe she’s practically kidded herself
+into believing that Russian prince story. If I can sneak it away and
+keep it away for a day or two, she’ll do the rest. She’ll make such a
+fuss that the papers will be full of it.”
+
+“I see.”
+
+“Wow, any ordinary woman would work in with me. But not Her Nibs. She
+would call it cheap and degrading and a lot of other things. It’s got
+to be a genuine steal, and, if I’m caught at it, I lose my job. So
+that’s where you come in.”
+
+“But where am I to keep the jolly old reptile?”
+
+“Oh, anywhere. Punch a few holes in a hat-box, and make it up a
+shakedown inside. It’ll be company for you.”
+
+“Something in that. My wife’s away just now and it’s a bit lonely in
+the evenings.”
+
+“You’ll never be lonely with Peter around. He’s a great scout. Always
+merry and bright.”
+
+“He doesn’t bite, I suppose, or sting or what-not?”
+
+“He may what-not occasionally. It depends on the weather. But, outside
+of that, he’s as harmless as a canary.”
+
+“Dashed dangerous things, canaries,” said Archie, thoughtfully. “They
+peck at you.”
+
+“Don’t weaken!” pleaded the Press-agent
+
+“Oh, all right. I’ll take him. By the way, touching the matter of
+browsing and sluicing. What do I feed him on?”
+
+“Oh, anything. Bread-and-milk or fruit or soft-boiled egg or
+dog-biscuit or ants’-eggs. You know—anything you have yourself. Well,
+I’m much obliged for your hospitality. I’ll do the same for you another
+time. Now I must be getting along to see to the practical end of the
+thing. By the way, Her Nibs lives at the Cosmopolis, too. Very
+convenient. Well, so long. See you later.”
+
+Archie, left alone, began for the first time to have serious doubts. He
+had allowed himself to be swayed by Mr. Sherriff’s magnetic
+personality, but now that the other had removed himself he began to
+wonder if he had been entirely wise to lend his sympathy and
+co-operation to the scheme. He had never had intimate dealings with a
+snake before, but he had kept silkworms as a child, and there had been
+the deuce of a lot of fuss and unpleasantness over them. Getting into
+the salad and what-not. Something seemed to tell him that he was asking
+for trouble with a loud voice, but he had given his word and he
+supposed he would have to go through with it.
+
+He lit another cigarette and wandered out into Fifth Avenue. His
+usually smooth brow was ruffled with care. Despite the eulogies which
+Sherriff had uttered concerning Peter, he found his doubts increasing.
+Peter might, as the Press-agent had stated, be a great scout, but was
+his little Garden of Eden on the fifth floor of the Cosmopolis Hotel
+likely to be improved by the advent of even the most amiable and
+winsome of serpents? However—
+
+“Moffam! My dear fellow!”
+
+The voice, speaking suddenly in his ear from behind, roused Archie from
+his reflections. Indeed, it roused him so effectually that he jumped a
+clear inch off the ground and bit his tongue. Revolving on his axis, he
+found himself confronting a middle-aged man with a face like a horse.
+The man was dressed in something of an old-world style. His clothes had
+an English cut. He had a drooping grey moustache. He also wore a grey
+bowler hat flattened at the crown—but who are we to judge him?
+
+“Archie Moffam! I have been trying to find you all the morning.”
+
+Archie had placed him now. He had not seen General Mannister for
+several years—not, indeed, since the days when he used to meet him at
+the home of young Lord Seacliff, his nephew. Archie had been at Eton
+and Oxford with Seacliff, and had often visited him in the Long
+Vacation.
+
+“Halloa, General! What ho, what ho! What on earth are you doing over
+here?”
+
+“Let’s get out of this crush, my boy.” General Mannister steered Archie
+into a side-street, “That’s better.” He cleared his throat once or
+twice, as if embarrassed. “I’ve brought Seacliff over,” he said,
+finally.
+
+“Dear old Squiffy here? Oh, I say! Great work!”
+
+General Mannister did not seem to share his enthusiasm. He looked like
+a horse with a secret sorrow. He coughed three times, like a horse who,
+in addition to a secret sorrow, had contracted asthma.
+
+“You will find Seacliff changed,” he said. “Let me see, how long is it
+since you and he met?”
+
+Archie reflected.
+
+“I was demobbed just about a year ago. I saw him in Paris about a year
+before that. The old egg got a bit of shrapnel in his foot or
+something, didn’t he? Anyhow, I remember he was sent home.”
+
+“His foot is perfectly well again now. But, unfortunately, the enforced
+inaction led to disastrous results. You recollect, no doubt, that
+Seacliff always had a—a tendency;—a—a weakness—it was a family
+failing—”
+
+“Mopping it up, do you mean? Shifting it? Looking on the jolly old
+stuff when it was red and what not, what?”
+
+“Exactly.”
+
+Archie nodded.
+
+“Dear old Squiffy was always rather a lad for the wassail-bowl. When I
+met him in Paris, I remember, he was quite tolerably blotto.”
+
+“Precisely. And the failing has, I regret to say, grown on him since he
+returned from the war. My poor sister was extremely worried. In fact,
+to cut a long story short, I induced him to accompany me to America. I
+am attached to the British Legation in Washington now, you know.”
+
+“Oh, really?”
+
+“I wished Seacliff to come with me to Washington, but he insists on
+remaining in New York. He stated specifically that the thought of
+living in Washington gave him the—what was the expression he used?”
+
+“The pip?”
+
+“The pip. Precisely.”
+
+“But what was the idea of bringing him to America?”
+
+“This admirable Prohibition enactment has rendered America—to my
+mind—the ideal place for a young man of his views.” The General looked
+at his watch. “It is most fortunate that I happened to run into you, my
+dear fellow. My train for Washington leaves in another hour, and I have
+packing to do. I want to leave poor Seacliff in your charge while I am
+gone.”
+
+“Oh, I say! What!”
+
+“You can look after him. I am credibly informed that even now there are
+places in New York where a determined young man may obtain
+the—er—stuff, and I should be infinitely obliged—and my poor sister
+would be infinitely grateful—if you would keep an eye on him.” He
+hailed a taxi-cab. “I am sending Seacliff round to the Cosmopolis
+to-night. I am sure you will do everything you can. Good-bye, my boy,
+good-bye.”
+
+Archie continued his walk. This, he felt, was beginning to be a bit
+thick. He smiled a bitter, mirthless smile as he recalled the fact that
+less than half an hour had elapsed since he had expressed a regret that
+he did not belong to the ranks of those who do things. Fate since then
+had certainly supplied him with jobs with a lavish hand. By bed-time he
+would be an active accomplice to a theft, valet and companion to a
+snake he had never met, and—as far as could gather the scope of his
+duties—a combination of nursemaid and private detective to dear old
+Squiffy.
+
+It was past four o’clock when he returned to the Cosmopolis. Roscoe
+Sherriff was pacing the lobby of the hotel nervously, carrying a small
+hand-bag.
+
+“Here you are at last! Good heavens, man, I’ve been waiting two hours.”
+
+“Sorry, old bean. I was musing a bit and lost track of the time.”
+
+The Press-agent looked cautiously round. There was nobody within
+earshot.
+
+“Here he is!” he said.
+
+“Who?”
+
+“Peter.”
+
+“Where?” said Archie, staring blankly.
+
+“In this bag. Did you expect to find him strolling arm-in-arm with me
+round the lobby? Here you are! Take him!”
+
+He was gone. And Archie, holding the bag, made his way to the lift. The
+bag squirmed gently in his grip.
+
+The only other occupant of the lift was a striking-looking woman of
+foreign appearance, dressed in a way that made Archie feel that she
+must be somebody or she couldn’t look like that. Her face, too, seemed
+vaguely familiar. She entered the lift at the second floor where the
+tea-room is, and she had the contented expression of one who had tea’d
+to her satisfaction. She got off at the same floor as Archie, and
+walked swiftly, in a lithe, pantherish way, round the bend in the
+corridor. Archie followed more slowly. When he reached the door of his
+room, the passage was empty. He inserted the key in his door, turned
+it, pushed the door open, and pocketed the key. He was about to enter
+when the bag again squirmed gently in his grip.
+
+From the days of Pandora, through the epoch of Bluebeard’s wife, down
+to the present time, one of the chief failings of humanity has been the
+disposition to open things that were better closed. It would have been
+simple for Archie to have taken another step and put a door between
+himself and the world, but there came to him the irresistible desire to
+peep into the bag now—not three seconds later, but now. All the way up
+in the lift he had been battling with the temptation, and now he
+succumbed.
+
+The bag was one of those simple bags with a thingummy which you press.
+Archie pressed it. And, as it opened, out popped the head of Peter. His
+eyes met Archie’s. Over his head there seemed to be an invisible mark
+of interrogation. His gaze was curious, but kindly. He appeared to be
+saying to himself, “Have I found a friend?”
+
+Serpents, or Snakes, says the Encyclopaedia, are reptiles of the
+saurian class Ophidia, characterised by an elongated, cylindrical,
+limbless, scaly form, and distinguished from lizards by the fact that
+the halves (_rami_) of the lower jaw are not solidly united at the
+chin, but movably connected by an elastic ligament. The vertebra are
+very numerous, gastrocentrous, and procoelous. And, of course, when
+they put it like that, you can see at once that a man might spend hours
+with combined entertainment and profit just looking at a snake.
+
+Archie would no doubt have done this; but long before he had time
+really to inspect the halves (_rami_) of his new friend’s lower jaw and
+to admire its elastic fittings, and long before the gastrocentrous and
+procoelous character of the other’s vertebrae had made any real
+impression on him, a piercing scream almost at his elbow—startled him
+out of his scientific reverie. A door opposite had opened, and the
+woman of the elevator was standing staring at him with an expression of
+horror and fury that went through, him like a knife. It was the
+expression which, more than anything else, had made Mme. Brudowska what
+she was professionally. Combined with a deep voice and a sinuous walk,
+it enabled her to draw down a matter of a thousand dollars per week.
+
+Indeed, though the fact gave him little pleasure, Archie, as a matter
+of fact, was at this moment getting about—including war-tax—two dollars
+and seventy-five cents worth of the great emotional star for nothing.
+For, having treated him gratis to the look of horror and fury, she now
+moved towards him with the sinuous walk and spoke in the tone which she
+seldom permitted herself to use before the curtain of act two, unless
+there was a whale of a situation that called for it in act one.
+
+“Thief!”
+
+It was the way she said it.
+
+Archie staggered backwards as though he had been hit between the eyes,
+fell through the open door of his room, kicked it to with a flying
+foot, and collapsed on the bed. Peter, the snake, who had fallen on the
+floor with a squashy sound, looked surprised and pained for a moment;
+then, being a philosopher at heart, cheered up and began hunting for
+flies under the bureau.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VIII.
+A DISTURBED NIGHT FOR DEAR OLD SQUIFFY
+
+
+Peril sharpens the intellect. Archie’s mind as a rule worked in rather
+a languid and restful sort of way, but now it got going with a rush and
+a whir. He glared round the room. He had never seen a room so devoid of
+satisfactory cover. And then there came to him a scheme, a ruse. It
+offered a chance of escape. It was, indeed, a bit of all right.
+
+Peter, the snake, loafing contentedly about the carpet, found himself
+seized by what the Encyclopaedia calls the “distensible gullet” and
+looked up reproachfully. The next moment he was in his bag again; and
+Archie, bounding silently into the bathroom, was tearing the cord off
+his dressing-gown.
+
+There came a banging at the door. A voice spoke sternly. A masculine
+voice this time.
+
+“Say! Open this door!”
+
+Archie rapidly attached the dressing-gown cord to the handle of the
+bag, leaped to the window, opened it, tied the cord to a projecting
+piece of iron on the sill, lowered Peter and the bag into the depths,
+and closed the window again. The whole affair took but a few seconds.
+Generals have received the thanks of their nations for displaying less
+resource on the field of battle.
+
+He opened the door. Outside stood the bereaved woman, and beside her a
+bullet-headed gentleman with a bowler hat on the back of his head, in
+whom Archie recognised the hotel detective.
+
+The hotel detective also recognised Archie, and the stern cast of his
+features relaxed. He even smiled a rusty but propitiatory smile. He
+imagined—erroneously—that Archie, being the son-in-law of the owner of
+the hotel, had a pull with that gentleman; and he resolved to proceed
+warily lest he jeopardise his job.
+
+“Why, Mr. Moffam!” he said, apologetically. “I didn’t know it was you I
+was disturbing.”
+
+“Always glad to have a chat,” said Archie, cordially. “What seems to be
+the trouble?”
+
+“My snake!” cried the queen of tragedy. “Where is my snake?”
+
+Archie, looked at the detective. The detective looked at Archie.
+
+“This lady,” said the detective, with a dry little cough, “thinks her
+snake is in your room, Mr. Moffam.”
+
+“Snake?”
+
+“Snake’s what the lady said.”
+
+“My snake! My Peter!” Mme. Brudowska’s voice shook with emotion. “He is
+here—here in this room.”
+
+Archie shook his head.
+
+“No snakes here! Absolutely not! I remember noticing when I came in.”
+
+“The snake is here—here in this room. This man had it in a bag! I saw
+him! He is a thief!”
+
+“Easy, ma’am!” protested the detective. “Go easy! This gentleman is the
+boss’s son-in-law.”
+
+“I care not who he is! He has my snake! Here—here in this room!”
+
+“Mr. Moffam wouldn’t go round stealing snakes.”
+
+“Rather not,” said Archie. “Never stole a snake in my life. None of the
+Moffams have ever gone about stealing snakes. Regular family tradition!
+Though I once had an uncle who kept gold-fish.”
+
+“Here he is! Here! My Peter!”
+
+Archie looked at the detective. The detective looked at Archie. “We
+must humour her!” their glances said.
+
+“Of course,” said Archie, “if you’d like to search the room, what? What
+I mean to say is, this is Liberty Hall. Everybody welcome! Bring the
+kiddies!”
+
+“I will search the room!” said Mme. Brudowska.
+
+The detective glanced apologetically at Archie.
+
+“Don’t blame me for this, Mr. Moffam,” he urged.
+
+“Rather not! Only too glad you’ve dropped in!”
+
+He took up an easy attitude against the window, and watched the empress
+of the emotional drama explore. Presently she desisted, baffled. For an
+instant she paused, as though about to speak, then swept from the room.
+A moment later a door banged across the passage.
+
+“How do they get that way?” queried the detective, “Well, g’bye, Mr.
+Moffam. Sorry to have butted in.”
+
+The door closed. Archie waited a few moments, then went to the window
+and hauled in the slack. Presently the bag appeared over the edge of
+the window-sill.
+
+“Good God!” said Archie.
+
+In the rush and swirl of recent events he must have omitted to see that
+the clasp that fastened the bag was properly closed; for the bag, as it
+jumped on to the window-sill, gaped at him like a yawning face. And
+inside it there was nothing.
+
+Archie leaned as far out of the window as he could manage without
+committing suicide. Far below him, the traffic took its usual course
+and the pedestrians moved to and fro upon the pavements. There was no
+crowding, no excitement. Yet only a few moments before a long green
+snake with three hundred ribs, a distensible gullet, and gastrocentrous
+vertebras must have descended on that street like the gentle rain from
+Heaven upon the place beneath. And nobody seemed even interested. Not
+for the first time since he had arrived in America, Archie marvelled at
+the cynical detachment of the New Yorker, who permits himself to be
+surprised at nothing.
+
+He shut the window and moved away with a heavy heart. He had not had
+the pleasure of an extended acquaintanceship with Peter, but he had
+seen enough of him to realise his sterling qualities. Somewhere beneath
+Peter’s three hundred ribs there had lain a heart of gold, and Archie
+mourned for his loss.
+
+Archie had a dinner and theatre engagement that night, and it was late
+when he returned to the hotel. He found his father-in-law prowling
+restlessly about the lobby. There seemed to be something on Mr.
+Brewster’s mind. He came up to Archie with a brooding frown on his
+square face.
+
+“Who’s this man Seacliff?” he demanded, without preamble. “I hear he’s
+a friend of yours.”
+
+“Oh, you’ve met him, what?” said Archie. “Had a nice little chat
+together, yes? Talked of this and that, no!”
+
+“We have not said a word to each other.”
+
+“Really? Oh, well, dear old Squiffy is one of those strong, silent
+fellers you know. You mustn’t mind if he’s a bit dumb. He never says
+much, but it’s whispered round the clubs that he thinks a lot. It was
+rumoured in the spring of nineteen-thirteen that Squiffy was on the
+point of making a bright remark, but it never came to anything.”
+
+Mr. Brewster struggled with his feelings.
+
+“Who _is_ he? You seem to know him.”
+
+“Oh yes. Great pal of mine, Squiffy. We went through Eton, Oxford, and
+the Bankruptcy Court together. And here’s a rummy coincidence. When
+they examined _me_, I had no assets. And, when they examined Squiffy,
+_he_ had no assets! Rather extraordinary, what?”
+
+Mr. Brewster seemed to be in no mood for discussing coincidences.
+
+“I might have known he was a friend of yours!” he said, bitterly.
+“Well, if you want to see him, you’ll have to do it outside my hotel.”
+
+“Why, I thought he was stopping here.”
+
+“He is—to-night. To-morrow he can look for some other hotel to break
+up.”
+
+“Great Scot! Has dear old Squiffy been breaking the place up?”
+
+Mr. Brewster snorted.
+
+“I am informed that this precious friend of yours entered my grill-room
+at eight o’clock. He must have been completely intoxicated, though the
+head waiter tells me he noticed nothing at the time.”
+
+Archie nodded approvingly.
+
+“Dear old Squiffy was always like that. It’s a gift. However woozled he
+might be, it was impossible to detect it with the naked eye. I’ve seen
+the dear old chap many a time whiffled to the eyebrows, and looking as
+sober as a bishop. Soberer! When did it begin to dawn on the lads in
+the grill-room that the old egg had been pushing the boat out?”
+
+“The head waiter,” said Mr. Brewster, with cold fury, “tells me that he
+got a hint of the man’s condition when he suddenly got up from his
+table and went the round of the room, pulling off all the table-cloths,
+and breaking everything that was on them. He then threw a number of
+rolls at the diners, and left. He seems to have gone straight to bed.”
+
+“Dashed sensible of him, what? Sound, practical chap, Squiffy. But
+where on earth did he get the—er—materials?”
+
+“From his room. I made enquiries. He has six large cases in his room.”
+
+“Squiffy always was a chap of infinite resource! Well, I’m dashed sorry
+this should have happened, don’t you know.”
+
+“If it hadn’t been for you, the man would never have come here.” Mr.
+Brewster brooded coldly. “I don’t know why it is, but ever since you
+came to this hotel I’ve had nothing but trouble.”
+
+“Dashed sorry!” said Archie, sympathetically.
+
+“Grrh!” said Mr. Brewster.
+
+Archie made his way meditatively to the lift. The injustice of his
+father-in-law’s attitude pained him. It was absolutely rotten and all
+that to be blamed for everything that went wrong in the Hotel
+Cosmopolis.
+
+While this conversation was in progress, Lord Seacliff was enjoying a
+refreshing sleep in his room on the fourth floor. Two hours passed. The
+noise of the traffic in the street below faded away. Only the rattle of
+an occasional belated cab broke the silence. In the hotel all was
+still. Mr. Brewster had gone to bed. Archie, in his room, smoked
+meditatively. Peace may have been said to reign.
+
+At half-past two Lord Seacliff awoke. His hours of slumber were always
+irregular. He sat up in bed and switched the light on. He was a
+shock-headed young man with a red face and a hot brown eye. He yawned
+and stretched himself. His head was aching a little. The room seemed to
+him a trifle close. He got out of bed and threw open the window. Then,
+returning to bed, he picked up a book and began to read. He was
+conscious of feeling a little jumpy, and reading generally sent him to
+sleep.
+
+Much has been written on the subject of bed-books. The general
+consensus of opinion is that a gentle, slow-moving story makes the best
+opiate. If this be so, dear old Squiffy’s choice of literature had been
+rather injudicious. His book was _The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes_,
+and the particular story which he selected for perusal was the one
+entitled, “The Speckled Band.” He was not a great reader, but, when he
+read, he liked something with a bit of zip to it.
+
+Squiffy became absorbed. He had read the story before, but a long time
+back, and its complications were fresh to him. The tale, it may be
+remembered, deals with the activities of an ingenious gentleman who
+kept a snake, and used to loose it into people’s bedrooms as a
+preliminary to collecting on their insurance. It gave Squiffy pleasant
+thrills, for he had always had a particular horror of snakes. As a
+child, he had shrunk from visiting the serpent house at the Zoo; and,
+later, when he had come to man’s estate and had put off childish
+things, and settled down in real earnest to his self-appointed mission
+of drinking up all the alcoholic fluid in England, the distaste for
+Ophidia had lingered. To a dislike for real snakes had been added a
+maturer shrinking from those which existed only in his imagination. He
+could still recall his emotions on the occasion, scarcely three months
+before, when he had seen a long, green serpent which a majority of his
+contemporaries had assured him wasn’t there.
+
+Squiffy read on:—
+
+“Suddenly another sound became audible—a very gentle, soothing sound,
+like that of a small jet of steam escaping continuously from a kettle.”
+
+
+Lord Seacliff looked up from his book with a start. Imagination was
+beginning to play him tricks. He could have sworn that he had actually
+heard that identical sound. It had seemed to come from the window. He
+listened again. No! All was still. He returned to his book and went on
+reading.
+
+“It was a singular sight that met our eyes. Beside the table, on a
+wooden chair, sat Doctor Grimesby Rylott, clad in a long dressing-gown.
+His chin was cocked upward and his eyes were fixed in a dreadful, rigid
+stare at the corner of the ceiling. Round his brow he had a peculiar
+yellow band, with brownish speckles, which seemed to be bound tightly
+round his head.”
+    “I took a step forward. In an instant his strange head-gear began
+    to move, and there reared itself from among his hair the squat,
+    diamond-shaped head and puffed neck of a loathsome serpent...”
+
+
+“Ugh!” said Squiffy.
+
+He closed the book and put it down. His head was aching worse than
+ever. He wished now that he had read something else. No fellow could
+read himself to sleep with this sort of thing. People ought not to
+write this sort of thing.
+
+His heart gave a bound. There it was again, that hissing sound. And
+this time he was sure it came from the window.
+
+He looked at the window, and remained staring, frozen. Over the sill,
+with a graceful, leisurely movement, a green snake was crawling. As it
+crawled, it raised its head and peered from side to side, like a
+shortsighted man looking for his spectacles. It hesitated a moment on
+the edge of the sill, then wriggled to the floor and began to cross the
+room. Squiffy stared on.
+
+It would have pained Peter deeply, for he was a snake of great
+sensibility, if he had known how much his entrance had disturbed the
+occupant of the room. He himself had no feeling but gratitude for the
+man who had opened the window and so enabled him to get in out of the
+rather nippy night air. Ever since the bag had swung open and shot him
+out onto the sill of the window below Archie’s, he had been waiting
+patiently for something of the kind to happen. He was a snake who took
+things as they came, and was prepared to rough it a bit if necessary;
+but for the last hour or two he had been hoping that somebody would do
+something practical in the way of getting him in out of the cold. When
+at home, he had an eiderdown quilt to sleep on, and the stone of the
+window-sill was a little trying to a snake of regular habits. He
+crawled thankfully across the floor under Squiffy’s bed. There was a
+pair of trousers there, for his host had undressed when not in a frame
+of mind to fold his clothes neatly and place them upon a chair. Peter
+looked the trousers over. They were not an eiderdown quilt, but they
+would serve. He curled up in them and went to sleep. He had had an
+exciting day, and was glad to turn in.
+
+After about ten minutes, the tension of Squiffy’s attitude relaxed. His
+heart, which had seemed to suspend its operations, began beating again.
+Reason reasserted itself. He peeped cautiously under the bed. He could
+see nothing.
+
+Squiffy was convinced. He told himself that he had never really
+believed in Peter as a living thing. It stood to reason that there
+couldn’t really be a snake in his room. The window looked out on
+emptiness. His room was several stories above the ground. There was a
+stern, set expression on Squiffy’s face as he climbed out of bed. It
+was the expression of a man who is turning over a new leaf, starting a
+new life. He looked about the room for some implement which would carry
+out the deed he had to do, and finally pulled out one of the
+curtain-rods. Using this as a lever, he broke open the topmost of the
+six cases which stood in the corner. The soft wood cracked and split.
+Squiffy drew out a straw-covered bottle. For a moment he stood looking
+at it, as a man might gaze at a friend on the point of death. Then,
+with a sudden determination, he went into the bathroom. There was a
+crash of glass and a gurgling sound.
+
+Half an hour later the telephone in Archie’s room rang. “I say, Archie,
+old top,” said the voice of Squiffy.
+
+“Halloa, old bean! Is that you?”
+
+“I say, could you pop down here for a second? I’m rather upset.”
+
+“Absolutely! Which room?”
+
+“Four-forty-one.”
+
+“I’ll be with you eftsoons or right speedily.”
+
+“Thanks, old man.”
+
+“What appears to be the difficulty?”
+
+“Well, as a matter of fact, I thought I saw a snake!”
+
+“A snake!”
+
+“I’ll tell you all about it when you come down.”
+
+Archie found Lord Seacliff seated on his bed. An arresting aroma of
+mixed drinks pervaded the atmosphere.
+
+“I say! What?” said Archie, inhaling.
+
+“That’s all right. I’ve been pouring my stock away. Just finished the
+last bottle.”
+
+“But why?”
+
+“I told you. I thought I saw a snake!”
+
+“Green?”
+
+Squiffy shivered slightly.
+
+“Frightfully green!”
+
+Archie hesitated. He perceived that there are moments when silence is
+the best policy. He had been worrying himself over the unfortunate case
+of his friend, and now that Fate seemed to have provided a solution, it
+would be rash to interfere merely to ease the old bean’s mind. If
+Squiffy was going to reform because he thought he had seen an imaginary
+snake, better not to let him know that the snake was a real one.
+
+“Dashed serious!” he said.
+
+“Bally dashed serious!” agreed Squiffy. “I’m going to cut it out!”
+
+“Great scheme!”
+
+“You don’t think,” asked Squiffy, with a touch of hopefulness, “that it
+could have been a real snake?”
+
+“Never heard of the management supplying them.”
+
+“I thought it went under the bed.”
+
+“Well, take a look.”
+
+Squiffy shuddered.
+
+“Not me! I say, old top, you know, I simply can’t sleep in this room
+now. I was wondering if you could give me a doss somewhere in yours.”
+
+“Rather! I’m in five-forty-one. Just above. Trot along up. Here’s the
+key. I’ll tidy up a bit here, and join you in a minute.”
+
+Squiffy put on a dressing-gown and disappeared. Archie looked under the
+bed. From the trousers the head of Peter popped up with its usual
+expression of amiable enquiry. Archie nodded pleasantly, and sat down
+on the bed. The problem of his little friend’s immediate future wanted
+thinking over.
+
+He lit a cigarette and remained for a while in thought. Then he rose.
+An admirable solution had presented itself. He picked Peter up and
+placed him in the pocket of his dressing-gown. Then, leaving the room,
+he mounted the stairs till he reached the seventh floor. Outside a room
+half-way down the corridor he paused.
+
+From within, through the open transom, came the rhythmical snoring of a
+good man taking his rest after the labours of the day. Mr. Brewster was
+always a heavy sleeper.
+
+“There’s always a way,” thought Archie, philosophically, “if a chappie
+only thinks of it.”
+
+His father-in-law’s snoring took on a deeper note. Archie extracted
+Peter from his pocket and dropped him gently through the transom.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER IX.
+A LETTER FROM PARKER
+
+
+As the days went by and he settled down at the Hotel Cosmopolis,
+Archie, looking about him and revising earlier judgments, was inclined
+to think that of all his immediate circle he most admired Parker, the
+lean, grave valet of Mr. Daniel Brewster. Here was a man who, living in
+the closest contact with one of the most difficult persons in New York,
+contrived all the while to maintain an unbowed head, and, as far as one
+could gather from appearances, a tolerably cheerful disposition. A
+great man, judge him by what standard you pleased. Anxious as he was to
+earn an honest living, Archie would not have changed places with Parker
+for the salary of a movie-star.
+
+It was Parker who first directed Archie’s attention to the hidden
+merits of Pongo. Archie had drifted into his father-in-law’s suite one
+morning, as he sometimes did in the effort to establish more amicable
+relations, and had found it occupied only by the valet, who was dusting
+the furniture and bric-a-brac with a feather broom rather in the style
+of a man-servant at the rise of the curtain of an old-fashioned farce.
+After a courteous exchange of greetings, Archie sat down and lit a
+cigarette. Parker went on dusting.
+
+“The guv’nor,” said Parker, breaking the silence, “has some nice little
+objay dar, sir.”
+
+“Little what?”
+
+“Objay dar, sir.”
+
+Light dawned upon Archie.
+
+“Of course, yes. French for junk. I see what you mean now. Dare say
+you’re right, old friend. Don’t know much about these things myself.”
+
+Parker gave an appreciative flick at a vase on the mantelpiece.
+
+“Very valuable, some of the guv’nor’s things.” He had picked up the
+small china figure of the warrior with the spear, and was grooming it
+with the ostentatious care of one brushing flies off a sleeping Venus.
+He regarded this figure with a look of affectionate esteem which seemed
+to Archie absolutely uncalled-for. Archie’s taste in Art was not
+precious. To his untutored eye the thing was only one degree less foul
+than his father-in-law’s Japanese prints, which he had always observed
+with silent loathing. “This one, now,” continued Parker. “Worth a lot
+of money. Oh, a lot of money.”
+
+“What, Pongo?” said Archie incredulously.
+
+“Sir?”
+
+“I always call that rummy-looking what-not Pongo. Don’t know what else
+you could call him, what!”
+
+The valet seemed to disapprove of this levity. He shook his head and
+replaced the figure on the mantelpiece.
+
+“Worth a lot of money,” he repeated. “Not by itself, no.”
+
+“Oh, not by itself?”
+
+“No, sir. Things like this come in pairs. Somewhere or other there’s
+the companion-piece to this here, and if the guv’nor could get hold of
+it, he’d have something worth having. Something that connoozers would
+give a lot of money for. But one’s no good without the other. You have
+to have both, if you understand my meaning, sir.”
+
+“I see. Like filling a straight flush, what?”
+
+“Precisely, sir.”
+
+Archie gazed at Pongo again, with the dim hope of discovering virtues
+not immediately apparent to the casual observer. But without success.
+Pongo left him cold—even chilly. He would not have taken Pongo as a
+gift, to oblige a dying friend.
+
+“How much would the pair be worth?” he asked. “Ten dollars?”
+
+Parker smiled a gravely superior smile. “A leetle more than that, sir.
+Several thousand dollars, more like it.”
+
+“Do you mean to say,” said Archie, with honest amazement, “that there
+are chumps going about loose—absolutely loose—who would pay that for a
+weird little object like Pongo?”
+
+“Undoubtedly, sir. These antique china figures are in great demand
+among collectors.”
+
+Archie looked at Pongo once more, and shook his head.
+
+“Well, well, well! It takes all sorts to make a world, what!”
+
+What might be called the revival of Pongo, the restoration of Pongo to
+the ranks of the things that matter, took place several weeks later,
+when Archie was making holiday at the house which his father-in-law had
+taken for the summer at Brookport. The curtain of the second act may be
+said to rise on Archie strolling back from the golf-links in the cool
+of an August evening. From time to time he sang slightly, and wondered
+idly if Lucille would put the finishing touch upon the all-rightness of
+everything by coming to meet him and sharing his homeward walk.
+
+She came in view at this moment, a trim little figure in a white skirt
+and a pale blue sweater. She waved to Archie; and Archie, as always at
+the sight of her, was conscious of that jumpy, fluttering sensation
+about the heart, which, translated into words, would have formed the
+question, “What on earth could have made a girl like that fall in love
+with a chump like me?” It was a question which he was continually
+asking himself, and one which was perpetually in the mind also of Mr.
+Brewster, his father-in-law. The matter of Archie’s unworthiness to be
+the husband of Lucille was practically the only one on which the two
+men saw eye to eye.
+
+“Hallo—allo—allo!” said Archie. “Here we are, what! I was just hoping
+you would drift over the horizon.”
+
+Lucille kissed him.
+
+“You’re a darling,” she said. “And you look like a Greek god in that
+suit.”
+
+“Glad you like it.” Archie squinted with some complacency down his
+chest. “I always say it doesn’t matter what you pay for a suit, so long
+as it’s _right_. I hope your jolly old father will feel that way when
+he settles up for it.”
+
+“Where is father? Why didn’t he come back with you?”
+
+“Well, as a matter of fact, he didn’t seem any too keen on my company.
+I left him in the locker-room chewing a cigar. Gave me the impression
+of having something on his mind.”
+
+“Oh, Archie! You didn’t beat him _again?_”
+
+Archie looked uncomfortable. He gazed out to sea with something of
+embarrassment.
+
+“Well, as a matter of fact, old thing, to be absolutely frank, I, as it
+were, did!”
+
+“Not badly?”
+
+“Well, yes! I rather fancy I put it across him with some vim and not a
+little emphasis. To be perfectly accurate, I licked him by ten and
+eight.”
+
+“But you promised me you would let him beat you to-day. You know how
+pleased it would have made him.”
+
+“I know. But, light of my soul, have you any idea how dashed difficult
+it is to get beaten by your festive parent at golf?”
+
+“Oh, well!” Lucille sighed. “It can’t be helped, I suppose.” She felt
+in the pocket of her sweater. “Oh, there’s a letter for you. I’ve just
+been to fetch the mail. I don’t know who it can be from. The
+handwriting looks like a vampire’s. Kind of scrawly.”
+
+Archie inspected the envelope. It provided no solution.
+
+“That’s rummy! Who could be writing to me?”
+
+“Open it and see.”
+
+“Dashed bright scheme! I will, Herbert Parker. Who the deuce is Herbert
+Parker?”
+
+“Parker? Father’s valet’s name was Parker. The one he dismissed when he
+found he was wearing his shirts.”
+
+“Do you mean to say any reasonable chappie would willingly wear the
+sort of shirts your father—? I mean to say, there must have been some
+mistake.”
+
+“Do read the letter. I expect he wants to use your influence with
+father to have him taken back.”
+
+“_My_ influence? With your _father_? Well, I’m dashed. Sanguine sort of
+Johnny, if he does. Well, here’s what he says. Of course, I remember
+jolly old Parker now—great pal of mine.”
+
+Dear Sir,—It is some time since the undersigned had the honour of
+conversing with you, but I am respectfully trusting that you may recall
+me to mind when I mention that until recently I served Mr. Brewster,
+your father-in-law, in the capacity of valet. Owing to an unfortunate
+misunderstanding, I was dismissed from that position and am now
+temporarily out of a job. “How art thou fallen from Heaven, O Lucifer,
+son of the morning!” (Isaiah xiv. 12.)
+
+
+“You know,” said Archie, admiringly, “this bird is hot stuff! I mean to
+say he writes dashed well.”
+
+It is not, however, with my own affairs that I desire to trouble you,
+dear sir. I have little doubt that all will be well with me and that I
+shall not fall like a sparrow to the ground. “I have been young and now
+am old; yet have I not seen the righteous forsaken, nor his seed
+begging bread” (Psalms xxxvii. 25). My object in writing to you is as
+follows. You may recall that I had the pleasure of meeting you one
+morning in Mr. Brewster’s suite, when we had an interesting talk on the
+subject of Mr. B.’s _objets d’art_. You may recall being particularly
+interested in a small china figure. To assist your memory, the figure
+to which I allude is the one which you whimsically referred to as
+Pongo. I informed you, if you remember, that, could the accompanying
+figure be secured, the pair would be extremely valuable.
+    I am glad to say, dear sir, that this has now transpired, and is on
+    view at Beale’s Art Galleries on West Forty-Fifth Street, where it
+    will be sold to-morrow at auction, the sale commencing at
+    two-thirty sharp. If Mr. Brewster cares to attend, he will, I
+    fancy, have little trouble in securing it at a reasonable price. I
+    confess that I had thought of refraining from apprising my late
+    employer of this matter, but more Christian feelings have
+    prevailed. “If thine enemy hunger, feed him; if he thirst, give him
+    drink; for in so doing thou shalt heap coals of fire on his head”
+    (Romans xii. 20). Nor, I must confess, am I altogether uninfluenced
+    by the thought that my action in this matter may conceivably lead
+    to Mr. B. consenting to forget the past and to reinstate me in my
+    former position. However, I am confident that I can leave this to
+    his good feeling.
+
+
+I remain, respectfully yours,
+Herbert Parker.
+
+
+Lucille clapped her hands.
+
+“How splendid! Father _will_ be pleased!”
+
+“Yes. Friend Parker has certainly found a way to make the old dad fond
+of him. Wish _I_ could!”
+
+“But you can, silly! He’ll be delighted when you show him that letter.”
+
+“Yes, with Parker. Old Herb. Parker’s is the neck he’ll fall on—not
+mine.”
+
+Lucille reflected.
+
+“I wish—” she began. She stopped. Her eyes lit up. “Oh, Archie,
+darling, I’ve got an idea!”
+
+“Decant it.”
+
+“Why don’t you slip up to New York to-morrow and buy the thing, and
+give it to father as a surprise?”
+
+Archie patted her hand kindly. He hated to spoil her girlish
+day-dreams.
+
+“Yes,” he said. “But reflect, queen of my heart! I have at the moment
+of going to press just two dollars fifty in specie, which I took off
+your father this after-noon. We were playing twenty-five cents a hole.
+He coughed it up without enthusiasm—in fact, with a nasty hacking
+sound—but I’ve got it. But that’s all I have got.”
+
+“That’s all right. You can pawn that ring and that bracelet of mine.”
+
+“Oh, I say, what! Pop the family jewels?”
+
+“Only for a day or two. Of course, once you’ve got the thing, father
+will pay us back. He would give you all the money we asked him for, if
+he knew what it was for. But I want to surprise him. And if you were to
+go to him and ask him for a thousand dollars without telling him what
+it was for, he might refuse.”
+
+“He might!” said Archie. “He might!”
+
+“It all works out splendidly. To-morrow’s the Invitation Handicap, and
+father’s been looking forward to it for weeks. He’d hate to have to go
+up to town himself and not play in it. But you can slip up and slip
+back without his knowing anything about it.”
+
+Archie pondered.
+
+“It sounds a ripe scheme. Yes, it has all the ear-marks of a somewhat
+fruity wheeze! By Jove, it _is_ a fruity wheeze! It’s an egg!”
+
+“An egg?”
+
+“Good egg, you know. Halloa, here’s a postscript. I didn’t see it.”
+
+P.S.—I should be glad if you would convey my most cordial respects to
+Mrs. Moffam. Will you also inform her that I chanced to meet Mr.
+William this morning on Broadway, just off the boat. He desired me to
+send his regards and to say that he would be joining you at Brookport
+in the course of a day or so. Mr. B. will be pleased to have him back.
+“A wise son maketh a glad father” (Proverbs x. 1).
+
+
+“Who’s Mr. William?” asked Archie.
+
+“My brother Bill, of course. I’ve told you all about him.”
+
+“Oh yes, of course. Your brother Bill. Rummy to think I’ve got a
+brother-in-law I’ve never seen.”
+
+“You see, we married so suddenly. When we married, Bill was in Yale.”
+
+“Good God! What for?”
+
+“Not jail, silly. Yale. The university.”
+
+“Oh, ah, yes.”
+
+“Then he went over to Europe for a trip to broaden his mind. You must
+look him up to-morrow when you get back to New York. He’s sure to be at
+his club.”
+
+“I’ll make a point of it. Well, vote of thanks to good old Parker! This
+really does begin to look like the point in my career where I start to
+have your forbidding old parent eating out of my hand.”
+
+“Yes, it’s an egg, isn’t it!”
+
+“Queen of my soul,” said Archie enthusiastically, “it’s an omelette!”
+
+The business negotiations in connection with the bracelet and the ring
+occupied Archie on his arrival in New York to an extent which made it
+impossible for him to call on Brother Bill before lunch. He decided to
+postpone the affecting meeting of brothers-in-law to a more convenient
+season, and made his way to his favourite table at the Cosmopolis
+grill-room for a bite of lunch preliminary to the fatigues of the sale.
+He found Salvatore hovering about as usual, and instructed him to come
+to the rescue with a minute steak.
+
+Salvatore was the dark, sinister-looking waiter who attended, among
+other tables, to the one at the far end of the grill-room at which
+Archie usually sat. For several weeks Archie’s conversations with the
+other had dealt exclusively with the bill of fare and its contents; but
+gradually he had found himself becoming more personal. Even before the
+war and its democratising influences, Archie had always lacked that
+reserve which characterises many Britons; and since the war he had
+looked on nearly everyone he met as a brother. Long since, through the
+medium of a series of friendly chats, he had heard all about
+Salvatore’s home in Italy, the little newspaper and tobacco shop which
+his mother owned down on Seventh Avenue, and a hundred other personal
+details. Archie had an insatiable curiosity about his fellow-man.
+
+“Well done,” said Archie.
+
+“Sare?”
+
+“The steak. Not too rare, you know.”
+
+“Very good, sare.”
+
+Archie looked at the waiter closely. His tone had been subdued and sad.
+Of course, you don’t expect a waiter to beam all over his face and give
+three rousing cheers simply because you have asked him to bring you a
+minute steak, but still there was something about Salvatore’s manner
+that disturbed Archie. The man appeared to have the pip. Whether he was
+merely homesick and brooding on the lost delights of his sunny native
+land, or whether his trouble was more definite, could only be
+ascertained by enquiry. So Archie enquired.
+
+“What’s the matter, laddie?” he said sympathetically. “Something on
+your mind?”
+
+“Sare?”
+
+“I say, there seems to be something on your mind. What’s the trouble?”
+
+The waiter shrugged his shoulders, as if indicating an unwillingness to
+inflict his grievances on one of the tipping classes.
+
+“Come on!” persisted Archie encouragingly. “All pals here. Barge along,
+old thing, and let’s have it.”
+
+Salvatore, thus admonished, proceeded in a hurried undertone—with one
+eye on the headwaiter—to lay bare his soul. What he said was not very
+coherent, but Archie could make out enough of it to gather that it was
+a sad story of excessive hours and insufficient pay. He mused awhile.
+The waiter’s hard case touched him.
+
+“I’ll tell you what,” he said at last. “When jolly old Brewster comes
+back to town—he’s away just now—I’ll take you along to him and we’ll
+beard the old boy in his den. I’ll introduce you, and you get that
+extract from Italian opera off your chest which you’ve just been
+singing to me, and you’ll find it’ll be all right. He isn’t what you
+might call one of my greatest admirers, but everybody says he’s a
+square sort of cove and he’ll see you aren’t snootered. And now,
+laddie, touching the matter of that steak.”
+
+The waiter disappeared, greatly cheered, and Archie, turning, perceived
+that his friend Reggie van Tuyl was entering the room. He waved to him
+to join his table. He liked Reggie, and it also occurred to him that a
+man of the world like the heir of the van Tuyls, who had been popping
+about New York for years, might be able to give him some much-needed
+information on the procedure at an auction sale, a matter on which he
+himself was profoundly ignorant.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER X.
+DOING FATHER A BIT OF GOOD
+
+
+Reggie Van Tuyl approached the table languidly, and sank down into a
+chair. He was a long youth with a rather subdued and deflated look, as
+though the burden of the van Tuyl millions was more than his frail
+strength could support. Most things tired him.
+
+“I say, Reggie, old top,” said Archie, “you’re just the lad I wanted to
+see. I require the assistance of a blighter of ripe intellect. Tell me,
+laddie, do you know anything about sales?”
+
+Reggie eyed him sleepily.
+
+“Sales?”
+
+“Auction sales.”
+
+Reggie considered.
+
+“Well, they’re sales, you know.” He checked a yawn. “Auction sales, you
+understand.”
+
+“Yes,” said Archie encouragingly. “Something—the name or
+something—seemed to tell me that.”
+
+“Fellows put things up for sale you know, and other fellows—other
+fellows go in and—and buy ’em, if you follow me.”
+
+“Yes, but what’s the procedure? I mean, what do I do? That’s what I’m
+after. I’ve got to buy something at Beale’s this afternoon. How do I
+set about it?”
+
+“Well,” said Reggie, drowsily, “there are several ways of bidding, you
+know. You can shout, or you can nod, or you can twiddle your fingers—”
+The effort of concentration was too much for him. He leaned back limply
+in his chair. “I’ll tell you what. I’ve nothing to do this afternoon.
+I’ll come with you and show you.”
+
+When he entered the Art Galleries a few minutes later, Archie was glad
+of the moral support of even such a wobbly reed as Reggie van Tuyl.
+There is something about an auction room which weighs heavily upon the
+novice. The hushed interior was bathed in a dim, religious light; and
+the congregation, seated on small wooden chairs, gazed in reverent
+silence at the pulpit, where a gentleman of commanding presence and
+sparkling pince-nez was delivering a species of chant. Behind a gold
+curtain at the end of the room mysterious forms flitted to and fro.
+Archie, who had been expecting something on the lines of the New York
+Stock Exchange, which he had once been privileged to visit when it was
+in a more than usually feverish mood, found the atmosphere oppressively
+ecclesiastical. He sat down and looked about him. The presiding priest
+went on with his chant.
+
+“Sixteen-sixteen-sixteen-sixteen-sixteen—worth three
+hundred—sixteen-sixteen-sixteen-sixteen-sixteen—ought to bring five
+hundred—sixteen-sixteen-seventeen-seventeen-eighteen-eighteen
+nineteen-nineteen-nineteen.”
+
+He stopped and eyed the worshippers with a glittering and reproachful
+eye. They had, it seemed, disappointed him. His lips curled, and he
+waved a hand towards a grimly uncomfortable-looking chair with insecure
+legs and a good deal of gold paint about it. “Gentlemen! Ladies and
+gentlemen! You are not here to waste my time; I am not here to waste
+yours. Am I seriously offered nineteen dollars for this
+eighteenth-century chair, acknowledged to be the finest piece sold in
+New York for months and months? Am I—twenty? I thank you.
+Twenty-twenty-twenty-twenty. _Your_ opportunity! Priceless. Very few
+extant. Twenty-five-five-five-five-thirty-thirty. Just what you are
+looking for. The only one in the City of New York.
+Thirty-five-five-five-five. Forty-forty-forty-forty-forty. Look at
+those legs! Back it into the light, Willie. Let the light fall on those
+legs!”
+
+Willie, a sort of acolyte, manœuvred the chair as directed. Reggie van
+Tuyl, who had been yawning in a hopeless sort of way, showed his first
+flicker of interest.
+
+“Willie,” he observed, eyeing that youth more with pity than reproach,
+“has a face like Jo-Jo the dog-faced boy, don’t you think so?”
+
+Archie nodded briefly. Precisely the same criticism had occurred to
+him.
+
+“Forty-five-five-five-five-five,” chanted the high-priest. “Once
+forty-five. Twice forty-five. Third and last call, forty-five. Sold at
+forty-five. Gentleman in the fifth row.”
+
+Archie looked up and down the row with a keen eye. He was anxious to
+see who had been chump enough to give forty-five dollars for such a
+frightful object. He became aware of the dog-faced Willie leaning
+towards him.
+
+“Name, please?” said the canine one.
+
+“Eh, what?” said Archie. “Oh, my name’s Moffam, don’t you know.” The
+eyes of the multitude made him feel a little nervous “Er—glad to meet
+you and all that sort of rot.”
+
+“Ten dollars deposit, please,” said Willie.
+
+“I don’t absolutely follow you, old bean. What is the big thought at
+the back of all this?”
+
+“Ten dollars deposit on the chair.”
+
+“What chair?”
+
+“You bid forty-five dollars for the chair.”
+
+“Me?”
+
+“You nodded,” said Willie, accusingly. “If,” he went on, reasoning
+closely, “you didn’t want to bid, why did you nod?”
+
+Archie was embarrassed. He could, of course, have pointed out that he
+had merely nodded in adhesion to the statement that the other had a
+face like Jo-Jo the dog-faced boy; but something seemed to tell him
+that a purist might consider the excuse deficient in tact. He hesitated
+a moment, then handed over a ten-dollar bill, the price of Willie’s
+feelings. Willie withdrew like a tiger slinking from the body of its
+victim.
+
+“I say, old thing,” said Archie to Reggie, “this is a bit thick, you
+know. No purse will stand this drain.”
+
+Reggie considered the matter. His face seemed drawn under the mental
+strain.
+
+“Don’t nod again,” he advised. “If you aren’t careful, you get into the
+habit of it. When you want to bid, just twiddle your fingers. Yes,
+that’s the thing. Twiddle!”
+
+He sighed drowsily. The atmosphere of the auction room was close; you
+weren’t allowed to smoke; and altogether he was beginning to regret
+that he had come. The service continued. Objects of varying
+unattractiveness came and went, eulogised by the officiating priest,
+but coldly received by the congregation. Relations between the former
+and the latter were growing more and more distant. The congregation
+seemed to suspect the priest of having an ulterior motive in his
+eulogies, and the priest seemed to suspect the congregation of a
+frivolous desire to waste his time. He had begun to speculate openly as
+to why they were there at all. Once, when a particularly repellent
+statuette of a nude female with an unwholesome green skin had been
+offered at two dollars and had found no bidders—the congregation
+appearing silently grateful for his statement that it was the only
+specimen of its kind on the continent—he had specifically accused them
+of having come into the auction room merely with the purpose of sitting
+down and taking the weight off their feet.
+
+“If your thing—your whatever-it-is, doesn’t come up soon, Archie,” said
+Reggie, fighting off with an effort the mists of sleep, “I rather think
+I shall be toddling along. What was it you came to get?”
+
+“It’s rather difficult to describe. It’s a rummy-looking sort of
+what-not, made of china or something. I call it Pongo. At least, this
+one isn’t Pongo, don’t you know—it’s his little brother, but presumably
+equally foul in every respect. It’s all rather complicated, I know,
+but—hallo!” He pointed excitedly. “By Jove! We’re off! There it is!
+Look! Willie’s unleashing it now!”
+
+Willie, who had disappeared through the gold curtain, had now returned,
+and was placing on a pedestal a small china figure of delicate
+workmanship. It was the figure of a warrior in a suit of armour
+advancing with raised spear upon an adversary. A thrill permeated
+Archie’s frame. Parker had not been mistaken. This was undoubtedly the
+companion-figure to the redoubtable Pongo. The two were identical. Even
+from where he sat Archie could detect on the features of the figure on
+the pedestal the same expression of insufferable complacency which had
+alienated his sympathies from the original Pongo.
+
+The high-priest, undaunted by previous rebuffs, regarded the figure
+with a gloating enthusiasm wholly unshared by the congregation, who
+were plainly looking upon Pongo’s little brother as just another of
+those things.
+
+“This,” he said, with a shake in his voice, “is something very special.
+China figure, said to date back to the Ming Dynasty. Unique. Nothing
+like it on either side of the Atlantic. If I were selling this at
+Christie’s in London, where people,” he said, nastily, “have an
+educated appreciation of the beautiful, the rare, and the exquisite, I
+should start the bidding at a thousand dollars. This afternoon’s
+experience has taught me that that might possibly be too high.” His
+pince-nez sparkled militantly, as he gazed upon the stolid throng.
+“Will anyone offer me a dollar for this unique figure?”
+
+“Leap at it, old top,” said Reggie van Tuyl. “Twiddle, dear boy,
+twiddle! A dollar’s reasonable.”
+
+Archie twiddled.
+
+“One dollar I am offered,” said the high-priest, bitterly. “One
+gentleman here is not afraid to take a chance. One gentleman here knows
+a good thing when he sees one.” He abandoned the gently sarcastic
+manner for one of crisp and direct reproach. “Come, come, gentlemen, we
+are not here to waste time. Will anyone offer me one hundred dollars
+for this superb piece of—” He broke off, and seemed for a moment almost
+unnerved. He stared at someone in one of the seats in front of Archie.
+“Thank you,” he said, with a sort of gulp. “One hundred dollars I am
+offered! One hundred—one hundred—one hundred—”
+
+Archie was startled. This sudden, tremendous jump, this wholly
+unforeseen boom in Pongos, if one might so describe it, was more than a
+little disturbing. He could not see who his rival was, but it was
+evident that at least one among those present did not intend to allow
+Pongo’s brother to slip by without a fight. He looked helplessly at
+Reggie for counsel, but Reggie had now definitely given up the
+struggle. Exhausted nature had done its utmost, and now he was leaning
+back with closed eyes, breathing softly through his nose. Thrown on his
+own resources, Archie could think of no better course than to twiddle
+his fingers again. He did so, and the high-priest’s chant took on a
+note of positive exuberance.
+
+“Two hundred I am offered. Much better! Turn the pedestal round,
+Willie, and let them look at it. Slowly! Slowly! You aren’t spinning a
+roulette-wheel. Two hundred. Two-two-two-two-two.” He became suddenly
+lyrical. “Two-two-two—There was a young lady named Lou, who was
+catching a train at two-two. Said the porter, ‘Don’t worry or hurry or
+scurry. It’s a minute or two to two-two!’ Two-two-two-two-two!”
+
+Archie’s concern increased. He seemed to be twiddling at this voluble
+man across seas of misunderstanding. Nothing is harder to interpret to
+a nicety than a twiddle, and Archie’s idea of the language of twiddles
+and the high-priest’s idea did not coincide by a mile. The high-priest
+appeared to consider that, when Archie twiddled, it was his intention
+to bid in hundreds, whereas in fact Archie had meant to signify that he
+raised the previous bid by just one dollar. Archie felt that, if given
+time, he could make this clear to the high-priest, but the latter gave
+him no time. He had got his audience, so to speak, on the run, and he
+proposed to hustle them before they could rally.
+
+“Two hundred—two hundred—two—three—thank you,
+sir—three-three-three-four-four-five-five-six-six-seven-seven-seven—”
+
+Archie sat limply in his wooden chair. He was conscious of a feeling
+which he had only experienced twice in his life—once when he had taken
+his first lesson in driving a motor and had trodden on the accelerator
+instead of the brake; the second time more recently, when he had made
+his first down-trip on an express lift. He had now precisely the same
+sensation of being run away with by an uncontrollable machine, and of
+having left most of his internal organs at some little distance from
+the rest of his body. Emerging from this welter of emotion, stood out
+the one clear fact that, be the opposition bidding what it might, he
+must nevertheless secure the prize. Lucille had sent him to New York
+expressly to do so. She had sacrificed her jewellery for the cause. She
+relied on him. The enterprise had become for Archie something almost
+sacred. He felt dimly like a knight of old hot on the track of the Holy
+Grail.
+
+He twiddled again. The ring and the bracelet had fetched nearly twelve
+hundred dollars. Up to that figure his hat was in the ring.
+
+“Eight hundred I am offered. Eight hundred. Eight-eight-eight-eight—”
+
+A voice spoke from somewhere at the back of the room. A quiet, cold,
+nasty, determined voice.
+
+“Nine!”
+
+Archie rose from his seat and spun round. This mean attack from the
+rear stung his fighting spirit. As he rose, a young man sitting
+immediately in front of him rose too and stared likewise. He was a
+square-built resolute-looking young man, who reminded Archie vaguely of
+somebody he had seen before. But Archie was too busy trying to locate
+the man at the back to pay much attention to him. He detected him at
+last, owing to the fact that the eyes of everybody in that part of the
+room were fixed upon him. He was a small man of middle age, with
+tortoise-shell-rimmed spectacles. He might have been a professor or
+something of the kind. Whatever he was, he was obviously a man to be
+reckoned with. He had a rich sort of look, and his demeanour was the
+demeanour of a man who is prepared to fight it out on these lines if it
+takes all the summer.
+
+“Nine hundred I am offered. Nine-nine-nine-nine—”
+
+Archie glared defiantly at the spectacled man.
+
+“A thousand!” he cried.
+
+The irruption of high finance into the placid course of the afternoon’s
+proceedings had stirred the congregation out of its lethargy. There
+were excited murmurs. Necks were craned, feet shuffled. As for the
+high-priest, his cheerfulness was now more than restored, and his faith
+in his fellow-man had soared from the depths to a very lofty altitude.
+He beamed with approval. Despite the warmth of his praise he would have
+been quite satisfied to see Pongo’s little brother go at twenty
+dollars, and the reflection that the bidding had already reached one
+thousand and that his commission was twenty per cent, had engendered a
+mood of sunny happiness.
+
+“One thousand is bid!” he carolled. “Now, gentlemen, I don’t want to
+hurry you over this. You are all connoisseurs here, and you don’t want
+to see a priceless china figure of the Ming Dynasty get away from you
+at a sacrifice price. Perhaps you can’t all see the figure where it is.
+Willie, take it round and show it to ’em. We’ll take a little
+intermission while you look carefully at this wonderful figure. Get a
+move on, Willie! Pick up your feet!”
+
+Archie, sitting dazedly, was aware that Reggie van Tuyl had finished
+his beauty sleep and was addressing the young man in the seat in front.
+
+“Why, hallo,” said Reggie. “I didn’t know you were back. You remember
+me, don’t you? Reggie van Tuyl. I know your sister very well. Archie,
+old man, I want you to meet my friend, Bill Brewster. Why, dash it!” He
+chuckled sleepily. “I was forgetting. Of course! He’s your—”
+
+“How are you?” said the young man. “Talking of my sister,” he said to
+Reggie, “I suppose you haven’t met her husband by any chance? I suppose
+you know she married some awful chump?”
+
+“Me,” said Archie.
+
+“How’s that?”
+
+“I married your sister. My name’s Moffam.”
+
+The young man seemed a trifle taken aback.
+
+“Sorry,” he said.
+
+“Not at all,” said Archie.
+
+“I was only going by what my father said in his letters,” he explained,
+in extenuation.
+
+Archie nodded.
+
+“I’m afraid your jolly old father doesn’t appreciate me. But I’m hoping
+for the best. If I can rope in that rummy-looking little china thing
+that Jo-Jo the dog-faced boy is showing the customers, he will be all
+over me. I mean to say, you know, he’s got another like it, and, if he
+can get a full house, as it were, I’m given to understand he’ll be
+bucked, cheered, and even braced.”
+
+The young man stared.
+
+“Are _you_ the fellow who’s been bidding against me?”
+
+“Eh, what? Were you bidding against _me?_”
+
+“I wanted to buy the thing for my father. I’ve a special reason for
+wanting to get in right with him just now. Are you buying it for him,
+too?”
+
+“Absolutely. As a surprise. It was Lucille’s idea. His valet, a chappie
+named Parker, tipped us off that the thing was to be sold.”
+
+“Parker? Great Scot! It was Parker who tipped _me_ off. I met him on
+Broadway, and he told me about it.”
+
+“Rummy he never mentioned it in his letter to me. Why, dash it, we
+could have got the thing for about two dollars if we had pooled our
+bids.”
+
+“Well, we’d better pool them now, and extinguish that pill at the back
+there. I can’t go above eleven hundred. That’s all I’ve got.”
+
+“I can’t go above eleven hundred myself.”
+
+“There’s just one thing. I wish you’d let me be the one to hand the
+thing over to Father. I’ve a special reason for wanting to make a hit
+with him.”
+
+“Absolutely!” said Archie, magnanimously. “It’s all the same to me. I
+only wanted to get him generally braced, as it were, if you know what I
+mean.”
+
+“That’s awfully good of you.”
+
+“Not a bit, laddie, no, no, and far from it. Only too glad.”
+
+Willie had returned from his rambles among the connoisseurs, and
+Pongo’s brother was back on his pedestal. The high-priest cleared his
+throat and resumed his discourse.
+
+“Now that you have all seen this superb figure we will—I was offered
+one thousand—one thousand-one-one-one-one—eleven hundred. Thank you,
+sir. Eleven hundred I am offered.”
+
+The high-priest was now exuberant. You could see him doing figures in
+his head.
+
+“You do the bidding,” said Brother Bill.
+
+“Right-o!” said Archie.
+
+He waved a defiant hand.
+
+“Thirteen,” said the man at the back.
+
+“Fourteen, dash it!”
+
+“Fifteen!”
+
+“Sixteen!”
+
+“Seventeen!”
+
+“Eighteen!”
+
+“Nineteen!”
+
+“Two thousand!”
+
+The high-priest did everything but sing. He radiated good will and
+bonhomie.
+
+“Two thousand I am offered. Is there any advance on two thousand? Come,
+gentlemen, I don’t want to give this superb figure away. Twenty-one
+hundred. Twenty-one-one-one-one. This is more the sort of thing I have
+been accustomed to. When I was at Sotheby’s Rooms in London, this kind
+of bidding was a common-place. Twenty-two-two-two-two-two. One hardly
+noticed it. Three-three-three. Twenty-three-three-three. Twenty-three
+hundred dollars I am offered.”
+
+He gazed expectantly at Archie, as a man gazes at some favourite dog
+whom he calls upon to perform a trick. But Archie had reached the end
+of his tether. The hand that had twiddled so often and so bravely lay
+inert beside his trouser-leg, twitching feebly. Archie was through.
+
+“Twenty-three hundred,” said the high-priest, ingratiatingly.
+
+Archie made no movement. There was a tense pause. The high-priest gave
+a little sigh, like one waking from a beautiful dream.
+
+“Twenty-three hundred,” he said. “Once twenty-three. Twice
+twenty-three. Third, last, and final call, twenty-three. Sold at
+twenty-three hundred. I congratulate you, sir, on a genuine bargain!”
+
+Reggie van Tuyl had dozed off again. Archie tapped his brother-in-law
+on the shoulder.
+
+“May as well be popping, what?”
+
+They threaded their way sadly together through the crowd, and made for
+the street. They passed into Fifth Avenue without breaking the silence.
+
+“Bally nuisance,” said Archie, at last.
+
+“Rotten!”
+
+“Wonder who that chappie was?”
+
+“Some collector, probably.”
+
+“Well, it can’t be helped,” said Archie.
+
+Brother Bill attached himself to Archie’s arm, and became
+communicative.
+
+“I didn’t want to mention it in front of van Tuyl,” he said, “because
+he’s such a talking-machine, and it would have been all over New York
+before dinner-time. But you’re one of the family, and you can keep a
+secret.”
+
+“Absolutely! Silent tomb and what not.”
+
+“The reason I wanted that darned thing was because I’ve just got
+engaged to a girl over in England, and I thought that, if I could hand
+my father that china figure-thing with one hand and break the news with
+the other, it might help a bit. She’s the most wonderful girl!”
+
+“I’ll bet she is,” said Archie, cordially.
+
+“The trouble is she’s in the chorus of one of the revues over there,
+and Father is apt to kick. So I thought—oh, well, it’s no good worrying
+now. Come along where it’s quiet, and I’ll tell you all about her.”
+
+“That’ll be jolly,” said Archie.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XI.
+SALVATORE CHOOSES THE WRONG MOMENT
+
+
+Archie reclaimed the family jewellery from its temporary home next
+morning; and, having done so, sauntered back to the Cosmopolis. He was
+surprised, on entering the lobby, to meet his father-in-law. More
+surprising still, Mr. Brewster was manifestly in a mood of
+extraordinary geniality. Archie could hardly believe his eyes when the
+other waved cheerily to him—nor his ears a moment later when Mr.
+Brewster, addressing him as “my boy,” asked him how he was and
+mentioned that the day was a warm one.
+
+Obviously this jovial frame of mind must be taken advantage of; and
+Archie’s first thought was of the downtrodden Salvatore, to the tale of
+whose wrongs he had listened so sympathetically on the previous day.
+Now was plainly the moment for the waiter to submit his grievance,
+before some ebb-tide caused the milk of human kindness to flow out of
+Daniel Brewster. With a swift “Cheerio!” in his father-in-law’s
+direction, Archie bounded into the grill-room. Salvatore, the hour for
+luncheon being imminent but not yet having arrived, was standing
+against the far wall in an attitude of thought.
+
+“Laddie!” cried Archie.
+
+“Sare?”
+
+“A most extraordinary thing has happened. Good old Brewster has
+suddenly popped up through a trap and is out in the lobby now. And
+what’s still more weird, he’s apparently bucked.”
+
+“Sare?”
+
+“Braced, you know. In the pink. Pleased about something. If you go to
+him now with that yarn of yours, you can’t fail. He’ll kiss you on both
+cheeks and give you his bank-roll and collar-stud. Charge along and ask
+the head-waiter if you can have ten minutes off.”
+
+Salvatore vanished in search of the potentate named, and Archie
+returned to the lobby to bask in the unwonted sunshine.
+
+“Well, well, well, what!” he said. “I thought you were at Brookport.”
+
+“I came up this morning to meet a friend of mine,” replied Mr. Brewster
+genially. “Professor Binstead.”
+
+“Don’t think I know him.”
+
+“Very interesting man,” said Mr. Brewster, still with the same uncanny
+amiability. “He’s a dabbler in a good many things—science, phrenology,
+antiques. I asked him to bid for me at a sale yesterday. There was a
+little china figure—”
+
+Archie’s jaw fell.
+
+“China figure?” he stammered feebly.
+
+“Yes. The companion to one you may have noticed on my mantelpiece
+upstairs. I have been trying to get the pair of them for years. I
+should never have heard of this one if it had not been for that valet
+of mine, Parker. Very good of him to let me know of it, considering I
+had fired him. Ah, here is Binstead.”—He moved to greet the small,
+middle-aged man with the tortoiseshell-rimmed spectacles who was
+bustling across the lobby.—“Well, Binstead, so you got it?”
+
+“Yes.”
+
+“I suppose the price wasn’t particularly stiff?”
+
+“Twenty-three hundred.”
+
+“Twenty-three hundred!” Mr. Brewster seemed to reel in his tracks.
+“Twenty-three _hundred!_”
+
+“You gave me carte blanche.”
+
+“Yes, but twenty-three hundred!”
+
+“I could have got it for a few dollars, but unfortunately I was a
+little late, and, when I arrived, some young fool had bid it up to a
+thousand, and he stuck to me till I finally shook him off at
+twenty-three hundred. Why, this is the very man! Is he a friend of
+yours?”
+
+Archie coughed.
+
+“More a relation than a friend, what? Son-in-law, don’t you know!”
+
+Mr. Brewster’s amiability had vanished.
+
+“What damned foolery have you been up to _now?_” he demanded. “Can’t I
+move a step without stubbing my toe on you? Why the devil did you bid?”
+
+“We thought it would be rather a fruity scheme. We talked it over and
+came to the conclusion that it was an egg. Wanted to get hold of the
+rummy little object, don’t you know, and surprise you.”
+
+“Who’s we?”
+
+“Lucille and I.”
+
+“But how did you hear of it at all?”
+
+“Parker, the valet-chappie, you know, wrote me a letter about it.”
+
+“Parker! Didn’t he tell you that he had told me the figure was to be
+sold?”
+
+“Absolutely not!” A sudden suspicion came to Archie. He was normally a
+guileless young man, but even to him the extreme fishiness of the part
+played by Herbert Parker had become apparent. “I say, you know, it
+looks to me as if friend Parker had been having us all on a bit, what?
+I mean to say it was jolly old Herb, who tipped your son off—Bill, you
+know—to go and bid for the thing.”
+
+“Bill! Was Bill there?”
+
+“Absolutely in person! We were bidding against each other like the
+dickens till we managed to get together and get acquainted. And then
+this bird—this gentleman—sailed in and started to slip it across us.”
+
+Professor Binstead chuckled—the care-free chuckle of a man who sees all
+those around him smitten in the pocket, while he himself remains
+untouched.
+
+“A very ingenious rogue, this Parker of yours, Brewster. His method
+seems to have been simple but masterly. I have no doubt that either he
+or a confederate obtained the figure and placed it with the auctioneer,
+and then he ensured a good price for it by getting us all to bid
+against each other. Very ingenious!”
+
+Mr. Brewster struggled with his feelings. Then he seemed to overcome
+them and to force himself to look on the bright side.
+
+“Well, anyway,” he said. “I’ve got the pair of figures, and that’s what
+I wanted. Is that it in that parcel?”
+
+“This is it. I wouldn’t trust an express company to deliver it. Suppose
+we go up to your room and see how the two look side by side.”
+
+They crossed the lobby to the lift.-The cloud was still on Mr.
+Brewster’s brow as they stepped out and made their way to his suite.
+Like most men who have risen from poverty to wealth by their own
+exertions, Mr. Brewster objected to parting with his money
+unnecessarily, and it was plain that that twenty-three hundred dollars
+still rankled.
+
+Mr. Brewster unlocked the door and crossed the room. Then, suddenly, he
+halted, stared, and stared again. He sprang to the bell and pressed it,
+then stood gurgling wordlessly.
+
+“Anything wrong, old bean?” queried Archie, solicitously.
+
+“Wrong! Wrong! It’s gone!”
+
+“Gone?”
+
+“The figure!”
+
+The floor-waiter had manifested himself silently in answer to the bell,
+and was standing in the doorway.
+
+“Simmons!” Mr. Brewster turned to him wildly. “Has anyone been in this
+suite since I went away?”
+
+“No, sir.”
+
+“Nobody?”
+
+“Nobody except your valet, sir—Parker. He said he had come to fetch
+some things away. I supposed he had come from you, sir, with
+instructions.”
+
+“Get out!”
+
+Professor Binstead had unwrapped his parcel, and had placed the Pongo
+on the table. There was a weighty silence. Archie picked up the little
+china figure and balanced it on the palm of his hand. It was a small
+thing, he reflected philosophically, but it had made quite a stir in
+the world.
+
+Mr. Brewster fermented for a while without speaking.
+
+“So,” he said, at last, in a voice trembling with self-pity, “I have
+been to all this trouble—”
+
+“And expense,” put in Professor Binstead, gently.
+
+“Merely to buy back something which had been stolen from me! And, owing
+to your damned officiousness,” he cried, turning on Archie, “I have had
+to pay twenty-three hundred dollars for it! I don’t know why they make
+such a fuss about Job. Job never had anything like you around!”
+
+“Of course,” argued Archie, “he had one or two boils.”
+
+“Boils! What are boils?”
+
+“Dashed sorry,” murmured Archie. “Acted for the best. Meant well. And
+all that sort of rot!”
+
+Professor Binstead’s mind seemed occupied to the exclusion of all other
+aspects of the affair, with the ingenuity of the absent Parker.
+
+“A cunning scheme!” he said. “A very cunning scheme! This man Parker
+must have a brain of no low order. I should like to feel his bumps!”
+
+“I should like to give him some!” said the stricken Mr. Brewster. He
+breathed a deep breath. “Oh, well,” he said, “situated as I am, with a
+crook valet and an imbecile son-in-law, I suppose I ought to be
+thankful that I’ve still got my own property, even if I have had to pay
+twenty-three hundred dollars for the privilege of keeping it.” He
+rounded on Archie, who was in a reverie. The thought of the unfortunate
+Bill had just crossed Archie’s mind. It would be many moons, many weary
+moons, before Mr. Brewster would be in a suitable mood to listen
+sympathetically to the story of love’s young dream. “Give me that
+figure!”
+
+Archie continued to toy absently with Pongo. He was wondering now how
+best to break this sad occurrence to Lucille. It would be a
+disappointment for the poor girl.
+
+“_Give me that figure!_”
+
+Archie started violently. There was an instant in which Pongo seemed to
+hang suspended, like Mohammed’s coffin, between heaven and earth, then
+the force of gravity asserted itself. Pongo fell with a sharp crack and
+disintegrated. And as it did so there was a knock at the door, and in
+walked a dark, furtive person, who to the inflamed vision of Mr. Daniel
+Brewster looked like something connected with the executive staff of
+the Black Hand. With all time at his disposal, the unfortunate
+Salvatore had selected this moment for stating his case.
+
+“Get out!” bellowed Mr. Brewster. “I didn’t ring for a waiter.”
+
+Archie, his mind reeling beneath the catastrophe, recovered himself
+sufficiently to do the honours. It was at his instigation that
+Salvatore was there, and, greatly as he wished that he could have seen
+fit to choose a more auspicious moment for his business chat, he felt
+compelled to do his best to see him through.
+
+“Oh, I say, half a second,” he said. “You don’t quite understand. As a
+matter of fact, this chappie is by way of being downtrodden and
+oppressed and what not, and I suggested that he should get hold of you
+and speak a few well-chosen words. Of course, if you’d rather—some
+other time—”
+
+But Mr. Brewster was not permitted to postpone the interview. Before he
+could get his breath, Salvatore had begun to talk. He was a strong,
+ambidextrous talker, whom it was hard to interrupt; and it was not for
+some moments that Mr. Brewster succeeded in getting a word in. When he
+did, he spoke to the point. Though not a linguist, he had been able to
+follow the discourse closely enough to realise that the waiter was
+dissatisfied with conditions in his hotel; and Mr. Brewster, as has
+been indicated, had a short way with people who criticised the
+Cosmopolis.
+
+“You’re fired!” said Mr. Brewster.
+
+“Oh, I say!” protested Archie.
+
+Salvatore muttered what sounded like a passage from Dante.
+
+“Fired!” repeated Mr. Brewster resolutely. “And I wish to heaven,” he
+added, eyeing his son-in-law malignantly, “I could fire _you!_”
+
+“Well,” said Professor Binstead cheerfully, breaking the grim silence
+which followed this outburst, “if you will give me your cheque,
+Brewster, I think I will be going. Two thousand three hundred dollars.
+Make it open, if you will, and then I can run round the corner and cash
+it before lunch. That will be capital!”
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XII.
+BRIGHT EYES—AND A FLY
+
+
+The Hermitage (unrivalled scenery, superb cuisine, Daniel Brewster,
+proprietor) was a picturesque summer hotel in the green heart of the
+mountains, built by Archie’s father-in-law shortly after he assumed
+control of the Cosmopolis. Mr. Brewster himself seldom went there,
+preferring to concentrate his attention on his New York establishment;
+and Archie and Lucille, breakfasting in the airy dining-room some ten
+days after the incidents recorded in the last chapter, had consequently
+to be content with two out of the three advertised attractions of the
+place. Through the window at their side quite a slab of the unrivalled
+scenery was visible; some of the superb cuisine was already on the
+table; and the fact that the eye searched in vain for Daniel Brewster,
+proprietor, filled Archie, at any rate, with no sense of aching loss.
+He bore it with equanimity and even with positive enthusiasm. In
+Archie’s opinion, practically all a place needed to make it an earthly
+Paradise was for Mr. Daniel Brewster to be about forty-seven miles away
+from it.
+
+It was at Lucille’s suggestion that they had come to the Hermitage.
+Never a human sunbeam, Mr. Brewster had shown such a bleak front to the
+world, and particularly to his son-in-law, in the days following the
+Pongo incident, that Lucille had thought that he and Archie would for a
+time at least be better apart—a view with which her husband cordially
+agreed. He had enjoyed his stay at the Hermitage, and now he regarded
+the eternal hills with the comfortable affection of a healthy man who
+is breakfasting well.
+
+“It’s going to be another perfectly topping day,” he observed, eyeing
+the shimmering landscape, from which the morning mists were swiftly
+shredding away like faint puffs of smoke. “Just the day you ought to
+have been here.”
+
+“Yes, it’s too bad I’ve got to go. New York will be like an oven.”
+
+“Put it off.”
+
+“I can’t, I’m afraid. I’ve a fitting.”
+
+Archie argued no further. He was a married man of old enough standing
+to know the importance of fittings.
+
+“Besides,” said Lucille, “I want to see father.” Archie repressed an
+exclamation of astonishment. “I’ll be back to-morrow evening. You will
+be perfectly happy.”
+
+“Queen of my soul, you know I can’t be happy with you away. You know—”
+
+“Yes?” murmured Lucille, appreciatively. She never tired of hearing
+Archie say this sort of thing.
+
+Archie’s voice had trailed off. He was looking across the room.
+
+“By Jove!” he exclaimed. “What an awfully pretty woman!”
+
+“Where?”
+
+“Over there. Just coming in, I say, what wonderful eyes! I don’t think
+I ever saw such eyes. Did you notice her eyes? Sort of flashing!
+Awfully pretty woman!”
+
+Warm though the morning was, a suspicion of chill descended upon the
+breakfast-table. A certain coldness seemed to come into Lucille’s face.
+She could not always share Archie’s fresh young enthusiasms.
+
+“Do you think so?”
+
+“Wonderful figure, too!”
+
+“Yes?”
+
+“Well, what I mean to say, fair to medium,” said Archie, recovering a
+certain amount of that intelligence which raises man above the level of
+the beasts of the field. “Not the sort of type I admire myself, of
+course.”
+
+“You know her, don’t you?”
+
+“Absolutely not and far from it,” said Archie, hastily. “Never met her
+in my life.”
+
+“You’ve seen her on the stage. Her name’s Vera Silverton. We saw her
+in—”
+
+“Of course, yes. So we did. I say, I wonder what she’s doing here? She
+ought to be in New York, rehearsing. I remember meeting
+what’s-his-name—you know—chappie who writes plays and what not—George
+Benham—I remember meeting George Benham, and he told me she was
+rehearsing in a piece of his called—I forget the name, but I know it
+was called something or other. Well, why isn’t she?”
+
+“She probably lost her temper and broke her contract and came away.
+She’s always doing that sort of thing. She’s known for it. She must be
+a horrid woman.”
+
+“Yes.”
+
+“I don’t want to talk about her. She used to be married to someone, and
+she divorced him. And then she was married to someone else, and he
+divorced her. And I’m certain her hair wasn’t that colour two years
+ago, and I don’t think a woman ought to make up like that, and her
+dress is all wrong for the country, and those pearls can’t be genuine,
+and I hate the way she rolls her eyes about, and pink doesn’t suit her
+a bit. I think she’s an awful woman, and I wish you wouldn’t keep on
+talking about her.”
+
+“Right-o!” said Archie, dutifully.
+
+They finished breakfast, and Lucille went up to pack her bag. Archie
+strolled out on to the terrace outside the hotel, where he smoked,
+communed with nature, and thought of Lucille. He always thought of
+Lucille when he was alone, especially when he chanced to find himself
+in poetic surroundings like those provided by the unrivalled scenery
+encircling the Hotel Hermitage. The longer he was married to her the
+more did the sacred institution seem to him a good egg. Mr. Brewster
+might regard their marriage as one of the world’s most unfortunate
+incidents, but to Archie it was, and always had been, a bit of all
+right. The more he thought of it the more did he marvel that a girl
+like Lucille should have been content to link her lot with that of a
+Class C specimen like himself. His meditations were, in fact, precisely
+what a happily-married man’s meditations ought to be.
+
+He was roused from them by a species of exclamation or cry almost at
+his elbow, and turned to find that the spectacular Miss Silverton was
+standing beside him. Her dubious hair gleamed in the sunlight, and one
+of the criticised eyes was screwed up. The other gazed at Archie with
+an expression of appeal.
+
+“There’s something in my eye,” she said.
+
+“No, really!”
+
+“I wonder if you would mind? It would be so kind of you!”
+
+Archie would have preferred to remove himself, but no man worthy of the
+name can decline to come to the rescue of womanhood in distress. To
+twist the lady’s upper lid back and peer into it and jab at it with the
+corner of his handkerchief was the only course open to him. His conduct
+may be classed as not merely blameless but definitely praiseworthy.
+King Arthur’s knights used to do this sort of thing all the time, and
+look what people think of them. Lucille, therefore, coming out of the
+hotel just as the operation was concluded, ought not to have felt the
+annoyance she did. But, of course, there is a certain superficial
+intimacy about the attitude of a man who is taking a fly out of a
+woman’s eye which may excusably jar upon the sensibilities of his wife.
+It is an attitude which suggests a sort of _rapprochement_ or
+_camaraderie_ or, as Archie would have put it, what not.
+
+“Thanks so much!” said Miss Silverton.
+
+“Oh no, rather not,” said Archie.
+
+“Such a nuisance getting things in your eye.”
+
+“Absolutely!”
+
+“I’m always doing it!”
+
+“Rotten luck!”
+
+“But I don’t often find anyone as clever as you to help me.”
+
+Lucille felt called upon to break in on this feast of reason and flow
+of soul.
+
+“Archie,” she said, “if you go and get your clubs now, I shall just
+have time to walk round with you before my train goes.”
+
+“Oh, ah!” said Archie, perceiving her for the first time. “Oh, ah, yes,
+right-o, yes, yes, yes!”
+
+On the way to the first tee it seemed to Archie that Lucille was
+distrait and abstracted in her manner; and it occurred to him, not for
+the first time in his life, what a poor support a clear conscience is
+in moments of crisis. Dash it all, he didn’t see what else he could
+have done. Couldn’t leave the poor female staggering about the place
+with squads of flies wedged in her eyeball. Nevertheless—
+
+“Rotten thing getting a fly in your eye,” he hazarded at length.
+“Dashed awkward, I mean.”
+
+“Or convenient.”
+
+“Eh?”
+
+“Well, it’s a very good way of dispensing with an introduction.”
+
+“Oh, I say! You don’t mean you think—”
+
+“She’s a horrid woman!”
+
+“Absolutely! Can’t think what people see in her.”
+
+“Well, you seemed to enjoy fussing over her!”
+
+“No, no! Nothing of the kind! She inspired me with absolute
+what-d’you-call-it—the sort of thing chappies do get inspired with, you
+know.”
+
+“You were beaming all over your face.”
+
+“I wasn’t. I was just screwing up my face because the sun was in my
+eye.”
+
+“All sorts of things seem to be in people’s eyes this morning!”
+
+Archie was saddened. That this sort of misunderstanding should have
+occurred on such a topping day and at a moment when they were to be
+torn asunder for about thirty-six hours made him feel—well, it gave him
+the pip. He had an idea that there were words which would have
+straightened everything out, but he was not an eloquent young man and
+could not find them. He felt aggrieved. Lucille, he considered, ought
+to have known that he was immune as regarded females with flashing eyes
+and experimentally-coloured hair. Why, dash it, he could have extracted
+flies from the eyes of Cleopatra with one hand and Helen of Troy with
+the other, simultaneously, without giving them a second thought. It was
+in depressed mood that he played a listless nine holes; nor had life
+brightened for him when he came back to the hotel two hours later,
+after seeing Lucille off in the train to New York. Never till now had
+they had anything remotely resembling a quarrel. Life, Archie felt, was
+a bit of a wash-out. He was disturbed and jumpy, and the sight of Miss
+Silverton, talking to somebody on a settee in the corner of the hotel
+lobby, sent him shooting off at right angles and brought him up with a
+bump against the desk behind which the room-clerk sat.
+
+The room-clerk, always of a chatty disposition, was saying something to
+him, but Archie did not listen. He nodded mechanically. It was
+something about his room. He caught the word “satisfactory.”
+
+“Oh, rather, quite!” said Archie.
+
+A fussy devil, the room-clerk! He knew perfectly well that Archie found
+his room satisfactory. These chappies gassed on like this so as to try
+to make you feel that the management took a personal interest in you.
+It was part of their job. Archie beamed absently and went in to lunch.
+Lucille’s empty seat stared at him mournfully, increasing his sense of
+desolation.
+
+He was half-way through his lunch, when the chair opposite ceased to be
+vacant. Archie, transferring his gaze from the scenery outside the
+window, perceived that his friend, George Benham, the playwright, had
+materialised from nowhere and was now in his midst.
+
+“Hallo!” he said.
+
+George Benham was a grave young man whose spectacles gave him the look
+of a mournful owl. He seemed to have something on his mind besides the
+artistically straggling mop of black hair which swept down over his
+brow. He sighed wearily, and ordered fish-pie.
+
+“I thought I saw you come through the lobby just now,” he said.
+
+“Oh, was that you on the settee, talking to Miss Silverton?”
+
+“She was talking to _me_,” said the playwright, moodily.
+
+“What are you doing here?” asked Archie. He could have wished Mr.
+Benham elsewhere, for he intruded on his gloom, but, the chappie being
+amongst those present, it was only civil to talk to him. “I thought you
+were in New York, watching the rehearsals of your jolly old drama.”
+
+“The rehearsals are hung up. And it looks as though there wasn’t going
+to be any drama. Good Lord!” cried George Benham, with honest warmth,
+“with opportunities opening out before one on every side—with life
+extending prizes to one with both hands—when you see coal-heavers
+making fifty dollars a week and the fellows who clean out the sewers
+going happy and singing about their work—why does a man deliberately
+choose a job like writing plays? Job was the only man that ever lived
+who was really qualified to write a play, and he would have found it
+pretty tough going if his leading woman had been anyone like Vera
+Silverton!”
+
+Archie—and it was this fact, no doubt, which accounted for his
+possession of such a large and varied circle of friends—was always able
+to shelve his own troubles in order to listen to other people’s
+hard-luck stories.
+
+“Tell me all, laddie,” he said. “Release the film! Has she walked out
+on you?”
+
+“Left us flat! How did you hear about it? Oh, she told you, of course?”
+
+Archie hastened to try to dispel the idea that he was on any such terms
+of intimacy with Miss Silverton.
+
+“No, no! My wife said she thought it must be something of that nature
+or order when we saw her come in to breakfast. I mean to say,” said
+Archie, reasoning closely, “woman can’t come into breakfast here and be
+rehearsing in New York at the same time. Why did she administer the
+raspberry, old friend?”
+
+Mr. Benham helped himself to fish-pie, and spoke dully through the
+steam.
+
+“Well, what happened was this. Knowing her as intimately as you do—”
+
+“I _don’t_ know her!”
+
+“Well, anyway, it was like this. As you know, she has a dog—”
+
+“I didn’t know she had a dog,” protested Archie. It seemed to him that
+the world was in conspiracy to link him with this woman.
+
+“Well, she has a dog. A beastly great whacking brute of a bulldog. And
+she brings it to rehearsal.” Mr. Benham’s eyes filled with tears, as in
+his emotion he swallowed a mouthful of fish-pie some eighty-three
+degrees Fahrenheit hotter than it looked. In the intermission caused by
+this disaster his agile mind skipped a few chapters of the story, and,
+when he was able to speak again, he said, “So then there was a lot of
+trouble. Everything broke loose!”
+
+“Why?” Archie was puzzled. “Did the management object to her bringing
+the dog to rehearsal?”
+
+“A lot of good that would have done! She does what she likes in the
+theatre.”
+
+“Then why was there trouble?”
+
+“You weren’t listening,” said Mr. Benham, reproachfully. “I told you.
+This dog came snuffling up to where I was sitting—it was quite dark in
+the body of the theatre, you know—and I got up to say something about
+something that was happening on the stage, and somehow I must have
+given it a push with my foot.”
+
+“I see,” said Archie, beginning to get the run of the plot. “You kicked
+her dog.”
+
+“Pushed it. Accidentally. With my foot.”
+
+“I understand. And when you brought off this kick—”
+
+“Push,” said Mr. Benham, austerely.
+
+“This kick or push. When you administered this kick or push—”
+
+“It was more a sort of light shove.”
+
+“Well, when you did whatever you did, the trouble started?”
+
+Mr. Benham gave a slight shiver.
+
+“She talked for a while, and then walked out, taking the dog with her.
+You see, this wasn’t the first time it had happened.”
+
+“Good Lord! Do you spend your whole time doing that sort of thing?”
+
+“It wasn’t me the first time. It was the stage-manager. He didn’t know
+whose dog it was, and it came waddling on to the stage, and he gave it
+a sort of pat, a kind of flick—”
+
+“A slosh?”
+
+“_Not_ a slosh,” corrected Mr. Benham, firmly. “You might call it a
+tap—with the promptscript. Well, we had a lot of difficulty smoothing
+her over that time. Still, we managed to do it, but she said that if
+anything of the sort occurred again she would chuck up her part.”
+
+“She must be fond of the dog,” said Archie, for the first time feeling
+a touch of goodwill and sympathy towards the lady.
+
+“She’s crazy about it. That’s what made it so awkward when I
+happened—quite inadvertently—to give it this sort of accidental shove.
+Well, we spent the rest of the day trying to get her on the ’phone at
+her apartment, and finally we heard that she had come here. So I took
+the next train, and tried to persuade her to come back. She wouldn’t
+listen. And that’s how matters stand.”
+
+“Pretty rotten!” said Archie, sympathetically.
+
+“You can bet it’s pretty rotten—for me. There’s nobody else who can
+play the part. Like a chump, I wrote the thing specially for her. It
+means the play won’t be produced at all, if she doesn’t do it. So
+you’re my last hope!”
+
+Archie, who was lighting a cigarette, nearly swallowed it.
+
+“_I_ am?”
+
+“I thought you might persuade her. Point out to her what a lot hangs on
+her coming back. Jolly her along, _you_ know the sort of thing!”
+
+“But, my dear old friend, I tell you I don’t know her!”
+
+Mr. Benham’s eyes opened behind their zareba of glass.
+
+“Well, she knows _you_. When you came through the lobby just now she
+said that you were the only real human being she had ever met.”
+
+“Well, as a matter of fact, I did take a fly out of her eye. But—”
+
+“You did? Well, then, the whole thing’s simple. All you have to do is
+to ask her how her eye is, and tell her she has the most beautiful eyes
+you ever saw, and coo a bit.”
+
+“But, my dear old son!” The frightful programme which his friend had
+mapped out stunned Archie. “I simply can’t! Anything to oblige and all
+that sort of thing, but when it comes to cooing, distinctly Napoo!”
+
+“Nonsense! It isn’t hard to coo.”
+
+“You don’t understand, laddie. You’re not a married man. I mean to say,
+whatever you say for or against marriage—personally I’m all for it and
+consider it a ripe egg—the fact remains that it practically makes a
+chappie a spent force as a cooer. I don’t want to dish you in any way,
+old bean, but I must firmly and resolutely decline to coo.”
+
+Mr. Benham rose and looked at his watch.
+
+“I’ll have to be moving,” he said. “I’ve got to get back to New York
+and report. I’ll tell them that I haven’t been able to do anything
+myself, but that I’ve left the matter in good hands. I know you will do
+your best.”
+
+“But, laddie!”
+
+“Think,” said Mr. Benham, solemnly, “of all that depends on it! The
+other actors! The small-part people thrown out of a job! Myself—but no!
+Perhaps you had better touch very lightly or not at all on my
+connection with the thing. Well, you know how to handle it. I feel I
+can leave it to you. Pitch it strong! Good-bye, my dear old man, and a
+thousand thanks. I’ll do the same for you another time.” He moved
+towards the door, leaving Archie transfixed. Half-way there he turned
+and came back. “Oh, by the way,” he said, “my lunch. Have it put on
+your bill, will you? I haven’t time to stay and settle. Good-bye!
+Good-bye!”
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XIII.
+RALLYING ROUND PERCY
+
+
+It amazed Archie through the whole of a long afternoon to reflect how
+swiftly and unexpectedly the blue and brilliant sky of life can cloud
+over and with what abruptness a man who fancies that his feet are on
+solid ground can find himself immersed in Fate’s gumbo. He recalled,
+with the bitterness with which one does recall such things, that that
+morning he had risen from his bed without a care in the world, his
+happiness unruffled even by the thought that Lucille would be leaving
+him for a short space. He had sung in his bath. Yes, he had chirruped
+like a bally linnet. And now—
+
+Some men would have dismissed the unfortunate affairs of Mr. George
+Benham from their mind as having nothing to do with themselves, but
+Archie had never been made of this stern stuff. The fact that Mr.
+Benham, apart from being an agreeable companion with whom he had
+lunched occasionally in New York, had no claims upon him affected him
+little. He hated to see his fellowman in trouble. On the other hand,
+what could he do? To seek Miss Silverton out and plead with her—even if
+he did it without cooing—would undoubtedly establish an intimacy
+between them which, instinct told him, might tinge her manner after
+Lucille’s return with just that suggestion of Auld Lang Syne which
+makes things so awkward.
+
+His whole being shrank from extending to Miss Silverton that inch which
+the female artistic temperament is so apt to turn into an ell; and
+when, just as he was about to go in to dinner, he met her in the lobby
+and she smiled brightly at him and informed him that her eye was now
+completely recovered, he shied away like a startled mustang of the
+prairie, and, abandoning his intention of worrying the table d’hote in
+the same room with the amiable creature, tottered off to the
+smoking-room, where he did the best he could with sandwiches and
+coffee.
+
+Having got through the time as best he could till eleven o’clock, he
+went up to bed.
+
+The room to which he and Lucille had been assigned by the management
+was on the second floor, pleasantly sunny by day and at night filled
+with cool and heartening fragrance of the pines. Hitherto Archie had
+always enjoyed taking a final smoke on the balcony overlooking the
+woods, but, to-night such was his mental stress that he prepared to go
+to bed directly he had closed the door. He turned to the cupboard to
+get his pyjamas.
+
+His first thought, when even after a second scrutiny no pyjamas were
+visible, was that this was merely another of those things which happen
+on days when life goes wrong. He raked the cupboard for a third time
+with an annoyed eye. From every hook hung various garments of
+Lucille’s, but no pyjamas. He was breathing a soft malediction
+preparatory to embarking on a point-to-point hunt for his missing
+property, when something in the cupboard caught his eye and held him
+for a moment puzzled.
+
+He could have sworn that Lucille did not possess a mauve _négligé_.
+Why, she had told him a dozen times that mauve was a colour which she
+did not like. He frowned perplexedly; and as he did so, from near the
+window came a soft cough.
+
+Archie spun round and subjected the room to as close a scrutiny as that
+which he had bestowed upon the cupboard. Nothing was visible. The
+window opening on to the balcony gaped wide. The balcony was manifestly
+empty.
+
+“_Urrf!_”
+
+This time there was no possibility of error. The cough had come from
+the immediate neighbourhood of the window.
+
+Archie was conscious of a pringly sensation about the roots of his
+closely-cropped back-hair, as he moved cautiously across the room. The
+affair was becoming uncanny; and, as he tip-toed towards the window,
+old ghost stories, read in lighter moments before cheerful fires with
+plenty of light in the room, flitted through his mind. He had the
+feeling—precisely as every chappie in those stories had had—that he was
+not alone.
+
+Nor was he. In a basket behind an arm-chair, curled up, with his
+massive chin resting on the edge of the wicker-work, lay a fine
+bulldog.
+
+“Urrf!” said the bulldog.
+
+“Good God!” said Archie.
+
+There was a lengthy pause in which the bulldog looked earnestly at
+Archie and Archie looked earnestly at the bulldog.
+
+Normally, Archie was a dog-lover. His hurry was never so great as to
+prevent him stopping, when in the street, and introducing himself to
+any dog he met. In a strange house, his first act was to assemble the
+canine population, roll it on its back or backs, and punch it in the
+ribs. As a boy, his earliest ambition had been to become a veterinary
+surgeon; and, though the years had cheated him of his career, he knew
+all about dogs, their points, their manners, their customs, and their
+treatment in sickness and in health. In short, he loved dogs, and, had
+they met under happier conditions, he would undoubtedly have been on
+excellent terms with this one within the space of a minute. But, as
+things were, he abstained from fraternising and continued to goggle
+dumbly.
+
+And then his eye, wandering aside, collided with the following objects:
+a fluffy pink dressing-gown, hung over the back of a chair, an entirely
+strange suit-case, and, on the bureau, a photograph in a silver frame
+of a stout gentleman in evening-dress whom he had never seen before in
+his life.
+
+Much has been written of the emotions of the wanderer who, returning to
+his childhood home, finds it altered out of all recognition; but poets
+have neglected the theme—far more poignant—of the man who goes up to
+his room in an hotel and finds it full of somebody else’s
+dressing-gowns and bulldogs.
+
+Bulldogs! Archie’s heart jumped sideways and upwards with a wiggling
+movement, turning two somersaults, and stopped beating. The hideous
+truth, working its way slowly through the concrete, had at last
+penetrated to his brain. He was not only in somebody else’s room, and a
+woman’s at that. He was in the room belonging to Miss Vera Silverton.
+
+He could not understand it. He would have been prepared to stake the
+last cent he could borrow from his father-in-law on the fact that he
+had made no error in the number over the door. Yet, nevertheless, such
+was the case, and, below par though his faculties were at the moment,
+he was sufficiently alert to perceive that it behoved him to withdraw.
+
+He leaped to the door, and, as he did so, the handle began to turn.
+
+The cloud which had settled on Archie’s mind lifted abruptly. For an
+instant he was enabled to think about a hundred times more quickly than
+was his leisurely wont. Good fortune had brought him to within easy
+reach of the electric-light switch. He snapped it back, and was in
+darkness. Then, diving silently and swiftly to the floor, he wriggled
+under the bed. The thud of his head against what appeared to be some
+sort of joist or support, unless it had been placed there by the maker
+as a practical joke, on the chance of this kind of thing happening some
+day, coincided with the creak of the opening door. Then the light was
+switched on again, and the bulldog in the corner gave a welcoming
+woofle.
+
+“And how is mamma’s precious angel?”
+
+Rightly concluding that the remark had not been addressed to himself
+and that no social obligation demanded that he reply, Archie pressed
+his cheek against the boards and said nothing. The question was not
+repeated, but from the other side of the room came the sound of a
+patted dog.
+
+“Did he think his muzzer had fallen down dead and was never coming up?”
+
+The beautiful picture which these words conjured up filled Archie with
+that yearning for the might-have-been which is always so painful. He
+was finding his position physically as well as mentally distressing. It
+was cramped under the bed, and the boards were harder than anything he
+had ever encountered. Also, it appeared to be the practice of the
+housemaids at the Hotel Hermitage to use the space below the beds as a
+depository for all the dust which they swept off the carpet, and much
+of this was insinuating itself into his nose and mouth. The two things
+which Archie would have liked most to do at that moment were first to
+kill Miss Silverton—if possible, painfully—and then to spend the
+remainder of his life sneezing.
+
+After a prolonged period he heard a drawer open, and noted the fact as
+promising. As the old married man, he presumed that it signified the
+putting away of hair-pins. About now the dashed woman would be looking
+at herself in the glass with her hair down. Then she would brush it.
+Then she would twiddle it up into thingummies. Say, ten minutes for
+this. And after that she would go to bed and turn out the light, and he
+would be able, after giving her a bit of time to go to sleep, to creep
+out and leg it. Allowing at a conservative estimate three-quarters of—
+
+“Come out!”
+
+Archie stiffened. For an instant a feeble hope came to him that this
+remark, like the others, might be addressed to the dog.
+
+“Come out from under that bed!” said a stern voice. “And mind how you
+come! I’ve got a pistol!”
+
+“Well, I mean to say, you know,” said Archie, in a propitiatory voice,
+emerging from his lair like a tortoise and smiling as winningly as a
+man can who has just bumped his head against the leg of a bed, “I
+suppose all this seems fairly rummy, but—”
+
+“For the love of Mike!” said Miss Silverton.
+
+The point seemed to Archie well taken and the comment on the situation
+neatly expressed.
+
+“What are you doing in my room?”
+
+“Well, if it comes to that, you know—shouldn’t have mentioned it if you
+hadn’t brought the subject up in the course of general chit-chat—what
+are you doing in mine?”
+
+“Yours?”
+
+“Well, apparently there’s been a bloomer of some species somewhere, but
+this was the room I had last night,” said Archie.
+
+“But the desk-clerk said that he had asked you if it would be quite
+satisfactory to you giving it up to me, and you said yes. I come here
+every summer, when I’m not working, and I always have this room.”
+
+“By Jove! I remember now. The chappie did say something to me about the
+room, but I was thinking of something else and it rather went over the
+top. So that’s what he was talking about, was it?”
+
+Miss Silverton was frowning. A moving-picture director, scanning her
+face, would have perceived that she was registering disappointment.
+
+“Nothing breaks right for me in this darned world,” she said,
+regretfully. “When I caught sight of your leg sticking out from under
+the bed, I did think that everything was all lined up for a real find
+and, at last, I could close my eyes and see the thing in the papers. On
+the front page, with photographs: ‘Plucky Actress Captures Burglar.’
+Darn it!”
+
+“Fearfully sorry, you know!”
+
+“I just needed something like that. I’ve got a Press-agent, and I will
+say for him that he eats well and sleeps well and has just enough
+intelligence to cash his monthly cheque without forgetting what he went
+into the bank for, but outside of that you can take it from me he’s not
+one of the world’s workers! He’s about as much solid use to a girl with
+aspirations as a pain in the lower ribs. It’s three weeks since he got
+me into print at all, and then the brightest thing he could think up
+was that my favourite breakfast-fruit was an apple. Well, I ask you!”
+
+“Rotten!” said Archie.
+
+“I did think that for once my guardian angel had gone back to work and
+was doing something for me. ‘Stage Star and Midnight Marauder,’”
+murmured Miss Silverton, wistfully. “‘Footlight Favourite Foils
+Felon.’”
+
+“Bit thick!” agreed Archie, sympathetically. “Well, you’ll probably be
+wanting to get to bed and all that sort of rot, so I may as well be
+popping, what! Cheerio!”
+
+A sudden gleam came into Miss Silverton’s compelling eyes.
+
+“Wait!”
+
+“Eh?”
+
+“Wait! I’ve got an idea!” The wistful sadness had gone from her manner.
+She was bright and alert. “Sit down!”
+
+“Sit down?”
+
+“Sure. Sit down and take the chill off the arm-chair. I’ve thought of
+something.”
+
+Archie sat down as directed. At his elbow the bulldog eyed him gravely
+from the basket.
+
+“Do they know you in this hotel?”
+
+“Know me? Well, I’ve been here about a week.”
+
+“I mean, do they know who you are? Do they know you’re a good citizen?”
+
+“Well, if it comes to that, I suppose they don’t. But—”
+
+“Fine!” said Miss Silverton, appreciatively. “Then it’s all right. We
+can carry on!”
+
+“Carry on!”
+
+“Why, sure! All I want is to get the thing into the papers. It doesn’t
+matter to me if it turns out later that there was a mistake and that
+you weren’t a burglar trying for my jewels after all. It makes just as
+good a story either way. I can’t think why that never struck me before.
+Here have I been kicking because you weren’t a real burglar, when it
+doesn’t amount to a hill of beans whether you are or not. All I’ve got
+to do is to rush out and yell and rouse the hotel, and they come in and
+pinch you, and I give the story to the papers, and everything’s fine!”
+
+Archie leaped from his chair.
+
+“I say! What!”
+
+“What’s on your mind?” enquired Miss Silverton, considerately. “Don’t
+you think it’s a nifty scheme?”
+
+“Nifty! My dear old soul! It’s frightful!”
+
+“Can’t see what’s wrong with it,” grumbled Miss Silverton. “After I’ve
+had someone get New York on the long-distance ’phone and give the story
+to the papers you can explain, and they’ll let you out. Surely to
+goodness you don’t object, as a personal favour to me, to spending an
+hour or two in a cell? Why, probably they haven’t got a prison at all
+out in these parts, and you’ll simply be locked in a room. A child of
+ten could do it on his head,” said Miss Silverton. “A child of six,”
+she emended.
+
+“But, dash it—I mean—what I mean to say—I’m married!”
+
+“Yes?” said Miss Silverton, with the politeness of faint interest.
+“I’ve been married myself. I wouldn’t say it’s altogether a bad thing,
+mind you, for those that like it, but a little of it goes a long way.
+My first husband,” she proceeded, reminiscently, “was a travelling man.
+I gave him a two-weeks’ try-out, and then I told him to go on
+travelling. My second husband—now, _he_ wasn’t a gentleman in any sense
+of the word. I remember once—”
+
+“You don’t grasp the point. The jolly old point! You fail to grasp it.
+If this bally thing comes out, my wife will be most frightfully sick!”
+
+Miss Silverton regarded him with pained surprise.
+
+“Do you mean to say you would let a little thing like that stand in the
+way of my getting on the front page of all the papers—_with_
+photographs? Where’s your chivalry?”
+
+“Never mind my dashed chivalry!”
+
+“Besides, what does it matter if she does get a little sore? She’ll
+soon get over it. You can put that right. Buy her a box of candy. Not
+that I’m strong for candy myself. What I always say is, it may taste
+good, but look what it does to your hips! I give you my honest word
+that, when I gave up eating candy, I lost eleven ounces the first week.
+My second husband—no, I’m a liar, it was my third—my third husband
+said—Say, what’s the big idea? Where are you going?”
+
+“Out!” said Archie, firmly. “Bally out!”
+
+A dangerous light flickered in Miss Silverton’s eyes.
+
+“That’ll be all of that!” she said, raising the pistol. “You stay right
+where you are, or I’ll fire!”
+
+“Right-o!”
+
+“I mean it!”
+
+“My dear old soul,” said Archie, “in the recent unpleasantness in
+France I had chappies popping off things like that at me all day and
+every day for close on five years, and here I am, what! I mean to say,
+if I’ve got to choose between staying here and being pinched in your
+room by the local constabulary and having the dashed thing get into the
+papers and all sorts of trouble happening, and my wife getting the wind
+up and—I say, if I’ve got to choose—”
+
+“Suck a lozenge and start again!” said Miss Silverton.
+
+“Well, what I mean to say is, I’d much rather take a chance of getting
+a bullet in the old bean than that. So loose it off and the best o’
+luck!”
+
+Miss Silverton lowered the pistol, sank into a chair, and burst into
+tears.
+
+“I think you’re the meanest man I ever met!” she sobbed. “You know
+perfectly well the bang would send me into a fit!”
+
+“In that case,” said Archie, relieved, “cheerio, good luck, pip-pip,
+toodle-oo, and good-bye-ee! I’ll be shifting!”
+
+“Yes, you will!” cried Miss Silverton, energetically, recovering with
+amazing swiftness from her collapse. “Yes, you will, I by no means
+suppose! You think, just because I’m no champion with a pistol, I’m
+helpless. You wait! Percy!”
+
+“My name is not Percy.”
+
+“I never said it was. Percy! Percy, come to muzzer!”
+
+There was a creaking rustle from behind the arm-chair. A heavy body
+flopped on the carpet. Out into the room, heaving himself along as
+though sleep had stiffened his joints, and breathing stertorously
+through his tilted nose, moved the fine bulldog. Seen in the open, he
+looked even more formidable than he had done in his basket.
+
+“Guard him, Percy! Good dog, guard him! Oh, heavens! What’s the matter
+with him?”
+
+And with these words the emotional woman, uttering a wail of anguish,
+flung herself on the floor beside the animal.
+
+Percy was, indeed, in manifestly bad shape. He seemed quite unable to
+drag his limbs across the room. There was a curious arch in his back,
+and, as his mistress touched him, he cried out plaintively,
+
+“Percy! Oh, what _is_ the matter with him? His nose is burning!”
+
+Now was the time, with both sections of the enemy’s forces occupied,
+for Archie to have departed softly from the room. But never, since the
+day when at the age of eleven he had carried a large, damp, and muddy
+terrier with a sore foot three miles and deposited him on the best sofa
+in his mother’s drawing-room, had he been able to ignore the spectacle
+of a dog in trouble.
+
+“He does look bad, what!”
+
+“He’s dying! Oh, he’s dying! Is it distemper? He’s never had
+distemper.”
+
+Archie regarded the sufferer with the grave eye of the expert. He shook
+his head.
+
+“It’s not that,” he said. “Dogs with distemper make a sort of snifting
+noise.”
+
+“But he _is_ making a snifting noise!”
+
+“No, he’s making a snuffling noise. Great difference between snuffling
+and snifting. Not the same thing at all. I mean to say, when they snift
+they snift, and when they snuffle they—as it were—snuffle. That’s how
+you can tell. If you ask _me_”—he passed his hand over the dog’s back.
+Percy uttered another cry. “I know what’s the matter with him.”
+
+“A brute of a man kicked him at rehearsal. Do you think he’s injured
+internally?”
+
+“It’s rheumatism,” said Archie. “Jolly old rheumatism. That’s all
+that’s the trouble.”
+
+“Are you sure?”
+
+“Absolutely!”
+
+“But what can I do?”
+
+“Give him a good hot bath, and mind and dry him well. He’ll have a good
+sleep then, and won’t have any pain. Then, first thing to-morrow, you
+want to give him salicylate of soda.”
+
+“I’ll never remember that.”—“I’ll write it down for you. You ought to
+give him from ten to twenty grains three times a day in an ounce of
+water. And rub him with any good embrocation.”
+
+“And he won’t die?”
+
+“Die! He’ll live to be as old as you are!-I mean to say—”
+
+“I could kiss you!” said Miss Silverton, emotionally.
+
+Archie backed hastily.
+
+“No, no, absolutely not! Nothing like that required, really!”
+
+“You’re a darling!”
+
+“Yes. I mean no. No, no, really!”
+
+“I don’t know what to say. What can I say?”
+
+“Good night,” said Archie.
+
+“I wish there was something I could do! If you hadn’t been here, I
+should have gone off my head!”
+
+A great idea flashed across Archie’s brain.
+
+“Do you really want to do something?”
+
+“Anything!”
+
+“Then I do wish, like a dear sweet soul, you would pop straight back to
+New York to-morrow and go on with those rehearsals.”
+
+Miss Silverton shook her head.
+
+“I can’t do that!”
+
+“Oh, right-o! But it isn’t much to ask, what!”
+
+“Not much to ask! I’ll never forgive that man for kicking Percy!”
+
+“Now listen, dear old soul. You’ve got the story all wrong. As a matter
+of fact, jolly old Benham told me himself that he has the greatest
+esteem and respect for Percy, and wouldn’t have kicked him for the
+world. And, you know it was more a sort of push than a kick. You might
+almost call it a light shove. The fact is, it was beastly dark in the
+theatre, and he was legging it sideways for some reason or other, no
+doubt with the best motives, and unfortunately he happened to stub his
+toe on the poor old bean.”
+
+“Then why didn’t he say so?”
+
+“As far as I could make out, you didn’t give him a chance.”
+
+Miss Silverton wavered.
+
+“I always hate going back after I’ve walked out on a show,” she said.
+“It seems so weak!”
+
+“Not a bit of it! They’ll give three hearty cheers and think you a
+topper. Besides, you’ve got to go to New York in any case. To take
+Percy to a vet., you know, what!”
+
+“Of course. How right you always are!” Miss Silverton hesitated again.
+“Would you really be glad if I went back to the show?”
+
+“I’d go singing about the hotel! Great pal of mine, Benham. A
+thoroughly cheery old bean, and very cut up about the whole affair.
+Besides, think of all the coves thrown out of work—the thingummabobs
+and the poor what-d’you-call-’ems!”
+
+“Very well.”
+
+“You’ll do it?”
+
+“Yes.”
+
+“I say, you really are one of the best! Absolutely like mother made!
+That’s fine! Well, I think I’ll be saying good night.”
+
+“Good night. And thank you so much!”
+
+“Oh, no, rather not!”
+
+Archie moved to the door.
+
+“Oh, by the way.”
+
+“Yes?”
+
+“If I were you, I think I should catch the very first train you can get
+to New York. You see—er—you ought to take Percy to the vet. as soon as
+ever you can.”
+
+“You really do think of everything,” said Miss Silverton.
+
+“Yes,” said Archie, meditatively.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XIV.
+THE SAD CASE OF LOONEY BIDDLE
+
+
+Archie was a simple soul, and, as is the case with most simple souls,
+gratitude came easily to him. He appreciated kind treatment. And when,
+on the following day, Lucille returned to the Hermitage, all smiles and
+affection, and made no further reference to Beauty’s Eyes and the flies
+that got into them, he was conscious of a keen desire to show some
+solid recognition of this magnanimity. Few wives, he was aware, could
+have had the nobility and what not to refrain from occasionally turning
+the conversation in the direction of the above-mentioned topics. It had
+not needed this behaviour on her part to convince him that Lucille was
+a topper and a corker and one of the very best, for he had been
+cognisant of these facts since the first moment he had met her: but
+what he did feel was that she deserved to be rewarded in no uncertain
+manner. And it seemed a happy coincidence to him that her birthday
+should be coming along in the next week or so. Surely, felt Archie, he
+could whack up some sort of a not unjuicy gift for that
+occasion—something pretty ripe that would make a substantial hit with
+the dear girl. Surely something would come along to relieve his chronic
+impecuniosity for just sufficient length of time to enable him to
+spread himself on this great occasion.
+
+And, as if in direct answer to prayer, an almost forgotten aunt in
+England suddenly, out of an absolutely blue sky, shot no less a sum
+than five hundred dollars across the ocean. The present was so lavish
+and unexpected that Archie had the awed feeling of one who participates
+in a miracle. He felt, like Herbert Parker, that the righteous was not
+forsaken. It was the sort of thing that restored a fellow’s faith in
+human nature. For nearly a week he went about in a happy trance: and
+when, by thrift and enterprise—that is to say, by betting Reggie van
+Tuyl that the New York Giants would win the opening game of the series
+against the Pittsburg baseball team—he contrived to double his capital,
+what it amounted to was simply that life had nothing more to offer. He
+was actually in a position to go to a thousand dollars for Lucille’s
+birthday present. He gathered in Mr. van Tuyl, of whose taste in these
+matters he had a high opinion, and dragged him off to a jeweller’s on
+Broadway.
+
+The jeweller, a stout, comfortable man, leaned on the counter and
+fingered lovingly the bracelet which he had lifted out of its nest of
+blue plush. Archie, leaning on the other side of the counter, inspected
+the bracelet searchingly, wishing that he knew more about these things;
+for he had rather a sort of idea that the merchant was scheming to do
+him in the eyeball. In a chair by his side, Reggie van Tuyl, half
+asleep as usual, yawned despondently. He had permitted Archie to lug
+him into this shop; and he wanted to buy something and go. Any form of
+sustained concentration fatigued Reggie.
+
+“Now this,” said the jeweller, “I could do at eight hundred and fifty
+dollars.”
+
+“Grab it!” murmured Mr. van Tuyl.
+
+The jeweller eyed him approvingly, a man after his own heart; but
+Archie looked doubtful. It was all very well for Reggie to tell him to
+grab it in that careless way. Reggie was a dashed millionaire, and no
+doubt bought bracelets by the pound or the gross or what not; but he
+himself was in an entirely different position.
+
+“Eight hundred and fifty dollars!” he said, hesitating.
+
+“Worth it,” mumbled Reggie van Tuyl.
+
+“More than worth it,” amended the jeweller. “I can assure you that it
+is better value than you could get anywhere on Fifth Avenue.”
+
+“Yes?” said Archie. He took the bracelet and twiddled it thoughtfully.
+“Well, my dear old jeweller, one can’t say fairer than that, can one—or
+two, as the case may be!” He frowned. “Oh, well, all right! But it’s
+rummy that women are so fearfully keen on these little thingummies,
+isn’t it? I mean to say, can’t see what they see in them. Stones, and
+all that. Still, there it is, of course!”
+
+“There,” said the jeweller, “as you say, it is, sir.”
+
+“Yes, there it is!”
+
+“Yes, there it is,” said the jeweller, “fortunately for people in my
+line of business. Will you take it with you, sir?”
+
+Archie reflected.
+
+“No. No, not take it with me. The fact is, you know, my wife’s coming
+back from the country to-night, and it’s her birthday to-morrow, and
+the thing’s for her, and, if it was popping about the place to-night,
+she might see it, and it would sort of spoil the surprise. I mean to
+say, she doesn’t know I’m giving it her, and all that!”
+
+“Besides,” said Reggie, achieving a certain animation now that the
+tedious business interview was concluded, “going to the ball-game this
+afternoon—might get pocket picked—yes, better have it sent.”
+
+“Where shall I send it, sir?”
+
+“Eh? Oh, shoot it along to Mrs. Archibald Moffam, at the Cosmopolis.
+Not to-day, you know. Buzz it in first thing to-morrow.”
+
+Having completed the satisfactory deal, the jeweller threw off the
+business manner and became chatty.
+
+“So you are going to the ball-game? It should be an interesting
+contest.”
+
+Reggie van Tuyl, now—by his own standards—completely awake, took
+exception to this remark.
+
+“Not a bit of it!” he said, decidedly. “No contest! Can’t call it a
+contest! Walkover for the Pirates!”
+
+Archie was stung to the quick. There is that about baseball which
+arouses enthusiasm and the partisan spirit in the unlikeliest bosoms.
+It is almost impossible for a man to live in America and not become
+gripped by the game; and Archie had long been one of its warmest
+adherents. He was a whole-hearted supporter of the Giants, and his only
+grievance against Reggie, in other respects an estimable young man, was
+that the latter, whose money had been inherited from steel-mills in
+that city, had an absurd regard for the Pirates of Pittsburg.
+
+“What absolute bally rot!” he exclaimed. “Look what the Giants did to
+them yesterday!”
+
+“Yesterday isn’t to-day,” said Reggie.
+
+“No, it’ll be a jolly sight worse,” said Archie. “Looney Biddle’ll be
+pitching for the Giants to-day.”
+
+“That’s just what I mean. The Pirates have got him rattled. Look what
+happened last time.”
+
+Archie understood, and his generous nature chafed at the innuendo.
+Looney Biddle—so-called by an affectionately admiring public as the
+result of certain marked eccentricities—was beyond dispute the greatest
+left-handed pitcher New York had possessed in the last decade. But
+there was one blot on Mr. Biddle’s otherwise stainless scutcheon. Five
+weeks before, on the occasion of the Giants’ invasion of Pittsburg, he
+had gone mysteriously to pieces. Few native-born partisans, brought up
+to baseball from the cradle, had been plunged into a profounder gloom
+on that occasion than Archie; but his soul revolted at the thought that
+that sort of thing could ever happen again.
+
+“I’m not saying,” continued Reggie, “that Biddle isn’t a very fair
+pitcher, but it’s cruel to send him against the Pirates, and somebody
+ought to stop it. His best friends should interfere. Once a team gets a
+pitcher rattled, he’s never any good against them again. He loses his
+nerve.”
+
+The jeweller nodded approval of this sentiment.
+
+“They never come back,” he said, sententiously.
+
+The fighting blood of the Moffams was now thoroughly stirred. Archie
+eyed his friend sternly. Reggie was a good chap—in many respects an
+extremely sound egg—but he must not be allowed to talk rot of this
+description about the greatest left-handed pitcher of the age.
+
+“It seems to me, old companion,” he said, “that a small bet is
+indicated at this juncture. How about it?”
+
+“Don’t want to take your money.”
+
+“You won’t have to! In the cool twilight of the merry old summer
+evening I, friend of my youth and companion of my riper years, shall be
+trousering yours.”
+
+Reggie yawned. The day was very hot, and this argument was making him
+feel sleepy again.
+
+“Well, just as you like, of course. Double or quits on yesterday’s bet,
+if that suits you.”
+
+For a moment Archie hesitated. Firm as his faith was in Mr. Biddle’s
+stout left arm, he had not intended to do the thing on quite this
+scale. That thousand dollars of his was earmarked for Lucille’s
+birthday present, and he doubted whether he ought to risk it. Then the
+thought that the honour of New York was in his hands decided him.
+Besides, the risk was negligible. Betting on Looney Biddle was like
+betting on the probable rise of the sun in the east. The thing began to
+seem to Archie a rather unusually sound and conservative investment. He
+remembered that the jeweller, until he drew him firmly but kindly to
+earth and urged him to curb his exuberance and talk business on a
+reasonable plane, had started brandishing bracelets that cost about two
+thousand. There would be time to pop in at the shop this evening after
+the game and change the one he had selected for one of those. Nothing
+was too good for Lucille on her birthday.
+
+“Right-o!” he said. “Make it so, old friend!”
+
+Archie walked back to the Cosmopolis. No misgivings came to mar his
+perfect contentment. He felt no qualms about separating Reggie from
+another thousand dollars. Except for a little small change in the
+possession of the Messrs. Rockefeller and Vincent Astor, Reggie had all
+the money in the world and could afford to lose. He hummed a gay air as
+he entered the lobby and crossed to the cigar-stand to buy a few
+cigarettes to see him through the afternoon.
+
+The girl behind the cigar counter welcomed him with a bright smile.
+Archie was popular with all the employés of the Cosmopolis.
+
+“’S a great day, Mr. Moffam!”
+
+“One of the brightest and best,” agreed Archie. “Could you dig me out
+two, or possibly three, cigarettes of the usual description? I shall
+want something to smoke at the ball-game.”
+
+“You going to the ball-game?”
+
+“Rather! Wouldn’t miss it for a fortune.”
+
+“No?”
+
+“Absolutely no! Not with jolly old Biddle pitching.”
+
+The cigar-stand girl laughed amusedly.
+
+“Is he pitching this afternoon? Say, that feller’s a nut? D’you know
+him?”
+
+“Know him? Well, I’ve seen him pitch and so forth.”
+
+“I’ve got a girl friend who’s engaged to him!”
+
+Archie looked at her with positive respect. It would have been more
+dramatic, of course, if she had been engaged to the great man herself,
+but still the mere fact that she had a girl friend in that astounding
+position gave her a sort of halo.
+
+“No, really!” he said. “I say, by Jove, really! Fancy that!”
+
+“Yes, she’s engaged to him all right. Been engaged close on a coupla
+months now.”
+
+“I say! That’s frightfully interesting! Fearfully interesting, really!”
+
+“It’s funny about that guy,” said the cigar-stand girl. “He’s a nut!
+The fellow who said there’s plenty of room at the top must have been
+thinking of Gus Biddle’s head! He’s crazy about m’ girl friend, y’
+know, and, whenever they have a fuss, it seems like he sort of flies
+right off the handle.”
+
+“Goes in off the deep end, eh?”
+
+“Yes, _sir!_ Loses what little sense he’s got. Why, the last time him
+and m’ girl friend got to scrapping was when he was going on to
+Pittsburg to play, about a month ago. He’d been out with her the day he
+left for there, and he had a grouch or something, and he started making
+low, sneaky cracks about her Uncle Sigsbee. Well, m’ girl friend’s got
+a nice disposition, but she c’n get mad, and she just left him flat and
+told him all was over. And he went off to Pittsburg, and, when he
+started in to pitch the opening game, he just couldn’t keep his mind on
+his job, and look what them assassins done to him! Five runs in the
+first innings! Yessir, he’s a nut all right!”
+
+Archie was deeply concerned. So this was the explanation of that
+mysterious disaster, that weird tragedy which had puzzled the sporting
+press from coast to coast.
+
+“Good God! Is he often taken like that?”
+
+“Oh, he’s all right when he hasn’t had a fuss with m’ girl friend,”
+said the cigar-stand girl, indifferently. Her interest in baseball was
+tepid. Women are too often like this—mere butterflies, with no concern
+for the deeper side of life.
+
+“Yes, but I say! What I mean to say, you know! Are they pretty pally
+now? The good old Dove of Peace flapping its little wings fairly
+briskly and all that?”
+
+“Oh, I guess everything’s nice and smooth just now. I seen m’ girl
+friend yesterday, and Gus was taking her to the movies last night, so I
+guess everything’s nice and smooth.”
+
+Archie breathed a sigh of relief.
+
+“Took her to the movies, did he? Stout fellow!”
+
+“I was at the funniest picture last week,” said the cigar-stand girl.
+“Honest, it was a scream! It was like this—”
+
+Archie listened politely; then went in to get a bite of lunch. His
+equanimity, shaken by the discovery of the rift in the peerless one’s
+armour, was restored. Good old Biddle had taken the girl to the movies
+last night. Probably he had squeezed her hand a goodish bit in the
+dark. With what result? Why, the fellow would be feeling like one of
+those chappies who used to joust for the smiles of females in the
+Middle Ages. What he meant to say, presumably the girl would be at the
+game this afternoon, whooping him on, and good old Biddle would be so
+full of beans and buck that there would be no holding him.
+
+Encouraged by these thoughts, Archie lunched with an untroubled mind.
+Luncheon concluded, he proceeded to the lobby to buy back his hat and
+stick from the boy brigand with whom he had left them. It was while he
+was conducting this financial operation that he observed that at the
+cigar-stand, which adjoined the coat-and-hat alcove, his friend behind
+the counter had become engaged in conversation with another girl.
+
+This was a determined looking young woman in a blue dress and a large
+hat of a bold and flowery species. Archie happening to attract her
+attention, she gave him a glance out of a pair of fine brown eyes,
+then, as if she did not think much of him, turned to her companion and
+resumed their conversation—which, being of an essentially private and
+intimate nature, she conducted, after the manner of her kind, in a
+ringing soprano which penetrated into every corner of the lobby.
+Archie, waiting while the brigand reluctantly made change for a dollar
+bill, was privileged to hear every word.
+
+“Right from the start I seen he was in a ugly mood. _You_ know how he
+gets, dearie! Chewing his upper lip and looking at you as if you were
+so much dirt beneath his feet! How was _I_ to know he’d lost fifteen
+dollars fifty-five playing poker, and anyway, I don’t see where he gets
+a licence to work off his grouches on me. And I told him so. I said to
+him, ‘Gus,’ I said, ‘if you can’t be bright and smiling and cheerful
+when you take me out, why do you come round at all? Was I wrong or
+right, dearie?”
+
+The girl behind the counter heartily endorsed her conduct. “Once you
+let a man think he could use you as a door-mat, where were you?”
+
+“What happened then, honey?”
+
+“Well, after that we went to the movies.”
+
+Archie started convulsively. The change from his dollar-bill leaped in
+his hand. Some of it sprang overboard and tinkled across the floor,
+with the brigand in pursuit. A monstrous suspicion had begun to take
+root in his mind.
+
+“Well, we got good seats, but—well, you know how it is, once things
+start going wrong. You know that hat of mine, the one with the daisies
+and cherries and the feather—I’d taken it off and given it him to hold
+when we went in, and what do you think that fell’r’d done? Put it on
+the floor and crammed it under the seat, just to save himself the
+trouble of holding it on his lap! And, when I showed him I was upset,
+all he said was that he was a pitcher and not a hatstand!”
+
+Archie was paralysed. He paid no attention to the hat-check boy, who
+was trying to induce him to accept treasure-trove to the amount of
+forty-five cents. His whole being was concentrated on this frightful
+tragedy which had burst upon him like a tidal wave. No possible room
+for doubt remained. “Gus” was the only Gus in New York that mattered,
+and this resolute and injured female before him was the Girl Friend, in
+whose slim hands rested the happiness of New York’s baseball followers,
+the destiny of the unconscious Giants, and the fate of his thousand
+dollars. A strangled croak proceeded from his parched lips.
+
+“Well, I didn’t say anything at the moment. It just shows how them
+movies can work on a girl’s feelings. It was a Bryant Washburn film,
+and somehow, whenever I see him on the screen, nothing else seems to
+matter. I just get that goo-ey feeling, and couldn’t start a fight if
+you asked me to. So we go off to have a soda, and I said to him, ‘That
+sure was a lovely film, Gus!’ and would you believe me, he says
+straight out that he didn’t think it was such a much, and he thought
+Bryant Washburn was a pill! A pill!” The Girl Friend’s penetrating
+voice shook with emotion.
+
+“He never!” exclaimed the shocked cigar-stand girl.
+
+“He did, if I die the next moment! I wasn’t more than half-way through
+my vanilla and maple, but I got up without a word and left him. And I
+ain’t seen a sight of him since. So there you are, dearie! Was I right
+or wrong?”
+
+The cigar-stand girl gave unqualified approval. What men like Gus
+Biddle needed for the salvation of their souls was an occasional good
+jolt right where it would do most good.
+
+“I’m glad you think I acted right, dearie,” said the Girl Friend. “I
+guess I’ve been too weak with Gus, and he’s took advantage of it. I
+s’pose I’ll have to forgive him one of these old days, but, believe me,
+it won’t be for a week.”
+
+The cigar-stand girl was in favour of a fortnight.
+
+“No,” said the Girl Friend, regretfully. “I don’t believe I could hold
+out that long. But, if I speak to him inside a week, well—! Well, I
+gotta be going. Goodbye, honey.”
+
+The cigar-stand girl turned to attend to an impatient customer, and the
+Girl Friend, walking with the firm and decisive steps which indicate
+character, made for the swing-door leading to the street. And as she
+went, the paralysis which had pipped Archie released its hold. Still
+ignoring the forty-five cents which the boy continued to proffer, he
+leaped in her wake like a panther and came upon her just as she was
+stepping into a car. The car was full, but not too full for Archie. He
+dropped his five cents into the box and reached for a vacant strap. He
+looked down upon the flowered hat. There she was. And there he was.
+Archie rested his left ear against the forearm of a long,
+strongly-built young man in a grey suit who had followed him into the
+car and was sharing his strap, and pondered.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XV.
+SUMMER STORMS
+
+
+Of course, in a way, the thing was simple. The wheeze was, in a sense,
+straightforward and uncomplicated. What he wanted to do was to point
+out to the injured girl all that hung on her. He wished to touch her
+heart, to plead with her, to desire her to restate her war-aims, and to
+persuade her—before three o’clock when that stricken gentleman would be
+stepping into the pitcher’s box to loose off the first ball against the
+Pittsburg Pirates—to let bygones be bygones and forgive Augustus
+Biddle. But the blighted problem was, how the deuce to find the
+opportunity to start. He couldn’t yell at the girl in a crowded
+street-car; and, if he let go of his strap and bent over her, somebody
+would step on his neck.
+
+The Girl Friend, who for the first five minutes had remained entirely
+concealed beneath her hat, now sought diversion by looking up and
+examining the faces of the upper strata of passengers. Her eye caught
+Archie’s in a glance of recognition, and he smiled feebly, endeavouring
+to register bonhomie and good-will. He was surprised to see a startled
+expression come into her brown eyes. Her face turned pink. At least, it
+was pink already, but it turned pinker. The next moment, the car having
+stopped to pick up more passengers, she jumped off and started to hurry
+across the street.
+
+Archie was momentarily taken aback. When embarking on this business he
+had never intended it to become a blend of otter-hunting and a
+moving-picture chase. He followed her off the car with a sense that his
+grip on the affair was slipping. Preoccupied with these thoughts, he
+did not perceive that the long young man who had shared his strap had
+alighted too. His eyes were fixed on the vanishing figure of the Girl
+Friend, who, having buzzed at a smart pace into Sixth Avenue, was now
+legging it in the direction of the staircase leading to one of the
+stations of the Elevated Railroad. Dashing up the stairs after her, he
+shortly afterwards found himself suspended as before from a strap,
+gazing upon the now familiar flowers on top of her hat. From another
+strap farther down the carriage swayed the long young man in the grey
+suit.
+
+The train rattled on. Once or twice, when it stopped, the girl seemed
+undecided whether to leave or remain. She half rose, then sank back
+again. Finally she walked resolutely out of the car, and Archie,
+following, found himself in a part of New York strange to him. The
+inhabitants of this district appeared to eke out a precarious
+existence, not by taking in one another’s washing, but by selling one
+another second-hand clothes.
+
+Archie glanced at his watch. He had lunched early, but so crowded with
+emotions had been the period following lunch that he was surprised to
+find that the hour was only just two. The discovery was a pleasant one.
+With a full hour before the scheduled start of the game, much might be
+achieved. He hurried after the girl, and came up with her just as she
+turned the corner into one of those forlorn New York side-streets which
+are populated chiefly by children, cats, desultory loafers, and empty
+meat-tins.
+
+The girl stopped and turned. Archie smiled a winning smile.
+
+“I say, my dear sweet creature!” he said. “I say, my dear old thing,
+one moment!”
+
+“Is that so?” said the Girl Friend.
+
+“I beg your pardon?”
+
+“Is that so?”
+
+Archie began to feel certain tremors. Her eyes were gleaming, and her
+determined mouth had become a perfectly straight line of scarlet. It
+was going to be difficult to be chatty to this girl. She was going to
+be a hard audience. Would mere words be able to touch her heart? The
+thought suggested itself that, properly speaking, one would need to use
+a pick-axe.
+
+“If you could spare me a couple of minutes of your valuable time—”
+
+“Say!” The lady drew herself up menacingly. “You tie a can to yourself
+and disappear! Fade away, or I’ll call a cop!”
+
+Archie was horrified at this misinterpretation of his motives. One or
+two children, playing close at hand, and a loafer who was trying to
+keep the wall from falling down, seemed pleased. Theirs was a
+colourless existence and to the rare purple moments which had enlivened
+it in the past the calling of a cop had been the unfailing preliminary.
+The loafer nudged a fellow-loafer, sunning himself against the same
+wall. The children, abandoning the meat-tin round which their game had
+centred, drew closer.
+
+“My dear old soul!” said Archie. “You don’t understand!”
+
+“Don’t I! I know your sort, you trailing arbutus!”
+
+“No, no! My dear old thing, believe me! I wouldn’t dream!”
+
+“Are you going or aren’t you?”
+
+Eleven more children joined the ring of spectators. The loafers stared
+silently, like awakened crocodiles.
+
+“But, I say, listen! I only wanted—”
+
+At this point another voice spoke.
+
+“Say!”
+
+The word “Say!” more almost than any word in the American language, is
+capable of a variety of shades of expression. It can be genial, it can
+be jovial, it can be appealing. It can also be truculent. The “Say!”
+which at this juncture smote upon Archie’s ear-drum with a suddenness
+which made him leap in the air was truculent; and the two loafers and
+twenty-seven children who now formed the audience were well satisfied
+with the dramatic development of the performance. To their experienced
+ears the word had the right ring.
+
+Archie spun round. At his elbow stood a long, strongly-built young man
+in a grey suit.
+
+“Well!” said the young man, nastily. And he extended a large, freckled
+face toward Archie’s. It seemed to the latter, as he backed against the
+wall, that the young man’s neck must be composed of india-rubber. It
+appeared to be growing longer every moment. His face, besides being
+freckled, was a dull brick-red in colour; his lips curled back in an
+unpleasant snarl, showing a gold tooth; and beside him, swaying in an
+ominous sort of way, hung two clenched red hands about the size of two
+young legs of mutton. Archie eyed him with a growing apprehension.
+There are moments in life when, passing idly on our way, we see a
+strange face, look into strange eyes, and with a sudden glow of human
+warmth say to ourselves, “We have found a friend!” This was not one of
+those moments. The only person Archie had ever seen in his life who
+looked less friendly was the sergeant-major who had trained him in the
+early days of the war, before he had got his commission.
+
+“I’ve had my eye on you!” said the young man.
+
+He still had his eye on him. It was a hot, gimlet-like eye, and it
+pierced the recesses of Archie’s soul. He backed a little farther
+against the wall.
+
+Archie was frankly disturbed. He was no poltroon, and had proved the
+fact on many occasions during the days when the entire German army
+seemed to be picking on him personally, but he hated and shrank from
+anything in the nature of a bally public scene.
+
+“What,” enquired the young man, still bearing the burden of the
+conversation, and shifting his left hand a little farther behind his
+back, “do you mean by following this young lady?”
+
+Archie was glad he had asked him. This was precisely what he wanted to
+explain.
+
+“My dear old lad—” he began.
+
+In spite of the fact that he had asked a question and presumably
+desired a reply, the sound of Archie’s voice seemed to be more than the
+young man could endure. It deprived him of the last vestige of
+restraint. With a rasping snarl he brought his left fist round in a
+sweeping semicircle in the direction of Archie’s head.
+
+Archie was no novice in the art of self-defence. Since his early days
+at school he had learned much from leather-faced professors of the
+science. He had been watching this unpleasant young man’s eyes with
+close attention, and the latter could not have indicated his scheme of
+action more clearly if he had sent him a formal note. Archie saw the
+swing all the way. He stepped nimbly aside, and the fist crashed
+against the wall. The young man fell back with a yelp of anguish.
+
+“Gus!” screamed the Girl Friend, bounding forward.
+
+She flung her arms round the injured man, who was ruefully examining a
+hand which, always of an out-size, was now swelling to still further
+dimensions.
+
+“Gus, darling!”
+
+A sudden chill gripped Archie. So engrossed had he been with his
+mission that it had never occurred to him that the love-lorn pitcher
+might have taken it into his head to follow the girl as well in the
+hope of putting in a word for himself. Yet such apparently had been the
+case. Well, this had definitely torn it. Two loving hearts were united
+again in complete reconciliation, but a fat lot of good that was. It
+would be days before the misguided Looney Biddle would be able to pitch
+with a hand like that. It looked like a ham already, and was still
+swelling. Probably the wrist was sprained. For at least a week the
+greatest left-handed pitcher of his time would be about as much use to
+the Giants in any professional capacity as a cold in the head. And on
+that crippled hand depended the fate of all the money Archie had in the
+world. He wished now that he had not thwarted the fellow’s simple
+enthusiasm. To have had his head knocked forcibly through a brick wall
+would not have been pleasant, but the ultimate outcome would not have
+been as unpleasant as this. With a heavy heart Archie prepared to
+withdraw, to be alone with his sorrow.
+
+At this moment, however, the Girl Friend, releasing her wounded lover,
+made a sudden dash for him, with the plainest intention of blotting him
+from the earth.
+
+“No, I say! Really!” said Archie, bounding backwards. “I mean to say!”
+
+In a series of events, all of which had been a bit thick, this, in his
+opinion, achieved the maximum of thickness. It was the extreme ragged,
+outside edge of the limit. To brawl with a fellow-man in a public
+street had been bad, but to be brawled with by a girl—the shot was not
+on the board. Absolutely not on the board. There was only one thing to
+be done. It was dashed undignified, no doubt, for a fellow to pick up
+the old waukeesis and leg it in the face of the enemy, but there was no
+other course. Archie started to run; and, as he did so, one of the
+loafers made the mistake of gripping him by the collar of his coat.
+
+“I got him!” observed the loafer.
+
+There is a time for all things. This was essentially not the time for
+anyone of the male sex to grip the collar of Archie’s coat. If a
+syndicate of Dempsey, Carpentier, and one of the Zoo gorillas had
+endeavoured to stay his progress at that moment, they would have had
+reason to consider it a rash move. Archie wanted to be elsewhere, and
+the blood of generations of Moffams, many of whom had swung a wicked
+axe in the free-for-all mix-ups of the Middle Ages, boiled within him
+at any attempt to revise his plans. There was a good deal of the
+loafer, but it was all soft. Releasing his hold when Archie’s heel took
+him shrewdly on the shin, he received a nasty punch in what would have
+been the middle of his waistcoat if he had worn one, uttered a gurgling
+bleat like a wounded sheep, and collapsed against the wall. Archie,
+with a torn coat, rounded the corner, and sprinted down Ninth Avenue.
+
+The suddenness of the move gave him an initial advantage. He was
+halfway down the first block before the vanguard of the pursuit poured
+out of the side street. Continuing to travel well, he skimmed past a
+large dray which had pulled up across the road, and moved on. The noise
+of those who pursued was loud and clamorous in the rear, but the dray
+hid him momentarily from their sight, and it was this fact which led
+Archie, the old campaigner, to take his next step.
+
+It was perfectly obvious—he was aware of this even in the novel
+excitement of the chase—that a chappie couldn’t hoof it at twenty-five
+miles an hour indefinitely along a main thoroughfare of a great city
+without exciting remark. He must take cover. Cover! That was the
+wheeze. He looked about him for cover.
+
+“You want a nice suit?”
+
+It takes a great deal to startle your commercial New Yorker. The small
+tailor, standing in his doorway, seemed in no way surprised at the
+spectacle of Archie, whom he had seen pass at a conventional walk some
+five minutes before, returning like this at top speed. He assumed that
+Archie had suddenly remembered that he wanted to buy something.
+
+This was exactly what Archie had done. More than anything else in the
+world, what he wanted to do now was to get into that shop and have a
+long talk about gents’ clothing. Pulling himself up abruptly, he shot
+past the small tailor into the dim interior. A confused aroma of cheap
+clothing greeted him. Except for a small oasis behind a grubby counter,
+practically all the available space was occupied by suits. Stiff suits,
+looking like the body when discovered by the police, hung from hooks.
+Limp suits, with the appearance of having swooned from exhaustion, lay
+about on chairs and boxes. The place was a cloth morgue, a Sargasso Sea
+of serge.
+
+Archie would not have had it otherwise. In these quiet groves of
+clothing a regiment could have lain hid.
+
+“Something nifty in tweeds?” enquired the business-like proprietor of
+this haven, following him amiably into the shop, “Or, maybe, yes, a
+nice serge? Say, mister, I got a sweet thing in blue serge that’ll fit
+you like the paper on the wall!”
+
+Archie wanted to talk about clothes, but not yet.
+
+“I say, laddie,” he said, hurriedly. “Lend me your ear for half a
+jiffy!” Outside the baying of the pack had become imminent. “Stow me
+away for a moment in the undergrowth, and I’ll buy anything you want.”
+
+He withdrew into the jungle. The noise outside grew in volume. The
+pursuit had been delayed for a priceless few instants by the arrival of
+another dray, moving northwards, which had drawn level with the first
+dray and dexterously bottled up the fairway. This obstacle had now been
+overcome, and the original searchers, their ranks swelled by a few
+dozen more of the leisured classes, were hot on the trail again.
+
+“You done a murder?” enquired the voice of the proprietor, mildly
+interested, filtering through a wall of cloth. “Well, boys will be
+boys!” he said, philosophically. “See anything there that you like?
+There some sweet things there!”
+
+“I’m inspecting them narrowly,” replied Archie. “If you don’t let those
+chappies find me, I shouldn’t be surprised if I bought one.”
+
+“One?” said the proprietor, with a touch of austerity.
+
+“Two,” said Archie, quickly. “Or possibly three or six.”
+
+The proprietor’s cordiality returned.
+
+“You can’t have too many nice suits,” he said, approvingly, “not a
+young feller like you that wants to look nice. All the nice girls like
+a young feller that dresses nice. When you go out of here in a suit I
+got hanging up there at the back, the girls’ll be all over you like
+flies round a honey-pot.”
+
+“Would you mind,” said Archie, “would you mind, as a personal favour to
+me, old companion, not mentioning that word ‘girls’?”
+
+He broke off. A heavy foot had crossed the threshold of the shop.
+
+“Say, uncle,” said a deep voice, one of those beastly voices that only
+the most poisonous blighters have, “you seen a young feller run past
+here?”
+
+“Young feller?” The proprietor appeared to reflect. “Do you mean a
+young feller in blue, with a Homburg hat?”
+
+“That’s the duck! We lost him. Where did he go?”
+
+“Him! Why, he come running past, quick as he could go. I wondered what
+he was running for, a hot day like this. He went round the corner at
+the bottom of the block.”
+
+There was a silence.
+
+“Well, I guess he’s got away,” said the voice, regretfully.
+
+“The way he was travelling,” agreed the proprietor, “I wouldn’t be
+surprised if he was in Europe by this. You want a nice suit?”
+
+The other, curtly expressing a wish that the proprietor would go to
+eternal perdition and take his entire stock with him, stumped out.
+
+“This,” said the proprietor, tranquilly, burrowing his way to where
+Archie stood and exhibiting a saffron-coloured outrage, which appeared
+to be a poor relation of the flannel family, “would put you back fifty
+dollars. And cheap!”
+
+“Fifty dollars!”
+
+“Sixty, I said. I don’t speak always distinct.”
+
+Archie regarded the distressing garment with a shuddering horror. A
+young man with an educated taste in clothes, it got right in among his
+nerve centres.
+
+“But, honestly, old soul, I don’t want to hurt your feelings, but that
+isn’t a suit, it’s just a regrettable incident!”
+
+The proprietor turned to the door in a listening attitude.
+
+“I believe I hear that feller coming back,” he said.
+
+Archie gulped.
+
+“How about trying it on?” he said. “I’m not sure, after all, it isn’t
+fairly ripe.”
+
+“That’s the way to talk,” said the proprietor, cordially. “You try it
+on. You can’t judge a suit, not a real nice suit like this, by looking
+at it. You want to put it on. There!” He led the way to a dusty mirror
+at the back of the shop. “Isn’t that a bargain at seventy
+dollars?...Why, say, your mother would be proud if she could see her
+boy now!”
+
+A quarter of an hour later, the proprietor, lovingly kneading a little
+sheaf of currency bills, eyed with a fond look the heap of clothes
+which lay on the counter.
+
+“As nice a little lot as I’ve ever had in my shop!” Archie did not deny
+this. It was, he thought, probably only too true.
+
+“I only wish I could see you walking up Fifth Avenue in them!”
+rhapsodised the proprietor. “You’ll give ’em a treat! What you going to
+do with ’em? Carry ’em under your arm?” Archie shuddered strongly.
+“Well, then, I can send ’em for you anywhere you like. It’s all the
+same to me. Where’ll I send ’em?”
+
+Archie meditated. The future was black enough as it was. He shrank from
+the prospect of being confronted next day, at the height of his misery,
+with these appalling reach-me-downs.
+
+An idea struck him.
+
+“Yes, send ’em,” he said.
+
+“What’s the name and address?”
+
+“Daniel Brewster,” said Archie, “Hotel Cosmopolis.”
+
+It was a long time since he had given his father-in-law a present.
+
+Archie went out into the street, and began to walk pensively down a now
+peaceful Ninth Avenue. Out of the depths that covered him, black as the
+pit from pole to pole, no single ray of hope came to cheer him. He
+could not, like the poet, thank whatever gods there be for his
+unconquerable soul, for his soul was licked to a splinter. He felt
+alone and friendless in a rotten world. With the best intentions, he
+had succeeded only in landing himself squarely amongst the ribstons.
+Why had he not been content with his wealth, instead of risking it on
+that blighted bet with Reggie? Why had he trailed the Girl Friend, dash
+her! He might have known that he would only make an ass of himself.
+And, because he had done so, Looney Biddle’s left hand, that priceless
+left hand before which opposing batters quailed and wilted, was out of
+action, resting in a sling, careened like a damaged battleship; and any
+chance the Giants might have had of beating the Pirates was
+gone—gone—as surely as that thousand dollars which should have bought a
+birthday present for Lucille.
+
+A birthday present for Lucille! He groaned in bitterness of spirit. She
+would be coming back to-night, dear girl, all smiles and happiness,
+wondering what he was going to give her tomorrow. And when to-morrow
+dawned, all he would be able to give her would be a kind smile. A nice
+state of things! A jolly situation! A thoroughly good egg, he did _not_
+think!
+
+It seemed to Archie that Nature, contrary to her usual custom of
+indifference to human suffering, was mourning with him. The sky was
+overcast, and the sun had ceased to shine. There was a sort of
+sombreness in the afternoon, which fitted in with his mood. And then
+something splashed on his face.
+
+It says much for Archie’s pre-occupation that his first thought, as,
+after a few scattered drops, as though the clouds were submitting
+samples for approval, the whole sky suddenly began to stream like a
+shower-bath, was that this was simply an additional infliction which he
+was called upon to bear, On top of all his other troubles he would get
+soaked to the skin or have to hang about in some doorway. He cursed
+richly, and sped for shelter.
+
+The rain was setting about its work in earnest. The world was full of
+that rending, swishing sound which accompanies the more violent summer
+storms. Thunder crashed, and lightning flicked out of the grey heavens.
+Out in the street the raindrops bounded up off the stones like fairy
+fountains. Archie surveyed them morosely from his refuge in the
+entrance of a shop.
+
+And then, suddenly, like one of those flashes which were lighting up
+the gloomy sky, a thought lit up his mind.
+
+“By Jove! If this keeps up, there won’t be a ball-game to-day!”
+
+With trembling fingers he pulled out his watch. The hands pointed to
+five minutes to three. A blessed vision came to him of a moist and
+disappointed crowd receiving rain-checks up at the Polo Grounds.
+
+“Switch it on, you blighters!” he cried, addressing the leaden clouds.
+“Switch it on more and more!”
+
+It was shortly before five o’clock that a young man bounded into a
+jeweller’s shop near the Hotel Cosmopolis—a young man who, in spite of
+the fact that his coat was torn near the collar and that he oozed water
+from every inch of his drenched clothes, appeared in the highest
+spirits. It was only when he spoke that the jeweller recognised in the
+human sponge the immaculate youth who had looked in that morning to
+order a bracelet.
+
+“I say, old lad,” said this young man, “you remember that jolly little
+what-not you showed me before lunch?”
+
+“The bracelet, sir?”
+
+“As you observe with a manly candour which does you credit, my dear old
+jeweller, the bracelet. Well, produce, exhibit, and bring it forth,
+would you mind? Trot it out! Slip it across on a lordly dish!”
+
+“You wished me, surely, to put it aside and send it to the Cosmopolis
+to-morrow?”
+
+The young man tapped the jeweller earnestly on his substantial chest.
+
+“What I wished and what I wish now are two bally separate and dashed
+distinct things, friend of my college days! Never put off till
+to-morrow what you can do to-day, and all that! I’m not taking any more
+chances. Not for me! For others, yes, but not for Archibald! Here are
+the doubloons, produce the jolly bracelet. Thanks!”
+
+The jeweller counted the notes with the same unction which Archie had
+observed earlier in the day in the proprietor of the second-hand
+clothes-shop. The process made him genial.
+
+“A nasty, wet day, sir, it’s been,” he observed, chattily.
+
+Archie shook his head.
+
+“Old friend,” he said, “you’re all wrong. Far otherwise, and not a bit
+like it, my dear old trafficker in gems! You’ve put your finger on the
+one aspect of this blighted p.m. that really deserves credit and
+respect. Rarely in the experience of a lifetime have I encountered a
+day so absolutely bally in nearly every shape and form, but there was
+one thing that saved it, and that was its merry old wetness! Toodle-oo,
+laddie!”
+
+“Good evening, sir,” said the jeweller.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XVI.
+ARCHIE ACCEPTS A SITUATION
+
+
+Lucille moved her wrist slowly round, the better to examine the new
+bracelet.
+
+“You really are an angel, angel!” she murmured.
+
+“Like it?” said Archie complacently.
+
+“_Like_ it! Why, it’s gorgeous! It must have cost a fortune.”
+
+“Oh, nothing to speak of. Just a few hard-earned pieces of eight. Just
+a few doubloons from the old oak chest.”
+
+“But I didn’t know there were any doubloons in the old oak chest.”
+
+“Well, as a matter of fact,” admitted Archie, “at one point in the
+proceedings there weren’t. But an aunt of mine in England—peace be on
+her head!—happened to send me a chunk of the necessary at what you
+might call the psychological moment.”
+
+“And you spent it all on a birthday present for me! Archie!” Lucille
+gazed at her husband adoringly. “Archie, do you know what I think?”
+
+“What?”
+
+“You’re the perfect man!”
+
+“No, really! What ho!”
+
+“Yes,” said Lucille firmly. “I’ve long suspected it, and now I know. I
+don’t think there’s anybody like you in the world.”
+
+Archie patted her hand.
+
+“It’s a rummy thing,” he observed, “but your father said almost exactly
+that to me only yesterday. Only I don’t fancy he meant the same as you.
+To be absolutely frank, his exact expression was that he thanked God
+there was only one of me.”
+
+A troubled look came into Lucille’s grey eyes.
+
+“It’s a shame about father. I do wish he appreciated you. But you
+mustn’t be too hard on him.”
+
+“Me?” said Archie. “Hard on your father? Well, dash it all, I don’t
+think I treat him with what you might call actual brutality, what! I
+mean to say, my whole idea is rather to keep out of the old lad’s way
+and curl up in a ball if I can’t dodge him. I’d just as soon be hard on
+a stampeding elephant! I wouldn’t for the world say anything
+derogatory, as it were, to your jolly old pater, but there is no
+getting away from the fact that he’s by way of being one of our leading
+man-eating fishes. It would be idle to deny that he considers that you
+let down the proud old name of Brewster a bit when you brought me in
+and laid me on the mat.”
+
+“Anyone would be lucky to get you for a son-in-law, precious.”
+
+“I fear me, light of my life, the dad doesn’t see eye to eye with you
+on that point. No, every time I get hold of a daisy, I give him another
+chance, but it always works out at ‘He loves me not!’”
+
+“You must make allowances for him, darling.”
+
+“Right-o! But I hope devoutly that he doesn’t catch me at it. I’ve a
+sort of idea that if the old dad discovered that I was making
+allowances for him, he would have from ten to fifteen fits.”
+
+“He’s worried just now, you know.”
+
+“I didn’t know. He doesn’t confide in me much.”
+
+“He’s worried about that waiter.”
+
+“What waiter, queen of my soul?”
+
+“A man called Salvatore. Father dismissed him some time ago.”
+
+“Salvatore!”
+
+“Probably you don’t remember him. He used to wait on this table.”
+
+“Why—”
+
+“And father dismissed him, apparently, and now there’s all sorts of
+trouble. You see, father wants to build this new hotel of his, and he
+thought he’d got the site and everything and could start building right
+away: and now he finds that this man Salvatore’s mother owns a little
+newspaper and tobacco shop right in the middle of the site, and there’s
+no way of getting him out without buying the shop, and he won’t sell.
+At least, he’s made his mother promise that she won’t sell.”
+
+“A boy’s best friend is his mother,” said Archie approvingly. “I had a
+sort of idea all along—”
+
+“So father’s in despair.”
+
+Archie drew at his cigarette meditatively.
+
+“I remember a chappie—a policeman he was, as a matter of fact, and
+incidentally a fairly pronounced blighter—remarking to me some time ago
+that you could trample on the poor man’s face but you mustn’t be
+surprised if he bit you in the leg while you were doing it. Apparently
+this is what has happened to the old dad. I had a sort of idea all
+along that old friend Salvatore would come out strong in the end if you
+only gave him time. Brainy sort of feller! Great pal of
+mine.”—Lucille’s small face lightened. She gazed at Archie with proud
+affection. She felt that she ought to have known that he was the one to
+solve this difficulty.
+
+“You’re wonderful, darling! Is he really a friend of yours?”
+
+“Absolutely. Many’s the time he and I have chatted in this very
+grill-room.”
+
+“Then it’s all right. If you went to him and argued with him, he would
+agree to sell the shop, and father would be happy. Think how grateful
+father would be to you! It would make all the difference.”
+
+Archie turned this over in his mind.
+
+“Something in that,” he agreed.
+
+“It would make him see what a pet lambkin you really are!”
+
+“Well,” said Archie, “I’m bound to say that any scheme which what you
+might call culminates in your father regarding me as a pet lambkin
+ought to receive one’s best attention. How much did he offer Salvatore
+for his shop?”
+
+“I don’t know. There is father.—Call him over and ask him.”
+
+Archie glanced over to where Mr. Brewster had sunk moodily into a chair
+at a neighbouring table. It was plain even at that distance that Daniel
+Brewster had his troubles and was bearing them with an ill grace. He
+was scowling absently at the table-cloth.
+
+“_You_ call him,” said Archie, having inspected his formidable
+relative. “You know him better.”
+
+“Let’s go over to him.”
+
+They crossed the room. Lucille sat down opposite her father. Archie
+draped himself over a chair in the background.
+
+“Father, dear,” said Lucille. “Archie has got an idea.”
+
+“Archie?” said Mr. Brewster incredulously.
+
+“This is me,” said Archie, indicating himself with a spoon. “The tall,
+distinguished-looking bird.”
+
+“What new fool-thing is he up to now?”
+
+“It’s a splendid idea, father. He wants to help you over your new
+hotel.”
+
+“Wants to run it for me, I suppose?”
+
+“By Jove!” said Archie, reflectively. “That’s not a bad scheme! I never
+thought of running an hotel. I shouldn’t mind taking a stab at it.”
+
+“He has thought of a way of getting rid of Salvatore and his shop.”
+
+For the first time Mr. Brewster’s interest in the conversation seemed
+to stir. He looked sharply at his son-in-law.
+
+“He has, has he?” he said.
+
+Archie balanced a roll on a fork and inserted a plate underneath. The
+roll bounded away into a corner.
+
+“Sorry!” said Archie. “My fault, absolutely! I owe you a roll. I’ll
+sign a bill for it. Oh, about this sportsman Salvatore, Well, it’s like
+this, you know. He and I are great pals. I’ve known him for years and
+years. At least, it seems like years and years. Lu was suggesting that
+I seek him out in his lair and ensnare him with my diplomatic manner
+and superior brain power and what not.”
+
+“It was your idea, precious,” said Lucille.
+
+Mr. Brewster was silent.—Much as it went against the grain to have to
+admit it, there seemed to be something in this.
+
+“What do you propose to do?”
+
+“Become a jolly old ambassador. How much did you offer the chappie?”
+
+“Three thousand dollars. Twice as much as the place is worth. He’s
+holding out on me for revenge.”
+
+“Ah, but how did you offer it to him, what? I mean to say, I bet you
+got your lawyer to write him a letter full of whereases, peradventures,
+and parties of the first part, and so forth. No good, old companion!”
+
+“Don’t call me old companion!”
+
+“All wrong, laddie! Nothing like it, dear heart! No good at all, friend
+of my youth! Take it from your Uncle Archibald! I’m a student of human
+nature, and I know a thing or two.”
+
+“That’s not much,” growled Mr. Brewster, who was finding his
+son-in-law’s superior manner a little trying.
+
+“Now, don’t interrupt, father,” said Lucille, severely. “Can’t you see
+that Archie is going to be tremendously clever in a minute?”
+
+“He’s got to show me!”
+
+“What you ought to do,” said Archie, “is to let me go and see him,
+taking the stuff in crackling bills. I’ll roll them about on the table
+in front of him. That’ll fetch him!” He prodded Mr. Brewster
+encouragingly with a roll. “I’ll tell you what to do. Give me three
+thousand of the best and crispest, and I’ll undertake to buy that shop.
+It can’t fail, laddie!”
+
+“Don’t call me laddie!” Mr. Brewster pondered. “Very well,” he said at
+last. “I didn’t know you had so much sense,” he added grudgingly.
+
+“Oh, positively!” said Archie. “Beneath a rugged exterior I hide a
+brain like a buzz-saw. Sense? I exude it, laddie; I drip with it.”
+
+There were moments during the ensuing days when Mr. Brewster permitted
+himself to hope; but more frequent were the moments when he told
+himself that a pronounced chump like his son-in-law could not fail
+somehow to make a mess of the negotiations. His relief, therefore, when
+Archie curveted into his private room and announced that he had
+succeeded was great.
+
+“You really managed to make that wop sell out?”
+
+Archie brushed some papers off the desk with a careless gesture, and
+seated himself on the vacant spot.
+
+“Absolutely! I spoke to him as one old friend to another, sprayed the
+bills all over the place; and he sang a few bars from ‘Rigoletto,’ and
+signed on the dotted line.”
+
+“You’re not such a fool as you look,” owned Mr. Brewster.
+
+Archie scratched a match on the desk and lit a cigarette.
+
+“It’s a jolly little shop,” he said. “I took quite a fancy to it. Full
+of newspapers, don’t you know, and cheap novels, and some weird-looking
+sort of chocolates, and cigars with the most fearfully attractive
+labels. I think I’ll make a success of it. It’s bang in the middle of a
+dashed good neighbourhood. One of these days somebody will be building
+a big hotel round about there, and that’ll help trade a lot. I look
+forward to ending my days on the other side of the counter with a full
+set of white whiskers and a skull-cap, beloved by everybody.
+Everybody’ll say, ‘Oh, you _must_ patronise that quaint, delightful old
+blighter! He’s quite a character.’”
+
+Mr. Brewster’s air of grim satisfaction had given way to a look of
+discomfort, almost of alarm. He presumed his son-in-law was merely
+indulging in _badinage;_ but even so, his words were not soothing.
+
+“Well, I’m much obliged,” he said. “That infernal shop was holding up
+everything. Now I can start building right away.”
+
+Archie raised his eyebrows.
+
+“But, my dear old top, I’m sorry to spoil your daydreams and stop you
+chasing rainbows, and all that, but aren’t you forgetting that the shop
+belongs to me? I don’t at all know that I want to sell, either!”
+
+“I gave you the money to buy that shop!”
+
+“And dashed generous of you it was, too!” admitted Archie,
+unreservedly. “It was the first money you ever gave me, and I shall
+always tell interviewers that it was you who founded my fortunes. Some
+day, when I’m the Newspaper-and-Tobacco-Shop King, I’ll tell the world
+all about it in my autobiography.”
+
+Mr. Brewster rose dangerously from his seat.
+
+“Do you think you can hold me up, you—you worm?”
+
+“Well,” said Archie, “the way I look at it is this. Ever since we met,
+you’ve been after me to become one of the world’s workers, and earn a
+living for myself, and what not; and now I see a way to repay you for
+your confidence and encouragement. You’ll look me up sometimes at the
+good old shop, won’t you?” He slid off the table and moved towards the
+door. “There won’t be any formalities where you are concerned. You can
+sign bills for any reasonable amount any time you want a cigar or a
+stick of chocolate. Well, toodle-oo!”
+
+“Stop!”
+
+“Now what?”
+
+“How much do you want for that damned shop?”
+
+“I don’t want money.-I want a job.-If you are going to take my
+life-work away from me, you ought to give me something else to do.”
+
+“What job?”
+
+“You suggested it yourself the other day. I want to manage your new
+hotel.”
+
+“Don’t be a fool! What do you know about managing an hotel?”
+
+“Nothing. It will be your pleasing task to teach me the business while
+the shanty is being run up.”
+
+There was a pause, while Mr. Brewster chewed three inches off a
+pen-holder.
+
+“Very well,” he said at last.
+
+“Topping!” said Archie. “I knew you’d see it. I’ll study your methods,
+what! Adding some of my own, of course. You know, I’ve thought of one
+improvement on the Cosmopolis already.”
+
+“Improvement on the Cosmopolis!” cried Mr. Brewster, gashed in his
+finest feelings.
+
+“Yes. There’s one point where the old Cosmop slips up badly, and I’m
+going to see that it’s corrected at my little shack. Customers will be
+entreated to leave their boots outside their doors at night, and
+they’ll find them cleaned in the morning. Well, pip, pip! I must be
+popping. Time is money, you know, with us business men.”
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XVII.
+BROTHER BILL’S ROMANCE
+
+
+“Her eyes,” said Bill Brewster, “are like—like—what’s the word I want?”
+
+He looked across at Lucille and Archie. Lucille was leaning forward
+with an eager and interested face; Archie was leaning back with his
+finger-tips together and his eyes closed. This was not the first time
+since their meeting in Beale’s Auction Rooms that his brother-in-law
+had touched on the subject of the girl he had become engaged to marry
+during his trip to England. Indeed, Brother Bill had touched on very
+little else: and Archie, though of a sympathetic nature and fond of his
+young relative, was beginning to feel that he had heard all he wished
+to hear about Mabel Winchester. Lucille, on the other hand, was
+absorbed. Her brother’s recital had thrilled her.
+
+“Like—” said Bill. “Like—”
+
+“Stars?” suggested Lucille.
+
+“Stars,” said Bill gratefully. “Exactly the word. Twin stars shining in
+a clear sky on a summer night. Her teeth are like—what shall I say?”
+
+“Pearls?”
+
+“Pearls. And her hair is a lovely brown, like leaves in autumn. In
+fact,” concluded Bill, slipping down from the heights with something of
+a jerk, “she’s a corker. Isn’t she, Archie?”
+
+Archie opened his eyes.
+
+“Quite right, old top!” he said. “It was the only thing to do.”
+
+“What the devil are you talking about?” demanded Bill coldly. He had
+been suspicious all along of Archie’s statement that he could listen
+better with his eyes shut.
+
+“Eh? Oh, sorry! Thinking of something else.”
+
+“You were asleep.”
+
+“No, no, positively and distinctly not. Frightfully interested and rapt
+and all that, only I didn’t quite get what you said.”
+
+“I said that Mabel was a corker.”
+
+“Oh, absolutely in every respect.”
+
+“There!” Bill turned to Lucille triumphantly. “You hear that? And
+Archie has only seen her photograph. Wait till he sees her in the
+flesh.”
+
+“My dear old chap!” said Archie, shocked. “Ladies present! I mean to
+say, what!”
+
+“I’m afraid that father will be the one you’ll find it hard to
+convince.”
+
+“Yes,” admitted her brother gloomily.
+
+“Your Mabel sounds perfectly charming, but—well, you know what father
+is. It _is_ a pity she sings in the chorus.”
+
+“She hasn’t much of a voice,”—argued Bill—in extenuation.
+
+“All the same—”
+
+Archie, the conversation having reached a topic on which he considered
+himself one of the greatest living authorities—to wit, the unlovable
+disposition of his father-in-law—addressed the meeting as one who has a
+right to be heard.
+
+“Lucille’s absolutely right, old thing.—Absolutely correct-o! Your
+esteemed progenitor is a pretty tough nut, and it’s no good trying to
+get away from it.-And I’m sorry to have to say it, old bird, but, if
+you come bounding in with part of the personnel of the ensemble on your
+arm and try to dig a father’s blessing out of him, he’s extremely apt
+to stab you in the gizzard.”
+
+“I wish,” said Bill, annoyed, “you wouldn’t talk as though Mabel were
+the ordinary kind of chorus-girl. She’s only on the stage because her
+mother’s hard-up and she wants to educate her little brother.”
+
+“I say,” said Archie, concerned. “Take my tip, old top. In chatting the
+matter over with the pater, don’t dwell too much on that aspect of the
+affair.—I’ve been watching him closely, and it’s about all he can
+stick, having to support _me_. If you ring in a mother and a little
+brother on him, he’ll crack under the strain.”
+
+“Well, I’ve got to do something about it. Mabel will be over here in a
+week.”
+
+“Great Scot! You never told us that.”
+
+“Yes. She’s going to be in the new Billington show. And, naturally, she
+will expect to meet my family. I’ve told her all about you.”
+
+“Did you explain father to her?” asked Lucille.
+
+“Well, I just said she mustn’t mind him, as his bark was worse than his
+bite.”
+
+“Well,” said Archie, thoughtfully, “he hasn’t bitten me yet, so you may
+be right. But you’ve got to admit that he’s a bit of a barker.”
+
+Lucille considered.
+
+“Really, Bill, I think your best plan would be to go straight to father
+and tell him the whole thing.—You don’t want him to hear about it in a
+roundabout way.”
+
+“The trouble is that, whenever I’m with father, I can’t think of
+anything to say.”
+
+Archie found himself envying his father-in-law this merciful
+dispensation of Providence; for, where he himself was concerned, there
+had been no lack of eloquence on Bill’s part. In the brief period in
+which he had known him, Bill had talked all the time and always on the
+one topic. As unpromising a subject as the tariff laws was easily
+diverted by him into a discussion of the absent Mabel.
+
+“When I’m with father,” said Bill, “I sort of lose my nerve, and
+yammer.”
+
+“Dashed awkward,” said Archie, politely. He sat up suddenly. “I say! By
+Jove! I know what you want, old friend! Just thought of it!”
+
+“That busy brain is never still,” explained Lucille.
+
+“Saw it in the paper this morning. An advertisement of a book, don’t
+you know.”
+
+“I’ve no time for reading.”
+
+“You’ve time for reading this one, laddie, for you can’t afford to miss
+it. It’s a what-d’you-call-it book. What I mean to say is, if you read
+it and take its tips to heart, it guarantees to make you a convincing
+talker. The advertisement says so. The advertisement’s all about a
+chappie whose name I forget, whom everybody loved because he talked so
+well. And, mark you, before he got hold of this book—_The Personality
+That Wins_ was the name of it, if I remember rightly—he was known to
+all the lads in the office as Silent Samuel or something. Or it may
+have been Tongue-Tied Thomas. Well, one day he happened by good luck to
+blow in the necessary for the good old P. that W.’s, and now, whenever
+they want someone to go and talk Rockefeller or someone into lending
+them a million or so, they send for Samuel. Only now they call him
+Sammy the Spell-Binder and fawn upon him pretty copiously and all that.
+How about it, old son? How do we go?”
+
+“What perfect nonsense,” said Lucille.
+
+“I don’t know,” said Bill, plainly impressed. “There might be something
+in it.”
+
+“Absolutely!” said Archie. “I remember it said, ‘Talk convincingly, and
+no man will ever treat you with cold, unresponsive indifference.’ Well,
+cold, unresponsive indifference is just what you don’t want the pater
+to treat you with, isn’t it, or is it, or isn’t it, what? I mean,
+what?”
+
+“It sounds all right,” said Bill.
+
+“It _is_ all right,” said Archie. “It’s a scheme! I’ll go farther. It’s
+an egg!”
+
+“The idea I had,” said Bill, “was to see if I couldn’t get Mabel a job
+in some straight comedy. That would take the curse off the thing a bit.
+Then I wouldn’t have to dwell on the chorus end of the business, you
+see.”
+
+“Much more sensible,” said Lucille.
+
+“But what a-deuce of a sweat”—argued Archie. “I mean to say, having to
+pop round and nose about and all that.”
+
+“Aren’t you willing to take a little trouble for your stricken
+brother-in-law, worm?” said Lucille severely.
+
+“Oh, absolutely! My idea was to get this book and coach the dear old
+chap. Rehearse him, don’t you know. He could bone up the early chapters
+a bit and then drift round and try his convincing talk on me.”
+
+“It might be a good idea,” said Bill reflectively.
+
+“Well, I’ll tell you what _I’m_ going to do,” said Lucille. “I’m going
+to get Bill to introduce me to his Mabel, and, if she’s as nice as he
+says she is, _I’ll_ go to father and talk convincingly to him.”
+
+“You’re an ace!” said Bill.
+
+“Absolutely!” agreed Archie cordially. “_My_ partner, what! All the
+same, we ought to keep the book as a second string, you know. I mean to
+say, you are a young and delicately nurtured girl—full of sensibility
+and shrinking what’s-its-name and all that—and you know what the jolly
+old pater is. He might bark at you and put you out of action in the
+first round. Well, then, if anything like that happened, don’t you see,
+we could unleash old Bill, the trained silver-tongued expert, and let
+him have a shot. Personally, I’m all for the P. that W.’s.”—“Me, too,”
+said Bill.
+
+Lucille looked at her watch.
+
+“Good gracious! It’s nearly one o’clock!”
+
+“No!” Archie heaved himself up from his chair. “Well, it’s a shame to
+break up this feast of reason and flow of soul and all that, but, if we
+don’t leg it with some speed, we shall be late.”
+
+“We’re lunching at the Nicholson’s!” explained Lucille to her brother.
+“I wish you were coming too.”
+
+“Lunch!” Bill shook his head with a kind of tolerant scorn. “Lunch
+means nothing to me these days. I’ve other things to think of besides
+food.” He looked as spiritual as his rugged features would permit. “I
+haven’t written to Her yet to-day.”
+
+“But, dash it, old scream, if she’s going to be over here in a week,
+what’s the good of writing? The letter would cross her.”
+
+“I’m not mailing my letters to England,” said Bill. “I’m keeping them
+for her to read when she arrives.”
+
+“My sainted aunt!” said Archie.
+
+Devotion like this was something beyond his outlook.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XVIII.
+THE SAUSAGE CHAPPIE
+
+
+_The Personality That Wins_ cost Archie two dollars in cash and a lot
+of embarrassment when he asked for it at the store. To buy a treatise
+of that name would automatically seem to argue that you haven’t a
+winning personality already, and Archie was at some pains to explain to
+the girl behind the counter that he wanted it for a friend. The girl
+seemed more interested in his English accent than in his explanation,
+and Archie was uncomfortably aware, as he receded, that she was
+practising it in an undertone for the benefit of her colleagues and
+fellow-workers. However, what is a little discomfort, if endured in
+friendship’s name?
+
+He was proceeding up Broadway after leaving the store when he
+encountered Reggie van Tuyl, who was drifting along in somnambulistic
+fashion near Thirty-Ninth Street.
+
+“Hullo, Reggie old thing!” said Archie.
+
+“Hullo!” said Reggie, a man of few words.
+
+“I’ve just been buying a book for Bill Brewster,” went on Archie. “It
+appears that old Bill—What’s the matter?”
+
+He broke off his recital abruptly. A sort of spasm had passed across
+his companion’s features. The hand holding Archie’s arm had tightened
+convulsively. One would have said that Reginald had received a shock.
+
+“It’s nothing,” said Reggie. “I’m all right now. I caught sight of that
+fellow’s clothes rather suddenly. They shook me a bit. I’m all right
+now,” he said, bravely.
+
+Archie, following his friend’s gaze, understood. Reggie van Tuyl was
+never at his strongest in the morning, and he had a sensitive eye for
+clothes. He had been known to resign from clubs because members
+exceeded the bounds in the matter of soft shirts with dinner-jackets.
+And the short, thick-set man who was standing just in front of them in
+attitude of restful immobility was certainly no dandy. His best friend
+could not have called him dapper. Take him for all in all and on the
+hoof, he might have been posing as a model for a sketch of What the
+Well-Dressed Man Should Not Wear.
+
+In costume, as in most other things, it is best to take a definite line
+and stick to it. This man had obviously vacillated. His neck was
+swathed in a green scarf; he wore an evening-dress coat; and his lower
+limbs were draped in a pair of tweed trousers built for a larger man.
+To the north he was bounded by a straw hat, to the south by brown
+shoes.
+
+Archie surveyed the man’s back carefully.
+
+“Bit thick!” he said, sympathetically. “But of course Broadway isn’t
+Fifth Avenue. What I mean to say is, Bohemian licence and what not.
+Broadway’s crammed with deuced brainy devils who don’t care how they
+look. Probably this bird is a master-mind of some species.”
+
+“All the same, man’s no right to wear evening-dress coat with tweed
+trousers.”
+
+“Absolutely not! I see what you mean.”
+
+At this point the sartorial offender turned. Seen from the front, he
+was even more unnerving. He appeared to possess no shirt, though this
+defect was offset by the fact that the tweed trousers fitted snugly
+under the arms. He was not a handsome man. At his best he could never
+have been that, and in the recent past he had managed to acquire a scar
+that ran from the corner of his mouth half-way across his cheek. Even
+when his face was in repose he had an odd expression; and when, as he
+chanced to do now, he smiled, odd became a mild adjective, quite
+inadequate for purposes of description. It was not an unpleasant face,
+however. Unquestionably genial, indeed. There was something in it that
+had a quality of humorous appeal.
+
+Archie started. He stared at the man, Memory stirred.
+
+“Great Scot!” he cried. “It’s the Sausage Chappie!”
+
+Reginald van Tuyl gave a little moan. He was not used to this sort of
+thing. A sensitive young man as regarded scenes, Archie’s behaviour
+unmanned him. For Archie, releasing his arm, had bounded forward and
+was shaking the other’s hand warmly.
+
+“Well, well, well! My dear old chap! You must remember me, what? No?
+Yes?”
+
+The man with the scar seemed puzzled. He shuffled the brown shoes,
+patted the straw hat, and eyed Archie questioningly.
+
+“I don’t seem to place you,” he said.
+
+Archie slapped the back of the evening-dress coat. He linked his arm
+affectionately with that of the dress-reformer.
+
+“We met outside St Mihiel in the war. You gave me a bit of sausage. One
+of the most sporting events in history. Nobody but a real sportsman
+would have parted with a bit of sausage at that moment to a stranger.
+Never forgotten it, by Jove. Saved my life, absolutely. Hadn’t chewed a
+morsel for eight hours. Well, have you got anything on? I mean to say,
+you aren’t booked for lunch or any rot of that species, are you? Fine!
+Then I move we all toddle off and get a bite somewhere.” He squeezed
+the other’s arm fondly. “Fancy meeting you again like this! I’ve often
+wondered what became of you. But, by Jove, I was forgetting. Dashed
+rude of me. My friend, Mr. van Tuyl.”
+
+Reggie gulped. The longer he looked at it, the harder this man’s
+costume was to bear. His eye passed shudderingly from the brown shoes
+to the tweed trousers, to the green scarf, from the green scarf to the
+straw hat.
+
+“Sorry,” he mumbled. “Just remembered. Important date. Late already.
+Er—see you some time—”
+
+He melted away, a broken man. Archie was not sorry to see him go.
+Reggie was a good chap, but he would undoubtedly have been _de trop_ at
+this reunion.
+
+“I vote we go to the Cosmopolis,” he said, steering his newly-found
+friend through the crowd. “The browsing and sluicing isn’t bad there,
+and I can sign the bill which is no small consideration nowadays.”
+
+The Sausage Chappie chuckled amusedly.
+
+“I can’t go to a place like the Cosmopolis looking like this.”
+
+Archie, was a little embarrassed.
+
+“Oh, I don’t know, you know, don’t you know!” he said. “Still, since
+you have brought the topic up, you _did_ get the good old wardrobe a
+bit mixed this morning what? I mean to say, you seem absent-mindedly,
+as it were, to have got hold of samples from a good number of your
+various suitings.”
+
+“Suitings? How do you mean, suitings? I haven’t any suitings! Who do
+you think I am? Vincent Astor? All I have is what I stand up in.”
+
+Archie was shocked. This tragedy touched him. He himself had never had
+any money in his life, but somehow he had always seemed to manage to
+have plenty of clothes. How this was he could not say. He had always
+had a vague sort of idea that tailors were kindly birds who never
+failed to have a pair of trousers or something up their sleeve to
+present to the deserving. There was the drawback, of course, that once
+they had given you things they were apt to write you rather a lot of
+letters about it; but you soon managed to recognise their handwriting,
+and then it was a simple task to extract their communications from your
+morning mail and drop them in the waste-paper basket. This was the
+first case he had encountered of a man who was really short of clothes.
+
+“My dear old lad,” he said, briskly, “this must be remedied! Oh,
+positively! This must be remedied at once! I suppose my things wouldn’t
+fit you? No. Well, I tell you what. We’ll wangle something from my
+father-in-law. Old Brewster, you know, the fellow who runs the
+Cosmopolis. His’ll fit you like the paper on the wall, because he’s a
+tubby little blighter, too. What I mean to say is, he’s also one of
+those sturdy, square, fine-looking chappies of about the middle height.
+By the way, where are you stopping these days?”
+
+“Nowhere just at present. I thought of taking one of those
+self-contained Park benches.”
+
+“Are you broke?”
+
+“Am I!”
+
+Archie was concerned.
+
+“You ought to get a job.”
+
+“I ought. But somehow I don’t seem able to.”
+
+“What did you do before the war?”
+
+“I’ve forgotten.”
+
+“Forgotten!”
+
+“Forgotten.”
+
+“How do you mean—forgotten? You can’t mean—_forgotten?_”
+
+“Yes. It’s quite gone.”
+
+“But I mean to say. You can’t have forgotten a thing like that.”
+
+“Can’t I! I’ve forgotten all sorts of things. Where I was born. How old
+I am. Whether I’m married or single. What my name is—”
+
+“Well, I’m dashed!” said Archie, staggered. “But you remembered about
+giving me a bit of sausage outside St. Mihiel?”
+
+“No, I didn’t. I’m taking your word for it. For all I know you may be
+luring me into some den to rob me of my straw hat. I don’t know you
+from Adam. But I like your conversation—especially the part about
+eating—and I’m taking a chance.”
+
+Archie was concerned.
+
+“Listen, old bean. Make an effort. You must remember that sausage
+episode? It was just outside St. Mihiel, about five in the evening.
+Your little lot were lying next to my little lot, and we happened to
+meet, and I said ‘What ho!’ and you said ‘Halloa!’ and I said ‘What ho!
+What ho!’ and you said ‘Have a bit of sausage?’ and I said ‘What ho!
+What ho! What _ho!_’”
+
+“The dialogue seems to have been darned sparkling but I don’t remember
+it. It must have been after that that I stopped one. I don’t seem quite
+to have caught up with myself since I got hit.”
+
+“Oh! That’s how you got that scar?”
+
+“No. I got that jumping through a plate-glass window in London on
+Armistice night.”
+
+“What on earth did you do that for?”
+
+“Oh, I don’t know. It seemed a good idea at the time.”
+
+“But if you can remember a thing like that, why can’t you remember your
+name?”
+
+“I remember everything that happened after I came out of hospital. It’s
+the part before that’s gone.”
+
+Archie patted him on the shoulder.
+
+“I know just what you want. You need a bit of quiet and repose, to
+think things over and so forth. You mustn’t go sleeping on Park
+benches. Won’t do at all. Not a bit like it. You must shift to the
+Cosmopolis. It isn’t half a bad spot, the old Cosmop. I didn’t like it
+much the first night I was there, because there was a dashed tap that
+went drip-drip-drip all night and kept me awake, but the place has its
+points.”
+
+“Is the Cosmopolis giving free board and lodging these days?”
+
+“Rather! That’ll be all right. Well, this is the spot. We’ll start by
+trickling up to the old boy’s suite and looking over his
+reach-me-downs. I know the waiter on his floor. A very sound chappie.
+He’ll let us in with his pass-key.”
+
+And so it came about that Mr. Daniel Brewster, returning to his suite
+in the middle of lunch in order to find a paper dealing with the
+subject he was discussing with his guest, the architect of his new
+hotel, was aware of a murmur of voices behind the closed door of his
+bedroom. Recognising the accents of his son-in-law, he breathed an oath
+and charged in. He objected to Archie wandering at large about his
+suite.
+
+The sight that met his eyes when he opened the door did nothing to
+soothe him. The floor was a sea of clothes. There were coats on the
+chairs, trousers on the bed, shirts on the bookshelf. And in the middle
+of his welter stood Archie, with a man who, to Mr. Brewster’s heated
+eye, looked like a tramp comedian out of a burlesque show.
+
+“Great Godfrey!” ejaculated Mr. Brewster.
+
+Archie looked up with a friendly smile.
+
+“Oh, halloa-halloa!” he said, affably, “We were just glancing through
+your spare scenery to see if we couldn’t find something for my pal
+here. This is Mr. Brewster, my father-in-law, old man.”
+
+Archie scanned his relative’s twisted features. Something in his
+expression seemed not altogether encouraging. He decided that the
+negotiations had better be conducted in private. “One moment, old lad,”
+he said to his new friend. “I just want to have a little talk with my
+father-in-law in the other room. Just a little friendly business chat.
+You stay here.”
+
+In the other room Mr. Brewster turned on Archie like a wounded lion of
+the desert.
+
+“What the—!”
+
+Archie secured one of his coat-buttons and began to massage it
+affectionately.
+
+“Ought to have explained!” said Archie, “only didn’t want to interrupt
+your lunch. The sportsman on the horizon is a dear old pal of mine—”
+
+Mr. Brewster wrenched himself free.
+
+“What the devil do you mean, you worm, by bringing tramps into my
+bedroom and messing about with my clothes?”
+
+“That’s just what I’m trying to explain, if you’ll only listen. This
+bird is a bird I met in France during the war. He gave me a bit of
+sausage outside St. Mihiel—”
+
+“Damn you and him and the sausage!”
+
+“Absolutely. But listen. He can’t remember who he is or where he was
+born or what his name is, and he’s broke; so, dash it, I must look
+after him. You see, he gave me a bit of sausage.”
+
+Mr. Brewster’s frenzy gave way to an ominous calm.
+
+“I’ll give him two seconds to clear out of here. If he isn’t gone by
+then I’ll have him thrown out.”
+
+Archie was shocked.
+
+“You don’t mean that?”
+
+“I do mean that.”
+
+“But where is he to go?”
+
+“Outside.”
+
+“But you don’t understand. This chappie has lost his memory because he
+was wounded in the war. Keep that fact firmly fixed in the old bean. He
+fought for you. Fought and bled for you. Bled profusely, by Jove. _And_
+he saved my life!”
+
+“If I’d got nothing else against him, that would be enough.”
+
+“But you can’t sling a chappie out into the cold hard world who bled in
+gallons to make the world safe for the Hotel Cosmopolis.”
+
+Mr. Brewster looked ostentatiously at his watch.
+
+“Two seconds!” he said.
+
+There was a silence. Archie appeared to be thinking. “Right-o!” he said
+at last. “No need to get the wind up. I know where he can go. It’s just
+occurred to me I’ll put him up at my little shop.”
+
+The purple ebbed from Mr. Brewster’s face. Such was his emotion that he
+had forgotten that infernal shop. He sat down. There was more silence.
+
+“Oh, gosh!” said Mr. Brewster.
+
+“I knew you would be reasonable about it,” said Archie, approvingly.
+“Now, honestly, as man to man, how do we go?”
+
+“What do you want me to do?” growled Mr. Brewster.
+
+“I thought you might put the chappie up for a while, and give him a
+chance to look round and nose about a bit.”
+
+“I absolutely refuse to give any more loafers free board and lodging.”
+
+“Any _more?_”
+
+“Well, he would be the second, wouldn’t he?”
+
+Archie looked pained.
+
+“It’s true,” he said, “that when I first came here I was temporarily
+resting, so to speak; but didn’t I go right out and grab the
+managership of your new hotel? Positively!”
+
+“I will _not_ adopt this tramp.”
+
+“Well, find him a job, then.”
+
+“What sort of a job?”
+
+“Oh, any old sort.”
+
+“He can be a waiter if he likes.”
+
+“All right; I’ll put the matter before him.”
+
+He returned to the bedroom. The Sausage Chappie was gazing fondly into
+the mirror with a spotted tie draped round his neck.
+
+“I say, old top,” said Archie, apologetically, “the Emperor of the
+Blighters out yonder says you can have a job here as waiter, and he
+won’t do another dashed thing for you. How about it?”
+
+“Do waiters eat?”
+
+“I suppose so. Though, by Jove, come to think of it, I’ve never seen
+one at it.”
+
+“That’s good enough for me!” said the Sausage Chappie. “When do I
+begin?”
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XIX.
+REGGIE COMES TO LIFE
+
+
+The advantage of having plenty of time on one’s hands is that one has
+leisure to attend to the affairs of all one’s circle of friends; and
+Archie, assiduously as he watched over the destinies of the Sausage
+Chappie, did not neglect the romantic needs of his brother-in-law Bill.
+A few days later, Lucille, returning one morning to their mutual suite,
+found her husband seated in an upright chair at the table, an unusually
+stern expression on his amiable face. A large cigar was in the corner
+of his mouth. The fingers of one hand rested in the armhole of his
+waistcoat: with the other hand he tapped menacingly on the table.
+
+As she gazed upon him, wondering what could be the matter with him,
+Lucille was suddenly aware of Bill’s presence. He had emerged sharply
+from the bedroom and was walking briskly across the floor. He came to a
+halt in front of the table.
+
+“Father!” said Bill.
+
+Archie looked up sharply, frowning heavily over his cigar.
+
+“Well, my boy,” he said in a strange, rasping voice. “What is it? Speak
+up, my boy, speak up! Why the devil can’t you speak up? This is my busy
+day!”
+
+“What on earth are you doing?” asked Lucille.
+
+Archie waved her away with the large gesture of a man of blood and iron
+interrupted while concentrating.
+
+“Leave us, woman! We would be alone! Retire into the jolly old
+background and amuse yourself for a bit. Read a book. Do acrostics.
+Charge ahead, laddie.”
+
+“Father!” said Bill, again.
+
+“Yes, my boy, yes? What is it?”
+
+“Father!”
+
+Archie picked up the red-covered volume that lay on the table.
+
+“Half a mo’, old son. Sorry to stop you, but I knew there was
+something. I’ve just remembered. Your walk. All wrong!”
+
+“All wrong?”
+
+“All wrong! Where’s the chapter on the Art. of Walking? Here we are.
+Listen, dear old soul. Drink this in. ‘In walking, one should strive to
+acquire that swinging, easy movement from the hips. The
+correctly-poised walker seems to float along, as it were.’ Now, old
+bean, you didn’t float a dam’ bit. You just galloped in like a chappie
+charging into a railway restaurant for a bowl of soup when his train
+leaves in two minutes. Dashed important, this walking business, you
+know. Get started wrong, and where are you? Try it again.... Much
+better.” He turned to Lucille. “Notice him float along that time?
+Absolutely skimmed, what?”
+
+Lucille had taken a seat,-and was waiting for enlightenment.
+
+“Are you and Bill going into vaudeville?” she asked.
+
+Archie, scrutinising-his-brother-in-law closely, had further criticism
+to make.
+
+“‘The man of self-respect and self-confidence,’” he read, “‘stands
+erect in an easy, natural, graceful attitude. Heels not too far apart,
+head erect, eyes to the front with a level gaze’—get your gaze level,
+old thing!—‘shoulders thrown back, arms hanging naturally at the sides
+when not otherwise employed’—that means that, if he tries to hit you,
+it’s all right to guard—‘chest expanded naturally, and abdomen’—this is
+no place for you, Lucille. Leg it out of earshot—‘ab—what I said
+before—drawn in somewhat and above all not protruded.’ Now, have you
+got all that? Yes, you look all right. Carry on, laddie, carry on.
+Let’s have two-penn’orth of the Dynamic Voice and the Tone of
+Authority—some of the full, rich, round stuff we hear so much about!”
+
+Bill fastened a gimlet eye upon his brother-in-law and drew a deep
+breath.
+
+“Father!” he said. “Father!”
+
+“You’ll have to brighten up Bill’s dialogue a lot,” said Lucille,
+critically, “or you will never get bookings.”
+
+“Father!”
+
+“I mean, it’s all right as far as it goes, but it’s sort of monotonous.
+Besides, one of you ought to be asking questions and the other
+answering. Bill ought to be saying, ‘Who was that lady I saw you coming
+down the street with?’ so that you would be able to say, ‘That wasn’t a
+lady. That was my wife.’ I _know!_ I’ve been to lots of vaudeville
+shows.”
+
+Bill relaxed his attitude. He deflated his chest, spread his heels, and
+ceased to draw in his abdomen.
+
+“We’d better try this another time, when we’re alone,” he said,
+frigidly. “I can’t do myself justice.”
+
+“Why do you want to do yourself justice?” asked Lucille.
+
+“Right-o!” said Archie, affably, casting off his forbidding expression
+like a garment. “Rehearsal postponed. I was just putting old Bill
+through it,” he explained, “with a view to getting him into mid-season
+form for the jolly old pater.”
+
+“Oh!” Lucille’s voice was the voice of one who sees light in darkness.
+“When Bill walked in like a cat on hot bricks and stood there looking
+stuffed, that was just the Personality That Wins!”
+
+“That was it.”
+
+“Well, you couldn’t blame me for not recognising it, could you?”
+
+Archie patted her head paternally.
+
+“A little less of the caustic critic stuff,” he said. “Bill will be all
+right on the night. If you hadn’t come in then and put him off his
+stroke, he’d have shot out some amazing stuff, full of authority and
+dynamic accents and what not. I tell you, light of my soul, old Bill is
+all right! He’s got the winning personality up a tree, ready whenever
+he wants to go and get it. Speaking as his backer and trainer, I think
+he’ll twist your father round his little finger. Absolutely! It
+wouldn’t surprise me if at the end of five minutes the good old dad
+started jumping through hoops and sitting up for lumps of sugar.”
+
+“It would surprise _me_.”
+
+“Ah, that’s because you haven’t seen old Bill in action. You crabbed
+his act before he had begun to spread himself.”
+
+“It isn’t that at all. The reason why I think that Bill, however
+winning his personality may be, won’t persuade father to let him marry
+a girl in the chorus is something that happened last night.”
+
+“Last night?”
+
+“Well, at three o’clock this morning. It’s on the front page of the
+early editions of the evening papers. I brought one in for you to see,
+only you were so busy. Look! There it is!”
+
+Archie seized the paper.
+
+“Oh, Great Scot!”
+
+“What is it?” asked Bill, irritably. “Don’t stand goggling there! What
+the devil is it?”
+
+“Listen to this, old thing!”
+
+REVELRY BY NIGHT.
+SPIRITED BATTLE ROYAL AT HOTEL
+COSMOPOLIS.
+THE HOTEL DETECTIVE HAD A GOOD HEART
+BUT PAULINE PACKED THE PUNCH.
+
+
+The logical contender for Jack Dempsey’s championship honours has been
+discovered; and, in an age where women are stealing men’s jobs all the
+time, it will not come as a surprise to our readers to learn that she
+belongs to the sex that is more deadly than the male. Her name is Miss
+Pauline Preston, and her wallop is vouched for under oath—under many
+oaths—by Mr. Timothy O’Neill, known to his intimates as Pie-Face, who
+holds down the arduous job of detective at the Hotel Cosmopolis.
+
+At three o’clock this morning, Mr. O’Neill was advised by the
+night-clerk that the occupants of every room within earshot of number
+618 had ’phoned the desk to complain of a disturbance, a noise, a vocal
+uproar proceeding from the room mentioned. Thither, therefore, marched
+Mr. O’Neill, his face full of cheese-sandwich, (for he had been
+indulging in an early breakfast or a late supper) and his heart of
+devotion to duty. He found there the Misses Pauline Preston and
+“Bobbie” St. Clair, of the personnel of the chorus of the Frivolities,
+entertaining a few friends of either sex. A pleasant time was being had
+by all, and at the moment of Mr. O’Neill’s entry the entire strength of
+the company was rendering with considerable emphasis that touching
+ballad, “There’s a Place For Me In Heaven, For My Baby-Boy Is There.”
+
+The able and efficient officer at once suggested that there was a place
+for them in the street and the patrol-wagon was there; and, being a man
+of action as well as words, proceeded to gather up an armful of
+assorted guests as a preliminary to a personally-conducted tour onto
+the cold night. It was at this point that Miss Preston stepped into the
+limelight. Mr. O’Neill contends that she hit him with a brick, an iron
+casing, and the Singer Building. Be that as it may, her efforts were
+sufficiently able to induce him to retire for reinforcements, which,
+arriving, arrested the supper-party regardless of age or sex.
+
+At the police-court this morning Miss Preston maintained that she and
+her friends were merely having a quiet home-evening and that Mr.
+O’Neill was no gentleman. The male guests gave their names respectively
+as Woodrow Wilson, David Lloyd-George, and William J. Bryan. These,
+however, are believed to be incorrect. But the moral is, if you want
+excitement rather than sleep, stay at the Hotel Cosmopolis.
+
+Bill may have quaked inwardly as he listened to this epic but outwardly
+he was unmoved.
+
+“Well,” he said, “what about it?”
+
+“What about it!” said Lucille.
+
+“What about it!” said Archie. “Why, my dear old friend, it simply means
+that all the time we’ve been putting in making your personality winning
+has been chucked away. Absolutely a dead loss! We might just as well
+have read a manual on how to knit sweaters.”
+
+“I don’t see it,” maintained Bill, stoutly.
+
+Lucille turned apologetically to her husband.
+
+“You mustn’t judge me by him, Archie, darling. This sort of thing
+doesn’t run in the family.-We are supposed to be rather bright on the
+whole. But poor Bill was dropped by his nurse when he was a baby, and
+fell on his head.”
+
+“I suppose what you’re driving at,” said the goaded Bill, “is that what
+has happened will make father pretty sore against girls who happen to
+be in the chorus?”
+
+“That’s absolutely it, old thing, I’m sorry to say. The next person who
+mentions the word chorus-girl in the jolly old governor’s presence is
+going to take his life in his hands. I tell you, as one man to another,
+that I’d much rather be back in France hopping over the top than do it
+myself.”
+
+“What darned nonsense! Mabel may be in the chorus, but she isn’t like
+those girls.”
+
+“Poor old Bill!” said Lucille. “I’m awfully sorry, but it’s no use not
+facing facts. You know perfectly well that the reputation of the hotel
+is the thing father cares more about than anything else in the world,
+and that this is going to make him furious with all the chorus-girls in
+creation. It’s no good trying to explain to him that your Mabel is in
+the chorus but not of the chorus, so to speak.”
+
+“Deuced well put!” said Archie, approvingly. “You’re absolutely right.
+A chorus-girl by the river’s brim, so to speak, a simple chorus-girl is
+to him, as it were, and she is nothing more, if you know what I mean.”
+
+“So now,” said Lucille, “having shown you that the imbecile scheme
+which you concocted with my poor well-meaning husband is no good at
+all, I will bring you words of cheer. Your own original plan—of getting
+your Mabel a part in a comedy—was always the best one. And you can do
+it. I wouldn’t have broken the bad news so abruptly if I hadn’t had
+some consolation to give you afterwards. I met Reggie van Tuyl just
+now, wandering about as if the cares of the world were on his
+shoulders, and he told me that he was putting up most of the money for
+a new play that’s going into rehearsal right away. Reggie’s an old
+friend of yours. All you have to do is to go to him and ask him to use
+his influence to get your Mabel a small part. There’s sure to be a maid
+or something with only a line or two that won’t matter.”
+
+“A ripe scheme!” said Archie. “Very sound and fruity!”
+
+The cloud did not lift from Bill’s corrugated brow.
+
+“That’s all very well,” he said. “But you know what a talker Reggie is.
+He’s an obliging sort of chump, but his tongue’s fastened on at the
+middle and waggles at both ends. I don’t want the whole of New York to
+know about my engagement, and have somebody spilling the news to
+father, before I’m ready.”
+
+“That’s all right,” said Lucille. “Archie can speak to him. There’s no
+need for him to mention your name at all. He can just say there’s a
+girl he wants to get a part for. You would do it, wouldn’t you,
+angel-face?”
+
+“Like a bird, queen of my soul.”
+
+“Then that’s splendid. You’d better give Archie that photograph of
+Mabel to give to Reggie, Bill.”
+
+“Photograph?” said Bill. “Which photograph? I have twenty-four!”
+
+Archie found Reggie van Tuyl brooding in a window of his club that
+looked over Fifth Avenue. Reggie was a rather melancholy young man who
+suffered from elephantiasis of the bank-roll and the other evils that
+arise from that complaint. Gentle and sentimental by nature, his
+sensibilities had been much wounded by contact with a sordid world; and
+the thing that had first endeared Archie to him was the fact that the
+latter, though chronically hard-up, had never made any attempt to
+borrow money from him. Reggie would have parted with it on demand, but
+it had delighted him to find that Archie seemed to take a pleasure in
+his society without having any ulterior motives. He was fond of Archie,
+and also of Lucille; and their happy marriage was a constant source of
+gratification to him.
+
+For Reggie was a sentimentalist. He would have liked to live in a world
+of ideally united couples, himself ideally united to some charming and
+affectionate girl. But, as a matter of cold fact, he was a bachelor,
+and most of the couples he knew were veterans of several divorces. In
+Reggie’s circle, therefore, the home-life of Archie and Lucille shone
+like a good deed in a naughty world. It inspired him. In moments of
+depression it restored his waning faith in human nature.
+
+Consequently, when Archie, having greeted him and slipped into a chair
+at his side, suddenly produced from his inside pocket the photograph of
+an extremely pretty girl and asked him to get her a small part in the
+play which he was financing, he was shocked and disappointed. He was in
+a more than usually sentimental mood that afternoon, and had, indeed,
+at the moment of Archie’s arrival, been dreaming wistfully of soft arms
+clasped snugly about his collar and the patter of little feet and all
+that sort of thing.-He gazed reproachfully at Archie.
+
+“Archie!” his voice quivered with emotion. “Is it worth it?, is it
+worth it, old man?-Think of the poor little woman at home!”
+
+Archie was puzzled.
+
+“Eh, old top? Which poor little woman?”
+
+“Think of her trust in you, her faith—“.
+
+“I don’t absolutely get you, old bean.”
+
+“What would Lucille say if she knew about this?”
+
+“Oh, she does. She knows all about it.”
+
+“Good heavens!” cried Reggie. He was shocked to the core of his
+being. One of the articles of his faith was that the union of Lucille
+and Archie was different from those loose partnerships which were the
+custom in his world. He had not been conscious of such a poignant
+feeling that the foundations of the universe were cracked and tottering
+and that there was no light and sweetness in life since the morning,
+eighteen months back, when a negligent valet had sent him out into
+Fifth Avenue with only one spat on.
+
+“It was Lucille’s idea,” explained Archie. He was about to mention his
+brother-in-law’s connection with the matter, but checked himself in
+time, remembering Bill’s specific objection to having his secret
+revealed to Reggie. “It’s like this, old thing, I’ve never met this
+female, but she’s a pal of Lucille’s”—he comforted his conscience by
+the reflection that, if she wasn’t now, she would be in a few days-“and
+Lucille wants to do her a bit of good. She’s been on the stage in
+England, you know, supporting a jolly old widowed mother and educating
+a little brother and all that kind and species of rot, you understand,
+and now she’s coming over to America, and Lucille wants you to rally
+round and shove her into your show and generally keep the home fires
+burning and so forth. How do we go?”
+
+Reggie beamed with relief. He felt just as he had felt on that other
+occasion at the moment when a taxi-cab had rolled up and enabled him to
+hide his spatless leg from the public gaze.
+
+“Oh, I see!” he said. “Why, delighted, old man, quite delighted!”
+
+“Any small part would do. Isn’t there a maid or something in your
+bob’s-worth of refined entertainment who drifts about saying, ‘Yes,
+madam,’ and all that sort of thing? Well, then that’s just the thing.
+Topping! I knew I could rely on you, old bird. I’ll get Lucille to ship
+her round to your address when she arrives. I fancy she’s due to totter
+in somewhere in the next few days. Well, I must be popping. Toodle-oo!”
+
+“Pip-pip!” said Reggie.
+
+It was about a week later that Lucille came into the suite at the Hotel
+Cosmopolis that was her home, and found Archie lying on the couch,
+smoking a refreshing pipe after the labours of the day. It seemed to
+Archie that his wife was not in her usual cheerful frame of mind. He
+kissed her, and, having relieved her of her parasol, endeavoured
+without success to balance it on his chin. Having picked it up from the
+floor and placed it on the table, he became aware that Lucille was
+looking at him in a despondent sort of way. Her grey eyes were clouded.
+
+“Halloa, old thing,” said Archie. “What’s up?”
+
+Lucille sighed wearily.
+
+“Archie, darling, do you know any really good swear-words?”
+
+“Well,” said Archie, reflectively, “let me see. I did pick up a few
+tolerably ripe and breezy expressions out in France. All through my
+military career there was something about me—some subtle magnetism,
+don’t you know, and that sort of thing—that seemed to make colonels and
+blighters of that order rather inventive. I sort of inspired them,
+don’t you know. I remember one brass-hat addressing me for quite ten
+minutes, saying something new all the time. And even then he seemed to
+think he had only touched the fringe of the subject. As a matter of
+fact, he said straight out in the most frank and confiding way that
+mere words couldn’t do justice to me. But why?”
+
+“Because I want to relieve my feelings.”
+
+“Anything wrong?”
+
+“Everything’s wrong. I’ve just been having tea with Bill and his
+Mabel.”
+
+“Oh, ah!” said Archie, interested. “And what’s the verdict?”
+
+“Guilty!” said Lucille. “And the sentence, if I had anything to do with
+it, would be transportation for life.” She peeled off her gloves
+irritably. “What fools men are! Not you, precious! You’re the only man
+in the world that isn’t, it seems to me. You did marry a nice girl,
+didn’t you? _You_ didn’t go running round after females with crimson
+hair, goggling at them with your eyes popping out of your head like a
+bulldog waiting for a bone.”
+
+“Oh, I say! Does old Bill look like that?”
+
+“Worse!”
+
+Archie rose to a point of order.
+
+“But one moment, old lady. You speak of crimson hair. Surely old
+Bill—in the extremely jolly monologues he used to deliver whenever I
+didn’t see him coming and he got me alone—used to allude to her hair as
+brown.”
+
+“It isn’t brown now. It’s bright scarlet. Good gracious, I ought to
+know. I’ve been looking at it all the afternoon. It dazzled me. If I’ve
+got to meet her again, I mean to go to the oculist’s and get a pair of
+those smoked glasses you wear at Palm Beach.” Lucille brooded silently
+for a while over the tragedy. “I don’t want to say anything against
+her, of course.”
+
+“No, no, of course not.”
+
+“But of all the awful, second-rate girls I ever met, she’s the worst!
+She has vermilion hair and an imitation Oxford manner. She’s so
+horribly refined that it’s dreadful to listen to her. She’s a sly,
+creepy, slinky, made-up, insincere vampire! She’s common! She’s awful!
+She’s a cat!”
+
+“You’re quite right not to say anything against her,” said Archie,
+approvingly. “It begins to look,” he went on, “as if the good old pater
+was about due for another shock. He has a hard life!”
+
+“If Bill _dares_ to introduce that girl to father, he’s taking his life
+in his hands.”
+
+“But surely that was the idea—the scheme—the wheeze, wasn’t it? Or do
+you think there’s any chance of his weakening?”
+
+“Weakening! You should have seen him looking at her! It was like a
+small boy flattening his nose against the window of a candy-store.”
+
+“Bit thick!”
+
+Lucille kicked the leg of the table.
+
+“And to think,” she said, “that, when I was a little girl, I used to
+look up to Bill as a monument of wisdom. I used to hug his knees and
+gaze into his face and wonder how anyone could be so magnificent.” She
+gave the unoffending table another kick. “If I could have looked into
+the future,” she said, with feeling, “I’d have bitten him in the
+ankle!”
+
+In the days which followed, Archie found himself a little out of touch
+with Bill and his romance. Lucille referred to the matter only when he
+brought the subject up, and made it plain that the topic of her future
+sister-in-law was not one which she enjoyed discussing. Mr. Brewster,
+senior, when Archie, by way of delicately preparing his mind for what
+was about to befall, asked him if he liked red hair, called him a fool,
+and told him to go away and bother someone else when they were busy.
+The only person who could have kept him thoroughly abreast of the trend
+of affairs was Bill himself; and experience had made Archie wary in the
+matter of meeting Bill. The position of confidant to a young man in the
+early stages of love is no sinecure, and it made Archie sleepy even to
+think of having to talk to his brother-in-law. He sedulously avoided
+his love-lorn relative, and it was with a sinking feeling one day that,
+looking over his shoulder as he sat in the Cosmopolis grill-room
+preparatory to ordering lunch, he perceived Bill bearing down upon him,
+obviously resolved upon joining his meal.
+
+To his surprise, however, Bill did not instantly embark upon his usual
+monologue. Indeed, he hardly spoke at all. He champed a chop, and
+seemed to Archie to avoid his eye. It was not till lunch was over and
+they were smoking that he unburdened himself.
+
+“Archie!” he said.
+
+“Hallo, old thing!” said Archie. “Still there? I thought you’d died or
+something. Talk about our old pals, Tongue-tied Thomas and Silent
+Sammy! You could beat ’em both on the same evening.”
+
+“It’s enough to make me silent.”
+
+“What is?”
+
+Bill had relapsed into a sort of waking dream. He sat frowning
+sombrely, lost to the world. Archie, having waited what seemed to him a
+sufficient length of time for an answer to his question, bent forward
+and touched his brother-in-law’s hand gently with the lighted end of
+his cigar. Bill came to himself with a howl.
+
+“What is?” said Archie.
+
+“What is what?” said Bill.
+
+“Now listen, old thing,” protested Archie. “Life is short and time is
+flying. Suppose we cut out the cross-talk. You hinted there was
+something on your mind—something worrying the old bean—and I’m waiting
+to hear what it is.”
+
+Bill fiddled a moment with his coffee-spoon.
+
+“I’m in an awful hole,” he said at last.
+
+“What’s the trouble?”
+
+“It’s about that darned girl!”
+
+Archie blinked.
+
+“What!”
+
+“That darned girl!”
+
+Archie could scarcely credit his senses. He had been prepared—indeed,
+he had steeled himself—to hear Bill allude to his affinity in a number
+of ways. But “that darned girl” was not one of them.
+
+“Companion of my riper years,” he said, “let’s get this thing straight.
+When you say ‘that darned girl,’ do you by any possibility allude to—?”
+
+“Of course I do!”
+
+“But, William, old bird—”
+
+“Oh, I know, I know, I know!” said Bill, irritably. “You’re surprised
+to hear me talk like that about her?”
+
+“A trifle, yes. Possibly a trifle. When last heard from, laddie, you
+must recollect, you were speaking of the lady as your soul-mate, and at
+least once—if I remember rightly—you alluded to her as your little
+dusky-haired lamb.”
+
+A sharp howl escaped Bill.
+
+“Don’t!” A strong shudder convulsed his frame. “Don’t remind me of it!”
+
+“There’s been a species of slump, then, in dusky-haired lambs?”
+
+“How,” demanded Bill, savagely, “can a girl be a dusky-haired lamb when
+her hair’s bright scarlet?”
+
+“Dashed difficult!” admitted Archie.
+
+“I suppose Lucille told you about that?”
+
+“She did touch on it. Lightly, as it were. With a sort of gossamer
+touch, so to speak.”
+
+Bill threw off the last fragments of reserve.
+
+“Archie, I’m in the devil of a fix. I don’t know why it was, but
+directly I saw her—things seemed so different over in England—I mean.”
+He swallowed ice-water in gulps. “I suppose it was seeing her with
+Lucille. Old Lu is such a thoroughbred. Seemed to kind of show her up.
+Like seeing imitation pearls by the side of real pearls. And that
+crimson hair! It sort of put the lid on it.” Bill brooded morosely. “It
+ought to be a criminal offence for women to dye their hair. Especially
+red. What the devil do women do that sort of thing for?”
+
+“Don’t blame me, old thing. It’s not my fault.”
+
+Bill looked furtive and harassed.
+
+“It makes me feel such a cad. Here am I, feeling that I would give all
+I’ve got in the world to get out of the darned thing, and all the time
+the poor girl seems to be getting fonder of me than ever.”
+
+“How do you know?” Archie surveyed his brother-in-law critically.
+“Perhaps her feelings have changed too. Very possibly she may not like
+the colour of _your_ hair. I don’t myself. Now if you were to dye
+yourself crimson—”
+
+“Oh, shut up! Of course a man knows when a girl’s fond of him.”
+
+“By no means, laddie. When you’re my age—”
+
+“I _am_ your age.”
+
+“So you are! I forgot that. Well, now, approaching the matter from
+another angle, let us suppose, old son, that Miss What’s-Her-Name—the
+party of the second part—”
+
+“Stop it!” said Bill suddenly. “Here comes Reggie!”
+
+“Eh?”
+
+“Here comes Reggie van Tuyl. I don’t want him to hear us talking about
+the darned thing.”
+
+Archie looked over his shoulder and perceived that it was indeed so.
+Reggie was threading his way among the tables.
+
+“Well, _he_ looks pleased with things, anyway,” said Bill, enviously.
+“Glad somebody’s happy.”
+
+He was right. Reggie van Tuyl’s usual mode of progress through a
+restaurant was a somnolent slouch. Now he was positively bounding
+along. Furthermore, the usual expression on Reggie’s face was a sleepy
+sadness. Now he smiled brightly and with animation. He curveted towards
+their table, beaming and erect, his head up, his gaze level, and his
+chest expanded, for all the world as if he had been reading the hints
+in _The Personality That Wins_.
+
+Archie was puzzled. Something had plainly happened to Reggie. But what?
+It was idle to suppose that somebody had left him money, for he had
+been left practically all the money there was a matter of ten years
+before.
+
+“Hallo, old bean,” he said, as the new-comer, radiating good will and
+bonhomie, arrived at the table and hung over it like a noon-day sun.
+“We’ve finished. But rally round and we’ll watch you eat. Dashed
+interesting, watching old Reggie eat. Why go to the Zoo?”
+
+Reggie shook his head.
+
+“Sorry, old man. Can’t. Just on my way to the Ritz. Stepped in because
+I thought you might be here. I wanted you to be the first to hear the
+news.”
+
+“News?”
+
+“I’m the happiest man alive!”
+
+“You look it, darn you!” growled Bill, on whose mood of grey gloom this
+human sunbeam was jarring heavily.
+
+“I’m engaged to be married!”
+
+“Congratulations, old egg!” Archie shook his hand cordially. “Dash it,
+don’t you know, as an old married man I like to see you young fellows
+settling down.”
+
+“I don’t know how to thank you enough, Archie, old man,” said Reggie,
+fervently.
+
+“Thank me?”
+
+“It was through you that I met her. Don’t you remember the girl you
+sent to me? You wanted me to get her a small part—”
+
+He stopped, puzzled. Archie had uttered a sound that was half gasp and
+half gurgle, but it was swallowed up in the extraordinary noise from
+the other side of the table. Bill Brewster was leaning forward with
+bulging eyes and soaring eyebrows.
+
+“Are you engaged to Mabel Winchester?”
+
+“Why, by George!” said Reggie. “Do you know her?”
+
+Archie recovered himself.
+
+“Slightly,” he said. “Slightly. Old Bill knows her slightly, as it
+were. Not very well, don’t you know, but—how shall I put it?”
+
+“Slightly,” suggested Bill.
+
+“Just the word. Slightly.”
+
+“Splendid!” said Reggie van Tuyl. “Why don’t you come along to the Ritz
+and meet her now?”
+
+Bill stammered. Archie came to the rescue again.
+
+“Bill can’t come now. He’s got a date.”
+
+“A date?” said Bill.
+
+“A date,” said Archie. “An appointment, don’t you know. A—a—in fact, a
+date.”
+
+“But—er—wish her happiness from me,” said Bill, cordially.
+
+“Thanks very much, old man,” said Reggie.
+
+“And say I’m delighted, will you?”
+
+“Certainly.”
+
+“You won’t forget the word, will you? Delighted.”
+
+“Delighted.”
+
+“That’s right. Delighted.”
+
+Reggie looked at his watch.
+
+“Halloa! I must rush!”
+
+Bill and Archie watched him as he bounded out of the restaurant.
+
+“Poor old Reggie!” said Bill, with a fleeting compunction.
+
+“Not necessarily,” said Archie. “What I mean to say is, tastes differ,
+don’t you know. One man’s peach is another man’s poison, and vice
+versa.”
+
+“There’s something in that.”
+
+“Absolutely! Well,” said Archie, judicially, “this would appear to be,
+as it were, the maddest, merriest day in all the glad New Year, yes,
+no?”
+
+Bill drew a deep breath.
+
+“You bet your sorrowful existence it is!” he said. “I’d like to do
+something to celebrate it.”
+
+“The right spirit!” said Archie. “Absolutely the right spirit! Begin by
+paying for my lunch!”
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XX.
+THE-SAUSAGE-CHAPPIE-CLICKS
+
+
+Rendered restless by relief, Bill Brewster did not linger long at the
+luncheon-table. Shortly after Reggie van Tuyl had retired, he got up
+and announced his intention of going for a bit of a walk to calm his
+excited mind. Archie dismissed him with a courteous wave of the hand;
+and, beckoning to the Sausage Chappie, who in his role of waiter was
+hovering near, requested him to bring the best cigar the hotel could
+supply. The padded seat in which he sat was comfortable; he had no
+engagements; and it seemed to him that a pleasant half-hour could be
+passed in smoking dreamily and watching his fellow-men eat.
+
+The grill-room had filled up. The Sausage Chappie, having brought
+Archie his cigar, was attending to a table close by, at which a woman
+with a small boy in a sailor suit had seated themselves. The woman was
+engrossed with the bill of fare, but the child’s attention seemed
+riveted upon the Sausage Chappie. He was drinking him in with wide
+eyes. He seemed to be brooding on him.
+
+Archie, too, was brooding on the Sausage Chappie, The latter made an
+excellent waiter: he was brisk and attentive, and did the work as if he
+liked it; but Archie was not satisfied. Something seemed to tell him
+that the man was fitted for higher things. Archie was a grateful soul.
+That sausage, coming at the end of a five-hour hike, had made a deep
+impression on his plastic nature. Reason told him that only an
+exceptional man could have parted with half a sausage at such a moment;
+and he could not feel that a job as waiter at a New York hotel was an
+adequate job for an exceptional man. Of course, the root of the trouble
+lay in the fact that the fellow could not remember what his real
+life-work had been before the war. It was exasperating to reflect, as
+the other moved away to take his order to the kitchen, that there, for
+all one knew, went the dickens of a lawyer or doctor or architect or
+what not.
+
+His meditations were broken by the voice of the child.
+
+“Mummie,” asked the child interestedly, following the Sausage Chappie
+with his eyes as the latter disappeared towards the kitchen, “why has
+that man got such a funny face?”
+
+“Hush, darling.”
+
+“Yes, but why HAS he?”
+
+“I don’t know, darling.”
+
+The child’s faith in the maternal omniscience seemed to have received a
+shock. He had the air of a seeker after truth who has been baffled. His
+eyes roamed the room discontentedly.
+
+“He’s got a funnier face than that man there,” he said, pointing to
+Archie.
+
+“Hush, darling!”
+
+“But he has. Much funnier.”
+
+In a way it was a sort of compliment, but Archie felt embarrassed. He
+withdrew coyly into the cushioned recess. Presently the Sausage Chappie
+returned, attended to the needs of the woman and the child, and came
+over to Archie. His homely face was beaming.
+
+“Say, I had a big night last night,” he said, leaning on the table.
+
+“Yes?” said Archie. “Party or something?”
+
+“No, I mean I suddenly began to remember things. Something seems to
+have happened to the works.”
+
+Archie sat up excitedly. This was great news.
+
+“No, really? My dear old lad, this is absolutely topping. This is
+priceless.”
+
+“Yessir! First thing I remembered was that I was born at Springfield,
+Ohio. It was like a mist starting to lift. Springfield, Ohio. That was
+it. It suddenly came back to me.”
+
+“Splendid! Anything else?”
+
+“Yessir! Just before I went to sleep I remembered my name as well.”
+
+Archie was stirred to his depths.
+
+“Why, the thing’s a walk-over!” he exclaimed. “Now you’ve once got
+started, nothing can stop you. What is your name?”
+
+“Why, it’s—That’s funny! It’s gone again. I have an idea it began with
+an S. What was it? Skeffington? Skillington?”
+
+“Sanderson?”
+
+“No; I’ll get it in a moment. Cunningham? Carrington? Wilberforce?
+Debenham?”
+
+“Dennison?” suggested Archie, helpfully.—“No, no, no. It’s on the tip
+of my tongue. Barrington? Montgomery? Hepplethwaite? I’ve got it!
+Smith!”
+
+“By Jove! Really?”
+
+“Certain of it.”
+
+“What’s the first name?”
+
+An anxious expression came into the man’s eyes. He hesitated. He
+lowered his voice.
+
+“I have a horrible feeling that it’s Lancelot!”
+
+“Good God!” said Archie.
+
+“It couldn’t really be that, could it?”
+
+Archie looked grave. He hated to give pain, but he felt he must be
+honest.
+
+“It might,” he said. “People give their children all sorts of rummy
+names. My second name’s Tracy. And I have a pal in England who was
+christened Cuthbert de la Hay Horace. Fortunately everyone calls him
+Stinker.”
+
+The head-waiter began to drift up like a bank of fog, and the Sausage
+Chappie returned to his professional duties. When he came back, he was
+beaming again.
+
+“Something else I remembered,” he said, removing the cover. “I’m
+married!”
+
+“Good Lord!”
+
+“At least I was before the war. She had blue eyes and brown hair and a
+Pekingese dog.”
+
+“What was her name?”
+
+“I don’t know.”
+
+“Well, you’re coming on,” said Archie. “I’ll admit that. You’ve still
+got a bit of a way to go before you become like one of those blighters
+who take the Memory Training Courses in the magazine advertisements—I
+mean to say, you know, the lads who meet a fellow once for five
+minutes, and then come across him again ten years later and grasp him
+by the hand and say, ‘Surely this is Mr. Watkins of Seattle?’ Still,
+you’re doing fine. You only need patience. Everything comes to him who
+waits.” Archie sat up, electrified. “I say, by Jove, that’s rather
+good, what! Everything comes to him who waits, and you’re a waiter,
+what, what. I mean to say, what!”
+
+“Mummie,” said the child at the other table, still speculative, “do you
+think something trod on his face?”
+
+“Hush, darling.”
+
+“Perhaps it was bitten by something?”
+
+“Eat your nice fish, darling,” said the mother, who seemed to be one of
+those dull-witted persons whom it is impossible to interest in a
+discussion on first causes.
+
+Archie felt stimulated. Not even the advent of his father-in-law, who
+came in a few moments later and sat down at the other end of the room,
+could depress his spirits.
+
+The Sausage Chappie came to his table again.
+
+“It’s a funny thing,” he said. “Like waking up after you’ve been
+asleep. Everything seems to be getting clearer. The dog’s name was
+Marie. My wife’s dog, you know. And she had a mole on her chin.”
+
+“The dog?”
+
+“No. My wife. Little beast! She bit me in the leg once.”
+
+“Your wife?”
+
+“No. The dog. Good Lord!” said the Sausage Chappie.
+
+Archie looked up and followed his gaze.
+
+A couple of tables away, next to a sideboard on which the management
+exposed for view the cold meats and puddings and pies mentioned in
+volume two of the bill of fare (“Buffet Froid”), a man and a girl had
+just seated themselves. The man was stout and middle-aged. He bulged in
+practically every place in which a man can bulge, and his head was
+almost entirely free from hair. The girl was young and pretty. Her eyes
+were blue. Her hair was brown. She had a rather attractive little mole
+on the left side of her chin.
+
+“Good Lord!” said the Sausage Chappie.
+
+“Now what?” said Archie.
+
+“Who’s that? Over at the table there?”
+
+Archie, through long attendance at the Cosmopolis Grill, knew most of
+the habitues by sight.
+
+“That’s a man named Gossett. James J. Gossett. He’s a motion-picture
+man. You must have seen his name around.”
+
+“I don’t mean him. Who’s the girl?”
+
+“I’ve never seen her before.”
+
+“It’s my wife!” said the Sausage Chappie.
+
+“Your wife!”
+
+“Yes!”
+
+“Are you sure?”
+
+“Of course I’m sure!”
+
+“Well, well, well!” said Archie. “Many happy returns of the day!”
+
+At the other table, the girl, unconscious of the drama which was about
+to enter her life, was engrossed in conversation with the stout man.
+And at this moment the stout man leaned forward and patted her on the
+cheek.
+
+It was a paternal pat, the pat which a genial uncle might bestow on a
+favourite niece, but it did not strike the Sausage Chappie in that
+light. He had been advancing on the table at a fairly rapid pace, and
+now, stirred to his depths, he bounded forward with a hoarse cry.
+
+Archie was at some pains to explain to his father-in-law later that, if
+the management left cold pies and things about all over the place, this
+sort of thing was bound to happen sooner or later. He urged that it was
+putting temptation in people’s way, and that Mr. Brewster had only
+himself to blame. Whatever the rights of the case, the Buffet Froid
+undoubtedly came in remarkably handy at this crisis in the Sausage
+Chappie’s life. He had almost reached the sideboard when the stout man
+patted the girl’s cheek, and to seize a huckleberry pie was with him
+the work of a moment. The next instant the pie had whizzed past the
+other’s head and burst like a shell against the wall.
+
+There are, no doubt, restaurants where this sort of thing would have
+excited little comment, but the Cosmopolis was not one of them.
+Everybody had something to say, but the only one among those present
+who had anything sensible to say was the child in the sailor suit.
+
+“Do it again!” said the child, cordially.
+
+The Sausage Chappie did it again. He took up a fruit salad, poised it
+for a moment, then decanted it over Mr. Gossett’s bald head. The
+child’s happy laughter rang over the restaurant. Whatever anybody else
+might think of the affair, this child liked it and was prepared to go
+on record to that effect.
+
+Epic events have a stunning quality. They paralyse the faculties. For a
+moment there was a pause. The world stood still. Mr. Brewster bubbled
+inarticulately. Mr. Gossett dried himself sketchily with a napkin. The
+Sausage Chappie snorted.
+
+The girl had risen to her feet and was staring wildly.
+
+“John!” she cried.
+
+Even at this moment of crisis the Sausage Chappie was able to look
+relieved.
+
+“So it is!” he said. “And I thought it was Lancelot!”
+
+“I thought you were dead!”
+
+“I’m not!” said the Sausage Chappie.
+
+Mr. Gossett, speaking thickly through the fruit-salad, was understood
+to say that he regretted this. And then confusion broke loose again.
+Everybody began to talk at once.
+
+“I say!” said Archie. “I say! One moment!”
+
+Of the first stages of this interesting episode Archie had been a
+paralysed spectator. The thing had numbed him. And then—
+
+Sudden a thought came, like a full-blown rose.
+Flushing his brow.
+
+
+When he reached the gesticulating group, he was calm and business-like.
+He had a constructive policy to suggest.
+
+“I say,” he said. “I’ve got an idea!”
+
+“Go away!” said Mr. Brewster. “This is bad enough without you butting
+in.”
+
+Archie quelled him with a gesture.
+
+“Leave us,” he said. “We would be alone. I want to have a little
+business-talk with Mr. Gossett.” He turned to the movie-magnate, who
+was gradually emerging from the fruit-salad rather after the manner of
+a stout Venus rising from the sea. “Can you spare me a moment of your
+valuable time?”
+
+“I’ll have him arrested!”
+
+“Don’t you do it, laddie. Listen!”
+
+“The man’s mad. Throwing pies!”
+
+Archie attached himself to his coat-button.
+
+“Be calm, laddie. Calm and reasonable!”
+
+For the first time Mr. Gossett seemed to become aware that what he had
+been looking on as a vague annoyance was really an individual.
+
+“Who the devil are you?”
+
+Archie drew himself up with dignity.
+
+“I am this gentleman’s representative,” he replied, indicating the
+Sausage Chappie with a motion of the hand. “His jolly old personal
+representative. I act for him. And on his behalf I have a pretty ripe
+proposition to lay before you. Reflect, dear old bean,” he proceeded
+earnestly. “Are you going to let this chance slip? The opportunity of a
+lifetime which will not occur again. By Jove, you ought to rise up and
+embrace this bird. You ought to clasp the chappie to your bosom! He has
+thrown pies at you, hasn’t he? Very well. You are a movie-magnate. Your
+whole fortune is founded on chappies who throw pies. You probably scour
+the world for chappies who throw pies. Yet, when one comes right to you
+without any fuss or trouble and demonstrates before your very eyes the
+fact that he is without a peer as a pie-propeller, you get the wind up
+and talk about having him arrested. Consider! (There’s a bit of cherry
+just behind your left ear.) Be sensible. Why let your personal feeling
+stand in the way of doing yourself a bit of good? Give this chappie a
+job and give it him quick, or we go elsewhere. Did you ever see Fatty
+Arbuckle handle pastry with a surer touch? Has Charlie Chaplin got this
+fellow’s speed and control. Absolutely not. I tell you, old friend,
+you’re in danger of throwing away a good thing!”
+
+He paused. The Sausage Chappie beamed.
+
+“I’ve aways wanted to go into the movies,” he said. “I was an actor
+before the war. Just remembered.”
+
+Mr. Brewster attempted to speak. Archie waved him down.
+
+“How many times have I got to tell you not to butt in?” he said,
+severely.
+
+Mr. Gossett’s militant demeanour had become a trifle modified during
+Archie’s harangue. First and foremost a man of business, Mr. Gossett
+was not insensible to the arguments which had been put forward. He
+brushed a slice of orange from the back of his neck, and mused awhile.
+
+“How do I know this fellow would screen well?” he said, at length.
+
+“Screen well!” cried Archie. “Of course he’ll screen well. Look at his
+face. I ask you! The map! I call your attention to it.” He turned
+apologetically to the Sausage Chappie. “Awfully sorry, old lad, for
+dwelling on this, but it’s business, you know.” He turned to Mr.
+Gossett. “Did you ever see a face like that? Of course not. Why should
+I, as this gentleman’s personal representative, let a face like that go
+to waste? There’s a fortune in it. By Jove, I’ll give you two minutes
+to think the thing over, and, if you don’t talk business then, I’ll
+jolly well take my man straight round to Mack Sennett or someone. We
+don’t have to ask for jobs. We consider offers.”
+
+There was a silence. And then the clear voice of the child in the
+sailor suit made itself heard again.
+
+“Mummie!”
+
+“Yes, darling?”
+
+“Is the man with the funny face going to throw any more pies?”
+
+“No, darling.”
+
+The child uttered a scream of disappointed fury.
+
+“I want the funny man to throw some more pies! I want the funny man to
+throw some more pies!”
+
+A look almost of awe came into Mr. Gossett’s face. He had heard the
+voice of the Public. He had felt the beating of the Public’s pulse.
+
+“Out of the mouths of babes and sucklings,” he said, picking a piece of
+banana off his right eyebrow, “Out of the mouths of babes and
+sucklings. Come round to my office!”
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXI.
+THE GROWING BOY
+
+
+The lobby of the Cosmopolis Hotel was a favourite stamping-ground of
+Mr. Daniel Brewster, its proprietor. He liked to wander about there,
+keeping a paternal eye on things, rather in the manner of the Jolly
+Innkeeper (hereinafter to be referred to as Mine Host) of the
+old-fashioned novel. Customers who, hurrying in to dinner, tripped over
+Mr. Brewster, were apt to mistake him for the hotel detective—for his
+eye was keen and his aspect a trifle austere—but, nevertheless, he was
+being as jolly an innkeeper as he knew how. His presence in the lobby
+supplied a personal touch to the Cosmopolis which other New York hotels
+lacked, and it undeniably made the girl at the book-stall
+extraordinarily civil to her clients, which was all to the good.
+
+Most of the time Mr. Brewster stood in one spot and just looked
+thoughtful; but now and again he would wander to the marble slab behind
+which he kept the desk-clerk and run his eye over the register, to see
+who had booked rooms—like a child examining the stocking on Christmas
+morning to ascertain what Santa Claus had brought him.
+
+As a rule, Mr. Brewster concluded this performance by shoving the book
+back across the marble slab and resuming his meditations. But one night
+a week or two after the Sausage Chappie’s sudden restoration to the
+normal, he varied this procedure by starting rather violently, turning
+purple, and uttering an exclamation which was manifestly an exclamation
+of chagrin. He turned abruptly and cannoned into Archie, who, in
+company with Lucille, happened to be crossing the lobby at the moment
+on his way to dine in their suite.
+
+Mr. Brewster apologised gruffly; then, recognising his victim, seemed
+to regret having done so.
+
+“Oh, it’s you! Why can’t you look where you’re going?” he demanded. He
+had suffered much from his son-in-law.
+
+“Frightfully sorry,” said Archie, amiably. “Never thought you were
+going to fox-trot backwards all over the fairway.”
+
+“You mustn’t bully Archie,” said Lucille, severely, attaching herself
+to her father’s back hair and giving it a punitive tug, “because he’s
+an angel, and I love him, and you must learn to love him, too.”
+
+“Give you lessons at a reasonable rate,” murmured Archie.
+
+Mr. Brewster regarded his young relative with a lowering eye.
+
+“What’s the matter, father darling?” asked Lucille. “You seem upset.”
+
+“I am upset!” Mr. Brewster snorted. “Some people have got a nerve!” He
+glowered forbiddingly at an inoffensive young man in a light overcoat
+who had just entered, and the young man, though his conscience was
+quite clear and Mr. Brewster an entire stranger to him, stopped dead,
+blushed, and went out again—to dine elsewhere. “Some people have got
+the nerve of an army mule!”
+
+“Why, what’s happened?”
+
+“Those darned McCalls have registered here!”
+
+“No!”
+
+“Bit beyond me, this,” said Archie, insinuating himself into the
+conversation. “Deep waters and what not! Who are the McCalls?”
+
+“Some people father dislikes,” said Lucille. “And they’ve chosen his
+hotel to stop at. But, father dear, you mustn’t mind. It’s really a
+compliment. They’ve come because they know it’s the best hotel in New
+York.”
+
+“Absolutely!” said Archie. “Good accommodation for man and beast! All
+the comforts of home! Look on the bright side, old bean. No good
+getting the wind up. Cherrio, old companion!”
+
+“Don’t call me old companion!”
+
+“Eh, what? Oh, right-o!”
+
+Lucille steered her husband out of the danger zone, and they entered
+the lift.
+
+“Poor father!” she said, as they went to their suite, “it’s a shame.
+They must have done it to annoy him. This man McCall has a place next
+to some property father bought in Westchester, and he’s bringing a
+law-suit against father about a bit of land which he claims belongs to
+him. He might have had the tact to go to another hotel. But, after all,
+I don’t suppose it was the poor little fellow’s fault. He does whatever
+his wife tells him to.”
+
+“We all do that,” said Archie the married man.
+
+Lucille eyed him fondly.
+
+“Isn’t it a shame, precious, that all husbands haven’t nice wives like
+me?”
+
+“When I think of you, by Jove,” said Archie, fervently, “I want to
+babble, absolutely babble!”
+
+“Oh, I was telling you about the McCalls. Mr. McCall is one of those
+little, meek men, and his wife’s one of those big, bullying women. It
+was she who started all the trouble with father. Father and Mr. McCall
+were very fond of each other till she made him begin the suit. I feel
+sure she made him come to this hotel just to annoy father. Still,
+they’ve probably taken the most expensive suite in the place, which is
+something.”
+
+Archie was at the telephone. His mood was now one of quiet peace. Of
+all the happenings which went to make up existence in New York, he
+liked best the cosy _tête-à-tête_ dinners with Lucille in their suite,
+which, owing to their engagements—for Lucille was a popular girl, with
+many friends—occurred all too seldom.
+
+“Touching now the question of browsing and sluicing,” he said. “I’ll be
+getting them to send along a waiter.”
+
+“Oh, good gracious!”
+
+“What’s the matter?”
+
+“I’ve just remembered. I promised faithfully I would go and see Jane
+Murchison to-day. And I clean forgot. I must rush.”
+
+“But light of my soul, we are about to eat. Pop around and see her
+after dinner.”
+
+“I can’t. She’s going to a theatre to-night.”
+
+“Give her the jolly old miss-in-baulk, then, for the nonce, and spring
+round to-morrow.”
+
+“She’s sailing for England to-morrow morning, early. No, I must go and
+see her now. What a shame! She’s sure to make me stop to dinner, I tell
+you what. Order something for me, and, if I’m not back in half an hour,
+start.”
+
+“Jane Murchison,” said Archie, “is a bally nuisance.”
+
+“Yes. But I’ve known her since she was eight.”
+
+“If her parents had had any proper feeling,” said Archie, “they would
+have drowned her long before that.”
+
+He unhooked the receiver, and asked despondently to be connected with
+Room Service. He thought bitterly of the exigent Jane, whom he
+recollected dimly as a tall female with teeth. He half thought of going
+down to the grill-room on the chance of finding a friend there, but the
+waiter was on his way to the room. He decided that he might as well
+stay where he was.
+
+The waiter arrived, booked the order, and departed. Archie had just
+completed his toilet after a shower-bath when a musical clinking
+without announced the advent of the meal. He opened the door. The
+waiter was there with a table congested with things under covers, from
+which escaped a savoury and appetising odour. In spite of his
+depression, Archie’s soul perked up a trifle.
+
+Suddenly he became aware that he was not the only person present who
+was deriving enjoyment from the scent of the meal. Standing beside the
+waiter and gazing wistfully at the foodstuffs was a long, thin boy of
+about sixteen. He was one of those boys who seem all legs and knuckles.
+He had pale red hair, sandy eyelashes, and a long neck; and his eyes,
+as he removed them from the-table and raised them to Archie’s, had a
+hungry look. He reminded Archie of a half-grown, half-starved hound.
+
+“That smells good!” said the long boy. He inhaled deeply. “Yes, sir,”
+he continued, as one whose mind is definitely made up, “that smells
+good!”
+
+Before Archie could reply, the telephone bell rang. It was Lucille,
+confirming her prophecy that the pest Jane would insist on her staying
+to dine.
+
+“Jane,” said Archie, into the telephone, “is a pot of poison. The
+waiter is here now, setting out a rich banquet, and I shall have to eat
+two of everything by myself.”
+
+He hung up the receiver, and, turning, met the pale eye of the long
+boy, who had propped himself up in the doorway.
+
+“Were you expecting somebody to dinner?” asked the boy.
+
+“Why, yes, old friend, I was.”
+
+“I wish—”
+
+“Yes?”
+
+“Oh, nothing.”
+
+The waiter left. The long boy hitched his back more firmly against the
+doorpost, and returned to his original theme.
+
+“That surely does smell good!” He basked a moment in the aroma. “Yes,
+sir! I’ll tell the world it does!”
+
+Archie was not an abnormally rapid thinker, but he began at this point
+to get a clearly defined impression that this lad, if invited, would
+waive the formalities and consent to join his meal. Indeed, the idea
+Archie got was that, if he were not invited pretty soon, he would
+invite himself.
+
+“Yes,” he agreed. “It doesn’t smell bad, what!”
+
+“It smells _good!_” said the boy. “Oh, doesn’t it! Wake me up in the
+night and ask me if it doesn’t!”
+
+“_Poulet en casserole_,” said Archie.
+
+“Golly!” said the boy, reverently.
+
+There was a pause. The situation began to seem to Archie a trifle
+difficult. He wanted to start his meal, but it began to appear that he
+must either do so under the penetrating gaze of his new friend or else
+eject the latter forcibly. The boy showed no signs of ever wanting to
+leave the doorway.
+
+“You’ve dined, I suppose, what?” said Archie.
+
+“I never dine.”
+
+“What!”
+
+“Not really dine, I mean. I only get vegetables and nuts and things.”
+
+“Dieting?”
+
+“Mother is.”
+
+“I don’t absolutely catch the drift, old bean,” said Archie. The boy
+sniffed with half-closed eyes as a wave of perfume from the _poulet en
+casserole_ floated past him. He seemed to be anxious to intercept as
+much of it as possible before it got through the door.
+
+“Mother’s a food-reformer,” he vouchsafed. “She lectures on it. She
+makes Pop and me live on vegetables and nuts and things.”
+
+Archie was shocked. It was like listening to a tale from the abyss.
+
+“My dear old chap, you must suffer agonies—absolute shooting pains!” He
+had no hesitation now. Common humanity pointed out his course. “Would
+you care to join me in a bite now?”
+
+“Would I!” The boy smiled a wan smile. “Would I! Just stop me on the
+street and ask me!”
+
+“Come on in, then,” said Archie, rightly taking this peculiar phrase
+for a formal acceptance. “And close the door. The fatted calf is
+getting cold.”
+
+Archie was not a man with a wide visiting-list among people with
+families, and it was so long since he had seen a growing boy in action
+at the table that he had forgotten what sixteen is capable of doing
+with a knife and fork, when it really squares its elbows, takes a deep
+breath, and gets going. The spectacle which he witnessed was
+consequently at first a little unnerving. The long boy’s idea of
+trifling with a meal appeared to be to swallow it whole and reach out
+for more. He ate like a starving Eskimo. Archie, in the time he had
+spent in the trenches making the world safe for the working-man to
+strike in, had occasionally been quite peckish, but he sat dazed before
+this majestic hunger. This was real eating.
+
+There was little conversation. The growing boy evidently did not
+believe in table-talk when he could use his mouth for more practical
+purposes. It was not until the final roll had been devoured to its last
+crumb that the guest found leisure to address his host. Then he leaned
+back with a contented sigh.
+
+“Mother,” said the human python, “says you ought to chew every mouthful
+thirty-three times....”
+
+“Yes, sir! Thirty-three times!” He sighed again, “I haven’t ever had a
+meal like that.”
+
+“All right, was it, what?”
+
+“Was it! Was it! Call me up on the ’phone and ask me!-Yes,
+sir!-Mother’s tipped off these darned waiters not to serve me anything
+but vegetables and nuts and things, darn it!”
+
+“The mater seems to have drastic ideas about the good old feed-bag,
+what!”
+
+“I’ll say she has! Pop hates it as much as me, but he’s scared to kick.
+Mother says vegetables contain all the proteins you want. Mother says,
+if you eat meat, your blood-pressure goes all blooey. Do you think it
+does?”
+
+“Mine seems pretty well in the pink.”
+
+“She’s great on talking,” conceded the boy. “She’s out to-night
+somewhere, giving a lecture on Rational Eating to some ginks. I’ll have
+to be slipping up to our suite before she gets back.” He rose,
+sluggishly. “That isn’t a bit of roll under that napkin, is it?” he
+asked, anxiously.
+
+Archie raised the napkin.
+
+“No. Nothing of that species.”
+
+“Oh, well!” said the boy, resignedly. “Then I believe I’ll be going.
+Thanks very much for the dinner.”
+
+“Not a bit, old top. Come again if you’re ever trickling round in this
+direction.”
+
+The long boy removed himself slowly, loath to leave. At the door he
+cast an affectionate glance back at the table.
+
+“Some meal!” he said, devoutly. “Considerable meal!”
+
+Archie lit a cigarette. He felt like a Boy Scout who has done his day’s
+Act of Kindness.
+
+On the following morning it chanced that Archie needed a fresh supply
+of tobacco. It was his custom, when this happened, to repair to a small
+shop on Sixth Avenue which he had discovered accidentally in the course
+of his rambles about the great city. His relations with Jno. Blake, the
+proprietor, were friendly and intimate. The discovery that Mr. Blake
+was English and had, indeed, until a few years back maintained an
+establishment only a dozen doors or so from Archie’s London club, had
+served as a bond.
+
+To-day he found Mr. Blake in a depressed mood. The tobacconist was a
+hearty, red-faced man, who looked like an English sporting publican—the
+kind of man who wears a fawn-coloured top-coat and drives to the Derby
+in a dog-cart; and usually there seemed to be nothing on his mind
+except the vagaries of the weather, concerning which he was a great
+conversationalist. But now moodiness had claimed him for its own. After
+a short and melancholy “Good morning,” he turned to the task of
+measuring out the tobacco in silence.
+
+Archie’s sympathetic nature was perturbed.—“What’s the matter, laddie?”
+he enquired. “You would seem to be feeling a bit of an onion this
+bright morning, what, yes, no? I can see it with the naked eye.”
+
+Mr. Blake grunted sorrowfully.
+
+“I’ve had a knock, Mr. Moffam.”
+
+“Tell me all, friend of my youth.”
+
+Mr. Blake, with a jerk of his thumb, indicated a poster which hung on
+the wall behind the counter. Archie had noticed it as he came in, for
+it was designed to attract the eye. It was printed in black letters on
+a yellow ground, and ran as follows:
+
+CLOVER-LEAF SOCIAL AND OUTING CLUB
+
+GRAND CONTEST
+
+PIE-EATING CHAMPIONSHIP OF THE WEST SIDE
+
+SPIKE O’DOWD
+(Champion)
+
+_v_.
+
+BLAKE’S UNKNOWN
+
+FOR A PURSE OF $50 AND SIDE-BET
+
+
+Archie examined this document gravely. It conveyed nothing to him
+except—what he had long suspected—that his sporting-looking friend had
+sporting blood as well as that kind of exterior. He expressed a kindly
+hope that the other’s Unknown would bring home the bacon.
+
+Mr. Blake laughed one of those hollow, mirthless laughs.
+
+“There ain’t any blooming Unknown,” he said, bitterly. This man had
+plainly suffered. “Yesterday, yes, but not now.”
+
+Archie sighed.
+
+“In the midst of life—Dead?” he enquired, delicately.
+
+“As good as,” replied the stricken tobacconist. He cast aside his
+artificial restraint and became voluble. Archie was one of those
+sympathetic souls in whom even strangers readily confided their most
+intimate troubles. He was to those in travail of spirit very much what
+catnip is to a cat. “It’s ’ard, sir, it’s blooming ’ard! I’d got the
+event all sewed up in a parcel, and now this young feller-me-lad ’as to
+give me the knock. This lad of mine—sort of cousin ’e is; comes from
+London, like you and me—’as always ’ad, ever since he landed in this
+country, a most amazing knack of stowing away grub. ’E’d been a bit
+underfed these last two or three years over in the old country, what
+with food restrictions and all, and ’e took to the food over ’ere
+amazing. I’d ’ave backed ’im against a ruddy orstridge! Orstridge! I’d
+’ave backed ’im against ’arff a dozen orstridges—take ’em on one after
+the other in the same ring on the same evening—and given ’em a
+handicap, too! ’E was a jewel, that boy. I’ve seen him polish off four
+pounds of steak and mealy potatoes and then look round kind of wolfish,
+as much as to ask when dinner was going to begin! That’s the kind of a
+lad ’e was till this very morning. ’E would have out-swallowed this
+’ere O’Dowd without turning a hair, as a relish before ’is tea! I’d got
+a couple of ’undred dollars on ’im, and thought myself lucky to get the
+odds. And now—”
+
+Mr. Blake relapsed into a tortured silence.
+
+“But what’s the matter with the blighter? Why can’t he go over the top?
+Has he got indigestion?”
+
+“Indigestion?” Mr. Blaife laughed another of his hollow laughs. “You
+couldn’t give that boy indigestion if you fed ’im in on safety-razor
+blades. Religion’s more like what ’e’s got.”
+
+“Religion?”
+
+“Well, you can call it that. Seems last night, instead of goin’ and
+resting ’is mind at a picture-palace like I told him to, ’e sneaked off
+to some sort of a lecture down on Eighth Avenue. ’E said ’e’d seen a
+piece about it in the papers, and it was about Rational Eating, and
+that kind of attracted ’im. ’E sort of thought ’e might pick up a few
+hints, like. ’E didn’t know what rational eating was, but it sounded to
+’im as if it must be something to do with food, and ’e didn’t want to
+miss it. ’E came in here just now,” said Mr. Blake, dully, “and ’e was
+a changed lad! Scared to death ’e was! Said the way ’e’d been goin’ on
+in the past, it was a wonder ’e’d got any stummick left! It was a lady
+that give the lecture, and this boy said it was amazing what she told
+’em about blood-pressure and things ’e didn’t even know ’e ’ad. She
+showed ’em pictures, coloured pictures, of what ’appens inside the
+injudicious eater’s stummick who doesn’t chew his food, and it was like
+a battlefield! ’E said ’e would no more think of eatin’ a lot of pie
+than ’e would of shootin’ ’imself, and anyhow eating pie would be a
+quicker death. I reasoned with ’im, Mr. Moffam, with tears in my eyes.
+I asked ’im was he goin’ to chuck away fame and wealth just because a
+woman who didn’t know what she was talking about had shown him a lot of
+faked pictures. But there wasn’t any doin’ anything with him. ’E give
+me the knock and ’opped it down the street to buy nuts.” Mr. Blake
+moaned. “Two ’undred dollars and more gone pop, not to talk of the
+fifty dollars ’e would have won and me to get twenty-five of!”
+
+Archie took his tobacco and walked pensively back to the hotel. He was
+fond of Jno. Blake, and grieved for the trouble that had come upon him.
+It was odd, he felt, how things seemed to link themselves up together.
+The woman who had delivered the fateful lecture to injudicious eaters
+could not be other than the mother of his young guest of last night. An
+uncomfortable woman! Not content with starving her own family—Archie
+stopped in his tracks. A pedestrian, walking behind him, charged into
+his back, but Archie paid no attention. He had had one of those sudden,
+luminous ideas, which help a man who does not do much thinking as a
+rule to restore his average. He stood there for a moment, almost dizzy
+at the brilliance of his thoughts; then hurried on. Napoleon, he mused
+as he walked, must have felt rather like this after thinking up a hot
+one to spring on the enemy.
+
+As if Destiny were suiting her plans to his, one of the first persons
+he saw as he entered the lobby of the Cosmopolis was the long boy. He
+was standing at the bookstall, reading as much of a morning paper as
+could be read free under the vigilant eyes of the presiding girl. Both
+he and she were observing the unwritten rules which govern these
+affairs—to wit, that you may read without interference as much as can
+be read without touching the paper. If you touch the paper, you lose,
+and have to buy.
+
+“Well, well, well!” said Archie. “Here we are again, what!” He prodded
+the boy amiably in the lower ribs. “You’re just the chap I was looking
+for. Got anything on for the time being?”
+
+The boy said he had no engagements.
+
+“Then I want you to stagger round with me to a chappie I know on Sixth
+Avenue. It’s only a couple of blocks away. I think I can do you a bit
+of good. Put you on to something tolerably ripe, if you know what I
+mean. Trickle along, laddie. You don’t need a hat.”
+
+They found Mr. Blake brooding over his troubles in an empty shop.
+
+“Cheer up, old thing!” said Archie. “The relief expedition has
+arrived.” He directed his companion’s gaze to the poster. “Cast your
+eye over that. How does that strike you?”
+
+The long boy scanned the poster. A gleam appeared in his rather dull
+eye.
+
+“Well?”
+
+“Some people have all the luck!” said the long boy, feelingly.
+
+“Would you like to compete, what?”
+
+The boy smiled a sad smile.
+
+“Would I! Would I! Say!...”
+
+“I know,” interrupted Archie. “Wake you up in the night and ask you! I
+knew I could rely on you, old thing.” He turned to Mr. Blake. “Here’s
+the fellow you’ve been wanting to meet. The finest left-and-right-hand
+eater east of the Rockies! He’ll fight the good fight for you.”
+
+Mr. Blake’s English training had not been wholly overcome by residence
+in New York. He still retained a nice eye for the distinctions of
+class.
+
+“But this young gentleman’s a young gentleman,” he urged, doubtfully,
+yet with hope shining in his eye. “He wouldn’t do it.”
+
+“Of course, he would. Don’t be ridic, old thing.”
+
+“Wouldn’t do what?” asked the boy.
+
+“Why save the old homestead by taking on the champion. Dashed sad case,
+between ourselves! This poor egg’s nominee has given him the raspberry
+at the eleventh hour, and only you can save him. And you owe it to him
+to do something you know, because it was your jolly old mater’s lecture
+last night that made the nominee quit. You must charge in and take his
+place. Sort of poetic justice, don’t you know, and what not!” He turned
+to Mr. Blake. “When is the conflict supposed to start? Two-thirty? You
+haven’t any important engagement for two-thirty, have you?”
+
+“No. Mother’s lunching at some ladies’ club, and giving a lecture
+afterwards. I can slip away.”
+
+Archie patted his head.
+
+“Then leg it where glory waits you, old bean!”
+
+The long boy was gazing earnestly at the poster. It seemed to fascinate
+him.
+
+“Pie!” he said in a hushed voice.
+
+The word was like a battle-cry.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXII.
+WASHY STEPS INTO THE HALL OF FAME
+
+
+At about nine o’clock next morning, in a suite at the Hotel Cosmopolis,
+Mrs. Cora Bates McCall, the eminent lecturer on Rational Eating, was
+seated at breakfast with her family. Before her sat Mr. McCall, a
+little hunted-looking man, the natural peculiarities of whose face were
+accentuated by a pair of glasses of semicircular shape, like half-moons
+with the horns turned up. Behind these, Mr. McCall’s eyes played a
+perpetual game of peekaboo, now peering over them, anon ducking down
+and hiding behind them. He was sipping a cup of anti-caffeine. On his
+right, toying listlessly with a plateful of cereal, sat his son,
+Washington. Mrs. McCall herself was eating a slice of Health Bread and
+nut butter. For she practised as well as preached the doctrines which
+she had striven for so many years to inculcate in an unthinking
+populace. Her day always began with a light but nutritious breakfast,
+at which a peculiarly uninviting cereal, which looked and tasted like
+an old straw hat that had been run through a meat chopper, competed for
+first place in the dislike of her husband and son with a more than
+usually offensive brand of imitation coffee. Mr. McCall was inclined to
+think that he loathed the imitation coffee rather more than the cereal,
+but Washington held strong views on the latter’s superior ghastliness.
+Both Washington and his father, however, would have been fair-minded
+enough to admit that it was a close thing.
+
+Mrs. McCall regarded her offspring with grave approval.
+
+“I am glad to see, Lindsay,” she said to her husband, whose eyes sprang
+dutifully over the glass fence as he heard his name, “that Washy has
+recovered his appetite. When he refused his dinner last night, I was
+afraid that he might be sickening for something. Especially as he had
+quite a flushed look. You noticed his flushed look?”
+
+“He did look flushed.”
+
+“Very flushed. And his breathing was almost stertorous. And, when he
+said that he had no appetite, I am bound to say that I was anxious. But
+he is evidently perfectly well this morning. You do feel perfectly well
+this morning, Washy?”
+
+The heir of the McCall’s looked up from his cereal. He was a long, thin
+boy of about sixteen, with pale red hair, sandy eyelashes, and a long
+neck.
+
+“Uh-huh,” he said.
+
+Mrs. McCall nodded.
+
+“Surely now you will agree, Lindsay, that a careful and rational diet
+is what a boy needs? Washy’s constitution is superb. He has a
+remarkable stamina, and I attribute it entirely to my careful
+supervision of his food. I shudder when I think of the growing boys who
+are permitted by irresponsible people to devour meat, candy, pie—” She
+broke off. “What is the matter, Washy?”
+
+It seemed that the habit of shuddering at the thought of pie ran in the
+McCall family, for at the mention of the word a kind of internal shimmy
+had convulsed Washington’s lean frame, and over his face there had come
+an expression that was almost one of pain. He had been reaching out his
+hand for a slice of Health Bread, but now he withdrew it rather
+hurriedly and sat back breathing hard.
+
+“I’m all right,” he said, huskily.
+
+“Pie,” proceeded Mrs. McCall, in her platform voice. She stopped again
+abruptly. “Whatever is the matter, Washington? You are making me feel
+nervous.”
+
+“I’m all right.”
+
+Mrs. McCall had lost the thread of her remarks. Moreover, having now
+finished her breakfast, she was inclined for a little light reading.
+One of the subjects allied to the matter of dietary on which she felt
+deeply was the question of reading at meals. She was of the opinion
+that the strain on the eye, coinciding with the strain on the
+digestion, could not fail to give the latter the short end of the
+contest; and it was a rule at her table that the morning paper should
+not even be glanced at till the conclusion of the meal. She said that
+it was upsetting to begin the day by reading the paper, and events were
+to prove that she was occasionally right.
+
+All through breakfast the _New York Chronicle_ had been lying neatly
+folded beside her plate. She now opened it, and, with a remark about
+looking for the report of her yesterday’s lecture at the Butterfly
+Club, directed her gaze at the front page, on which she hoped that an
+editor with the best interests of the public at heart had decided to
+place her.
+
+Mr. McCall, jumping up and down behind his glasses, scrutinised her
+face closely as she began to read. He always did this on these
+occasions, for none knew better than he that his comfort for the day
+depended largely on some unknown reporter whom he had never met. If
+this unseen individual had done his work properly and as befitted the
+importance of his subject, Mrs. McCall’s mood for the next twelve hours
+would be as uniformly sunny as it was possible for it to be. But
+sometimes the fellows scamped their job disgracefully; and once, on a
+day which lived in Mr. McCall’s memory, they had failed to make a
+report at all.
+
+To-day, he noted with relief, all seemed to be well. The report
+actually was on the front page, an honour rarely accorded to his wife’s
+utterances. Moreover, judging from the time it took her to read the
+thing, she had evidently been reported at length.
+
+“Good, my dear?” he ventured. “Satisfactory?”
+
+“Eh?” Mrs. McCall smiled meditatively. “Oh, yes, excellent. They have
+used my photograph, too. Not at all badly reproduced.”
+
+“Splendid!” said Mr. McCall.
+
+Mrs. McCall gave a sharp shriek, and the paper fluttered from her hand.
+
+“My dear!” said Mr. McCall, with concern.
+
+His wife had recovered the paper, and was reading with burning eyes. A
+bright wave of colour had flowed over her masterful features. She was
+breathing as stertorously as ever her son Washington had done on the
+previous night.
+
+“Washington!”
+
+A basilisk glare shot across the table and turned the long boy to
+stone—all except his mouth, which opened feebly.
+
+“Washington! Is this true?”
+
+Washy closed his mouth, then let it slowly open again.
+
+“My dear!” Mr. McCall’s voice was alarmed. “What is it?” His eyes had
+climbed up over his glasses and remained there. “What is the matter? Is
+anything wrong?”
+
+“Wrong! Read for yourself!”
+
+Mr. McCall was completely mystified. He could not even formulate a
+guess at the cause of the trouble. That it appeared to concern his son
+Washington seemed to be the one solid fact at his disposal, and that
+only made the matter still more puzzling. Where, Mr. McCall asked
+himself, did Washington come in?
+
+He looked at the paper, and received immediate enlightenment. Headlines
+met his eyes:
+
+GOOD STUFF IN THIS BOY.
+ABOUT A TON OF IT.
+SON OF CORA BATES McCALL
+FAMOUS FOOD-REFORM LECTURER
+WINS PIE-EATING CHAMPIONSHIP OF WEST SIDE.
+
+
+There followed a lyrical outburst. So uplifted had the reporter
+evidently felt by the importance of his news that he had been unable to
+confine himself to prose:—
+
+My children, if you fail to shine or triumph in your special line; if,
+let us say, your hopes are bent on some day being President, and folks
+ignore your proper worth, and say you’ve not a chance on earth—Cheer
+up! for in these stirring days Fame may be won in many ways. Consider,
+when your spirits fall, the case of Washington McCall.
+
+Yes, cast your eye on Washy, please! He looks just like a piece of
+cheese: he’s not a brilliant sort of chap: he has a dull and vacant
+map: his eyes are blank, his face is red, his ears stick out beside his
+head. In fact, to end these compliments, he would be dear at thirty
+cents. Yet Fame has welcomed to her Hall this self-same Washington
+McCall.
+
+His mother (nee Miss Cora Bates) is one who frequently orates upon the
+proper kind of food which every menu should include. With eloquence the
+world she weans from chops and steaks and pork and beans. Such horrid
+things she’d like to crush, and make us live on milk and mush. But oh!
+the thing that makes her sigh is when she sees us eating pie. (We heard
+her lecture last July upon “The Nation’s Menace—Pie.”) Alas, the hit it
+made was small with Master Washington McCall.
+
+For yesterday we took a trip to see the great Pie Championship, where
+men with bulging cheeks and eyes consume vast quantities of pies. A
+fashionable West Side crowd beheld the champion, Spike O’Dowd,
+endeavour to defend his throne against an upstart, Blake’s Unknown. He
+wasn’t an Unknown at all. He was young Washington McCall.
+
+We freely own we’d give a leg if we could borrow, steal, or beg the
+skill old Homer used to show. (He wrote the _Iliad_, you know.) Old
+Homer swung a wicked pen, but we are ordinary men, and cannot even
+start to dream of doing justice to our theme. The subject of that great
+repast is too magnificent and vast. We can’t describe (or even try) the
+way those rivals wolfed their pie. Enough to say that, when for hours
+each had extended all his pow’rs, toward the quiet evenfall O’Dowd
+succumbed to young McCall.
+
+The champion was a willing lad. He gave the public all he had. His was
+a genuine fighting soul. He’d lots of speed and much control. No yellow
+streak did he evince. He tackled apple-pie and mince. This was the
+motto on his shield—“O’Dowds may burst. They never yield.” His eyes
+began to start and roll. He eased his belt another hole. Poor fellow!
+With a single glance one saw that he had not a chance. A python would
+have had to crawl and own defeat from young McCall.
+
+At last, long last, the finish came. His features overcast with shame,
+O’Dowd, who’d faltered once or twice, declined to eat another slice. He
+tottered off, and kindly men rallied around with oxygen. But Washy,
+Cora Bates’s son, seemed disappointed it was done. He somehow made
+those present feel he’d barely started on his meal. We ask him, “Aren’t
+you feeling bad?” “Me!” said the lion-hearted lad. “Lead me”—he started
+for the street—“where I can get a bite to eat!” Oh, what a lesson does
+it teach to all of us, that splendid speech! How better can the curtain
+fall on Master Washington McCall!
+
+Mr. McCall read this epic through, then he looked at his son. He first
+looked at him over his glasses, then through his glasses, then over his
+glasses again, then through his glasses once more. A curious expression
+was in his eyes. If such a thing had not been so impossible, one would
+have said that his gaze had in it something of respect, of admiration,
+even of reverence.
+
+“But how did they find out your name?” he asked, at length.
+
+Mrs. McCall exclaimed impatiently.
+
+“Is _that_ all you have to say?”
+
+“No, no, my dear, of course not, quite so. But the point struck me as
+curious.”
+
+“Wretched boy,” cried Mrs. McCall, “were you insane enough to reveal
+your name?”
+
+Washington wriggled uneasily. Unable to endure the piercing stare of
+his mother, he had withdrawn to the window, and was looking out with
+his back turned. But even there he could feel her eyes on the back of
+his neck.
+
+“I didn’t think it ’ud matter,” he mumbled. “A fellow with
+tortoiseshell-rimmed specs asked me, so I told him. How was I to know—”
+
+His stumbling defence was cut short by the opening of the door.
+
+“Hallo-allo-allo! What ho! What ho!”
+
+Archie was standing in the doorway, beaming ingratiatingly on the
+family.
+
+The apparition of an entire stranger served to divert the lightning of
+Mrs. McCall’s gaze from the unfortunate Washy. Archie, catching it
+between the eyes, blinked and held on to the wall. He had begun to
+regret that he had yielded so weakly to Lucille’s entreaty that he
+should look in on the McCalls and use the magnetism of his personality
+upon them in the hope of inducing them to settle the lawsuit. He
+wished, too, if the visit had to be paid that he had postponed it till
+after lunch, for he was never at his strongest in the morning. But
+Lucille had urged him to go now and get it over, and here he was.
+
+“I think,” said Mrs. McCall, icily, “that you must have mistaken your
+room.”
+
+Archie rallied his shaken forces.
+
+“Oh, no. Rather not. Better introduce myself, what? My name’s Moffam,
+you know. I’m old Brewster’s son-in-law, and all that sort of rot, if
+you know what I mean.” He gulped and continued. “I’ve come about this
+jolly old lawsuit, don’t you know.”
+
+Mr. McCall seemed about to speak, but his wife anticipated him.
+
+“Mr. Brewster’s attorneys are in communication with ours. We do not
+wish to discuss the matter.”
+
+Archie took an uninvited seat, eyed the Health Bread on the breakfast
+table for a moment with frank curiosity, and resumed his discourse.
+
+“No, but I say, you know! I’ll tell you what happened. I hate to totter
+in where I’m not wanted and all that, but my wife made such a point of
+it. Rightly or wrongly she regards me as a bit of a hound in the
+diplomacy line, and she begged me to look you up and see whether we
+couldn’t do something about settling the jolly old thing. I mean to
+say, you know, the old bird—old Brewster, you know—is considerably
+perturbed about the affair—hates the thought of being in a posish where
+he has either got to bite his old pal McCall in the neck or be bitten
+by him—and—well, and so forth, don’t you know! How about it?” He broke
+off. “Great Scot! I say, what!”
+
+So engrossed had he been in his appeal that he had not observed the
+presence of the pie-eating champion, between whom and himself a large
+potted plant intervened. But now Washington, hearing the familiar
+voice, had moved from the window and was confronting him with an
+accusing stare.
+
+“_He_ made me do it!” said Washy, with the stern joy a sixteen-year-old
+boy feels when he sees somebody on to whose shoulders he can shift
+trouble from his own. “That’s the fellow who took me to the place!”
+
+“What are you talking about, Washington?”
+
+“I’m telling you! He got me into the thing.”
+
+“Do you mean this—this—” Mrs. McCall shuddered. “Are you referring to
+this pie-eating contest?”
+
+“You bet I am!”
+
+“Is this true?” Mrs. McCall glared stonily at Archie, “Was it you who
+lured my poor boy into that—that—”
+
+“Oh, absolutely. The fact is, don’t you know, a dear old pal of mine
+who runs a tobacco shop on Sixth Avenue was rather in the soup. He had
+backed a chappie against the champion, and the chappie was converted by
+one of your lectures and swore off pie at the eleventh hour. Dashed
+hard luck on the poor chap, don’t you know! And then I got the idea
+that our little friend here was the one to step in and save the
+situash, so I broached the matter to him. And I’ll tell you one thing,”
+said Archie, handsomely, “I don’t know what sort of a capacity the
+original chappie had, but I’ll bet he wasn’t in your son’s class. Your
+son has to be seen to be believed! Absolutely! You ought to be proud of
+him!” He turned in friendly fashion to Washy. “Rummy we should meet
+again like this! Never dreamed I should find you here. And, by Jove,
+it’s absolutely marvellous how fit you look after yesterday. I had a
+sort of idea you would be groaning on a bed of sickness and all that.”
+
+There was a strange gurgling sound in the background. It resembled
+something getting up steam. And this, curiously enough, is precisely
+what it was. The thing that was getting up steam was Mr. Lindsay
+McCall.
+
+The first effect of the Washy revelations on Mr. McCall had been merely
+to stun him. It was not until the arrival of Archie that he had had
+leisure to think; but since Archie’s entrance he had been thinking
+rapidly and deeply.
+
+For many years Mr. McCall had been in a state of suppressed revolution.
+He had smouldered, but had not dared to blaze. But this startling
+upheaval of his fellow-sufferer, Washy, had acted upon him like a high
+explosive. There was a strange gleam in his eye, a gleam of
+determination. He was breathing hard.
+
+“Washy!”
+
+His voice had lost its deprecating mildness. It rang strong and clear.
+
+“Yes, pop?”
+
+“How many pies did you eat yesterday?”
+
+Washy considered.
+
+“A good few.”
+
+“How many? Twenty?”
+
+“More than that. I lost count. A good few.”
+
+“And you feel as well as ever?”
+
+“I feel fine.”
+
+Mr. McCall dropped his glasses. He glowered for a moment at the
+breakfast table. His eye took in the Health Bread, the imitation
+coffee-pot, the cereal, the nut-butter. Then with a swift movement he
+seized the cloth, jerked it forcibly, and brought the entire contents
+rattling and crashing to the floor.
+
+“Lindsay!”
+
+Mr. McCall met his wife’s eye with quiet determination. It was plain
+that something had happened in the hinterland of Mr. McCall’s soul.
+
+“Cora,” he said, resolutely, “I have come to a decision. I’ve been
+letting you run things your own way a little too long in this family.
+I’m going to assert myself. For one thing, I’ve had all I want of this
+food-reform foolery. Look at Washy! Yesterday that boy seems to have
+consumed anything from a couple of hundredweight to a ton of pie, and
+he has thriven on it! Thriven! I don’t want to hurt your feelings,
+Cora, but Washington and I have drunk our last cup of anti-caffeine! If
+you care to go on with the stuff, that’s your look-out. But Washy and I
+are through.”
+
+He silenced his wife with a masterful gesture and turned to Archie.
+“And there’s another thing. I never liked the idea of that lawsuit, but
+I let you talk me into it. Now I’m going to do things my way. Mr.
+Moffam, I’m glad you looked in this morning. I’ll do just what you
+want. Take me to Dan Brewster now, and let’s call the thing off, and
+shake hands on it.”
+
+“Are you mad, Lindsay?”
+
+It was Cora Bates McCall’s last shot. Mr. McCall paid no attention to
+it. He was shaking hands with Archie.
+
+“I consider you, Mr. Moffam,” he said, “the most sensible young man I
+have ever met!”
+
+Archie blushed modestly.
+
+“Awfully good of you, old bean,” he said. “I wonder if you’d mind
+telling my jolly old father-in-law that? It’ll be a bit of news for
+him!”
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXIII.
+MOTHER’S KNEE
+
+
+Archie Moffam’s connection with that devastatingly popular ballad,
+“Mother’s Knee,” was one to which he always looked back later with a
+certain pride. “Mother’s Knee,” it will be remembered, went through the
+world like a pestilence. Scots elders hummed it on their way to kirk;
+cannibals crooned it to their offspring in the jungles of Borneo; it
+was a best-seller among the Bolshevists. In the United States alone
+three million copies were disposed of. For a man who has not
+accomplished anything outstandingly great in his life, it is something
+to have been in a sense responsible for a song like that; and, though
+there were moments when Archie experienced some of the emotions of a
+man who has punched a hole in the dam of one of the larger reservoirs,
+he never really regretted his share in the launching of the thing.
+
+It seems almost bizarre now to think that there was a time when even
+one person in the world had not heard “Mother’s Knee”; but it came
+fresh to Archie one afternoon some weeks after the episode of Washy, in
+his suite at the Hotel Cosmopolis, where he was cementing with
+cigarettes and pleasant conversation his renewed friendship with Wilson
+Hymack, whom he had first met in the neighbourhood of Armentières
+during the war.
+
+“What are you doing these days?” enquired Wilson Hymack.
+
+“Me?” said Archie. “Well, as a matter of fact, there is what you might
+call a sort of species of lull in my activities at the moment. But my
+jolly old father-in-law is bustling about, running up a new hotel a bit
+farther down-town, and the scheme is for me to be manager when it’s
+finished. From what I have seen in this place, it’s a simple sort of
+job, and I fancy I shall be somewhat hot stuff. How are you filling in
+the long hours?”
+
+“I’m in my uncle’s office, darn it!”
+
+“Starting at the bottom and learning the business and all that? A noble
+pursuit, no doubt, but I’m bound to say it would give me the pip in no
+uncertain manner.”
+
+“It gives me,” said Wilson Hymack, “a pain in the thorax. I want to be
+a composer.”
+
+“A composer, eh?”
+
+Archie felt that he should have guessed this. The chappie had a
+distinctly artistic look. He wore a bow-tie and all that sort of thing.
+His trousers bagged at the knees, and his hair, which during the
+martial epoch of his career had been pruned to the roots, fell about
+his ears in luxuriant disarray.
+
+“Say! Do you want to hear the best thing I’ve ever done?”
+
+“Indubitably,” said Archie, politely. “Carry on, old bird!”
+
+“I wrote the lyric as well as the melody,” said Wilson Hymack, who had
+already seated himself at the piano. “It’s got the greatest title you
+ever heard. It’s a lallapaloosa! It’s called ‘It’s a Long Way Back to
+Mother’s Knee.’ How’s that? Poor, eh?”
+
+Archie expelled a smoke-ring doubtfully.
+
+“Isn’t it a little stale?”
+
+“Stale? What do you mean, stale? There’s always room for another song
+boosting Mother.”
+
+“Oh, is it boosting Mother?” Archie’s face cleared. “I thought it was a
+hit at the short skirts. Why, of course, that makes all the difference.
+In that case, I see no reason why it should not be ripe, fruity, and
+pretty well all to the mustard. Let’s have it.”
+
+Wilson Hymack pushed as much of his hair out of his eyes as he could
+reach with one hand, cleared his throat, looked dreamily over the top
+of the piano at a photograph of Archie’s father-in-law, Mr. Daniel
+Brewster, played a prelude, and began to sing in a weak, high,
+composer’s voice. All composers sing exactly alike, and they have to be
+heard to be believed.
+
+“One night a young man wandered through the glitter of Broadway:
+His money he had squandered. For a meal he couldn’t pay.”
+
+
+“Tough luck!” murmured Archie, sympathetically.
+
+“He thought about the village where his boyhood he had spent,
+And yearned for all the simple joys with which he’d been content.”
+
+
+“The right spirit!” said Archie, with approval. “I’m beginning to like
+this chappie!”
+
+“Don’t interrupt!”
+
+“Oh, right-o! Carried away and all that!”
+
+“He looked upon the city, so frivolous and gay; And,
+as he heaved a weary sigh, these words he then did say:
+     It’s a long way back to Mother’s knee,
+                             Mother’s knee,
+                             Mother’s knee:
+     It’s a long way back to Mother’s knee,
+          Where I used to stand and prattle
+          With my teddy-bear and rattle:
+     Oh, those childhood days in Tennessee,
+     They sure look good to me!
+It’s a long, long way, but I’m gonna start to-day!
+     I’m going back,
+     Believe me, oh!
+I’m going back
+     (I want to go!)
+I’m going back—back—on the seven-three
+To the dear old shack where I used to be!
+I’m going back to Mother’s knee!”
+
+
+Wilson Hymack’s voice cracked on the final high note, which was of an
+altitude beyond his powers. He turned with a modest cough.
+
+“That’ll give you an idea of it!”
+
+“It has, old thing, it has!”
+
+“Is it or is it not a ball of fire?”
+
+“It has many of the earmarks of a sound egg,” admitted Archie. “Of
+course—”
+
+“Of course, it wants singing.”
+
+“Just what I was going to suggest.”
+
+“It wants a woman to sing it. A woman who could reach out for that last
+high note and teach it to take a joke. The whole refrain is working up
+to that. You need Tetrazzini or someone who would just pick that note
+off the roof and hold it till the janitor came round to lock up the
+building for the night.”
+
+“I must buy a copy for my wife. Where can I get it?”
+
+“You can’t get it! It isn’t published. Writing music’s the darndest
+job!” Wilson Hymack snorted fiercely. It was plain that the man was
+pouring out the pent-up emotion of many days. “You write the biggest
+thing in years and you go round trying to get someone to sing it, and
+they say you’re a genius and then shove the song away in a drawer and
+forget about it.”
+
+Archie lit another cigarette.
+
+“I’m a jolly old child in these matters, old lad,” he said, “but why
+don’t you take it direct to a publisher? As a matter of fact, if it
+would be any use to you, I was foregathering with a music-publisher
+only the other day. A bird of the name of Blumenthal. He was lunching
+in here with a pal of mine, and we got tolerably matey. Why not let me
+tool you round to the office to-morrow and play it to him?”
+
+“No, thanks. Much obliged, but I’m not going to play that melody in any
+publisher’s office with his hired gang of Tin-Pan Alley composers
+listening at the keyhole and taking notes. I’ll have to wait till I can
+find somebody to sing it. Well, I must be going along. Glad to have
+seen you again. Sooner or later I’ll take you to hear that high note
+sung by someone in a way that’ll make your spine tie itself in knots
+round the back of your neck.”
+
+“I’ll count the days,” said Archie, courteously. “Pip-pip!”
+
+Hardly had the door closed behind the composer when it opened again to
+admit Lucille.
+
+“Hallo, light of my soul!” said Archie, rising and embracing his wife.
+“Where have you been all the afternoon? I was expecting you this many
+an hour past. I wanted you to meet—”
+
+“I’ve been having tea with a girl down in Greenwich Village. I couldn’t
+get away before. Who was that who went out just as I came along the
+passage?”
+
+“Chappie of the name of Hymack. I met him in France. A composer and
+what not.”
+
+“We seem to have been moving in artistic circles this afternoon. The
+girl I went to see is a singer. At least, she wants to sing, but gets
+no encouragement.”
+
+“Precisely the same with my bird. He wants to get his music sung but
+nobody’ll sing it. But I didn’t know you knew any Greenwich Village
+warblers, sunshine of my home. How did you meet this female?”
+
+Lucille sat down and gazed forlornly at him with her big grey eyes. She
+was registering something, but Archie could not gather what it was.
+
+“Archie, darling, when you married me you undertook to share my
+sorrows, didn’t you?”
+
+“Absolutely! It’s all in the book of words. For better or for worse, in
+sickness and in health, all-down-set-’em-up-in-the-other-alley. Regular
+iron-clad contract!”
+
+“Then share ’em!” said Lucille. “Bill’s in love again!”
+
+Archie blinked.
+
+“Bill? When you say Bill, do you mean Bill? Your brother Bill? My
+brother-in-law Bill? Jolly old William, the son and heir of the
+Brewsters?”
+
+“I do.”
+
+“You say he’s in love? Cupid’s dart?”
+
+“Even so!”
+
+“But, I say! Isn’t this rather—What I mean to say is, the lad’s an
+absolute scourge! The Great Lover, what! Also ran, Brigham Young, and
+all that sort of thing! Why, it’s only a few weeks ago that he was
+moaning brokenly about that vermilion-haired female who subsequently
+hooked on to old Reggie van Tuyl!”
+
+“She’s a little better than that girl, thank goodness. All the same, I
+don’t think Father will approve.”
+
+“Of what calibre is the latest exhibit?”
+
+“Well, she comes from the Middle West, and seems to be trying to be
+twice as Bohemian as the rest of the girls down in Greenwich Village.
+She wears her hair bobbed and goes about in a kimono. She’s probably
+read magazine stories about Greenwich Village, and has modelled herself
+on them. It’s so silly, when you can see Hicks Corners sticking out of
+her all the time.”
+
+“That one got past me before I could grab it. What did you say she had
+sticking out of her?”
+
+“I meant that anybody could see that she came from somewhere out in the
+wilds. As a matter of fact, Bill tells me that she was brought up in
+Snake Bite, Michigan.”
+
+“Snake Bite? What rummy names you have in America! Still, I’ll admit
+there’s a village in England called Nether Wallop, so who am I to cast
+the first stone? How is old Bill? Pretty feverish?”
+
+“He says this time it is the real thing.”
+
+“That’s what they all say! I wish I had a dollar for every
+time—Forgotten what I was going to say!” broke off Archie, prudently.
+“So you think,” he went on, after a pause, “that William’s latest is
+going to be one more shock for the old dad?”
+
+“I can’t imagine Father approving of her.”
+
+“I’ve studied your merry old progenitor pretty closely,” said Archie,
+“and, between you and me, I can’t imagine him approving of anybody!”
+
+“I can’t understand why it is that Bill goes out of his way to pick
+these horrors. I know at least twenty delightful girls, all pretty and
+with lots of money, who would be just the thing for him; but he sneaks
+away and goes falling in love with someone impossible. And the worst of
+it is that one always feels one’s got to do one’s best to see him
+through.”
+
+“Absolutely! One doesn’t want to throw a spanner into the works of
+Love’s young dream. It behoves us to rally round. Have you heard this
+girl sing?”
+
+“Yes. She sang this afternoon.”
+
+“What sort of a voice has she got?”
+
+“Well, it’s—loud!”
+
+“Could she pick a high note off the roof and hold it till the janitor
+came round to lock up the building for the night?”
+
+“What on earth do you mean?”
+
+“Answer me this, woman, frankly. How is her high note? Pretty lofty?”
+
+“Why, yes.”
+
+“Then say no more,” said Archie. “Leave this to me, my dear old better
+four-fifths! Hand the whole thing over to Archibald, the man who never
+lets you down. I have a scheme!”
+
+As Archie approached his suite on the following afternoon he heard
+through the closed door the drone of a gruff male voice; and, going in,
+discovered Lucille in the company of his brother-in-law. Lucille,
+Archie thought, was looking a trifle fatigued. Bill, on the other hand,
+was in great shape. His eyes were shining, and his face looked so like
+that of a stuffed frog that Archie had no difficulty in gathering that
+he had been lecturing on the subject of his latest enslaver.
+
+“Hallo, Bill, old crumpet!” he said.
+
+“Hallo, Archie!”
+
+“I’m so glad you’ve come,” said Lucille. “Bill is telling me all about
+Spectatia.”
+
+“Who?”
+
+“Spectatia. The girl, you know. Her name is Spectatia Huskisson.”
+
+“It can’t be!” said Archie, incredulously.
+
+“Why not?” growled Bill.
+
+“Well, how could it?” said Archie, appealing to him as a reasonable
+man. “I mean to say! Spectatia Huskisson! I gravely doubt whether there
+is such a name.”
+
+“What’s wrong with it?” demanded the incensed Bill. “It’s a darned
+sight better name than Archibald Moffam.”
+
+“Don’t fight, you two children!” intervened Lucille, firmly. “It’s a
+good old Middle West name. Everybody knows the Huskissons of Snake
+Bite, Michigan. Besides, Bill calls her Tootles.”
+
+“Pootles,” corrected Bill, austerely.
+
+“Oh, yes, Pootles. He calls her Pootles.”
+
+“Young blood! Young blood!” sighed Archie.
+
+“I wish you wouldn’t talk as if you were my grandfather.”
+
+“I look on you as a son, laddie, a favourite son!”
+
+“If I had a father like you—!”-“Ah, but you haven’t,
+young-feller-me-lad, and that’s the trouble. If you had, everything
+would be simple. But as your actual father, if you’ll allow me to say
+so, is one of the finest specimens of the human vampire-bat in
+captivity, something has got to be done about it, and you’re dashed
+lucky to have me in your corner, a guide, philosopher, and friend, full
+of the fruitiest ideas. Now, if you’ll kindly listen to me for a
+moment—”
+
+“I’ve been listening to you ever since you came in.”
+
+“You wouldn’t speak in that harsh tone of voice if you knew all!
+William, I have a scheme!”
+
+“Well?”
+
+“The scheme to which I allude is what Maeterlinck would call a
+lallapaloosa!”
+
+“What a little marvel he is!” said Lucille, regarding her husband
+affectionately. “He eats a lot of fish, Bill. That’s what makes him so
+clever!”
+
+“Shrimps!” diagnosed Bill, churlishly.
+
+“Do you know the leader of the orchestra in the restaurant downstairs?”
+asked Archie, ignoring the slur.
+
+“I know there _is_ a leader of the orchestra. What about him?”
+
+“A sound fellow. Great pal of mine. I’ve forgotten his name—”
+
+“Call him Pootles!” suggested Lucille.
+
+“Desist!” said Archie, as a wordless growl proceeded from his stricken
+brother-in-law. “Temper your hilarity with a modicum of reserve. This
+girlish frivolity is unseemly. Well, I’m going to have a chat with this
+chappie and fix it all up.”
+
+“Fix what up?”
+
+“The whole jolly business. I’m going to kill two birds with one stone.
+I’ve a composer chappie popping about in the background whose one
+ambish. is to have his pet song sung before a discriminating audience.
+You have a singer straining at the leash. I’m going to arrange with
+this egg who leads the orchestra that your female shall sing my
+chappie’s song downstairs one night during dinner. How about it? Is it
+or is it not a ball of fire?”
+
+“It’s not a bad idea,” admitted Bill, brightening visibly. “I wouldn’t
+have thought you had it in you.”
+
+“Why not?”
+
+“Well—”
+
+“It’s a capital idea,” said Lucille. “Quite out of the question, of
+course.”
+
+“How do you mean?”
+
+“Don’t you know that the one thing Father hates more than anything else
+in the world is anything like a cabaret? People are always coming to
+him, suggesting that it would brighten up the dinner hour if he had
+singers and things, and he crushes them into little bits. He thinks
+there’s nothing that lowers the tone of a place more. He’ll bite you in
+three places when you suggest it to him!”
+
+“Ah! But has it escaped your notice, lighting system of my soul, that
+the dear old dad is not at present in residence? He went off to fish at
+Lake What’s-its-name this morning.”
+
+“You aren’t dreaming of doing this without asking him?”
+
+“That was the general idea.”
+
+“But he’ll be furious when he finds out.”
+
+“But will he find out? I ask you, will he?”
+
+“Of course he will.”
+
+“I don’t see why he should,” said Bill, on whose plastic mind the plan
+had made a deep impression.
+
+“He won’t,” said Archie, confidently. “This wheeze is for one night
+only. By the time the jolly old guv’nor returns, bitten to the bone by
+mosquitoes, with one small stuffed trout in his suit-case, everything
+will be over and all quiet once more along the Potomac. The scheme is
+this. My chappie wants his song heard by a publisher. Your girl wants
+her voice heard by one of the blighters who get up concerts and all
+that sort of thing. No doubt you know such a bird, whom you could
+invite to the hotel for a bit of dinner?”
+
+“I know Carl Steinburg. As a matter of fact, I was thinking of writing
+to him about Spectatia.”
+
+“You’re absolutely sure that _is_ her name?” said Archie, his voice
+still tinged with incredulity. “Oh, well, I suppose she told you so
+herself, and no doubt she knows best. That will be topping. Rope in
+your pal and hold him down at the table till the finish. Lucille, the
+beautiful vision on the sky-line yonder, and I will be at another table
+entertaining Maxie Blumenthal.”
+
+“Who on earth is Maxie Blumenthal?” asked Lucille.
+
+“One of my boyhood chums. A music-publisher. I’ll get him to come
+along, and then we’ll all be set. At the conclusion of the performance
+Miss—” Archie winced—“Miss Spectatia Huskisson will be signed up for a
+forty weeks’ tour, and jovial old Blumenthal will be making all
+arrangements for publishing the song. Two birds, as I indicated before,
+with one stone! How about it?”
+
+“It’s a winner,” said Bill.
+
+“Of course,” said Archie, “I’m not urging you. I merely make the
+suggestion. If you know a better ’ole go to it!”
+
+“It’s terrific!” said Bill.
+
+“It’s absurd!” said Lucille.
+
+“My dear old partner of joys and sorrows,” said Archie, wounded, “we
+court criticism, but this is mere abuse. What seems to be the
+difficulty?”
+
+“The leader of the orchestra would be afraid to do it.”
+
+“Ten dollars—supplied by William here—push it over, Bill, old man—will
+remove his tremors.”
+
+“And Father’s certain to find out.”
+
+“Am I afraid of Father?” cried Archie, manfully. “Well, yes, I am!” he
+added, after a moment’s reflection. “But I don’t see how he can
+possibly get to know.”
+
+“Of course he can’t,” said Bill, decidedly. “Fix it up as soon as you
+can, Archie. This is what the doctor ordered.”
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXIV.
+THE MELTING OF MR. CONNOLLY
+
+
+The main dining-room of the Hotel Cosmopolis is a decorous place. The
+lighting is artistically dim, and the genuine old tapestries on the
+walls seem, with their mediaeval calm, to discourage any essay in the
+riotous. Soft-footed waiters shimmer to and fro over thick, expensive
+carpets to the music of an orchestra which abstains wholly from the
+noisy modernity of jazz. To Archie, who during the past few days had
+been privileged to hear Miss Huskisson rehearsing, the place had a sort
+of brooding quiet, like the ocean just before the arrival of a cyclone.
+As Lucille had said, Miss Huskisson’s voice was loud. It was a powerful
+organ, and there was no doubt that it would take the cloistered
+stillness of the Cosmopolis dining-room and stand it on one ear. Almost
+unconsciously, Archie found himself bracing his muscles and holding his
+breath as he had done in France at the approach of the zero hour, when
+awaiting the first roar of a barrage. He listened mechanically to the
+conversation of Mr. Blumenthal.
+
+The music-publisher was talking with some vehemence on the subject of
+Labour. A recent printers’ strike had bitten deeply into Mr.
+Blumenthal’s soul. The working man, he considered, was rapidly landing
+God’s Country in the soup, and he had twice upset his glass with the
+vehemence of his gesticulation. He was an energetic right-and-left-hand
+talker.
+
+“The more you give ’em the more they want!” he complained. “There’s no
+pleasing ’em! It isn’t only in my business. There’s your father, Mrs.
+Moffam!”
+
+“Good God! Where?” said Archie, starting.
+
+“I say, take your father’s case. He’s doing all he knows to get this
+new hotel of his finished, and what happens? A man gets fired for
+loafing on his job, and Connolly calls a strike. And the building
+operations are held up till the thing’s settled! It isn’t right!”
+
+“It’s a great shame,” agreed Lucille. “I was reading about it in the
+paper this morning.”
+
+“That man Connolly’s a tough guy. You’d think, being a personal friend
+of your father, he would—”
+
+“I didn’t know they were friends.”
+
+“Been friends for years. But a lot of difference that makes. Out come
+the men just the same. It isn’t right! I was saying it wasn’t right!”
+repeated Mr. Blumenthal to Archie, for he was a man who liked the
+attention of every member of his audience.
+
+Archie did not reply. He was staring glassily across the room at two
+men who had just come in. One was a large, stout, square-faced man of
+commanding personality. The other was Mr. Daniel Brewster.
+
+Mr. Blumenthal followed his gaze.
+
+“Why, there is Connolly coming in now!”
+
+“Father!” gasped Lucille.
+
+Her eyes met Archie’s. Archie took a hasty drink of ice-water.
+
+“This,” he murmured, “has torn it!”
+
+“Archie, you must do something!”
+
+“I know! But what?”
+
+“What’s the trouble?” enquired Mr. Blumenthal, mystified.
+
+“Go over to their table and talk to them,” said Lucille.
+
+“Me!” Archie quivered. “No, I say, old thing, really!”
+
+“Get them away!”
+
+“How do you mean?”
+
+“I know!” cried Lucille, inspired, “Father promised that you should be
+manager of the new hotel when it was built. Well, then, this strike
+affects you just as much as anybody else. You have a perfect right to
+talk it over with them. Go and ask them to have dinner up in our suite
+where you can discuss it quietly. Say that up there they won’t be
+disturbed by the—the music.”
+
+At this moment, while Archie wavered, hesitating like a diver on the
+edge of a spring-board who is trying to summon up the necessary nerve
+to project himself into the deep, a bell-boy approached the table where
+the Messrs. Brewster and Connolly had seated themselves. He murmured
+something in Mr. Brewster’s ear, and the proprietor of the Cosmopolis
+rose and followed him out of the room.
+
+“Quick! Now’s your chance!” said Lucille, eagerly. “Father’s been
+called to the telephone. Hurry!”
+
+Archie took another drink of ice-water to steady his shaking
+nerve-centers, pulled down his waistcoat, straightened his tie, and
+then, with something of the air of a Roman gladiator entering the
+arena, tottered across the room. Lucille turned to entertain the
+perplexed music-publisher.
+
+The nearer Archie got to Mr. Aloysius Connolly the less did he like the
+looks of him. Even at a distance the Labour leader had had a formidable
+aspect. Seen close to, he looked even more uninviting. His face had the
+appearance of having been carved out of granite, and the eye which
+collided with Archie’s as the latter, with an attempt at an
+ingratiating smile, pulled up a chair and sat down at the table was
+hard and frosty. Mr. Connolly gave the impression that he would be a
+good man to have on your side during a rough-and-tumble fight down on
+the water-front or in some lumber-camp, but he did not look chummy.
+
+“Hallo-allo-allo!” said Archie.
+
+“Who the devil,” inquired Mr. Connolly, “are you?”
+
+“My name’s Archibald Moffam.”
+
+“That’s not my fault.”
+
+“I’m jolly old Brewster’s son-in-law.”
+
+“Glad to meet you.”
+
+“Glad to meet _you_,” said Archie, handsomely.
+
+“Well, good-bye!” said Mr. Connolly.
+
+“Eh?”
+
+“Run along and sell your papers. Your father-in-law and I have business
+to discuss.”
+
+“Yes, I know.”
+
+“Private,” added Mr. Connolly.
+
+“Oh, but I’m in on this binge, you know. I’m going to be the manager of
+the new hotel.”
+
+“You!”
+
+“Absolutely!”
+
+“Well, well!” said Mr. Connolly, noncommittally.
+
+Archie, pleased with the smoothness with which matters had opened, bent
+forward winsomely.
+
+“I say, you know! It won’t do, you know! Absolutely no! Not a bit like
+it! No, no, far from it! Well, how about it? How do we go? What? Yes?
+No?”
+
+“What on earth are you talking about?”
+
+“Call it off, old thing!”
+
+“Call what off?”
+
+“This festive old strike.”
+
+“Not on your—hallo, Dan! Back again?”
+
+Mr. Brewster, looming over the table like a thundercloud, regarded
+Archie with more than his customary hostility. Life was no pleasant
+thing for the proprietor of the Cosmopolis just now. Once a man starts
+building hotels, the thing becomes like dram-drinking. Any hitch, any
+sudden cutting-off of the daily dose, has the worst effects; and the
+strike which was holding up the construction of his latest effort had
+plunged Mr. Brewster into a restless gloom. In addition to having this
+strike on his hands, he had had to abandon his annual fishing-trip just
+when he had begun to enjoy it; and, as if all this were not enough,
+here was his son-in-law sitting at his table. Mr. Brewster had a
+feeling that this was more than man was meant to bear.
+
+“What do you want?” he demanded.
+
+“Hallo, old thing!” said Archie. “Come and join the party!”
+
+“Don’t call me old thing!”
+
+“Right-o, old companion, just as you say. I say, I was just going to
+suggest to Mr. Connolly that we should all go up to my suite and talk
+this business over quietly.”
+
+“He says he’s the manager of your new hotel,” said Mr. Connolly. “Is
+that right?”
+
+“I suppose so,” said Mr. Brewster, gloomily.
+
+“Then I’m doing you a kindness,” said Mr. Connolly, “in not letting it
+be built.”
+
+Archie dabbed at his forehead with his handkerchief. The moments were
+flying, and it began to seem impossible to shift these two men. Mr.
+Connolly was as firmly settled in his chair as some primeval rock. As
+for Mr. Brewster, he, too, had seated himself, and was gazing at Archie
+with a weary repulsion. Mr. Brewster’s glance always made Archie feel
+as though there were soup on his shirt-front.
+
+And suddenly from the orchestra at the other end of the room there came
+a familiar sound, the prelude of “Mother’s Knee.”
+
+“So you’ve started a cabaret, Dan?” said Mr. Connolly, in a satisfied
+voice. “I always told you you were behind the times here!”
+
+Mr. Brewster jumped.
+
+“Cabaret!”
+
+He stared unbelievingly at the white-robed figure which had just
+mounted the orchestra dais, and then concentrated his gaze on Archie.
+
+Archie would not have looked at his father-in-law at this juncture if
+he had had a free and untrammelled choice; but Mr. Brewster’s eye drew
+his with something of the fascination which a snake’s has for a rabbit.
+Mr. Brewster’s eye was fiery and intimidating. A basilisk might have
+gone to him with advantage for a course of lessons. His gaze went right
+through Archie till the latter seemed to feel his back-hair curling
+crisply in the flames.
+
+“Is this one of your fool-tricks?”
+
+Even in this tense moment Archie found time almost unconsciously to
+admire his father-in-law’s penetration and intuition. He seemed to have
+a sort of sixth sense. No doubt this was how great fortunes were made.
+
+“Well, as a matter of fact—to be absolutely accurate—it was like this—”
+
+“Say, cut it out!” said Mr. Connolly. “Can the chatter! I want to
+listen.”
+
+Archie was only too ready to oblige him. Conversation at the moment was
+the last thing he himself desired. He managed with a strong effort to
+disengage himself from Mr. Brewster’s eye, and turned to the orchestra
+dais, where Miss Spectatia Huskisson was now beginning the first verse
+of Wilson Hymack’s masterpiece.
+
+Miss Huskisson, like so many of the female denizens of the Middle West,
+was tall and blonde and constructed on substantial lines. She was a
+girl whose appearance suggested the old homestead and fried pancakes
+and pop coming home to dinner after the morning’s ploughing. Even her
+bobbed hair did not altogether destroy this impression. She looked big
+and strong and healthy, and her lungs were obviously good. She attacked
+the verse of the song with something of the vigour and breadth of
+treatment with which in other days she had reasoned with refractory
+mules. Her diction was the diction of one trained to call the cattle
+home in the teeth of Western hurricanes. Whether you wanted to or not,
+you heard every word.
+
+The subdued clatter of knives and forks had ceased. The diners, unused
+to this sort of thing at the Cosmopolis, were trying to adjust their
+faculties to cope with the outburst. Waiters stood transfixed, frozen,
+in attitudes of service. In the momentary lull between verse and
+refrain Archie could hear the deep breathing of Mr. Brewster.
+Involuntarily he turned to gaze at him once more, as refugees from
+Pompeii may have turned to gaze upon Vesuvius; and, as he did so, he
+caught sight of Mr. Connolly, and paused in astonishment.
+
+Mr. Connolly was an altered man. His whole personality had undergone a
+subtle change. His face still looked as though hewn from the living
+rock, but into his eyes had crept an expression which in another man
+might almost have been called sentimental. Incredible as it seemed to
+Archie, Mr. Connolly’s eyes were dreamy. There was even in them a
+suggestion of unshed tears. And when with a vast culmination of sound
+Miss Huskisson reached the high note at the end of the refrain and,
+after holding it as some storming-party, spent but victorious, holds
+the summit of a hard-won redoubt, broke off suddenly, in the stillness
+which followed there proceeded from Mr. Connolly a deep sigh.
+
+Miss Huskisson began the second verse. And Mr. Brewster, seeming to
+recover from some kind of a trance, leaped to his feet.
+
+“Great Godfrey!”
+
+“Sit down!” said Mr. Connolly, in a broken voice. “Sit down, Dan!”
+
+“He went back to his mother on the train that very day:
+He knew there was no other who could make him bright and gay:
+He kissed her on the forehead and he whispered, ‘I’ve come home!’
+He told her he was never going any more to roam.
+And onward through the happy years, till he grew old and grey,
+He never once regretted those brave words he once did say:
+It’s a long way back to mother’s knee—”
+
+
+The last high note screeched across the room like a shell, and the
+applause that followed was like a shell’s bursting. One could hardly
+have recognised the refined interior of the Cosmopolis dining-room.
+Fair women were waving napkins; brave men were hammering on the tables
+with the butt-end of knives, for all the world as if they imagined
+themselves to be in one of those distressing midnight-revue places.
+Miss Huskisson bowed, retired, returned, bowed, and retired again, the
+tears streaming down her ample face. Over in a corner Archie could see
+his brother-in-law clapping strenuously. A waiter, with a display of
+manly emotion that did him credit, dropped an order of new peas.
+
+“Thirty years ago last October,” said Mr. Connolly, in a shaking voice,
+“I—”
+
+Mr. Brewster interrupted him violently.
+
+“I’ll fire that orchestra-leader! He goes to-morrow! I’ll fire—” He
+turned on Archie. “What the devil do you mean by it, you—you—”
+
+“Thirty years ago,” said Mr. Connolly, wiping away a tear with his
+napkin, “I left me dear old home in the old country—”
+
+“_My_ hotel a bear-garden!”
+
+“Frightfully sorry and all that, old companion—”
+
+“Thirty years ago last October! ’Twas a fine autumn evening the finest
+ye’d ever wish to see. Me old mother, she came to the station to see me
+off.”
+
+Mr. Brewster, who was not deeply interested in Mr. Connolly’s old
+mother, continued to splutter inarticulately, like a firework trying to
+go off.
+
+“‘Ye’ll always be a good boy, Aloysius?’ she said to me,” said Mr.
+Connolly, proceeding with, his autobiography. “And I said: ‘Yes,
+Mother, I will!’” Mr. Connolly sighed and applied the napkin again.
+“’Twas a liar I was!” he observed, remorsefully. “Many’s the dirty I’ve
+played since then. ‘It’s a long way back to Mother’s knee.’ ’Tis a true
+word!” He turned impulsively to Mr. Brewster. “Dan, there’s a deal of
+trouble in this world without me going out of me way to make more. The
+strike is over! I’ll send the men back tomorrow! There’s me hand on
+it!”
+
+Mr. Brewster, who had just managed to co-ordinate his views on the
+situation and was about to express them with the generous strength
+which was ever his custom when dealing with his son-in-law, checked
+himself abruptly. He stared at his old friend and business enemy,
+wondering if he could have heard aright. Hope began to creep back into
+Mr. Brewster’s heart, like a shamefaced dog that has been away from
+home hunting for a day or two.
+
+“You’ll what!”
+
+“I’ll send the men back to-morrow! That song was sent to guide me, Dan!
+It was meant! Thirty years ago last October me dear old mother—”
+
+Mr. Brewster bent forward attentively. His views on Mr. Connolly’s dear
+old mother had changed. He wanted to hear all about her.
+
+“’Twas that last note that girl sang brought it all back to me as if
+’twas yesterday. As we waited on the platform, me old mother and I, out
+comes the train from the tunnel, and the engine lets off a screech the
+way ye’d hear it ten miles away. ’Twas thirty years ago—”
+
+Archie stole softly from the table. He felt that his presence, if it
+had ever been required, was required no longer. Looking back, he could
+see his father-in-law patting Mr. Connolly affectionately on the
+shoulder.
+
+Archie and Lucille lingered over their coffee. Mr. Blumenthal was out
+in the telephone-box settling the business end with Wilson Hymack. The
+music-publisher had been unstinted in his praise of “Mother’s Knee.” It
+was sure-fire, he said. The words, stated Mr. Blumenthal, were gooey
+enough to hurt, and the tune reminded him of every other song-hit he
+had ever heard. There was, in Mr. Blumenthal’s opinion, nothing to stop
+this thing selling a million copies.
+
+Archie smoked contentedly.
+
+“Not a bad evening’s work, old thing,” he said. “Talk about birds with
+one stone!” He looked at Lucille reproachfully. “You don’t seem
+bubbling over with joy.”
+
+“Oh, I am, precious!” Lucille sighed. “I was only thinking about Bill.”
+
+“What about Bill?”
+
+“Well, it’s rather awful to think of him tied for life to that-that
+steam-siren.”
+
+“Oh, we mustn’t look on the jolly old dark side. Perhaps—Hallo, Bill,
+old top! We were just talking about you.”
+
+“Were you?” said Bill Brewster, in a dispirited voice.
+
+“I take it that you want congratulations, what?”
+
+“I want sympathy!”
+
+“Sympathy?”
+
+“Sympathy! And lots of it! She’s gone!”
+
+“Gone! Who?”
+
+“Spectatia!”
+
+“How do you mean, gone?”
+
+Bill glowered at the tablecloth.
+
+“Gone home. I’ve just seen her off in a cab. She’s gone back to
+Washington Square to pack. She’s catching the ten o’clock train back to
+Snake Bite. It was that damned song!” muttered Bill, in a stricken
+voice. “She says she never realised before she sang it to-night how
+hollow New York was. She said it suddenly came over her. She says she’s
+going to give up her career and go back to her mother. What the deuce
+are you twiddling your fingers for?” he broke off, irritably.
+
+“Sorry, old man. I was just counting.”
+
+“Counting? Counting what?”
+
+“Birds, old thing. Only birds!” said Archie.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXV.
+THE WIGMORE VENUS
+
+
+The morning was so brilliantly fine; the populace popped to and fro in
+so active and cheery a manner; and everybody appeared to be so
+absolutely in the pink, that a casual observer of the city of New York
+would have said that it was one of those happy days. Yet Archie Moffam,
+as he turned out of the sun-bathed street into the ramshackle building
+on the third floor of which was the studio belonging to his artist
+friend, James B. Wheeler, was faintly oppressed with a sort of a kind
+of feeling that something was wrong. He would not have gone so far as
+to say that he had the pip—it was more a vague sense of discomfort.
+And, searching for first causes as he made his way upstairs, he came to
+the conclusion that the person responsible for this nebulous depression
+was his wife, Lucille. It seemed to Archie that at breakfast that
+morning Lucille’s manner had been subtly rummy. Nothing you could put
+your finger on, still—rummy.
+
+Musing thus, he reached the studio, and found the door open and the
+room empty. It had the air of a room whose owner has dashed in to fetch
+his golf-clubs and biffed off, after the casual fashion of the artist
+temperament, without bothering to close up behind him. And such,
+indeed, was the case. The studio had seen the last of J. B. Wheeler for
+that day: but Archie, not realising this and feeling that a chat with
+Mr. Wheeler, who was a light-hearted bird, was what he needed this
+morning, sat down to wait. After a few moments, his gaze, straying over
+the room, encountered a handsomely framed picture, and he went across
+to take a look at it.
+
+J. B. Wheeler was an artist who made a large annual income as an
+illustrator for the magazines, and it was a surprise to Archie to find
+that he also went in for this kind of thing. For the picture, dashingly
+painted in oils, represented a comfortably plump young woman who, from
+her rather weak-minded simper and the fact that she wore absolutely
+nothing except a small dove on her left shoulder, was plainly intended
+to be the goddess Venus. Archie was not much of a lad around the
+picture-galleries, but he knew enough about Art to recognise Venus when
+he saw her; though once or twice, it is true, artists had
+double-crossed him by ringing in some such title as “Day Dreams,” or
+“When the Heart is Young.”
+
+He inspected this picture for awhile, then, returning to his seat, lit
+a cigarette and began to meditate on Lucille once more. “Yes, the dear
+girl had been rummy at breakfast. She had not exactly said anything or
+done anything out of the ordinary; but—well, you know how it is. We
+husbands, we lads of the for-better-or-for-worse brigade, we learn to
+pierce the mask. There had been in Lucille’s manner that curious,
+strained sweetness which comes to women whose husbands have failed to
+match the piece of silk or forgotten to post an important letter. If
+his conscience had not been as clear as crystal, Archie would have said
+that that was what must have been the matter. But, when Lucille wrote
+letters, she just stepped out of the suite and dropped them in the
+mail-chute attached to the elevator. It couldn’t be that. And he
+couldn’t have forgotten anything else, because—”
+
+“Oh my sainted aunt!”
+
+Archie’s cigarette smouldered, neglected, between his fingers. His jaw
+had fallen and his eyes were staring glassily before him. He was
+appalled. His memory was weak, he knew; but never before had it let him
+down so scurvily as this. This was a record. It stood in a class by
+itself, printed in red ink and marked with a star, as the bloomer of a
+lifetime. For a man may forget many things: he may forget his name, his
+umbrella, his nationality, his spats, and the friends of his youth: but
+there is one thing which your married man, your
+in-sickness-and-in-health lizard must not forget: and that is the
+anniversary of his wedding-day.
+
+Remorse swept over Archie like a wave. His heart bled for Lucille. No
+wonder the poor girl had been rummy at breakfast. What girl wouldn’t be
+rummy at breakfast, tied for life to a ghastly outsider like himself?
+He groaned hollowly, and sagged forlornly in his chair: and, as he did
+so, the Venus caught his eye. For it was an eye-catching picture. You
+might like it or dislike it, but you could not ignore it.
+
+As a strong swimmer shoots to the surface after a high dive, Archie’s
+soul rose suddenly from the depths to which it had descended. He did
+not often get inspirations, but he got one now. Hope dawned with a
+jerk. The one way out had presented itself to him. A rich present! That
+was the wheeze. If he returned to her bearing a rich present, he might,
+with the help of Heaven and a face of brass, succeed in making her
+believe that he had merely pretended to forget the vital date in order
+to enhance the surprise.
+
+It was a scheme. Like some great general forming his plan of campaign
+on the eve of battle, Archie had the whole binge neatly worked out
+inside a minute. He scribbled a note to Mr. Wheeler, explaining the
+situation and promising reasonable payment on the instalment system;
+then, placing the note in a conspicuous position on the easel, he
+leaped to the telephone: and presently found himself connected with
+Lucille’s room at the Cosmopolis.
+
+“Hullo, darling,” he cooed.
+
+There was a slight pause at the other end of the wire.
+
+“Oh, hullo, Archie!”
+
+Lucille’s voice was dull and listless, and Archie’s experienced ear
+could detect that she had been crying. He raised his right foot, and
+kicked himself indignantly on the left ankle.
+
+“Many happy returns of the day, old thing!”
+
+A muffled sob floated over the wire.
+
+“Have you only just remembered?” said Lucille in a small voice.
+
+Archie, bracing himself up, cackled gleefully into the receiver.
+
+“Did I take you in, light of my home? Do you mean to say you really
+thought I had forgotten? For Heaven’s sake!”
+
+“You didn’t say a word at breakfast.”
+
+“Ah, but that was all part of the devilish cunning. I hadn’t got a
+present for you then. At least, I didn’t know whether it was ready.”
+
+“Oh, Archie, you darling!” Lucille’s voice had lost its crushed
+melancholy. She trilled like a thrush, or a linnet, or any bird that
+goes in largely for trilling. “Have you really got me a present?”
+
+“It’s here now. The dickens of a fruity picture. One of J. B. Wheeler’s
+things. You’ll like it.”
+
+“Oh, I know I shall. I love his work. You are an angel. We’ll hang it
+over the piano.”
+
+“I’ll be round with it in something under three ticks, star of my soul.
+I’ll take a taxi.”
+
+“Yes, do hurry! I want to hug you!”
+
+“Right-o!” said Archie. “I’ll take two taxis.”
+
+It is not far from Washington Square to the Hotel Cosmopolis, and
+Archie made the journey without mishap. There was a little
+unpleasantness with the cabman before starting—he, on the prudish plea
+that he was a married man with a local reputation to keep up, declining
+at first to be seen in company with the masterpiece. But, on Archie
+giving a promise to keep the front of the picture away from the public
+gaze, he consented to take the job on; and, some ten minutes later,
+having made his way blushfully through the hotel lobby and endured the
+frank curiosity of the boy who worked the elevator, Archie entered his
+suite, the picture under his arm.
+
+He placed it carefully against the wall in order to leave himself more
+scope for embracing Lucille, and when the joyful reunion—or the sacred
+scene, if you prefer so to call it, was concluded, he stepped forward
+to turn it round and exhibit it.
+
+“Why, it’s enormous,” said Lucille. “I didn’t know Mr. Wheeler ever
+painted pictures that size. When you said it was one of his, I thought
+it must be the original of a magazine drawing or something like—Oh!”
+
+Archie had moved back and given her an uninterrupted view of the work
+of art, and she had started as if some unkindly disposed person had
+driven a bradawl into her.
+
+“Pretty ripe, what?” said Archie enthusiastically.
+
+Lucille did not speak for a moment. It may have been sudden joy that
+kept her silent. Or, on the other hand, it may not. She stood looking
+at the picture with wide eyes and parted lips.
+
+“A bird, eh?” said Archie.
+
+“Y—yes,” said Lucille.
+
+“I knew you’d like it,” proceeded Archie with animation, “You see?
+you’re by way of being a picture-hound—know all about the things, and
+what not—inherit it from the dear old dad, I shouldn’t wonder.
+Personally, I can’t tell one picture from another as a rule, but I’m
+bound to say, the moment I set eyes on this, I said to myself ‘What
+ho!’ or words to that effect, I rather think this will add a touch of
+distinction to the home, yes, no? I’ll hang it up, shall I? ’Phone down
+to the office, light of my soul, and tell them to send up a nail, a bit
+of string, and the hotel hammer.”
+
+“One moment, darling. I’m not quite sure.”
+
+“Eh?”
+
+“Where it ought to hang, I mean. You see—”
+
+“Over the piano, you said. The jolly old piano.”
+
+“Yes, but I hadn’t seen it then.”
+
+A monstrous suspicion flitted for an instant into Archie’s mind.
+
+“I say, you _do_ like it, don’t you?” he said anxiously.
+
+“Oh, Archie, darling! Of _course_ I do! And it was so sweet of you to
+give it to me. But, what I was trying to say was that this picture is
+so—so striking that I feel that we ought to wait a little while and
+decide where it would have the best effect. The light over the piano is
+rather strong.”
+
+“You think it ought to hang in a dimmish light, what?”
+
+“Yes, yes. The dimmer the—I mean, yes, in a dim light. Suppose we leave
+it in the corner for the moment—over there—behind the sofa, and—and
+I’ll think it over. It wants a lot of thought, you know.”
+
+“Right-o! Here?”
+
+“Yes, that will do splendidly. Oh, and, Archie.”
+
+“Hullo?”
+
+“I think perhaps... Just turn its face to the wall, will you?” Lucille
+gave a little gulp. “It will prevent it getting dusty.”
+
+It perplexed Archie a little during the next few days to notice in
+Lucille, whom he had always looked on as pre-eminently a girl who knew
+her own mind, a curious streak of vacillation. Quite half a dozen times
+he suggested various spots on the wall as suitable for the Venus, but
+Lucille seemed unable to decide. Archie wished that she would settle on
+something definite, for he wanted to invite J. B. Wheeler to the suite
+to see the thing. He had heard nothing from the artist since the day he
+had removed the picture, and one morning, encountering him on Broadway,
+he expressed his appreciation of the very decent manner in which the
+other had taken the whole affair.
+
+“Oh, that!” said J. B. Wheeler. “My dear fellow, you’re welcome.” He
+paused for a moment. “More than welcome,” he added. “You aren’t much of
+an expert on pictures, are you?”
+
+“Well,” said Archie, “I don’t know that you’d call me an absolute nib,
+don’t you know, but of course I know enough to see that this particular
+exhibit is not a little fruity. Absolutely one of the best things
+you’ve ever done, laddie.”
+
+A slight purple tinge manifested itself in Mr. Wheeler’s round and rosy
+face. His eyes bulged.
+
+“What are you talking about, you Tishbite? You misguided son of Belial,
+are you under the impression that _I_ painted that thing?”
+
+“Didn’t you?”
+
+Mr. Wheeler swallowed a little convulsively.
+
+“My fiancée painted it,” he said shortly.
+
+“Your fiancée? My dear old lad, I didn’t know you were engaged. Who is
+she? Do I know her?”
+
+“Her name is Alice Wigmore. You don’t know her.”
+
+“And she painted that picture?” Archie was perturbed. “But, I say!
+Won’t she be apt to wonder where the thing has got to?”
+
+“I told her it had been stolen. She thought it a great compliment, and
+was tickled to death. So that’s all right.”
+
+“And, of course, she’ll paint you another.”
+
+“Not while I have my strength she won’t,” said J. B. Wheeler firmly.
+“She’s given up painting since I taught her golf, thank goodness, and
+my best efforts shall be employed in seeing that she doesn’t have a
+relapse.”
+
+“But, laddie,” said Archie, puzzled, “you talk as though there were
+something wrong with the picture. I thought it dashed hot stuff.”
+
+“God bless you!” said J. B. Wheeler.
+
+Archie proceeded on his way, still mystified. Then he reflected that
+artists as a class were all pretty weird and rummy and talked more or
+less consistently through their hats. You couldn’t ever take an
+artist’s opinion on a picture. Nine out of ten of them had views on Art
+which would have admitted them to any looney-bin, and no questions
+asked. He had met several of the species who absolutely raved over
+things which any reasonable chappie would decline to be found dead in a
+ditch with. His admiration for the Wigmore Venus, which had faltered
+for a moment during his conversation with J. B. Wheeler, returned in
+all its pristine vigour. Absolute rot, he meant to say, to try to make
+out that it wasn’t one of the ones and just like mother used to make.
+Look how Lucille had liked it!
+
+At breakfast next morning, Archie once more brought up the question of
+the hanging of the picture. It was absurd to let a thing like that go
+on wasting its sweetness behind a sofa with its face to the wall.
+
+“Touching the jolly old masterpiece,” he said, “how about it? I think
+it’s time we hoisted it up somewhere.”
+
+Lucille fiddled pensively with her coffee-spoon.
+
+“Archie, dear,” she said, “I’ve been thinking.”
+
+“And a very good thing to do,” said Archie. “I’ve often meant to do it
+myself when I got a bit of time.”
+
+“About that picture, I mean. Did you know it was father’s birthday
+to-morrow?”
+
+“Why no, old thing, I didn’t, to be absolutely honest. Your revered
+parent doesn’t confide in me much these days, as a matter of fact.”
+
+“Well, it is. And I think we ought to give him a present.”
+
+“Absolutely. But how? I’m all for spreading sweetness and light, and
+cheering up the jolly old pater’s sorrowful existence, but I haven’t a
+bean. And, what is more, things have come to such a pass that I scan
+the horizon without seeing a single soul I can touch. I suppose I could
+get into Reggie van Tuyl’s ribs for a bit, but—I don’t know—touching
+poor old Reggie always seems to me rather like potting a sitting bird.”
+
+“Of course, I don’t want you to do anything like that. I was
+thinking—Archie, darling, would you be very hurt if I gave father the
+picture?”
+
+“Oh, I say!”
+
+“Well, I can’t think of anything else.”
+
+“But wouldn’t you miss it most frightfully?”
+
+“Oh, of course I should. But you see—father’s birthday—”
+
+Archie had always thought Lucille the dearest and most unselfish angel
+in the world, but never had the fact come home to him so forcibly as
+now. He kissed her fondly.
+
+“By Jove!” he exclaimed. “You really are, you know! This is the biggest
+thing since jolly old Sir Philip What’s-his-name gave the drink of
+water to the poor blighter whose need was greater than his, if you
+recall the incident. I had to sweat it up at school, I remember. Sir
+Philip, poor old bean, had a most ghastly thirst on, and he was just
+going to have one on the house, so to speak, when... but it’s all in
+the history-books. This is the sort of thing Boy Scouts do! Well, of
+course, it’s up to you, queen of my soul. If you feel like making the
+sacrifice, right-o! Shall I bring the pater up here and show him the
+picture?”
+
+“No, I shouldn’t do that. Do you think you could get into his suite
+to-morrow morning and hang it up somewhere? You see, if he had the
+chance of—what I mean is, if—yes, I think it would be best to hang it
+up and let him discover it there.”
+
+“It would give him a surprise, you mean, what?”
+
+“Yes.”
+
+Lucille sighed inaudibly. She was a girl with a conscience, and that
+conscience was troubling her a little. She agreed with Archie that the
+discovery of the Wigmore Venus in his artistically furnished suite
+would give Mr. Brewster a surprise. Surprise, indeed, was perhaps an
+inadequate word. She was sorry for her father, but the instinct of
+self-preservation is stronger than any other emotion.
+
+Archie whistled merrily on the following morning as, having driven a
+nail into his father-in-law’s wallpaper, he adjusted the cord from
+which the Wigmore Venus was suspended. He was a kind-hearted young man,
+and, though Mr. Daniel Brewster had on many occasions treated him with
+a good deal of austerity, his simple soul was pleased at the thought of
+doing him a good turn, He had just completed his work and was stepping
+cautiously down, when a voice behind him nearly caused him to
+overbalance.
+
+“What the devil?”
+
+Archie turned beamingly.
+
+“Hullo, old thing! Many happy returns of the day!”
+
+Mr. Brewster was standing in a frozen attitude. His strong face was
+slightly flushed.
+
+“What—what—?” he gurgled.
+
+Mr. Brewster was not in one of his sunniest moods that morning. The
+proprietor of a large hotel has many things to disturb him, and to-day
+things had been going wrong. He had come up to his suite with the idea
+of restoring his shaken nerve system with a quiet cigar, and the sight
+of his son-in-law had, as so frequently happened, made him feel worse
+than ever. But, when Archie had descended from the chair and moved
+aside to allow him an uninterrupted view of the picture, Mr. Brewster
+realised that a worse thing had befallen him than a mere visit from one
+who always made him feel that the world was a bleak place.
+
+He stared at the Venus dumbly. Unlike most hotel-proprietors, Daniel
+Brewster was a connoisseur of Art. Connoisseuring was, in fact, his
+hobby. Even the public rooms of the Cosmopolis were decorated with
+taste, and his own private suite was a shrine of all that was best and
+most artistic. His tastes were quiet and restrained, and it is not too
+much to say that the Wigmore Venus hit him behind the ear like a
+stuffed eel-skin.
+
+So great was the shock that for some moments it kept him silent, and
+before he could recover speech Archie had explained.
+
+“It’s a birthday present from Lucille, don’t you know.”
+
+Mr. Brewster crushed down the breezy speech he had intended to utter.
+
+“Lucille gave me—that?” he muttered.
+
+He swallowed pathetically. He was suffering, but the iron courage of
+the Brewsters stood him in good stead. This man was no weakling.
+Presently the rigidity of his face relaxed. He was himself again. Of
+all things in the world he loved his daughter most, and if, in whatever
+mood of temporary insanity, she had brought herself to suppose that
+this beastly daub was the sort of thing he would like for a birthday
+present, he must accept the situation like a man. He would on the whole
+have preferred death to a life lived in the society of the Wigmore
+Venus, but even that torment must be endured if the alternative was the
+hurting of Lucille’s feelings.
+
+“I think I’ve chosen a pretty likely spot to hang the thing, what?”
+said Archie cheerfully. “It looks well alongside those Japanese prints,
+don’t you think? Sort of stands out.”
+
+Mr. Brewster licked his dry lips and grinned a ghastly grin.
+
+“It does stand out!” he agreed.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXVI.
+A TALE OF A GRANDFATHER
+
+
+Archie was not a man who readily allowed himself to become worried,
+especially about people who were not in his own immediate circle of
+friends, but in the course of the next week he was bound to admit that
+he was not altogether easy in his mind about his father-in-law’s mental
+condition. He had read all sorts of things in the Sunday papers and
+elsewhere about the constant strain to which captains of industry are
+subjected, a strain which sooner or later is only too apt to make the
+victim go all blooey, and it seemed to him that Mr. Brewster was
+beginning to find the going a trifle too tough for his stamina.
+Undeniably he was behaving in an odd manner, and Archie, though no
+physician, was aware that, when the American business-man, that
+restless, ever-active human machine, starts behaving in an odd manner,
+the next thing you know is that two strong men, one attached to each
+arm, are hurrying him into the cab bound for Bloomingdale.
+
+He did not confide his misgivings to Lucille, not wishing to cause her
+anxiety. He hunted up Reggie van Tuyl at the club, and sought advice
+from him.
+
+“I say, Reggie, old thing—present company excepted—have there been any
+loonies in your family?”
+
+Reggie stirred in the slumber which always gripped him in the early
+afternoon.
+
+“Loonies?” he mumbled, sleepily. “Rather! My uncle Edgar thought he was
+twins.”
+
+“Twins, eh?”
+
+“Yes. Silly idea! I mean, you’d have thought one of my uncle Edgar
+would have been enough for any man.”
+
+“How did the thing start?” asked Archie.
+
+“Start? Well, the first thing we noticed was when he began wanting two
+of everything. Had to set two places for him at dinner and so on.
+Always wanted two seats at the theatre. Ran into money, I can tell
+you.”
+
+“He didn’t behave rummily up till then? I mean to say, wasn’t sort of
+jumpy and all that?”
+
+“Not that I remember. Why?”
+
+Archie’s tone became grave.
+
+“Well, I’ll tell you, old man, though I don’t want it to go any
+farther, that I’m a bit worried about my jolly old father-in-law. I
+believe he’s about to go in off the deep-end. I think he’s cracking
+under the strain. Dashed weird his behaviour has been the last few
+days.”
+
+“Such as?” murmured Mr. van Tuyl.
+
+“Well, the other morning I happened to be in his suite—incidentally he
+wouldn’t go above ten dollars, and I wanted twenty-five-and he suddenly
+picked up a whacking big paper-weight and bunged it for all he was
+worth.”
+
+“At you?”
+
+“Not at me. That was the rummy part of it. At a mosquito on the wall,
+he said. Well, I mean to say, do chappies bung paper-weights at
+mosquitoes? I mean, is it done?”
+
+“Smash anything?”
+
+“Curiously enough, no. But he only just missed a rather decent picture
+which Lucille had given him for his birthday. Another foot to the left
+and it would have been a goner.”
+
+“Sounds queer.”
+
+“And, talking of that picture, I looked in on him about a couple of
+afternoons later, and he’d taken it down from the wall and laid it on
+the floor and was staring at it in a dashed marked sort of manner. That
+was peculiar, what?”
+
+“On the floor?”
+
+“On the jolly old carpet. When I came in, he was goggling at it in a
+sort of glassy way. Absolutely rapt, don’t you know. My coming in gave
+him a start—seemed to rouse him from a kind of trance, you know—and he
+jumped like an antelope; and, if I hadn’t happened to grab him, he
+would have trampled bang on the thing. It was deuced unpleasant, you
+know. His manner was rummy. He seemed to be brooding on something. What
+ought I to do about it, do you think? It’s not my affair, of course,
+but it seems to me that, if he goes on like this, one of these days
+he’ll be stabbing someone with a pickle-fork.”
+
+To Archie’s relief, his father-in-law’s symptoms showed no signs of
+development. In fact, his manner reverted to the normal once more, and
+a few days later, meeting Archie in the lobby of the hotel, he seemed
+quite cheerful. It was not often that he wasted his time talking to his
+son-in-law, but on this occasion he chatted with him for several
+minutes about the big picture-robbery which had formed the chief item
+of news on the front pages of the morning papers that day. It was Mr.
+Brewster’s opinion that the outrage had been the work of a gang and
+that nobody was safe.
+
+Daniel Brewster had spoken of this matter with strange earnestness, but
+his words had slipped from Archie’s mind when he made his way that
+night to his father-in-law’s suite. Archie was in an exalted mood. In
+the course of dinner he had had a bit of good news which was occupying
+his thoughts to the exclusion of all other matters. It had left him in
+a comfortable, if rather dizzy, condition of benevolence to all created
+things. He had smiled at the room-clerk as he crossed the lobby, and if
+he had had a dollar, he would have given it to the boy who took him up
+in the elevator.
+
+He found the door of the Brewster suite unlocked, which at any other
+time would have struck him as unusual; but to-night he was in no frame
+of mind to notice these trivialities. He went in, and, finding the room
+dark and no one at home, sat down, too absorbed in his thoughts to
+switch on the lights, and gave himself up to dreamy meditation.
+
+There are certain moods in which one loses count of time, and Archie
+could not have said how long he had been sitting in the deep arm-chair
+near the window when he first became aware that he was not alone in the
+room. He had closed his eyes, the better to meditate, so had not seen
+anyone enter. Nor had he heard the door open. The first intimation he
+had that somebody had come in was when some hard substance knocked
+against some other hard object, producing a sharp sound which brought
+him back to earth with a jerk.
+
+He sat up silently. The fact that the room was still in darkness made
+it obvious that something nefarious was afoot. Plainly there was dirty
+work in preparation at the cross-roads. He stared into the blackness,
+and, as his eyes grew accustomed to it, was presently able to see an
+indistinct form bending over something on the floor. The sound of
+rather stertorous breathing came to him.
+
+Archie had many defects which prevented him being the perfect man, but
+lack of courage was not one of them. His somewhat rudimentary
+intelligence had occasionally led his superior officers during the war
+to thank God that Great Britain had a Navy, but even these stern
+critics had found nothing to complain of in the manner in which he
+bounded over the top. Some of us are thinkers, others men of action.
+Archie was a man of action, and he was out of his chair and sailing in
+the direction of the back of the intruder’s neck before a wiser man
+would have completed his plan of campaign. The miscreant collapsed
+under him with a squashy sound, like the wind going out of a pair of
+bellows, and Archie, taking a firm seat on his spine, rubbed the
+other’s face in the carpet and awaited the progress of events.
+
+At the end of half a minute it became apparent that there was going to
+be no counter-attack. The dashing swiftness of the assault had
+apparently had the effect of depriving the marauder of his entire stock
+of breath. He was gurgling to himself in a pained sort of way and
+making no effort to rise. Archie, feeling that it would be safe to get
+up and switch on the light, did so, and, turning after completing this
+manoeuvre, was greeted by the spectacle of his father-in-law, seated on
+the floor in a breathless and dishevelled condition, blinking at the
+sudden illumination. On the carpet beside Mr. Brewster lay a long
+knife, and beside the knife lay the handsomely framed masterpiece of J.
+B. Wheeler’s fiancée, Miss Alice Wigmore. Archie stared at this
+collection dumbly.
+
+“Oh, what-ho!” he observed at length, feebly.
+
+A distinct chill manifested itself in the region of Archie’s spine.
+This could mean only one thing. His fears had been realised. The strain
+of modern life, with all its hustle and excitement, had at last proved
+too much for Mr. Brewster. Crushed by the thousand and one anxieties
+and worries of a millionaire’s existence, Daniel Brewster had gone off
+his onion.
+
+Archie was nonplussed. This was his first experience of this kind of
+thing. What, he asked himself, was the proper procedure in a situation
+of this sort? What was the local rule? Where, in a word, did he go from
+here? He was still musing in an embarrassed and baffled way, having
+taken the precaution of kicking the knife under the sofa, when Mr.
+Brewster spoke. And there was in, both the words and the method of
+their delivery so much of his old familiar self that Archie felt quite
+relieved.
+
+“So it’s you, is it, you wretched blight, you miserable weed!” said Mr.
+Brewster, having recovered enough breath to be going on with. He
+glowered at his son-in-law despondently. “I might have expected it! If
+I was at the North Pole, I could count on you butting in!”
+
+“Shall I get you a drink of water?” said Archie.
+
+“What the devil,” demanded Mr. Brewster, “do you imagine I want with a
+drink of water?”
+
+“Well—” Archie hesitated delicately. “I had a sort of idea that you had
+been feeling the strain a bit. I mean to say, rush of modern life and
+all that sort of thing—”
+
+“What are you doing in my room?” said Mr. Brewster, changing the
+subject.
+
+“Well, I came to tell you something, and I came in here and was waiting
+for you, and I saw some chappie biffing about in the dark, and I
+thought it was a burglar or something after some of your things, so,
+thinking it over, I got the idea that it would be a fairly juicy scheme
+to land on him with both feet. No idea it was you, old thing!
+Frightfully sorry and all that. Meant well!”
+
+Mr. Brewster sighed deeply. He was a just man, and he could not but
+realise that, in the circumstances, Archie had behaved not unnaturally.
+
+“Oh, well!” he said. “I might have known something would go wrong.”
+
+“Awfully sorry!”
+
+“It can’t be helped. What was it you wanted to tell me?” He eyed his
+son-in-law piercingly. “Not a cent over twenty dollars!” he said
+coldly.
+
+Archie hastened to dispel the pardonable error.
+
+“Oh, it wasn’t anything like that,” he said. “As a matter of fact, I
+think it’s a good egg. It has bucked me up to no inconsiderable degree.
+I was dining with Lucille just now, and, as we dallied with the
+food-stuffs, she told me something which—well, I’m bound to say, it
+made me feel considerably braced. She told me to trot along and ask you
+if you would mind—”
+
+“I gave Lucille a hundred dollars only last Tuesday.”
+
+Archie was pained.
+
+“Adjust this sordid outlook, old thing!” he urged. “You simply aren’t
+anywhere near it. Right off the target, absolutely! What Lucille told
+me to ask you was if you would mind—at some tolerably near date—being a
+grandfather! Rotten thing to be, of course,” proceeded Archie
+commiseratingly, “for a chappie of your age, but there it is!”
+
+Mr. Brewster gulped.
+
+“Do you mean to say—?”
+
+“I mean, apt to make a fellow feel a bit of a patriarch. Snowy hair and
+what not. And, of course, for a chappie in the prime of life like you—”
+
+“Do you mean to tell me—? Is this true?”
+
+“Absolutely! Of course, speaking for myself, I’m all for it. I don’t
+know when I’ve felt more bucked. I sang as I came up here—absolutely
+warbled in the elevator. But you—”
+
+A curious change had come over Mr. Brewster. He was one of those men
+who have the appearance of having been hewn out of the solid rock, but
+now in some indescribable way he seemed to have melted. For a moment he
+gazed at Archie, then, moving quickly forward, he grasped his hand in
+an iron grip.
+
+“This is the best news I’ve ever had!” he mumbled.
+
+“Awfully good of you to take it like this,” said Archie cordially. “I
+mean, being a grandfather—”
+
+Mr. Brewster smiled. Of a man of his appearance one could hardly say
+that he smiled playfully; but there was something in his expression
+that remotely suggested playfulness.
+
+“My dear old bean,” he said.
+
+Archie started.
+
+“My dear old bean,” repeated Mr. Brewster firmly, “I’m the happiest man
+in America!” His eye fell on the picture which lay on the floor. He
+gave a slight shudder, but recovered himself immediately. “After this,”
+he said, “I can reconcile myself to living with that thing for the rest
+of my life. I feel it doesn’t matter.”
+
+“I say,” said Archie, “how about that? Wouldn’t have brought the thing
+up if you hadn’t introduced the topic, but, speaking as man to man,
+what the dickens WERE you up to when I landed on your spine just now?”
+
+“I suppose you thought I had gone off my head?”
+
+“Well, I’m bound to say—”
+
+Mr. Brewster cast an unfriendly glance at the picture.
+
+“Well, I had every excuse, after living with that infernal thing for a
+week!”
+
+Archie looked at him, astonished.
+
+“I say, old thing, I don’t know if I have got your meaning exactly, but
+you somehow give me the impression that you don’t like that jolly old
+work of Art.”
+
+“Like it!” cried Mr. Brewster. “It’s nearly driven me mad! Every time
+it caught my eye, it gave me a pain in the neck. To-night I felt as if
+I couldn’t stand it any longer. I didn’t want to hurt Lucille’s
+feelings, by telling her, so I made up my mind I would cut the damned
+thing out of its frame and tell her it had been stolen.”
+
+“What an extraordinary thing! Why, that’s exactly what old Wheeler
+did.”
+
+“Who is old Wheeler?”
+
+“Artist chappie. Pal of mine. His fiancée painted the thing, and, when
+I lifted it off him, he told her it had been stolen. _He_ didn’t seem
+frightfully keen on it, either.”
+
+“Your friend Wheeler has evidently good taste.”
+
+Archie was thinking.
+
+“Well, all this rather gets past me,” he said. “Personally, I’ve always
+admired the thing. Dashed ripe bit of work, I’ve always considered.
+Still, of course, if you feel that way—”
+
+“You may take it from me that I do!”
+
+“Well, then, in that case—You know what a clumsy devil I am—You can
+tell Lucille it was all my fault—”
+
+The Wigmore Venus smiled up at Archie—it seemed to Archie with a
+pathetic, pleading smile. For a moment he was conscious of a feeling of
+guilt; then, closing his eyes and hardening his heart, he sprang
+lightly in the air and descended with both feet on the picture. There
+was a sound of rending canvas, and the Venus ceased to smile.
+
+“Golly!” said Archie, regarding the wreckage remorsefully.
+
+Mr. Brewster did not share his remorse. For the second time that night
+he gripped him by the hand.
+
+“My boy!” he quavered. He stared at Archie as if he were seeing him
+with new eyes. “My dear boy, you were through the war, were you not?”
+
+“Eh? Oh yes! Right through the jolly old war.”
+
+“What was your rank?”
+
+“Oh, second lieutenant.”
+
+“You ought to have been a general!” Mr. Brewster clasped his hand once
+more in a vigorous embrace. “I only hope,” he added “that your son will
+be like you!”
+
+There are certain compliments, or compliments coming from certain
+sources, before which modesty reels, stunned. Archie’s did.
+
+He swallowed convulsively. He had never thought to hear these words
+from Daniel Brewster.
+
+“How would it be, old thing,” he said almost brokenly, “if you and I
+trickled down to the bar and had a spot of sherbet?”
+
+THE END
+
+
+
+
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+<div style='text-align:center; font-size:1.2em; font-weight:bold'>The Project Gutenberg eBook of Indiscretions of Archie, by P. G. Wodehouse</div>
+<div style='display:block; margin:1em 0'>
+This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere in the United States and
+most other parts of the world at no cost and with almost no restrictions
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+</div>
+<div style='display:block; margin-top:1em; margin-bottom:1em; margin-left:2em; text-indent:-2em'>Title: Indiscretions of Archie</div>
+<div style='display:block; margin-top:1em; margin-bottom:1em; margin-left:2em; text-indent:-2em'>Author: P. G. Wodehouse</div>
+<div style='display:block; margin:1em 0'>Release Date: August 28, 2001 [eBook #3756]<br />
+[Most recently updated: August 14, 2021]</div>
+<div style='display:block; margin:1em 0'>Language: English</div>
+<div style='display:block; margin:1em 0'>Character set encoding: UTF-8</div>
+<div style='display:block; margin-left:2em; text-indent:-2em'>Produced by: Charles Franks, Chuck Greif and the Online Distributed Proofreading Team, and David Widger</div>
+<div style='margin-top:2em; margin-bottom:4em'>*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK INDISCRETIONS OF ARCHIE ***</div>
+
+<h1>Indiscretions of Archie</h1>
+
+<h2 class="no-break">by P. G. Wodehouse</h2>
+
+<hr />
+
+<h2>Contents</h2>
+
+<table summary="" style="">
+
+<tr>
+<td> <a href="#chap01">CHAPTER I. DISTRESSING SCENE</a></td>
+</tr>
+
+<tr>
+<td> <a href="#chap02">CHAPTER II. A SHOCK FOR MR BREWSTER</a></td>
+</tr>
+
+<tr>
+<td> <a href="#chap03">CHAPTER III. MR BREWSTER DELIVERS SENTENCE</a></td>
+</tr>
+
+<tr>
+<td> <a href="#chap04">CHAPTER IV. WORK WANTED</a></td>
+</tr>
+
+<tr>
+<td> <a href="#chap05">CHAPTER V. STRANGE EXPERIENCES OF AN ARTIST&rsquo;S MODEL</a></td>
+</tr>
+
+<tr>
+<td> <a href="#chap06">CHAPTER VI. THE BOMB</a></td>
+</tr>
+
+<tr>
+<td> <a href="#chap07">CHAPTER VII. MR ROSCOE SHERRIFF HAS AN IDEA</a></td>
+</tr>
+
+<tr>
+<td> <a href="#chap08">CHAPTER VIII. A DISTURBED NIGHT FOR DEAR OLD SQUIFFY</a></td>
+</tr>
+
+<tr>
+<td> <a href="#chap09">CHAPTER IX. A LETTER FROM PARKER</a></td>
+</tr>
+
+<tr>
+<td> <a href="#chap10">CHAPTER X. DOING FATHER A BIT OF GOOD</a></td>
+</tr>
+
+<tr>
+<td> <a href="#chap11">CHAPTER XI. SALVATORE CHOOSES THE WRONG MOMENT</a></td>
+</tr>
+
+<tr>
+<td> <a href="#chap12">CHAPTER XII. BRIGHT EYES&mdash;AND A FLY</a></td>
+</tr>
+
+<tr>
+<td> <a href="#chap13">CHAPTER XIII. RALLYING ROUND PERCY</a></td>
+</tr>
+
+<tr>
+<td> <a href="#chap14">CHAPTER XIV. THE SAD CASE OF LOONEY BIDDLE</a></td>
+</tr>
+
+<tr>
+<td> <a href="#chap15">CHAPTER XV. SUMMER STORMS</a></td>
+</tr>
+
+<tr>
+<td> <a href="#chap16">CHAPTER XVI. ARCHIE ACCEPTS A SITUATION</a></td>
+</tr>
+
+<tr>
+<td> <a href="#chap17">CHAPTER XVII. BROTHER BILL&rsquo;S ROMANCE</a></td>
+</tr>
+
+<tr>
+<td> <a href="#chap18">CHAPTER XVIII. THE SAUSAGE CHAPPIE</a></td>
+</tr>
+
+<tr>
+<td> <a href="#chap19">CHAPTER XIX. REGGIE COMES TO LIFE</a></td>
+</tr>
+
+<tr>
+<td> <a href="#chap20">CHAPTER XX. THE-SAUSAGE-CHAPPIE-CLICKS</a></td>
+</tr>
+
+<tr>
+<td> <a href="#chap21">CHAPTER XXI. THE GROWING BOY</a></td>
+</tr>
+
+<tr>
+<td> <a href="#chap22">CHAPTER XXII. WASHY STEPS INTO THE HALL OF FAME</a></td>
+</tr>
+
+<tr>
+<td> <a href="#chap23">CHAPTER XXIII. MOTHER&rsquo;S KNEE</a></td>
+</tr>
+
+<tr>
+<td> <a href="#chap24">CHAPTER XXIV. THE MELTING OF MR CONNOLLY</a></td>
+</tr>
+
+<tr>
+<td> <a href="#chap25">CHAPTER XXV. THE WIGMORE VENUS</a></td>
+</tr>
+
+<tr>
+<td> <a href="#chap26">CHAPTER XXVI. A TALE OF A GRANDFATHER</a></td>
+</tr>
+
+</table>
+
+<hr />
+
+<div class="chapter">
+
+<p>
+It wasn&rsquo;t Archie&rsquo;s fault really. Its true he went to America and
+fell in love with Lucille, the daughter of a millionaire hotel proprietor and
+if he did marry her&mdash;well, what else was there to do?
+</p>
+
+<p>
+From his point of view, the whole thing was a thoroughly good egg; but Mr.
+Brewster, his father-in-law, thought differently, Archie had neither money nor
+occupation, which was distasteful in the eyes of the industrious Mr. Brewster;
+but the real bar was the fact that he had once adversely criticised one of his
+hotels.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Archie does his best to heal the breach; but, being something of an ass, genus
+priceless, he finds it almost beyond his powers to placate &ldquo;the
+man-eating fish&rdquo; whom Providence has given him as a father-in-law
+</p>
+
+</div><!--end chapter-->
+
+<div class="chapter">
+
+<p class="center">
+P. G. Wodehouse
+</p>
+
+<p class="center">
+AUTHOR OF &ldquo;THE LITTLE WARRIOR,&rdquo; &ldquo;A DAMSEL IN DISTRESS,&rdquo;
+&ldquo;UNEASY MONEY,&rdquo; ETC.
+</p>
+
+<p class="center">
+NEW YORK GEORGE H. DORAN COMPANY COPYRIGHT,1921, BY GEORGE H, DORAN COMPANY
+COPYRIGHT, 1920, BY INTERNATIONAL MAGAZINE COMPANY<br/>
+(COSMOPOLITAN MAGAZINE)<br/>
+PRINTED IN THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA<br/>
+<br/>
+</p>
+
+</div><!--end chapter-->
+
+<div class="chapter">
+
+<p class="center">
+DEDICATION<br/>
+TO<br/>
+B. W. KING-HALL
+</p>
+
+<p class="letter">
+My dear Buddy,&mdash;
+</p>
+
+<p class="letter">
+We have been friends for eighteen years. A considerable proportion of my books
+were written under your hospitable roof. And yet I have never dedicated one to
+you. What will be the verdict of Posterity on this? The fact is, I have become
+rather superstitious about dedications. No sooner do you label a book with the
+legend&mdash;
+</p>
+
+<p class="center">
+TO MY<br/>
+BEST FRIEND<br/>
+X
+</p>
+
+<p class="letter">
+than X cuts you in Piccadilly, or you bring a lawsuit against him. There is a
+fatality about it. However, I can&rsquo;t imagine anyone quarrelling with you,
+and I am getting more attractive all the time, so let&rsquo;s take a chance.
+</p>
+
+<p class="right">
+Yours ever,<br/>
+P. G. WODEHOUSE.
+</p>
+
+</div><!--end chapter-->
+
+<div class="chapter">
+
+<h2><a name="chap01"></a>CHAPTER I.<br/>
+DISTRESSING SCENE</h2>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;I say, laddie!&rdquo; said Archie.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Sir?&rdquo; replied the desk-clerk alertly. All the employes of the
+Hotel Cosmopolis were alert. It was one of the things on which Mr. Daniel
+Brewster, the proprietor, insisted. And as he was always wandering about the
+lobby of the hotel keeping a personal eye on affairs, it was never safe to
+relax.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;I want to see the manager.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Is there anything I could do, sir?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Archie looked at him doubtfully.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Well, as a matter of fact, my dear old desk-clerk,&rdquo; he said,
+&ldquo;I want to kick up a fearful row, and it hardly seems fair to lug you
+into it. Why you, I mean to say? The blighter whose head I want on a charger is
+the bally manager.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+At this point a massive, grey-haired man, who had been standing close by,
+gazing on the lobby with an air of restrained severity, as if daring it to
+start anything, joined in the conversation.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;I am the manager,&rdquo; he said.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+His eye was cold and hostile. Others, it seemed to say, might like Archie
+Moffam, but not he. Daniel Brewster was bristling for combat. What he had
+overheard had shocked him to the core of his being. The Hotel Cosmopolis was
+his own private, personal property, and the thing dearest to him in the world,
+after his daughter Lucille. He prided himself on the fact that his hotel was
+not like other New York hotels, which were run by impersonal companies and
+shareholders and boards of directors, and consequently lacked the paternal
+touch which made the Cosmopolis what it was. At other hotels things went wrong,
+and clients complained. At the Cosmopolis things never went wrong, because he
+was on the spot to see that they didn&rsquo;t, and as a result clients never
+complained. Yet here was this long, thin, string-bean of an Englishman actually
+registering annoyance and dissatisfaction before his very eyes.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;What is your complaint?&rdquo; he enquired frigidly.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Archie attached himself to the top button of Mr. Brewster&rsquo;s coat, and was
+immediately dislodged by an irritable jerk of the other&rsquo;s substantial
+body.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Listen, old thing! I came over to this country to nose about in search
+of a job, because there doesn&rsquo;t seem what you might call a general demand
+for my services in England. Directly I was demobbed, the family started talking
+about the Land of Opportunity and shot me on to a liner. The idea was that I
+might get hold of something in America&mdash;&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+He got hold of Mr. Brewster&rsquo;s coat-button, and was again shaken off.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Between ourselves, I&rsquo;ve never done anything much in England, and I
+fancy the family were getting a bit fed. At any rate, they sent me over
+here&mdash;&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Mr. Brewster disentangled himself for the third time.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;I would prefer to postpone the story of your life,&rdquo; he said
+coldly, &ldquo;and be informed what is your specific complaint against the
+Hotel Cosmopolis.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Of course, yes. The jolly old hotel. I&rsquo;m coming to that. Well, it
+was like this. A chappie on the boat told me that this was the best place to
+stop at in New York&mdash;&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;He was quite right,&rdquo; said Mr. Brewster.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Was he, by Jove! Well, all I can say, then, is that the other New York
+hotels must be pretty mouldy, if this is the best of the lot! I took a room
+here last night,&rdquo; said Archie quivering with self-pity, &ldquo;and there
+was a beastly tap outside somewhere which went drip-drip-drip all night and
+kept me awake.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Mr. Brewster&rsquo;s annoyance deepened. He felt that a chink had been found in
+his armour. Not even the most paternal hotel-proprietor can keep an eye on
+every tap in his establishment.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Drip-drip-drip!&rdquo; repeated Archie firmly. &ldquo;And I put my boots
+outside the door when I went to bed, and this morning they hadn&rsquo;t been
+touched. I give you my solemn word! Not touched.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Naturally,&rdquo; said Mr. Brewster. &ldquo;My employés are
+honest.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;But I wanted them cleaned, dash it!&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;There is a shoe-shining parlour in the basement. At the Cosmopolis shoes
+left outside bedroom doors are not cleaned.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Then I think the Cosmopolis is a bally rotten hotel!&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Mr. Brewster&rsquo;s compact frame quivered. The unforgivable insult had been
+offered. Question the legitimacy of Mr. Brewster&rsquo;s parentage, knock Mr.
+Brewster down and walk on his face with spiked shoes, and you did not
+irremediably close all avenues to a peaceful settlement. But make a remark like
+that about his hotel, and war was definitely declared.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;In that case,&rdquo; he said, stiffening, &ldquo;I must ask you to give
+up your room.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;I&rsquo;m going to give it up! I wouldn&rsquo;t stay in the bally place
+another minute.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Mr. Brewster walked away, and Archie charged round to the cashier&rsquo;s desk
+to get his bill. It had been his intention in any case, though for dramatic
+purposes he concealed it from his adversary, to leave the hotel that morning.
+One of the letters of introduction which he had brought over from England had
+resulted in an invitation from a Mrs. van Tuyl to her house-party at Miami, and
+he had decided to go there at once.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Well,&rdquo; mused Archie, on his way to the station, &ldquo;one
+thing&rsquo;s certain. I&rsquo;ll never set foot in <i>that</i> bally place
+again!&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+But nothing in this world is certain.
+</p>
+
+</div><!--end chapter-->
+
+<div class="chapter">
+
+<h2><a name="chap02"></a>CHAPTER II.<br/>
+A SHOCK FOR MR. BREWSTER</h2>
+
+<p>
+Mr. Daniel Brewster sat in his luxurious suite at the Cosmopolis, smoking one
+of his admirable cigars and chatting with his old friend, Professor Binstead. A
+stranger who had only encountered Mr. Brewster in the lobby of the hotel would
+have been surprised at the appearance of his sitting-room, for it had none of
+the rugged simplicity which was the keynote of its owner&rsquo;s personal
+appearance. Daniel Brewster was a man with a hobby. He was what Parker, his
+valet, termed a connoozer. His educated taste in Art was one of the things
+which went to make the Cosmopolis different from and superior to other New York
+hotels. He had personally selected the tapestries in the dining-room and the
+various paintings throughout the building. And in his private capacity he was
+an enthusiastic collector of things which Professor Binstead, whose tastes lay
+in the same direction, would have stolen without a twinge of conscience if he
+could have got the chance.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The professor, a small man of middle age who wore tortoiseshell-rimmed
+spectacles, flitted covetously about the room, inspecting its treasures with a
+glistening eye. In a corner, Parker, a grave, lean individual, bent over the
+chafing-dish, in which he was preparing for his employer and his guest their
+simple lunch.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Brewster,&rdquo; said Professor Binstead, pausing at the mantelpiece.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Mr. Brewster looked up amiably. He was in placid mood to-day. Two weeks and
+more had passed since the meeting with Archie recorded in the previous chapter,
+and he had been able to dismiss that disturbing affair from his mind. Since
+then, everything had gone splendidly with Daniel Brewster, for he had just
+accomplished his ambition of the moment by completing the negotiations for the
+purchase of a site further down-town, on which he proposed to erect a new
+hotel. He liked building hotels. He had the Cosmopolis, his first-born, a
+summer hotel in the mountains, purchased in the previous year, and he was
+toying with the idea of running over to England and putting up another in
+London, That, however, would have to wait. Meanwhile, he would concentrate on
+this new one down-town. It had kept him busy and worried, arranging for
+securing the site; but his troubles were over now.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Yes?&rdquo; he said.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Professor Binstead had picked up a small china figure of delicate workmanship.
+It represented a warrior of pre-khaki days advancing with a spear upon some
+adversary who, judging from the contented expression on the warrior&rsquo;s
+face, was smaller than himself.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Where did you get this?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;That? Mawson, my agent, found it in a little shop on the east
+side.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Where&rsquo;s the other? There ought to be another. These things go in
+pairs. They&rsquo;re valueless alone.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Mr. Brewster&rsquo;s brow clouded.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;I know that,&rdquo; he said shortly. &ldquo;Mawson&rsquo;s looking for
+the other one everywhere. If you happen across it, I give you <i>carte
+blanche</i> to buy it for me.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;It must be somewhere.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Yes. If you find it, don&rsquo;t worry about the expense. I&rsquo;ll
+settle up, no matter what it is.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;I&rsquo;ll bear it in mind,&rdquo; said Professor Binstead. &ldquo;It
+may cost you a lot of money. I suppose you know that.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;I told you I don&rsquo;t care what it costs.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;It&rsquo;s nice to be a millionaire,&rdquo; sighed Professor Binstead.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Luncheon is served, sir,&rdquo; said Parker.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+He had stationed himself in a statutesque pose behind Mr. Brewster&rsquo;s
+chair, when there was a knock at the door. He went to the door, and returned
+with a telegram.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Telegram for you, sir.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Mr. Brewster nodded carelessly. The contents of the chafing-dish had justified
+the advance advertising of their odour, and he was too busy to be interrupted.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Put it down. And you needn&rsquo;t wait, Parker.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Very good, sir.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The valet withdrew, and Mr. Brewster resumed his lunch.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Aren&rsquo;t you going to open it?&rdquo; asked Professor Binstead, to
+whom a telegram was a telegram.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;It can wait. I get them all day long. I expect it&rsquo;s from Lucille,
+saying what train she&rsquo;s making.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;She returns to-day?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Yes, Been at Miami.&rdquo; Mr. Brewster, having dwelt at adequate length
+on the contents of the chafing-dish, adjusted his glasses and took up the
+envelope. &ldquo;I shall be glad&mdash;Great Godfrey!&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+He sat staring at the telegram, his mouth open. His friend eyed him
+solicitously.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;No bad news, I hope?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Mr. Brewster gurgled in a strangled way.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Bad news? Bad&mdash;? Here, read it for yourself.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Professor Binstead, one of the three most inquisitive men in New York, took the
+slip of paper with gratitude.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;&lsquo;Returning New York to-day with darling Archie,&rsquo;&rdquo; he
+read. &ldquo;&lsquo;Lots of love from us both. Lucille.&rsquo;&rdquo; He gaped
+at his host. &ldquo;Who is Archie?&rdquo; he enquired.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Who is Archie?&rdquo; echoed Mr. Brewster helplessly. &ldquo;Who
+is&mdash;? That&rsquo;s just what I would like to know.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;&lsquo;Darling Archie,&rsquo;&rdquo; murmured the professor, musing over
+the telegram. &ldquo;&lsquo;Returning to-day with darling Archie.&rsquo;
+Strange!&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Mr. Brewster continued to stare before him. When you send your only daughter on
+a visit to Miami minus any entanglements and she mentions in a telegram that
+she has acquired a darling Archie, you are naturally startled. He rose from the
+table with a bound. It had occurred to him that by neglecting a careful study
+of his mail during the past week, as was his bad habit when busy, he had lost
+an opportunity of keeping abreast with current happenings. He recollected now
+that a letter had arrived from Lucille some time ago, and that he had put it
+away unopened till he should have leisure to read it. Lucille was a dear girl,
+he had felt, but her letters when on a vacation seldom contained anything that
+couldn&rsquo;t wait a few days for a reading. He sprang for his desk, rummaged
+among his papers, and found what he was seeking.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+It was a long letter, and there was silence in the room for some moments while
+he mastered its contents. Then he turned to the professor, breathing heavily.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Good heavens!&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Yes?&rdquo; said Professor Binstead eagerly. &ldquo;Yes?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Good Lord!&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Well?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Good gracious!&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;What is it?&rdquo; demanded the professor in an agony.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Mr. Brewster sat down again with a thud.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;She&rsquo;s married!&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Married!&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Married! To an Englishman!&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Bless my soul!&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;She says,&rdquo; proceeded Mr. Brewster, referring to the letter again,
+&ldquo;that they were both so much in love that they simply had to slip off and
+get married, and she hopes I won&rsquo;t be cross. Cross!&rdquo; gasped Mr.
+Brewster, gazing wildly at his friend.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Very disturbing!&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Disturbing! You bet it&rsquo;s disturbing! I don&rsquo;t know anything
+about the fellow. Never heard of him in my life. She says he wanted a quiet
+wedding because he thought a fellow looked such a chump getting married! And I
+must love him, because he&rsquo;s all set to love me very much!&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Extraordinary!&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Mr. Brewster put the letter down.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;An Englishman!&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;I have met some very agreeable Englishmen,&rdquo; said Professor
+Binstead.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;I don&rsquo;t like Englishmen,&rdquo; growled Mr. Brewster.
+&ldquo;Parker&rsquo;s an Englishman.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Your valet?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Yes. I believe he wears my shirts on the sly,&rsquo;&rdquo; said Mr.
+Brewster broodingly, &ldquo;If I catch him&mdash;! What would you do about
+this, Binstead?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Do?&rdquo; The professor considered the point judicially. &ldquo;Well,
+really, Brewster, I do not see that there is anything you can do. You must
+simply wait and meet the man. Perhaps he will turn out an admirable
+son-in-law.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;H&rsquo;m!&rdquo; Mr. Brewster declined to take an optimistic view.
+&ldquo;But an Englishman, Binstead!&rdquo; he said with pathos.
+&ldquo;Why,&rdquo; he went on, memory suddenly stirring, &ldquo;there was an
+Englishman at this hotel only a week or two ago who went about knocking it in a
+way that would have amazed you! Said it was a rotten place! <i>My</i>
+hotel!&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Professor Binstead clicked his tongue sympathetically. He understood his
+friend&rsquo;s warmth.
+</p>
+
+</div><!--end chapter-->
+
+<div class="chapter">
+
+<h2><a name="chap03"></a>CHAPTER III.<br/>
+MR. BREWSTER DELIVERS SENTENCE</h2>
+
+<p>
+At about the same moment that Professor Binstead was clicking his tongue in Mr.
+Brewster&rsquo;s sitting-room, Archie Moffam sat contemplating his bride in a
+drawing-room on the express from Miami. He was thinking that this was too good
+to be true. His brain had been in something of a whirl these last few days, but
+this was one thought that never failed to emerge clearly from the welter.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Mrs. Archie Moffam, nee Lucille Brewster, was small and slender. She had a
+little animated face, set in a cloud of dark hair. She was so altogether
+perfect that Archie had frequently found himself compelled to take the
+marriage-certificate out of his inside pocket and study it furtively, to make
+himself realise that this miracle of good fortune had actually happened to him.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Honestly, old bean&mdash;I mean, dear old thing,&mdash;I mean,
+darling,&rdquo; said Archie, &ldquo;I can&rsquo;t believe it!&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;What?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;What I mean is, I can&rsquo;t understand why you should have married a
+blighter like me.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Lucille&rsquo;s eyes opened. She squeezed his hand.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Why, you&rsquo;re the most wonderful thing in the world,
+precious!&mdash;Surely you know that?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Absolutely escaped my notice. Are you sure?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Of course I&rsquo;m sure! You wonder-child! Nobody could see you without
+loving you!&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Archie heaved an ecstatic sigh. Then a thought crossed his mind. It was a
+thought which frequently came to mar his bliss.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;I say, I wonder if your father will think that!&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Of course he will!&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;We rather sprung this, as it were, on the old lad,&rdquo; said Archie
+dubiously. &ldquo;What sort of a man <i>is</i> your father?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Father&rsquo;s a darling, too.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Rummy thing he should own that hotel,&rdquo; said Archie. &ldquo;I had a
+frightful row with a blighter of a manager there just before I left for Miami.
+Your father ought to sack that chap. He was a blot on the landscape!&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p class="p2">
+It had been settled by Lucille during the journey that Archie should be broken
+gently to his father-in-law. That is to say, instead of bounding blithely into
+Mr. Brewster&rsquo;s presence hand in hand, the happy pair should separate for
+half an hour or so, Archie hanging around in the offing while Lucille saw her
+father and told him the whole story, or those chapters of it which she had
+omitted from her letter for want of space. Then, having impressed Mr. Brewster
+sufficiently with his luck in having acquired Archie for a son-in-law, she
+would lead him to where his bit of good fortune awaited him.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The programme worked out admirably in its earlier stages. When the two emerged
+from Mr. Brewster&rsquo;s room to meet Archie, Mr. Brewster&rsquo;s general
+idea was that fortune had smiled upon him in an almost unbelievable fashion and
+had presented him with a son-in-law who combined in almost equal parts the more
+admirable characteristics of Apollo, Sir Galahad, and Marcus Aurelius. True, he
+had gathered in the course of the conversation that dear Archie had no
+occupation and no private means; but Mr. Brewster felt that a great-souled man
+like Archie didn&rsquo;t need them. You can&rsquo;t have everything, and
+Archie, according to Lucille&rsquo;s account, was practically a hundred per
+cent man in soul, looks, manners, amiability, and breeding. These are the
+things that count. Mr. Brewster proceeded to the lobby in a glow of optimism
+and geniality.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Consequently, when he perceived Archie, he got a bit of a shock.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Hullo&mdash;ullo&mdash;ullo!&rdquo; said Archie, advancing happily.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Archie, darling, this is father,&rdquo; said Lucille.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Good Lord!&rdquo; said Archie.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+There was one of those silences. Mr. Brewster looked at Archie. Archie gazed at
+Mr. Brewster. Lucille, perceiving without understanding why that the big
+introduction scene had stubbed its toe on some unlooked-for obstacle, waited
+anxiously for enlightenment. Meanwhile, Archie continued to inspect Mr.
+Brewster, and Mr. Brewster continued to drink in Archie.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+After an awkward pause of about three and a quarter minutes, Mr. Brewster
+swallowed once or twice, and finally spoke.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Lu!&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Yes, father?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Is this true?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Lucille&rsquo;s grey eyes clouded over with perplexity and apprehension.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;True?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Have you really inflicted this&mdash;<i>this</i> on me for a
+son-in-law?&rdquo; Mr. Brewster swallowed a few more times, Archie the while
+watching with a frozen fascination the rapid shimmying of his new
+relative&rsquo;s Adam&rsquo;s-apple. &ldquo;Go away! I want to have a few words
+alone with this&mdash;This&mdash;<i>wassyourdamname?</i>&rdquo; he demanded, in
+an overwrought manner, addressing Archie for the first time.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;I told you, father. It&rsquo;s Moom.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Moom?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;It&rsquo;s spelt M-o-f-f-a-m, but pronounced Moom.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;To rhyme,&rdquo; said Archie, helpfully, &ldquo;with
+Bluffinghame.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Lu,&rdquo; said Mr. Brewster, &ldquo;run away! I want to speak
+to-to-to&mdash;&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;You called me <i>this</i> before,&rdquo; said Archie.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;You aren&rsquo;t angry, father, dear?&rdquo; said Lucilla.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Oh no! Oh no! I&rsquo;m tickled to death!&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+When his daughter had withdrawn, Mr. Brewster drew a long breath.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Now then!&rdquo; he said.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Bit embarrassing, all this, what!&rdquo; said Archie, chattily. &ldquo;I
+mean to say, having met before in less happy circs. and what not. Rum
+coincidence and so forth! How would it be to bury the jolly old
+hatchet&mdash;start a new life&mdash;forgive and forget&mdash;learn to love
+each other&mdash;and all that sort of rot? I&rsquo;m game if you are. How do we
+go? Is it a bet?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Mr. Brewster remained entirely unsoftened by this manly appeal to his better
+feelings.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;What the devil do you mean by marrying my daughter?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Archie reflected.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Well, it sort of happened, don&rsquo;t you know! You know how these
+things <i>are!</i> Young yourself once, and all that. I was most frightfully in
+love, and Lu seemed to think it wouldn&rsquo;t be a bad scheme, and one thing
+led to another, and&mdash;well, there you are, don&rsquo;t you know!&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;And I suppose you think you&rsquo;ve done pretty well for
+yourself?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Oh, absolutely! As far as I&rsquo;m concerned, everything&rsquo;s
+topping! I&rsquo;ve never felt so braced in my life!&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Yes!&rdquo; said Mr. Brewster, with bitterness, &ldquo;I suppose, from
+your view-point, everything <i>is</i> &lsquo;topping.&rsquo; You haven&rsquo;t
+a cent to your name, and you&rsquo;ve managed to fool a rich man&rsquo;s
+daughter into marrying you. I suppose you looked me up in Bradstreet before
+committing yourself?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+This aspect of the matter had not struck Archie until this moment.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;I say!&rdquo; he observed, with dismay. &ldquo;I never looked at it like
+that before! I can see that, from your point of view, this must look like a bit
+of a wash-out!&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;How do you propose to support Lucille, anyway?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Archie ran a finger round the inside of his collar. He felt embarrassed, His
+father-in-law was opening up all kinds of new lines of thought.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Well, there, old bean,&rdquo; he admitted, frankly, &ldquo;you rather
+have me!&rdquo; He turned the matter over for a moment. &ldquo;I had a sort of
+idea of, as it were, working, if you know what I mean.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Working at what?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Now, there again you stump me somewhat! The general scheme was that I
+should kind of look round, you know, and nose about and buzz to and fro till
+something turned up. That was, broadly speaking, the notion!&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;And how did you suppose my daughter was to live while you were doing all
+this?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Well, I think,&rdquo; said Archie, &ldquo;I <i>think</i> we rather
+expected <i>you</i> to rally round a bit for the nonce!&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;I see! You expected to live on me?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Well, you put it a bit crudely, but&mdash;as far as I had mapped
+anything out&mdash;that WAS what you might call the general scheme of
+procedure. You don&rsquo;t think much of it, what? Yes? No?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Mr. Brewster exploded.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;No! I do not think much of it! Good God! You go out of my
+hotel&mdash;<i>my</i> hotel&mdash;calling it all the names you could think
+of&mdash;roasting it to beat the band&mdash;&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Trifle hasty!&rdquo; murmured Archie, apologetically. &ldquo;Spoke
+without thinking. Dashed tap had gone <i>drip-drip-drip</i> all
+night&mdash;kept me awake&mdash;hadn&rsquo;t had breakfast&mdash;bygones be
+bygones&mdash;!&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Don&rsquo;t interrupt! I say, you go out of my hotel, knocking it as no
+one has ever knocked it since it was built, and you sneak straight off and
+marry my daughter without my knowledge.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Did think of wiring for blessing. Slipped the old bean, somehow. You
+know how one forgets things!&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;And now you come back and calmly expect me to fling my arms round you
+and kiss you, and support you for the rest of your life!&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Only while I&rsquo;m nosing about and buzzing to and fro.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Well, I suppose I&rsquo;ve got to support you. There seems no way out of
+it. I&rsquo;ll tell you exactly what I propose to do. You think my hotel is a
+pretty poor hotel, eh? Well, you&rsquo;ll have plenty of opportunity of
+judging, because you&rsquo;re coming to live here. I&rsquo;ll let you have a
+suite and I&rsquo;ll let you have your meals, but outside of that&mdash;nothing
+doing! Nothing doing! Do you understand what I mean?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Absolutely! You mean, &lsquo;Napoo!&rsquo;&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;You can sign bills for a reasonable amount in my restaurant, and the
+hotel will look after your laundry. But not a cent do you get out of me. And,
+if you want your shoes shined, you can pay for it yourself in the basement. If
+you leave them outside your door, I&rsquo;ll instruct the floor-waiter to throw
+them down the air-shaft. Do you understand? Good! Now, is there anything more
+you want to ask?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Archie smiled a propitiatory smile.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Well, as a matter of fact, I was going to ask if you would stagger along
+and have a bite with us in the grill-room?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;I will not!&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;I&rsquo;ll sign the bill,&rdquo; said Archie, ingratiatingly. &ldquo;You
+don&rsquo;t think much of it? Oh, right-o!&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+</div><!--end chapter-->
+
+<div class="chapter">
+
+<h2><a name="chap04"></a>CHAPTER IV.<br/>
+WORK WANTED</h2>
+
+<p>
+It seemed to Archie, as he surveyed his position at the end of the first month
+of his married life, that all was for the best in the best of all possible
+worlds. In their attitude towards America, visiting Englishmen almost
+invariably incline to extremes, either detesting all that therein is or else
+becoming enthusiasts on the subject of the country, its climate, and its
+institutions. Archie belonged to the second class. He liked America and got on
+splendidly with Americans from the start. He was a friendly soul, a mixer; and
+in New York, that city of mixers, he found himself at home. The atmosphere of
+good-fellowship and the open-hearted hospitality of everybody he met appealed
+to him. There were moments when it seemed to him as though New York had simply
+been waiting for him to arrive before giving the word to let the revels
+commence.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Nothing, of course, in this world is perfect; and, rosy as were the glasses
+through which Archie looked on his new surroundings, he had to admit that there
+was one flaw, one fly in the ointment, one individual caterpillar in the salad.
+Mr. Daniel Brewster, his father-in-law, remained consistently unfriendly.
+Indeed, his manner towards his new relative became daily more and more a manner
+which would have caused gossip on the plantation if Simon Legree had exhibited
+it in his relations with Uncle Tom. And this in spite of the fact that Archie,
+as early as the third morning of his stay, had gone to him and in the most
+frank and manly way, had withdrawn his criticism of the Hotel Cosmopolis,
+giving it as his considered opinion that the Hotel Cosmopolis on closer
+inspection appeared to be a good egg, one of the best and brightest, and a bit
+of all right.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;A credit to you, old thing,&rdquo; said Archie cordially.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Don&rsquo;t call me old thing!&rdquo; growled Mr. Brewster.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Right-o, old companion!&rdquo; said Archie amiably.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Archie, a true philosopher, bore this hostility with fortitude, but it worried
+Lucille.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;I do wish father understood you better,&rdquo; was her wistful comment
+when Archie had related the conversation.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Well, you know,&rdquo; said Archie, &ldquo;I&rsquo;m open for being
+understood any time he cares to take a stab at it.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;You must try and make him fond of you.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;But how? I smile winsomely at him and what not, but he doesn&rsquo;t
+respond.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Well, we shall have to think of something. I want him to realise what an
+angel you are. You <i>are</i> an angel, you know.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;No, really?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Of course you are.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;It&rsquo;s a rummy thing,&rdquo; said Archie, pursuing a train of
+thought which was constantly with him, &ldquo;the more I see of you, the more I
+wonder how you can have a father like&mdash;I mean to say, what I mean to say
+is, I wish I had known your mother; she must have been frightfully
+attractive.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;What would really please him, I know,&rdquo; said Lucille, &ldquo;would
+be if you got some work to do. He loves people who work.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Yes?&rdquo; said Archie doubtfully. &ldquo;Well, you know, I heard him
+interviewing that chappie behind the desk this morning, who works like the
+dickens from early morn to dewy eve, on the subject of a mistake in his
+figures; and, if he loved him, he dissembled it all right. Of course, I admit
+that so far I haven&rsquo;t been one of the toilers, but the dashed difficult
+thing is to know how to start. I&rsquo;m nosing round, but the openings for a
+bright young man seem so scarce.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Well, keep on trying. I feel sure that, if you could only find something
+to do, it doesn&rsquo;t matter what, father would be quite different.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+It was possibly the dazzling prospect of making Mr. Brewster quite different
+that stimulated Archie. He was strongly of the opinion that any change in his
+father-in-law must inevitably be for the better. A chance meeting with James B.
+Wheeler, the artist, at the Pen-and-Ink Club seemed to open the way.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+To a visitor to New York who has the ability to make himself liked it almost
+appears as though the leading industry in that city was the issuing of
+two-weeks&rsquo; invitation-cards to clubs. Archie since his arrival had been
+showered with these pleasant evidences of his popularity; and he was now an
+honorary member of so many clubs of various kinds that he had not time to go to
+them all. There were the fashionable clubs along Fifth Avenue to which his
+friend Reggie van Tuyl, son of his Florida hostess, had introduced him. There
+were the businessmen&rsquo;s clubs of which he was made free by more solid
+citizens. And, best of all, there were the Lambs&rsquo;, the Players&rsquo;,
+the Friars&rsquo;, the Coffee-House, the Pen-and-Ink,&mdash;and the other
+resorts of the artist, the author, the actor, and the Bohemian. It was in these
+that Archie spent most of his time, and it was here that he made the
+acquaintance of J. B. Wheeler, the popular illustrator.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+To Mr. Wheeler, over a friendly lunch, Archie had been confiding some of his
+ambitions to qualify as the hero of one of the
+Get-on-or-get-out-young-man-step-lively-books.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;You want a job?&rdquo; said Mr. Wheeler.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;I want a job,&rdquo; said Archie.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Mr. Wheeler consumed eight fried potatoes in quick succession. He was an able
+trencherman.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;I always looked on you as one of our leading lilies of the field,&rdquo;
+he said. &ldquo;Why this anxiety to toil and spin?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Well, my wife, you know, seems to think it might put me one-up with the
+jolly old dad if I did something.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;And you&rsquo;re not particular what you do, so long as it has the outer
+aspect of work?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Anything in the world, laddie, anything in the world.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Then come and pose for a picture I&rsquo;m doing,&rdquo; said J. B.
+Wheeler. &ldquo;It&rsquo;s for a magazine cover. You&rsquo;re just the model I
+want, and I&rsquo;ll pay you at the usual rates. Is it a go?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Pose?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;You&rsquo;ve only got to stand still and look like a chunk of wood. You
+can do that, surely?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;I can do that,&rdquo; said Archie.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Then come along down to my studio to-morrow.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Right-o!&rdquo; said Archie.
+</p>
+
+</div><!--end chapter-->
+
+<div class="chapter">
+
+<h2><a name="chap05"></a>CHAPTER V.<br/>
+STRANGE EXPERIENCES OF AN ARTIST&rsquo;S MODEL</h2>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;I say, old thing!&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Archie spoke plaintively. Already he was looking back ruefully to the time when
+he had supposed that an artist&rsquo;s model had a soft job. In the first five
+minutes muscles which he had not been aware that he possessed had started to
+ache like neglected teeth. His respect for the toughness and durability of
+artists&rsquo; models was now solid. How they acquired the stamina to go
+through this sort of thing all day and then bound off to Bohemian revels at
+night was more than he could understand.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Don&rsquo;t wobble, confound you!&rdquo; snorted Mr. Wheeler.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Yes, but, my dear old artist,&rdquo; said Archie, &ldquo;what you
+don&rsquo;t seem to grasp&mdash;what you appear not to realise&mdash;is that
+I&rsquo;m getting a crick in the back.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;You weakling! You miserable, invertebrate worm. Move an inch and
+I&rsquo;ll murder you, and come and dance on your grave every Wednesday and
+Saturday. I&rsquo;m just getting it.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;It&rsquo;s in the spine that it seems to catch me principally.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Be a man, you faint-hearted string-bean!&rdquo; urged J. B. Wheeler.
+&ldquo;You ought to be ashamed of yourself. Why, a girl who was posing for me
+last week stood for a solid hour on one leg, holding a tennis racket over her
+head and smiling brightly withal.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;The female of the species is more india-rubbery than the male,&rdquo;
+argued Archie.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Well, I&rsquo;ll be through in a few minutes. Don&rsquo;t weaken. Think
+how proud you&rsquo;ll be when you see yourself on all the bookstalls.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Archie sighed, and braced himself to the task once more. He wished he had never
+taken on this binge. In addition to his physical discomfort, he was feeling a
+most awful chump. The cover on which Mr. Wheeler was engaged was for the August
+number of the magazine, and it had been necessary for Archie to drape his
+reluctant form in a two-piece bathing suit of a vivid lemon colour; for he was
+supposed to be representing one of those jolly dogs belonging to the best
+families who dive off floats at exclusive seashore resorts. J. B. Wheeler, a
+stickler for accuracy, had wanted him to remove his socks and shoes; but there
+Archie had stood firm. He was willing to make an ass of himself, but not a
+silly ass.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;All right,&rdquo; said J. B. Wheeler, laying down his brush. &ldquo;That
+will do for to-day. Though, speaking without prejudice and with no wish to be
+offensive, if I had had a model who wasn&rsquo;t a weak-kneed, jelly-backboned
+son of Belial, I could have got the darned thing finished without having to
+have another sitting.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;I wonder why you chappies call this sort of thing
+&lsquo;sitting,&rsquo;&rdquo; said Archie, pensively, as he conducted tentative
+experiments in osteopathy on his aching back. &ldquo;I say, old thing, I could
+do with a restorative, if you have one handy. But, of course, you
+haven&rsquo;t, I suppose,&rdquo; he added, resignedly. Abstemious as a rule,
+there were moments when Archie found the Eighteenth Amendment somewhat trying.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+J. B. Wheeler shook his head.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;You&rsquo;re a little previous,&rdquo; he said. &ldquo;But come round in
+another day or so, and I may be able to do something for you.&rdquo; He moved
+with a certain conspirator-like caution to a corner of the room, and, lifting
+to one side a pile of canvases, revealed a stout barrel, which he regarded with
+a fatherly and benignant eye. &ldquo;I don&rsquo;t mind telling you that, in
+the fullness of time, I believe this is going to spread a good deal of
+sweetness and light.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Oh, ah,&rdquo; said Archie, interested. &ldquo;Home-brew, what?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Made with these hands. I added a few more raisins yesterday, to speed
+things up a bit. There is much virtue in your raisin. And, talking of speeding
+things up, for goodness&rsquo; sake try to be a bit more punctual to-morrow. We
+lost an hour of good daylight to-day.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;I like that! I was here on the absolute minute. I had to hang about on
+the landing waiting for you.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Well, well, that doesn&rsquo;t matter,&rdquo; said J. B. Wheeler,
+impatiently, for the artist soul is always annoyed by petty details. &ldquo;The
+point is that we were an hour late in getting to work. Mind you&rsquo;re here
+to-morrow at eleven sharp.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p class="p2">
+It was, therefore, with a feeling of guilt and trepidation that Archie mounted
+the stairs on the following morning; for in spite of his good resolutions he
+was half an hour behind time. He was relieved to find that his friend had also
+lagged by the wayside. The door of the studio was ajar, and he went in, to
+discover the place occupied by a lady of mature years, who was scrubbing the
+floor with a mop. He went into the bedroom and donned his bathing suit. When he
+emerged, ten minutes later, the charwoman had gone, but J. B. Wheeler was still
+absent. Rather glad of the respite, he sat down to kill time by reading the
+morning paper, whose sporting page alone he had managed to master at the
+breakfast table.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+There was not a great deal in the paper to interest him. The usual bond-robbery
+had taken place on the previous day, and the police were reported hot on the
+trail of the Master-Mind who was alleged to be at the back of these financial
+operations. A messenger named Henry Babcock had been arrested and was expected
+to become confidential. To one who, like Archie, had never owned a bond, the
+story made little appeal. He turned with more interest to a cheery half-column
+on the activities of a gentleman in Minnesota who, with what seemed to Archie,
+as he thought of Mr. Daniel Brewster, a good deal of resource and public
+spirit, had recently beaned his father-in-law with the family meat-axe. It was
+only after he had read this through twice in a spirit of gentle approval that
+it occurred to him that J. B. Wheeler was uncommonly late at the tryst. He
+looked at his watch, and found that he had been in the studio three-quarters of
+an hour.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Archie became restless. Long-suffering old bean though he was, he considered
+this a bit thick. He got up and went out on to the landing, to see if there
+were any signs of the blighter. There were none. He began to understand now
+what had happened. For some reason or other the bally artist was not coming to
+the studio at all that day. Probably he had called up the hotel and left a
+message to this effect, and Archie had just missed it. Another man might have
+waited to make certain that his message had reached its destination, but not
+woollen-headed Wheeler, the most casual individual in New York.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Thoroughly aggrieved, Archie turned back to the studio to dress and go away.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+His progress was stayed by a solid, forbidding slab of oak. Somehow or other,
+since he had left the room, the door had managed to get itself shut.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Oh, dash it!&rdquo; said Archie.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The mildness of the expletive was proof that the full horror of the situation
+had not immediately come home to him. His mind in the first few moments was
+occupied with the problem of how the door had got that way. He could not
+remember shutting it. Probably he had done it unconsciously. As a child, he had
+been taught by sedulous elders that the little gentleman always closed doors
+behind him, and presumably his subconscious self was still under the influence.
+And then, suddenly, he realised that this infernal, officious ass of a
+subconscious self had deposited him right in the gumbo. Behind that closed
+door, unattainable as youthful ambition, lay his gent&rsquo;s heather-mixture
+with the green twill, and here he was, out in the world, alone, in a
+lemon-coloured bathing suit.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+In all crises of human affairs there are two broad courses open to a man. He
+can stay where he is or he can go elsewhere. Archie, leaning on the banisters,
+examined these alternatives narrowly. If he stayed where he was he would have
+to spend the night on this dashed landing. If he legged it, in this kit, he
+would be gathered up by the constabulary before he had gone a hundred yards. He
+was no pessimist, but he was reluctantly forced to the conclusion that he was
+up against it.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+It was while he was musing with a certain tenseness on these things that the
+sound of footsteps came to him from below. But almost in the first instant the
+hope that this might be J. B. Wheeler, the curse of the human race, died away.
+Whoever was coming up the stairs was running, and J. B. Wheeler never ran
+upstairs. He was not one of your lean, haggard, spiritual-looking geniuses. He
+made a large income with his brush and pencil, and spent most of it in creature
+comforts. This couldn&rsquo;t be J. B. Wheeler.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+It was not. It was a tall, thin man whom he had never seen before. He appeared
+to be in a considerable hurry. He let himself into the studio on the floor
+below, and vanished without even waiting to shut the door.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+He had come and disappeared in almost record time, but, brief though his
+passing had been, it had been long enough to bring consolation to Archie. A
+sudden bright light had been vouchsafed to Archie, and he now saw an admirably
+ripe and fruity scheme for ending his troubles. What could be simpler than to
+toddle down one flight of stairs and in an easy and debonair manner ask the
+chappie&rsquo;s permission to use his telephone? And what could be simpler,
+once he was at the &rsquo;phone, than to get in touch with somebody at the
+Cosmopolis who would send down a few trousers and what not in a kit bag. It was
+a priceless solution, thought Archie, as he made his way downstairs. Not even
+embarrassing, he meant to say. This chappie, living in a place like this,
+wouldn&rsquo;t bat an eyelid at the spectacle of a fellow trickling about the
+place in a bathing suit. They would have a good laugh about the whole thing.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;I say, I hate to bother you&mdash;dare say you&rsquo;re busy and all
+that sort of thing&mdash;but would you mind if I popped in for half a second
+and used your &rsquo;phone?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+That was the speech, the extremely gentlemanly and well-phrased speech which
+Archie had prepared to deliver the moment the man appeared. The reason he did
+not deliver it was that the man did not appear. He knocked, but nothing
+stirred.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;I say!&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Archie now perceived that the door was ajar, and that on an envelope attached
+with a tack to one of the panels was the name &ldquo;Elmer M. Moon&rdquo; He
+pushed the door a little farther open and tried again.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Oh, Mr. Moon! Mr. Moon!&rdquo; He waited a moment. &ldquo;Oh, Mr. Moon!
+Mr. Moon! Are you there, Mr. Moon?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+He blushed hotly. To his sensitive ear the words had sounded exactly like the
+opening line of the refrain of a vaudeville song-hit. He decided to waste no
+further speech on a man with such an unfortunate surname until he could see him
+face to face and get a chance of lowering his voice a bit. Absolutely absurd to
+stand outside a chappie&rsquo;s door singing song-hits in a lemon-coloured
+bathing suit. He pushed the door open and walked in; and his subconscious self,
+always the gentleman, closed it gently behind him.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Up!&rdquo; said a low, sinister, harsh, unfriendly, and unpleasant
+voice.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Eh?&rdquo; said Archie, revolving sharply on his axis.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+He found himself confronting the hurried gentleman who had run upstairs. This
+sprinter had produced an automatic pistol, and was pointing it in a truculent
+manner at his head. Archie stared at his host, and his host stared at him.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Put your hands up,&rdquo; he said.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Oh, right-o! Absolutely!&rdquo; said Archie. &ldquo;But I mean to
+say&mdash;&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The other was drinking him in with considerable astonishment. Archie&rsquo;s
+costume seemed to have made a powerful impression upon him.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Who the devil are you?&rdquo; he enquired.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Me? Oh, my name&rsquo;s&mdash;&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Never mind your name. What are you doing here?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Well, as a matter of fact, I popped in to ask if I might use your
+&rsquo;phone. You see&mdash;&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+A certain relief seemed to temper the austerity of the other&rsquo;s gaze. As a
+visitor, Archie, though surprising, seemed to be better than he had expected.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;I don&rsquo;t know what to do with you,&rdquo; he said, meditatively.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;If you&rsquo;d just let me toddle to the &rsquo;phone&mdash;&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Likely!&rdquo; said the man. He appeared to reach a decision.
+&ldquo;Here, go into that room.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+He indicated with a jerk of his head the open door of what was apparently a
+bedroom at the farther end of the studio.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;I take it,&rdquo; said Archie, chattily, &ldquo;that all this may seem
+to you not a little rummy.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Get on!&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;I was only saying&mdash;&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Well, I haven&rsquo;t time to listen. Get a move on!&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The bedroom was in a state of untidiness which eclipsed anything which Archie
+had ever witnessed. The other appeared to be moving house. Bed, furniture, and
+floor were covered with articles of clothing. A silk shirt wreathed itself
+about Archie&rsquo;s ankles as he stood gaping, and, as he moved farther into
+the room, his path was paved with ties and collars.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Sit down!&rdquo; said Elmer M. Moon, abruptly.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Right-o! Thanks,&rdquo; said Archie, &ldquo;I suppose you wouldn&rsquo;t
+like me to explain, and what not, what?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;No!&rdquo; said Mr. Moon. &ldquo;I haven&rsquo;t got your spare time.
+Put your hands behind that chair.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Archie did so, and found them immediately secured by what felt like a silk tie.
+His assiduous host then proceeded to fasten his ankles in a like manner. This
+done, he seemed to feel that he had done all that was required of him, and he
+returned to the packing of a large suitcase which stood by the window.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;I say!&rdquo; said Archie.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Mr. Moon, with the air of a man who has remembered something which he had
+overlooked, shoved a sock in his guest&rsquo;s mouth and resumed his packing.
+He was what might be called an impressionist packer. His aim appeared to be
+speed rather than neatness. He bundled his belongings in, closed the bag with
+some difficulty, and, stepping to the window, opened it. Then he climbed out on
+to the fire-escape, dragged the suit-case after him, and was gone.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Archie, left alone, addressed himself to the task of freeing his prisoned
+limbs. The job proved much easier than he had expected. Mr. Moon, that hustler,
+had wrought for the moment, not for all time. A practical man, he had been
+content to keep his visitor shackled merely for such a period as would permit
+him to make his escape unhindered. In less than ten minutes Archie, after a
+good deal of snake-like writhing, was pleased to discover that the thingummy
+attached to his wrists had loosened sufficiently to enable him to use his
+hands. He untied himself and got up.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+He now began to tell himself that out of evil cometh good. His encounter with
+the elusive Mr. Moon had not been an agreeable one, but it had had this solid
+advantage, that it had left him right in the middle of a great many clothes.
+And Mr. Moon, whatever his moral defects, had the one excellent quality of
+taking about the same size as himself. Archie, casting a covetous eye upon a
+tweed suit which lay on the bed, was on the point of climbing into the trousers
+when on the outer door of the studio there sounded a forceful knocking.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Open up here!&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+</div><!--end chapter-->
+
+<div class="chapter">
+
+<h2><a name="chap06"></a>CHAPTER VI.<br/>
+THE BOMB</h2>
+
+<p>
+Archie bounded silently out into the other room and stood listening tensely. He
+was not a naturally querulous man, but he did feel at this point that Fate was
+picking on him with a somewhat undue severity.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;In th&rsquo; name av th&rsquo; Law!&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+There are times when the best of us lose our heads. At this juncture Archie
+should undoubtedly have gone to the door, opened it, explained his presence in
+a few well-chosen words, and generally have passed the whole thing off with
+ready tact. But the thought of confronting a posse of police in his present
+costume caused him to look earnestly about him for a hiding-place.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Up against the farther wall was a settee with a high, arching back, which might
+have been put there for that special purpose. He inserted himself behind this,
+just as a splintering crash announced that the Law, having gone through the
+formality of knocking with its knuckles, was now getting busy with an axe. A
+moment later the door had given way, and the room was full of trampling feet.
+Archie wedged himself against the wall with the quiet concentration of a clam
+nestling in its shell, and hoped for the best.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+It seemed to him that his immediate future depended for better or for worse
+entirely on the native intelligence of the Force. If they were the bright,
+alert men he hoped they were, they would see all that junk in the bedroom and,
+deducing from it that their quarry had stood not upon the order of his going
+but had hopped it, would not waste time in searching a presumably empty
+apartment. If, on the other hand, they were the obtuse, flat-footed persons who
+occasionally find their way into the ranks of even the most enlightened
+constabularies, they would undoubtedly shift the settee and drag him into a
+publicity from which his modest soul shrank. He was enchanted, therefore, a few
+moments later, to hear a gruff voice state that th&rsquo; mutt had beaten it
+down th&rsquo; fire-escape. His opinion of the detective abilities of the New
+York police force rose with a bound.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+There followed a brief council of war, which, as it took place in the bedroom,
+was inaudible to Archie except as a distant growling noise. He could
+distinguish no words, but, as it was succeeded by a general trampling of large
+boots in the direction of the door and then by silence, he gathered that the
+pack, having drawn the studio and found it empty, had decided to return to
+other and more profitable duties. He gave them a reasonable interval for
+removing themselves, and then poked his head cautiously over the settee.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+All was peace. The place was empty. No sound disturbed the stillness.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Archie emerged. For the first time in this morning of disturbing occurrences he
+began to feel that God was in his heaven and all right with the world. At last
+things were beginning to brighten up a bit, and life might be said to have
+taken on some of the aspects of a good egg. He stretched himself, for it is
+cramping work lying under settees, and, proceeding to the bedroom, picked up
+the tweed trousers again.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Clothes had a fascination for Archie. Another man, in similar circumstances,
+might have hurried over his toilet; but Archie, faced by a difficult choice of
+ties, rather strung the thing out. He selected a specimen which did great
+credit to the taste of Mr. Moon, evidently one of our snappiest dressers, found
+that it did not harmonise with the deeper meaning of the tweed suit, removed
+it, chose another, and was adjusting the bow and admiring the effect, when his
+attention was diverted by a slight sound which was half a cough and half a
+sniff; and, turning, found himself gazing into the clear blue eyes of a large
+man in uniform, who had stepped into the room from the fire-escape. He was
+swinging a substantial club in a negligent sort of way, and he looked at Archie
+with a total absence of bonhomie.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Ah!&rdquo; he observed.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Oh, <i>there</i> you are!&rdquo; said Archie, subsiding weakly against
+the chest of drawers. He gulped. &ldquo;Of course, I can see you&rsquo;re
+thinking all this pretty tolerably weird and all that,&rdquo; he proceeded, in
+a propitiatory voice.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The policeman attempted no analysis of his emotions, He opened a mouth which a
+moment before had looked incapable of being opened except with the assistance
+of powerful machinery, and shouted a single word.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Cassidy!&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+A distant voice gave tongue in answer. It was like alligators roaring to their
+mates across lonely swamps.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+There was a rumble of footsteps in the region of the stairs, and presently
+there entered an even larger guardian of the Law than the first exhibit. He,
+too, swung a massive club, and, like his colleague, he gazed frostily at
+Archie.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;God save Ireland!&rdquo; he remarked.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The words appeared to be more in the nature of an expletive than a practical
+comment on the situation. Having uttered them, he draped himself in the doorway
+like a colossus, and chewed gum.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Where ja get him?&rdquo; he enquired, after a pause.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Found him in here attimpting to disguise himself.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;I told Cap. he was hiding somewheres, but he would have it that
+he&rsquo;d beat it down th&rsquo; escape,&rdquo; said the gum-chewer, with the
+sombre triumph of the underling whose sound advice has been overruled by those
+above him. He shifted his wholesome (or, as some say, unwholesome) morsel to
+the other side of his mouth, and for the first time addressed Archie directly.
+&ldquo;Ye&rsquo;re pinched!&rdquo; he observed.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Archie started violently. The bleak directness of the speech roused him with a
+jerk from the dream-like state into which he had fallen. He had not anticipated
+this. He had assumed that there would be a period of tedious explanations to be
+gone through before he was at liberty to depart to the cosy little lunch for
+which his interior had been sighing wistfully this long time past; but that he
+should be arrested had been outside his calculations. Of course, he could put
+everything right eventually; he could call witnesses to his character and the
+purity of his intentions; but in the meantime the whole dashed business would
+be in all the papers, embellished with all those unpleasant flippancies to
+which your newspaper reporter is so prone to stoop when he sees half a chance.
+He would feel a frightful chump. Chappies would rot him about it to the most
+fearful extent. Old Brewster&rsquo;s name would come into it, and he could not
+disguise it from himself that his father-in-law, who liked his name in the
+papers as little as possible, would be sorer than a sunburned neck.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;No, I say, you know! I mean, I mean to say!&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Pinched!&rdquo; repeated the rather larger policeman.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;And annything ye say,&rdquo; added his slightly smaller colleague,
+&ldquo;will be used agenst ya &rsquo;t the trial.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;And if ya try t&rsquo;escape,&rdquo; said the first speaker, twiddling
+his club, &ldquo;ya&rsquo;ll getja block knocked off.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+And, having sketched out this admirably clear and neatly-constructed scenario,
+the two relapsed into silence. Officer Cassidy restored his gum to circulation.
+Officer Donahue frowned sternly at his boots.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;But, I say,&rdquo; said Archie, &ldquo;it&rsquo;s all a mistake, you
+know. Absolutely a frightful error, my dear old constables. I&rsquo;m not the
+lad you&rsquo;re after at all. The chappie you want is a different sort of
+fellow altogether. Another blighter entirely.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+New York policemen never laugh when on duty. There is probably something in the
+regulations against it. But Officer Donahue permitted the left corner of his
+mouth to twitch slightly, and a momentary muscular spasm disturbed the calm of
+Officer Cassidy&rsquo;s granite features, as a passing breeze ruffles the
+surface of some bottomless lake.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;That&rsquo;s what they all say!&rdquo; observed Officer Donahue.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;It&rsquo;s no use tryin&rsquo; that line of talk,&rdquo; said Officer
+Cassidy. &ldquo;Babcock&rsquo;s squealed.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Sure. Squealed &rsquo;s morning,&rdquo; said Officer Donahue.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Archie&rsquo;s memory stirred vaguely.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Babcock?&rdquo; he said. &ldquo;Do you know, that name seems familiar to
+me, somehow. I&rsquo;m almost sure I&rsquo;ve read it in the paper or
+something.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Ah, cut it out!&rdquo; said Officer Cassidy, disgustedly. The two
+constables exchanged a glance of austere disapproval. This hypocrisy pained
+them. &ldquo;Read it in th&rsquo; paper or something!&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;By Jove! I remember now. He&rsquo;s the chappie who was arrested in that
+bond business. For goodness&rsquo; sake, my dear, merry old constables,&rdquo;
+said Archie, astounded, &ldquo;you surely aren&rsquo;t labouring under the
+impression that I&rsquo;m the Master-Mind they were talking about in the paper?
+Why, what an absolutely priceless notion! I mean to say, I ask you, what!
+Frankly, laddies, do I look like a Master-Mind?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Officer Cassidy heaved a deep sigh, which rumbled up from his interior like the
+first muttering of a cyclone.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;If I&rsquo;d known,&rdquo; he said, regretfully, &ldquo;that this guy
+was going to turn out a ruddy Englishman, I&rsquo;d have taken a slap at him
+with m&rsquo; stick and chanced it!&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Officer Donahue considered the point well taken.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Ah!&rdquo; he said, understandingly. He regarded Archie with an
+unfriendly eye. &ldquo;I know th&rsquo; sort well! Trampling on th&rsquo; face
+av th&rsquo; poor!&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Ya c&rsquo;n trample on the poor man&rsquo;s face,&rdquo; said Officer
+Cassidy, severely; &ldquo;but don&rsquo;t be surprised if one day he bites you
+in the leg!&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;But, my dear old sir,&rdquo; protested Archie, &ldquo;I&rsquo;ve never
+trampled&mdash;&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;One of these days,&rdquo; said Officer Donahue, moodily, &ldquo;the
+Shannon will flow in blood to the sea!&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Absolutely! But&mdash;&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Officer Cassidy uttered a glad cry.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Why couldn&rsquo;t we hit him a lick,&rdquo; he suggested, brightly,
+&ldquo;an&rsquo; tell th&rsquo; Cap. he resisted us in th&rsquo; exercise of
+our jooty?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+An instant gleam of approval and enthusiasm came into Officer Donahue&rsquo;s
+eyes. Officer Donahue was not a man who got these luminous inspirations
+himself, but that did not prevent him appreciating them in others and bestowing
+commendation in the right quarter. There was nothing petty or grudging about
+Officer Donahue.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Ye&rsquo;re the lad with the head, Tim!&rdquo; he exclaimed admiringly.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;It just sorta came to me,&rdquo; said Mr. Cassidy, modestly.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;It&rsquo;s a great idea, Timmy!&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Just happened to think of it,&rdquo; said Mr. Cassidy, with a coy
+gesture of self-effacement.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Archie had listened to the dialogue with growing uneasiness. Not for the first
+time since he had made their acquaintance, he became vividly aware of the
+exceptional physical gifts of these two men. The New York police force demands
+from those who would join its ranks an extremely high standard of stature and
+sinew, but it was obvious that jolly old Donahue and Cassidy must have passed
+in first shot without any difficulty whatever.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;I say, you know,&rdquo; he observed, apprehensively.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+And then a sharp and commanding voice spoke from the outer room.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Donahue! Cassidy! What the devil does this mean?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Archie had a momentary impression that an angel had fluttered down to his
+rescue. If this was the case, the angel had assumed an effective
+disguise&mdash;that of a police captain. The new arrival was a far smaller man
+than his subordinates&mdash;so much smaller that it did Archie good to look at
+him. For a long time he had been wishing that it were possible to rest his eyes
+with the spectacle of something of a slightly less out-size nature than his two
+companions.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Why have you left your posts?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The effect of the interruption on the Messrs. Cassidy and Donahue was
+pleasingly instantaneous. They seemed to shrink to almost normal proportions,
+and their manner took on an attractive deference.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Officer Donahue saluted.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;If ye plaze, sorr&mdash;&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Officer Cassidy also saluted, simultaneously.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;&rsquo;Twas like this, sorr&mdash;&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The captain froze Officer Cassidy with a glance and, leaving him congealed,
+turned to Officer Donahue.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Oi wuz standing on th&rsquo; fire-escape, sorr,&rdquo; said Officer
+Donahue, in a tone of obsequious respect which not only delighted, but
+astounded Archie, who hadn&rsquo;t known he could talk like that,
+&ldquo;accordin&rsquo; to instructions, when I heard a suspicious noise. I
+crope in, sorr, and found this duck&mdash;found the accused, sorr&mdash;in
+front of the mirror, examinin&rsquo; himself. I then called to Officer Cassidy
+for assistance. We pinched&mdash;arrested um, sorr.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The captain looked at Archie. It seemed to Archie that he looked at him coldly
+and with contempt.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Who is he?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;The Master-Mind, sorr.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;The what?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;The accused, sorr. The man that&rsquo;s wanted.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;You may want him. I don&rsquo;t,&rdquo; said the captain. Archie, though
+relieved, thought he might have put it more nicely. &ldquo;This isn&rsquo;t
+Moon. It&rsquo;s not a bit like him.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Absolutely not!&rdquo; agreed Archie, cordially. &ldquo;It&rsquo;s all a
+mistake, old companion, as I was trying to&mdash;&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Cut it out!&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Oh, right-o!&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;You&rsquo;ve seen the photographs at the station. Do you mean to tell me
+you see any resemblance?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;If ye plaze, sorr,&rdquo; said Officer Cassidy, coming to life.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Well?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;We thought he&rsquo;d bin disguising himself, the way he wouldn&rsquo;t
+be recognised.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;You&rsquo;re a fool!&rdquo; said the captain.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Yes, sorr,&rdquo; said Officer Cassidy, meekly.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;So are you, Donahue.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Yes, sorr.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Archie&rsquo;s respect for this chappie was going up all the time. He seemed to
+be able to take years off the lives of these massive blighters with a word. It
+was like the stories you read about lion-tamers. Archie did not despair of
+seeing Officer Donahue and his old college chum Cassidy eventually jumping
+through hoops.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Who are you?&rdquo; demanded the captain, turning to Archie.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Well, my name is&mdash;&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;What are you doing here?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Well, it&rsquo;s rather a longish story, you know. Don&rsquo;t want to
+bore you, and all that.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;I&rsquo;m here to listen. You can&rsquo;t bore <i>me</i>.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Dashed nice of you to put it like that,&rdquo; said Archie, gratefully.
+&ldquo;I mean to say, makes it easier and so forth. What I mean is, you know
+how rotten you feel telling the deuce of a long yarn and wondering if the party
+of the second part is wishing you would turn off the tap and go home. I
+mean&mdash;&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;If,&rdquo; said the captain, &ldquo;you&rsquo;re reciting something,
+stop. If you&rsquo;re trying to tell me what you&rsquo;re doing here, make it
+shorter and easier.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Archie saw his point. Of course, time was money&mdash;the modern spirit of
+hustle&mdash;all that sort of thing.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Well, it was this bathing suit, you know,&rdquo; he said.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;What bathing suit?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Mine, don&rsquo;t you know. A lemon-coloured contrivance. Rather bright
+and so forth, but in its proper place not altogether a bad egg. Well, the whole
+thing started, you know, with my standing on a bally pedestal sort of
+arrangement in a diving attitude&mdash;for the cover, you know. I don&rsquo;t
+know if you have ever done anything of that kind yourself, but it gives you a
+most fearful crick in the spine. However, that&rsquo;s rather beside the point,
+I suppose&mdash;don&rsquo;t know why I mentioned it. Well, this morning he was
+dashed late, so I went out&mdash;&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;What the devil are you talking about?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Archie looked at him, surprised.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Aren&rsquo;t I making it clear?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;No.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Well, you understand about the bathing suit, don&rsquo;t you? The jolly
+old bathing suit, you&rsquo;ve grasped that, what?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;No.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Oh, I say,&rdquo; said Archie. &ldquo;That&rsquo;s rather a nuisance. I
+mean to say, the bathing suit&rsquo;s what you might call the good old pivot of
+the whole dashed affair, you see. Well, you understand about the cover, what?
+You&rsquo;re pretty clear on the subject of the cover?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;What cover?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Why, for the magazine.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;What magazine?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Now there you rather have me. One of these bright little periodicals,
+you know, that you see popping to and fro on the bookstalls.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;I don&rsquo;t know what you&rsquo;re talking about,&rdquo; said the
+captain. He looked at Archie with an expression of distrust and hostility.
+&ldquo;And I&rsquo;ll tell you straight out I don&rsquo;t like the looks of
+you. I believe you&rsquo;re a pal of his.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;No longer,&rdquo; said Archie, firmly. &ldquo;I mean to say, a chappie
+who makes you stand on a bally pedestal sort of arrangement and get a crick in
+the spine, and then doesn&rsquo;t turn up and leaves you biffing all over the
+countryside in a bathing suit&mdash;&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The reintroduction of the bathing suit motive seemed to have the worst effect
+on the captain. He flushed darkly.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Are you trying to josh me? I&rsquo;ve a mind to soak you!&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;If ye plaze, sorr,&rdquo; cried Officer Donahue and Officer Cassidy in
+chorus. In the course of their professional career they did not often hear
+their superior make many suggestions with which they saw eye to eye, but he had
+certainly, in their opinion, spoken a mouthful now.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;No, honestly, my dear old thing, nothing was farther from my
+thoughts&mdash;&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+He would have spoken further, but at this moment the world came to an end. At
+least, that was how it sounded. Somewhere in the immediate neighbourhood
+something went off with a vast explosion, shattering the glass in the window,
+peeling the plaster from the ceiling, and sending him staggering into the
+inhospitable arms of Officer Donahue.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The three guardians of the Law stared at one another.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;If ye plaze, sorr,&rdquo; said Officer Cassidy, saluting.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Well?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;May I spake, sorr?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Well?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Something&rsquo;s exploded, sorr!&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The information, kindly meant though it was, seemed to annoy the captain.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;What the devil did you think I thought had happened?&rdquo; he demanded,
+with not a little irritation, &ldquo;It was a bomb!&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Archie could have corrected this diagnosis, for already a faint but appealing
+aroma of an alcoholic nature was creeping into the room through a hole in the
+ceiling, and there had risen before his eyes the picture of J. B. Wheeler
+affectionately regarding that barrel of his on the previous morning in the
+studio upstairs. J. B. Wheeler had wanted quick results, and he had got them.
+Archie had long since ceased to regard J. B. Wheeler as anything but a tumour
+on the social system, but he was bound to admit that he had certainly done him
+a good turn now. Already these honest men, diverted by the superior attraction
+of this latest happening, appeared to have forgotten his existence.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Sorr!&rdquo; said Officer Donahue.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Well?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;It came from upstairs, sorr.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Of course it came from upstairs. Cassidy!&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Sorr?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Get down into the street, call up the reserves, and stand at the front
+entrance to keep the crowd back. We&rsquo;ll have the whole city here in five
+minutes.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Right, sorr.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Don&rsquo;t let anyone in.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;No, sorr.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Well, see that you don&rsquo;t. Come along, Donahue, now. Look
+slippy.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;On the spot, sorr!&rdquo; said Officer Donahue.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+A moment later Archie had the studio to himself. Two minutes later he was
+picking his way cautiously down the fire-escape after the manner of the recent
+Mr. Moon. Archie had not seen much of Mr. Moon, but he had seen enough to know
+that in certain crises his methods were sound and should be followed. Elmer
+Moon was not a good man; his ethics were poor and his moral code shaky; but in
+the matter of legging it away from a situation of peril and discomfort he had
+no superior.
+</p>
+
+</div><!--end chapter-->
+
+<div class="chapter">
+
+<h2><a name="chap07"></a>CHAPTER VII.<br/>
+MR. ROSCOE SHERRIFF HAS AN IDEA</h2>
+
+<p>
+Archie inserted a fresh cigarette in his long holder and began to smoke a
+little moodily. It was about a week after his disturbing adventures in J. B.
+Wheeler&rsquo;s studio, and life had ceased for the moment to be a thing of
+careless enjoyment. Mr. Wheeler, mourning over his lost home-brew and refusing,
+like Niobe, to be comforted, has suspended the sittings for the magazine cover,
+thus robbing Archie of his life-work. Mr. Brewster had not been in genial mood
+of late. And, in addition to all this, Lucille was away on a visit to a
+school-friend. And when Lucille went away, she took with her the sunshine.
+Archie was not surprised at her being popular and in demand among her friends,
+but that did not help him to become reconciled to her absence.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+He gazed rather wistfully across the table at his friend, Roscoe Sherriff, the
+Press-agent, another of his Pen-and-Ink Club acquaintances. They had just
+finished lunch, and during the meal Sherriff, who, like most men of action, was
+fond of hearing the sound of his own voice and liked exercising it on the
+subject of himself, had been telling Archie a few anecdotes about his
+professional past. From these the latter had conceived a picture of Roscoe
+Sherriff&rsquo;s life as a prismatic thing of energy and adventure and
+well-paid withal&mdash;just the sort of life, in fact, which he would have
+enjoyed leading himself. He wished that he, too, like the Press-agent, could go
+about the place &ldquo;slipping things over&rdquo; and &ldquo;putting things
+across.&rdquo; Daniel Brewster, he felt, would have beamed upon a son-in-law
+like Roscoe Sherriff.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;The more I see of America,&rdquo; sighed Archie, &ldquo;the more it
+amazes me. All you birds seem to have been doing things from the cradle
+upwards. I wish I could do things!&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Well, why don&rsquo;t you?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Archie flicked the ash from his cigarette into the finger-bowl.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Oh, I don&rsquo;t know, you know,&rdquo; he said, &ldquo;Somehow, none
+of our family ever have. I don&rsquo;t know why it is, but whenever a Moffam
+starts out to do things he infallibly makes a bloomer. There was a Moffam in
+the Middle Ages who had a sudden spasm of energy and set out to make a
+pilgrimage to Jerusalem, dressed as a wandering friar. Rum ideas they had in
+those days.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Did he get there?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Absolutely not! Just as he was leaving the front door his favourite
+hound mistook him for a tramp&mdash;or a varlet, or a scurvy knave, or whatever
+they used to call them at that time&mdash;and bit him in the fleshy part of the
+leg.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Well, at least he started.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Enough to make a chappie start, what?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Roscoe Sherriff sipped his coffee thoughtfully. He was an apostle of Energy,
+and it seemed to him that he could make a convert of Archie and incidentally do
+himself a bit of good. For several days he had been, looking for someone like
+Archie to help him in a small matter which he had in mind.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;If you&rsquo;re really keen on doing things,&rdquo; he said,
+&ldquo;there&rsquo;s something you can do for me right away.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Archie beamed. Action was what his soul demanded.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Anything, dear boy, anything! State your case!&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Would you have any objection to putting up a snake for me?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Putting up a snake?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Just for a day or two.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;But how do you mean, old soul? Put him up where?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Wherever you live. Where do you live? The Cosmopolis, isn&rsquo;t it? Of
+course! You married old Brewster&rsquo;s daughter. I remember reading about
+it.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;But, I say, laddie, I don&rsquo;t want to spoil your day and disappoint
+you and so forth, but my jolly old father-in-law would never let me keep a
+snake. Why, it&rsquo;s as much as I can do to make him let me stop on in the
+place.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;He wouldn&rsquo;t know.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;There&rsquo;s not much that goes on in the hotel that he doesn&rsquo;t
+know,&rdquo; said Archie, doubtfully.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;He mustn&rsquo;t know. The whole point of the thing is that it must be a
+dead secret.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Archie flicked some more ash into the finger-bowl.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;I don&rsquo;t seem absolutely to have grasped the affair in all its
+aspects, if you know what I mean,&rdquo; he said. &ldquo;I mean to say&mdash;in
+the first place&mdash;why would it brighten your young existence if I
+entertained this snake of yours?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;It&rsquo;s not mine. It belongs to Mme. Brudowska. You&rsquo;ve heard of
+her, of course?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Oh yes. She&rsquo;s some sort of performing snake female in vaudeville
+or something, isn&rsquo;t she, or something of that species or order?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;You&rsquo;re near it, but not quite right. She is the leading exponent
+of high-brow tragedy on any stage in the civilized world.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Absolutely! I remember now. My wife lugged me to see her perform one
+night. It all comes back to me. She had me wedged in an orchestra-stall before
+I knew what I was up against, and then it was too late. I remember reading in
+some journal or other that she had a pet snake, given her by some Russian
+prince or other, what?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;That,&rdquo; said Sherriff, &ldquo;was the impression I intended to
+convey when I sent the story to the papers. I&rsquo;m her Press-agent. As a
+matter of fact, I bought Peter-its name&rsquo;s Peter-myself down on the East
+Side. I always believe in animals for Press-agent stunts. I&rsquo;ve nearly
+always had good results. But with Her Nibs I&rsquo;m handicapped. Shackled, so
+to speak. You might almost say my genius is stifled. Or strangled, if you
+prefer it.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Anything you say,&rdquo; agreed Archie, courteously, &ldquo;But how? Why
+is your what-d&rsquo;you-call-it what&rsquo;s-its-named?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;She keeps me on a leash. She won&rsquo;t let me do anything with a kick
+in it. If I&rsquo;ve suggested one rip-snorting stunt, I&rsquo;ve suggested
+twenty, and every time she turns them down on the ground that that sort of
+thing is beneath the dignity of an artist in her position. It doesn&rsquo;t
+give a fellow a chance. So now I&rsquo;ve made up my mind to do her good by
+stealth. I&rsquo;m going to steal her snake.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Steal it? Pinch it, as it were?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Yes. Big story for the papers, you see. She&rsquo;s grown very much
+attached to Peter. He&rsquo;s her mascot. I believe she&rsquo;s practically
+kidded herself into believing that Russian prince story. If I can sneak it away
+and keep it away for a day or two, she&rsquo;ll do the rest. She&rsquo;ll make
+such a fuss that the papers will be full of it.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;I see.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Wow, any ordinary woman would work in with me. But not Her Nibs. She
+would call it cheap and degrading and a lot of other things. It&rsquo;s got to
+be a genuine steal, and, if I&rsquo;m caught at it, I lose my job. So
+that&rsquo;s where you come in.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;But where am I to keep the jolly old reptile?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Oh, anywhere. Punch a few holes in a hat-box, and make it up a shakedown
+inside. It&rsquo;ll be company for you.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Something in that. My wife&rsquo;s away just now and it&rsquo;s a bit
+lonely in the evenings.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;You&rsquo;ll never be lonely with Peter around. He&rsquo;s a great
+scout. Always merry and bright.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;He doesn&rsquo;t bite, I suppose, or sting or what-not?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;He may what-not occasionally. It depends on the weather. But, outside of
+that, he&rsquo;s as harmless as a canary.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Dashed dangerous things, canaries,&rdquo; said Archie, thoughtfully.
+&ldquo;They peck at you.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Don&rsquo;t weaken!&rdquo; pleaded the Press-agent
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Oh, all right. I&rsquo;ll take him. By the way, touching the matter of
+browsing and sluicing. What do I feed him on?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Oh, anything. Bread-and-milk or fruit or soft-boiled egg or dog-biscuit
+or ants&rsquo;-eggs. You know&mdash;anything you have yourself. Well, I&rsquo;m
+much obliged for your hospitality. I&rsquo;ll do the same for you another time.
+Now I must be getting along to see to the practical end of the thing. By the
+way, Her Nibs lives at the Cosmopolis, too. Very convenient. Well, so long. See
+you later.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Archie, left alone, began for the first time to have serious doubts. He had
+allowed himself to be swayed by Mr. Sherriff&rsquo;s magnetic personality, but
+now that the other had removed himself he began to wonder if he had been
+entirely wise to lend his sympathy and co-operation to the scheme. He had never
+had intimate dealings with a snake before, but he had kept silkworms as a
+child, and there had been the deuce of a lot of fuss and unpleasantness over
+them. Getting into the salad and what-not. Something seemed to tell him that he
+was asking for trouble with a loud voice, but he had given his word and he
+supposed he would have to go through with it.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+He lit another cigarette and wandered out into Fifth Avenue. His usually smooth
+brow was ruffled with care. Despite the eulogies which Sherriff had uttered
+concerning Peter, he found his doubts increasing. Peter might, as the
+Press-agent had stated, be a great scout, but was his little Garden of Eden on
+the fifth floor of the Cosmopolis Hotel likely to be improved by the advent of
+even the most amiable and winsome of serpents? However&mdash;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Moffam! My dear fellow!&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The voice, speaking suddenly in his ear from behind, roused Archie from his
+reflections. Indeed, it roused him so effectually that he jumped a clear inch
+off the ground and bit his tongue. Revolving on his axis, he found himself
+confronting a middle-aged man with a face like a horse. The man was dressed in
+something of an old-world style. His clothes had an English cut. He had a
+drooping grey moustache. He also wore a grey bowler hat flattened at the
+crown&mdash;but who are we to judge him?
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Archie Moffam! I have been trying to find you all the morning.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Archie had placed him now. He had not seen General Mannister for several
+years&mdash;not, indeed, since the days when he used to meet him at the home of
+young Lord Seacliff, his nephew. Archie had been at Eton and Oxford with
+Seacliff, and had often visited him in the Long Vacation.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Halloa, General! What ho, what ho! What on earth are you doing over
+here?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Let&rsquo;s get out of this crush, my boy.&rdquo; General Mannister
+steered Archie into a side-street, &ldquo;That&rsquo;s better.&rdquo; He
+cleared his throat once or twice, as if embarrassed. &ldquo;I&rsquo;ve brought
+Seacliff over,&rdquo; he said, finally.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Dear old Squiffy here? Oh, I say! Great work!&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+General Mannister did not seem to share his enthusiasm. He looked like a horse
+with a secret sorrow. He coughed three times, like a horse who, in addition to
+a secret sorrow, had contracted asthma.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;You will find Seacliff changed,&rdquo; he said. &ldquo;Let me see, how
+long is it since you and he met?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Archie reflected.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;I was demobbed just about a year ago. I saw him in Paris about a year
+before that. The old egg got a bit of shrapnel in his foot or something,
+didn&rsquo;t he? Anyhow, I remember he was sent home.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;His foot is perfectly well again now. But, unfortunately, the enforced
+inaction led to disastrous results. You recollect, no doubt, that Seacliff
+always had a&mdash;a tendency;&mdash;a&mdash;a weakness&mdash;it was a family
+failing&mdash;&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Mopping it up, do you mean? Shifting it? Looking on the jolly old stuff
+when it was red and what not, what?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Exactly.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Archie nodded.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Dear old Squiffy was always rather a lad for the wassail-bowl. When I
+met him in Paris, I remember, he was quite tolerably blotto.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Precisely. And the failing has, I regret to say, grown on him since he
+returned from the war. My poor sister was extremely worried. In fact, to cut a
+long story short, I induced him to accompany me to America. I am attached to
+the British Legation in Washington now, you know.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Oh, really?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;I wished Seacliff to come with me to Washington, but he insists on
+remaining in New York. He stated specifically that the thought of living in
+Washington gave him the&mdash;what was the expression he used?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;The pip?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;The pip. Precisely.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;But what was the idea of bringing him to America?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;This admirable Prohibition enactment has rendered America&mdash;to my
+mind&mdash;the ideal place for a young man of his views.&rdquo; The General
+looked at his watch. &ldquo;It is most fortunate that I happened to run into
+you, my dear fellow. My train for Washington leaves in another hour, and I have
+packing to do. I want to leave poor Seacliff in your charge while I am
+gone.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Oh, I say! What!&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;You can look after him. I am credibly informed that even now there are
+places in New York where a determined young man may obtain
+the&mdash;er&mdash;stuff, and I should be infinitely obliged&mdash;and my poor
+sister would be infinitely grateful&mdash;if you would keep an eye on
+him.&rdquo; He hailed a taxi-cab. &ldquo;I am sending Seacliff round to the
+Cosmopolis to-night. I am sure you will do everything you can. Good-bye, my
+boy, good-bye.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Archie continued his walk. This, he felt, was beginning to be a bit thick. He
+smiled a bitter, mirthless smile as he recalled the fact that less than half an
+hour had elapsed since he had expressed a regret that he did not belong to the
+ranks of those who do things. Fate since then had certainly supplied him with
+jobs with a lavish hand. By bed-time he would be an active accomplice to a
+theft, valet and companion to a snake he had never met, and&mdash;as far as
+could gather the scope of his duties&mdash;a combination of nursemaid and
+private detective to dear old Squiffy.
+</p>
+
+<p class="p2">
+It was past four o&rsquo;clock when he returned to the Cosmopolis. Roscoe
+Sherriff was pacing the lobby of the hotel nervously, carrying a small
+hand-bag.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Here you are at last! Good heavens, man, I&rsquo;ve been waiting two
+hours.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Sorry, old bean. I was musing a bit and lost track of the time.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The Press-agent looked cautiously round. There was nobody within earshot.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Here he is!&rdquo; he said.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Who?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Peter.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Where?&rdquo; said Archie, staring blankly.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;In this bag. Did you expect to find him strolling arm-in-arm with me
+round the lobby? Here you are! Take him!&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+He was gone. And Archie, holding the bag, made his way to the lift. The bag
+squirmed gently in his grip.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The only other occupant of the lift was a striking-looking woman of foreign
+appearance, dressed in a way that made Archie feel that she must be somebody or
+she couldn&rsquo;t look like that. Her face, too, seemed vaguely familiar. She
+entered the lift at the second floor where the tea-room is, and she had the
+contented expression of one who had tea&rsquo;d to her satisfaction. She got
+off at the same floor as Archie, and walked swiftly, in a lithe, pantherish
+way, round the bend in the corridor. Archie followed more slowly. When he
+reached the door of his room, the passage was empty. He inserted the key in his
+door, turned it, pushed the door open, and pocketed the key. He was about to
+enter when the bag again squirmed gently in his grip.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+From the days of Pandora, through the epoch of Bluebeard&rsquo;s wife, down to
+the present time, one of the chief failings of humanity has been the
+disposition to open things that were better closed. It would have been simple
+for Archie to have taken another step and put a door between himself and the
+world, but there came to him the irresistible desire to peep into the bag
+now&mdash;not three seconds later, but now. All the way up in the lift he had
+been battling with the temptation, and now he succumbed.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The bag was one of those simple bags with a thingummy which you press. Archie
+pressed it. And, as it opened, out popped the head of Peter. His eyes met
+Archie&rsquo;s. Over his head there seemed to be an invisible mark of
+interrogation. His gaze was curious, but kindly. He appeared to be saying to
+himself, &ldquo;Have I found a friend?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Serpents, or Snakes, says the Encyclopaedia, are reptiles of the saurian class
+Ophidia, characterised by an elongated, cylindrical, limbless, scaly form, and
+distinguished from lizards by the fact that the halves (<i>rami</i>) of the
+lower jaw are not solidly united at the chin, but movably connected by an
+elastic ligament. The vertebra are very numerous, gastrocentrous, and
+procoelous. And, of course, when they put it like that, you can see at once
+that a man might spend hours with combined entertainment and profit just
+looking at a snake.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Archie would no doubt have done this; but long before he had time really to
+inspect the halves (<i>rami</i>) of his new friend&rsquo;s lower jaw and to
+admire its elastic fittings, and long before the gastrocentrous and procoelous
+character of the other&rsquo;s vertebrae had made any real impression on him, a
+piercing scream almost at his elbow&mdash;startled him out of his scientific
+reverie. A door opposite had opened, and the woman of the elevator was standing
+staring at him with an expression of horror and fury that went through, him
+like a knife. It was the expression which, more than anything else, had made
+Mme. Brudowska what she was professionally. Combined with a deep voice and a
+sinuous walk, it enabled her to draw down a matter of a thousand dollars per
+week.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Indeed, though the fact gave him little pleasure, Archie, as a matter of fact,
+was at this moment getting about&mdash;including war-tax&mdash;two dollars and
+seventy-five cents worth of the great emotional star for nothing. For, having
+treated him gratis to the look of horror and fury, she now moved towards him
+with the sinuous walk and spoke in the tone which she seldom permitted herself
+to use before the curtain of act two, unless there was a whale of a situation
+that called for it in act one.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Thief!&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+It was the way she said it.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Archie staggered backwards as though he had been hit between the eyes, fell
+through the open door of his room, kicked it to with a flying foot, and
+collapsed on the bed. Peter, the snake, who had fallen on the floor with a
+squashy sound, looked surprised and pained for a moment; then, being a
+philosopher at heart, cheered up and began hunting for flies under the bureau.
+</p>
+
+</div><!--end chapter-->
+
+<div class="chapter">
+
+<h2><a name="chap08"></a>CHAPTER VIII.<br/>
+A DISTURBED NIGHT FOR DEAR OLD SQUIFFY</h2>
+
+<p>
+Peril sharpens the intellect. Archie&rsquo;s mind as a rule worked in rather a
+languid and restful sort of way, but now it got going with a rush and a whir.
+He glared round the room. He had never seen a room so devoid of satisfactory
+cover. And then there came to him a scheme, a ruse. It offered a chance of
+escape. It was, indeed, a bit of all right.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Peter, the snake, loafing contentedly about the carpet, found himself seized by
+what the Encyclopaedia calls the &ldquo;distensible gullet&rdquo; and looked up
+reproachfully. The next moment he was in his bag again; and Archie, bounding
+silently into the bathroom, was tearing the cord off his dressing-gown.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+There came a banging at the door. A voice spoke sternly. A masculine voice this
+time.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Say! Open this door!&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Archie rapidly attached the dressing-gown cord to the handle of the bag, leaped
+to the window, opened it, tied the cord to a projecting piece of iron on the
+sill, lowered Peter and the bag into the depths, and closed the window again.
+The whole affair took but a few seconds. Generals have received the thanks of
+their nations for displaying less resource on the field of battle.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+He opened the door. Outside stood the bereaved woman, and beside her a
+bullet-headed gentleman with a bowler hat on the back of his head, in whom
+Archie recognised the hotel detective.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The hotel detective also recognised Archie, and the stern cast of his features
+relaxed. He even smiled a rusty but propitiatory smile. He
+imagined&mdash;erroneously&mdash;that Archie, being the son-in-law of the owner
+of the hotel, had a pull with that gentleman; and he resolved to proceed warily
+lest he jeopardise his job.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Why, Mr. Moffam!&rdquo; he said, apologetically. &ldquo;I didn&rsquo;t
+know it was you I was disturbing.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Always glad to have a chat,&rdquo; said Archie, cordially. &ldquo;What
+seems to be the trouble?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;My snake!&rdquo; cried the queen of tragedy. &ldquo;Where is my
+snake?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Archie, looked at the detective. The detective looked at Archie.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;This lady,&rdquo; said the detective, with a dry little cough,
+&ldquo;thinks her snake is in your room, Mr. Moffam.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Snake?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Snake&rsquo;s what the lady said.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;My snake! My Peter!&rdquo; Mme. Brudowska&rsquo;s voice shook with
+emotion. &ldquo;He is here&mdash;here in this room.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Archie shook his head.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;No snakes here! Absolutely not! I remember noticing when I came
+in.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;The snake is here&mdash;here in this room. This man had it in a bag! I
+saw him! He is a thief!&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Easy, ma&rsquo;am!&rdquo; protested the detective. &ldquo;Go easy! This
+gentleman is the boss&rsquo;s son-in-law.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;I care not who he is! He has my snake! Here&mdash;here in this
+room!&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Mr. Moffam wouldn&rsquo;t go round stealing snakes.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Rather not,&rdquo; said Archie. &ldquo;Never stole a snake in my life.
+None of the Moffams have ever gone about stealing snakes. Regular family
+tradition! Though I once had an uncle who kept gold-fish.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Here he is! Here! My Peter!&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Archie looked at the detective. The detective looked at Archie. &ldquo;We must
+humour her!&rdquo; their glances said.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Of course,&rdquo; said Archie, &ldquo;if you&rsquo;d like to search the
+room, what? What I mean to say is, this is Liberty Hall. Everybody welcome!
+Bring the kiddies!&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;I will search the room!&rdquo; said Mme. Brudowska.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The detective glanced apologetically at Archie.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Don&rsquo;t blame me for this, Mr. Moffam,&rdquo; he urged.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Rather not! Only too glad you&rsquo;ve dropped in!&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+He took up an easy attitude against the window, and watched the empress of the
+emotional drama explore. Presently she desisted, baffled. For an instant she
+paused, as though about to speak, then swept from the room. A moment later a
+door banged across the passage.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;How do they get that way?&rdquo; queried the detective, &ldquo;Well,
+g&rsquo;bye, Mr. Moffam. Sorry to have butted in.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The door closed. Archie waited a few moments, then went to the window and
+hauled in the slack. Presently the bag appeared over the edge of the
+window-sill.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Good God!&rdquo; said Archie.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+In the rush and swirl of recent events he must have omitted to see that the
+clasp that fastened the bag was properly closed; for the bag, as it jumped on
+to the window-sill, gaped at him like a yawning face. And inside it there was
+nothing.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Archie leaned as far out of the window as he could manage without committing
+suicide. Far below him, the traffic took its usual course and the pedestrians
+moved to and fro upon the pavements. There was no crowding, no excitement. Yet
+only a few moments before a long green snake with three hundred ribs, a
+distensible gullet, and gastrocentrous vertebras must have descended on that
+street like the gentle rain from Heaven upon the place beneath. And nobody
+seemed even interested. Not for the first time since he had arrived in America,
+Archie marvelled at the cynical detachment of the New Yorker, who permits
+himself to be surprised at nothing.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+He shut the window and moved away with a heavy heart. He had not had the
+pleasure of an extended acquaintanceship with Peter, but he had seen enough of
+him to realise his sterling qualities. Somewhere beneath Peter&rsquo;s three
+hundred ribs there had lain a heart of gold, and Archie mourned for his loss.
+</p>
+
+<p class="p2">
+Archie had a dinner and theatre engagement that night, and it was late when he
+returned to the hotel. He found his father-in-law prowling restlessly about the
+lobby. There seemed to be something on Mr. Brewster&rsquo;s mind. He came up to
+Archie with a brooding frown on his square face.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Who&rsquo;s this man Seacliff?&rdquo; he demanded, without preamble.
+&ldquo;I hear he&rsquo;s a friend of yours.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Oh, you&rsquo;ve met him, what?&rdquo; said Archie. &ldquo;Had a nice
+little chat together, yes? Talked of this and that, no!&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;We have not said a word to each other.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Really? Oh, well, dear old Squiffy is one of those strong, silent
+fellers you know. You mustn&rsquo;t mind if he&rsquo;s a bit dumb. He never
+says much, but it&rsquo;s whispered round the clubs that he thinks a lot. It
+was rumoured in the spring of nineteen-thirteen that Squiffy was on the point
+of making a bright remark, but it never came to anything.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Mr. Brewster struggled with his feelings.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Who <i>is</i> he? You seem to know him.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Oh yes. Great pal of mine, Squiffy. We went through Eton, Oxford, and
+the Bankruptcy Court together. And here&rsquo;s a rummy coincidence. When they
+examined <i>me</i>, I had no assets. And, when they examined Squiffy, <i>he</i>
+had no assets! Rather extraordinary, what?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Mr. Brewster seemed to be in no mood for discussing coincidences.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;I might have known he was a friend of yours!&rdquo; he said, bitterly.
+&ldquo;Well, if you want to see him, you&rsquo;ll have to do it outside my
+hotel.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Why, I thought he was stopping here.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;He is&mdash;to-night. To-morrow he can look for some other hotel to
+break up.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Great Scot! Has dear old Squiffy been breaking the place up?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Mr. Brewster snorted.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;I am informed that this precious friend of yours entered my grill-room
+at eight o&rsquo;clock. He must have been completely intoxicated, though the
+head waiter tells me he noticed nothing at the time.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Archie nodded approvingly.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Dear old Squiffy was always like that. It&rsquo;s a gift. However
+woozled he might be, it was impossible to detect it with the naked eye.
+I&rsquo;ve seen the dear old chap many a time whiffled to the eyebrows, and
+looking as sober as a bishop. Soberer! When did it begin to dawn on the lads in
+the grill-room that the old egg had been pushing the boat out?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;The head waiter,&rdquo; said Mr. Brewster, with cold fury, &ldquo;tells
+me that he got a hint of the man&rsquo;s condition when he suddenly got up from
+his table and went the round of the room, pulling off all the table-cloths, and
+breaking everything that was on them. He then threw a number of rolls at the
+diners, and left. He seems to have gone straight to bed.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Dashed sensible of him, what? Sound, practical chap, Squiffy. But where
+on earth did he get the&mdash;er&mdash;materials?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;From his room. I made enquiries. He has six large cases in his
+room.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Squiffy always was a chap of infinite resource! Well, I&rsquo;m dashed
+sorry this should have happened, don&rsquo;t you know.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;If it hadn&rsquo;t been for you, the man would never have come
+here.&rdquo; Mr. Brewster brooded coldly. &ldquo;I don&rsquo;t know why it is,
+but ever since you came to this hotel I&rsquo;ve had nothing but
+trouble.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Dashed sorry!&rdquo; said Archie, sympathetically.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Grrh!&rdquo; said Mr. Brewster.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Archie made his way meditatively to the lift. The injustice of his
+father-in-law&rsquo;s attitude pained him. It was absolutely rotten and all
+that to be blamed for everything that went wrong in the Hotel Cosmopolis.
+</p>
+
+<p class="p2">
+While this conversation was in progress, Lord Seacliff was enjoying a
+refreshing sleep in his room on the fourth floor. Two hours passed. The noise
+of the traffic in the street below faded away. Only the rattle of an occasional
+belated cab broke the silence. In the hotel all was still. Mr. Brewster had
+gone to bed. Archie, in his room, smoked meditatively. Peace may have been said
+to reign.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+At half-past two Lord Seacliff awoke. His hours of slumber were always
+irregular. He sat up in bed and switched the light on. He was a shock-headed
+young man with a red face and a hot brown eye. He yawned and stretched himself.
+His head was aching a little. The room seemed to him a trifle close. He got out
+of bed and threw open the window. Then, returning to bed, he picked up a book
+and began to read. He was conscious of feeling a little jumpy, and reading
+generally sent him to sleep.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Much has been written on the subject of bed-books. The general consensus of
+opinion is that a gentle, slow-moving story makes the best opiate. If this be
+so, dear old Squiffy&rsquo;s choice of literature had been rather injudicious.
+His book was <i>The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes</i>, and the particular
+story which he selected for perusal was the one entitled, &ldquo;The Speckled
+Band.&rdquo; He was not a great reader, but, when he read, he liked something
+with a bit of zip to it.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Squiffy became absorbed. He had read the story before, but a long time back,
+and its complications were fresh to him. The tale, it may be remembered, deals
+with the activities of an ingenious gentleman who kept a snake, and used to
+loose it into people&rsquo;s bedrooms as a preliminary to collecting on their
+insurance. It gave Squiffy pleasant thrills, for he had always had a particular
+horror of snakes. As a child, he had shrunk from visiting the serpent house at
+the Zoo; and, later, when he had come to man&rsquo;s estate and had put off
+childish things, and settled down in real earnest to his self-appointed mission
+of drinking up all the alcoholic fluid in England, the distaste for Ophidia had
+lingered. To a dislike for real snakes had been added a maturer shrinking from
+those which existed only in his imagination. He could still recall his emotions
+on the occasion, scarcely three months before, when he had seen a long, green
+serpent which a majority of his contemporaries had assured him wasn&rsquo;t
+there.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Squiffy read on:&mdash;
+</p>
+
+<p class="letter">
+&ldquo;Suddenly another sound became audible&mdash;a very gentle, soothing
+sound, like that of a small jet of steam escaping continuously from a
+kettle.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Lord Seacliff looked up from his book with a start. Imagination was beginning
+to play him tricks. He could have sworn that he had actually heard that
+identical sound. It had seemed to come from the window. He listened again. No!
+All was still. He returned to his book and went on reading.
+</p>
+
+<p class="letter">
+&ldquo;It was a singular sight that met our eyes. Beside the table, on a wooden
+chair, sat Doctor Grimesby Rylott, clad in a long dressing-gown. His chin was
+cocked upward and his eyes were fixed in a dreadful, rigid stare at the corner
+of the ceiling. Round his brow he had a peculiar yellow band, with brownish
+speckles, which seemed to be bound tightly round his head.&rdquo;<br/>
+    &ldquo;I took a step forward. In an instant his strange head-gear began to
+move, and there reared itself from among his hair the squat, diamond-shaped
+head and puffed neck of a loathsome serpent...&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Ugh!&rdquo; said Squiffy.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+He closed the book and put it down. His head was aching worse than ever. He
+wished now that he had read something else. No fellow could read himself to
+sleep with this sort of thing. People ought not to write this sort of thing.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+His heart gave a bound. There it was again, that hissing sound. And this time
+he was sure it came from the window.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+He looked at the window, and remained staring, frozen. Over the sill, with a
+graceful, leisurely movement, a green snake was crawling. As it crawled, it
+raised its head and peered from side to side, like a shortsighted man looking
+for his spectacles. It hesitated a moment on the edge of the sill, then
+wriggled to the floor and began to cross the room. Squiffy stared on.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+It would have pained Peter deeply, for he was a snake of great sensibility, if
+he had known how much his entrance had disturbed the occupant of the room. He
+himself had no feeling but gratitude for the man who had opened the window and
+so enabled him to get in out of the rather nippy night air. Ever since the bag
+had swung open and shot him out onto the sill of the window below
+Archie&rsquo;s, he had been waiting patiently for something of the kind to
+happen. He was a snake who took things as they came, and was prepared to rough
+it a bit if necessary; but for the last hour or two he had been hoping that
+somebody would do something practical in the way of getting him in out of the
+cold. When at home, he had an eiderdown quilt to sleep on, and the stone of the
+window-sill was a little trying to a snake of regular habits. He crawled
+thankfully across the floor under Squiffy&rsquo;s bed. There was a pair of
+trousers there, for his host had undressed when not in a frame of mind to fold
+his clothes neatly and place them upon a chair. Peter looked the trousers over.
+They were not an eiderdown quilt, but they would serve. He curled up in them
+and went to sleep. He had had an exciting day, and was glad to turn in.
+</p>
+
+<p class="p2">
+After about ten minutes, the tension of Squiffy&rsquo;s attitude relaxed. His
+heart, which had seemed to suspend its operations, began beating again. Reason
+reasserted itself. He peeped cautiously under the bed. He could see nothing.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Squiffy was convinced. He told himself that he had never really believed in
+Peter as a living thing. It stood to reason that there couldn&rsquo;t really be
+a snake in his room. The window looked out on emptiness. His room was several
+stories above the ground. There was a stern, set expression on Squiffy&rsquo;s
+face as he climbed out of bed. It was the expression of a man who is turning
+over a new leaf, starting a new life. He looked about the room for some
+implement which would carry out the deed he had to do, and finally pulled out
+one of the curtain-rods. Using this as a lever, he broke open the topmost of
+the six cases which stood in the corner. The soft wood cracked and split.
+Squiffy drew out a straw-covered bottle. For a moment he stood looking at it,
+as a man might gaze at a friend on the point of death. Then, with a sudden
+determination, he went into the bathroom. There was a crash of glass and a
+gurgling sound.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Half an hour later the telephone in Archie&rsquo;s room rang. &ldquo;I say,
+Archie, old top,&rdquo; said the voice of Squiffy.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Halloa, old bean! Is that you?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;I say, could you pop down here for a second? I&rsquo;m rather
+upset.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Absolutely! Which room?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Four-forty-one.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;I&rsquo;ll be with you eftsoons or right speedily.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Thanks, old man.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;What appears to be the difficulty?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Well, as a matter of fact, I thought I saw a snake!&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;A snake!&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;I&rsquo;ll tell you all about it when you come down.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Archie found Lord Seacliff seated on his bed. An arresting aroma of mixed
+drinks pervaded the atmosphere.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;I say! What?&rdquo; said Archie, inhaling.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;That&rsquo;s all right. I&rsquo;ve been pouring my stock away. Just
+finished the last bottle.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;But why?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;I told you. I thought I saw a snake!&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Green?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Squiffy shivered slightly.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Frightfully green!&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Archie hesitated. He perceived that there are moments when silence is the best
+policy. He had been worrying himself over the unfortunate case of his friend,
+and now that Fate seemed to have provided a solution, it would be rash to
+interfere merely to ease the old bean&rsquo;s mind. If Squiffy was going to
+reform because he thought he had seen an imaginary snake, better not to let him
+know that the snake was a real one.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Dashed serious!&rdquo; he said.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Bally dashed serious!&rdquo; agreed Squiffy. &ldquo;I&rsquo;m going to
+cut it out!&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Great scheme!&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;You don&rsquo;t think,&rdquo; asked Squiffy, with a touch of
+hopefulness, &ldquo;that it could have been a real snake?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Never heard of the management supplying them.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;I thought it went under the bed.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Well, take a look.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Squiffy shuddered.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Not me! I say, old top, you know, I simply can&rsquo;t sleep in this
+room now. I was wondering if you could give me a doss somewhere in
+yours.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Rather! I&rsquo;m in five-forty-one. Just above. Trot along up.
+Here&rsquo;s the key. I&rsquo;ll tidy up a bit here, and join you in a
+minute.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p class="p2">
+Squiffy put on a dressing-gown and disappeared. Archie looked under the bed.
+From the trousers the head of Peter popped up with its usual expression of
+amiable enquiry. Archie nodded pleasantly, and sat down on the bed. The problem
+of his little friend&rsquo;s immediate future wanted thinking over.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+He lit a cigarette and remained for a while in thought. Then he rose. An
+admirable solution had presented itself. He picked Peter up and placed him in
+the pocket of his dressing-gown. Then, leaving the room, he mounted the stairs
+till he reached the seventh floor. Outside a room half-way down the corridor he
+paused.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+From within, through the open transom, came the rhythmical snoring of a good
+man taking his rest after the labours of the day. Mr. Brewster was always a
+heavy sleeper.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;There&rsquo;s always a way,&rdquo; thought Archie, philosophically,
+&ldquo;if a chappie only thinks of it.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+His father-in-law&rsquo;s snoring took on a deeper note. Archie extracted Peter
+from his pocket and dropped him gently through the transom.
+</p>
+
+</div><!--end chapter-->
+
+<div class="chapter">
+
+<h2><a name="chap09"></a>CHAPTER IX.<br/>
+A LETTER FROM PARKER</h2>
+
+<p>
+As the days went by and he settled down at the Hotel Cosmopolis, Archie,
+looking about him and revising earlier judgments, was inclined to think that of
+all his immediate circle he most admired Parker, the lean, grave valet of Mr.
+Daniel Brewster. Here was a man who, living in the closest contact with one of
+the most difficult persons in New York, contrived all the while to maintain an
+unbowed head, and, as far as one could gather from appearances, a tolerably
+cheerful disposition. A great man, judge him by what standard you pleased.
+Anxious as he was to earn an honest living, Archie would not have changed
+places with Parker for the salary of a movie-star.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+It was Parker who first directed Archie&rsquo;s attention to the hidden merits
+of Pongo. Archie had drifted into his father-in-law&rsquo;s suite one morning,
+as he sometimes did in the effort to establish more amicable relations, and had
+found it occupied only by the valet, who was dusting the furniture and
+bric-a-brac with a feather broom rather in the style of a man-servant at the
+rise of the curtain of an old-fashioned farce. After a courteous exchange of
+greetings, Archie sat down and lit a cigarette. Parker went on dusting.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;The guv&rsquo;nor,&rdquo; said Parker, breaking the silence, &ldquo;has
+some nice little objay dar, sir.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Little what?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Objay dar, sir.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Light dawned upon Archie.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Of course, yes. French for junk. I see what you mean now. Dare say
+you&rsquo;re right, old friend. Don&rsquo;t know much about these things
+myself.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Parker gave an appreciative flick at a vase on the mantelpiece.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Very valuable, some of the guv&rsquo;nor&rsquo;s things.&rdquo; He had
+picked up the small china figure of the warrior with the spear, and was
+grooming it with the ostentatious care of one brushing flies off a sleeping
+Venus. He regarded this figure with a look of affectionate esteem which seemed
+to Archie absolutely uncalled-for. Archie&rsquo;s taste in Art was not
+precious. To his untutored eye the thing was only one degree less foul than his
+father-in-law&rsquo;s Japanese prints, which he had always observed with silent
+loathing. &ldquo;This one, now,&rdquo; continued Parker. &ldquo;Worth a lot of
+money. Oh, a lot of money.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;What, Pongo?&rdquo; said Archie incredulously.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Sir?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;I always call that rummy-looking what-not Pongo. Don&rsquo;t know what
+else you could call him, what!&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The valet seemed to disapprove of this levity. He shook his head and replaced
+the figure on the mantelpiece.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Worth a lot of money,&rdquo; he repeated. &ldquo;Not by itself,
+no.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Oh, not by itself?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;No, sir. Things like this come in pairs. Somewhere or other
+there&rsquo;s the companion-piece to this here, and if the guv&rsquo;nor could
+get hold of it, he&rsquo;d have something worth having. Something that
+connoozers would give a lot of money for. But one&rsquo;s no good without the
+other. You have to have both, if you understand my meaning, sir.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;I see. Like filling a straight flush, what?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Precisely, sir.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Archie gazed at Pongo again, with the dim hope of discovering virtues not
+immediately apparent to the casual observer. But without success. Pongo left
+him cold&mdash;even chilly. He would not have taken Pongo as a gift, to oblige
+a dying friend.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;How much would the pair be worth?&rdquo; he asked. &ldquo;Ten
+dollars?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Parker smiled a gravely superior smile. &ldquo;A leetle more than that, sir.
+Several thousand dollars, more like it.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Do you mean to say,&rdquo; said Archie, with honest amazement,
+&ldquo;that there are chumps going about loose&mdash;absolutely loose&mdash;who
+would pay that for a weird little object like Pongo?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Undoubtedly, sir. These antique china figures are in great demand among
+collectors.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Archie looked at Pongo once more, and shook his head.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Well, well, well! It takes all sorts to make a world, what!&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p class="p2">
+What might be called the revival of Pongo, the restoration of Pongo to the
+ranks of the things that matter, took place several weeks later, when Archie
+was making holiday at the house which his father-in-law had taken for the
+summer at Brookport. The curtain of the second act may be said to rise on
+Archie strolling back from the golf-links in the cool of an August evening.
+From time to time he sang slightly, and wondered idly if Lucille would put the
+finishing touch upon the all-rightness of everything by coming to meet him and
+sharing his homeward walk.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+She came in view at this moment, a trim little figure in a white skirt and a
+pale blue sweater. She waved to Archie; and Archie, as always at the sight of
+her, was conscious of that jumpy, fluttering sensation about the heart, which,
+translated into words, would have formed the question, &ldquo;What on earth
+could have made a girl like that fall in love with a chump like me?&rdquo; It
+was a question which he was continually asking himself, and one which was
+perpetually in the mind also of Mr. Brewster, his father-in-law. The matter of
+Archie&rsquo;s unworthiness to be the husband of Lucille was practically the
+only one on which the two men saw eye to eye.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Hallo&mdash;allo&mdash;allo!&rdquo; said Archie. &ldquo;Here we are,
+what! I was just hoping you would drift over the horizon.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Lucille kissed him.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;You&rsquo;re a darling,&rdquo; she said. &ldquo;And you look like a
+Greek god in that suit.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Glad you like it.&rdquo; Archie squinted with some complacency down his
+chest. &ldquo;I always say it doesn&rsquo;t matter what you pay for a suit, so
+long as it&rsquo;s <i>right</i>. I hope your jolly old father will feel that
+way when he settles up for it.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Where is father? Why didn&rsquo;t he come back with you?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Well, as a matter of fact, he didn&rsquo;t seem any too keen on my
+company. I left him in the locker-room chewing a cigar. Gave me the impression
+of having something on his mind.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Oh, Archie! You didn&rsquo;t beat him <i>again?</i>&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Archie looked uncomfortable. He gazed out to sea with something of
+embarrassment.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Well, as a matter of fact, old thing, to be absolutely frank, I, as it
+were, did!&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Not badly?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Well, yes! I rather fancy I put it across him with some vim and not a
+little emphasis. To be perfectly accurate, I licked him by ten and
+eight.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;But you promised me you would let him beat you to-day. You know how
+pleased it would have made him.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;I know. But, light of my soul, have you any idea how dashed difficult it
+is to get beaten by your festive parent at golf?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Oh, well!&rdquo; Lucille sighed. &ldquo;It can&rsquo;t be helped, I
+suppose.&rdquo; She felt in the pocket of her sweater. &ldquo;Oh, there&rsquo;s
+a letter for you. I&rsquo;ve just been to fetch the mail. I don&rsquo;t know
+who it can be from. The handwriting looks like a vampire&rsquo;s. Kind of
+scrawly.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Archie inspected the envelope. It provided no solution.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;That&rsquo;s rummy! Who could be writing to me?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Open it and see.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Dashed bright scheme! I will, Herbert Parker. Who the deuce is Herbert
+Parker?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Parker? Father&rsquo;s valet&rsquo;s name was Parker. The one he
+dismissed when he found he was wearing his shirts.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Do you mean to say any reasonable chappie would willingly wear the sort
+of shirts your father&mdash;? I mean to say, there must have been some
+mistake.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Do read the letter. I expect he wants to use your influence with father
+to have him taken back.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;<i>My</i> influence? With your <i>father</i>? Well, I&rsquo;m dashed.
+Sanguine sort of Johnny, if he does. Well, here&rsquo;s what he says. Of
+course, I remember jolly old Parker now&mdash;great pal of mine.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p class="letter">
+Dear Sir,&mdash;It is some time since the undersigned had the honour of
+conversing with you, but I am respectfully trusting that you may recall me to
+mind when I mention that until recently I served Mr. Brewster, your
+father-in-law, in the capacity of valet. Owing to an unfortunate
+misunderstanding, I was dismissed from that position and am now temporarily out
+of a job. &ldquo;How art thou fallen from Heaven, O Lucifer, son of the
+morning!&rdquo; (Isaiah xiv. 12.)
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;You know,&rdquo; said Archie, admiringly, &ldquo;this bird is hot stuff!
+I mean to say he writes dashed well.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p class="letter">
+It is not, however, with my own affairs that I desire to trouble you, dear sir.
+I have little doubt that all will be well with me and that I shall not fall
+like a sparrow to the ground. &ldquo;I have been young and now am old; yet have
+I not seen the righteous forsaken, nor his seed begging bread&rdquo; (Psalms
+xxxvii. 25). My object in writing to you is as follows. You may recall that I
+had the pleasure of meeting you one morning in Mr. Brewster&rsquo;s suite, when
+we had an interesting talk on the subject of Mr. B.&rsquo;s <i>objets
+d&rsquo;art</i>. You may recall being particularly interested in a small china
+figure. To assist your memory, the figure to which I allude is the one which
+you whimsically referred to as Pongo. I informed you, if you remember, that,
+could the accompanying figure be secured, the pair would be extremely
+valuable.<br/>
+    I am glad to say, dear sir, that this has now transpired, and is on view at
+Beale&rsquo;s Art Galleries on West Forty-Fifth Street, where it will be sold
+to-morrow at auction, the sale commencing at two-thirty sharp. If Mr. Brewster
+cares to attend, he will, I fancy, have little trouble in securing it at a
+reasonable price. I confess that I had thought of refraining from apprising my
+late employer of this matter, but more Christian feelings have prevailed.
+&ldquo;If thine enemy hunger, feed him; if he thirst, give him drink; for in so
+doing thou shalt heap coals of fire on his head&rdquo; (Romans xii. 20). Nor, I
+must confess, am I altogether uninfluenced by the thought that my action in
+this matter may conceivably lead to Mr. B. consenting to forget the past and to
+reinstate me in my former position. However, I am confident that I can leave
+this to his good feeling.
+</p>
+
+<p class="right">
+I remain, respectfully yours,<br/>
+Herbert Parker.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Lucille clapped her hands.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;How splendid! Father <i>will</i> be pleased!&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Yes. Friend Parker has certainly found a way to make the old dad fond of
+him. Wish <i>I</i> could!&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;But you can, silly! He&rsquo;ll be delighted when you show him that
+letter.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Yes, with Parker. Old Herb. Parker&rsquo;s is the neck he&rsquo;ll fall
+on&mdash;not mine.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Lucille reflected.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;I wish&mdash;&rdquo; she began. She stopped. Her eyes lit up. &ldquo;Oh,
+Archie, darling, I&rsquo;ve got an idea!&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Decant it.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Why don&rsquo;t you slip up to New York to-morrow and buy the thing, and
+give it to father as a surprise?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Archie patted her hand kindly. He hated to spoil her girlish day-dreams.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Yes,&rdquo; he said. &ldquo;But reflect, queen of my heart! I have at
+the moment of going to press just two dollars fifty in specie, which I took off
+your father this after-noon. We were playing twenty-five cents a hole. He
+coughed it up without enthusiasm&mdash;in fact, with a nasty hacking
+sound&mdash;but I&rsquo;ve got it. But that&rsquo;s all I have got.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;That&rsquo;s all right. You can pawn that ring and that bracelet of
+mine.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Oh, I say, what! Pop the family jewels?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Only for a day or two. Of course, once you&rsquo;ve got the thing,
+father will pay us back. He would give you all the money we asked him for, if
+he knew what it was for. But I want to surprise him. And if you were to go to
+him and ask him for a thousand dollars without telling him what it was for, he
+might refuse.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;He might!&rdquo; said Archie. &ldquo;He might!&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;It all works out splendidly. To-morrow&rsquo;s the Invitation Handicap,
+and father&rsquo;s been looking forward to it for weeks. He&rsquo;d hate to
+have to go up to town himself and not play in it. But you can slip up and slip
+back without his knowing anything about it.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Archie pondered.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;It sounds a ripe scheme. Yes, it has all the ear-marks of a somewhat
+fruity wheeze! By Jove, it <i>is</i> a fruity wheeze! It&rsquo;s an egg!&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;An egg?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Good egg, you know. Halloa, here&rsquo;s a postscript. I didn&rsquo;t
+see it.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p class="letter">
+P.S.&mdash;I should be glad if you would convey my most cordial respects to
+Mrs. Moffam. Will you also inform her that I chanced to meet Mr. William this
+morning on Broadway, just off the boat. He desired me to send his regards and
+to say that he would be joining you at Brookport in the course of a day or so.
+Mr. B. will be pleased to have him back. &ldquo;A wise son maketh a glad
+father&rdquo; (Proverbs x. 1).
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Who&rsquo;s Mr. William?&rdquo; asked Archie.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;My brother Bill, of course. I&rsquo;ve told you all about him.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Oh yes, of course. Your brother Bill. Rummy to think I&rsquo;ve got a
+brother-in-law I&rsquo;ve never seen.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;You see, we married so suddenly. When we married, Bill was in
+Yale.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Good God! What for?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Not jail, silly. Yale. The university.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Oh, ah, yes.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Then he went over to Europe for a trip to broaden his mind. You must
+look him up to-morrow when you get back to New York. He&rsquo;s sure to be at
+his club.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;I&rsquo;ll make a point of it. Well, vote of thanks to good old Parker!
+This really does begin to look like the point in my career where I start to
+have your forbidding old parent eating out of my hand.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Yes, it&rsquo;s an egg, isn&rsquo;t it!&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Queen of my soul,&rdquo; said Archie enthusiastically, &ldquo;it&rsquo;s
+an omelette!&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p class="p2">
+The business negotiations in connection with the bracelet and the ring occupied
+Archie on his arrival in New York to an extent which made it impossible for him
+to call on Brother Bill before lunch. He decided to postpone the affecting
+meeting of brothers-in-law to a more convenient season, and made his way to his
+favourite table at the Cosmopolis grill-room for a bite of lunch preliminary to
+the fatigues of the sale. He found Salvatore hovering about as usual, and
+instructed him to come to the rescue with a minute steak.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Salvatore was the dark, sinister-looking waiter who attended, among other
+tables, to the one at the far end of the grill-room at which Archie usually
+sat. For several weeks Archie&rsquo;s conversations with the other had dealt
+exclusively with the bill of fare and its contents; but gradually he had found
+himself becoming more personal. Even before the war and its democratising
+influences, Archie had always lacked that reserve which characterises many
+Britons; and since the war he had looked on nearly everyone he met as a
+brother. Long since, through the medium of a series of friendly chats, he had
+heard all about Salvatore&rsquo;s home in Italy, the little newspaper and
+tobacco shop which his mother owned down on Seventh Avenue, and a hundred other
+personal details. Archie had an insatiable curiosity about his fellow-man.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Well done,&rdquo; said Archie.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Sare?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;The steak. Not too rare, you know.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Very good, sare.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Archie looked at the waiter closely. His tone had been subdued and sad. Of
+course, you don&rsquo;t expect a waiter to beam all over his face and give
+three rousing cheers simply because you have asked him to bring you a minute
+steak, but still there was something about Salvatore&rsquo;s manner that
+disturbed Archie. The man appeared to have the pip. Whether he was merely
+homesick and brooding on the lost delights of his sunny native land, or whether
+his trouble was more definite, could only be ascertained by enquiry. So Archie
+enquired.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;What&rsquo;s the matter, laddie?&rdquo; he said sympathetically.
+&ldquo;Something on your mind?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Sare?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;I say, there seems to be something on your mind. What&rsquo;s the
+trouble?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The waiter shrugged his shoulders, as if indicating an unwillingness to inflict
+his grievances on one of the tipping classes.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Come on!&rdquo; persisted Archie encouragingly. &ldquo;All pals here.
+Barge along, old thing, and let&rsquo;s have it.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Salvatore, thus admonished, proceeded in a hurried undertone&mdash;with one eye
+on the headwaiter&mdash;to lay bare his soul. What he said was not very
+coherent, but Archie could make out enough of it to gather that it was a sad
+story of excessive hours and insufficient pay. He mused awhile. The
+waiter&rsquo;s hard case touched him.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;I&rsquo;ll tell you what,&rdquo; he said at last. &ldquo;When jolly old
+Brewster comes back to town&mdash;he&rsquo;s away just now&mdash;I&rsquo;ll
+take you along to him and we&rsquo;ll beard the old boy in his den. I&rsquo;ll
+introduce you, and you get that extract from Italian opera off your chest which
+you&rsquo;ve just been singing to me, and you&rsquo;ll find it&rsquo;ll be all
+right. He isn&rsquo;t what you might call one of my greatest admirers, but
+everybody says he&rsquo;s a square sort of cove and he&rsquo;ll see you
+aren&rsquo;t snootered. And now, laddie, touching the matter of that
+steak.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The waiter disappeared, greatly cheered, and Archie, turning, perceived that
+his friend Reggie van Tuyl was entering the room. He waved to him to join his
+table. He liked Reggie, and it also occurred to him that a man of the world
+like the heir of the van Tuyls, who had been popping about New York for years,
+might be able to give him some much-needed information on the procedure at an
+auction sale, a matter on which he himself was profoundly ignorant.
+</p>
+
+</div><!--end chapter-->
+
+<div class="chapter">
+
+<h2><a name="chap10"></a>CHAPTER X.<br/>
+DOING FATHER A BIT OF GOOD</h2>
+
+<p>
+Reggie Van Tuyl approached the table languidly, and sank down into a chair. He
+was a long youth with a rather subdued and deflated look, as though the burden
+of the van Tuyl millions was more than his frail strength could support. Most
+things tired him.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;I say, Reggie, old top,&rdquo; said Archie, &ldquo;you&rsquo;re just the
+lad I wanted to see. I require the assistance of a blighter of ripe intellect.
+Tell me, laddie, do you know anything about sales?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Reggie eyed him sleepily.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Sales?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Auction sales.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Reggie considered.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Well, they&rsquo;re sales, you know.&rdquo; He checked a yawn.
+&ldquo;Auction sales, you understand.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Yes,&rdquo; said Archie encouragingly. &ldquo;Something&mdash;the name
+or something&mdash;seemed to tell me that.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Fellows put things up for sale you know, and other fellows&mdash;other
+fellows go in and&mdash;and buy &rsquo;em, if you follow me.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Yes, but what&rsquo;s the procedure? I mean, what do I do? That&rsquo;s
+what I&rsquo;m after. I&rsquo;ve got to buy something at Beale&rsquo;s this
+afternoon. How do I set about it?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Well,&rdquo; said Reggie, drowsily, &ldquo;there are several ways of
+bidding, you know. You can shout, or you can nod, or you can twiddle your
+fingers&mdash;&rdquo; The effort of concentration was too much for him. He
+leaned back limply in his chair. &ldquo;I&rsquo;ll tell you what. I&rsquo;ve
+nothing to do this afternoon. I&rsquo;ll come with you and show you.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p class="p2">
+When he entered the Art Galleries a few minutes later, Archie was glad of the
+moral support of even such a wobbly reed as Reggie van Tuyl. There is something
+about an auction room which weighs heavily upon the novice. The hushed interior
+was bathed in a dim, religious light; and the congregation, seated on small
+wooden chairs, gazed in reverent silence at the pulpit, where a gentleman of
+commanding presence and sparkling pince-nez was delivering a species of chant.
+Behind a gold curtain at the end of the room mysterious forms flitted to and
+fro. Archie, who had been expecting something on the lines of the New York
+Stock Exchange, which he had once been privileged to visit when it was in a
+more than usually feverish mood, found the atmosphere oppressively
+ecclesiastical. He sat down and looked about him. The presiding priest went on
+with his chant.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Sixteen-sixteen-sixteen-sixteen-sixteen&mdash;worth three
+hundred&mdash;sixteen-sixteen-sixteen-sixteen-sixteen&mdash;ought to bring five
+hundred&mdash;sixteen-sixteen-seventeen-seventeen-eighteen-eighteen
+nineteen-nineteen-nineteen.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+He stopped and eyed the worshippers with a glittering and reproachful eye. They
+had, it seemed, disappointed him. His lips curled, and he waved a hand towards
+a grimly uncomfortable-looking chair with insecure legs and a good deal of gold
+paint about it. &ldquo;Gentlemen! Ladies and gentlemen! You are not here to
+waste my time; I am not here to waste yours. Am I seriously offered nineteen
+dollars for this eighteenth-century chair, acknowledged to be the finest piece
+sold in New York for months and months? Am I&mdash;twenty? I thank you.
+Twenty-twenty-twenty-twenty. <i>Your</i> opportunity! Priceless. Very few
+extant. Twenty-five-five-five-five-thirty-thirty. Just what you are looking
+for. The only one in the City of New York. Thirty-five-five-five-five.
+Forty-forty-forty-forty-forty. Look at those legs! Back it into the light,
+Willie. Let the light fall on those legs!&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Willie, a sort of acolyte, manœuvred the chair as directed. Reggie van Tuyl,
+who had been yawning in a hopeless sort of way, showed his first flicker of
+interest.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Willie,&rdquo; he observed, eyeing that youth more with pity than
+reproach, &ldquo;has a face like Jo-Jo the dog-faced boy, don&rsquo;t you think
+so?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Archie nodded briefly. Precisely the same criticism had occurred to him.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Forty-five-five-five-five-five,&rdquo; chanted the high-priest.
+&ldquo;Once forty-five. Twice forty-five. Third and last call, forty-five. Sold
+at forty-five. Gentleman in the fifth row.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Archie looked up and down the row with a keen eye. He was anxious to see who
+had been chump enough to give forty-five dollars for such a frightful object.
+He became aware of the dog-faced Willie leaning towards him.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Name, please?&rdquo; said the canine one.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Eh, what?&rdquo; said Archie. &ldquo;Oh, my name&rsquo;s Moffam,
+don&rsquo;t you know.&rdquo; The eyes of the multitude made him feel a little
+nervous &ldquo;Er&mdash;glad to meet you and all that sort of rot.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Ten dollars deposit, please,&rdquo; said Willie.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;I don&rsquo;t absolutely follow you, old bean. What is the big thought
+at the back of all this?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Ten dollars deposit on the chair.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;What chair?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;You bid forty-five dollars for the chair.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Me?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;You nodded,&rdquo; said Willie, accusingly. &ldquo;If,&rdquo; he went
+on, reasoning closely, &ldquo;you didn&rsquo;t want to bid, why did you
+nod?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Archie was embarrassed. He could, of course, have pointed out that he had
+merely nodded in adhesion to the statement that the other had a face like Jo-Jo
+the dog-faced boy; but something seemed to tell him that a purist might
+consider the excuse deficient in tact. He hesitated a moment, then handed over
+a ten-dollar bill, the price of Willie&rsquo;s feelings. Willie withdrew like a
+tiger slinking from the body of its victim.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;I say, old thing,&rdquo; said Archie to Reggie, &ldquo;this is a bit
+thick, you know. No purse will stand this drain.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Reggie considered the matter. His face seemed drawn under the mental strain.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Don&rsquo;t nod again,&rdquo; he advised. &ldquo;If you aren&rsquo;t
+careful, you get into the habit of it. When you want to bid, just twiddle your
+fingers. Yes, that&rsquo;s the thing. Twiddle!&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+He sighed drowsily. The atmosphere of the auction room was close; you
+weren&rsquo;t allowed to smoke; and altogether he was beginning to regret that
+he had come. The service continued. Objects of varying unattractiveness came
+and went, eulogised by the officiating priest, but coldly received by the
+congregation. Relations between the former and the latter were growing more and
+more distant. The congregation seemed to suspect the priest of having an
+ulterior motive in his eulogies, and the priest seemed to suspect the
+congregation of a frivolous desire to waste his time. He had begun to speculate
+openly as to why they were there at all. Once, when a particularly repellent
+statuette of a nude female with an unwholesome green skin had been offered at
+two dollars and had found no bidders&mdash;the congregation appearing silently
+grateful for his statement that it was the only specimen of its kind on the
+continent&mdash;he had specifically accused them of having come into the
+auction room merely with the purpose of sitting down and taking the weight off
+their feet.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;If your thing&mdash;your whatever-it-is, doesn&rsquo;t come up soon,
+Archie,&rdquo; said Reggie, fighting off with an effort the mists of sleep,
+&ldquo;I rather think I shall be toddling along. What was it you came to
+get?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;It&rsquo;s rather difficult to describe. It&rsquo;s a rummy-looking sort
+of what-not, made of china or something. I call it Pongo. At least, this one
+isn&rsquo;t Pongo, don&rsquo;t you know&mdash;it&rsquo;s his little brother,
+but presumably equally foul in every respect. It&rsquo;s all rather
+complicated, I know, but&mdash;hallo!&rdquo; He pointed excitedly. &ldquo;By
+Jove! We&rsquo;re off! There it is! Look! Willie&rsquo;s unleashing it
+now!&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Willie, who had disappeared through the gold curtain, had now returned, and was
+placing on a pedestal a small china figure of delicate workmanship. It was the
+figure of a warrior in a suit of armour advancing with raised spear upon an
+adversary. A thrill permeated Archie&rsquo;s frame. Parker had not been
+mistaken. This was undoubtedly the companion-figure to the redoubtable Pongo.
+The two were identical. Even from where he sat Archie could detect on the
+features of the figure on the pedestal the same expression of insufferable
+complacency which had alienated his sympathies from the original Pongo.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The high-priest, undaunted by previous rebuffs, regarded the figure with a
+gloating enthusiasm wholly unshared by the congregation, who were plainly
+looking upon Pongo&rsquo;s little brother as just another of those things.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;This,&rdquo; he said, with a shake in his voice, &ldquo;is something
+very special. China figure, said to date back to the Ming Dynasty. Unique.
+Nothing like it on either side of the Atlantic. If I were selling this at
+Christie&rsquo;s in London, where people,&rdquo; he said, nastily, &ldquo;have
+an educated appreciation of the beautiful, the rare, and the exquisite, I
+should start the bidding at a thousand dollars. This afternoon&rsquo;s
+experience has taught me that that might possibly be too high.&rdquo; His
+pince-nez sparkled militantly, as he gazed upon the stolid throng. &ldquo;Will
+anyone offer me a dollar for this unique figure?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Leap at it, old top,&rdquo; said Reggie van Tuyl. &ldquo;Twiddle, dear
+boy, twiddle! A dollar&rsquo;s reasonable.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Archie twiddled.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;One dollar I am offered,&rdquo; said the high-priest, bitterly.
+&ldquo;One gentleman here is not afraid to take a chance. One gentleman here
+knows a good thing when he sees one.&rdquo; He abandoned the gently sarcastic
+manner for one of crisp and direct reproach. &ldquo;Come, come, gentlemen, we
+are not here to waste time. Will anyone offer me one hundred dollars for this
+superb piece of&mdash;&rdquo; He broke off, and seemed for a moment almost
+unnerved. He stared at someone in one of the seats in front of Archie.
+&ldquo;Thank you,&rdquo; he said, with a sort of gulp. &ldquo;One hundred
+dollars I am offered! One hundred&mdash;one hundred&mdash;one
+hundred&mdash;&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Archie was startled. This sudden, tremendous jump, this wholly unforeseen boom
+in Pongos, if one might so describe it, was more than a little disturbing. He
+could not see who his rival was, but it was evident that at least one among
+those present did not intend to allow Pongo&rsquo;s brother to slip by without
+a fight. He looked helplessly at Reggie for counsel, but Reggie had now
+definitely given up the struggle. Exhausted nature had done its utmost, and now
+he was leaning back with closed eyes, breathing softly through his nose. Thrown
+on his own resources, Archie could think of no better course than to twiddle
+his fingers again. He did so, and the high-priest&rsquo;s chant took on a note
+of positive exuberance.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Two hundred I am offered. Much better! Turn the pedestal round, Willie,
+and let them look at it. Slowly! Slowly! You aren&rsquo;t spinning a
+roulette-wheel. Two hundred. Two-two-two-two-two.&rdquo; He became suddenly
+lyrical. &ldquo;Two-two-two&mdash;There was a young lady named Lou, who was
+catching a train at two-two. Said the porter, &lsquo;Don&rsquo;t worry or hurry
+or scurry. It&rsquo;s a minute or two to two-two!&rsquo;
+Two-two-two-two-two!&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Archie&rsquo;s concern increased. He seemed to be twiddling at this voluble man
+across seas of misunderstanding. Nothing is harder to interpret to a nicety
+than a twiddle, and Archie&rsquo;s idea of the language of twiddles and the
+high-priest&rsquo;s idea did not coincide by a mile. The high-priest appeared
+to consider that, when Archie twiddled, it was his intention to bid in
+hundreds, whereas in fact Archie had meant to signify that he raised the
+previous bid by just one dollar. Archie felt that, if given time, he could make
+this clear to the high-priest, but the latter gave him no time. He had got his
+audience, so to speak, on the run, and he proposed to hustle them before they
+could rally.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Two hundred&mdash;two hundred&mdash;two&mdash;three&mdash;thank you,
+sir&mdash;three-three-three-four-four-five-five-six-six-seven-seven-seven&mdash;&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Archie sat limply in his wooden chair. He was conscious of a feeling which he
+had only experienced twice in his life&mdash;once when he had taken his first
+lesson in driving a motor and had trodden on the accelerator instead of the
+brake; the second time more recently, when he had made his first down-trip on
+an express lift. He had now precisely the same sensation of being run away with
+by an uncontrollable machine, and of having left most of his internal organs at
+some little distance from the rest of his body. Emerging from this welter of
+emotion, stood out the one clear fact that, be the opposition bidding what it
+might, he must nevertheless secure the prize. Lucille had sent him to New York
+expressly to do so. She had sacrificed her jewellery for the cause. She relied
+on him. The enterprise had become for Archie something almost sacred. He felt
+dimly like a knight of old hot on the track of the Holy Grail.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+He twiddled again. The ring and the bracelet had fetched nearly twelve hundred
+dollars. Up to that figure his hat was in the ring.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Eight hundred I am offered. Eight hundred.
+Eight-eight-eight-eight&mdash;&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+A voice spoke from somewhere at the back of the room. A quiet, cold, nasty,
+determined voice.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Nine!&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Archie rose from his seat and spun round. This mean attack from the rear stung
+his fighting spirit. As he rose, a young man sitting immediately in front of
+him rose too and stared likewise. He was a square-built resolute-looking young
+man, who reminded Archie vaguely of somebody he had seen before. But Archie was
+too busy trying to locate the man at the back to pay much attention to him. He
+detected him at last, owing to the fact that the eyes of everybody in that part
+of the room were fixed upon him. He was a small man of middle age, with
+tortoise-shell-rimmed spectacles. He might have been a professor or something
+of the kind. Whatever he was, he was obviously a man to be reckoned with. He
+had a rich sort of look, and his demeanour was the demeanour of a man who is
+prepared to fight it out on these lines if it takes all the summer.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Nine hundred I am offered. Nine-nine-nine-nine&mdash;&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Archie glared defiantly at the spectacled man.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;A thousand!&rdquo; he cried.
+</p>
+
+<p class="p2">
+The irruption of high finance into the placid course of the afternoon&rsquo;s
+proceedings had stirred the congregation out of its lethargy. There were
+excited murmurs. Necks were craned, feet shuffled. As for the high-priest, his
+cheerfulness was now more than restored, and his faith in his fellow-man had
+soared from the depths to a very lofty altitude. He beamed with approval.
+Despite the warmth of his praise he would have been quite satisfied to see
+Pongo&rsquo;s little brother go at twenty dollars, and the reflection that the
+bidding had already reached one thousand and that his commission was twenty per
+cent, had engendered a mood of sunny happiness.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;One thousand is bid!&rdquo; he carolled. &ldquo;Now, gentlemen, I
+don&rsquo;t want to hurry you over this. You are all connoisseurs here, and you
+don&rsquo;t want to see a priceless china figure of the Ming Dynasty get away
+from you at a sacrifice price. Perhaps you can&rsquo;t all see the figure where
+it is. Willie, take it round and show it to &rsquo;em. We&rsquo;ll take a
+little intermission while you look carefully at this wonderful figure. Get a
+move on, Willie! Pick up your feet!&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Archie, sitting dazedly, was aware that Reggie van Tuyl had finished his beauty
+sleep and was addressing the young man in the seat in front.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Why, hallo,&rdquo; said Reggie. &ldquo;I didn&rsquo;t know you were
+back. You remember me, don&rsquo;t you? Reggie van Tuyl. I know your sister
+very well. Archie, old man, I want you to meet my friend, Bill Brewster. Why,
+dash it!&rdquo; He chuckled sleepily. &ldquo;I was forgetting. Of course!
+He&rsquo;s your&mdash;&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;How are you?&rdquo; said the young man. &ldquo;Talking of my
+sister,&rdquo; he said to Reggie, &ldquo;I suppose you haven&rsquo;t met her
+husband by any chance? I suppose you know she married some awful chump?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Me,&rdquo; said Archie.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;How&rsquo;s that?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;I married your sister. My name&rsquo;s Moffam.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The young man seemed a trifle taken aback.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Sorry,&rdquo; he said.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Not at all,&rdquo; said Archie.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;I was only going by what my father said in his letters,&rdquo; he
+explained, in extenuation.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Archie nodded.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;I&rsquo;m afraid your jolly old father doesn&rsquo;t appreciate me. But
+I&rsquo;m hoping for the best. If I can rope in that rummy-looking little china
+thing that Jo-Jo the dog-faced boy is showing the customers, he will be all
+over me. I mean to say, you know, he&rsquo;s got another like it, and, if he
+can get a full house, as it were, I&rsquo;m given to understand he&rsquo;ll be
+bucked, cheered, and even braced.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The young man stared.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Are <i>you</i> the fellow who&rsquo;s been bidding against me?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Eh, what? Were you bidding against <i>me?</i>&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;I wanted to buy the thing for my father. I&rsquo;ve a special reason for
+wanting to get in right with him just now. Are you buying it for him,
+too?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Absolutely. As a surprise. It was Lucille&rsquo;s idea. His valet, a
+chappie named Parker, tipped us off that the thing was to be sold.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Parker? Great Scot! It was Parker who tipped <i>me</i> off. I met him on
+Broadway, and he told me about it.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Rummy he never mentioned it in his letter to me. Why, dash it, we could
+have got the thing for about two dollars if we had pooled our bids.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Well, we&rsquo;d better pool them now, and extinguish that pill at the
+back there. I can&rsquo;t go above eleven hundred. That&rsquo;s all I&rsquo;ve
+got.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;I can&rsquo;t go above eleven hundred myself.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;There&rsquo;s just one thing. I wish you&rsquo;d let me be the one to
+hand the thing over to Father. I&rsquo;ve a special reason for wanting to make
+a hit with him.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Absolutely!&rdquo; said Archie, magnanimously. &ldquo;It&rsquo;s all the
+same to me. I only wanted to get him generally braced, as it were, if you know
+what I mean.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;That&rsquo;s awfully good of you.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Not a bit, laddie, no, no, and far from it. Only too glad.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Willie had returned from his rambles among the connoisseurs, and Pongo&rsquo;s
+brother was back on his pedestal. The high-priest cleared his throat and
+resumed his discourse.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Now that you have all seen this superb figure we will&mdash;I was
+offered one thousand&mdash;one thousand-one-one-one-one&mdash;eleven hundred.
+Thank you, sir. Eleven hundred I am offered.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The high-priest was now exuberant. You could see him doing figures in his head.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;You do the bidding,&rdquo; said Brother Bill.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Right-o!&rdquo; said Archie.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+He waved a defiant hand.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Thirteen,&rdquo; said the man at the back.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Fourteen, dash it!&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Fifteen!&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Sixteen!&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Seventeen!&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Eighteen!&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Nineteen!&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Two thousand!&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The high-priest did everything but sing. He radiated good will and bonhomie.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Two thousand I am offered. Is there any advance on two thousand? Come,
+gentlemen, I don&rsquo;t want to give this superb figure away. Twenty-one
+hundred. Twenty-one-one-one-one. This is more the sort of thing I have been
+accustomed to. When I was at Sotheby&rsquo;s Rooms in London, this kind of
+bidding was a common-place. Twenty-two-two-two-two-two. One hardly noticed it.
+Three-three-three. Twenty-three-three-three. Twenty-three hundred dollars I am
+offered.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+He gazed expectantly at Archie, as a man gazes at some favourite dog whom he
+calls upon to perform a trick. But Archie had reached the end of his tether.
+The hand that had twiddled so often and so bravely lay inert beside his
+trouser-leg, twitching feebly. Archie was through.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Twenty-three hundred,&rdquo; said the high-priest, ingratiatingly.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Archie made no movement. There was a tense pause. The high-priest gave a little
+sigh, like one waking from a beautiful dream.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Twenty-three hundred,&rdquo; he said. &ldquo;Once twenty-three. Twice
+twenty-three. Third, last, and final call, twenty-three. Sold at twenty-three
+hundred. I congratulate you, sir, on a genuine bargain!&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Reggie van Tuyl had dozed off again. Archie tapped his brother-in-law on the
+shoulder.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;May as well be popping, what?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+They threaded their way sadly together through the crowd, and made for the
+street. They passed into Fifth Avenue without breaking the silence.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Bally nuisance,&rdquo; said Archie, at last.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Rotten!&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Wonder who that chappie was?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Some collector, probably.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Well, it can&rsquo;t be helped,&rdquo; said Archie.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Brother Bill attached himself to Archie&rsquo;s arm, and became communicative.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;I didn&rsquo;t want to mention it in front of van Tuyl,&rdquo; he said,
+&ldquo;because he&rsquo;s such a talking-machine, and it would have been all
+over New York before dinner-time. But you&rsquo;re one of the family, and you
+can keep a secret.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Absolutely! Silent tomb and what not.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;The reason I wanted that darned thing was because I&rsquo;ve just got
+engaged to a girl over in England, and I thought that, if I could hand my
+father that china figure-thing with one hand and break the news with the other,
+it might help a bit. She&rsquo;s the most wonderful girl!&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;I&rsquo;ll bet she is,&rdquo; said Archie, cordially.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;The trouble is she&rsquo;s in the chorus of one of the revues over
+there, and Father is apt to kick. So I thought&mdash;oh, well, it&rsquo;s no
+good worrying now. Come along where it&rsquo;s quiet, and I&rsquo;ll tell you
+all about her.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;That&rsquo;ll be jolly,&rdquo; said Archie.
+</p>
+
+</div><!--end chapter-->
+
+<div class="chapter">
+
+<h2><a name="chap11"></a>CHAPTER XI.<br/>
+SALVATORE CHOOSES THE WRONG MOMENT</h2>
+
+<p>
+Archie reclaimed the family jewellery from its temporary home next morning;
+and, having done so, sauntered back to the Cosmopolis. He was surprised, on
+entering the lobby, to meet his father-in-law. More surprising still, Mr.
+Brewster was manifestly in a mood of extraordinary geniality. Archie could
+hardly believe his eyes when the other waved cheerily to him&mdash;nor his ears
+a moment later when Mr. Brewster, addressing him as &ldquo;my boy,&rdquo; asked
+him how he was and mentioned that the day was a warm one.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Obviously this jovial frame of mind must be taken advantage of; and
+Archie&rsquo;s first thought was of the downtrodden Salvatore, to the tale of
+whose wrongs he had listened so sympathetically on the previous day. Now was
+plainly the moment for the waiter to submit his grievance, before some ebb-tide
+caused the milk of human kindness to flow out of Daniel Brewster. With a swift
+&ldquo;Cheerio!&rdquo; in his father-in-law&rsquo;s direction, Archie bounded
+into the grill-room. Salvatore, the hour for luncheon being imminent but not
+yet having arrived, was standing against the far wall in an attitude of
+thought.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Laddie!&rdquo; cried Archie.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Sare?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;A most extraordinary thing has happened. Good old Brewster has suddenly
+popped up through a trap and is out in the lobby now. And what&rsquo;s still
+more weird, he&rsquo;s apparently bucked.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Sare?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Braced, you know. In the pink. Pleased about something. If you go to him
+now with that yarn of yours, you can&rsquo;t fail. He&rsquo;ll kiss you on both
+cheeks and give you his bank-roll and collar-stud. Charge along and ask the
+head-waiter if you can have ten minutes off.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Salvatore vanished in search of the potentate named, and Archie returned to the
+lobby to bask in the unwonted sunshine.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Well, well, well, what!&rdquo; he said. &ldquo;I thought you were at
+Brookport.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;I came up this morning to meet a friend of mine,&rdquo; replied Mr.
+Brewster genially. &ldquo;Professor Binstead.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Don&rsquo;t think I know him.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Very interesting man,&rdquo; said Mr. Brewster, still with the same
+uncanny amiability. &ldquo;He&rsquo;s a dabbler in a good many
+things&mdash;science, phrenology, antiques. I asked him to bid for me at a sale
+yesterday. There was a little china figure&mdash;&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Archie&rsquo;s jaw fell.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;China figure?&rdquo; he stammered feebly.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Yes. The companion to one you may have noticed on my mantelpiece
+upstairs. I have been trying to get the pair of them for years. I should never
+have heard of this one if it had not been for that valet of mine, Parker. Very
+good of him to let me know of it, considering I had fired him. Ah, here is
+Binstead.&rdquo;&mdash;He moved to greet the small, middle-aged man with the
+tortoiseshell-rimmed spectacles who was bustling across the
+lobby.&mdash;&ldquo;Well, Binstead, so you got it?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Yes.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;I suppose the price wasn&rsquo;t particularly stiff?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Twenty-three hundred.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Twenty-three hundred!&rdquo; Mr. Brewster seemed to reel in his tracks.
+&ldquo;Twenty-three <i>hundred!</i>&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;You gave me carte blanche.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Yes, but twenty-three hundred!&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;I could have got it for a few dollars, but unfortunately I was a little
+late, and, when I arrived, some young fool had bid it up to a thousand, and he
+stuck to me till I finally shook him off at twenty-three hundred. Why, this is
+the very man! Is he a friend of yours?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Archie coughed.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;More a relation than a friend, what? Son-in-law, don&rsquo;t you
+know!&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Mr. Brewster&rsquo;s amiability had vanished.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;What damned foolery have you been up to <i>now?</i>&rdquo; he demanded.
+&ldquo;Can&rsquo;t I move a step without stubbing my toe on you? Why the devil
+did you bid?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;We thought it would be rather a fruity scheme. We talked it over and
+came to the conclusion that it was an egg. Wanted to get hold of the rummy
+little object, don&rsquo;t you know, and surprise you.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Who&rsquo;s we?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Lucille and I.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;But how did you hear of it at all?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Parker, the valet-chappie, you know, wrote me a letter about it.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Parker! Didn&rsquo;t he tell you that he had told me the figure was to
+be sold?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Absolutely not!&rdquo; A sudden suspicion came to Archie. He was
+normally a guileless young man, but even to him the extreme fishiness of the
+part played by Herbert Parker had become apparent. &ldquo;I say, you know, it
+looks to me as if friend Parker had been having us all on a bit, what? I mean
+to say it was jolly old Herb, who tipped your son off&mdash;Bill, you
+know&mdash;to go and bid for the thing.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Bill! Was Bill there?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Absolutely in person! We were bidding against each other like the
+dickens till we managed to get together and get acquainted. And then this
+bird&mdash;this gentleman&mdash;sailed in and started to slip it across
+us.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Professor Binstead chuckled&mdash;the care-free chuckle of a man who sees all
+those around him smitten in the pocket, while he himself remains untouched.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;A very ingenious rogue, this Parker of yours, Brewster. His method seems
+to have been simple but masterly. I have no doubt that either he or a
+confederate obtained the figure and placed it with the auctioneer, and then he
+ensured a good price for it by getting us all to bid against each other. Very
+ingenious!&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Mr. Brewster struggled with his feelings. Then he seemed to overcome them and
+to force himself to look on the bright side.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Well, anyway,&rdquo; he said. &ldquo;I&rsquo;ve got the pair of figures,
+and that&rsquo;s what I wanted. Is that it in that parcel?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;This is it. I wouldn&rsquo;t trust an express company to deliver it.
+Suppose we go up to your room and see how the two look side by side.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+They crossed the lobby to the lift.-The cloud was still on Mr. Brewster&rsquo;s
+brow as they stepped out and made their way to his suite. Like most men who
+have risen from poverty to wealth by their own exertions, Mr. Brewster objected
+to parting with his money unnecessarily, and it was plain that that
+twenty-three hundred dollars still rankled.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Mr. Brewster unlocked the door and crossed the room. Then, suddenly, he halted,
+stared, and stared again. He sprang to the bell and pressed it, then stood
+gurgling wordlessly.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Anything wrong, old bean?&rdquo; queried Archie, solicitously.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Wrong! Wrong! It&rsquo;s gone!&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Gone?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;The figure!&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The floor-waiter had manifested himself silently in answer to the bell, and was
+standing in the doorway.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Simmons!&rdquo; Mr. Brewster turned to him wildly. &ldquo;Has anyone
+been in this suite since I went away?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;No, sir.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Nobody?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Nobody except your valet, sir&mdash;Parker. He said he had come to fetch
+some things away. I supposed he had come from you, sir, with
+instructions.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Get out!&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Professor Binstead had unwrapped his parcel, and had placed the Pongo on the
+table. There was a weighty silence. Archie picked up the little china figure
+and balanced it on the palm of his hand. It was a small thing, he reflected
+philosophically, but it had made quite a stir in the world.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Mr. Brewster fermented for a while without speaking.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;So,&rdquo; he said, at last, in a voice trembling with self-pity,
+&ldquo;I have been to all this trouble&mdash;&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;And expense,&rdquo; put in Professor Binstead, gently.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Merely to buy back something which had been stolen from me! And, owing
+to your damned officiousness,&rdquo; he cried, turning on Archie, &ldquo;I have
+had to pay twenty-three hundred dollars for it! I don&rsquo;t know why they
+make such a fuss about Job. Job never had anything like you around!&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Of course,&rdquo; argued Archie, &ldquo;he had one or two boils.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Boils! What are boils?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Dashed sorry,&rdquo; murmured Archie. &ldquo;Acted for the best. Meant
+well. And all that sort of rot!&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Professor Binstead&rsquo;s mind seemed occupied to the exclusion of all other
+aspects of the affair, with the ingenuity of the absent Parker.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;A cunning scheme!&rdquo; he said. &ldquo;A very cunning scheme! This man
+Parker must have a brain of no low order. I should like to feel his
+bumps!&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;I should like to give him some!&rdquo; said the stricken Mr. Brewster.
+He breathed a deep breath. &ldquo;Oh, well,&rdquo; he said, &ldquo;situated as
+I am, with a crook valet and an imbecile son-in-law, I suppose I ought to be
+thankful that I&rsquo;ve still got my own property, even if I have had to pay
+twenty-three hundred dollars for the privilege of keeping it.&rdquo; He rounded
+on Archie, who was in a reverie. The thought of the unfortunate Bill had just
+crossed Archie&rsquo;s mind. It would be many moons, many weary moons, before
+Mr. Brewster would be in a suitable mood to listen sympathetically to the story
+of love&rsquo;s young dream. &ldquo;Give me that figure!&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Archie continued to toy absently with Pongo. He was wondering now how best to
+break this sad occurrence to Lucille. It would be a disappointment for the poor
+girl.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;<i>Give me that figure!</i>&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Archie started violently. There was an instant in which Pongo seemed to hang
+suspended, like Mohammed&rsquo;s coffin, between heaven and earth, then the
+force of gravity asserted itself. Pongo fell with a sharp crack and
+disintegrated. And as it did so there was a knock at the door, and in walked a
+dark, furtive person, who to the inflamed vision of Mr. Daniel Brewster looked
+like something connected with the executive staff of the Black Hand. With all
+time at his disposal, the unfortunate Salvatore had selected this moment for
+stating his case.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Get out!&rdquo; bellowed Mr. Brewster. &ldquo;I didn&rsquo;t ring for a
+waiter.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Archie, his mind reeling beneath the catastrophe, recovered himself
+sufficiently to do the honours. It was at his instigation that Salvatore was
+there, and, greatly as he wished that he could have seen fit to choose a more
+auspicious moment for his business chat, he felt compelled to do his best to
+see him through.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Oh, I say, half a second,&rdquo; he said. &ldquo;You don&rsquo;t quite
+understand. As a matter of fact, this chappie is by way of being downtrodden
+and oppressed and what not, and I suggested that he should get hold of you and
+speak a few well-chosen words. Of course, if you&rsquo;d rather&mdash;some
+other time&mdash;&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+But Mr. Brewster was not permitted to postpone the interview. Before he could
+get his breath, Salvatore had begun to talk. He was a strong, ambidextrous
+talker, whom it was hard to interrupt; and it was not for some moments that Mr.
+Brewster succeeded in getting a word in. When he did, he spoke to the point.
+Though not a linguist, he had been able to follow the discourse closely enough
+to realise that the waiter was dissatisfied with conditions in his hotel; and
+Mr. Brewster, as has been indicated, had a short way with people who criticised
+the Cosmopolis.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;You&rsquo;re fired!&rdquo; said Mr. Brewster.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Oh, I say!&rdquo; protested Archie.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Salvatore muttered what sounded like a passage from Dante.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Fired!&rdquo; repeated Mr. Brewster resolutely. &ldquo;And I wish to
+heaven,&rdquo; he added, eyeing his son-in-law malignantly, &ldquo;I could fire
+<i>you!</i>&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Well,&rdquo; said Professor Binstead cheerfully, breaking the grim
+silence which followed this outburst, &ldquo;if you will give me your cheque,
+Brewster, I think I will be going. Two thousand three hundred dollars. Make it
+open, if you will, and then I can run round the corner and cash it before
+lunch. That will be capital!&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+</div><!--end chapter-->
+
+<div class="chapter">
+
+<h2><a name="chap12"></a>CHAPTER XII.<br/>
+BRIGHT EYES&mdash;AND A FLY</h2>
+
+<p>
+The Hermitage (unrivalled scenery, superb cuisine, Daniel Brewster, proprietor)
+was a picturesque summer hotel in the green heart of the mountains, built by
+Archie&rsquo;s father-in-law shortly after he assumed control of the
+Cosmopolis. Mr. Brewster himself seldom went there, preferring to concentrate
+his attention on his New York establishment; and Archie and Lucille,
+breakfasting in the airy dining-room some ten days after the incidents recorded
+in the last chapter, had consequently to be content with two out of the three
+advertised attractions of the place. Through the window at their side quite a
+slab of the unrivalled scenery was visible; some of the superb cuisine was
+already on the table; and the fact that the eye searched in vain for Daniel
+Brewster, proprietor, filled Archie, at any rate, with no sense of aching loss.
+He bore it with equanimity and even with positive enthusiasm. In Archie&rsquo;s
+opinion, practically all a place needed to make it an earthly Paradise was for
+Mr. Daniel Brewster to be about forty-seven miles away from it.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+It was at Lucille&rsquo;s suggestion that they had come to the Hermitage. Never
+a human sunbeam, Mr. Brewster had shown such a bleak front to the world, and
+particularly to his son-in-law, in the days following the Pongo incident, that
+Lucille had thought that he and Archie would for a time at least be better
+apart&mdash;a view with which her husband cordially agreed. He had enjoyed his
+stay at the Hermitage, and now he regarded the eternal hills with the
+comfortable affection of a healthy man who is breakfasting well.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;It&rsquo;s going to be another perfectly topping day,&rdquo; he
+observed, eyeing the shimmering landscape, from which the morning mists were
+swiftly shredding away like faint puffs of smoke. &ldquo;Just the day you ought
+to have been here.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Yes, it&rsquo;s too bad I&rsquo;ve got to go. New York will be like an
+oven.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Put it off.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;I can&rsquo;t, I&rsquo;m afraid. I&rsquo;ve a fitting.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Archie argued no further. He was a married man of old enough standing to know
+the importance of fittings.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Besides,&rdquo; said Lucille, &ldquo;I want to see father.&rdquo; Archie
+repressed an exclamation of astonishment. &ldquo;I&rsquo;ll be back to-morrow
+evening. You will be perfectly happy.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Queen of my soul, you know I can&rsquo;t be happy with you away. You
+know&mdash;&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Yes?&rdquo; murmured Lucille, appreciatively. She never tired of hearing
+Archie say this sort of thing.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Archie&rsquo;s voice had trailed off. He was looking across the room.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;By Jove!&rdquo; he exclaimed. &ldquo;What an awfully pretty
+woman!&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Where?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Over there. Just coming in, I say, what wonderful eyes! I don&rsquo;t
+think I ever saw such eyes. Did you notice her eyes? Sort of flashing! Awfully
+pretty woman!&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Warm though the morning was, a suspicion of chill descended upon the
+breakfast-table. A certain coldness seemed to come into Lucille&rsquo;s face.
+She could not always share Archie&rsquo;s fresh young enthusiasms.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Do you think so?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Wonderful figure, too!&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Yes?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Well, what I mean to say, fair to medium,&rdquo; said Archie, recovering
+a certain amount of that intelligence which raises man above the level of the
+beasts of the field. &ldquo;Not the sort of type I admire myself, of
+course.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;You know her, don&rsquo;t you?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Absolutely not and far from it,&rdquo; said Archie, hastily.
+&ldquo;Never met her in my life.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;You&rsquo;ve seen her on the stage. Her name&rsquo;s Vera Silverton. We
+saw her in&mdash;&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Of course, yes. So we did. I say, I wonder what she&rsquo;s doing here?
+She ought to be in New York, rehearsing. I remember meeting
+what&rsquo;s-his-name&mdash;you know&mdash;chappie who writes plays and what
+not&mdash;George Benham&mdash;I remember meeting George Benham, and he told me
+she was rehearsing in a piece of his called&mdash;I forget the name, but I know
+it was called something or other. Well, why isn&rsquo;t she?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;She probably lost her temper and broke her contract and came away.
+She&rsquo;s always doing that sort of thing. She&rsquo;s known for it. She must
+be a horrid woman.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Yes.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;I don&rsquo;t want to talk about her. She used to be married to someone,
+and she divorced him. And then she was married to someone else, and he divorced
+her. And I&rsquo;m certain her hair wasn&rsquo;t that colour two years ago, and
+I don&rsquo;t think a woman ought to make up like that, and her dress is all
+wrong for the country, and those pearls can&rsquo;t be genuine, and I hate the
+way she rolls her eyes about, and pink doesn&rsquo;t suit her a bit. I think
+she&rsquo;s an awful woman, and I wish you wouldn&rsquo;t keep on talking about
+her.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Right-o!&rdquo; said Archie, dutifully.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+They finished breakfast, and Lucille went up to pack her bag. Archie strolled
+out on to the terrace outside the hotel, where he smoked, communed with nature,
+and thought of Lucille. He always thought of Lucille when he was alone,
+especially when he chanced to find himself in poetic surroundings like those
+provided by the unrivalled scenery encircling the Hotel Hermitage. The longer
+he was married to her the more did the sacred institution seem to him a good
+egg. Mr. Brewster might regard their marriage as one of the world&rsquo;s most
+unfortunate incidents, but to Archie it was, and always had been, a bit of all
+right. The more he thought of it the more did he marvel that a girl like
+Lucille should have been content to link her lot with that of a Class C
+specimen like himself. His meditations were, in fact, precisely what a
+happily-married man&rsquo;s meditations ought to be.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+He was roused from them by a species of exclamation or cry almost at his elbow,
+and turned to find that the spectacular Miss Silverton was standing beside him.
+Her dubious hair gleamed in the sunlight, and one of the criticised eyes was
+screwed up. The other gazed at Archie with an expression of appeal.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;There&rsquo;s something in my eye,&rdquo; she said.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;No, really!&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;I wonder if you would mind? It would be so kind of you!&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Archie would have preferred to remove himself, but no man worthy of the name
+can decline to come to the rescue of womanhood in distress. To twist the
+lady&rsquo;s upper lid back and peer into it and jab at it with the corner of
+his handkerchief was the only course open to him. His conduct may be classed as
+not merely blameless but definitely praiseworthy. King Arthur&rsquo;s knights
+used to do this sort of thing all the time, and look what people think of them.
+Lucille, therefore, coming out of the hotel just as the operation was
+concluded, ought not to have felt the annoyance she did. But, of course, there
+is a certain superficial intimacy about the attitude of a man who is taking a
+fly out of a woman&rsquo;s eye which may excusably jar upon the sensibilities
+of his wife. It is an attitude which suggests a sort of <i>rapprochement</i> or
+<i>camaraderie</i> or, as Archie would have put it, what not.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Thanks so much!&rdquo; said Miss Silverton.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Oh no, rather not,&rdquo; said Archie.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Such a nuisance getting things in your eye.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Absolutely!&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;I&rsquo;m always doing it!&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Rotten luck!&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;But I don&rsquo;t often find anyone as clever as you to help me.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Lucille felt called upon to break in on this feast of reason and flow of soul.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Archie,&rdquo; she said, &ldquo;if you go and get your clubs now, I
+shall just have time to walk round with you before my train goes.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Oh, ah!&rdquo; said Archie, perceiving her for the first time.
+&ldquo;Oh, ah, yes, right-o, yes, yes, yes!&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+On the way to the first tee it seemed to Archie that Lucille was distrait and
+abstracted in her manner; and it occurred to him, not for the first time in his
+life, what a poor support a clear conscience is in moments of crisis. Dash it
+all, he didn&rsquo;t see what else he could have done. Couldn&rsquo;t leave the
+poor female staggering about the place with squads of flies wedged in her
+eyeball. Nevertheless&mdash;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Rotten thing getting a fly in your eye,&rdquo; he hazarded at length.
+&ldquo;Dashed awkward, I mean.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Or convenient.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Eh?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Well, it&rsquo;s a very good way of dispensing with an
+introduction.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Oh, I say! You don&rsquo;t mean you think&mdash;&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;She&rsquo;s a horrid woman!&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Absolutely! Can&rsquo;t think what people see in her.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Well, you seemed to enjoy fussing over her!&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;No, no! Nothing of the kind! She inspired me with absolute
+what-d&rsquo;you-call-it&mdash;the sort of thing chappies do get inspired with,
+you know.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;You were beaming all over your face.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;I wasn&rsquo;t. I was just screwing up my face because the sun was in my
+eye.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;All sorts of things seem to be in people&rsquo;s eyes this
+morning!&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p class="p2">
+Archie was saddened. That this sort of misunderstanding should have occurred on
+such a topping day and at a moment when they were to be torn asunder for about
+thirty-six hours made him feel&mdash;well, it gave him the pip. He had an idea
+that there were words which would have straightened everything out, but he was
+not an eloquent young man and could not find them. He felt aggrieved. Lucille,
+he considered, ought to have known that he was immune as regarded females with
+flashing eyes and experimentally-coloured hair. Why, dash it, he could have
+extracted flies from the eyes of Cleopatra with one hand and Helen of Troy with
+the other, simultaneously, without giving them a second thought. It was in
+depressed mood that he played a listless nine holes; nor had life brightened
+for him when he came back to the hotel two hours later, after seeing Lucille
+off in the train to New York. Never till now had they had anything remotely
+resembling a quarrel. Life, Archie felt, was a bit of a wash-out. He was
+disturbed and jumpy, and the sight of Miss Silverton, talking to somebody on a
+settee in the corner of the hotel lobby, sent him shooting off at right angles
+and brought him up with a bump against the desk behind which the room-clerk
+sat.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The room-clerk, always of a chatty disposition, was saying something to him,
+but Archie did not listen. He nodded mechanically. It was something about his
+room. He caught the word &ldquo;satisfactory.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Oh, rather, quite!&rdquo; said Archie.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+A fussy devil, the room-clerk! He knew perfectly well that Archie found his
+room satisfactory. These chappies gassed on like this so as to try to make you
+feel that the management took a personal interest in you. It was part of their
+job. Archie beamed absently and went in to lunch. Lucille&rsquo;s empty seat
+stared at him mournfully, increasing his sense of desolation.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+He was half-way through his lunch, when the chair opposite ceased to be vacant.
+Archie, transferring his gaze from the scenery outside the window, perceived
+that his friend, George Benham, the playwright, had materialised from nowhere
+and was now in his midst.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Hallo!&rdquo; he said.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+George Benham was a grave young man whose spectacles gave him the look of a
+mournful owl. He seemed to have something on his mind besides the artistically
+straggling mop of black hair which swept down over his brow. He sighed wearily,
+and ordered fish-pie.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;I thought I saw you come through the lobby just now,&rdquo; he said.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Oh, was that you on the settee, talking to Miss Silverton?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;She was talking to <i>me</i>,&rdquo; said the playwright, moodily.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;What are you doing here?&rdquo; asked Archie. He could have wished Mr.
+Benham elsewhere, for he intruded on his gloom, but, the chappie being amongst
+those present, it was only civil to talk to him. &ldquo;I thought you were in
+New York, watching the rehearsals of your jolly old drama.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;The rehearsals are hung up. And it looks as though there wasn&rsquo;t
+going to be any drama. Good Lord!&rdquo; cried George Benham, with honest
+warmth, &ldquo;with opportunities opening out before one on every
+side&mdash;with life extending prizes to one with both hands&mdash;when you see
+coal-heavers making fifty dollars a week and the fellows who clean out the
+sewers going happy and singing about their work&mdash;why does a man
+deliberately choose a job like writing plays? Job was the only man that ever
+lived who was really qualified to write a play, and he would have found it
+pretty tough going if his leading woman had been anyone like Vera
+Silverton!&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Archie&mdash;and it was this fact, no doubt, which accounted for his possession
+of such a large and varied circle of friends&mdash;was always able to shelve
+his own troubles in order to listen to other people&rsquo;s hard-luck stories.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Tell me all, laddie,&rdquo; he said. &ldquo;Release the film! Has she
+walked out on you?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Left us flat! How did you hear about it? Oh, she told you, of
+course?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Archie hastened to try to dispel the idea that he was on any such terms of
+intimacy with Miss Silverton.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;No, no! My wife said she thought it must be something of that nature or
+order when we saw her come in to breakfast. I mean to say,&rdquo; said Archie,
+reasoning closely, &ldquo;woman can&rsquo;t come into breakfast here and be
+rehearsing in New York at the same time. Why did she administer the raspberry,
+old friend?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Mr. Benham helped himself to fish-pie, and spoke dully through the steam.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Well, what happened was this. Knowing her as intimately as you
+do&mdash;&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;I <i>don&rsquo;t</i> know her!&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Well, anyway, it was like this. As you know, she has a dog&mdash;&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;I didn&rsquo;t know she had a dog,&rdquo; protested Archie. It seemed to
+him that the world was in conspiracy to link him with this woman.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Well, she has a dog. A beastly great whacking brute of a bulldog. And
+she brings it to rehearsal.&rdquo; Mr. Benham&rsquo;s eyes filled with tears,
+as in his emotion he swallowed a mouthful of fish-pie some eighty-three degrees
+Fahrenheit hotter than it looked. In the intermission caused by this disaster
+his agile mind skipped a few chapters of the story, and, when he was able to
+speak again, he said, &ldquo;So then there was a lot of trouble. Everything
+broke loose!&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Why?&rdquo; Archie was puzzled. &ldquo;Did the management object to her
+bringing the dog to rehearsal?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;A lot of good that would have done! She does what she likes in the
+theatre.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Then why was there trouble?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;You weren&rsquo;t listening,&rdquo; said Mr. Benham, reproachfully.
+&ldquo;I told you. This dog came snuffling up to where I was sitting&mdash;it
+was quite dark in the body of the theatre, you know&mdash;and I got up to say
+something about something that was happening on the stage, and somehow I must
+have given it a push with my foot.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;I see,&rdquo; said Archie, beginning to get the run of the plot.
+&ldquo;You kicked her dog.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Pushed it. Accidentally. With my foot.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;I understand. And when you brought off this kick&mdash;&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Push,&rdquo; said Mr. Benham, austerely.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;This kick or push. When you administered this kick or push&mdash;&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;It was more a sort of light shove.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Well, when you did whatever you did, the trouble started?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Mr. Benham gave a slight shiver.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;She talked for a while, and then walked out, taking the dog with her.
+You see, this wasn&rsquo;t the first time it had happened.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Good Lord! Do you spend your whole time doing that sort of thing?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;It wasn&rsquo;t me the first time. It was the stage-manager. He
+didn&rsquo;t know whose dog it was, and it came waddling on to the stage, and
+he gave it a sort of pat, a kind of flick&mdash;&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;A slosh?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;<i>Not</i> a slosh,&rdquo; corrected Mr. Benham, firmly. &ldquo;You
+might call it a tap&mdash;with the promptscript. Well, we had a lot of
+difficulty smoothing her over that time. Still, we managed to do it, but she
+said that if anything of the sort occurred again she would chuck up her
+part.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;She must be fond of the dog,&rdquo; said Archie, for the first time
+feeling a touch of goodwill and sympathy towards the lady.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;She&rsquo;s crazy about it. That&rsquo;s what made it so awkward when I
+happened&mdash;quite inadvertently&mdash;to give it this sort of accidental
+shove. Well, we spent the rest of the day trying to get her on the &rsquo;phone
+at her apartment, and finally we heard that she had come here. So I took the
+next train, and tried to persuade her to come back. She wouldn&rsquo;t listen.
+And that&rsquo;s how matters stand.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Pretty rotten!&rdquo; said Archie, sympathetically.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;You can bet it&rsquo;s pretty rotten&mdash;for me. There&rsquo;s nobody
+else who can play the part. Like a chump, I wrote the thing specially for her.
+It means the play won&rsquo;t be produced at all, if she doesn&rsquo;t do it.
+So you&rsquo;re my last hope!&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Archie, who was lighting a cigarette, nearly swallowed it.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;<i>I</i> am?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;I thought you might persuade her. Point out to her what a lot hangs on
+her coming back. Jolly her along, <i>you</i> know the sort of thing!&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;But, my dear old friend, I tell you I don&rsquo;t know her!&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Mr. Benham&rsquo;s eyes opened behind their zareba of glass.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Well, she knows <i>you</i>. When you came through the lobby just now she
+said that you were the only real human being she had ever met.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Well, as a matter of fact, I did take a fly out of her eye.
+But&mdash;&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;You did? Well, then, the whole thing&rsquo;s simple. All you have to do
+is to ask her how her eye is, and tell her she has the most beautiful eyes you
+ever saw, and coo a bit.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;But, my dear old son!&rdquo; The frightful programme which his friend
+had mapped out stunned Archie. &ldquo;I simply can&rsquo;t! Anything to oblige
+and all that sort of thing, but when it comes to cooing, distinctly
+Napoo!&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Nonsense! It isn&rsquo;t hard to coo.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;You don&rsquo;t understand, laddie. You&rsquo;re not a married man. I
+mean to say, whatever you say for or against marriage&mdash;personally
+I&rsquo;m all for it and consider it a ripe egg&mdash;the fact remains that it
+practically makes a chappie a spent force as a cooer. I don&rsquo;t want to
+dish you in any way, old bean, but I must firmly and resolutely decline to
+coo.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Mr. Benham rose and looked at his watch.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;I&rsquo;ll have to be moving,&rdquo; he said. &ldquo;I&rsquo;ve got to
+get back to New York and report. I&rsquo;ll tell them that I haven&rsquo;t been
+able to do anything myself, but that I&rsquo;ve left the matter in good hands.
+I know you will do your best.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;But, laddie!&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Think,&rdquo; said Mr. Benham, solemnly, &ldquo;of all that depends on
+it! The other actors! The small-part people thrown out of a job!
+Myself&mdash;but no! Perhaps you had better touch very lightly or not at all on
+my connection with the thing. Well, you know how to handle it. I feel I can
+leave it to you. Pitch it strong! Good-bye, my dear old man, and a thousand
+thanks. I&rsquo;ll do the same for you another time.&rdquo; He moved towards
+the door, leaving Archie transfixed. Half-way there he turned and came back.
+&ldquo;Oh, by the way,&rdquo; he said, &ldquo;my lunch. Have it put on your
+bill, will you? I haven&rsquo;t time to stay and settle. Good-bye!
+Good-bye!&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+</div><!--end chapter-->
+
+<div class="chapter">
+
+<h2><a name="chap13"></a>CHAPTER XIII.<br/>
+RALLYING ROUND PERCY</h2>
+
+<p>
+It amazed Archie through the whole of a long afternoon to reflect how swiftly
+and unexpectedly the blue and brilliant sky of life can cloud over and with
+what abruptness a man who fancies that his feet are on solid ground can find
+himself immersed in Fate&rsquo;s gumbo. He recalled, with the bitterness with
+which one does recall such things, that that morning he had risen from his bed
+without a care in the world, his happiness unruffled even by the thought that
+Lucille would be leaving him for a short space. He had sung in his bath. Yes,
+he had chirruped like a bally linnet. And now&mdash;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Some men would have dismissed the unfortunate affairs of Mr. George Benham from
+their mind as having nothing to do with themselves, but Archie had never been
+made of this stern stuff. The fact that Mr. Benham, apart from being an
+agreeable companion with whom he had lunched occasionally in New York, had no
+claims upon him affected him little. He hated to see his fellowman in trouble.
+On the other hand, what could he do? To seek Miss Silverton out and plead with
+her&mdash;even if he did it without cooing&mdash;would undoubtedly establish an
+intimacy between them which, instinct told him, might tinge her manner after
+Lucille&rsquo;s return with just that suggestion of Auld Lang Syne which makes
+things so awkward.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+His whole being shrank from extending to Miss Silverton that inch which the
+female artistic temperament is so apt to turn into an ell; and when, just as he
+was about to go in to dinner, he met her in the lobby and she smiled brightly
+at him and informed him that her eye was now completely recovered, he shied
+away like a startled mustang of the prairie, and, abandoning his intention of
+worrying the table d&rsquo;hote in the same room with the amiable creature,
+tottered off to the smoking-room, where he did the best he could with
+sandwiches and coffee.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Having got through the time as best he could till eleven o&rsquo;clock, he went
+up to bed.
+</p>
+
+<p class="p2">
+The room to which he and Lucille had been assigned by the management was on the
+second floor, pleasantly sunny by day and at night filled with cool and
+heartening fragrance of the pines. Hitherto Archie had always enjoyed taking a
+final smoke on the balcony overlooking the woods, but, to-night such was his
+mental stress that he prepared to go to bed directly he had closed the door. He
+turned to the cupboard to get his pyjamas.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+His first thought, when even after a second scrutiny no pyjamas were visible,
+was that this was merely another of those things which happen on days when life
+goes wrong. He raked the cupboard for a third time with an annoyed eye. From
+every hook hung various garments of Lucille&rsquo;s, but no pyjamas. He was
+breathing a soft malediction preparatory to embarking on a point-to-point hunt
+for his missing property, when something in the cupboard caught his eye and
+held him for a moment puzzled.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+He could have sworn that Lucille did not possess a mauve <i>négligé</i>. Why,
+she had told him a dozen times that mauve was a colour which she did not like.
+He frowned perplexedly; and as he did so, from near the window came a soft
+cough.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Archie spun round and subjected the room to as close a scrutiny as that which
+he had bestowed upon the cupboard. Nothing was visible. The window opening on
+to the balcony gaped wide. The balcony was manifestly empty.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;<i>Urrf!</i>&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+This time there was no possibility of error. The cough had come from the
+immediate neighbourhood of the window.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Archie was conscious of a pringly sensation about the roots of his
+closely-cropped back-hair, as he moved cautiously across the room. The affair
+was becoming uncanny; and, as he tip-toed towards the window, old ghost
+stories, read in lighter moments before cheerful fires with plenty of light in
+the room, flitted through his mind. He had the feeling&mdash;precisely as every
+chappie in those stories had had&mdash;that he was not alone.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Nor was he. In a basket behind an arm-chair, curled up, with his massive chin
+resting on the edge of the wicker-work, lay a fine bulldog.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Urrf!&rdquo; said the bulldog.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Good God!&rdquo; said Archie.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+There was a lengthy pause in which the bulldog looked earnestly at Archie and
+Archie looked earnestly at the bulldog.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Normally, Archie was a dog-lover. His hurry was never so great as to prevent
+him stopping, when in the street, and introducing himself to any dog he met. In
+a strange house, his first act was to assemble the canine population, roll it
+on its back or backs, and punch it in the ribs. As a boy, his earliest ambition
+had been to become a veterinary surgeon; and, though the years had cheated him
+of his career, he knew all about dogs, their points, their manners, their
+customs, and their treatment in sickness and in health. In short, he loved
+dogs, and, had they met under happier conditions, he would undoubtedly have
+been on excellent terms with this one within the space of a minute. But, as
+things were, he abstained from fraternising and continued to goggle dumbly.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+And then his eye, wandering aside, collided with the following objects: a
+fluffy pink dressing-gown, hung over the back of a chair, an entirely strange
+suit-case, and, on the bureau, a photograph in a silver frame of a stout
+gentleman in evening-dress whom he had never seen before in his life.
+</p>
+
+<p class="p2">
+Much has been written of the emotions of the wanderer who, returning to his
+childhood home, finds it altered out of all recognition; but poets have
+neglected the theme&mdash;far more poignant&mdash;of the man who goes up to his
+room in an hotel and finds it full of somebody else&rsquo;s dressing-gowns and
+bulldogs.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Bulldogs! Archie&rsquo;s heart jumped sideways and upwards with a wiggling
+movement, turning two somersaults, and stopped beating. The hideous truth,
+working its way slowly through the concrete, had at last penetrated to his
+brain. He was not only in somebody else&rsquo;s room, and a woman&rsquo;s at
+that. He was in the room belonging to Miss Vera Silverton.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+He could not understand it. He would have been prepared to stake the last cent
+he could borrow from his father-in-law on the fact that he had made no error in
+the number over the door. Yet, nevertheless, such was the case, and, below par
+though his faculties were at the moment, he was sufficiently alert to perceive
+that it behoved him to withdraw.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+He leaped to the door, and, as he did so, the handle began to turn.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The cloud which had settled on Archie&rsquo;s mind lifted abruptly. For an
+instant he was enabled to think about a hundred times more quickly than was his
+leisurely wont. Good fortune had brought him to within easy reach of the
+electric-light switch. He snapped it back, and was in darkness. Then, diving
+silently and swiftly to the floor, he wriggled under the bed. The thud of his
+head against what appeared to be some sort of joist or support, unless it had
+been placed there by the maker as a practical joke, on the chance of this kind
+of thing happening some day, coincided with the creak of the opening door. Then
+the light was switched on again, and the bulldog in the corner gave a welcoming
+woofle.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;And how is mamma&rsquo;s precious angel?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Rightly concluding that the remark had not been addressed to himself and that
+no social obligation demanded that he reply, Archie pressed his cheek against
+the boards and said nothing. The question was not repeated, but from the other
+side of the room came the sound of a patted dog.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Did he think his muzzer had fallen down dead and was never coming
+up?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The beautiful picture which these words conjured up filled Archie with that
+yearning for the might-have-been which is always so painful. He was finding his
+position physically as well as mentally distressing. It was cramped under the
+bed, and the boards were harder than anything he had ever encountered. Also, it
+appeared to be the practice of the housemaids at the Hotel Hermitage to use the
+space below the beds as a depository for all the dust which they swept off the
+carpet, and much of this was insinuating itself into his nose and mouth. The
+two things which Archie would have liked most to do at that moment were first
+to kill Miss Silverton&mdash;if possible, painfully&mdash;and then to spend the
+remainder of his life sneezing.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+After a prolonged period he heard a drawer open, and noted the fact as
+promising. As the old married man, he presumed that it signified the putting
+away of hair-pins. About now the dashed woman would be looking at herself in
+the glass with her hair down. Then she would brush it. Then she would twiddle
+it up into thingummies. Say, ten minutes for this. And after that she would go
+to bed and turn out the light, and he would be able, after giving her a bit of
+time to go to sleep, to creep out and leg it. Allowing at a conservative
+estimate three-quarters of&mdash;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Come out!&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Archie stiffened. For an instant a feeble hope came to him that this remark,
+like the others, might be addressed to the dog.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Come out from under that bed!&rdquo; said a stern voice. &ldquo;And mind
+how you come! I&rsquo;ve got a pistol!&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Well, I mean to say, you know,&rdquo; said Archie, in a propitiatory
+voice, emerging from his lair like a tortoise and smiling as winningly as a man
+can who has just bumped his head against the leg of a bed, &ldquo;I suppose all
+this seems fairly rummy, but&mdash;&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;For the love of Mike!&rdquo; said Miss Silverton.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The point seemed to Archie well taken and the comment on the situation neatly
+expressed.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;What are you doing in my room?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Well, if it comes to that, you know&mdash;shouldn&rsquo;t have mentioned
+it if you hadn&rsquo;t brought the subject up in the course of general
+chit-chat&mdash;what are you doing in mine?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Yours?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Well, apparently there&rsquo;s been a bloomer of some species somewhere,
+but this was the room I had last night,&rdquo; said Archie.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;But the desk-clerk said that he had asked you if it would be quite
+satisfactory to you giving it up to me, and you said yes. I come here every
+summer, when I&rsquo;m not working, and I always have this room.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;By Jove! I remember now. The chappie did say something to me about the
+room, but I was thinking of something else and it rather went over the top. So
+that&rsquo;s what he was talking about, was it?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Miss Silverton was frowning. A moving-picture director, scanning her face,
+would have perceived that she was registering disappointment.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Nothing breaks right for me in this darned world,&rdquo; she said,
+regretfully. &ldquo;When I caught sight of your leg sticking out from under the
+bed, I did think that everything was all lined up for a real find and, at last,
+I could close my eyes and see the thing in the papers. On the front page, with
+photographs: &lsquo;Plucky Actress Captures Burglar.&rsquo; Darn it!&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Fearfully sorry, you know!&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;I just needed something like that. I&rsquo;ve got a Press-agent, and I
+will say for him that he eats well and sleeps well and has just enough
+intelligence to cash his monthly cheque without forgetting what he went into
+the bank for, but outside of that you can take it from me he&rsquo;s not one of
+the world&rsquo;s workers! He&rsquo;s about as much solid use to a girl with
+aspirations as a pain in the lower ribs. It&rsquo;s three weeks since he got me
+into print at all, and then the brightest thing he could think up was that my
+favourite breakfast-fruit was an apple. Well, I ask you!&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Rotten!&rdquo; said Archie.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;I did think that for once my guardian angel had gone back to work and
+was doing something for me. &lsquo;Stage Star and Midnight
+Marauder,&rsquo;&rdquo; murmured Miss Silverton, wistfully.
+&ldquo;&lsquo;Footlight Favourite Foils Felon.&rsquo;&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Bit thick!&rdquo; agreed Archie, sympathetically. &ldquo;Well,
+you&rsquo;ll probably be wanting to get to bed and all that sort of rot, so I
+may as well be popping, what! Cheerio!&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+A sudden gleam came into Miss Silverton&rsquo;s compelling eyes.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Wait!&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Eh?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Wait! I&rsquo;ve got an idea!&rdquo; The wistful sadness had gone from
+her manner. She was bright and alert. &ldquo;Sit down!&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Sit down?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Sure. Sit down and take the chill off the arm-chair. I&rsquo;ve thought
+of something.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Archie sat down as directed. At his elbow the bulldog eyed him gravely from the
+basket.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Do they know you in this hotel?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Know me? Well, I&rsquo;ve been here about a week.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;I mean, do they know who you are? Do they know you&rsquo;re a good
+citizen?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Well, if it comes to that, I suppose they don&rsquo;t. But&mdash;&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Fine!&rdquo; said Miss Silverton, appreciatively. &ldquo;Then it&rsquo;s
+all right. We can carry on!&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Carry on!&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Why, sure! All I want is to get the thing into the papers. It
+doesn&rsquo;t matter to me if it turns out later that there was a mistake and
+that you weren&rsquo;t a burglar trying for my jewels after all. It makes just
+as good a story either way. I can&rsquo;t think why that never struck me
+before. Here have I been kicking because you weren&rsquo;t a real burglar, when
+it doesn&rsquo;t amount to a hill of beans whether you are or not. All
+I&rsquo;ve got to do is to rush out and yell and rouse the hotel, and they come
+in and pinch you, and I give the story to the papers, and everything&rsquo;s
+fine!&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Archie leaped from his chair.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;I say! What!&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;What&rsquo;s on your mind?&rdquo; enquired Miss Silverton,
+considerately. &ldquo;Don&rsquo;t you think it&rsquo;s a nifty scheme?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Nifty! My dear old soul! It&rsquo;s frightful!&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Can&rsquo;t see what&rsquo;s wrong with it,&rdquo; grumbled Miss
+Silverton. &ldquo;After I&rsquo;ve had someone get New York on the
+long-distance &rsquo;phone and give the story to the papers you can explain,
+and they&rsquo;ll let you out. Surely to goodness you don&rsquo;t object, as a
+personal favour to me, to spending an hour or two in a cell? Why, probably they
+haven&rsquo;t got a prison at all out in these parts, and you&rsquo;ll simply
+be locked in a room. A child of ten could do it on his head,&rdquo; said Miss
+Silverton. &ldquo;A child of six,&rdquo; she emended.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;But, dash it&mdash;I mean&mdash;what I mean to say&mdash;I&rsquo;m
+married!&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Yes?&rdquo; said Miss Silverton, with the politeness of faint interest.
+&ldquo;I&rsquo;ve been married myself. I wouldn&rsquo;t say it&rsquo;s
+altogether a bad thing, mind you, for those that like it, but a little of it
+goes a long way. My first husband,&rdquo; she proceeded, reminiscently,
+&ldquo;was a travelling man. I gave him a two-weeks&rsquo; try-out, and then I
+told him to go on travelling. My second husband&mdash;now, <i>he</i>
+wasn&rsquo;t a gentleman in any sense of the word. I remember
+once&mdash;&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;You don&rsquo;t grasp the point. The jolly old point! You fail to grasp
+it. If this bally thing comes out, my wife will be most frightfully
+sick!&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Miss Silverton regarded him with pained surprise.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Do you mean to say you would let a little thing like that stand in the
+way of my getting on the front page of all the papers&mdash;<i>with</i>
+photographs? Where&rsquo;s your chivalry?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Never mind my dashed chivalry!&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Besides, what does it matter if she does get a little sore? She&rsquo;ll
+soon get over it. You can put that right. Buy her a box of candy. Not that
+I&rsquo;m strong for candy myself. What I always say is, it may taste good, but
+look what it does to your hips! I give you my honest word that, when I gave up
+eating candy, I lost eleven ounces the first week. My second husband&mdash;no,
+I&rsquo;m a liar, it was my third&mdash;my third husband said&mdash;Say,
+what&rsquo;s the big idea? Where are you going?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Out!&rdquo; said Archie, firmly. &ldquo;Bally out!&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+A dangerous light flickered in Miss Silverton&rsquo;s eyes.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;That&rsquo;ll be all of that!&rdquo; she said, raising the pistol.
+&ldquo;You stay right where you are, or I&rsquo;ll fire!&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Right-o!&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;I mean it!&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;My dear old soul,&rdquo; said Archie, &ldquo;in the recent
+unpleasantness in France I had chappies popping off things like that at me all
+day and every day for close on five years, and here I am, what! I mean to say,
+if I&rsquo;ve got to choose between staying here and being pinched in your room
+by the local constabulary and having the dashed thing get into the papers and
+all sorts of trouble happening, and my wife getting the wind up and&mdash;I
+say, if I&rsquo;ve got to choose&mdash;&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Suck a lozenge and start again!&rdquo; said Miss Silverton.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Well, what I mean to say is, I&rsquo;d much rather take a chance of
+getting a bullet in the old bean than that. So loose it off and the best
+o&rsquo; luck!&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Miss Silverton lowered the pistol, sank into a chair, and burst into tears.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;I think you&rsquo;re the meanest man I ever met!&rdquo; she sobbed.
+&ldquo;You know perfectly well the bang would send me into a fit!&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;In that case,&rdquo; said Archie, relieved, &ldquo;cheerio, good luck,
+pip-pip, toodle-oo, and good-bye-ee! I&rsquo;ll be shifting!&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Yes, you will!&rdquo; cried Miss Silverton, energetically, recovering
+with amazing swiftness from her collapse. &ldquo;Yes, you will, I by no means
+suppose! You think, just because I&rsquo;m no champion with a pistol, I&rsquo;m
+helpless. You wait! Percy!&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;My name is not Percy.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;I never said it was. Percy! Percy, come to muzzer!&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+There was a creaking rustle from behind the arm-chair. A heavy body flopped on
+the carpet. Out into the room, heaving himself along as though sleep had
+stiffened his joints, and breathing stertorously through his tilted nose, moved
+the fine bulldog. Seen in the open, he looked even more formidable than he had
+done in his basket.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Guard him, Percy! Good dog, guard him! Oh, heavens! What&rsquo;s the
+matter with him?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+And with these words the emotional woman, uttering a wail of anguish, flung
+herself on the floor beside the animal.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Percy was, indeed, in manifestly bad shape. He seemed quite unable to drag his
+limbs across the room. There was a curious arch in his back, and, as his
+mistress touched him, he cried out plaintively,
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Percy! Oh, what <i>is</i> the matter with him? His nose is
+burning!&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Now was the time, with both sections of the enemy&rsquo;s forces occupied, for
+Archie to have departed softly from the room. But never, since the day when at
+the age of eleven he had carried a large, damp, and muddy terrier with a sore
+foot three miles and deposited him on the best sofa in his mother&rsquo;s
+drawing-room, had he been able to ignore the spectacle of a dog in trouble.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;He does look bad, what!&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;He&rsquo;s dying! Oh, he&rsquo;s dying! Is it distemper? He&rsquo;s
+never had distemper.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Archie regarded the sufferer with the grave eye of the expert. He shook his
+head.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;It&rsquo;s not that,&rdquo; he said. &ldquo;Dogs with distemper make a
+sort of snifting noise.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;But he <i>is</i> making a snifting noise!&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;No, he&rsquo;s making a snuffling noise. Great difference between
+snuffling and snifting. Not the same thing at all. I mean to say, when they
+snift they snift, and when they snuffle they&mdash;as it were&mdash;snuffle.
+That&rsquo;s how you can tell. If you ask <i>me</i>&rdquo;&mdash;he passed his
+hand over the dog&rsquo;s back. Percy uttered another cry. &ldquo;I know
+what&rsquo;s the matter with him.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;A brute of a man kicked him at rehearsal. Do you think he&rsquo;s
+injured internally?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;It&rsquo;s rheumatism,&rdquo; said Archie. &ldquo;Jolly old rheumatism.
+That&rsquo;s all that&rsquo;s the trouble.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Are you sure?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Absolutely!&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;But what can I do?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Give him a good hot bath, and mind and dry him well. He&rsquo;ll have a
+good sleep then, and won&rsquo;t have any pain. Then, first thing to-morrow,
+you want to give him salicylate of soda.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;I&rsquo;ll never remember that.&rdquo;&mdash;&ldquo;I&rsquo;ll write it
+down for you. You ought to give him from ten to twenty grains three times a day
+in an ounce of water. And rub him with any good embrocation.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;And he won&rsquo;t die?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Die! He&rsquo;ll live to be as old as you are!-I mean to
+say&mdash;&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;I could kiss you!&rdquo; said Miss Silverton, emotionally.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Archie backed hastily.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;No, no, absolutely not! Nothing like that required, really!&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;You&rsquo;re a darling!&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Yes. I mean no. No, no, really!&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;I don&rsquo;t know what to say. What can I say?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Good night,&rdquo; said Archie.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;I wish there was something I could do! If you hadn&rsquo;t been here, I
+should have gone off my head!&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+A great idea flashed across Archie&rsquo;s brain.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Do you really want to do something?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Anything!&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Then I do wish, like a dear sweet soul, you would pop straight back to
+New York to-morrow and go on with those rehearsals.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Miss Silverton shook her head.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;I can&rsquo;t do that!&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Oh, right-o! But it isn&rsquo;t much to ask, what!&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Not much to ask! I&rsquo;ll never forgive that man for kicking
+Percy!&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Now listen, dear old soul. You&rsquo;ve got the story all wrong. As a
+matter of fact, jolly old Benham told me himself that he has the greatest
+esteem and respect for Percy, and wouldn&rsquo;t have kicked him for the world.
+And, you know it was more a sort of push than a kick. You might almost call it
+a light shove. The fact is, it was beastly dark in the theatre, and he was
+legging it sideways for some reason or other, no doubt with the best motives,
+and unfortunately he happened to stub his toe on the poor old bean.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Then why didn&rsquo;t he say so?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;As far as I could make out, you didn&rsquo;t give him a chance.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Miss Silverton wavered.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;I always hate going back after I&rsquo;ve walked out on a show,&rdquo;
+she said. &ldquo;It seems so weak!&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Not a bit of it! They&rsquo;ll give three hearty cheers and think you a
+topper. Besides, you&rsquo;ve got to go to New York in any case. To take Percy
+to a vet., you know, what!&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Of course. How right you always are!&rdquo; Miss Silverton hesitated
+again. &ldquo;Would you really be glad if I went back to the show?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;I&rsquo;d go singing about the hotel! Great pal of mine, Benham. A
+thoroughly cheery old bean, and very cut up about the whole affair. Besides,
+think of all the coves thrown out of work&mdash;the thingummabobs and the poor
+what-d&rsquo;you-call-&rsquo;ems!&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Very well.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;You&rsquo;ll do it?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Yes.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;I say, you really are one of the best! Absolutely like mother made!
+That&rsquo;s fine! Well, I think I&rsquo;ll be saying good night.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Good night. And thank you so much!&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Oh, no, rather not!&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Archie moved to the door.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Oh, by the way.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Yes?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;If I were you, I think I should catch the very first train you can get
+to New York. You see&mdash;er&mdash;you ought to take Percy to the vet. as soon
+as ever you can.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;You really do think of everything,&rdquo; said Miss Silverton.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Yes,&rdquo; said Archie, meditatively.
+</p>
+
+</div><!--end chapter-->
+
+<div class="chapter">
+
+<h2><a name="chap14"></a>CHAPTER XIV.<br/>
+THE SAD CASE OF LOONEY BIDDLE</h2>
+
+<p>
+Archie was a simple soul, and, as is the case with most simple souls, gratitude
+came easily to him. He appreciated kind treatment. And when, on the following
+day, Lucille returned to the Hermitage, all smiles and affection, and made no
+further reference to Beauty&rsquo;s Eyes and the flies that got into them, he
+was conscious of a keen desire to show some solid recognition of this
+magnanimity. Few wives, he was aware, could have had the nobility and what not
+to refrain from occasionally turning the conversation in the direction of the
+above-mentioned topics. It had not needed this behaviour on her part to
+convince him that Lucille was a topper and a corker and one of the very best,
+for he had been cognisant of these facts since the first moment he had met her:
+but what he did feel was that she deserved to be rewarded in no uncertain
+manner. And it seemed a happy coincidence to him that her birthday should be
+coming along in the next week or so. Surely, felt Archie, he could whack up
+some sort of a not unjuicy gift for that occasion&mdash;something pretty ripe
+that would make a substantial hit with the dear girl. Surely something would
+come along to relieve his chronic impecuniosity for just sufficient length of
+time to enable him to spread himself on this great occasion.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+And, as if in direct answer to prayer, an almost forgotten aunt in England
+suddenly, out of an absolutely blue sky, shot no less a sum than five hundred
+dollars across the ocean. The present was so lavish and unexpected that Archie
+had the awed feeling of one who participates in a miracle. He felt, like
+Herbert Parker, that the righteous was not forsaken. It was the sort of thing
+that restored a fellow&rsquo;s faith in human nature. For nearly a week he went
+about in a happy trance: and when, by thrift and enterprise&mdash;that is to
+say, by betting Reggie van Tuyl that the New York Giants would win the opening
+game of the series against the Pittsburg baseball team&mdash;he contrived to
+double his capital, what it amounted to was simply that life had nothing more
+to offer. He was actually in a position to go to a thousand dollars for
+Lucille&rsquo;s birthday present. He gathered in Mr. van Tuyl, of whose taste
+in these matters he had a high opinion, and dragged him off to a
+jeweller&rsquo;s on Broadway.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The jeweller, a stout, comfortable man, leaned on the counter and fingered
+lovingly the bracelet which he had lifted out of its nest of blue plush.
+Archie, leaning on the other side of the counter, inspected the bracelet
+searchingly, wishing that he knew more about these things; for he had rather a
+sort of idea that the merchant was scheming to do him in the eyeball. In a
+chair by his side, Reggie van Tuyl, half asleep as usual, yawned despondently.
+He had permitted Archie to lug him into this shop; and he wanted to buy
+something and go. Any form of sustained concentration fatigued Reggie.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Now this,&rdquo; said the jeweller, &ldquo;I could do at eight hundred
+and fifty dollars.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Grab it!&rdquo; murmured Mr. van Tuyl.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The jeweller eyed him approvingly, a man after his own heart; but Archie looked
+doubtful. It was all very well for Reggie to tell him to grab it in that
+careless way. Reggie was a dashed millionaire, and no doubt bought bracelets by
+the pound or the gross or what not; but he himself was in an entirely different
+position.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Eight hundred and fifty dollars!&rdquo; he said, hesitating.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Worth it,&rdquo; mumbled Reggie van Tuyl.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;More than worth it,&rdquo; amended the jeweller. &ldquo;I can assure you
+that it is better value than you could get anywhere on Fifth Avenue.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Yes?&rdquo; said Archie. He took the bracelet and twiddled it
+thoughtfully. &ldquo;Well, my dear old jeweller, one can&rsquo;t say fairer
+than that, can one&mdash;or two, as the case may be!&rdquo; He frowned.
+&ldquo;Oh, well, all right! But it&rsquo;s rummy that women are so fearfully
+keen on these little thingummies, isn&rsquo;t it? I mean to say, can&rsquo;t
+see what they see in them. Stones, and all that. Still, there it is, of
+course!&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;There,&rdquo; said the jeweller, &ldquo;as you say, it is, sir.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Yes, there it is!&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Yes, there it is,&rdquo; said the jeweller, &ldquo;fortunately for
+people in my line of business. Will you take it with you, sir?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Archie reflected.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;No. No, not take it with me. The fact is, you know, my wife&rsquo;s
+coming back from the country to-night, and it&rsquo;s her birthday to-morrow,
+and the thing&rsquo;s for her, and, if it was popping about the place to-night,
+she might see it, and it would sort of spoil the surprise. I mean to say, she
+doesn&rsquo;t know I&rsquo;m giving it her, and all that!&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Besides,&rdquo; said Reggie, achieving a certain animation now that the
+tedious business interview was concluded, &ldquo;going to the ball-game this
+afternoon&mdash;might get pocket picked&mdash;yes, better have it sent.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Where shall I send it, sir?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Eh? Oh, shoot it along to Mrs. Archibald Moffam, at the Cosmopolis. Not
+to-day, you know. Buzz it in first thing to-morrow.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Having completed the satisfactory deal, the jeweller threw off the business
+manner and became chatty.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;So you are going to the ball-game? It should be an interesting
+contest.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Reggie van Tuyl, now&mdash;by his own standards&mdash;completely awake, took
+exception to this remark.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Not a bit of it!&rdquo; he said, decidedly. &ldquo;No contest!
+Can&rsquo;t call it a contest! Walkover for the Pirates!&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Archie was stung to the quick. There is that about baseball which arouses
+enthusiasm and the partisan spirit in the unlikeliest bosoms. It is almost
+impossible for a man to live in America and not become gripped by the game; and
+Archie had long been one of its warmest adherents. He was a whole-hearted
+supporter of the Giants, and his only grievance against Reggie, in other
+respects an estimable young man, was that the latter, whose money had been
+inherited from steel-mills in that city, had an absurd regard for the Pirates
+of Pittsburg.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;What absolute bally rot!&rdquo; he exclaimed. &ldquo;Look what the
+Giants did to them yesterday!&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Yesterday isn&rsquo;t to-day,&rdquo; said Reggie.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;No, it&rsquo;ll be a jolly sight worse,&rdquo; said Archie.
+&ldquo;Looney Biddle&rsquo;ll be pitching for the Giants to-day.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;That&rsquo;s just what I mean. The Pirates have got him rattled. Look
+what happened last time.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Archie understood, and his generous nature chafed at the innuendo. Looney
+Biddle&mdash;so-called by an affectionately admiring public as the result of
+certain marked eccentricities&mdash;was beyond dispute the greatest left-handed
+pitcher New York had possessed in the last decade. But there was one blot on
+Mr. Biddle&rsquo;s otherwise stainless scutcheon. Five weeks before, on the
+occasion of the Giants&rsquo; invasion of Pittsburg, he had gone mysteriously
+to pieces. Few native-born partisans, brought up to baseball from the cradle,
+had been plunged into a profounder gloom on that occasion than Archie; but his
+soul revolted at the thought that that sort of thing could ever happen again.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;I&rsquo;m not saying,&rdquo; continued Reggie, &ldquo;that Biddle
+isn&rsquo;t a very fair pitcher, but it&rsquo;s cruel to send him against the
+Pirates, and somebody ought to stop it. His best friends should interfere. Once
+a team gets a pitcher rattled, he&rsquo;s never any good against them again. He
+loses his nerve.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The jeweller nodded approval of this sentiment.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;They never come back,&rdquo; he said, sententiously.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The fighting blood of the Moffams was now thoroughly stirred. Archie eyed his
+friend sternly. Reggie was a good chap&mdash;in many respects an extremely
+sound egg&mdash;but he must not be allowed to talk rot of this description
+about the greatest left-handed pitcher of the age.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;It seems to me, old companion,&rdquo; he said, &ldquo;that a small bet
+is indicated at this juncture. How about it?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Don&rsquo;t want to take your money.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;You won&rsquo;t have to! In the cool twilight of the merry old summer
+evening I, friend of my youth and companion of my riper years, shall be
+trousering yours.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Reggie yawned. The day was very hot, and this argument was making him feel
+sleepy again.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Well, just as you like, of course. Double or quits on yesterday&rsquo;s
+bet, if that suits you.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+For a moment Archie hesitated. Firm as his faith was in Mr. Biddle&rsquo;s
+stout left arm, he had not intended to do the thing on quite this scale. That
+thousand dollars of his was earmarked for Lucille&rsquo;s birthday present, and
+he doubted whether he ought to risk it. Then the thought that the honour of New
+York was in his hands decided him. Besides, the risk was negligible. Betting on
+Looney Biddle was like betting on the probable rise of the sun in the east. The
+thing began to seem to Archie a rather unusually sound and conservative
+investment. He remembered that the jeweller, until he drew him firmly but
+kindly to earth and urged him to curb his exuberance and talk business on a
+reasonable plane, had started brandishing bracelets that cost about two
+thousand. There would be time to pop in at the shop this evening after the game
+and change the one he had selected for one of those. Nothing was too good for
+Lucille on her birthday.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Right-o!&rdquo; he said. &ldquo;Make it so, old friend!&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p class="p2">
+Archie walked back to the Cosmopolis. No misgivings came to mar his perfect
+contentment. He felt no qualms about separating Reggie from another thousand
+dollars. Except for a little small change in the possession of the Messrs.
+Rockefeller and Vincent Astor, Reggie had all the money in the world and could
+afford to lose. He hummed a gay air as he entered the lobby and crossed to the
+cigar-stand to buy a few cigarettes to see him through the afternoon.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The girl behind the cigar counter welcomed him with a bright smile. Archie was
+popular with all the employés of the Cosmopolis.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;&rsquo;S a great day, Mr. Moffam!&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;One of the brightest and best,&rdquo; agreed Archie. &ldquo;Could you
+dig me out two, or possibly three, cigarettes of the usual description? I shall
+want something to smoke at the ball-game.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;You going to the ball-game?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Rather! Wouldn&rsquo;t miss it for a fortune.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;No?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Absolutely no! Not with jolly old Biddle pitching.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The cigar-stand girl laughed amusedly.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Is he pitching this afternoon? Say, that feller&rsquo;s a nut?
+D&rsquo;you know him?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Know him? Well, I&rsquo;ve seen him pitch and so forth.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;I&rsquo;ve got a girl friend who&rsquo;s engaged to him!&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Archie looked at her with positive respect. It would have been more dramatic,
+of course, if she had been engaged to the great man herself, but still the mere
+fact that she had a girl friend in that astounding position gave her a sort of
+halo.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;No, really!&rdquo; he said. &ldquo;I say, by Jove, really! Fancy
+that!&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Yes, she&rsquo;s engaged to him all right. Been engaged close on a
+coupla months now.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;I say! That&rsquo;s frightfully interesting! Fearfully interesting,
+really!&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;It&rsquo;s funny about that guy,&rdquo; said the cigar-stand girl.
+&ldquo;He&rsquo;s a nut! The fellow who said there&rsquo;s plenty of room at
+the top must have been thinking of Gus Biddle&rsquo;s head! He&rsquo;s crazy
+about m&rsquo; girl friend, y&rsquo; know, and, whenever they have a fuss, it
+seems like he sort of flies right off the handle.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Goes in off the deep end, eh?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Yes, <i>sir!</i> Loses what little sense he&rsquo;s got. Why, the last
+time him and m&rsquo; girl friend got to scrapping was when he was going on to
+Pittsburg to play, about a month ago. He&rsquo;d been out with her the day he
+left for there, and he had a grouch or something, and he started making low,
+sneaky cracks about her Uncle Sigsbee. Well, m&rsquo; girl friend&rsquo;s got a
+nice disposition, but she c&rsquo;n get mad, and she just left him flat and
+told him all was over. And he went off to Pittsburg, and, when he started in to
+pitch the opening game, he just couldn&rsquo;t keep his mind on his job, and
+look what them assassins done to him! Five runs in the first innings! Yessir,
+he&rsquo;s a nut all right!&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Archie was deeply concerned. So this was the explanation of that mysterious
+disaster, that weird tragedy which had puzzled the sporting press from coast to
+coast.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Good God! Is he often taken like that?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Oh, he&rsquo;s all right when he hasn&rsquo;t had a fuss with m&rsquo;
+girl friend,&rdquo; said the cigar-stand girl, indifferently. Her interest in
+baseball was tepid. Women are too often like this&mdash;mere butterflies, with
+no concern for the deeper side of life.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Yes, but I say! What I mean to say, you know! Are they pretty pally now?
+The good old Dove of Peace flapping its little wings fairly briskly and all
+that?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Oh, I guess everything&rsquo;s nice and smooth just now. I seen m&rsquo;
+girl friend yesterday, and Gus was taking her to the movies last night, so I
+guess everything&rsquo;s nice and smooth.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Archie breathed a sigh of relief.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Took her to the movies, did he? Stout fellow!&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;I was at the funniest picture last week,&rdquo; said the cigar-stand
+girl. &ldquo;Honest, it was a scream! It was like this&mdash;&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Archie listened politely; then went in to get a bite of lunch. His equanimity,
+shaken by the discovery of the rift in the peerless one&rsquo;s armour, was
+restored. Good old Biddle had taken the girl to the movies last night. Probably
+he had squeezed her hand a goodish bit in the dark. With what result? Why, the
+fellow would be feeling like one of those chappies who used to joust for the
+smiles of females in the Middle Ages. What he meant to say, presumably the girl
+would be at the game this afternoon, whooping him on, and good old Biddle would
+be so full of beans and buck that there would be no holding him.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Encouraged by these thoughts, Archie lunched with an untroubled mind. Luncheon
+concluded, he proceeded to the lobby to buy back his hat and stick from the boy
+brigand with whom he had left them. It was while he was conducting this
+financial operation that he observed that at the cigar-stand, which adjoined
+the coat-and-hat alcove, his friend behind the counter had become engaged in
+conversation with another girl.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+This was a determined looking young woman in a blue dress and a large hat of a
+bold and flowery species. Archie happening to attract her attention, she gave
+him a glance out of a pair of fine brown eyes, then, as if she did not think
+much of him, turned to her companion and resumed their
+conversation&mdash;which, being of an essentially private and intimate nature,
+she conducted, after the manner of her kind, in a ringing soprano which
+penetrated into every corner of the lobby. Archie, waiting while the brigand
+reluctantly made change for a dollar bill, was privileged to hear every word.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Right from the start I seen he was in a ugly mood. <i>You</i> know how
+he gets, dearie! Chewing his upper lip and looking at you as if you were so
+much dirt beneath his feet! How was <i>I</i> to know he&rsquo;d lost fifteen
+dollars fifty-five playing poker, and anyway, I don&rsquo;t see where he gets a
+licence to work off his grouches on me. And I told him so. I said to him,
+&lsquo;Gus,&rsquo; I said, &lsquo;if you can&rsquo;t be bright and smiling and
+cheerful when you take me out, why do you come round at all? Was I wrong or
+right, dearie?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The girl behind the counter heartily endorsed her conduct. &ldquo;Once you let
+a man think he could use you as a door-mat, where were you?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;What happened then, honey?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Well, after that we went to the movies.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Archie started convulsively. The change from his dollar-bill leaped in his
+hand. Some of it sprang overboard and tinkled across the floor, with the
+brigand in pursuit. A monstrous suspicion had begun to take root in his mind.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Well, we got good seats, but&mdash;well, you know how it is, once things
+start going wrong. You know that hat of mine, the one with the daisies and
+cherries and the feather&mdash;I&rsquo;d taken it off and given it him to hold
+when we went in, and what do you think that fell&rsquo;r&rsquo;d done? Put it
+on the floor and crammed it under the seat, just to save himself the trouble of
+holding it on his lap! And, when I showed him I was upset, all he said was that
+he was a pitcher and not a hatstand!&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Archie was paralysed. He paid no attention to the hat-check boy, who was trying
+to induce him to accept treasure-trove to the amount of forty-five cents. His
+whole being was concentrated on this frightful tragedy which had burst upon him
+like a tidal wave. No possible room for doubt remained. &ldquo;Gus&rdquo; was
+the only Gus in New York that mattered, and this resolute and injured female
+before him was the Girl Friend, in whose slim hands rested the happiness of New
+York&rsquo;s baseball followers, the destiny of the unconscious Giants, and the
+fate of his thousand dollars. A strangled croak proceeded from his parched
+lips.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Well, I didn&rsquo;t say anything at the moment. It just shows how them
+movies can work on a girl&rsquo;s feelings. It was a Bryant Washburn film, and
+somehow, whenever I see him on the screen, nothing else seems to matter. I just
+get that goo-ey feeling, and couldn&rsquo;t start a fight if you asked me to.
+So we go off to have a soda, and I said to him, &lsquo;That sure was a lovely
+film, Gus!&rsquo; and would you believe me, he says straight out that he
+didn&rsquo;t think it was such a much, and he thought Bryant Washburn was a
+pill! A pill!&rdquo; The Girl Friend&rsquo;s penetrating voice shook with
+emotion.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;He never!&rdquo; exclaimed the shocked cigar-stand girl.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;He did, if I die the next moment! I wasn&rsquo;t more than half-way
+through my vanilla and maple, but I got up without a word and left him. And I
+ain&rsquo;t seen a sight of him since. So there you are, dearie! Was I right or
+wrong?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The cigar-stand girl gave unqualified approval. What men like Gus Biddle needed
+for the salvation of their souls was an occasional good jolt right where it
+would do most good.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;I&rsquo;m glad you think I acted right, dearie,&rdquo; said the Girl
+Friend. &ldquo;I guess I&rsquo;ve been too weak with Gus, and he&rsquo;s took
+advantage of it. I s&rsquo;pose I&rsquo;ll have to forgive him one of these old
+days, but, believe me, it won&rsquo;t be for a week.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The cigar-stand girl was in favour of a fortnight.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;No,&rdquo; said the Girl Friend, regretfully. &ldquo;I don&rsquo;t
+believe I could hold out that long. But, if I speak to him inside a week,
+well&mdash;! Well, I gotta be going. Goodbye, honey.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The cigar-stand girl turned to attend to an impatient customer, and the Girl
+Friend, walking with the firm and decisive steps which indicate character, made
+for the swing-door leading to the street. And as she went, the paralysis which
+had pipped Archie released its hold. Still ignoring the forty-five cents which
+the boy continued to proffer, he leaped in her wake like a panther and came
+upon her just as she was stepping into a car. The car was full, but not too
+full for Archie. He dropped his five cents into the box and reached for a
+vacant strap. He looked down upon the flowered hat. There she was. And there he
+was. Archie rested his left ear against the forearm of a long, strongly-built
+young man in a grey suit who had followed him into the car and was sharing his
+strap, and pondered.
+</p>
+
+</div><!--end chapter-->
+
+<div class="chapter">
+
+<h2><a name="chap15"></a>CHAPTER XV.<br/>
+SUMMER STORMS</h2>
+
+<p>
+Of course, in a way, the thing was simple. The wheeze was, in a sense,
+straightforward and uncomplicated. What he wanted to do was to point out to the
+injured girl all that hung on her. He wished to touch her heart, to plead with
+her, to desire her to restate her war-aims, and to persuade her&mdash;before
+three o&rsquo;clock when that stricken gentleman would be stepping into the
+pitcher&rsquo;s box to loose off the first ball against the Pittsburg
+Pirates&mdash;to let bygones be bygones and forgive Augustus Biddle. But the
+blighted problem was, how the deuce to find the opportunity to start. He
+couldn&rsquo;t yell at the girl in a crowded street-car; and, if he let go of
+his strap and bent over her, somebody would step on his neck.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The Girl Friend, who for the first five minutes had remained entirely concealed
+beneath her hat, now sought diversion by looking up and examining the faces of
+the upper strata of passengers. Her eye caught Archie&rsquo;s in a glance of
+recognition, and he smiled feebly, endeavouring to register bonhomie and
+good-will. He was surprised to see a startled expression come into her brown
+eyes. Her face turned pink. At least, it was pink already, but it turned
+pinker. The next moment, the car having stopped to pick up more passengers, she
+jumped off and started to hurry across the street.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Archie was momentarily taken aback. When embarking on this business he had
+never intended it to become a blend of otter-hunting and a moving-picture
+chase. He followed her off the car with a sense that his grip on the affair was
+slipping. Preoccupied with these thoughts, he did not perceive that the long
+young man who had shared his strap had alighted too. His eyes were fixed on the
+vanishing figure of the Girl Friend, who, having buzzed at a smart pace into
+Sixth Avenue, was now legging it in the direction of the staircase leading to
+one of the stations of the Elevated Railroad. Dashing up the stairs after her,
+he shortly afterwards found himself suspended as before from a strap, gazing
+upon the now familiar flowers on top of her hat. From another strap farther
+down the carriage swayed the long young man in the grey suit.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The train rattled on. Once or twice, when it stopped, the girl seemed undecided
+whether to leave or remain. She half rose, then sank back again. Finally she
+walked resolutely out of the car, and Archie, following, found himself in a
+part of New York strange to him. The inhabitants of this district appeared to
+eke out a precarious existence, not by taking in one another&rsquo;s washing,
+but by selling one another second-hand clothes.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Archie glanced at his watch. He had lunched early, but so crowded with emotions
+had been the period following lunch that he was surprised to find that the hour
+was only just two. The discovery was a pleasant one. With a full hour before
+the scheduled start of the game, much might be achieved. He hurried after the
+girl, and came up with her just as she turned the corner into one of those
+forlorn New York side-streets which are populated chiefly by children, cats,
+desultory loafers, and empty meat-tins.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The girl stopped and turned. Archie smiled a winning smile.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;I say, my dear sweet creature!&rdquo; he said. &ldquo;I say, my dear old
+thing, one moment!&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Is that so?&rdquo; said the Girl Friend.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;I beg your pardon?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Is that so?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Archie began to feel certain tremors. Her eyes were gleaming, and her
+determined mouth had become a perfectly straight line of scarlet. It was going
+to be difficult to be chatty to this girl. She was going to be a hard audience.
+Would mere words be able to touch her heart? The thought suggested itself that,
+properly speaking, one would need to use a pick-axe.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;If you could spare me a couple of minutes of your valuable
+time&mdash;&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Say!&rdquo; The lady drew herself up menacingly. &ldquo;You tie a can to
+yourself and disappear! Fade away, or I&rsquo;ll call a cop!&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Archie was horrified at this misinterpretation of his motives. One or two
+children, playing close at hand, and a loafer who was trying to keep the wall
+from falling down, seemed pleased. Theirs was a colourless existence and to the
+rare purple moments which had enlivened it in the past the calling of a cop had
+been the unfailing preliminary. The loafer nudged a fellow-loafer, sunning
+himself against the same wall. The children, abandoning the meat-tin round
+which their game had centred, drew closer.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;My dear old soul!&rdquo; said Archie. &ldquo;You don&rsquo;t
+understand!&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Don&rsquo;t I! I know your sort, you trailing arbutus!&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;No, no! My dear old thing, believe me! I wouldn&rsquo;t dream!&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Are you going or aren&rsquo;t you?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Eleven more children joined the ring of spectators. The loafers stared
+silently, like awakened crocodiles.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;But, I say, listen! I only wanted&mdash;&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+At this point another voice spoke.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Say!&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p class="p2">
+The word &ldquo;Say!&rdquo; more almost than any word in the American language,
+is capable of a variety of shades of expression. It can be genial, it can be
+jovial, it can be appealing. It can also be truculent. The &ldquo;Say!&rdquo;
+which at this juncture smote upon Archie&rsquo;s ear-drum with a suddenness
+which made him leap in the air was truculent; and the two loafers and
+twenty-seven children who now formed the audience were well satisfied with the
+dramatic development of the performance. To their experienced ears the word had
+the right ring.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Archie spun round. At his elbow stood a long, strongly-built young man in a
+grey suit.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Well!&rdquo; said the young man, nastily. And he extended a large,
+freckled face toward Archie&rsquo;s. It seemed to the latter, as he backed
+against the wall, that the young man&rsquo;s neck must be composed of
+india-rubber. It appeared to be growing longer every moment. His face, besides
+being freckled, was a dull brick-red in colour; his lips curled back in an
+unpleasant snarl, showing a gold tooth; and beside him, swaying in an ominous
+sort of way, hung two clenched red hands about the size of two young legs of
+mutton. Archie eyed him with a growing apprehension. There are moments in life
+when, passing idly on our way, we see a strange face, look into strange eyes,
+and with a sudden glow of human warmth say to ourselves, &ldquo;We have found a
+friend!&rdquo; This was not one of those moments. The only person Archie had
+ever seen in his life who looked less friendly was the sergeant-major who had
+trained him in the early days of the war, before he had got his commission.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;I&rsquo;ve had my eye on you!&rdquo; said the young man.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+He still had his eye on him. It was a hot, gimlet-like eye, and it pierced the
+recesses of Archie&rsquo;s soul. He backed a little farther against the wall.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Archie was frankly disturbed. He was no poltroon, and had proved the fact on
+many occasions during the days when the entire German army seemed to be picking
+on him personally, but he hated and shrank from anything in the nature of a
+bally public scene.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;What,&rdquo; enquired the young man, still bearing the burden of the
+conversation, and shifting his left hand a little farther behind his back,
+&ldquo;do you mean by following this young lady?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Archie was glad he had asked him. This was precisely what he wanted to explain.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;My dear old lad&mdash;&rdquo; he began.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+In spite of the fact that he had asked a question and presumably desired a
+reply, the sound of Archie&rsquo;s voice seemed to be more than the young man
+could endure. It deprived him of the last vestige of restraint. With a rasping
+snarl he brought his left fist round in a sweeping semicircle in the direction
+of Archie&rsquo;s head.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Archie was no novice in the art of self-defence. Since his early days at school
+he had learned much from leather-faced professors of the science. He had been
+watching this unpleasant young man&rsquo;s eyes with close attention, and the
+latter could not have indicated his scheme of action more clearly if he had
+sent him a formal note. Archie saw the swing all the way. He stepped nimbly
+aside, and the fist crashed against the wall. The young man fell back with a
+yelp of anguish.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Gus!&rdquo; screamed the Girl Friend, bounding forward.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+She flung her arms round the injured man, who was ruefully examining a hand
+which, always of an out-size, was now swelling to still further dimensions.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Gus, darling!&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p class="p2">
+A sudden chill gripped Archie. So engrossed had he been with his mission that
+it had never occurred to him that the love-lorn pitcher might have taken it
+into his head to follow the girl as well in the hope of putting in a word for
+himself. Yet such apparently had been the case. Well, this had definitely torn
+it. Two loving hearts were united again in complete reconciliation, but a fat
+lot of good that was. It would be days before the misguided Looney Biddle would
+be able to pitch with a hand like that. It looked like a ham already, and was
+still swelling. Probably the wrist was sprained. For at least a week the
+greatest left-handed pitcher of his time would be about as much use to the
+Giants in any professional capacity as a cold in the head. And on that crippled
+hand depended the fate of all the money Archie had in the world. He wished now
+that he had not thwarted the fellow&rsquo;s simple enthusiasm. To have had his
+head knocked forcibly through a brick wall would not have been pleasant, but
+the ultimate outcome would not have been as unpleasant as this. With a heavy
+heart Archie prepared to withdraw, to be alone with his sorrow.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+At this moment, however, the Girl Friend, releasing her wounded lover, made a
+sudden dash for him, with the plainest intention of blotting him from the
+earth.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;No, I say! Really!&rdquo; said Archie, bounding backwards. &ldquo;I mean
+to say!&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+In a series of events, all of which had been a bit thick, this, in his opinion,
+achieved the maximum of thickness. It was the extreme ragged, outside edge of
+the limit. To brawl with a fellow-man in a public street had been bad, but to
+be brawled with by a girl&mdash;the shot was not on the board. Absolutely not
+on the board. There was only one thing to be done. It was dashed undignified,
+no doubt, for a fellow to pick up the old waukeesis and leg it in the face of
+the enemy, but there was no other course. Archie started to run; and, as he did
+so, one of the loafers made the mistake of gripping him by the collar of his
+coat.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;I got him!&rdquo; observed the loafer.
+</p>
+
+<p class="p2">
+There is a time for all things. This was essentially not the time for anyone of
+the male sex to grip the collar of Archie&rsquo;s coat. If a syndicate of
+Dempsey, Carpentier, and one of the Zoo gorillas had endeavoured to stay his
+progress at that moment, they would have had reason to consider it a rash move.
+Archie wanted to be elsewhere, and the blood of generations of Moffams, many of
+whom had swung a wicked axe in the free-for-all mix-ups of the Middle Ages,
+boiled within him at any attempt to revise his plans. There was a good deal of
+the loafer, but it was all soft. Releasing his hold when Archie&rsquo;s heel
+took him shrewdly on the shin, he received a nasty punch in what would have
+been the middle of his waistcoat if he had worn one, uttered a gurgling bleat
+like a wounded sheep, and collapsed against the wall. Archie, with a torn coat,
+rounded the corner, and sprinted down Ninth Avenue.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The suddenness of the move gave him an initial advantage. He was halfway down
+the first block before the vanguard of the pursuit poured out of the side
+street. Continuing to travel well, he skimmed past a large dray which had
+pulled up across the road, and moved on. The noise of those who pursued was
+loud and clamorous in the rear, but the dray hid him momentarily from their
+sight, and it was this fact which led Archie, the old campaigner, to take his
+next step.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+It was perfectly obvious&mdash;he was aware of this even in the novel
+excitement of the chase&mdash;that a chappie couldn&rsquo;t hoof it at
+twenty-five miles an hour indefinitely along a main thoroughfare of a great
+city without exciting remark. He must take cover. Cover! That was the wheeze.
+He looked about him for cover.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;You want a nice suit?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+It takes a great deal to startle your commercial New Yorker. The small tailor,
+standing in his doorway, seemed in no way surprised at the spectacle of Archie,
+whom he had seen pass at a conventional walk some five minutes before,
+returning like this at top speed. He assumed that Archie had suddenly
+remembered that he wanted to buy something.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+This was exactly what Archie had done. More than anything else in the world,
+what he wanted to do now was to get into that shop and have a long talk about
+gents&rsquo; clothing. Pulling himself up abruptly, he shot past the small
+tailor into the dim interior. A confused aroma of cheap clothing greeted him.
+Except for a small oasis behind a grubby counter, practically all the available
+space was occupied by suits. Stiff suits, looking like the body when discovered
+by the police, hung from hooks. Limp suits, with the appearance of having
+swooned from exhaustion, lay about on chairs and boxes. The place was a cloth
+morgue, a Sargasso Sea of serge.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Archie would not have had it otherwise. In these quiet groves of clothing a
+regiment could have lain hid.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Something nifty in tweeds?&rdquo; enquired the business-like proprietor
+of this haven, following him amiably into the shop, &ldquo;Or, maybe, yes, a
+nice serge? Say, mister, I got a sweet thing in blue serge that&rsquo;ll fit
+you like the paper on the wall!&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Archie wanted to talk about clothes, but not yet.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;I say, laddie,&rdquo; he said, hurriedly. &ldquo;Lend me your ear for
+half a jiffy!&rdquo; Outside the baying of the pack had become imminent.
+&ldquo;Stow me away for a moment in the undergrowth, and I&rsquo;ll buy
+anything you want.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+He withdrew into the jungle. The noise outside grew in volume. The pursuit had
+been delayed for a priceless few instants by the arrival of another dray,
+moving northwards, which had drawn level with the first dray and dexterously
+bottled up the fairway. This obstacle had now been overcome, and the original
+searchers, their ranks swelled by a few dozen more of the leisured classes,
+were hot on the trail again.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;You done a murder?&rdquo; enquired the voice of the proprietor, mildly
+interested, filtering through a wall of cloth. &ldquo;Well, boys will be
+boys!&rdquo; he said, philosophically. &ldquo;See anything there that you like?
+There some sweet things there!&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;I&rsquo;m inspecting them narrowly,&rdquo; replied Archie. &ldquo;If you
+don&rsquo;t let those chappies find me, I shouldn&rsquo;t be surprised if I
+bought one.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;One?&rdquo; said the proprietor, with a touch of austerity.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Two,&rdquo; said Archie, quickly. &ldquo;Or possibly three or
+six.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The proprietor&rsquo;s cordiality returned.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;You can&rsquo;t have too many nice suits,&rdquo; he said, approvingly,
+&ldquo;not a young feller like you that wants to look nice. All the nice girls
+like a young feller that dresses nice. When you go out of here in a suit I got
+hanging up there at the back, the girls&rsquo;ll be all over you like flies
+round a honey-pot.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Would you mind,&rdquo; said Archie, &ldquo;would you mind, as a personal
+favour to me, old companion, not mentioning that word
+&lsquo;girls&rsquo;?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+He broke off. A heavy foot had crossed the threshold of the shop.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Say, uncle,&rdquo; said a deep voice, one of those beastly voices that
+only the most poisonous blighters have, &ldquo;you seen a young feller run past
+here?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Young feller?&rdquo; The proprietor appeared to reflect. &ldquo;Do you
+mean a young feller in blue, with a Homburg hat?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;That&rsquo;s the duck! We lost him. Where did he go?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Him! Why, he come running past, quick as he could go. I wondered what he
+was running for, a hot day like this. He went round the corner at the bottom of
+the block.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+There was a silence.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Well, I guess he&rsquo;s got away,&rdquo; said the voice, regretfully.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;The way he was travelling,&rdquo; agreed the proprietor, &ldquo;I
+wouldn&rsquo;t be surprised if he was in Europe by this. You want a nice
+suit?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The other, curtly expressing a wish that the proprietor would go to eternal
+perdition and take his entire stock with him, stumped out.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;This,&rdquo; said the proprietor, tranquilly, burrowing his way to where
+Archie stood and exhibiting a saffron-coloured outrage, which appeared to be a
+poor relation of the flannel family, &ldquo;would put you back fifty dollars.
+And cheap!&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Fifty dollars!&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Sixty, I said. I don&rsquo;t speak always distinct.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Archie regarded the distressing garment with a shuddering horror. A young man
+with an educated taste in clothes, it got right in among his nerve centres.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;But, honestly, old soul, I don&rsquo;t want to hurt your feelings, but
+that isn&rsquo;t a suit, it&rsquo;s just a regrettable incident!&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The proprietor turned to the door in a listening attitude.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;I believe I hear that feller coming back,&rdquo; he said.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Archie gulped.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;How about trying it on?&rdquo; he said. &ldquo;I&rsquo;m not sure, after
+all, it isn&rsquo;t fairly ripe.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;That&rsquo;s the way to talk,&rdquo; said the proprietor, cordially.
+&ldquo;You try it on. You can&rsquo;t judge a suit, not a real nice suit like
+this, by looking at it. You want to put it on. There!&rdquo; He led the way to
+a dusty mirror at the back of the shop. &ldquo;Isn&rsquo;t that a bargain at
+seventy dollars?...Why, say, your mother would be proud if she could see her
+boy now!&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+A quarter of an hour later, the proprietor, lovingly kneading a little sheaf of
+currency bills, eyed with a fond look the heap of clothes which lay on the
+counter.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;As nice a little lot as I&rsquo;ve ever had in my shop!&rdquo; Archie
+did not deny this. It was, he thought, probably only too true.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;I only wish I could see you walking up Fifth Avenue in them!&rdquo;
+rhapsodised the proprietor. &ldquo;You&rsquo;ll give &rsquo;em a treat! What
+you going to do with &rsquo;em? Carry &rsquo;em under your arm?&rdquo; Archie
+shuddered strongly. &ldquo;Well, then, I can send &rsquo;em for you anywhere
+you like. It&rsquo;s all the same to me. Where&rsquo;ll I send
+&rsquo;em?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Archie meditated. The future was black enough as it was. He shrank from the
+prospect of being confronted next day, at the height of his misery, with these
+appalling reach-me-downs.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+An idea struck him.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Yes, send &rsquo;em,&rdquo; he said.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;What&rsquo;s the name and address?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Daniel Brewster,&rdquo; said Archie, &ldquo;Hotel Cosmopolis.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+It was a long time since he had given his father-in-law a present.
+</p>
+
+<p class="p2">
+Archie went out into the street, and began to walk pensively down a now
+peaceful Ninth Avenue. Out of the depths that covered him, black as the pit
+from pole to pole, no single ray of hope came to cheer him. He could not, like
+the poet, thank whatever gods there be for his unconquerable soul, for his soul
+was licked to a splinter. He felt alone and friendless in a rotten world. With
+the best intentions, he had succeeded only in landing himself squarely amongst
+the ribstons. Why had he not been content with his wealth, instead of risking
+it on that blighted bet with Reggie? Why had he trailed the Girl Friend, dash
+her! He might have known that he would only make an ass of himself. And,
+because he had done so, Looney Biddle&rsquo;s left hand, that priceless left
+hand before which opposing batters quailed and wilted, was out of action,
+resting in a sling, careened like a damaged battleship; and any chance the
+Giants might have had of beating the Pirates was gone&mdash;gone&mdash;as
+surely as that thousand dollars which should have bought a birthday present for
+Lucille.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+A birthday present for Lucille! He groaned in bitterness of spirit. She would
+be coming back to-night, dear girl, all smiles and happiness, wondering what he
+was going to give her tomorrow. And when to-morrow dawned, all he would be able
+to give her would be a kind smile. A nice state of things! A jolly situation! A
+thoroughly good egg, he did <i>not</i> think!
+</p>
+
+<p>
+It seemed to Archie that Nature, contrary to her usual custom of indifference
+to human suffering, was mourning with him. The sky was overcast, and the sun
+had ceased to shine. There was a sort of sombreness in the afternoon, which
+fitted in with his mood. And then something splashed on his face.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+It says much for Archie&rsquo;s pre-occupation that his first thought, as,
+after a few scattered drops, as though the clouds were submitting samples for
+approval, the whole sky suddenly began to stream like a shower-bath, was that
+this was simply an additional infliction which he was called upon to bear, On
+top of all his other troubles he would get soaked to the skin or have to hang
+about in some doorway. He cursed richly, and sped for shelter.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The rain was setting about its work in earnest. The world was full of that
+rending, swishing sound which accompanies the more violent summer storms.
+Thunder crashed, and lightning flicked out of the grey heavens. Out in the
+street the raindrops bounded up off the stones like fairy fountains. Archie
+surveyed them morosely from his refuge in the entrance of a shop.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+And then, suddenly, like one of those flashes which were lighting up the gloomy
+sky, a thought lit up his mind.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;By Jove! If this keeps up, there won&rsquo;t be a ball-game
+to-day!&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+With trembling fingers he pulled out his watch. The hands pointed to five
+minutes to three. A blessed vision came to him of a moist and disappointed
+crowd receiving rain-checks up at the Polo Grounds.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Switch it on, you blighters!&rdquo; he cried, addressing the leaden
+clouds. &ldquo;Switch it on more and more!&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p class="p2">
+It was shortly before five o&rsquo;clock that a young man bounded into a
+jeweller&rsquo;s shop near the Hotel Cosmopolis&mdash;a young man who, in spite
+of the fact that his coat was torn near the collar and that he oozed water from
+every inch of his drenched clothes, appeared in the highest spirits. It was
+only when he spoke that the jeweller recognised in the human sponge the
+immaculate youth who had looked in that morning to order a bracelet.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;I say, old lad,&rdquo; said this young man, &ldquo;you remember that
+jolly little what-not you showed me before lunch?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;The bracelet, sir?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;As you observe with a manly candour which does you credit, my dear old
+jeweller, the bracelet. Well, produce, exhibit, and bring it forth, would you
+mind? Trot it out! Slip it across on a lordly dish!&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;You wished me, surely, to put it aside and send it to the Cosmopolis
+to-morrow?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The young man tapped the jeweller earnestly on his substantial chest.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;What I wished and what I wish now are two bally separate and dashed
+distinct things, friend of my college days! Never put off till to-morrow what
+you can do to-day, and all that! I&rsquo;m not taking any more chances. Not for
+me! For others, yes, but not for Archibald! Here are the doubloons, produce the
+jolly bracelet. Thanks!&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The jeweller counted the notes with the same unction which Archie had observed
+earlier in the day in the proprietor of the second-hand clothes-shop. The
+process made him genial.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;A nasty, wet day, sir, it&rsquo;s been,&rdquo; he observed, chattily.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Archie shook his head.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Old friend,&rdquo; he said, &ldquo;you&rsquo;re all wrong. Far
+otherwise, and not a bit like it, my dear old trafficker in gems! You&rsquo;ve
+put your finger on the one aspect of this blighted p.m. that really deserves
+credit and respect. Rarely in the experience of a lifetime have I encountered a
+day so absolutely bally in nearly every shape and form, but there was one thing
+that saved it, and that was its merry old wetness! Toodle-oo, laddie!&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Good evening, sir,&rdquo; said the jeweller.
+</p>
+
+</div><!--end chapter-->
+
+<div class="chapter">
+
+<h2><a name="chap16"></a>CHAPTER XVI.<br/>
+ARCHIE ACCEPTS A SITUATION</h2>
+
+<p>
+Lucille moved her wrist slowly round, the better to examine the new bracelet.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;You really are an angel, angel!&rdquo; she murmured.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Like it?&rdquo; said Archie complacently.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;<i>Like</i> it! Why, it&rsquo;s gorgeous! It must have cost a
+fortune.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Oh, nothing to speak of. Just a few hard-earned pieces of eight. Just a
+few doubloons from the old oak chest.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;But I didn&rsquo;t know there were any doubloons in the old oak
+chest.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Well, as a matter of fact,&rdquo; admitted Archie, &ldquo;at one point
+in the proceedings there weren&rsquo;t. But an aunt of mine in
+England&mdash;peace be on her head!&mdash;happened to send me a chunk of the
+necessary at what you might call the psychological moment.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;And you spent it all on a birthday present for me! Archie!&rdquo;
+Lucille gazed at her husband adoringly. &ldquo;Archie, do you know what I
+think?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;What?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;You&rsquo;re the perfect man!&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;No, really! What ho!&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Yes,&rdquo; said Lucille firmly. &ldquo;I&rsquo;ve long suspected it,
+and now I know. I don&rsquo;t think there&rsquo;s anybody like you in the
+world.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Archie patted her hand.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;It&rsquo;s a rummy thing,&rdquo; he observed, &ldquo;but your father
+said almost exactly that to me only yesterday. Only I don&rsquo;t fancy he
+meant the same as you. To be absolutely frank, his exact expression was that he
+thanked God there was only one of me.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+A troubled look came into Lucille&rsquo;s grey eyes.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;It&rsquo;s a shame about father. I do wish he appreciated you. But you
+mustn&rsquo;t be too hard on him.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Me?&rdquo; said Archie. &ldquo;Hard on your father? Well, dash it all, I
+don&rsquo;t think I treat him with what you might call actual brutality, what!
+I mean to say, my whole idea is rather to keep out of the old lad&rsquo;s way
+and curl up in a ball if I can&rsquo;t dodge him. I&rsquo;d just as soon be
+hard on a stampeding elephant! I wouldn&rsquo;t for the world say anything
+derogatory, as it were, to your jolly old pater, but there is no getting away
+from the fact that he&rsquo;s by way of being one of our leading man-eating
+fishes. It would be idle to deny that he considers that you let down the proud
+old name of Brewster a bit when you brought me in and laid me on the
+mat.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Anyone would be lucky to get you for a son-in-law, precious.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;I fear me, light of my life, the dad doesn&rsquo;t see eye to eye with
+you on that point. No, every time I get hold of a daisy, I give him another
+chance, but it always works out at &lsquo;He loves me not!&rsquo;&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;You must make allowances for him, darling.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Right-o! But I hope devoutly that he doesn&rsquo;t catch me at it.
+I&rsquo;ve a sort of idea that if the old dad discovered that I was making
+allowances for him, he would have from ten to fifteen fits.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;He&rsquo;s worried just now, you know.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;I didn&rsquo;t know. He doesn&rsquo;t confide in me much.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;He&rsquo;s worried about that waiter.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;What waiter, queen of my soul?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;A man called Salvatore. Father dismissed him some time ago.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Salvatore!&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Probably you don&rsquo;t remember him. He used to wait on this
+table.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Why&mdash;&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;And father dismissed him, apparently, and now there&rsquo;s all sorts of
+trouble. You see, father wants to build this new hotel of his, and he thought
+he&rsquo;d got the site and everything and could start building right away: and
+now he finds that this man Salvatore&rsquo;s mother owns a little newspaper and
+tobacco shop right in the middle of the site, and there&rsquo;s no way of
+getting him out without buying the shop, and he won&rsquo;t sell. At least,
+he&rsquo;s made his mother promise that she won&rsquo;t sell.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;A boy&rsquo;s best friend is his mother,&rdquo; said Archie approvingly.
+&ldquo;I had a sort of idea all along&mdash;&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;So father&rsquo;s in despair.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Archie drew at his cigarette meditatively.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;I remember a chappie&mdash;a policeman he was, as a matter of fact, and
+incidentally a fairly pronounced blighter&mdash;remarking to me some time ago
+that you could trample on the poor man&rsquo;s face but you mustn&rsquo;t be
+surprised if he bit you in the leg while you were doing it. Apparently this is
+what has happened to the old dad. I had a sort of idea all along that old
+friend Salvatore would come out strong in the end if you only gave him time.
+Brainy sort of feller! Great pal of mine.&rdquo;&mdash;Lucille&rsquo;s small
+face lightened. She gazed at Archie with proud affection. She felt that she
+ought to have known that he was the one to solve this difficulty.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;You&rsquo;re wonderful, darling! Is he really a friend of yours?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Absolutely. Many&rsquo;s the time he and I have chatted in this very
+grill-room.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Then it&rsquo;s all right. If you went to him and argued with him, he
+would agree to sell the shop, and father would be happy. Think how grateful
+father would be to you! It would make all the difference.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Archie turned this over in his mind.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Something in that,&rdquo; he agreed.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;It would make him see what a pet lambkin you really are!&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Well,&rdquo; said Archie, &ldquo;I&rsquo;m bound to say that any scheme
+which what you might call culminates in your father regarding me as a pet
+lambkin ought to receive one&rsquo;s best attention. How much did he offer
+Salvatore for his shop?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;I don&rsquo;t know. There is father.&mdash;Call him over and ask
+him.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Archie glanced over to where Mr. Brewster had sunk moodily into a chair at a
+neighbouring table. It was plain even at that distance that Daniel Brewster had
+his troubles and was bearing them with an ill grace. He was scowling absently
+at the table-cloth.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;<i>You</i> call him,&rdquo; said Archie, having inspected his formidable
+relative. &ldquo;You know him better.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Let&rsquo;s go over to him.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+They crossed the room. Lucille sat down opposite her father. Archie draped
+himself over a chair in the background.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Father, dear,&rdquo; said Lucille. &ldquo;Archie has got an idea.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Archie?&rdquo; said Mr. Brewster incredulously.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;This is me,&rdquo; said Archie, indicating himself with a spoon.
+&ldquo;The tall, distinguished-looking bird.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;What new fool-thing is he up to now?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;It&rsquo;s a splendid idea, father. He wants to help you over your new
+hotel.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Wants to run it for me, I suppose?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;By Jove!&rdquo; said Archie, reflectively. &ldquo;That&rsquo;s not a bad
+scheme! I never thought of running an hotel. I shouldn&rsquo;t mind taking a
+stab at it.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;He has thought of a way of getting rid of Salvatore and his shop.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+For the first time Mr. Brewster&rsquo;s interest in the conversation seemed to
+stir. He looked sharply at his son-in-law.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;He has, has he?&rdquo; he said.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Archie balanced a roll on a fork and inserted a plate underneath. The roll
+bounded away into a corner.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Sorry!&rdquo; said Archie. &ldquo;My fault, absolutely! I owe you a
+roll. I&rsquo;ll sign a bill for it. Oh, about this sportsman Salvatore, Well,
+it&rsquo;s like this, you know. He and I are great pals. I&rsquo;ve known him
+for years and years. At least, it seems like years and years. Lu was suggesting
+that I seek him out in his lair and ensnare him with my diplomatic manner and
+superior brain power and what not.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;It was your idea, precious,&rdquo; said Lucille.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Mr. Brewster was silent.&mdash;Much as it went against the grain to have to
+admit it, there seemed to be something in this.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;What do you propose to do?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Become a jolly old ambassador. How much did you offer the
+chappie?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Three thousand dollars. Twice as much as the place is worth. He&rsquo;s
+holding out on me for revenge.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Ah, but how did you offer it to him, what? I mean to say, I bet you got
+your lawyer to write him a letter full of whereases, peradventures, and parties
+of the first part, and so forth. No good, old companion!&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Don&rsquo;t call me old companion!&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;All wrong, laddie! Nothing like it, dear heart! No good at all, friend
+of my youth! Take it from your Uncle Archibald! I&rsquo;m a student of human
+nature, and I know a thing or two.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;That&rsquo;s not much,&rdquo; growled Mr. Brewster, who was finding his
+son-in-law&rsquo;s superior manner a little trying.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Now, don&rsquo;t interrupt, father,&rdquo; said Lucille, severely.
+&ldquo;Can&rsquo;t you see that Archie is going to be tremendously clever in a
+minute?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;He&rsquo;s got to show me!&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;What you ought to do,&rdquo; said Archie, &ldquo;is to let me go and see
+him, taking the stuff in crackling bills. I&rsquo;ll roll them about on the
+table in front of him. That&rsquo;ll fetch him!&rdquo; He prodded Mr. Brewster
+encouragingly with a roll. &ldquo;I&rsquo;ll tell you what to do. Give me three
+thousand of the best and crispest, and I&rsquo;ll undertake to buy that shop.
+It can&rsquo;t fail, laddie!&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Don&rsquo;t call me laddie!&rdquo; Mr. Brewster pondered. &ldquo;Very
+well,&rdquo; he said at last. &ldquo;I didn&rsquo;t know you had so much
+sense,&rdquo; he added grudgingly.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Oh, positively!&rdquo; said Archie. &ldquo;Beneath a rugged exterior I
+hide a brain like a buzz-saw. Sense? I exude it, laddie; I drip with it.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p class="p2">
+There were moments during the ensuing days when Mr. Brewster permitted himself
+to hope; but more frequent were the moments when he told himself that a
+pronounced chump like his son-in-law could not fail somehow to make a mess of
+the negotiations. His relief, therefore, when Archie curveted into his private
+room and announced that he had succeeded was great.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;You really managed to make that wop sell out?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Archie brushed some papers off the desk with a careless gesture, and seated
+himself on the vacant spot.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Absolutely! I spoke to him as one old friend to another, sprayed the
+bills all over the place; and he sang a few bars from &lsquo;Rigoletto,&rsquo;
+and signed on the dotted line.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;You&rsquo;re not such a fool as you look,&rdquo; owned Mr. Brewster.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Archie scratched a match on the desk and lit a cigarette.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;It&rsquo;s a jolly little shop,&rdquo; he said. &ldquo;I took quite a
+fancy to it. Full of newspapers, don&rsquo;t you know, and cheap novels, and
+some weird-looking sort of chocolates, and cigars with the most fearfully
+attractive labels. I think I&rsquo;ll make a success of it. It&rsquo;s bang in
+the middle of a dashed good neighbourhood. One of these days somebody will be
+building a big hotel round about there, and that&rsquo;ll help trade a lot. I
+look forward to ending my days on the other side of the counter with a full set
+of white whiskers and a skull-cap, beloved by everybody. Everybody&rsquo;ll
+say, &lsquo;Oh, you <i>must</i> patronise that quaint, delightful old blighter!
+He&rsquo;s quite a character.&rsquo;&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Mr. Brewster&rsquo;s air of grim satisfaction had given way to a look of
+discomfort, almost of alarm. He presumed his son-in-law was merely indulging in
+<i>badinage;</i> but even so, his words were not soothing.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Well, I&rsquo;m much obliged,&rdquo; he said. &ldquo;That infernal shop
+was holding up everything. Now I can start building right away.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Archie raised his eyebrows.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;But, my dear old top, I&rsquo;m sorry to spoil your daydreams and stop
+you chasing rainbows, and all that, but aren&rsquo;t you forgetting that the
+shop belongs to me? I don&rsquo;t at all know that I want to sell,
+either!&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;I gave you the money to buy that shop!&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;And dashed generous of you it was, too!&rdquo; admitted Archie,
+unreservedly. &ldquo;It was the first money you ever gave me, and I shall
+always tell interviewers that it was you who founded my fortunes. Some day,
+when I&rsquo;m the Newspaper-and-Tobacco-Shop King, I&rsquo;ll tell the world
+all about it in my autobiography.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Mr. Brewster rose dangerously from his seat.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Do you think you can hold me up, you&mdash;you worm?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Well,&rdquo; said Archie, &ldquo;the way I look at it is this. Ever
+since we met, you&rsquo;ve been after me to become one of the world&rsquo;s
+workers, and earn a living for myself, and what not; and now I see a way to
+repay you for your confidence and encouragement. You&rsquo;ll look me up
+sometimes at the good old shop, won&rsquo;t you?&rdquo; He slid off the table
+and moved towards the door. &ldquo;There won&rsquo;t be any formalities where
+you are concerned. You can sign bills for any reasonable amount any time you
+want a cigar or a stick of chocolate. Well, toodle-oo!&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Stop!&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Now what?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;How much do you want for that damned shop?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;I don&rsquo;t want money.-I want a job.-If you are going to take my
+life-work away from me, you ought to give me something else to do.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;What job?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;You suggested it yourself the other day. I want to manage your new
+hotel.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Don&rsquo;t be a fool! What do you know about managing an hotel?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Nothing. It will be your pleasing task to teach me the business while
+the shanty is being run up.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+There was a pause, while Mr. Brewster chewed three inches off a pen-holder.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Very well,&rdquo; he said at last.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Topping!&rdquo; said Archie. &ldquo;I knew you&rsquo;d see it.
+I&rsquo;ll study your methods, what! Adding some of my own, of course. You
+know, I&rsquo;ve thought of one improvement on the Cosmopolis already.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Improvement on the Cosmopolis!&rdquo; cried Mr. Brewster, gashed in his
+finest feelings.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Yes. There&rsquo;s one point where the old Cosmop slips up badly, and
+I&rsquo;m going to see that it&rsquo;s corrected at my little shack. Customers
+will be entreated to leave their boots outside their doors at night, and
+they&rsquo;ll find them cleaned in the morning. Well, pip, pip! I must be
+popping. Time is money, you know, with us business men.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+</div><!--end chapter-->
+
+<div class="chapter">
+
+<h2><a name="chap17"></a>CHAPTER XVII.<br/>
+BROTHER BILL&rsquo;S ROMANCE</h2>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Her eyes,&rdquo; said Bill Brewster, &ldquo;are
+like&mdash;like&mdash;what&rsquo;s the word I want?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+He looked across at Lucille and Archie. Lucille was leaning forward with an
+eager and interested face; Archie was leaning back with his finger-tips
+together and his eyes closed. This was not the first time since their meeting
+in Beale&rsquo;s Auction Rooms that his brother-in-law had touched on the
+subject of the girl he had become engaged to marry during his trip to England.
+Indeed, Brother Bill had touched on very little else: and Archie, though of a
+sympathetic nature and fond of his young relative, was beginning to feel that
+he had heard all he wished to hear about Mabel Winchester. Lucille, on the
+other hand, was absorbed. Her brother&rsquo;s recital had thrilled her.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Like&mdash;&rdquo; said Bill. &ldquo;Like&mdash;&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Stars?&rdquo; suggested Lucille.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Stars,&rdquo; said Bill gratefully. &ldquo;Exactly the word. Twin stars
+shining in a clear sky on a summer night. Her teeth are like&mdash;what shall I
+say?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Pearls?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Pearls. And her hair is a lovely brown, like leaves in autumn. In
+fact,&rdquo; concluded Bill, slipping down from the heights with something of a
+jerk, &ldquo;she&rsquo;s a corker. Isn&rsquo;t she, Archie?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Archie opened his eyes.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Quite right, old top!&rdquo; he said. &ldquo;It was the only thing to
+do.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;What the devil are you talking about?&rdquo; demanded Bill coldly. He
+had been suspicious all along of Archie&rsquo;s statement that he could listen
+better with his eyes shut.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Eh? Oh, sorry! Thinking of something else.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;You were asleep.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;No, no, positively and distinctly not. Frightfully interested and rapt
+and all that, only I didn&rsquo;t quite get what you said.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;I said that Mabel was a corker.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Oh, absolutely in every respect.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;There!&rdquo; Bill turned to Lucille triumphantly. &ldquo;You hear that?
+And Archie has only seen her photograph. Wait till he sees her in the
+flesh.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;My dear old chap!&rdquo; said Archie, shocked. &ldquo;Ladies present! I
+mean to say, what!&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;I&rsquo;m afraid that father will be the one you&rsquo;ll find it hard
+to convince.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Yes,&rdquo; admitted her brother gloomily.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Your Mabel sounds perfectly charming, but&mdash;well, you know what
+father is. It <i>is</i> a pity she sings in the chorus.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;She hasn&rsquo;t much of a voice,&rdquo;&mdash;argued Bill&mdash;in
+extenuation.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;All the same&mdash;&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Archie, the conversation having reached a topic on which he considered himself
+one of the greatest living authorities&mdash;to wit, the unlovable disposition
+of his father-in-law&mdash;addressed the meeting as one who has a right to be
+heard.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Lucille&rsquo;s absolutely right, old thing.&mdash;Absolutely correct-o!
+Your esteemed progenitor is a pretty tough nut, and it&rsquo;s no good trying
+to get away from it.-And I&rsquo;m sorry to have to say it, old bird, but, if
+you come bounding in with part of the personnel of the ensemble on your arm and
+try to dig a father&rsquo;s blessing out of him, he&rsquo;s extremely apt to
+stab you in the gizzard.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;I wish,&rdquo; said Bill, annoyed, &ldquo;you wouldn&rsquo;t talk as
+though Mabel were the ordinary kind of chorus-girl. She&rsquo;s only on the
+stage because her mother&rsquo;s hard-up and she wants to educate her little
+brother.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;I say,&rdquo; said Archie, concerned. &ldquo;Take my tip, old top. In
+chatting the matter over with the pater, don&rsquo;t dwell too much on that
+aspect of the affair.&mdash;I&rsquo;ve been watching him closely, and
+it&rsquo;s about all he can stick, having to support <i>me</i>. If you ring in
+a mother and a little brother on him, he&rsquo;ll crack under the
+strain.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Well, I&rsquo;ve got to do something about it. Mabel will be over here
+in a week.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Great Scot! You never told us that.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Yes. She&rsquo;s going to be in the new Billington show. And, naturally,
+she will expect to meet my family. I&rsquo;ve told her all about you.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Did you explain father to her?&rdquo; asked Lucille.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Well, I just said she mustn&rsquo;t mind him, as his bark was worse than
+his bite.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Well,&rdquo; said Archie, thoughtfully, &ldquo;he hasn&rsquo;t bitten me
+yet, so you may be right. But you&rsquo;ve got to admit that he&rsquo;s a bit
+of a barker.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Lucille considered.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Really, Bill, I think your best plan would be to go straight to father
+and tell him the whole thing.&mdash;You don&rsquo;t want him to hear about it
+in a roundabout way.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;The trouble is that, whenever I&rsquo;m with father, I can&rsquo;t think
+of anything to say.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Archie found himself envying his father-in-law this merciful dispensation of
+Providence; for, where he himself was concerned, there had been no lack of
+eloquence on Bill&rsquo;s part. In the brief period in which he had known him,
+Bill had talked all the time and always on the one topic. As unpromising a
+subject as the tariff laws was easily diverted by him into a discussion of the
+absent Mabel.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;When I&rsquo;m with father,&rdquo; said Bill, &ldquo;I sort of lose my
+nerve, and yammer.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Dashed awkward,&rdquo; said Archie, politely. He sat up suddenly.
+&ldquo;I say! By Jove! I know what you want, old friend! Just thought of
+it!&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;That busy brain is never still,&rdquo; explained Lucille.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Saw it in the paper this morning. An advertisement of a book,
+don&rsquo;t you know.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;I&rsquo;ve no time for reading.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;You&rsquo;ve time for reading this one, laddie, for you can&rsquo;t
+afford to miss it. It&rsquo;s a what-d&rsquo;you-call-it book. What I mean to
+say is, if you read it and take its tips to heart, it guarantees to make you a
+convincing talker. The advertisement says so. The advertisement&rsquo;s all
+about a chappie whose name I forget, whom everybody loved because he talked so
+well. And, mark you, before he got hold of this book&mdash;<i>The Personality
+That Wins</i> was the name of it, if I remember rightly&mdash;he was known to
+all the lads in the office as Silent Samuel or something. Or it may have been
+Tongue-Tied Thomas. Well, one day he happened by good luck to blow in the
+necessary for the good old P. that W.&rsquo;s, and now, whenever they want
+someone to go and talk Rockefeller or someone into lending them a million or
+so, they send for Samuel. Only now they call him Sammy the Spell-Binder and
+fawn upon him pretty copiously and all that. How about it, old son? How do we
+go?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;What perfect nonsense,&rdquo; said Lucille.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;I don&rsquo;t know,&rdquo; said Bill, plainly impressed. &ldquo;There
+might be something in it.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Absolutely!&rdquo; said Archie. &ldquo;I remember it said, &lsquo;Talk
+convincingly, and no man will ever treat you with cold, unresponsive
+indifference.&rsquo; Well, cold, unresponsive indifference is just what you
+don&rsquo;t want the pater to treat you with, isn&rsquo;t it, or is it, or
+isn&rsquo;t it, what? I mean, what?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;It sounds all right,&rdquo; said Bill.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;It <i>is</i> all right,&rdquo; said Archie. &ldquo;It&rsquo;s a scheme!
+I&rsquo;ll go farther. It&rsquo;s an egg!&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;The idea I had,&rdquo; said Bill, &ldquo;was to see if I couldn&rsquo;t
+get Mabel a job in some straight comedy. That would take the curse off the
+thing a bit. Then I wouldn&rsquo;t have to dwell on the chorus end of the
+business, you see.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Much more sensible,&rdquo; said Lucille.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;But what a-deuce of a sweat&rdquo;&mdash;argued Archie. &ldquo;I mean to
+say, having to pop round and nose about and all that.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Aren&rsquo;t you willing to take a little trouble for your stricken
+brother-in-law, worm?&rdquo; said Lucille severely.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Oh, absolutely! My idea was to get this book and coach the dear old
+chap. Rehearse him, don&rsquo;t you know. He could bone up the early chapters a
+bit and then drift round and try his convincing talk on me.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;It might be a good idea,&rdquo; said Bill reflectively.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Well, I&rsquo;ll tell you what <i>I&rsquo;m</i> going to do,&rdquo; said
+Lucille. &ldquo;I&rsquo;m going to get Bill to introduce me to his Mabel, and,
+if she&rsquo;s as nice as he says she is, <i>I&rsquo;ll</i> go to father and
+talk convincingly to him.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;You&rsquo;re an ace!&rdquo; said Bill.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Absolutely!&rdquo; agreed Archie cordially. &ldquo;<i>My</i> partner,
+what! All the same, we ought to keep the book as a second string, you know. I
+mean to say, you are a young and delicately nurtured girl&mdash;full of
+sensibility and shrinking what&rsquo;s-its-name and all that&mdash;and you know
+what the jolly old pater is. He might bark at you and put you out of action in
+the first round. Well, then, if anything like that happened, don&rsquo;t you
+see, we could unleash old Bill, the trained silver-tongued expert, and let him
+have a shot. Personally, I&rsquo;m all for the P. that
+W.&rsquo;s.&rdquo;&mdash;&ldquo;Me, too,&rdquo; said Bill.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Lucille looked at her watch.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Good gracious! It&rsquo;s nearly one o&rsquo;clock!&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;No!&rdquo; Archie heaved himself up from his chair. &ldquo;Well,
+it&rsquo;s a shame to break up this feast of reason and flow of soul and all
+that, but, if we don&rsquo;t leg it with some speed, we shall be late.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;We&rsquo;re lunching at the Nicholson&rsquo;s!&rdquo; explained Lucille
+to her brother. &ldquo;I wish you were coming too.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Lunch!&rdquo; Bill shook his head with a kind of tolerant scorn.
+&ldquo;Lunch means nothing to me these days. I&rsquo;ve other things to think
+of besides food.&rdquo; He looked as spiritual as his rugged features would
+permit. &ldquo;I haven&rsquo;t written to Her yet to-day.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;But, dash it, old scream, if she&rsquo;s going to be over here in a
+week, what&rsquo;s the good of writing? The letter would cross her.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;I&rsquo;m not mailing my letters to England,&rdquo; said Bill.
+&ldquo;I&rsquo;m keeping them for her to read when she arrives.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;My sainted aunt!&rdquo; said Archie.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Devotion like this was something beyond his outlook.
+</p>
+
+</div><!--end chapter-->
+
+<div class="chapter">
+
+<h2><a name="chap18"></a>CHAPTER XVIII.<br/>
+THE SAUSAGE CHAPPIE</h2>
+
+<p>
+<i>The Personality That Wins</i> cost Archie two dollars in cash and a lot of
+embarrassment when he asked for it at the store. To buy a treatise of that name
+would automatically seem to argue that you haven&rsquo;t a winning personality
+already, and Archie was at some pains to explain to the girl behind the counter
+that he wanted it for a friend. The girl seemed more interested in his English
+accent than in his explanation, and Archie was uncomfortably aware, as he
+receded, that she was practising it in an undertone for the benefit of her
+colleagues and fellow-workers. However, what is a little discomfort, if endured
+in friendship&rsquo;s name?
+</p>
+
+<p>
+He was proceeding up Broadway after leaving the store when he encountered
+Reggie van Tuyl, who was drifting along in somnambulistic fashion near
+Thirty-Ninth Street.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Hullo, Reggie old thing!&rdquo; said Archie.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Hullo!&rdquo; said Reggie, a man of few words.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;I&rsquo;ve just been buying a book for Bill Brewster,&rdquo; went on
+Archie. &ldquo;It appears that old Bill&mdash;What&rsquo;s the matter?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+He broke off his recital abruptly. A sort of spasm had passed across his
+companion&rsquo;s features. The hand holding Archie&rsquo;s arm had tightened
+convulsively. One would have said that Reginald had received a shock.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;It&rsquo;s nothing,&rdquo; said Reggie. &ldquo;I&rsquo;m all right now.
+I caught sight of that fellow&rsquo;s clothes rather suddenly. They shook me a
+bit. I&rsquo;m all right now,&rdquo; he said, bravely.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Archie, following his friend&rsquo;s gaze, understood. Reggie van Tuyl was
+never at his strongest in the morning, and he had a sensitive eye for clothes.
+He had been known to resign from clubs because members exceeded the bounds in
+the matter of soft shirts with dinner-jackets. And the short, thick-set man who
+was standing just in front of them in attitude of restful immobility was
+certainly no dandy. His best friend could not have called him dapper. Take him
+for all in all and on the hoof, he might have been posing as a model for a
+sketch of What the Well-Dressed Man Should Not Wear.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+In costume, as in most other things, it is best to take a definite line and
+stick to it. This man had obviously vacillated. His neck was swathed in a green
+scarf; he wore an evening-dress coat; and his lower limbs were draped in a pair
+of tweed trousers built for a larger man. To the north he was bounded by a
+straw hat, to the south by brown shoes.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Archie surveyed the man&rsquo;s back carefully.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Bit thick!&rdquo; he said, sympathetically. &ldquo;But of course
+Broadway isn&rsquo;t Fifth Avenue. What I mean to say is, Bohemian licence and
+what not. Broadway&rsquo;s crammed with deuced brainy devils who don&rsquo;t
+care how they look. Probably this bird is a master-mind of some species.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;All the same, man&rsquo;s no right to wear evening-dress coat with tweed
+trousers.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Absolutely not! I see what you mean.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+At this point the sartorial offender turned. Seen from the front, he was even
+more unnerving. He appeared to possess no shirt, though this defect was offset
+by the fact that the tweed trousers fitted snugly under the arms. He was not a
+handsome man. At his best he could never have been that, and in the recent past
+he had managed to acquire a scar that ran from the corner of his mouth half-way
+across his cheek. Even when his face was in repose he had an odd expression;
+and when, as he chanced to do now, he smiled, odd became a mild adjective,
+quite inadequate for purposes of description. It was not an unpleasant face,
+however. Unquestionably genial, indeed. There was something in it that had a
+quality of humorous appeal.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Archie started. He stared at the man, Memory stirred.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Great Scot!&rdquo; he cried. &ldquo;It&rsquo;s the Sausage
+Chappie!&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Reginald van Tuyl gave a little moan. He was not used to this sort of thing. A
+sensitive young man as regarded scenes, Archie&rsquo;s behaviour unmanned him.
+For Archie, releasing his arm, had bounded forward and was shaking the
+other&rsquo;s hand warmly.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Well, well, well! My dear old chap! You must remember me, what? No?
+Yes?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The man with the scar seemed puzzled. He shuffled the brown shoes, patted the
+straw hat, and eyed Archie questioningly.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;I don&rsquo;t seem to place you,&rdquo; he said.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Archie slapped the back of the evening-dress coat. He linked his arm
+affectionately with that of the dress-reformer.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;We met outside St Mihiel in the war. You gave me a bit of sausage. One
+of the most sporting events in history. Nobody but a real sportsman would have
+parted with a bit of sausage at that moment to a stranger. Never forgotten it,
+by Jove. Saved my life, absolutely. Hadn&rsquo;t chewed a morsel for eight
+hours. Well, have you got anything on? I mean to say, you aren&rsquo;t booked
+for lunch or any rot of that species, are you? Fine! Then I move we all toddle
+off and get a bite somewhere.&rdquo; He squeezed the other&rsquo;s arm fondly.
+&ldquo;Fancy meeting you again like this! I&rsquo;ve often wondered what became
+of you. But, by Jove, I was forgetting. Dashed rude of me. My friend, Mr. van
+Tuyl.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Reggie gulped. The longer he looked at it, the harder this man&rsquo;s costume
+was to bear. His eye passed shudderingly from the brown shoes to the tweed
+trousers, to the green scarf, from the green scarf to the straw hat.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Sorry,&rdquo; he mumbled. &ldquo;Just remembered. Important date. Late
+already. Er&mdash;see you some time&mdash;&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+He melted away, a broken man. Archie was not sorry to see him go. Reggie was a
+good chap, but he would undoubtedly have been <i>de trop</i> at this reunion.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;I vote we go to the Cosmopolis,&rdquo; he said, steering his newly-found
+friend through the crowd. &ldquo;The browsing and sluicing isn&rsquo;t bad
+there, and I can sign the bill which is no small consideration nowadays.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The Sausage Chappie chuckled amusedly.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;I can&rsquo;t go to a place like the Cosmopolis looking like
+this.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Archie, was a little embarrassed.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Oh, I don&rsquo;t know, you know, don&rsquo;t you know!&rdquo; he said.
+&ldquo;Still, since you have brought the topic up, you <i>did</i> get the good
+old wardrobe a bit mixed this morning what? I mean to say, you seem
+absent-mindedly, as it were, to have got hold of samples from a good number of
+your various suitings.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Suitings? How do you mean, suitings? I haven&rsquo;t any suitings! Who
+do you think I am? Vincent Astor? All I have is what I stand up in.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Archie was shocked. This tragedy touched him. He himself had never had any
+money in his life, but somehow he had always seemed to manage to have plenty of
+clothes. How this was he could not say. He had always had a vague sort of idea
+that tailors were kindly birds who never failed to have a pair of trousers or
+something up their sleeve to present to the deserving. There was the drawback,
+of course, that once they had given you things they were apt to write you
+rather a lot of letters about it; but you soon managed to recognise their
+handwriting, and then it was a simple task to extract their communications from
+your morning mail and drop them in the waste-paper basket. This was the first
+case he had encountered of a man who was really short of clothes.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;My dear old lad,&rdquo; he said, briskly, &ldquo;this must be remedied!
+Oh, positively! This must be remedied at once! I suppose my things
+wouldn&rsquo;t fit you? No. Well, I tell you what. We&rsquo;ll wangle something
+from my father-in-law. Old Brewster, you know, the fellow who runs the
+Cosmopolis. His&rsquo;ll fit you like the paper on the wall, because he&rsquo;s
+a tubby little blighter, too. What I mean to say is, he&rsquo;s also one of
+those sturdy, square, fine-looking chappies of about the middle height. By the
+way, where are you stopping these days?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Nowhere just at present. I thought of taking one of those self-contained
+Park benches.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Are you broke?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Am I!&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Archie was concerned.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;You ought to get a job.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;I ought. But somehow I don&rsquo;t seem able to.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;What did you do before the war?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;I&rsquo;ve forgotten.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Forgotten!&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Forgotten.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;How do you mean&mdash;forgotten? You can&rsquo;t
+mean&mdash;<i>forgotten?</i>&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Yes. It&rsquo;s quite gone.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;But I mean to say. You can&rsquo;t have forgotten a thing like
+that.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Can&rsquo;t I! I&rsquo;ve forgotten all sorts of things. Where I was
+born. How old I am. Whether I&rsquo;m married or single. What my name
+is&mdash;&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Well, I&rsquo;m dashed!&rdquo; said Archie, staggered. &ldquo;But you
+remembered about giving me a bit of sausage outside St. Mihiel?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;No, I didn&rsquo;t. I&rsquo;m taking your word for it. For all I know
+you may be luring me into some den to rob me of my straw hat. I don&rsquo;t
+know you from Adam. But I like your conversation&mdash;especially the part
+about eating&mdash;and I&rsquo;m taking a chance.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Archie was concerned.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Listen, old bean. Make an effort. You must remember that sausage
+episode? It was just outside St. Mihiel, about five in the evening. Your little
+lot were lying next to my little lot, and we happened to meet, and I said
+&lsquo;What ho!&rsquo; and you said &lsquo;Halloa!&rsquo; and I said
+&lsquo;What ho! What ho!&rsquo; and you said &lsquo;Have a bit of
+sausage?&rsquo; and I said &lsquo;What ho! What ho! What
+<i>ho!</i>&rsquo;&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;The dialogue seems to have been darned sparkling but I don&rsquo;t
+remember it. It must have been after that that I stopped one. I don&rsquo;t
+seem quite to have caught up with myself since I got hit.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Oh! That&rsquo;s how you got that scar?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;No. I got that jumping through a plate-glass window in London on
+Armistice night.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;What on earth did you do that for?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Oh, I don&rsquo;t know. It seemed a good idea at the time.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;But if you can remember a thing like that, why can&rsquo;t you remember
+your name?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;I remember everything that happened after I came out of hospital.
+It&rsquo;s the part before that&rsquo;s gone.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Archie patted him on the shoulder.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;I know just what you want. You need a bit of quiet and repose, to think
+things over and so forth. You mustn&rsquo;t go sleeping on Park benches.
+Won&rsquo;t do at all. Not a bit like it. You must shift to the Cosmopolis. It
+isn&rsquo;t half a bad spot, the old Cosmop. I didn&rsquo;t like it much the
+first night I was there, because there was a dashed tap that went
+drip-drip-drip all night and kept me awake, but the place has its
+points.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Is the Cosmopolis giving free board and lodging these days?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Rather! That&rsquo;ll be all right. Well, this is the spot. We&rsquo;ll
+start by trickling up to the old boy&rsquo;s suite and looking over his
+reach-me-downs. I know the waiter on his floor. A very sound chappie.
+He&rsquo;ll let us in with his pass-key.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+And so it came about that Mr. Daniel Brewster, returning to his suite in the
+middle of lunch in order to find a paper dealing with the subject he was
+discussing with his guest, the architect of his new hotel, was aware of a
+murmur of voices behind the closed door of his bedroom. Recognising the accents
+of his son-in-law, he breathed an oath and charged in. He objected to Archie
+wandering at large about his suite.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The sight that met his eyes when he opened the door did nothing to soothe him.
+The floor was a sea of clothes. There were coats on the chairs, trousers on the
+bed, shirts on the bookshelf. And in the middle of his welter stood Archie,
+with a man who, to Mr. Brewster&rsquo;s heated eye, looked like a tramp
+comedian out of a burlesque show.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Great Godfrey!&rdquo; ejaculated Mr. Brewster.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Archie looked up with a friendly smile.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Oh, halloa-halloa!&rdquo; he said, affably, &ldquo;We were just glancing
+through your spare scenery to see if we couldn&rsquo;t find something for my
+pal here. This is Mr. Brewster, my father-in-law, old man.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Archie scanned his relative&rsquo;s twisted features. Something in his
+expression seemed not altogether encouraging. He decided that the negotiations
+had better be conducted in private. &ldquo;One moment, old lad,&rdquo; he said
+to his new friend. &ldquo;I just want to have a little talk with my
+father-in-law in the other room. Just a little friendly business chat. You stay
+here.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+In the other room Mr. Brewster turned on Archie like a wounded lion of the
+desert.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;What the&mdash;!&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Archie secured one of his coat-buttons and began to massage it affectionately.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Ought to have explained!&rdquo; said Archie, &ldquo;only didn&rsquo;t
+want to interrupt your lunch. The sportsman on the horizon is a dear old pal of
+mine&mdash;&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Mr. Brewster wrenched himself free.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;What the devil do you mean, you worm, by bringing tramps into my bedroom
+and messing about with my clothes?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;That&rsquo;s just what I&rsquo;m trying to explain, if you&rsquo;ll only
+listen. This bird is a bird I met in France during the war. He gave me a bit of
+sausage outside St. Mihiel&mdash;&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Damn you and him and the sausage!&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Absolutely. But listen. He can&rsquo;t remember who he is or where he
+was born or what his name is, and he&rsquo;s broke; so, dash it, I must look
+after him. You see, he gave me a bit of sausage.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Mr. Brewster&rsquo;s frenzy gave way to an ominous calm.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;I&rsquo;ll give him two seconds to clear out of here. If he isn&rsquo;t
+gone by then I&rsquo;ll have him thrown out.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Archie was shocked.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;You don&rsquo;t mean that?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;I do mean that.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;But where is he to go?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Outside.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;But you don&rsquo;t understand. This chappie has lost his memory because
+he was wounded in the war. Keep that fact firmly fixed in the old bean. He
+fought for you. Fought and bled for you. Bled profusely, by Jove. <i>And</i> he
+saved my life!&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;If I&rsquo;d got nothing else against him, that would be enough.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;But you can&rsquo;t sling a chappie out into the cold hard world who
+bled in gallons to make the world safe for the Hotel Cosmopolis.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Mr. Brewster looked ostentatiously at his watch.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Two seconds!&rdquo; he said.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+There was a silence. Archie appeared to be thinking. &ldquo;Right-o!&rdquo; he
+said at last. &ldquo;No need to get the wind up. I know where he can go.
+It&rsquo;s just occurred to me I&rsquo;ll put him up at my little shop.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The purple ebbed from Mr. Brewster&rsquo;s face. Such was his emotion that he
+had forgotten that infernal shop. He sat down. There was more silence.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Oh, gosh!&rdquo; said Mr. Brewster.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;I knew you would be reasonable about it,&rdquo; said Archie,
+approvingly. &ldquo;Now, honestly, as man to man, how do we go?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;What do you want me to do?&rdquo; growled Mr. Brewster.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;I thought you might put the chappie up for a while, and give him a
+chance to look round and nose about a bit.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;I absolutely refuse to give any more loafers free board and
+lodging.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Any <i>more?</i>&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Well, he would be the second, wouldn&rsquo;t he?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Archie looked pained.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;It&rsquo;s true,&rdquo; he said, &ldquo;that when I first came here I
+was temporarily resting, so to speak; but didn&rsquo;t I go right out and grab
+the managership of your new hotel? Positively!&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;I will <i>not</i> adopt this tramp.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Well, find him a job, then.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;What sort of a job?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Oh, any old sort.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;He can be a waiter if he likes.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;All right; I&rsquo;ll put the matter before him.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+He returned to the bedroom. The Sausage Chappie was gazing fondly into the
+mirror with a spotted tie draped round his neck.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;I say, old top,&rdquo; said Archie, apologetically, &ldquo;the Emperor
+of the Blighters out yonder says you can have a job here as waiter, and he
+won&rsquo;t do another dashed thing for you. How about it?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Do waiters eat?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;I suppose so. Though, by Jove, come to think of it, I&rsquo;ve never
+seen one at it.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;That&rsquo;s good enough for me!&rdquo; said the Sausage Chappie.
+&ldquo;When do I begin?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+</div><!--end chapter-->
+
+<div class="chapter">
+
+<h2><a name="chap19"></a>CHAPTER XIX.<br/>
+REGGIE COMES TO LIFE</h2>
+
+<p>
+The advantage of having plenty of time on one&rsquo;s hands is that one has
+leisure to attend to the affairs of all one&rsquo;s circle of friends; and
+Archie, assiduously as he watched over the destinies of the Sausage Chappie,
+did not neglect the romantic needs of his brother-in-law Bill. A few days
+later, Lucille, returning one morning to their mutual suite, found her husband
+seated in an upright chair at the table, an unusually stern expression on his
+amiable face. A large cigar was in the corner of his mouth. The fingers of one
+hand rested in the armhole of his waistcoat: with the other hand he tapped
+menacingly on the table.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+As she gazed upon him, wondering what could be the matter with him, Lucille was
+suddenly aware of Bill&rsquo;s presence. He had emerged sharply from the
+bedroom and was walking briskly across the floor. He came to a halt in front of
+the table.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Father!&rdquo; said Bill.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Archie looked up sharply, frowning heavily over his cigar.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Well, my boy,&rdquo; he said in a strange, rasping voice. &ldquo;What is
+it? Speak up, my boy, speak up! Why the devil can&rsquo;t you speak up? This is
+my busy day!&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;What on earth are you doing?&rdquo; asked Lucille.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Archie waved her away with the large gesture of a man of blood and iron
+interrupted while concentrating.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Leave us, woman! We would be alone! Retire into the jolly old background
+and amuse yourself for a bit. Read a book. Do acrostics. Charge ahead,
+laddie.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Father!&rdquo; said Bill, again.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Yes, my boy, yes? What is it?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Father!&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Archie picked up the red-covered volume that lay on the table.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Half a mo&rsquo;, old son. Sorry to stop you, but I knew there was
+something. I&rsquo;ve just remembered. Your walk. All wrong!&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;All wrong?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;All wrong! Where&rsquo;s the chapter on the Art. of Walking? Here we
+are. Listen, dear old soul. Drink this in. &lsquo;In walking, one should strive
+to acquire that swinging, easy movement from the hips. The correctly-poised
+walker seems to float along, as it were.&rsquo; Now, old bean, you didn&rsquo;t
+float a dam&rsquo; bit. You just galloped in like a chappie charging into a
+railway restaurant for a bowl of soup when his train leaves in two minutes.
+Dashed important, this walking business, you know. Get started wrong, and where
+are you? Try it again.... Much better.&rdquo; He turned to Lucille.
+&ldquo;Notice him float along that time? Absolutely skimmed, what?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Lucille had taken a seat,-and was waiting for enlightenment.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Are you and Bill going into vaudeville?&rdquo; she asked.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Archie, scrutinising-his-brother-in-law closely, had further criticism to make.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;&lsquo;The man of self-respect and self-confidence,&rsquo;&rdquo; he
+read, &ldquo;&lsquo;stands erect in an easy, natural, graceful attitude. Heels
+not too far apart, head erect, eyes to the front with a level
+gaze&rsquo;&mdash;get your gaze level, old thing!&mdash;&lsquo;shoulders thrown
+back, arms hanging naturally at the sides when not otherwise
+employed&rsquo;&mdash;that means that, if he tries to hit you, it&rsquo;s all
+right to guard&mdash;&lsquo;chest expanded naturally, and
+abdomen&rsquo;&mdash;this is no place for you, Lucille. Leg it out of
+earshot&mdash;&lsquo;ab&mdash;what I said before&mdash;drawn in somewhat and
+above all not protruded.&rsquo; Now, have you got all that? Yes, you look all
+right. Carry on, laddie, carry on. Let&rsquo;s have two-penn&rsquo;orth of the
+Dynamic Voice and the Tone of Authority&mdash;some of the full, rich, round
+stuff we hear so much about!&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Bill fastened a gimlet eye upon his brother-in-law and drew a deep breath.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Father!&rdquo; he said. &ldquo;Father!&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;You&rsquo;ll have to brighten up Bill&rsquo;s dialogue a lot,&rdquo;
+said Lucille, critically, &ldquo;or you will never get bookings.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Father!&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;I mean, it&rsquo;s all right as far as it goes, but it&rsquo;s sort of
+monotonous. Besides, one of you ought to be asking questions and the other
+answering. Bill ought to be saying, &lsquo;Who was that lady I saw you coming
+down the street with?&rsquo; so that you would be able to say, &lsquo;That
+wasn&rsquo;t a lady. That was my wife.&rsquo; I <i>know!</i> I&rsquo;ve been to
+lots of vaudeville shows.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Bill relaxed his attitude. He deflated his chest, spread his heels, and ceased
+to draw in his abdomen.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;We&rsquo;d better try this another time, when we&rsquo;re alone,&rdquo;
+he said, frigidly. &ldquo;I can&rsquo;t do myself justice.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Why do you want to do yourself justice?&rdquo; asked Lucille.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Right-o!&rdquo; said Archie, affably, casting off his forbidding
+expression like a garment. &ldquo;Rehearsal postponed. I was just putting old
+Bill through it,&rdquo; he explained, &ldquo;with a view to getting him into
+mid-season form for the jolly old pater.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Oh!&rdquo; Lucille&rsquo;s voice was the voice of one who sees light in
+darkness. &ldquo;When Bill walked in like a cat on hot bricks and stood there
+looking stuffed, that was just the Personality That Wins!&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;That was it.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Well, you couldn&rsquo;t blame me for not recognising it, could
+you?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Archie patted her head paternally.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;A little less of the caustic critic stuff,&rdquo; he said. &ldquo;Bill
+will be all right on the night. If you hadn&rsquo;t come in then and put him
+off his stroke, he&rsquo;d have shot out some amazing stuff, full of authority
+and dynamic accents and what not. I tell you, light of my soul, old Bill is all
+right! He&rsquo;s got the winning personality up a tree, ready whenever he
+wants to go and get it. Speaking as his backer and trainer, I think he&rsquo;ll
+twist your father round his little finger. Absolutely! It wouldn&rsquo;t
+surprise me if at the end of five minutes the good old dad started jumping
+through hoops and sitting up for lumps of sugar.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;It would surprise <i>me</i>.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Ah, that&rsquo;s because you haven&rsquo;t seen old Bill in action. You
+crabbed his act before he had begun to spread himself.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;It isn&rsquo;t that at all. The reason why I think that Bill, however
+winning his personality may be, won&rsquo;t persuade father to let him marry a
+girl in the chorus is something that happened last night.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Last night?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Well, at three o&rsquo;clock this morning. It&rsquo;s on the front page
+of the early editions of the evening papers. I brought one in for you to see,
+only you were so busy. Look! There it is!&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Archie seized the paper.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Oh, Great Scot!&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;What is it?&rdquo; asked Bill, irritably. &ldquo;Don&rsquo;t stand
+goggling there! What the devil is it?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Listen to this, old thing!&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p class="center">
+REVELRY BY NIGHT.<br/>
+SPIRITED BATTLE ROYAL AT HOTEL<br/>
+COSMOPOLIS.<br/>
+THE HOTEL DETECTIVE HAD A GOOD HEART<br/>
+BUT PAULINE PACKED THE PUNCH.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The logical contender for Jack Dempsey&rsquo;s championship honours has been
+discovered; and, in an age where women are stealing men&rsquo;s jobs all the
+time, it will not come as a surprise to our readers to learn that she belongs
+to the sex that is more deadly than the male. Her name is Miss Pauline Preston,
+and her wallop is vouched for under oath&mdash;under many oaths&mdash;by Mr.
+Timothy O&rsquo;Neill, known to his intimates as Pie-Face, who holds down the
+arduous job of detective at the Hotel Cosmopolis.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+At three o&rsquo;clock this morning, Mr. O&rsquo;Neill was advised by the
+night-clerk that the occupants of every room within earshot of number 618 had
+&rsquo;phoned the desk to complain of a disturbance, a noise, a vocal uproar
+proceeding from the room mentioned. Thither, therefore, marched Mr.
+O&rsquo;Neill, his face full of cheese-sandwich, (for he had been indulging in
+an early breakfast or a late supper) and his heart of devotion to duty. He
+found there the Misses Pauline Preston and &ldquo;Bobbie&rdquo; St. Clair, of
+the personnel of the chorus of the Frivolities, entertaining a few friends of
+either sex. A pleasant time was being had by all, and at the moment of Mr.
+O&rsquo;Neill&rsquo;s entry the entire strength of the company was rendering
+with considerable emphasis that touching ballad, &ldquo;There&rsquo;s a Place
+For Me In Heaven, For My Baby-Boy Is There.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The able and efficient officer at once suggested that there was a place for
+them in the street and the patrol-wagon was there; and, being a man of action
+as well as words, proceeded to gather up an armful of assorted guests as a
+preliminary to a personally-conducted tour onto the cold night. It was at this
+point that Miss Preston stepped into the limelight. Mr. O&rsquo;Neill contends
+that she hit him with a brick, an iron casing, and the Singer Building. Be that
+as it may, her efforts were sufficiently able to induce him to retire for
+reinforcements, which, arriving, arrested the supper-party regardless of age or
+sex.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+At the police-court this morning Miss Preston maintained that she and her
+friends were merely having a quiet home-evening and that Mr. O&rsquo;Neill was
+no gentleman. The male guests gave their names respectively as Woodrow Wilson,
+David Lloyd-George, and William J. Bryan. These, however, are believed to be
+incorrect. But the moral is, if you want excitement rather than sleep, stay at
+the Hotel Cosmopolis.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Bill may have quaked inwardly as he listened to this epic but outwardly he was
+unmoved.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Well,&rdquo; he said, &ldquo;what about it?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;What about it!&rdquo; said Lucille.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;What about it!&rdquo; said Archie. &ldquo;Why, my dear old friend, it
+simply means that all the time we&rsquo;ve been putting in making your
+personality winning has been chucked away. Absolutely a dead loss! We might
+just as well have read a manual on how to knit sweaters.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;I don&rsquo;t see it,&rdquo; maintained Bill, stoutly.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Lucille turned apologetically to her husband.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;You mustn&rsquo;t judge me by him, Archie, darling. This sort of thing
+doesn&rsquo;t run in the family.-We are supposed to be rather bright on the
+whole. But poor Bill was dropped by his nurse when he was a baby, and fell on
+his head.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;I suppose what you&rsquo;re driving at,&rdquo; said the goaded Bill,
+&ldquo;is that what has happened will make father pretty sore against girls who
+happen to be in the chorus?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;That&rsquo;s absolutely it, old thing, I&rsquo;m sorry to say. The next
+person who mentions the word chorus-girl in the jolly old governor&rsquo;s
+presence is going to take his life in his hands. I tell you, as one man to
+another, that I&rsquo;d much rather be back in France hopping over the top than
+do it myself.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;What darned nonsense! Mabel may be in the chorus, but she isn&rsquo;t
+like those girls.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Poor old Bill!&rdquo; said Lucille. &ldquo;I&rsquo;m awfully sorry, but
+it&rsquo;s no use not facing facts. You know perfectly well that the reputation
+of the hotel is the thing father cares more about than anything else in the
+world, and that this is going to make him furious with all the chorus-girls in
+creation. It&rsquo;s no good trying to explain to him that your Mabel is in the
+chorus but not of the chorus, so to speak.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Deuced well put!&rdquo; said Archie, approvingly. &ldquo;You&rsquo;re
+absolutely right. A chorus-girl by the river&rsquo;s brim, so to speak, a
+simple chorus-girl is to him, as it were, and she is nothing more, if you know
+what I mean.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;So now,&rdquo; said Lucille, &ldquo;having shown you that the imbecile
+scheme which you concocted with my poor well-meaning husband is no good at all,
+I will bring you words of cheer. Your own original plan&mdash;of getting your
+Mabel a part in a comedy&mdash;was always the best one. And you can do it. I
+wouldn&rsquo;t have broken the bad news so abruptly if I hadn&rsquo;t had some
+consolation to give you afterwards. I met Reggie van Tuyl just now, wandering
+about as if the cares of the world were on his shoulders, and he told me that
+he was putting up most of the money for a new play that&rsquo;s going into
+rehearsal right away. Reggie&rsquo;s an old friend of yours. All you have to do
+is to go to him and ask him to use his influence to get your Mabel a small
+part. There&rsquo;s sure to be a maid or something with only a line or two that
+won&rsquo;t matter.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;A ripe scheme!&rdquo; said Archie. &ldquo;Very sound and fruity!&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The cloud did not lift from Bill&rsquo;s corrugated brow.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;That&rsquo;s all very well,&rdquo; he said. &ldquo;But you know what a
+talker Reggie is. He&rsquo;s an obliging sort of chump, but his tongue&rsquo;s
+fastened on at the middle and waggles at both ends. I don&rsquo;t want the
+whole of New York to know about my engagement, and have somebody spilling the
+news to father, before I&rsquo;m ready.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;That&rsquo;s all right,&rdquo; said Lucille. &ldquo;Archie can speak to
+him. There&rsquo;s no need for him to mention your name at all. He can just say
+there&rsquo;s a girl he wants to get a part for. You would do it,
+wouldn&rsquo;t you, angel-face?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Like a bird, queen of my soul.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Then that&rsquo;s splendid. You&rsquo;d better give Archie that
+photograph of Mabel to give to Reggie, Bill.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Photograph?&rdquo; said Bill. &ldquo;Which photograph? I have
+twenty-four!&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p class="p2">
+Archie found Reggie van Tuyl brooding in a window of his club that looked over
+Fifth Avenue. Reggie was a rather melancholy young man who suffered from
+elephantiasis of the bank-roll and the other evils that arise from that
+complaint. Gentle and sentimental by nature, his sensibilities had been much
+wounded by contact with a sordid world; and the thing that had first endeared
+Archie to him was the fact that the latter, though chronically hard-up, had
+never made any attempt to borrow money from him. Reggie would have parted with
+it on demand, but it had delighted him to find that Archie seemed to take a
+pleasure in his society without having any ulterior motives. He was fond of
+Archie, and also of Lucille; and their happy marriage was a constant source of
+gratification to him.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+For Reggie was a sentimentalist. He would have liked to live in a world of
+ideally united couples, himself ideally united to some charming and
+affectionate girl. But, as a matter of cold fact, he was a bachelor, and most
+of the couples he knew were veterans of several divorces. In Reggie&rsquo;s
+circle, therefore, the home-life of Archie and Lucille shone like a good deed
+in a naughty world. It inspired him. In moments of depression it restored his
+waning faith in human nature.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Consequently, when Archie, having greeted him and slipped into a chair at his
+side, suddenly produced from his inside pocket the photograph of an extremely
+pretty girl and asked him to get her a small part in the play which he was
+financing, he was shocked and disappointed. He was in a more than usually
+sentimental mood that afternoon, and had, indeed, at the moment of
+Archie&rsquo;s arrival, been dreaming wistfully of soft arms clasped snugly
+about his collar and the patter of little feet and all that sort of thing.-He
+gazed reproachfully at Archie.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Archie!&rdquo; his voice quivered with emotion. &ldquo;Is it worth it?,
+is it worth it, old man?-Think of the poor little woman at home!&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Archie was puzzled.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Eh, old top? Which poor little woman?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Think of her trust in you, her faith&mdash;&ldquo;.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;I don&rsquo;t absolutely get you, old bean.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;What would Lucille say if she knew about this?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Oh, she does. She knows all about it.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Good heavens!&rdquo; cried Reggie. He was shocked to the core of his
+being. One of the articles of his faith was that the union of Lucille and
+Archie was different from those loose partnerships which were the custom in his
+world. He had not been conscious of such a poignant feeling that the
+foundations of the universe were cracked and tottering and that there was no
+light and sweetness in life since the morning, eighteen months back, when a
+negligent valet had sent him out into Fifth Avenue with only one spat on.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;It was Lucille&rsquo;s idea,&rdquo; explained Archie. He was about to
+mention his brother-in-law&rsquo;s connection with the matter, but checked
+himself in time, remembering Bill&rsquo;s specific objection to having his
+secret revealed to Reggie. &ldquo;It&rsquo;s like this, old thing, I&rsquo;ve
+never met this female, but she&rsquo;s a pal of Lucille&rsquo;s&rdquo;&mdash;he
+comforted his conscience by the reflection that, if she wasn&rsquo;t now, she
+would be in a few days-&ldquo;and Lucille wants to do her a bit of good.
+She&rsquo;s been on the stage in England, you know, supporting a jolly old
+widowed mother and educating a little brother and all that kind and species of
+rot, you understand, and now she&rsquo;s coming over to America, and Lucille
+wants you to rally round and shove her into your show and generally keep the
+home fires burning and so forth. How do we go?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Reggie beamed with relief. He felt just as he had felt on that other occasion
+at the moment when a taxi-cab had rolled up and enabled him to hide his
+spatless leg from the public gaze.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Oh, I see!&rdquo; he said. &ldquo;Why, delighted, old man, quite
+delighted!&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Any small part would do. Isn&rsquo;t there a maid or something in your
+bob&rsquo;s-worth of refined entertainment who drifts about saying, &lsquo;Yes,
+madam,&rsquo; and all that sort of thing? Well, then that&rsquo;s just the
+thing. Topping! I knew I could rely on you, old bird. I&rsquo;ll get Lucille to
+ship her round to your address when she arrives. I fancy she&rsquo;s due to
+totter in somewhere in the next few days. Well, I must be popping.
+Toodle-oo!&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Pip-pip!&rdquo; said Reggie.
+</p>
+
+<p class="p2">
+It was about a week later that Lucille came into the suite at the Hotel
+Cosmopolis that was her home, and found Archie lying on the couch, smoking a
+refreshing pipe after the labours of the day. It seemed to Archie that his wife
+was not in her usual cheerful frame of mind. He kissed her, and, having
+relieved her of her parasol, endeavoured without success to balance it on his
+chin. Having picked it up from the floor and placed it on the table, he became
+aware that Lucille was looking at him in a despondent sort of way. Her grey
+eyes were clouded.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Halloa, old thing,&rdquo; said Archie. &ldquo;What&rsquo;s up?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Lucille sighed wearily.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Archie, darling, do you know any really good swear-words?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Well,&rdquo; said Archie, reflectively, &ldquo;let me see. I did pick up
+a few tolerably ripe and breezy expressions out in France. All through my
+military career there was something about me&mdash;some subtle magnetism,
+don&rsquo;t you know, and that sort of thing&mdash;that seemed to make colonels
+and blighters of that order rather inventive. I sort of inspired them,
+don&rsquo;t you know. I remember one brass-hat addressing me for quite ten
+minutes, saying something new all the time. And even then he seemed to think he
+had only touched the fringe of the subject. As a matter of fact, he said
+straight out in the most frank and confiding way that mere words couldn&rsquo;t
+do justice to me. But why?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Because I want to relieve my feelings.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Anything wrong?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Everything&rsquo;s wrong. I&rsquo;ve just been having tea with Bill and
+his Mabel.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Oh, ah!&rdquo; said Archie, interested. &ldquo;And what&rsquo;s the
+verdict?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Guilty!&rdquo; said Lucille. &ldquo;And the sentence, if I had anything
+to do with it, would be transportation for life.&rdquo; She peeled off her
+gloves irritably. &ldquo;What fools men are! Not you, precious! You&rsquo;re
+the only man in the world that isn&rsquo;t, it seems to me. You did marry a
+nice girl, didn&rsquo;t you? <i>You</i> didn&rsquo;t go running round after
+females with crimson hair, goggling at them with your eyes popping out of your
+head like a bulldog waiting for a bone.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Oh, I say! Does old Bill look like that?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Worse!&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Archie rose to a point of order.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;But one moment, old lady. You speak of crimson hair. Surely old
+Bill&mdash;in the extremely jolly monologues he used to deliver whenever I
+didn&rsquo;t see him coming and he got me alone&mdash;used to allude to her
+hair as brown.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;It isn&rsquo;t brown now. It&rsquo;s bright scarlet. Good gracious, I
+ought to know. I&rsquo;ve been looking at it all the afternoon. It dazzled me.
+If I&rsquo;ve got to meet her again, I mean to go to the oculist&rsquo;s and
+get a pair of those smoked glasses you wear at Palm Beach.&rdquo; Lucille
+brooded silently for a while over the tragedy. &ldquo;I don&rsquo;t want to say
+anything against her, of course.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;No, no, of course not.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;But of all the awful, second-rate girls I ever met, she&rsquo;s the
+worst! She has vermilion hair and an imitation Oxford manner. She&rsquo;s so
+horribly refined that it&rsquo;s dreadful to listen to her. She&rsquo;s a sly,
+creepy, slinky, made-up, insincere vampire! She&rsquo;s common! She&rsquo;s
+awful! She&rsquo;s a cat!&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;You&rsquo;re quite right not to say anything against her,&rdquo; said
+Archie, approvingly. &ldquo;It begins to look,&rdquo; he went on, &ldquo;as if
+the good old pater was about due for another shock. He has a hard life!&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;If Bill <i>dares</i> to introduce that girl to father, he&rsquo;s taking
+his life in his hands.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;But surely that was the idea&mdash;the scheme&mdash;the wheeze,
+wasn&rsquo;t it? Or do you think there&rsquo;s any chance of his
+weakening?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Weakening! You should have seen him looking at her! It was like a small
+boy flattening his nose against the window of a candy-store.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Bit thick!&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Lucille kicked the leg of the table.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;And to think,&rdquo; she said, &ldquo;that, when I was a little girl, I
+used to look up to Bill as a monument of wisdom. I used to hug his knees and
+gaze into his face and wonder how anyone could be so magnificent.&rdquo; She
+gave the unoffending table another kick. &ldquo;If I could have looked into the
+future,&rdquo; she said, with feeling, &ldquo;I&rsquo;d have bitten him in the
+ankle!&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p class="p2">
+In the days which followed, Archie found himself a little out of touch with
+Bill and his romance. Lucille referred to the matter only when he brought the
+subject up, and made it plain that the topic of her future sister-in-law was
+not one which she enjoyed discussing. Mr. Brewster, senior, when Archie, by way
+of delicately preparing his mind for what was about to befall, asked him if he
+liked red hair, called him a fool, and told him to go away and bother someone
+else when they were busy. The only person who could have kept him thoroughly
+abreast of the trend of affairs was Bill himself; and experience had made
+Archie wary in the matter of meeting Bill. The position of confidant to a young
+man in the early stages of love is no sinecure, and it made Archie sleepy even
+to think of having to talk to his brother-in-law. He sedulously avoided his
+love-lorn relative, and it was with a sinking feeling one day that, looking
+over his shoulder as he sat in the Cosmopolis grill-room preparatory to
+ordering lunch, he perceived Bill bearing down upon him, obviously resolved
+upon joining his meal.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+To his surprise, however, Bill did not instantly embark upon his usual
+monologue. Indeed, he hardly spoke at all. He champed a chop, and seemed to
+Archie to avoid his eye. It was not till lunch was over and they were smoking
+that he unburdened himself.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Archie!&rdquo; he said.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Hallo, old thing!&rdquo; said Archie. &ldquo;Still there? I thought
+you&rsquo;d died or something. Talk about our old pals, Tongue-tied Thomas and
+Silent Sammy! You could beat &rsquo;em both on the same evening.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;It&rsquo;s enough to make me silent.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;What is?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Bill had relapsed into a sort of waking dream. He sat frowning sombrely, lost
+to the world. Archie, having waited what seemed to him a sufficient length of
+time for an answer to his question, bent forward and touched his
+brother-in-law&rsquo;s hand gently with the lighted end of his cigar. Bill came
+to himself with a howl.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;What is?&rdquo; said Archie.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;What is what?&rdquo; said Bill.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Now listen, old thing,&rdquo; protested Archie. &ldquo;Life is short and
+time is flying. Suppose we cut out the cross-talk. You hinted there was
+something on your mind&mdash;something worrying the old bean&mdash;and
+I&rsquo;m waiting to hear what it is.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Bill fiddled a moment with his coffee-spoon.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;I&rsquo;m in an awful hole,&rdquo; he said at last.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;What&rsquo;s the trouble?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;It&rsquo;s about that darned girl!&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Archie blinked.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;What!&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;That darned girl!&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Archie could scarcely credit his senses. He had been prepared&mdash;indeed, he
+had steeled himself&mdash;to hear Bill allude to his affinity in a number of
+ways. But &ldquo;that darned girl&rdquo; was not one of them.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Companion of my riper years,&rdquo; he said, &ldquo;let&rsquo;s get this
+thing straight. When you say &lsquo;that darned girl,&rsquo; do you by any
+possibility allude to&mdash;?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Of course I do!&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;But, William, old bird&mdash;&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Oh, I know, I know, I know!&rdquo; said Bill, irritably.
+&ldquo;You&rsquo;re surprised to hear me talk like that about her?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;A trifle, yes. Possibly a trifle. When last heard from, laddie, you must
+recollect, you were speaking of the lady as your soul-mate, and at least
+once&mdash;if I remember rightly&mdash;you alluded to her as your little
+dusky-haired lamb.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+A sharp howl escaped Bill.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Don&rsquo;t!&rdquo; A strong shudder convulsed his frame.
+&ldquo;Don&rsquo;t remind me of it!&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;There&rsquo;s been a species of slump, then, in dusky-haired
+lambs?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;How,&rdquo; demanded Bill, savagely, &ldquo;can a girl be a dusky-haired
+lamb when her hair&rsquo;s bright scarlet?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Dashed difficult!&rdquo; admitted Archie.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;I suppose Lucille told you about that?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;She did touch on it. Lightly, as it were. With a sort of gossamer touch,
+so to speak.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Bill threw off the last fragments of reserve.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Archie, I&rsquo;m in the devil of a fix. I don&rsquo;t know why it was,
+but directly I saw her&mdash;things seemed so different over in England&mdash;I
+mean.&rdquo; He swallowed ice-water in gulps. &ldquo;I suppose it was seeing
+her with Lucille. Old Lu is such a thoroughbred. Seemed to kind of show her up.
+Like seeing imitation pearls by the side of real pearls. And that crimson hair!
+It sort of put the lid on it.&rdquo; Bill brooded morosely. &ldquo;It ought to
+be a criminal offence for women to dye their hair. Especially red. What the
+devil do women do that sort of thing for?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Don&rsquo;t blame me, old thing. It&rsquo;s not my fault.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Bill looked furtive and harassed.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;It makes me feel such a cad. Here am I, feeling that I would give all
+I&rsquo;ve got in the world to get out of the darned thing, and all the time
+the poor girl seems to be getting fonder of me than ever.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;How do you know?&rdquo; Archie surveyed his brother-in-law critically.
+&ldquo;Perhaps her feelings have changed too. Very possibly she may not like
+the colour of <i>your</i> hair. I don&rsquo;t myself. Now if you were to dye
+yourself crimson&mdash;&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Oh, shut up! Of course a man knows when a girl&rsquo;s fond of
+him.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;By no means, laddie. When you&rsquo;re my age&mdash;&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;I <i>am</i> your age.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;So you are! I forgot that. Well, now, approaching the matter from
+another angle, let us suppose, old son, that Miss
+What&rsquo;s-Her-Name&mdash;the party of the second part&mdash;&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Stop it!&rdquo; said Bill suddenly. &ldquo;Here comes Reggie!&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Eh?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Here comes Reggie van Tuyl. I don&rsquo;t want him to hear us talking
+about the darned thing.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Archie looked over his shoulder and perceived that it was indeed so. Reggie was
+threading his way among the tables.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Well, <i>he</i> looks pleased with things, anyway,&rdquo; said Bill,
+enviously. &ldquo;Glad somebody&rsquo;s happy.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+He was right. Reggie van Tuyl&rsquo;s usual mode of progress through a
+restaurant was a somnolent slouch. Now he was positively bounding along.
+Furthermore, the usual expression on Reggie&rsquo;s face was a sleepy sadness.
+Now he smiled brightly and with animation. He curveted towards their table,
+beaming and erect, his head up, his gaze level, and his chest expanded, for all
+the world as if he had been reading the hints in <i>The Personality That
+Wins</i>.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Archie was puzzled. Something had plainly happened to Reggie. But what? It was
+idle to suppose that somebody had left him money, for he had been left
+practically all the money there was a matter of ten years before.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Hallo, old bean,&rdquo; he said, as the new-comer, radiating good will
+and bonhomie, arrived at the table and hung over it like a noon-day sun.
+&ldquo;We&rsquo;ve finished. But rally round and we&rsquo;ll watch you eat.
+Dashed interesting, watching old Reggie eat. Why go to the Zoo?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Reggie shook his head.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Sorry, old man. Can&rsquo;t. Just on my way to the Ritz. Stepped in
+because I thought you might be here. I wanted you to be the first to hear the
+news.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;News?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;I&rsquo;m the happiest man alive!&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;You look it, darn you!&rdquo; growled Bill, on whose mood of grey gloom
+this human sunbeam was jarring heavily.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;I&rsquo;m engaged to be married!&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Congratulations, old egg!&rdquo; Archie shook his hand cordially.
+&ldquo;Dash it, don&rsquo;t you know, as an old married man I like to see you
+young fellows settling down.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;I don&rsquo;t know how to thank you enough, Archie, old man,&rdquo; said
+Reggie, fervently.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Thank me?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;It was through you that I met her. Don&rsquo;t you remember the girl you
+sent to me? You wanted me to get her a small part&mdash;&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+He stopped, puzzled. Archie had uttered a sound that was half gasp and half
+gurgle, but it was swallowed up in the extraordinary noise from the other side
+of the table. Bill Brewster was leaning forward with bulging eyes and soaring
+eyebrows.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Are you engaged to Mabel Winchester?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Why, by George!&rdquo; said Reggie. &ldquo;Do you know her?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Archie recovered himself.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Slightly,&rdquo; he said. &ldquo;Slightly. Old Bill knows her slightly,
+as it were. Not very well, don&rsquo;t you know, but&mdash;how shall I put
+it?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Slightly,&rdquo; suggested Bill.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Just the word. Slightly.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Splendid!&rdquo; said Reggie van Tuyl. &ldquo;Why don&rsquo;t you come
+along to the Ritz and meet her now?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Bill stammered. Archie came to the rescue again.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Bill can&rsquo;t come now. He&rsquo;s got a date.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;A date?&rdquo; said Bill.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;A date,&rdquo; said Archie. &ldquo;An appointment, don&rsquo;t you know.
+A&mdash;a&mdash;in fact, a date.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;But&mdash;er&mdash;wish her happiness from me,&rdquo; said Bill,
+cordially.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Thanks very much, old man,&rdquo; said Reggie.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;And say I&rsquo;m delighted, will you?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Certainly.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;You won&rsquo;t forget the word, will you? Delighted.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Delighted.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;That&rsquo;s right. Delighted.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Reggie looked at his watch.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Halloa! I must rush!&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Bill and Archie watched him as he bounded out of the restaurant.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Poor old Reggie!&rdquo; said Bill, with a fleeting compunction.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Not necessarily,&rdquo; said Archie. &ldquo;What I mean to say is,
+tastes differ, don&rsquo;t you know. One man&rsquo;s peach is another
+man&rsquo;s poison, and vice versa.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;There&rsquo;s something in that.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Absolutely! Well,&rdquo; said Archie, judicially, &ldquo;this would
+appear to be, as it were, the maddest, merriest day in all the glad New Year,
+yes, no?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Bill drew a deep breath.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;You bet your sorrowful existence it is!&rdquo; he said. &ldquo;I&rsquo;d
+like to do something to celebrate it.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;The right spirit!&rdquo; said Archie. &ldquo;Absolutely the right
+spirit! Begin by paying for my lunch!&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+</div><!--end chapter-->
+
+<div class="chapter">
+
+<h2><a name="chap20"></a>CHAPTER XX.<br/>
+THE-SAUSAGE-CHAPPIE-CLICKS</h2>
+
+<p>
+Rendered restless by relief, Bill Brewster did not linger long at the
+luncheon-table. Shortly after Reggie van Tuyl had retired, he got up and
+announced his intention of going for a bit of a walk to calm his excited mind.
+Archie dismissed him with a courteous wave of the hand; and, beckoning to the
+Sausage Chappie, who in his role of waiter was hovering near, requested him to
+bring the best cigar the hotel could supply. The padded seat in which he sat
+was comfortable; he had no engagements; and it seemed to him that a pleasant
+half-hour could be passed in smoking dreamily and watching his fellow-men eat.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The grill-room had filled up. The Sausage Chappie, having brought Archie his
+cigar, was attending to a table close by, at which a woman with a small boy in
+a sailor suit had seated themselves. The woman was engrossed with the bill of
+fare, but the child&rsquo;s attention seemed riveted upon the Sausage Chappie.
+He was drinking him in with wide eyes. He seemed to be brooding on him.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Archie, too, was brooding on the Sausage Chappie, The latter made an excellent
+waiter: he was brisk and attentive, and did the work as if he liked it; but
+Archie was not satisfied. Something seemed to tell him that the man was fitted
+for higher things. Archie was a grateful soul. That sausage, coming at the end
+of a five-hour hike, had made a deep impression on his plastic nature. Reason
+told him that only an exceptional man could have parted with half a sausage at
+such a moment; and he could not feel that a job as waiter at a New York hotel
+was an adequate job for an exceptional man. Of course, the root of the trouble
+lay in the fact that the fellow could not remember what his real life-work had
+been before the war. It was exasperating to reflect, as the other moved away to
+take his order to the kitchen, that there, for all one knew, went the dickens
+of a lawyer or doctor or architect or what not.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+His meditations were broken by the voice of the child.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Mummie,&rdquo; asked the child interestedly, following the Sausage
+Chappie with his eyes as the latter disappeared towards the kitchen, &ldquo;why
+has that man got such a funny face?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Hush, darling.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Yes, but why HAS he?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;I don&rsquo;t know, darling.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The child&rsquo;s faith in the maternal omniscience seemed to have received a
+shock. He had the air of a seeker after truth who has been baffled. His eyes
+roamed the room discontentedly.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;He&rsquo;s got a funnier face than that man there,&rdquo; he said,
+pointing to Archie.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Hush, darling!&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;But he has. Much funnier.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+In a way it was a sort of compliment, but Archie felt embarrassed. He withdrew
+coyly into the cushioned recess. Presently the Sausage Chappie returned,
+attended to the needs of the woman and the child, and came over to Archie. His
+homely face was beaming.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Say, I had a big night last night,&rdquo; he said, leaning on the table.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Yes?&rdquo; said Archie. &ldquo;Party or something?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;No, I mean I suddenly began to remember things. Something seems to have
+happened to the works.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Archie sat up excitedly. This was great news.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;No, really? My dear old lad, this is absolutely topping. This is
+priceless.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Yessir! First thing I remembered was that I was born at Springfield,
+Ohio. It was like a mist starting to lift. Springfield, Ohio. That was it. It
+suddenly came back to me.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Splendid! Anything else?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Yessir! Just before I went to sleep I remembered my name as well.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Archie was stirred to his depths.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Why, the thing&rsquo;s a walk-over!&rdquo; he exclaimed. &ldquo;Now
+you&rsquo;ve once got started, nothing can stop you. What is your name?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Why, it&rsquo;s&mdash;That&rsquo;s funny! It&rsquo;s gone again. I have
+an idea it began with an S. What was it? Skeffington? Skillington?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Sanderson?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;No; I&rsquo;ll get it in a moment. Cunningham? Carrington? Wilberforce?
+Debenham?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Dennison?&rdquo; suggested Archie, helpfully.&mdash;&ldquo;No, no, no.
+It&rsquo;s on the tip of my tongue. Barrington? Montgomery? Hepplethwaite?
+I&rsquo;ve got it! Smith!&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;By Jove! Really?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Certain of it.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;What&rsquo;s the first name?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+An anxious expression came into the man&rsquo;s eyes. He hesitated. He lowered
+his voice.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;I have a horrible feeling that it&rsquo;s Lancelot!&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Good God!&rdquo; said Archie.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;It couldn&rsquo;t really be that, could it?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Archie looked grave. He hated to give pain, but he felt he must be honest.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;It might,&rdquo; he said. &ldquo;People give their children all sorts of
+rummy names. My second name&rsquo;s Tracy. And I have a pal in England who was
+christened Cuthbert de la Hay Horace. Fortunately everyone calls him
+Stinker.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The head-waiter began to drift up like a bank of fog, and the Sausage Chappie
+returned to his professional duties. When he came back, he was beaming again.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Something else I remembered,&rdquo; he said, removing the cover.
+&ldquo;I&rsquo;m married!&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Good Lord!&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;At least I was before the war. She had blue eyes and brown hair and a
+Pekingese dog.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;What was her name?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;I don&rsquo;t know.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Well, you&rsquo;re coming on,&rdquo; said Archie. &ldquo;I&rsquo;ll
+admit that. You&rsquo;ve still got a bit of a way to go before you become like
+one of those blighters who take the Memory Training Courses in the magazine
+advertisements&mdash;I mean to say, you know, the lads who meet a fellow once
+for five minutes, and then come across him again ten years later and grasp him
+by the hand and say, &lsquo;Surely this is Mr. Watkins of Seattle?&rsquo;
+Still, you&rsquo;re doing fine. You only need patience. Everything comes to him
+who waits.&rdquo; Archie sat up, electrified. &ldquo;I say, by Jove,
+that&rsquo;s rather good, what! Everything comes to him who waits, and
+you&rsquo;re a waiter, what, what. I mean to say, what!&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Mummie,&rdquo; said the child at the other table, still speculative,
+&ldquo;do you think something trod on his face?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Hush, darling.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Perhaps it was bitten by something?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Eat your nice fish, darling,&rdquo; said the mother, who seemed to be
+one of those dull-witted persons whom it is impossible to interest in a
+discussion on first causes.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Archie felt stimulated. Not even the advent of his father-in-law, who came in a
+few moments later and sat down at the other end of the room, could depress his
+spirits.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The Sausage Chappie came to his table again.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;It&rsquo;s a funny thing,&rdquo; he said. &ldquo;Like waking up after
+you&rsquo;ve been asleep. Everything seems to be getting clearer. The
+dog&rsquo;s name was Marie. My wife&rsquo;s dog, you know. And she had a mole
+on her chin.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;The dog?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;No. My wife. Little beast! She bit me in the leg once.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Your wife?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;No. The dog. Good Lord!&rdquo; said the Sausage Chappie.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Archie looked up and followed his gaze.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+A couple of tables away, next to a sideboard on which the management exposed
+for view the cold meats and puddings and pies mentioned in volume two of the
+bill of fare (&ldquo;Buffet Froid&rdquo;), a man and a girl had just seated
+themselves. The man was stout and middle-aged. He bulged in practically every
+place in which a man can bulge, and his head was almost entirely free from
+hair. The girl was young and pretty. Her eyes were blue. Her hair was brown.
+She had a rather attractive little mole on the left side of her chin.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Good Lord!&rdquo; said the Sausage Chappie.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Now what?&rdquo; said Archie.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Who&rsquo;s that? Over at the table there?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Archie, through long attendance at the Cosmopolis Grill, knew most of the
+habitues by sight.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;That&rsquo;s a man named Gossett. James J. Gossett. He&rsquo;s a
+motion-picture man. You must have seen his name around.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;I don&rsquo;t mean him. Who&rsquo;s the girl?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;I&rsquo;ve never seen her before.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;It&rsquo;s my wife!&rdquo; said the Sausage Chappie.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Your wife!&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Yes!&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Are you sure?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Of course I&rsquo;m sure!&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Well, well, well!&rdquo; said Archie. &ldquo;Many happy returns of the
+day!&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+At the other table, the girl, unconscious of the drama which was about to enter
+her life, was engrossed in conversation with the stout man. And at this moment
+the stout man leaned forward and patted her on the cheek.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+It was a paternal pat, the pat which a genial uncle might bestow on a favourite
+niece, but it did not strike the Sausage Chappie in that light. He had been
+advancing on the table at a fairly rapid pace, and now, stirred to his depths,
+he bounded forward with a hoarse cry.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Archie was at some pains to explain to his father-in-law later that, if the
+management left cold pies and things about all over the place, this sort of
+thing was bound to happen sooner or later. He urged that it was putting
+temptation in people&rsquo;s way, and that Mr. Brewster had only himself to
+blame. Whatever the rights of the case, the Buffet Froid undoubtedly came in
+remarkably handy at this crisis in the Sausage Chappie&rsquo;s life. He had
+almost reached the sideboard when the stout man patted the girl&rsquo;s cheek,
+and to seize a huckleberry pie was with him the work of a moment. The next
+instant the pie had whizzed past the other&rsquo;s head and burst like a shell
+against the wall.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+There are, no doubt, restaurants where this sort of thing would have excited
+little comment, but the Cosmopolis was not one of them. Everybody had something
+to say, but the only one among those present who had anything sensible to say
+was the child in the sailor suit.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Do it again!&rdquo; said the child, cordially.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The Sausage Chappie did it again. He took up a fruit salad, poised it for a
+moment, then decanted it over Mr. Gossett&rsquo;s bald head. The child&rsquo;s
+happy laughter rang over the restaurant. Whatever anybody else might think of
+the affair, this child liked it and was prepared to go on record to that
+effect.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Epic events have a stunning quality. They paralyse the faculties. For a moment
+there was a pause. The world stood still. Mr. Brewster bubbled inarticulately.
+Mr. Gossett dried himself sketchily with a napkin. The Sausage Chappie snorted.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The girl had risen to her feet and was staring wildly.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;John!&rdquo; she cried.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Even at this moment of crisis the Sausage Chappie was able to look relieved.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;So it is!&rdquo; he said. &ldquo;And I thought it was Lancelot!&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;I thought you were dead!&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;I&rsquo;m not!&rdquo; said the Sausage Chappie.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Mr. Gossett, speaking thickly through the fruit-salad, was understood to say
+that he regretted this. And then confusion broke loose again. Everybody began
+to talk at once.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;I say!&rdquo; said Archie. &ldquo;I say! One moment!&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Of the first stages of this interesting episode Archie had been a paralysed
+spectator. The thing had numbed him. And then&mdash;
+</p>
+
+<p class="poem">
+Sudden a thought came, like a full-blown rose.<br/>
+Flushing his brow.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+When he reached the gesticulating group, he was calm and business-like. He had
+a constructive policy to suggest.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;I say,&rdquo; he said. &ldquo;I&rsquo;ve got an idea!&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Go away!&rdquo; said Mr. Brewster. &ldquo;This is bad enough without you
+butting in.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Archie quelled him with a gesture.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Leave us,&rdquo; he said. &ldquo;We would be alone. I want to have a
+little business-talk with Mr. Gossett.&rdquo; He turned to the movie-magnate,
+who was gradually emerging from the fruit-salad rather after the manner of a
+stout Venus rising from the sea. &ldquo;Can you spare me a moment of your
+valuable time?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;I&rsquo;ll have him arrested!&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Don&rsquo;t you do it, laddie. Listen!&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;The man&rsquo;s mad. Throwing pies!&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Archie attached himself to his coat-button.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Be calm, laddie. Calm and reasonable!&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+For the first time Mr. Gossett seemed to become aware that what he had been
+looking on as a vague annoyance was really an individual.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Who the devil are you?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Archie drew himself up with dignity.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;I am this gentleman&rsquo;s representative,&rdquo; he replied,
+indicating the Sausage Chappie with a motion of the hand. &ldquo;His jolly old
+personal representative. I act for him. And on his behalf I have a pretty ripe
+proposition to lay before you. Reflect, dear old bean,&rdquo; he proceeded
+earnestly. &ldquo;Are you going to let this chance slip? The opportunity of a
+lifetime which will not occur again. By Jove, you ought to rise up and embrace
+this bird. You ought to clasp the chappie to your bosom! He has thrown pies at
+you, hasn&rsquo;t he? Very well. You are a movie-magnate. Your whole fortune is
+founded on chappies who throw pies. You probably scour the world for chappies
+who throw pies. Yet, when one comes right to you without any fuss or trouble
+and demonstrates before your very eyes the fact that he is without a peer as a
+pie-propeller, you get the wind up and talk about having him arrested.
+Consider! (There&rsquo;s a bit of cherry just behind your left ear.) Be
+sensible. Why let your personal feeling stand in the way of doing yourself a
+bit of good? Give this chappie a job and give it him quick, or we go elsewhere.
+Did you ever see Fatty Arbuckle handle pastry with a surer touch? Has Charlie
+Chaplin got this fellow&rsquo;s speed and control. Absolutely not. I tell you,
+old friend, you&rsquo;re in danger of throwing away a good thing!&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+He paused. The Sausage Chappie beamed.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;I&rsquo;ve aways wanted to go into the movies,&rdquo; he said. &ldquo;I
+was an actor before the war. Just remembered.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Mr. Brewster attempted to speak. Archie waved him down.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;How many times have I got to tell you not to butt in?&rdquo; he said,
+severely.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Mr. Gossett&rsquo;s militant demeanour had become a trifle modified during
+Archie&rsquo;s harangue. First and foremost a man of business, Mr. Gossett was
+not insensible to the arguments which had been put forward. He brushed a slice
+of orange from the back of his neck, and mused awhile.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;How do I know this fellow would screen well?&rdquo; he said, at length.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Screen well!&rdquo; cried Archie. &ldquo;Of course he&rsquo;ll screen
+well. Look at his face. I ask you! The map! I call your attention to it.&rdquo;
+He turned apologetically to the Sausage Chappie. &ldquo;Awfully sorry, old lad,
+for dwelling on this, but it&rsquo;s business, you know.&rdquo; He turned to
+Mr. Gossett. &ldquo;Did you ever see a face like that? Of course not. Why
+should I, as this gentleman&rsquo;s personal representative, let a face like
+that go to waste? There&rsquo;s a fortune in it. By Jove, I&rsquo;ll give you
+two minutes to think the thing over, and, if you don&rsquo;t talk business
+then, I&rsquo;ll jolly well take my man straight round to Mack Sennett or
+someone. We don&rsquo;t have to ask for jobs. We consider offers.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+There was a silence. And then the clear voice of the child in the sailor suit
+made itself heard again.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Mummie!&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Yes, darling?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Is the man with the funny face going to throw any more pies?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;No, darling.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The child uttered a scream of disappointed fury.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;I want the funny man to throw some more pies! I want the funny man to
+throw some more pies!&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+A look almost of awe came into Mr. Gossett&rsquo;s face. He had heard the voice
+of the Public. He had felt the beating of the Public&rsquo;s pulse.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Out of the mouths of babes and sucklings,&rdquo; he said, picking a
+piece of banana off his right eyebrow, &ldquo;Out of the mouths of babes and
+sucklings. Come round to my office!&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+</div><!--end chapter-->
+
+<div class="chapter">
+
+<h2><a name="chap21"></a>CHAPTER XXI.<br/>
+THE GROWING BOY</h2>
+
+<p>
+The lobby of the Cosmopolis Hotel was a favourite stamping-ground of Mr. Daniel
+Brewster, its proprietor. He liked to wander about there, keeping a paternal
+eye on things, rather in the manner of the Jolly Innkeeper (hereinafter to be
+referred to as Mine Host) of the old-fashioned novel. Customers who, hurrying
+in to dinner, tripped over Mr. Brewster, were apt to mistake him for the hotel
+detective&mdash;for his eye was keen and his aspect a trifle austere&mdash;but,
+nevertheless, he was being as jolly an innkeeper as he knew how. His presence
+in the lobby supplied a personal touch to the Cosmopolis which other New York
+hotels lacked, and it undeniably made the girl at the book-stall
+extraordinarily civil to her clients, which was all to the good.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Most of the time Mr. Brewster stood in one spot and just looked thoughtful; but
+now and again he would wander to the marble slab behind which he kept the
+desk-clerk and run his eye over the register, to see who had booked
+rooms&mdash;like a child examining the stocking on Christmas morning to
+ascertain what Santa Claus had brought him.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+As a rule, Mr. Brewster concluded this performance by shoving the book back
+across the marble slab and resuming his meditations. But one night a week or
+two after the Sausage Chappie&rsquo;s sudden restoration to the normal, he
+varied this procedure by starting rather violently, turning purple, and
+uttering an exclamation which was manifestly an exclamation of chagrin. He
+turned abruptly and cannoned into Archie, who, in company with Lucille,
+happened to be crossing the lobby at the moment on his way to dine in their
+suite.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Mr. Brewster apologised gruffly; then, recognising his victim, seemed to regret
+having done so.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Oh, it&rsquo;s you! Why can&rsquo;t you look where you&rsquo;re
+going?&rdquo; he demanded. He had suffered much from his son-in-law.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Frightfully sorry,&rdquo; said Archie, amiably. &ldquo;Never thought you
+were going to fox-trot backwards all over the fairway.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;You mustn&rsquo;t bully Archie,&rdquo; said Lucille, severely, attaching
+herself to her father&rsquo;s back hair and giving it a punitive tug,
+&ldquo;because he&rsquo;s an angel, and I love him, and you must learn to love
+him, too.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Give you lessons at a reasonable rate,&rdquo; murmured Archie.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Mr. Brewster regarded his young relative with a lowering eye.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;What&rsquo;s the matter, father darling?&rdquo; asked Lucille.
+&ldquo;You seem upset.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;I am upset!&rdquo; Mr. Brewster snorted. &ldquo;Some people have got a
+nerve!&rdquo; He glowered forbiddingly at an inoffensive young man in a light
+overcoat who had just entered, and the young man, though his conscience was
+quite clear and Mr. Brewster an entire stranger to him, stopped dead, blushed,
+and went out again&mdash;to dine elsewhere. &ldquo;Some people have got the
+nerve of an army mule!&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Why, what&rsquo;s happened?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Those darned McCalls have registered here!&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;No!&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Bit beyond me, this,&rdquo; said Archie, insinuating himself into the
+conversation. &ldquo;Deep waters and what not! Who are the McCalls?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Some people father dislikes,&rdquo; said Lucille. &ldquo;And
+they&rsquo;ve chosen his hotel to stop at. But, father dear, you mustn&rsquo;t
+mind. It&rsquo;s really a compliment. They&rsquo;ve come because they know
+it&rsquo;s the best hotel in New York.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Absolutely!&rdquo; said Archie. &ldquo;Good accommodation for man and
+beast! All the comforts of home! Look on the bright side, old bean. No good
+getting the wind up. Cherrio, old companion!&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Don&rsquo;t call me old companion!&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Eh, what? Oh, right-o!&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Lucille steered her husband out of the danger zone, and they entered the lift.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Poor father!&rdquo; she said, as they went to their suite,
+&ldquo;it&rsquo;s a shame. They must have done it to annoy him. This man McCall
+has a place next to some property father bought in Westchester, and he&rsquo;s
+bringing a law-suit against father about a bit of land which he claims belongs
+to him. He might have had the tact to go to another hotel. But, after all, I
+don&rsquo;t suppose it was the poor little fellow&rsquo;s fault. He does
+whatever his wife tells him to.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;We all do that,&rdquo; said Archie the married man.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Lucille eyed him fondly.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Isn&rsquo;t it a shame, precious, that all husbands haven&rsquo;t nice
+wives like me?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;When I think of you, by Jove,&rdquo; said Archie, fervently, &ldquo;I
+want to babble, absolutely babble!&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Oh, I was telling you about the McCalls. Mr. McCall is one of those
+little, meek men, and his wife&rsquo;s one of those big, bullying women. It was
+she who started all the trouble with father. Father and Mr. McCall were very
+fond of each other till she made him begin the suit. I feel sure she made him
+come to this hotel just to annoy father. Still, they&rsquo;ve probably taken
+the most expensive suite in the place, which is something.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Archie was at the telephone. His mood was now one of quiet peace. Of all the
+happenings which went to make up existence in New York, he liked best the cosy
+<i>tête-à-tête</i> dinners with Lucille in their suite, which, owing to their
+engagements&mdash;for Lucille was a popular girl, with many
+friends&mdash;occurred all too seldom.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Touching now the question of browsing and sluicing,&rdquo; he said.
+&ldquo;I&rsquo;ll be getting them to send along a waiter.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Oh, good gracious!&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;What&rsquo;s the matter?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;I&rsquo;ve just remembered. I promised faithfully I would go and see
+Jane Murchison to-day. And I clean forgot. I must rush.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;But light of my soul, we are about to eat. Pop around and see her after
+dinner.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;I can&rsquo;t. She&rsquo;s going to a theatre to-night.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Give her the jolly old miss-in-baulk, then, for the nonce, and spring
+round to-morrow.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;She&rsquo;s sailing for England to-morrow morning, early. No, I must go
+and see her now. What a shame! She&rsquo;s sure to make me stop to dinner, I
+tell you what. Order something for me, and, if I&rsquo;m not back in half an
+hour, start.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Jane Murchison,&rdquo; said Archie, &ldquo;is a bally nuisance.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Yes. But I&rsquo;ve known her since she was eight.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;If her parents had had any proper feeling,&rdquo; said Archie,
+&ldquo;they would have drowned her long before that.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+He unhooked the receiver, and asked despondently to be connected with Room
+Service. He thought bitterly of the exigent Jane, whom he recollected dimly as
+a tall female with teeth. He half thought of going down to the grill-room on
+the chance of finding a friend there, but the waiter was on his way to the
+room. He decided that he might as well stay where he was.
+</p>
+
+<p class="p2">
+The waiter arrived, booked the order, and departed. Archie had just completed
+his toilet after a shower-bath when a musical clinking without announced the
+advent of the meal. He opened the door. The waiter was there with a table
+congested with things under covers, from which escaped a savoury and appetising
+odour. In spite of his depression, Archie&rsquo;s soul perked up a trifle.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Suddenly he became aware that he was not the only person present who was
+deriving enjoyment from the scent of the meal. Standing beside the waiter and
+gazing wistfully at the foodstuffs was a long, thin boy of about sixteen. He
+was one of those boys who seem all legs and knuckles. He had pale red hair,
+sandy eyelashes, and a long neck; and his eyes, as he removed them from
+the-table and raised them to Archie&rsquo;s, had a hungry look. He reminded
+Archie of a half-grown, half-starved hound.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;That smells good!&rdquo; said the long boy. He inhaled deeply.
+&ldquo;Yes, sir,&rdquo; he continued, as one whose mind is definitely made up,
+&ldquo;that smells good!&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Before Archie could reply, the telephone bell rang. It was Lucille, confirming
+her prophecy that the pest Jane would insist on her staying to dine.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Jane,&rdquo; said Archie, into the telephone, &ldquo;is a pot of poison.
+The waiter is here now, setting out a rich banquet, and I shall have to eat two
+of everything by myself.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+He hung up the receiver, and, turning, met the pale eye of the long boy, who
+had propped himself up in the doorway.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Were you expecting somebody to dinner?&rdquo; asked the boy.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Why, yes, old friend, I was.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;I wish&mdash;&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Yes?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Oh, nothing.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The waiter left. The long boy hitched his back more firmly against the
+doorpost, and returned to his original theme.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;That surely does smell good!&rdquo; He basked a moment in the aroma.
+&ldquo;Yes, sir! I&rsquo;ll tell the world it does!&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Archie was not an abnormally rapid thinker, but he began at this point to get a
+clearly defined impression that this lad, if invited, would waive the
+formalities and consent to join his meal. Indeed, the idea Archie got was that,
+if he were not invited pretty soon, he would invite himself.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Yes,&rdquo; he agreed. &ldquo;It doesn&rsquo;t smell bad, what!&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;It smells <i>good!</i>&rdquo; said the boy. &ldquo;Oh, doesn&rsquo;t it!
+Wake me up in the night and ask me if it doesn&rsquo;t!&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;<i>Poulet en casserole</i>,&rdquo; said Archie.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Golly!&rdquo; said the boy, reverently.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+There was a pause. The situation began to seem to Archie a trifle difficult. He
+wanted to start his meal, but it began to appear that he must either do so
+under the penetrating gaze of his new friend or else eject the latter forcibly.
+The boy showed no signs of ever wanting to leave the doorway.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;You&rsquo;ve dined, I suppose, what?&rdquo; said Archie.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;I never dine.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;What!&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Not really dine, I mean. I only get vegetables and nuts and
+things.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Dieting?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Mother is.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;I don&rsquo;t absolutely catch the drift, old bean,&rdquo; said Archie.
+The boy sniffed with half-closed eyes as a wave of perfume from the <i>poulet
+en casserole</i> floated past him. He seemed to be anxious to intercept as much
+of it as possible before it got through the door.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Mother&rsquo;s a food-reformer,&rdquo; he vouchsafed. &ldquo;She
+lectures on it. She makes Pop and me live on vegetables and nuts and
+things.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Archie was shocked. It was like listening to a tale from the abyss.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;My dear old chap, you must suffer agonies&mdash;absolute shooting
+pains!&rdquo; He had no hesitation now. Common humanity pointed out his course.
+&ldquo;Would you care to join me in a bite now?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Would I!&rdquo; The boy smiled a wan smile. &ldquo;Would I! Just stop me
+on the street and ask me!&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Come on in, then,&rdquo; said Archie, rightly taking this peculiar
+phrase for a formal acceptance. &ldquo;And close the door. The fatted calf is
+getting cold.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Archie was not a man with a wide visiting-list among people with families, and
+it was so long since he had seen a growing boy in action at the table that he
+had forgotten what sixteen is capable of doing with a knife and fork, when it
+really squares its elbows, takes a deep breath, and gets going. The spectacle
+which he witnessed was consequently at first a little unnerving. The long
+boy&rsquo;s idea of trifling with a meal appeared to be to swallow it whole and
+reach out for more. He ate like a starving Eskimo. Archie, in the time he had
+spent in the trenches making the world safe for the working-man to strike in,
+had occasionally been quite peckish, but he sat dazed before this majestic
+hunger. This was real eating.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+There was little conversation. The growing boy evidently did not believe in
+table-talk when he could use his mouth for more practical purposes. It was not
+until the final roll had been devoured to its last crumb that the guest found
+leisure to address his host. Then he leaned back with a contented sigh.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Mother,&rdquo; said the human python, &ldquo;says you ought to chew
+every mouthful thirty-three times....&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Yes, sir! Thirty-three times!&rdquo; He sighed again, &ldquo;I
+haven&rsquo;t ever had a meal like that.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;All right, was it, what?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Was it! Was it! Call me up on the &rsquo;phone and ask me!-Yes,
+sir!-Mother&rsquo;s tipped off these darned waiters not to serve me anything
+but vegetables and nuts and things, darn it!&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;The mater seems to have drastic ideas about the good old feed-bag,
+what!&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;I&rsquo;ll say she has! Pop hates it as much as me, but he&rsquo;s
+scared to kick. Mother says vegetables contain all the proteins you want.
+Mother says, if you eat meat, your blood-pressure goes all blooey. Do you think
+it does?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Mine seems pretty well in the pink.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;She&rsquo;s great on talking,&rdquo; conceded the boy.
+&ldquo;She&rsquo;s out to-night somewhere, giving a lecture on Rational Eating
+to some ginks. I&rsquo;ll have to be slipping up to our suite before she gets
+back.&rdquo; He rose, sluggishly. &ldquo;That isn&rsquo;t a bit of roll under
+that napkin, is it?&rdquo; he asked, anxiously.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Archie raised the napkin.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;No. Nothing of that species.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Oh, well!&rdquo; said the boy, resignedly. &ldquo;Then I believe
+I&rsquo;ll be going. Thanks very much for the dinner.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Not a bit, old top. Come again if you&rsquo;re ever trickling round in
+this direction.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The long boy removed himself slowly, loath to leave. At the door he cast an
+affectionate glance back at the table.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Some meal!&rdquo; he said, devoutly. &ldquo;Considerable meal!&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Archie lit a cigarette. He felt like a Boy Scout who has done his day&rsquo;s
+Act of Kindness.
+</p>
+
+<p class="p2">
+On the following morning it chanced that Archie needed a fresh supply of
+tobacco. It was his custom, when this happened, to repair to a small shop on
+Sixth Avenue which he had discovered accidentally in the course of his rambles
+about the great city. His relations with Jno. Blake, the proprietor, were
+friendly and intimate. The discovery that Mr. Blake was English and had,
+indeed, until a few years back maintained an establishment only a dozen doors
+or so from Archie&rsquo;s London club, had served as a bond.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+To-day he found Mr. Blake in a depressed mood. The tobacconist was a hearty,
+red-faced man, who looked like an English sporting publican&mdash;the kind of
+man who wears a fawn-coloured top-coat and drives to the Derby in a dog-cart;
+and usually there seemed to be nothing on his mind except the vagaries of the
+weather, concerning which he was a great conversationalist. But now moodiness
+had claimed him for its own. After a short and melancholy &ldquo;Good
+morning,&rdquo; he turned to the task of measuring out the tobacco in silence.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Archie&rsquo;s sympathetic nature was perturbed.&mdash;&ldquo;What&rsquo;s the
+matter, laddie?&rdquo; he enquired. &ldquo;You would seem to be feeling a bit
+of an onion this bright morning, what, yes, no? I can see it with the naked
+eye.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Mr. Blake grunted sorrowfully.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;I&rsquo;ve had a knock, Mr. Moffam.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Tell me all, friend of my youth.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Mr. Blake, with a jerk of his thumb, indicated a poster which hung on the wall
+behind the counter. Archie had noticed it as he came in, for it was designed to
+attract the eye. It was printed in black letters on a yellow ground, and ran as
+follows:
+</p>
+
+<p class="center">
+CLOVER-LEAF SOCIAL AND OUTING CLUB<br/>
+<br/>
+GRAND CONTEST<br/>
+<br/>
+PIE-EATING CHAMPIONSHIP OF THE WEST SIDE<br/>
+<br/>
+SPIKE O&rsquo;DOWD<br/>
+(Champion)<br/>
+<br/>
+<i>v</i>.<br/>
+<br/>
+BLAKE&rsquo;S UNKNOWN<br/>
+<br/>
+FOR A PURSE OF $50 AND SIDE-BET
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Archie examined this document gravely. It conveyed nothing to him
+except&mdash;what he had long suspected&mdash;that his sporting-looking friend
+had sporting blood as well as that kind of exterior. He expressed a kindly hope
+that the other&rsquo;s Unknown would bring home the bacon.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Mr. Blake laughed one of those hollow, mirthless laughs.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;There ain&rsquo;t any blooming Unknown,&rdquo; he said, bitterly. This
+man had plainly suffered. &ldquo;Yesterday, yes, but not now.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Archie sighed.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;In the midst of life&mdash;Dead?&rdquo; he enquired, delicately.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;As good as,&rdquo; replied the stricken tobacconist. He cast aside his
+artificial restraint and became voluble. Archie was one of those sympathetic
+souls in whom even strangers readily confided their most intimate troubles. He
+was to those in travail of spirit very much what catnip is to a cat.
+&ldquo;It&rsquo;s &rsquo;ard, sir, it&rsquo;s blooming &rsquo;ard! I&rsquo;d
+got the event all sewed up in a parcel, and now this young feller-me-lad
+&rsquo;as to give me the knock. This lad of mine&mdash;sort of cousin &rsquo;e
+is; comes from London, like you and me&mdash;&rsquo;as always &rsquo;ad, ever
+since he landed in this country, a most amazing knack of stowing away grub.
+&rsquo;E&rsquo;d been a bit underfed these last two or three years over in the
+old country, what with food restrictions and all, and &rsquo;e took to the food
+over &rsquo;ere amazing. I&rsquo;d &rsquo;ave backed &rsquo;im against a ruddy
+orstridge! Orstridge! I&rsquo;d &rsquo;ave backed &rsquo;im against &rsquo;arff
+a dozen orstridges&mdash;take &rsquo;em on one after the other in the same ring
+on the same evening&mdash;and given &rsquo;em a handicap, too! &rsquo;E was a
+jewel, that boy. I&rsquo;ve seen him polish off four pounds of steak and mealy
+potatoes and then look round kind of wolfish, as much as to ask when dinner was
+going to begin! That&rsquo;s the kind of a lad &rsquo;e was till this very
+morning. &rsquo;E would have out-swallowed this &rsquo;ere O&rsquo;Dowd without
+turning a hair, as a relish before &rsquo;is tea! I&rsquo;d got a couple of
+&rsquo;undred dollars on &rsquo;im, and thought myself lucky to get the odds.
+And now&mdash;&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Mr. Blake relapsed into a tortured silence.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;But what&rsquo;s the matter with the blighter? Why can&rsquo;t he go
+over the top? Has he got indigestion?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Indigestion?&rdquo; Mr. Blaife laughed another of his hollow laughs.
+&ldquo;You couldn&rsquo;t give that boy indigestion if you fed &rsquo;im in on
+safety-razor blades. Religion&rsquo;s more like what &rsquo;e&rsquo;s
+got.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Religion?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Well, you can call it that. Seems last night, instead of goin&rsquo; and
+resting &rsquo;is mind at a picture-palace like I told him to, &rsquo;e sneaked
+off to some sort of a lecture down on Eighth Avenue. &rsquo;E said
+&rsquo;e&rsquo;d seen a piece about it in the papers, and it was about Rational
+Eating, and that kind of attracted &rsquo;im. &rsquo;E sort of thought &rsquo;e
+might pick up a few hints, like. &rsquo;E didn&rsquo;t know what rational
+eating was, but it sounded to &rsquo;im as if it must be something to do with
+food, and &rsquo;e didn&rsquo;t want to miss it. &rsquo;E came in here just
+now,&rdquo; said Mr. Blake, dully, &ldquo;and &rsquo;e was a changed lad!
+Scared to death &rsquo;e was! Said the way &rsquo;e&rsquo;d been goin&rsquo; on
+in the past, it was a wonder &rsquo;e&rsquo;d got any stummick left! It was a
+lady that give the lecture, and this boy said it was amazing what she told
+&rsquo;em about blood-pressure and things &rsquo;e didn&rsquo;t even know
+&rsquo;e &rsquo;ad. She showed &rsquo;em pictures, coloured pictures, of what
+&rsquo;appens inside the injudicious eater&rsquo;s stummick who doesn&rsquo;t
+chew his food, and it was like a battlefield! &rsquo;E said &rsquo;e would no
+more think of eatin&rsquo; a lot of pie than &rsquo;e would of shootin&rsquo;
+&rsquo;imself, and anyhow eating pie would be a quicker death. I reasoned with
+&rsquo;im, Mr. Moffam, with tears in my eyes. I asked &rsquo;im was he
+goin&rsquo; to chuck away fame and wealth just because a woman who didn&rsquo;t
+know what she was talking about had shown him a lot of faked pictures. But
+there wasn&rsquo;t any doin&rsquo; anything with him. &rsquo;E give me the
+knock and &rsquo;opped it down the street to buy nuts.&rdquo; Mr. Blake moaned.
+&ldquo;Two &rsquo;undred dollars and more gone pop, not to talk of the fifty
+dollars &rsquo;e would have won and me to get twenty-five of!&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Archie took his tobacco and walked pensively back to the hotel. He was fond of
+Jno. Blake, and grieved for the trouble that had come upon him. It was odd, he
+felt, how things seemed to link themselves up together. The woman who had
+delivered the fateful lecture to injudicious eaters could not be other than the
+mother of his young guest of last night. An uncomfortable woman! Not content
+with starving her own family&mdash;Archie stopped in his tracks. A pedestrian,
+walking behind him, charged into his back, but Archie paid no attention. He had
+had one of those sudden, luminous ideas, which help a man who does not do much
+thinking as a rule to restore his average. He stood there for a moment, almost
+dizzy at the brilliance of his thoughts; then hurried on. Napoleon, he mused as
+he walked, must have felt rather like this after thinking up a hot one to
+spring on the enemy.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+As if Destiny were suiting her plans to his, one of the first persons he saw as
+he entered the lobby of the Cosmopolis was the long boy. He was standing at the
+bookstall, reading as much of a morning paper as could be read free under the
+vigilant eyes of the presiding girl. Both he and she were observing the
+unwritten rules which govern these affairs&mdash;to wit, that you may read
+without interference as much as can be read without touching the paper. If you
+touch the paper, you lose, and have to buy.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Well, well, well!&rdquo; said Archie. &ldquo;Here we are again,
+what!&rdquo; He prodded the boy amiably in the lower ribs. &ldquo;You&rsquo;re
+just the chap I was looking for. Got anything on for the time being?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The boy said he had no engagements.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Then I want you to stagger round with me to a chappie I know on Sixth
+Avenue. It&rsquo;s only a couple of blocks away. I think I can do you a bit of
+good. Put you on to something tolerably ripe, if you know what I mean. Trickle
+along, laddie. You don&rsquo;t need a hat.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+They found Mr. Blake brooding over his troubles in an empty shop.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Cheer up, old thing!&rdquo; said Archie. &ldquo;The relief expedition
+has arrived.&rdquo; He directed his companion&rsquo;s gaze to the poster.
+&ldquo;Cast your eye over that. How does that strike you?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The long boy scanned the poster. A gleam appeared in his rather dull eye.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Well?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Some people have all the luck!&rdquo; said the long boy, feelingly.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Would you like to compete, what?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The boy smiled a sad smile.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Would I! Would I! Say!...&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;I know,&rdquo; interrupted Archie. &ldquo;Wake you up in the night and
+ask you! I knew I could rely on you, old thing.&rdquo; He turned to Mr. Blake.
+&ldquo;Here&rsquo;s the fellow you&rsquo;ve been wanting to meet. The finest
+left-and-right-hand eater east of the Rockies! He&rsquo;ll fight the good fight
+for you.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Mr. Blake&rsquo;s English training had not been wholly overcome by residence in
+New York. He still retained a nice eye for the distinctions of class.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;But this young gentleman&rsquo;s a young gentleman,&rdquo; he urged,
+doubtfully, yet with hope shining in his eye. &ldquo;He wouldn&rsquo;t do
+it.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Of course, he would. Don&rsquo;t be ridic, old thing.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Wouldn&rsquo;t do what?&rdquo; asked the boy.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Why save the old homestead by taking on the champion. Dashed sad case,
+between ourselves! This poor egg&rsquo;s nominee has given him the raspberry at
+the eleventh hour, and only you can save him. And you owe it to him to do
+something you know, because it was your jolly old mater&rsquo;s lecture last
+night that made the nominee quit. You must charge in and take his place. Sort
+of poetic justice, don&rsquo;t you know, and what not!&rdquo; He turned to Mr.
+Blake. &ldquo;When is the conflict supposed to start? Two-thirty? You
+haven&rsquo;t any important engagement for two-thirty, have you?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;No. Mother&rsquo;s lunching at some ladies&rsquo; club, and giving a
+lecture afterwards. I can slip away.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Archie patted his head.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Then leg it where glory waits you, old bean!&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The long boy was gazing earnestly at the poster. It seemed to fascinate him.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Pie!&rdquo; he said in a hushed voice.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The word was like a battle-cry.
+</p>
+
+</div><!--end chapter-->
+
+<div class="chapter">
+
+<h2><a name="chap22"></a>CHAPTER XXII.<br/>
+WASHY STEPS INTO THE HALL OF FAME</h2>
+
+<p>
+At about nine o&rsquo;clock next morning, in a suite at the Hotel Cosmopolis,
+Mrs. Cora Bates McCall, the eminent lecturer on Rational Eating, was seated at
+breakfast with her family. Before her sat Mr. McCall, a little hunted-looking
+man, the natural peculiarities of whose face were accentuated by a pair of
+glasses of semicircular shape, like half-moons with the horns turned up. Behind
+these, Mr. McCall&rsquo;s eyes played a perpetual game of peekaboo, now peering
+over them, anon ducking down and hiding behind them. He was sipping a cup of
+anti-caffeine. On his right, toying listlessly with a plateful of cereal, sat
+his son, Washington. Mrs. McCall herself was eating a slice of Health Bread and
+nut butter. For she practised as well as preached the doctrines which she had
+striven for so many years to inculcate in an unthinking populace. Her day
+always began with a light but nutritious breakfast, at which a peculiarly
+uninviting cereal, which looked and tasted like an old straw hat that had been
+run through a meat chopper, competed for first place in the dislike of her
+husband and son with a more than usually offensive brand of imitation coffee.
+Mr. McCall was inclined to think that he loathed the imitation coffee rather
+more than the cereal, but Washington held strong views on the latter&rsquo;s
+superior ghastliness. Both Washington and his father, however, would have been
+fair-minded enough to admit that it was a close thing.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Mrs. McCall regarded her offspring with grave approval.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;I am glad to see, Lindsay,&rdquo; she said to her husband, whose eyes
+sprang dutifully over the glass fence as he heard his name, &ldquo;that Washy
+has recovered his appetite. When he refused his dinner last night, I was afraid
+that he might be sickening for something. Especially as he had quite a flushed
+look. You noticed his flushed look?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;He did look flushed.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Very flushed. And his breathing was almost stertorous. And, when he said
+that he had no appetite, I am bound to say that I was anxious. But he is
+evidently perfectly well this morning. You do feel perfectly well this morning,
+Washy?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The heir of the McCall&rsquo;s looked up from his cereal. He was a long, thin
+boy of about sixteen, with pale red hair, sandy eyelashes, and a long neck.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Uh-huh,&rdquo; he said.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Mrs. McCall nodded.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Surely now you will agree, Lindsay, that a careful and rational diet is
+what a boy needs? Washy&rsquo;s constitution is superb. He has a remarkable
+stamina, and I attribute it entirely to my careful supervision of his food. I
+shudder when I think of the growing boys who are permitted by irresponsible
+people to devour meat, candy, pie&mdash;&rdquo; She broke off. &ldquo;What is
+the matter, Washy?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+It seemed that the habit of shuddering at the thought of pie ran in the McCall
+family, for at the mention of the word a kind of internal shimmy had convulsed
+Washington&rsquo;s lean frame, and over his face there had come an expression
+that was almost one of pain. He had been reaching out his hand for a slice of
+Health Bread, but now he withdrew it rather hurriedly and sat back breathing
+hard.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;I&rsquo;m all right,&rdquo; he said, huskily.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Pie,&rdquo; proceeded Mrs. McCall, in her platform voice. She stopped
+again abruptly. &ldquo;Whatever is the matter, Washington? You are making me
+feel nervous.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;I&rsquo;m all right.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Mrs. McCall had lost the thread of her remarks. Moreover, having now finished
+her breakfast, she was inclined for a little light reading. One of the subjects
+allied to the matter of dietary on which she felt deeply was the question of
+reading at meals. She was of the opinion that the strain on the eye, coinciding
+with the strain on the digestion, could not fail to give the latter the short
+end of the contest; and it was a rule at her table that the morning paper
+should not even be glanced at till the conclusion of the meal. She said that it
+was upsetting to begin the day by reading the paper, and events were to prove
+that she was occasionally right.
+</p>
+
+<p class="p2">
+All through breakfast the <i>New York Chronicle</i> had been lying neatly
+folded beside her plate. She now opened it, and, with a remark about looking
+for the report of her yesterday&rsquo;s lecture at the Butterfly Club, directed
+her gaze at the front page, on which she hoped that an editor with the best
+interests of the public at heart had decided to place her.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Mr. McCall, jumping up and down behind his glasses, scrutinised her face
+closely as she began to read. He always did this on these occasions, for none
+knew better than he that his comfort for the day depended largely on some
+unknown reporter whom he had never met. If this unseen individual had done his
+work properly and as befitted the importance of his subject, Mrs.
+McCall&rsquo;s mood for the next twelve hours would be as uniformly sunny as it
+was possible for it to be. But sometimes the fellows scamped their job
+disgracefully; and once, on a day which lived in Mr. McCall&rsquo;s memory,
+they had failed to make a report at all.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+To-day, he noted with relief, all seemed to be well. The report actually was on
+the front page, an honour rarely accorded to his wife&rsquo;s utterances.
+Moreover, judging from the time it took her to read the thing, she had
+evidently been reported at length.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Good, my dear?&rdquo; he ventured. &ldquo;Satisfactory?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Eh?&rdquo; Mrs. McCall smiled meditatively. &ldquo;Oh, yes, excellent.
+They have used my photograph, too. Not at all badly reproduced.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Splendid!&rdquo; said Mr. McCall.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Mrs. McCall gave a sharp shriek, and the paper fluttered from her hand.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;My dear!&rdquo; said Mr. McCall, with concern.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+His wife had recovered the paper, and was reading with burning eyes. A bright
+wave of colour had flowed over her masterful features. She was breathing as
+stertorously as ever her son Washington had done on the previous night.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Washington!&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+A basilisk glare shot across the table and turned the long boy to
+stone&mdash;all except his mouth, which opened feebly.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Washington! Is this true?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Washy closed his mouth, then let it slowly open again.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;My dear!&rdquo; Mr. McCall&rsquo;s voice was alarmed. &ldquo;What is
+it?&rdquo; His eyes had climbed up over his glasses and remained there.
+&ldquo;What is the matter? Is anything wrong?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Wrong! Read for yourself!&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Mr. McCall was completely mystified. He could not even formulate a guess at the
+cause of the trouble. That it appeared to concern his son Washington seemed to
+be the one solid fact at his disposal, and that only made the matter still more
+puzzling. Where, Mr. McCall asked himself, did Washington come in?
+</p>
+
+<p>
+He looked at the paper, and received immediate enlightenment. Headlines met his
+eyes:
+</p>
+
+<p class="center">
+GOOD STUFF IN THIS BOY.<br/>
+ABOUT A TON OF IT.<br/>
+SON OF CORA BATES McCALL<br/>
+FAMOUS FOOD-REFORM LECTURER<br/>
+WINS PIE-EATING CHAMPIONSHIP OF WEST SIDE.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+There followed a lyrical outburst. So uplifted had the reporter evidently felt
+by the importance of his news that he had been unable to confine himself to
+prose:&mdash;
+</p>
+
+<p class="p2">
+My children, if you fail to shine or triumph in your special line; if, let us
+say, your hopes are bent on some day being President, and folks ignore your
+proper worth, and say you&rsquo;ve not a chance on earth&mdash;Cheer up! for in
+these stirring days Fame may be won in many ways. Consider, when your spirits
+fall, the case of Washington McCall.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Yes, cast your eye on Washy, please! He looks just like a piece of cheese:
+he&rsquo;s not a brilliant sort of chap: he has a dull and vacant map: his eyes
+are blank, his face is red, his ears stick out beside his head. In fact, to end
+these compliments, he would be dear at thirty cents. Yet Fame has welcomed to
+her Hall this self-same Washington McCall.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+His mother (nee Miss Cora Bates) is one who frequently orates upon the proper
+kind of food which every menu should include. With eloquence the world she
+weans from chops and steaks and pork and beans. Such horrid things she&rsquo;d
+like to crush, and make us live on milk and mush. But oh! the thing that makes
+her sigh is when she sees us eating pie. (We heard her lecture last July upon
+&ldquo;The Nation&rsquo;s Menace&mdash;Pie.&rdquo;) Alas, the hit it made was
+small with Master Washington McCall.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+For yesterday we took a trip to see the great Pie Championship, where men with
+bulging cheeks and eyes consume vast quantities of pies. A fashionable West
+Side crowd beheld the champion, Spike O&rsquo;Dowd, endeavour to defend his
+throne against an upstart, Blake&rsquo;s Unknown. He wasn&rsquo;t an Unknown at
+all. He was young Washington McCall.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+We freely own we&rsquo;d give a leg if we could borrow, steal, or beg the skill
+old Homer used to show. (He wrote the <i>Iliad</i>, you know.) Old Homer swung
+a wicked pen, but we are ordinary men, and cannot even start to dream of doing
+justice to our theme. The subject of that great repast is too magnificent and
+vast. We can&rsquo;t describe (or even try) the way those rivals wolfed their
+pie. Enough to say that, when for hours each had extended all his pow&rsquo;rs,
+toward the quiet evenfall O&rsquo;Dowd succumbed to young McCall.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The champion was a willing lad. He gave the public all he had. His was a
+genuine fighting soul. He&rsquo;d lots of speed and much control. No yellow
+streak did he evince. He tackled apple-pie and mince. This was the motto on his
+shield&mdash;&ldquo;O&rsquo;Dowds may burst. They never yield.&rdquo; His eyes
+began to start and roll. He eased his belt another hole. Poor fellow! With a
+single glance one saw that he had not a chance. A python would have had to
+crawl and own defeat from young McCall.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+At last, long last, the finish came. His features overcast with shame,
+O&rsquo;Dowd, who&rsquo;d faltered once or twice, declined to eat another
+slice. He tottered off, and kindly men rallied around with oxygen. But Washy,
+Cora Bates&rsquo;s son, seemed disappointed it was done. He somehow made those
+present feel he&rsquo;d barely started on his meal. We ask him,
+&ldquo;Aren&rsquo;t you feeling bad?&rdquo; &ldquo;Me!&rdquo; said the
+lion-hearted lad. &ldquo;Lead me&rdquo;&mdash;he started for the
+street&mdash;&ldquo;where I can get a bite to eat!&rdquo; Oh, what a lesson
+does it teach to all of us, that splendid speech! How better can the curtain
+fall on Master Washington McCall!
+</p>
+
+<p class="p2">
+Mr. McCall read this epic through, then he looked at his son. He first looked
+at him over his glasses, then through his glasses, then over his glasses again,
+then through his glasses once more. A curious expression was in his eyes. If
+such a thing had not been so impossible, one would have said that his gaze had
+in it something of respect, of admiration, even of reverence.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;But how did they find out your name?&rdquo; he asked, at length.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Mrs. McCall exclaimed impatiently.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Is <i>that</i> all you have to say?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;No, no, my dear, of course not, quite so. But the point struck me as
+curious.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Wretched boy,&rdquo; cried Mrs. McCall, &ldquo;were you insane enough to
+reveal your name?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Washington wriggled uneasily. Unable to endure the piercing stare of his
+mother, he had withdrawn to the window, and was looking out with his back
+turned. But even there he could feel her eyes on the back of his neck.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;I didn&rsquo;t think it &rsquo;ud matter,&rdquo; he mumbled. &ldquo;A
+fellow with tortoiseshell-rimmed specs asked me, so I told him. How was I to
+know&mdash;&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+His stumbling defence was cut short by the opening of the door.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Hallo-allo-allo! What ho! What ho!&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Archie was standing in the doorway, beaming ingratiatingly on the family.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The apparition of an entire stranger served to divert the lightning of Mrs.
+McCall&rsquo;s gaze from the unfortunate Washy. Archie, catching it between the
+eyes, blinked and held on to the wall. He had begun to regret that he had
+yielded so weakly to Lucille&rsquo;s entreaty that he should look in on the
+McCalls and use the magnetism of his personality upon them in the hope of
+inducing them to settle the lawsuit. He wished, too, if the visit had to be
+paid that he had postponed it till after lunch, for he was never at his
+strongest in the morning. But Lucille had urged him to go now and get it over,
+and here he was.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;I think,&rdquo; said Mrs. McCall, icily, &ldquo;that you must have
+mistaken your room.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Archie rallied his shaken forces.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Oh, no. Rather not. Better introduce myself, what? My name&rsquo;s
+Moffam, you know. I&rsquo;m old Brewster&rsquo;s son-in-law, and all that sort
+of rot, if you know what I mean.&rdquo; He gulped and continued.
+&ldquo;I&rsquo;ve come about this jolly old lawsuit, don&rsquo;t you
+know.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Mr. McCall seemed about to speak, but his wife anticipated him.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Mr. Brewster&rsquo;s attorneys are in communication with ours. We do not
+wish to discuss the matter.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Archie took an uninvited seat, eyed the Health Bread on the breakfast table for
+a moment with frank curiosity, and resumed his discourse.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;No, but I say, you know! I&rsquo;ll tell you what happened. I hate to
+totter in where I&rsquo;m not wanted and all that, but my wife made such a
+point of it. Rightly or wrongly she regards me as a bit of a hound in the
+diplomacy line, and she begged me to look you up and see whether we
+couldn&rsquo;t do something about settling the jolly old thing. I mean to say,
+you know, the old bird&mdash;old Brewster, you know&mdash;is considerably
+perturbed about the affair&mdash;hates the thought of being in a posish where
+he has either got to bite his old pal McCall in the neck or be bitten by
+him&mdash;and&mdash;well, and so forth, don&rsquo;t you know! How about
+it?&rdquo; He broke off. &ldquo;Great Scot! I say, what!&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+So engrossed had he been in his appeal that he had not observed the presence of
+the pie-eating champion, between whom and himself a large potted plant
+intervened. But now Washington, hearing the familiar voice, had moved from the
+window and was confronting him with an accusing stare.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;<i>He</i> made me do it!&rdquo; said Washy, with the stern joy a
+sixteen-year-old boy feels when he sees somebody on to whose shoulders he can
+shift trouble from his own. &ldquo;That&rsquo;s the fellow who took me to the
+place!&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;What are you talking about, Washington?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;I&rsquo;m telling you! He got me into the thing.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Do you mean this&mdash;this&mdash;&rdquo; Mrs. McCall shuddered.
+&ldquo;Are you referring to this pie-eating contest?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;You bet I am!&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Is this true?&rdquo; Mrs. McCall glared stonily at Archie, &ldquo;Was it
+you who lured my poor boy into that&mdash;that&mdash;&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Oh, absolutely. The fact is, don&rsquo;t you know, a dear old pal of
+mine who runs a tobacco shop on Sixth Avenue was rather in the soup. He had
+backed a chappie against the champion, and the chappie was converted by one of
+your lectures and swore off pie at the eleventh hour. Dashed hard luck on the
+poor chap, don&rsquo;t you know! And then I got the idea that our little friend
+here was the one to step in and save the situash, so I broached the matter to
+him. And I&rsquo;ll tell you one thing,&rdquo; said Archie, handsomely,
+&ldquo;I don&rsquo;t know what sort of a capacity the original chappie had, but
+I&rsquo;ll bet he wasn&rsquo;t in your son&rsquo;s class. Your son has to be
+seen to be believed! Absolutely! You ought to be proud of him!&rdquo; He turned
+in friendly fashion to Washy. &ldquo;Rummy we should meet again like this!
+Never dreamed I should find you here. And, by Jove, it&rsquo;s absolutely
+marvellous how fit you look after yesterday. I had a sort of idea you would be
+groaning on a bed of sickness and all that.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+There was a strange gurgling sound in the background. It resembled something
+getting up steam. And this, curiously enough, is precisely what it was. The
+thing that was getting up steam was Mr. Lindsay McCall.
+</p>
+
+<p class="p2">
+The first effect of the Washy revelations on Mr. McCall had been merely to stun
+him. It was not until the arrival of Archie that he had had leisure to think;
+but since Archie&rsquo;s entrance he had been thinking rapidly and deeply.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+For many years Mr. McCall had been in a state of suppressed revolution. He had
+smouldered, but had not dared to blaze. But this startling upheaval of his
+fellow-sufferer, Washy, had acted upon him like a high explosive. There was a
+strange gleam in his eye, a gleam of determination. He was breathing hard.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Washy!&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+His voice had lost its deprecating mildness. It rang strong and clear.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Yes, pop?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;How many pies did you eat yesterday?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Washy considered.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;A good few.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;How many? Twenty?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;More than that. I lost count. A good few.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;And you feel as well as ever?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;I feel fine.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Mr. McCall dropped his glasses. He glowered for a moment at the breakfast
+table. His eye took in the Health Bread, the imitation coffee-pot, the cereal,
+the nut-butter. Then with a swift movement he seized the cloth, jerked it
+forcibly, and brought the entire contents rattling and crashing to the floor.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Lindsay!&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Mr. McCall met his wife&rsquo;s eye with quiet determination. It was plain that
+something had happened in the hinterland of Mr. McCall&rsquo;s soul.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Cora,&rdquo; he said, resolutely, &ldquo;I have come to a decision.
+I&rsquo;ve been letting you run things your own way a little too long in this
+family. I&rsquo;m going to assert myself. For one thing, I&rsquo;ve had all I
+want of this food-reform foolery. Look at Washy! Yesterday that boy seems to
+have consumed anything from a couple of hundredweight to a ton of pie, and he
+has thriven on it! Thriven! I don&rsquo;t want to hurt your feelings, Cora, but
+Washington and I have drunk our last cup of anti-caffeine! If you care to go on
+with the stuff, that&rsquo;s your look-out. But Washy and I are through.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+He silenced his wife with a masterful gesture and turned to Archie. &ldquo;And
+there&rsquo;s another thing. I never liked the idea of that lawsuit, but I let
+you talk me into it. Now I&rsquo;m going to do things my way. Mr. Moffam,
+I&rsquo;m glad you looked in this morning. I&rsquo;ll do just what you want.
+Take me to Dan Brewster now, and let&rsquo;s call the thing off, and shake
+hands on it.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Are you mad, Lindsay?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+It was Cora Bates McCall&rsquo;s last shot. Mr. McCall paid no attention to it.
+He was shaking hands with Archie.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;I consider you, Mr. Moffam,&rdquo; he said, &ldquo;the most sensible
+young man I have ever met!&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Archie blushed modestly.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Awfully good of you, old bean,&rdquo; he said. &ldquo;I wonder if
+you&rsquo;d mind telling my jolly old father-in-law that? It&rsquo;ll be a bit
+of news for him!&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+</div><!--end chapter-->
+
+<div class="chapter">
+
+<h2><a name="chap23"></a>CHAPTER XXIII.<br/>
+MOTHER&rsquo;S KNEE</h2>
+
+<p>
+Archie Moffam&rsquo;s connection with that devastatingly popular ballad,
+&ldquo;Mother&rsquo;s Knee,&rdquo; was one to which he always looked back later
+with a certain pride. &ldquo;Mother&rsquo;s Knee,&rdquo; it will be remembered,
+went through the world like a pestilence. Scots elders hummed it on their way
+to kirk; cannibals crooned it to their offspring in the jungles of Borneo; it
+was a best-seller among the Bolshevists. In the United States alone three
+million copies were disposed of. For a man who has not accomplished anything
+outstandingly great in his life, it is something to have been in a sense
+responsible for a song like that; and, though there were moments when Archie
+experienced some of the emotions of a man who has punched a hole in the dam of
+one of the larger reservoirs, he never really regretted his share in the
+launching of the thing.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+It seems almost bizarre now to think that there was a time when even one person
+in the world had not heard &ldquo;Mother&rsquo;s Knee&rdquo;; but it came fresh
+to Archie one afternoon some weeks after the episode of Washy, in his suite at
+the Hotel Cosmopolis, where he was cementing with cigarettes and pleasant
+conversation his renewed friendship with Wilson Hymack, whom he had first met
+in the neighbourhood of Armentières during the war.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;What are you doing these days?&rdquo; enquired Wilson Hymack.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Me?&rdquo; said Archie. &ldquo;Well, as a matter of fact, there is what
+you might call a sort of species of lull in my activities at the moment. But my
+jolly old father-in-law is bustling about, running up a new hotel a bit farther
+down-town, and the scheme is for me to be manager when it&rsquo;s finished.
+From what I have seen in this place, it&rsquo;s a simple sort of job, and I
+fancy I shall be somewhat hot stuff. How are you filling in the long
+hours?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;I&rsquo;m in my uncle&rsquo;s office, darn it!&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Starting at the bottom and learning the business and all that? A noble
+pursuit, no doubt, but I&rsquo;m bound to say it would give me the pip in no
+uncertain manner.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;It gives me,&rdquo; said Wilson Hymack, &ldquo;a pain in the thorax. I
+want to be a composer.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;A composer, eh?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Archie felt that he should have guessed this. The chappie had a distinctly
+artistic look. He wore a bow-tie and all that sort of thing. His trousers
+bagged at the knees, and his hair, which during the martial epoch of his career
+had been pruned to the roots, fell about his ears in luxuriant disarray.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Say! Do you want to hear the best thing I&rsquo;ve ever done?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Indubitably,&rdquo; said Archie, politely. &ldquo;Carry on, old
+bird!&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;I wrote the lyric as well as the melody,&rdquo; said Wilson Hymack, who
+had already seated himself at the piano. &ldquo;It&rsquo;s got the greatest
+title you ever heard. It&rsquo;s a lallapaloosa! It&rsquo;s called
+&lsquo;It&rsquo;s a Long Way Back to Mother&rsquo;s Knee.&rsquo; How&rsquo;s
+that? Poor, eh?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Archie expelled a smoke-ring doubtfully.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Isn&rsquo;t it a little stale?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Stale? What do you mean, stale? There&rsquo;s always room for another
+song boosting Mother.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Oh, is it boosting Mother?&rdquo; Archie&rsquo;s face cleared. &ldquo;I
+thought it was a hit at the short skirts. Why, of course, that makes all the
+difference. In that case, I see no reason why it should not be ripe, fruity,
+and pretty well all to the mustard. Let&rsquo;s have it.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Wilson Hymack pushed as much of his hair out of his eyes as he could reach with
+one hand, cleared his throat, looked dreamily over the top of the piano at a
+photograph of Archie&rsquo;s father-in-law, Mr. Daniel Brewster, played a
+prelude, and began to sing in a weak, high, composer&rsquo;s voice. All
+composers sing exactly alike, and they have to be heard to be believed.
+</p>
+
+<p class="poem">
+&ldquo;One night a young man wandered through the glitter of Broadway:<br/>
+His money he had squandered. For a meal he couldn&rsquo;t pay.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Tough luck!&rdquo; murmured Archie, sympathetically.
+</p>
+
+<p class="poem">
+&ldquo;He thought about the village where his boyhood he had spent,<br/>
+And yearned for all the simple joys with which he&rsquo;d been content.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;The right spirit!&rdquo; said Archie, with approval. &ldquo;I&rsquo;m
+beginning to like this chappie!&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Don&rsquo;t interrupt!&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Oh, right-o! Carried away and all that!&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p class="poem">
+&ldquo;He looked upon the city, so frivolous and gay; And,<br/>
+as he heaved a weary sigh, these words he then did say:<br/>
+     It&rsquo;s a long way back to Mother&rsquo;s knee,<br/>
+                             Mother&rsquo;s knee,<br/>
+                             Mother&rsquo;s knee:<br/>
+     It&rsquo;s a long way back to Mother&rsquo;s knee,<br/>
+          Where I used to stand and prattle<br/>
+          With my teddy-bear and rattle:<br/>
+     Oh, those childhood days in Tennessee,<br/>
+     They sure look good to me!<br/>
+It&rsquo;s a long, long way, but I&rsquo;m gonna start to-day!<br/>
+     I&rsquo;m going back,<br/>
+     Believe me, oh!<br/>
+I&rsquo;m going back<br/>
+     (I want to go!)<br/>
+I&rsquo;m going back&mdash;back&mdash;on the seven-three<br/>
+To the dear old shack where I used to be!<br/>
+I&rsquo;m going back to Mother&rsquo;s knee!&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Wilson Hymack&rsquo;s voice cracked on the final high note, which was of an
+altitude beyond his powers. He turned with a modest cough.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;That&rsquo;ll give you an idea of it!&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;It has, old thing, it has!&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Is it or is it not a ball of fire?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;It has many of the earmarks of a sound egg,&rdquo; admitted Archie.
+&ldquo;Of course&mdash;&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Of course, it wants singing.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Just what I was going to suggest.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;It wants a woman to sing it. A woman who could reach out for that last
+high note and teach it to take a joke. The whole refrain is working up to that.
+You need Tetrazzini or someone who would just pick that note off the roof and
+hold it till the janitor came round to lock up the building for the
+night.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;I must buy a copy for my wife. Where can I get it?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;You can&rsquo;t get it! It isn&rsquo;t published. Writing music&rsquo;s
+the darndest job!&rdquo; Wilson Hymack snorted fiercely. It was plain that the
+man was pouring out the pent-up emotion of many days. &ldquo;You write the
+biggest thing in years and you go round trying to get someone to sing it, and
+they say you&rsquo;re a genius and then shove the song away in a drawer and
+forget about it.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Archie lit another cigarette.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;I&rsquo;m a jolly old child in these matters, old lad,&rdquo; he said,
+&ldquo;but why don&rsquo;t you take it direct to a publisher? As a matter of
+fact, if it would be any use to you, I was foregathering with a music-publisher
+only the other day. A bird of the name of Blumenthal. He was lunching in here
+with a pal of mine, and we got tolerably matey. Why not let me tool you round
+to the office to-morrow and play it to him?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;No, thanks. Much obliged, but I&rsquo;m not going to play that melody in
+any publisher&rsquo;s office with his hired gang of Tin-Pan Alley composers
+listening at the keyhole and taking notes. I&rsquo;ll have to wait till I can
+find somebody to sing it. Well, I must be going along. Glad to have seen you
+again. Sooner or later I&rsquo;ll take you to hear that high note sung by
+someone in a way that&rsquo;ll make your spine tie itself in knots round the
+back of your neck.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;I&rsquo;ll count the days,&rdquo; said Archie, courteously.
+&ldquo;Pip-pip!&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p class="p2">
+Hardly had the door closed behind the composer when it opened again to admit
+Lucille.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Hallo, light of my soul!&rdquo; said Archie, rising and embracing his
+wife. &ldquo;Where have you been all the afternoon? I was expecting you this
+many an hour past. I wanted you to meet&mdash;&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;I&rsquo;ve been having tea with a girl down in Greenwich Village. I
+couldn&rsquo;t get away before. Who was that who went out just as I came along
+the passage?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Chappie of the name of Hymack. I met him in France. A composer and what
+not.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;We seem to have been moving in artistic circles this afternoon. The girl
+I went to see is a singer. At least, she wants to sing, but gets no
+encouragement.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Precisely the same with my bird. He wants to get his music sung but
+nobody&rsquo;ll sing it. But I didn&rsquo;t know you knew any Greenwich Village
+warblers, sunshine of my home. How did you meet this female?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Lucille sat down and gazed forlornly at him with her big grey eyes. She was
+registering something, but Archie could not gather what it was.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Archie, darling, when you married me you undertook to share my sorrows,
+didn&rsquo;t you?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Absolutely! It&rsquo;s all in the book of words. For better or for
+worse, in sickness and in health, all-down-set-&rsquo;em-up-in-the-other-alley.
+Regular iron-clad contract!&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Then share &rsquo;em!&rdquo; said Lucille. &ldquo;Bill&rsquo;s in love
+again!&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Archie blinked.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Bill? When you say Bill, do you mean Bill? Your brother Bill? My
+brother-in-law Bill? Jolly old William, the son and heir of the
+Brewsters?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;I do.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;You say he&rsquo;s in love? Cupid&rsquo;s dart?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Even so!&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;But, I say! Isn&rsquo;t this rather&mdash;What I mean to say is, the
+lad&rsquo;s an absolute scourge! The Great Lover, what! Also ran, Brigham
+Young, and all that sort of thing! Why, it&rsquo;s only a few weeks ago that he
+was moaning brokenly about that vermilion-haired female who subsequently hooked
+on to old Reggie van Tuyl!&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;She&rsquo;s a little better than that girl, thank goodness. All the
+same, I don&rsquo;t think Father will approve.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Of what calibre is the latest exhibit?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Well, she comes from the Middle West, and seems to be trying to be twice
+as Bohemian as the rest of the girls down in Greenwich Village. She wears her
+hair bobbed and goes about in a kimono. She&rsquo;s probably read magazine
+stories about Greenwich Village, and has modelled herself on them. It&rsquo;s
+so silly, when you can see Hicks Corners sticking out of her all the
+time.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;That one got past me before I could grab it. What did you say she had
+sticking out of her?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;I meant that anybody could see that she came from somewhere out in the
+wilds. As a matter of fact, Bill tells me that she was brought up in Snake
+Bite, Michigan.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Snake Bite? What rummy names you have in America! Still, I&rsquo;ll
+admit there&rsquo;s a village in England called Nether Wallop, so who am I to
+cast the first stone? How is old Bill? Pretty feverish?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;He says this time it is the real thing.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;That&rsquo;s what they all say! I wish I had a dollar for every
+time&mdash;Forgotten what I was going to say!&rdquo; broke off Archie,
+prudently. &ldquo;So you think,&rdquo; he went on, after a pause, &ldquo;that
+William&rsquo;s latest is going to be one more shock for the old dad?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;I can&rsquo;t imagine Father approving of her.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;I&rsquo;ve studied your merry old progenitor pretty closely,&rdquo; said
+Archie, &ldquo;and, between you and me, I can&rsquo;t imagine him approving of
+anybody!&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;I can&rsquo;t understand why it is that Bill goes out of his way to pick
+these horrors. I know at least twenty delightful girls, all pretty and with
+lots of money, who would be just the thing for him; but he sneaks away and goes
+falling in love with someone impossible. And the worst of it is that one always
+feels one&rsquo;s got to do one&rsquo;s best to see him through.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Absolutely! One doesn&rsquo;t want to throw a spanner into the works of
+Love&rsquo;s young dream. It behoves us to rally round. Have you heard this
+girl sing?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Yes. She sang this afternoon.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;What sort of a voice has she got?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Well, it&rsquo;s&mdash;loud!&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Could she pick a high note off the roof and hold it till the janitor
+came round to lock up the building for the night?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;What on earth do you mean?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Answer me this, woman, frankly. How is her high note? Pretty
+lofty?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Why, yes.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Then say no more,&rdquo; said Archie. &ldquo;Leave this to me, my dear
+old better four-fifths! Hand the whole thing over to Archibald, the man who
+never lets you down. I have a scheme!&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p class="p2">
+As Archie approached his suite on the following afternoon he heard through the
+closed door the drone of a gruff male voice; and, going in, discovered Lucille
+in the company of his brother-in-law. Lucille, Archie thought, was looking a
+trifle fatigued. Bill, on the other hand, was in great shape. His eyes were
+shining, and his face looked so like that of a stuffed frog that Archie had no
+difficulty in gathering that he had been lecturing on the subject of his latest
+enslaver.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Hallo, Bill, old crumpet!&rdquo; he said.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Hallo, Archie!&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;I&rsquo;m so glad you&rsquo;ve come,&rdquo; said Lucille. &ldquo;Bill is
+telling me all about Spectatia.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Who?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Spectatia. The girl, you know. Her name is Spectatia Huskisson.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;It can&rsquo;t be!&rdquo; said Archie, incredulously.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Why not?&rdquo; growled Bill.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Well, how could it?&rdquo; said Archie, appealing to him as a reasonable
+man. &ldquo;I mean to say! Spectatia Huskisson! I gravely doubt whether there
+is such a name.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;What&rsquo;s wrong with it?&rdquo; demanded the incensed Bill.
+&ldquo;It&rsquo;s a darned sight better name than Archibald Moffam.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Don&rsquo;t fight, you two children!&rdquo; intervened Lucille, firmly.
+&ldquo;It&rsquo;s a good old Middle West name. Everybody knows the Huskissons
+of Snake Bite, Michigan. Besides, Bill calls her Tootles.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Pootles,&rdquo; corrected Bill, austerely.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Oh, yes, Pootles. He calls her Pootles.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Young blood! Young blood!&rdquo; sighed Archie.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;I wish you wouldn&rsquo;t talk as if you were my grandfather.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;I look on you as a son, laddie, a favourite son!&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;If I had a father like you&mdash;!&rdquo;-&ldquo;Ah, but you
+haven&rsquo;t, young-feller-me-lad, and that&rsquo;s the trouble. If you had,
+everything would be simple. But as your actual father, if you&rsquo;ll allow me
+to say so, is one of the finest specimens of the human vampire-bat in
+captivity, something has got to be done about it, and you&rsquo;re dashed lucky
+to have me in your corner, a guide, philosopher, and friend, full of the
+fruitiest ideas. Now, if you&rsquo;ll kindly listen to me for a
+moment&mdash;&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;I&rsquo;ve been listening to you ever since you came in.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;You wouldn&rsquo;t speak in that harsh tone of voice if you knew all!
+William, I have a scheme!&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Well?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;The scheme to which I allude is what Maeterlinck would call a
+lallapaloosa!&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;What a little marvel he is!&rdquo; said Lucille, regarding her husband
+affectionately. &ldquo;He eats a lot of fish, Bill. That&rsquo;s what makes him
+so clever!&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Shrimps!&rdquo; diagnosed Bill, churlishly.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Do you know the leader of the orchestra in the restaurant
+downstairs?&rdquo; asked Archie, ignoring the slur.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;I know there <i>is</i> a leader of the orchestra. What about him?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;A sound fellow. Great pal of mine. I&rsquo;ve forgotten his
+name&mdash;&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Call him Pootles!&rdquo; suggested Lucille.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Desist!&rdquo; said Archie, as a wordless growl proceeded from his
+stricken brother-in-law. &ldquo;Temper your hilarity with a modicum of reserve.
+This girlish frivolity is unseemly. Well, I&rsquo;m going to have a chat with
+this chappie and fix it all up.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Fix what up?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;The whole jolly business. I&rsquo;m going to kill two birds with one
+stone. I&rsquo;ve a composer chappie popping about in the background whose one
+ambish. is to have his pet song sung before a discriminating audience. You have
+a singer straining at the leash. I&rsquo;m going to arrange with this egg who
+leads the orchestra that your female shall sing my chappie&rsquo;s song
+downstairs one night during dinner. How about it? Is it or is it not a ball of
+fire?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;It&rsquo;s not a bad idea,&rdquo; admitted Bill, brightening visibly.
+&ldquo;I wouldn&rsquo;t have thought you had it in you.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Why not?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Well&mdash;&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;It&rsquo;s a capital idea,&rdquo; said Lucille. &ldquo;Quite out of the
+question, of course.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;How do you mean?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Don&rsquo;t you know that the one thing Father hates more than anything
+else in the world is anything like a cabaret? People are always coming to him,
+suggesting that it would brighten up the dinner hour if he had singers and
+things, and he crushes them into little bits. He thinks there&rsquo;s nothing
+that lowers the tone of a place more. He&rsquo;ll bite you in three places when
+you suggest it to him!&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Ah! But has it escaped your notice, lighting system of my soul, that the
+dear old dad is not at present in residence? He went off to fish at Lake
+What&rsquo;s-its-name this morning.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;You aren&rsquo;t dreaming of doing this without asking him?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;That was the general idea.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;But he&rsquo;ll be furious when he finds out.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;But will he find out? I ask you, will he?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Of course he will.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;I don&rsquo;t see why he should,&rdquo; said Bill, on whose plastic mind
+the plan had made a deep impression.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;He won&rsquo;t,&rdquo; said Archie, confidently. &ldquo;This wheeze is
+for one night only. By the time the jolly old guv&rsquo;nor returns, bitten to
+the bone by mosquitoes, with one small stuffed trout in his suit-case,
+everything will be over and all quiet once more along the Potomac. The scheme
+is this. My chappie wants his song heard by a publisher. Your girl wants her
+voice heard by one of the blighters who get up concerts and all that sort of
+thing. No doubt you know such a bird, whom you could invite to the hotel for a
+bit of dinner?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;I know Carl Steinburg. As a matter of fact, I was thinking of writing to
+him about Spectatia.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;You&rsquo;re absolutely sure that <i>is</i> her name?&rdquo; said
+Archie, his voice still tinged with incredulity. &ldquo;Oh, well, I suppose she
+told you so herself, and no doubt she knows best. That will be topping. Rope in
+your pal and hold him down at the table till the finish. Lucille, the beautiful
+vision on the sky-line yonder, and I will be at another table entertaining
+Maxie Blumenthal.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Who on earth is Maxie Blumenthal?&rdquo; asked Lucille.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;One of my boyhood chums. A music-publisher. I&rsquo;ll get him to come
+along, and then we&rsquo;ll all be set. At the conclusion of the performance
+Miss&mdash;&rdquo; Archie winced&mdash;&ldquo;Miss Spectatia Huskisson will be
+signed up for a forty weeks&rsquo; tour, and jovial old Blumenthal will be
+making all arrangements for publishing the song. Two birds, as I indicated
+before, with one stone! How about it?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;It&rsquo;s a winner,&rdquo; said Bill.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Of course,&rdquo; said Archie, &ldquo;I&rsquo;m not urging you. I merely
+make the suggestion. If you know a better &rsquo;ole go to it!&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;It&rsquo;s terrific!&rdquo; said Bill.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;It&rsquo;s absurd!&rdquo; said Lucille.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;My dear old partner of joys and sorrows,&rdquo; said Archie, wounded,
+&ldquo;we court criticism, but this is mere abuse. What seems to be the
+difficulty?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;The leader of the orchestra would be afraid to do it.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Ten dollars&mdash;supplied by William here&mdash;push it over, Bill, old
+man&mdash;will remove his tremors.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;And Father&rsquo;s certain to find out.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Am I afraid of Father?&rdquo; cried Archie, manfully. &ldquo;Well, yes,
+I am!&rdquo; he added, after a moment&rsquo;s reflection. &ldquo;But I
+don&rsquo;t see how he can possibly get to know.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Of course he can&rsquo;t,&rdquo; said Bill, decidedly. &ldquo;Fix it up
+as soon as you can, Archie. This is what the doctor ordered.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+</div><!--end chapter-->
+
+<div class="chapter">
+
+<h2><a name="chap24"></a>CHAPTER XXIV.<br/>
+THE MELTING OF MR. CONNOLLY</h2>
+
+<p>
+The main dining-room of the Hotel Cosmopolis is a decorous place. The lighting
+is artistically dim, and the genuine old tapestries on the walls seem, with
+their mediaeval calm, to discourage any essay in the riotous. Soft-footed
+waiters shimmer to and fro over thick, expensive carpets to the music of an
+orchestra which abstains wholly from the noisy modernity of jazz. To Archie,
+who during the past few days had been privileged to hear Miss Huskisson
+rehearsing, the place had a sort of brooding quiet, like the ocean just before
+the arrival of a cyclone. As Lucille had said, Miss Huskisson&rsquo;s voice was
+loud. It was a powerful organ, and there was no doubt that it would take the
+cloistered stillness of the Cosmopolis dining-room and stand it on one ear.
+Almost unconsciously, Archie found himself bracing his muscles and holding his
+breath as he had done in France at the approach of the zero hour, when awaiting
+the first roar of a barrage. He listened mechanically to the conversation of
+Mr. Blumenthal.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The music-publisher was talking with some vehemence on the subject of Labour. A
+recent printers&rsquo; strike had bitten deeply into Mr. Blumenthal&rsquo;s
+soul. The working man, he considered, was rapidly landing God&rsquo;s Country
+in the soup, and he had twice upset his glass with the vehemence of his
+gesticulation. He was an energetic right-and-left-hand talker.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;The more you give &rsquo;em the more they want!&rdquo; he complained.
+&ldquo;There&rsquo;s no pleasing &rsquo;em! It isn&rsquo;t only in my business.
+There&rsquo;s your father, Mrs. Moffam!&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Good God! Where?&rdquo; said Archie, starting.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;I say, take your father&rsquo;s case. He&rsquo;s doing all he knows to
+get this new hotel of his finished, and what happens? A man gets fired for
+loafing on his job, and Connolly calls a strike. And the building operations
+are held up till the thing&rsquo;s settled! It isn&rsquo;t right!&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;It&rsquo;s a great shame,&rdquo; agreed Lucille. &ldquo;I was reading
+about it in the paper this morning.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;That man Connolly&rsquo;s a tough guy. You&rsquo;d think, being a
+personal friend of your father, he would&mdash;&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;I didn&rsquo;t know they were friends.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Been friends for years. But a lot of difference that makes. Out come the
+men just the same. It isn&rsquo;t right! I was saying it wasn&rsquo;t
+right!&rdquo; repeated Mr. Blumenthal to Archie, for he was a man who liked the
+attention of every member of his audience.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Archie did not reply. He was staring glassily across the room at two men who
+had just come in. One was a large, stout, square-faced man of commanding
+personality. The other was Mr. Daniel Brewster.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Mr. Blumenthal followed his gaze.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Why, there is Connolly coming in now!&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Father!&rdquo; gasped Lucille.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Her eyes met Archie&rsquo;s. Archie took a hasty drink of ice-water.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;This,&rdquo; he murmured, &ldquo;has torn it!&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Archie, you must do something!&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;I know! But what?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;What&rsquo;s the trouble?&rdquo; enquired Mr. Blumenthal, mystified.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Go over to their table and talk to them,&rdquo; said Lucille.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Me!&rdquo; Archie quivered. &ldquo;No, I say, old thing, really!&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Get them away!&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;How do you mean?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;I know!&rdquo; cried Lucille, inspired, &ldquo;Father promised that you
+should be manager of the new hotel when it was built. Well, then, this strike
+affects you just as much as anybody else. You have a perfect right to talk it
+over with them. Go and ask them to have dinner up in our suite where you can
+discuss it quietly. Say that up there they won&rsquo;t be disturbed by
+the&mdash;the music.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+At this moment, while Archie wavered, hesitating like a diver on the edge of a
+spring-board who is trying to summon up the necessary nerve to project himself
+into the deep, a bell-boy approached the table where the Messrs. Brewster and
+Connolly had seated themselves. He murmured something in Mr. Brewster&rsquo;s
+ear, and the proprietor of the Cosmopolis rose and followed him out of the
+room.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Quick! Now&rsquo;s your chance!&rdquo; said Lucille, eagerly.
+&ldquo;Father&rsquo;s been called to the telephone. Hurry!&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Archie took another drink of ice-water to steady his shaking nerve-centers,
+pulled down his waistcoat, straightened his tie, and then, with something of
+the air of a Roman gladiator entering the arena, tottered across the room.
+Lucille turned to entertain the perplexed music-publisher.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The nearer Archie got to Mr. Aloysius Connolly the less did he like the looks
+of him. Even at a distance the Labour leader had had a formidable aspect. Seen
+close to, he looked even more uninviting. His face had the appearance of having
+been carved out of granite, and the eye which collided with Archie&rsquo;s as
+the latter, with an attempt at an ingratiating smile, pulled up a chair and sat
+down at the table was hard and frosty. Mr. Connolly gave the impression that he
+would be a good man to have on your side during a rough-and-tumble fight down
+on the water-front or in some lumber-camp, but he did not look chummy.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Hallo-allo-allo!&rdquo; said Archie.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Who the devil,&rdquo; inquired Mr. Connolly, &ldquo;are you?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;My name&rsquo;s Archibald Moffam.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;That&rsquo;s not my fault.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;I&rsquo;m jolly old Brewster&rsquo;s son-in-law.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Glad to meet you.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Glad to meet <i>you</i>,&rdquo; said Archie, handsomely.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Well, good-bye!&rdquo; said Mr. Connolly.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Eh?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Run along and sell your papers. Your father-in-law and I have business
+to discuss.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Yes, I know.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Private,&rdquo; added Mr. Connolly.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Oh, but I&rsquo;m in on this binge, you know. I&rsquo;m going to be the
+manager of the new hotel.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;You!&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Absolutely!&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Well, well!&rdquo; said Mr. Connolly, noncommittally.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Archie, pleased with the smoothness with which matters had opened, bent forward
+winsomely.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;I say, you know! It won&rsquo;t do, you know! Absolutely no! Not a bit
+like it! No, no, far from it! Well, how about it? How do we go? What? Yes?
+No?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;What on earth are you talking about?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Call it off, old thing!&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Call what off?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;This festive old strike.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Not on your&mdash;hallo, Dan! Back again?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p class="p2">
+Mr. Brewster, looming over the table like a thundercloud, regarded Archie with
+more than his customary hostility. Life was no pleasant thing for the
+proprietor of the Cosmopolis just now. Once a man starts building hotels, the
+thing becomes like dram-drinking. Any hitch, any sudden cutting-off of the
+daily dose, has the worst effects; and the strike which was holding up the
+construction of his latest effort had plunged Mr. Brewster into a restless
+gloom. In addition to having this strike on his hands, he had had to abandon
+his annual fishing-trip just when he had begun to enjoy it; and, as if all this
+were not enough, here was his son-in-law sitting at his table. Mr. Brewster had
+a feeling that this was more than man was meant to bear.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;What do you want?&rdquo; he demanded.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Hallo, old thing!&rdquo; said Archie. &ldquo;Come and join the
+party!&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Don&rsquo;t call me old thing!&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Right-o, old companion, just as you say. I say, I was just going to
+suggest to Mr. Connolly that we should all go up to my suite and talk this
+business over quietly.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;He says he&rsquo;s the manager of your new hotel,&rdquo; said Mr.
+Connolly. &ldquo;Is that right?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;I suppose so,&rdquo; said Mr. Brewster, gloomily.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Then I&rsquo;m doing you a kindness,&rdquo; said Mr. Connolly, &ldquo;in
+not letting it be built.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Archie dabbed at his forehead with his handkerchief. The moments were flying,
+and it began to seem impossible to shift these two men. Mr. Connolly was as
+firmly settled in his chair as some primeval rock. As for Mr. Brewster, he,
+too, had seated himself, and was gazing at Archie with a weary repulsion. Mr.
+Brewster&rsquo;s glance always made Archie feel as though there were soup on
+his shirt-front.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+And suddenly from the orchestra at the other end of the room there came a
+familiar sound, the prelude of &ldquo;Mother&rsquo;s Knee.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;So you&rsquo;ve started a cabaret, Dan?&rdquo; said Mr. Connolly, in a
+satisfied voice. &ldquo;I always told you you were behind the times
+here!&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Mr. Brewster jumped.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Cabaret!&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+He stared unbelievingly at the white-robed figure which had just mounted the
+orchestra dais, and then concentrated his gaze on Archie.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Archie would not have looked at his father-in-law at this juncture if he had
+had a free and untrammelled choice; but Mr. Brewster&rsquo;s eye drew his with
+something of the fascination which a snake&rsquo;s has for a rabbit. Mr.
+Brewster&rsquo;s eye was fiery and intimidating. A basilisk might have gone to
+him with advantage for a course of lessons. His gaze went right through Archie
+till the latter seemed to feel his back-hair curling crisply in the flames.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Is this one of your fool-tricks?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Even in this tense moment Archie found time almost unconsciously to admire his
+father-in-law&rsquo;s penetration and intuition. He seemed to have a sort of
+sixth sense. No doubt this was how great fortunes were made.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Well, as a matter of fact&mdash;to be absolutely accurate&mdash;it was
+like this&mdash;&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Say, cut it out!&rdquo; said Mr. Connolly. &ldquo;Can the chatter! I
+want to listen.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Archie was only too ready to oblige him. Conversation at the moment was the
+last thing he himself desired. He managed with a strong effort to disengage
+himself from Mr. Brewster&rsquo;s eye, and turned to the orchestra dais, where
+Miss Spectatia Huskisson was now beginning the first verse of Wilson
+Hymack&rsquo;s masterpiece.
+</p>
+
+<p class="p2">
+Miss Huskisson, like so many of the female denizens of the Middle West, was
+tall and blonde and constructed on substantial lines. She was a girl whose
+appearance suggested the old homestead and fried pancakes and pop coming home
+to dinner after the morning&rsquo;s ploughing. Even her bobbed hair did not
+altogether destroy this impression. She looked big and strong and healthy, and
+her lungs were obviously good. She attacked the verse of the song with
+something of the vigour and breadth of treatment with which in other days she
+had reasoned with refractory mules. Her diction was the diction of one trained
+to call the cattle home in the teeth of Western hurricanes. Whether you wanted
+to or not, you heard every word.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The subdued clatter of knives and forks had ceased. The diners, unused to this
+sort of thing at the Cosmopolis, were trying to adjust their faculties to cope
+with the outburst. Waiters stood transfixed, frozen, in attitudes of service.
+In the momentary lull between verse and refrain Archie could hear the deep
+breathing of Mr. Brewster. Involuntarily he turned to gaze at him once more, as
+refugees from Pompeii may have turned to gaze upon Vesuvius; and, as he did so,
+he caught sight of Mr. Connolly, and paused in astonishment.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Mr. Connolly was an altered man. His whole personality had undergone a subtle
+change. His face still looked as though hewn from the living rock, but into his
+eyes had crept an expression which in another man might almost have been called
+sentimental. Incredible as it seemed to Archie, Mr. Connolly&rsquo;s eyes were
+dreamy. There was even in them a suggestion of unshed tears. And when with a
+vast culmination of sound Miss Huskisson reached the high note at the end of
+the refrain and, after holding it as some storming-party, spent but victorious,
+holds the summit of a hard-won redoubt, broke off suddenly, in the stillness
+which followed there proceeded from Mr. Connolly a deep sigh.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Miss Huskisson began the second verse. And Mr. Brewster, seeming to recover
+from some kind of a trance, leaped to his feet.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Great Godfrey!&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Sit down!&rdquo; said Mr. Connolly, in a broken voice. &ldquo;Sit down,
+Dan!&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p class="poem">
+&ldquo;He went back to his mother on the train that very day:<br/>
+He knew there was no other who could make him bright and gay:<br/>
+He kissed her on the forehead and he whispered, &lsquo;I&rsquo;ve come
+home!&rsquo;<br/>
+He told her he was never going any more to roam.<br/>
+And onward through the happy years, till he grew old and grey,<br/>
+He never once regretted those brave words he once did say:<br/>
+It&rsquo;s a long way back to mother&rsquo;s knee&mdash;&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The last high note screeched across the room like a shell, and the applause
+that followed was like a shell&rsquo;s bursting. One could hardly have
+recognised the refined interior of the Cosmopolis dining-room. Fair women were
+waving napkins; brave men were hammering on the tables with the butt-end of
+knives, for all the world as if they imagined themselves to be in one of those
+distressing midnight-revue places. Miss Huskisson bowed, retired, returned,
+bowed, and retired again, the tears streaming down her ample face. Over in a
+corner Archie could see his brother-in-law clapping strenuously. A waiter, with
+a display of manly emotion that did him credit, dropped an order of new peas.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Thirty years ago last October,&rdquo; said Mr. Connolly, in a shaking
+voice, &ldquo;I&mdash;&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Mr. Brewster interrupted him violently.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;I&rsquo;ll fire that orchestra-leader! He goes to-morrow! I&rsquo;ll
+fire&mdash;&rdquo; He turned on Archie. &ldquo;What the devil do you mean by
+it, you&mdash;you&mdash;&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Thirty years ago,&rdquo; said Mr. Connolly, wiping away a tear with his
+napkin, &ldquo;I left me dear old home in the old country&mdash;&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;<i>My</i> hotel a bear-garden!&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Frightfully sorry and all that, old companion&mdash;&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Thirty years ago last October! &rsquo;Twas a fine autumn evening the
+finest ye&rsquo;d ever wish to see. Me old mother, she came to the station to
+see me off.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Mr. Brewster, who was not deeply interested in Mr. Connolly&rsquo;s old mother,
+continued to splutter inarticulately, like a firework trying to go off.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;&lsquo;Ye&rsquo;ll always be a good boy, Aloysius?&rsquo; she said to
+me,&rdquo; said Mr. Connolly, proceeding with, his autobiography. &ldquo;And I
+said: &lsquo;Yes, Mother, I will!&rsquo;&rdquo; Mr. Connolly sighed and applied
+the napkin again. &ldquo;&rsquo;Twas a liar I was!&rdquo; he observed,
+remorsefully. &ldquo;Many&rsquo;s the dirty I&rsquo;ve played since then.
+&lsquo;It&rsquo;s a long way back to Mother&rsquo;s knee.&rsquo; &rsquo;Tis a
+true word!&rdquo; He turned impulsively to Mr. Brewster. &ldquo;Dan,
+there&rsquo;s a deal of trouble in this world without me going out of me way to
+make more. The strike is over! I&rsquo;ll send the men back tomorrow!
+There&rsquo;s me hand on it!&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Mr. Brewster, who had just managed to co-ordinate his views on the situation
+and was about to express them with the generous strength which was ever his
+custom when dealing with his son-in-law, checked himself abruptly. He stared at
+his old friend and business enemy, wondering if he could have heard aright.
+Hope began to creep back into Mr. Brewster&rsquo;s heart, like a shamefaced dog
+that has been away from home hunting for a day or two.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;You&rsquo;ll what!&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;I&rsquo;ll send the men back to-morrow! That song was sent to guide me,
+Dan! It was meant! Thirty years ago last October me dear old
+mother&mdash;&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Mr. Brewster bent forward attentively. His views on Mr. Connolly&rsquo;s dear
+old mother had changed. He wanted to hear all about her.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;&rsquo;Twas that last note that girl sang brought it all back to me as
+if &rsquo;twas yesterday. As we waited on the platform, me old mother and I,
+out comes the train from the tunnel, and the engine lets off a screech the way
+ye&rsquo;d hear it ten miles away. &rsquo;Twas thirty years ago&mdash;&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Archie stole softly from the table. He felt that his presence, if it had ever
+been required, was required no longer. Looking back, he could see his
+father-in-law patting Mr. Connolly affectionately on the shoulder.
+</p>
+
+<p class="p2">
+Archie and Lucille lingered over their coffee. Mr. Blumenthal was out in the
+telephone-box settling the business end with Wilson Hymack. The music-publisher
+had been unstinted in his praise of &ldquo;Mother&rsquo;s Knee.&rdquo; It was
+sure-fire, he said. The words, stated Mr. Blumenthal, were gooey enough to
+hurt, and the tune reminded him of every other song-hit he had ever heard.
+There was, in Mr. Blumenthal&rsquo;s opinion, nothing to stop this thing
+selling a million copies.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Archie smoked contentedly.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Not a bad evening&rsquo;s work, old thing,&rdquo; he said. &ldquo;Talk
+about birds with one stone!&rdquo; He looked at Lucille reproachfully.
+&ldquo;You don&rsquo;t seem bubbling over with joy.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Oh, I am, precious!&rdquo; Lucille sighed. &ldquo;I was only thinking
+about Bill.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;What about Bill?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Well, it&rsquo;s rather awful to think of him tied for life to that-that
+steam-siren.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Oh, we mustn&rsquo;t look on the jolly old dark side.
+Perhaps&mdash;Hallo, Bill, old top! We were just talking about you.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Were you?&rdquo; said Bill Brewster, in a dispirited voice.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;I take it that you want congratulations, what?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;I want sympathy!&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Sympathy?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Sympathy! And lots of it! She&rsquo;s gone!&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Gone! Who?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Spectatia!&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;How do you mean, gone?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Bill glowered at the tablecloth.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Gone home. I&rsquo;ve just seen her off in a cab. She&rsquo;s gone back
+to Washington Square to pack. She&rsquo;s catching the ten o&rsquo;clock train
+back to Snake Bite. It was that damned song!&rdquo; muttered Bill, in a
+stricken voice. &ldquo;She says she never realised before she sang it to-night
+how hollow New York was. She said it suddenly came over her. She says
+she&rsquo;s going to give up her career and go back to her mother. What the
+deuce are you twiddling your fingers for?&rdquo; he broke off, irritably.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Sorry, old man. I was just counting.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Counting? Counting what?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Birds, old thing. Only birds!&rdquo; said Archie.
+</p>
+
+</div><!--end chapter-->
+
+<div class="chapter">
+
+<h2><a name="chap25"></a>CHAPTER XXV.<br/>
+THE WIGMORE VENUS</h2>
+
+<p>
+The morning was so brilliantly fine; the populace popped to and fro in so
+active and cheery a manner; and everybody appeared to be so absolutely in the
+pink, that a casual observer of the city of New York would have said that it
+was one of those happy days. Yet Archie Moffam, as he turned out of the
+sun-bathed street into the ramshackle building on the third floor of which was
+the studio belonging to his artist friend, James B. Wheeler, was faintly
+oppressed with a sort of a kind of feeling that something was wrong. He would
+not have gone so far as to say that he had the pip&mdash;it was more a vague
+sense of discomfort. And, searching for first causes as he made his way
+upstairs, he came to the conclusion that the person responsible for this
+nebulous depression was his wife, Lucille. It seemed to Archie that at
+breakfast that morning Lucille&rsquo;s manner had been subtly rummy. Nothing
+you could put your finger on, still&mdash;rummy.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Musing thus, he reached the studio, and found the door open and the room empty.
+It had the air of a room whose owner has dashed in to fetch his golf-clubs and
+biffed off, after the casual fashion of the artist temperament, without
+bothering to close up behind him. And such, indeed, was the case. The studio
+had seen the last of J. B. Wheeler for that day: but Archie, not realising this
+and feeling that a chat with Mr. Wheeler, who was a light-hearted bird, was
+what he needed this morning, sat down to wait. After a few moments, his gaze,
+straying over the room, encountered a handsomely framed picture, and he went
+across to take a look at it.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+J. B. Wheeler was an artist who made a large annual income as an illustrator
+for the magazines, and it was a surprise to Archie to find that he also went in
+for this kind of thing. For the picture, dashingly painted in oils, represented
+a comfortably plump young woman who, from her rather weak-minded simper and the
+fact that she wore absolutely nothing except a small dove on her left shoulder,
+was plainly intended to be the goddess Venus. Archie was not much of a lad
+around the picture-galleries, but he knew enough about Art to recognise Venus
+when he saw her; though once or twice, it is true, artists had double-crossed
+him by ringing in some such title as &ldquo;Day Dreams,&rdquo; or &ldquo;When
+the Heart is Young.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+He inspected this picture for awhile, then, returning to his seat, lit a
+cigarette and began to meditate on Lucille once more. &ldquo;Yes, the dear girl
+had been rummy at breakfast. She had not exactly said anything or done anything
+out of the ordinary; but&mdash;well, you know how it is. We husbands, we lads
+of the for-better-or-for-worse brigade, we learn to pierce the mask. There had
+been in Lucille&rsquo;s manner that curious, strained sweetness which comes to
+women whose husbands have failed to match the piece of silk or forgotten to
+post an important letter. If his conscience had not been as clear as crystal,
+Archie would have said that that was what must have been the matter. But, when
+Lucille wrote letters, she just stepped out of the suite and dropped them in
+the mail-chute attached to the elevator. It couldn&rsquo;t be that. And he
+couldn&rsquo;t have forgotten anything else, because&mdash;&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Oh my sainted aunt!&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Archie&rsquo;s cigarette smouldered, neglected, between his fingers. His jaw
+had fallen and his eyes were staring glassily before him. He was appalled. His
+memory was weak, he knew; but never before had it let him down so scurvily as
+this. This was a record. It stood in a class by itself, printed in red ink and
+marked with a star, as the bloomer of a lifetime. For a man may forget many
+things: he may forget his name, his umbrella, his nationality, his spats, and
+the friends of his youth: but there is one thing which your married man, your
+in-sickness-and-in-health lizard must not forget: and that is the anniversary
+of his wedding-day.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Remorse swept over Archie like a wave. His heart bled for Lucille. No wonder
+the poor girl had been rummy at breakfast. What girl wouldn&rsquo;t be rummy at
+breakfast, tied for life to a ghastly outsider like himself? He groaned
+hollowly, and sagged forlornly in his chair: and, as he did so, the Venus
+caught his eye. For it was an eye-catching picture. You might like it or
+dislike it, but you could not ignore it.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+As a strong swimmer shoots to the surface after a high dive, Archie&rsquo;s
+soul rose suddenly from the depths to which it had descended. He did not often
+get inspirations, but he got one now. Hope dawned with a jerk. The one way out
+had presented itself to him. A rich present! That was the wheeze. If he
+returned to her bearing a rich present, he might, with the help of Heaven and a
+face of brass, succeed in making her believe that he had merely pretended to
+forget the vital date in order to enhance the surprise.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+It was a scheme. Like some great general forming his plan of campaign on the
+eve of battle, Archie had the whole binge neatly worked out inside a minute. He
+scribbled a note to Mr. Wheeler, explaining the situation and promising
+reasonable payment on the instalment system; then, placing the note in a
+conspicuous position on the easel, he leaped to the telephone: and presently
+found himself connected with Lucille&rsquo;s room at the Cosmopolis.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Hullo, darling,&rdquo; he cooed.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+There was a slight pause at the other end of the wire.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Oh, hullo, Archie!&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Lucille&rsquo;s voice was dull and listless, and Archie&rsquo;s experienced ear
+could detect that she had been crying. He raised his right foot, and kicked
+himself indignantly on the left ankle.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Many happy returns of the day, old thing!&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+A muffled sob floated over the wire.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Have you only just remembered?&rdquo; said Lucille in a small voice.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Archie, bracing himself up, cackled gleefully into the receiver.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Did I take you in, light of my home? Do you mean to say you really
+thought I had forgotten? For Heaven&rsquo;s sake!&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;You didn&rsquo;t say a word at breakfast.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Ah, but that was all part of the devilish cunning. I hadn&rsquo;t got a
+present for you then. At least, I didn&rsquo;t know whether it was
+ready.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Oh, Archie, you darling!&rdquo; Lucille&rsquo;s voice had lost its
+crushed melancholy. She trilled like a thrush, or a linnet, or any bird that
+goes in largely for trilling. &ldquo;Have you really got me a present?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;It&rsquo;s here now. The dickens of a fruity picture. One of J. B.
+Wheeler&rsquo;s things. You&rsquo;ll like it.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Oh, I know I shall. I love his work. You are an angel. We&rsquo;ll hang
+it over the piano.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;I&rsquo;ll be round with it in something under three ticks, star of my
+soul. I&rsquo;ll take a taxi.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Yes, do hurry! I want to hug you!&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Right-o!&rdquo; said Archie. &ldquo;I&rsquo;ll take two taxis.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+It is not far from Washington Square to the Hotel Cosmopolis, and Archie made
+the journey without mishap. There was a little unpleasantness with the cabman
+before starting&mdash;he, on the prudish plea that he was a married man with a
+local reputation to keep up, declining at first to be seen in company with the
+masterpiece. But, on Archie giving a promise to keep the front of the picture
+away from the public gaze, he consented to take the job on; and, some ten
+minutes later, having made his way blushfully through the hotel lobby and
+endured the frank curiosity of the boy who worked the elevator, Archie entered
+his suite, the picture under his arm.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+He placed it carefully against the wall in order to leave himself more scope
+for embracing Lucille, and when the joyful reunion&mdash;or the sacred scene,
+if you prefer so to call it, was concluded, he stepped forward to turn it round
+and exhibit it.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Why, it&rsquo;s enormous,&rdquo; said Lucille. &ldquo;I didn&rsquo;t
+know Mr. Wheeler ever painted pictures that size. When you said it was one of
+his, I thought it must be the original of a magazine drawing or something
+like&mdash;Oh!&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Archie had moved back and given her an uninterrupted view of the work of art,
+and she had started as if some unkindly disposed person had driven a bradawl
+into her.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Pretty ripe, what?&rdquo; said Archie enthusiastically.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Lucille did not speak for a moment. It may have been sudden joy that kept her
+silent. Or, on the other hand, it may not. She stood looking at the picture
+with wide eyes and parted lips.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;A bird, eh?&rdquo; said Archie.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Y&mdash;yes,&rdquo; said Lucille.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;I knew you&rsquo;d like it,&rdquo; proceeded Archie with animation,
+&ldquo;You see? you&rsquo;re by way of being a picture-hound&mdash;know all
+about the things, and what not&mdash;inherit it from the dear old dad, I
+shouldn&rsquo;t wonder. Personally, I can&rsquo;t tell one picture from another
+as a rule, but I&rsquo;m bound to say, the moment I set eyes on this, I said to
+myself &lsquo;What ho!&rsquo; or words to that effect, I rather think this will
+add a touch of distinction to the home, yes, no? I&rsquo;ll hang it up, shall
+I? &rsquo;Phone down to the office, light of my soul, and tell them to send up
+a nail, a bit of string, and the hotel hammer.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;One moment, darling. I&rsquo;m not quite sure.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Eh?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Where it ought to hang, I mean. You see&mdash;&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Over the piano, you said. The jolly old piano.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Yes, but I hadn&rsquo;t seen it then.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+A monstrous suspicion flitted for an instant into Archie&rsquo;s mind.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;I say, you <i>do</i> like it, don&rsquo;t you?&rdquo; he said anxiously.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Oh, Archie, darling! Of <i>course</i> I do! And it was so sweet of you
+to give it to me. But, what I was trying to say was that this picture is
+so&mdash;so striking that I feel that we ought to wait a little while and
+decide where it would have the best effect. The light over the piano is rather
+strong.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;You think it ought to hang in a dimmish light, what?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Yes, yes. The dimmer the&mdash;I mean, yes, in a dim light. Suppose we
+leave it in the corner for the moment&mdash;over there&mdash;behind the sofa,
+and&mdash;and I&rsquo;ll think it over. It wants a lot of thought, you
+know.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Right-o! Here?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Yes, that will do splendidly. Oh, and, Archie.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Hullo?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;I think perhaps... Just turn its face to the wall, will you?&rdquo;
+Lucille gave a little gulp. &ldquo;It will prevent it getting dusty.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+It perplexed Archie a little during the next few days to notice in Lucille,
+whom he had always looked on as pre-eminently a girl who knew her own mind, a
+curious streak of vacillation. Quite half a dozen times he suggested various
+spots on the wall as suitable for the Venus, but Lucille seemed unable to
+decide. Archie wished that she would settle on something definite, for he
+wanted to invite J. B. Wheeler to the suite to see the thing. He had heard
+nothing from the artist since the day he had removed the picture, and one
+morning, encountering him on Broadway, he expressed his appreciation of the
+very decent manner in which the other had taken the whole affair.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Oh, that!&rdquo; said J. B. Wheeler. &ldquo;My dear fellow, you&rsquo;re
+welcome.&rdquo; He paused for a moment. &ldquo;More than welcome,&rdquo; he
+added. &ldquo;You aren&rsquo;t much of an expert on pictures, are you?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Well,&rdquo; said Archie, &ldquo;I don&rsquo;t know that you&rsquo;d
+call me an absolute nib, don&rsquo;t you know, but of course I know enough to
+see that this particular exhibit is not a little fruity. Absolutely one of the
+best things you&rsquo;ve ever done, laddie.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+A slight purple tinge manifested itself in Mr. Wheeler&rsquo;s round and rosy
+face. His eyes bulged.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;What are you talking about, you Tishbite? You misguided son of Belial,
+are you under the impression that <i>I</i> painted that thing?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Didn&rsquo;t you?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Mr. Wheeler swallowed a little convulsively.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;My fiancée painted it,&rdquo; he said shortly.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Your fiancée? My dear old lad, I didn&rsquo;t know you were engaged. Who
+is she? Do I know her?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Her name is Alice Wigmore. You don&rsquo;t know her.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;And she painted that picture?&rdquo; Archie was perturbed. &ldquo;But, I
+say! Won&rsquo;t she be apt to wonder where the thing has got to?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;I told her it had been stolen. She thought it a great compliment, and
+was tickled to death. So that&rsquo;s all right.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;And, of course, she&rsquo;ll paint you another.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Not while I have my strength she won&rsquo;t,&rdquo; said J. B. Wheeler
+firmly. &ldquo;She&rsquo;s given up painting since I taught her golf, thank
+goodness, and my best efforts shall be employed in seeing that she
+doesn&rsquo;t have a relapse.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;But, laddie,&rdquo; said Archie, puzzled, &ldquo;you talk as though
+there were something wrong with the picture. I thought it dashed hot
+stuff.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;God bless you!&rdquo; said J. B. Wheeler.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Archie proceeded on his way, still mystified. Then he reflected that artists as
+a class were all pretty weird and rummy and talked more or less consistently
+through their hats. You couldn&rsquo;t ever take an artist&rsquo;s opinion on a
+picture. Nine out of ten of them had views on Art which would have admitted
+them to any looney-bin, and no questions asked. He had met several of the
+species who absolutely raved over things which any reasonable chappie would
+decline to be found dead in a ditch with. His admiration for the Wigmore Venus,
+which had faltered for a moment during his conversation with J. B. Wheeler,
+returned in all its pristine vigour. Absolute rot, he meant to say, to try to
+make out that it wasn&rsquo;t one of the ones and just like mother used to
+make. Look how Lucille had liked it!
+</p>
+
+<p>
+At breakfast next morning, Archie once more brought up the question of the
+hanging of the picture. It was absurd to let a thing like that go on wasting
+its sweetness behind a sofa with its face to the wall.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Touching the jolly old masterpiece,&rdquo; he said, &ldquo;how about it?
+I think it&rsquo;s time we hoisted it up somewhere.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Lucille fiddled pensively with her coffee-spoon.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Archie, dear,&rdquo; she said, &ldquo;I&rsquo;ve been thinking.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;And a very good thing to do,&rdquo; said Archie. &ldquo;I&rsquo;ve often
+meant to do it myself when I got a bit of time.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;About that picture, I mean. Did you know it was father&rsquo;s birthday
+to-morrow?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Why no, old thing, I didn&rsquo;t, to be absolutely honest. Your revered
+parent doesn&rsquo;t confide in me much these days, as a matter of fact.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Well, it is. And I think we ought to give him a present.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Absolutely. But how? I&rsquo;m all for spreading sweetness and light,
+and cheering up the jolly old pater&rsquo;s sorrowful existence, but I
+haven&rsquo;t a bean. And, what is more, things have come to such a pass that I
+scan the horizon without seeing a single soul I can touch. I suppose I could
+get into Reggie van Tuyl&rsquo;s ribs for a bit, but&mdash;I don&rsquo;t
+know&mdash;touching poor old Reggie always seems to me rather like potting a
+sitting bird.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Of course, I don&rsquo;t want you to do anything like that. I was
+thinking&mdash;Archie, darling, would you be very hurt if I gave father the
+picture?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Oh, I say!&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Well, I can&rsquo;t think of anything else.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;But wouldn&rsquo;t you miss it most frightfully?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Oh, of course I should. But you see&mdash;father&rsquo;s
+birthday&mdash;&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Archie had always thought Lucille the dearest and most unselfish angel in the
+world, but never had the fact come home to him so forcibly as now. He kissed
+her fondly.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;By Jove!&rdquo; he exclaimed. &ldquo;You really are, you know! This is
+the biggest thing since jolly old Sir Philip What&rsquo;s-his-name gave the
+drink of water to the poor blighter whose need was greater than his, if you
+recall the incident. I had to sweat it up at school, I remember. Sir Philip,
+poor old bean, had a most ghastly thirst on, and he was just going to have one
+on the house, so to speak, when... but it&rsquo;s all in the history-books.
+This is the sort of thing Boy Scouts do! Well, of course, it&rsquo;s up to you,
+queen of my soul. If you feel like making the sacrifice, right-o! Shall I bring
+the pater up here and show him the picture?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;No, I shouldn&rsquo;t do that. Do you think you could get into his suite
+to-morrow morning and hang it up somewhere? You see, if he had the chance
+of&mdash;what I mean is, if&mdash;yes, I think it would be best to hang it up
+and let him discover it there.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;It would give him a surprise, you mean, what?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Yes.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Lucille sighed inaudibly. She was a girl with a conscience, and that conscience
+was troubling her a little. She agreed with Archie that the discovery of the
+Wigmore Venus in his artistically furnished suite would give Mr. Brewster a
+surprise. Surprise, indeed, was perhaps an inadequate word. She was sorry for
+her father, but the instinct of self-preservation is stronger than any other
+emotion.
+</p>
+
+<p class="p2">
+Archie whistled merrily on the following morning as, having driven a nail into
+his father-in-law&rsquo;s wallpaper, he adjusted the cord from which the
+Wigmore Venus was suspended. He was a kind-hearted young man, and, though Mr.
+Daniel Brewster had on many occasions treated him with a good deal of
+austerity, his simple soul was pleased at the thought of doing him a good turn,
+He had just completed his work and was stepping cautiously down, when a voice
+behind him nearly caused him to overbalance.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;What the devil?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Archie turned beamingly.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Hullo, old thing! Many happy returns of the day!&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Mr. Brewster was standing in a frozen attitude. His strong face was slightly
+flushed.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;What&mdash;what&mdash;?&rdquo; he gurgled.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Mr. Brewster was not in one of his sunniest moods that morning. The proprietor
+of a large hotel has many things to disturb him, and to-day things had been
+going wrong. He had come up to his suite with the idea of restoring his shaken
+nerve system with a quiet cigar, and the sight of his son-in-law had, as so
+frequently happened, made him feel worse than ever. But, when Archie had
+descended from the chair and moved aside to allow him an uninterrupted view of
+the picture, Mr. Brewster realised that a worse thing had befallen him than a
+mere visit from one who always made him feel that the world was a bleak place.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+He stared at the Venus dumbly. Unlike most hotel-proprietors, Daniel Brewster
+was a connoisseur of Art. Connoisseuring was, in fact, his hobby. Even the
+public rooms of the Cosmopolis were decorated with taste, and his own private
+suite was a shrine of all that was best and most artistic. His tastes were
+quiet and restrained, and it is not too much to say that the Wigmore Venus hit
+him behind the ear like a stuffed eel-skin.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+So great was the shock that for some moments it kept him silent, and before he
+could recover speech Archie had explained.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;It&rsquo;s a birthday present from Lucille, don&rsquo;t you know.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Mr. Brewster crushed down the breezy speech he had intended to utter.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Lucille gave me&mdash;that?&rdquo; he muttered.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+He swallowed pathetically. He was suffering, but the iron courage of the
+Brewsters stood him in good stead. This man was no weakling. Presently the
+rigidity of his face relaxed. He was himself again. Of all things in the world
+he loved his daughter most, and if, in whatever mood of temporary insanity, she
+had brought herself to suppose that this beastly daub was the sort of thing he
+would like for a birthday present, he must accept the situation like a man. He
+would on the whole have preferred death to a life lived in the society of the
+Wigmore Venus, but even that torment must be endured if the alternative was the
+hurting of Lucille&rsquo;s feelings.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;I think I&rsquo;ve chosen a pretty likely spot to hang the thing,
+what?&rdquo; said Archie cheerfully. &ldquo;It looks well alongside those
+Japanese prints, don&rsquo;t you think? Sort of stands out.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Mr. Brewster licked his dry lips and grinned a ghastly grin.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;It does stand out!&rdquo; he agreed.
+</p>
+
+</div><!--end chapter-->
+
+<div class="chapter">
+
+<h2><a name="chap26"></a>CHAPTER XXVI.<br/>
+A TALE OF A GRANDFATHER</h2>
+
+<p>
+Archie was not a man who readily allowed himself to become worried, especially
+about people who were not in his own immediate circle of friends, but in the
+course of the next week he was bound to admit that he was not altogether easy
+in his mind about his father-in-law&rsquo;s mental condition. He had read all
+sorts of things in the Sunday papers and elsewhere about the constant strain to
+which captains of industry are subjected, a strain which sooner or later is
+only too apt to make the victim go all blooey, and it seemed to him that Mr.
+Brewster was beginning to find the going a trifle too tough for his stamina.
+Undeniably he was behaving in an odd manner, and Archie, though no physician,
+was aware that, when the American business-man, that restless, ever-active
+human machine, starts behaving in an odd manner, the next thing you know is
+that two strong men, one attached to each arm, are hurrying him into the cab
+bound for Bloomingdale.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+He did not confide his misgivings to Lucille, not wishing to cause her anxiety.
+He hunted up Reggie van Tuyl at the club, and sought advice from him.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;I say, Reggie, old thing&mdash;present company excepted&mdash;have there
+been any loonies in your family?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Reggie stirred in the slumber which always gripped him in the early afternoon.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Loonies?&rdquo; he mumbled, sleepily. &ldquo;Rather! My uncle Edgar
+thought he was twins.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Twins, eh?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Yes. Silly idea! I mean, you&rsquo;d have thought one of my uncle Edgar
+would have been enough for any man.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;How did the thing start?&rdquo; asked Archie.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Start? Well, the first thing we noticed was when he began wanting two of
+everything. Had to set two places for him at dinner and so on. Always wanted
+two seats at the theatre. Ran into money, I can tell you.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;He didn&rsquo;t behave rummily up till then? I mean to say, wasn&rsquo;t
+sort of jumpy and all that?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Not that I remember. Why?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Archie&rsquo;s tone became grave.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Well, I&rsquo;ll tell you, old man, though I don&rsquo;t want it to go
+any farther, that I&rsquo;m a bit worried about my jolly old father-in-law. I
+believe he&rsquo;s about to go in off the deep-end. I think he&rsquo;s cracking
+under the strain. Dashed weird his behaviour has been the last few days.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Such as?&rdquo; murmured Mr. van Tuyl.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Well, the other morning I happened to be in his suite&mdash;incidentally
+he wouldn&rsquo;t go above ten dollars, and I wanted twenty-five-and he
+suddenly picked up a whacking big paper-weight and bunged it for all he was
+worth.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;At you?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Not at me. That was the rummy part of it. At a mosquito on the wall, he
+said. Well, I mean to say, do chappies bung paper-weights at mosquitoes? I
+mean, is it done?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Smash anything?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Curiously enough, no. But he only just missed a rather decent picture
+which Lucille had given him for his birthday. Another foot to the left and it
+would have been a goner.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Sounds queer.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;And, talking of that picture, I looked in on him about a couple of
+afternoons later, and he&rsquo;d taken it down from the wall and laid it on the
+floor and was staring at it in a dashed marked sort of manner. That was
+peculiar, what?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;On the floor?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;On the jolly old carpet. When I came in, he was goggling at it in a sort
+of glassy way. Absolutely rapt, don&rsquo;t you know. My coming in gave him a
+start&mdash;seemed to rouse him from a kind of trance, you know&mdash;and he
+jumped like an antelope; and, if I hadn&rsquo;t happened to grab him, he would
+have trampled bang on the thing. It was deuced unpleasant, you know. His manner
+was rummy. He seemed to be brooding on something. What ought I to do about it,
+do you think? It&rsquo;s not my affair, of course, but it seems to me that, if
+he goes on like this, one of these days he&rsquo;ll be stabbing someone with a
+pickle-fork.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p class="p2">
+To Archie&rsquo;s relief, his father-in-law&rsquo;s symptoms showed no signs of
+development. In fact, his manner reverted to the normal once more, and a few
+days later, meeting Archie in the lobby of the hotel, he seemed quite cheerful.
+It was not often that he wasted his time talking to his son-in-law, but on this
+occasion he chatted with him for several minutes about the big picture-robbery
+which had formed the chief item of news on the front pages of the morning
+papers that day. It was Mr. Brewster&rsquo;s opinion that the outrage had been
+the work of a gang and that nobody was safe.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Daniel Brewster had spoken of this matter with strange earnestness, but his
+words had slipped from Archie&rsquo;s mind when he made his way that night to
+his father-in-law&rsquo;s suite. Archie was in an exalted mood. In the course
+of dinner he had had a bit of good news which was occupying his thoughts to the
+exclusion of all other matters. It had left him in a comfortable, if rather
+dizzy, condition of benevolence to all created things. He had smiled at the
+room-clerk as he crossed the lobby, and if he had had a dollar, he would have
+given it to the boy who took him up in the elevator.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+He found the door of the Brewster suite unlocked, which at any other time would
+have struck him as unusual; but to-night he was in no frame of mind to notice
+these trivialities. He went in, and, finding the room dark and no one at home,
+sat down, too absorbed in his thoughts to switch on the lights, and gave
+himself up to dreamy meditation.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+There are certain moods in which one loses count of time, and Archie could not
+have said how long he had been sitting in the deep arm-chair near the window
+when he first became aware that he was not alone in the room. He had closed his
+eyes, the better to meditate, so had not seen anyone enter. Nor had he heard
+the door open. The first intimation he had that somebody had come in was when
+some hard substance knocked against some other hard object, producing a sharp
+sound which brought him back to earth with a jerk.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+He sat up silently. The fact that the room was still in darkness made it
+obvious that something nefarious was afoot. Plainly there was dirty work in
+preparation at the cross-roads. He stared into the blackness, and, as his eyes
+grew accustomed to it, was presently able to see an indistinct form bending
+over something on the floor. The sound of rather stertorous breathing came to
+him.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Archie had many defects which prevented him being the perfect man, but lack of
+courage was not one of them. His somewhat rudimentary intelligence had
+occasionally led his superior officers during the war to thank God that Great
+Britain had a Navy, but even these stern critics had found nothing to complain
+of in the manner in which he bounded over the top. Some of us are thinkers,
+others men of action. Archie was a man of action, and he was out of his chair
+and sailing in the direction of the back of the intruder&rsquo;s neck before a
+wiser man would have completed his plan of campaign. The miscreant collapsed
+under him with a squashy sound, like the wind going out of a pair of bellows,
+and Archie, taking a firm seat on his spine, rubbed the other&rsquo;s face in
+the carpet and awaited the progress of events.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+At the end of half a minute it became apparent that there was going to be no
+counter-attack. The dashing swiftness of the assault had apparently had the
+effect of depriving the marauder of his entire stock of breath. He was gurgling
+to himself in a pained sort of way and making no effort to rise. Archie,
+feeling that it would be safe to get up and switch on the light, did so, and,
+turning after completing this manoeuvre, was greeted by the spectacle of his
+father-in-law, seated on the floor in a breathless and dishevelled condition,
+blinking at the sudden illumination. On the carpet beside Mr. Brewster lay a
+long knife, and beside the knife lay the handsomely framed masterpiece of J. B.
+Wheeler&rsquo;s fiancée, Miss Alice Wigmore. Archie stared at this collection
+dumbly.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Oh, what-ho!&rdquo; he observed at length, feebly.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+A distinct chill manifested itself in the region of Archie&rsquo;s spine. This
+could mean only one thing. His fears had been realised. The strain of modern
+life, with all its hustle and excitement, had at last proved too much for Mr.
+Brewster. Crushed by the thousand and one anxieties and worries of a
+millionaire&rsquo;s existence, Daniel Brewster had gone off his onion.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Archie was nonplussed. This was his first experience of this kind of thing.
+What, he asked himself, was the proper procedure in a situation of this sort?
+What was the local rule? Where, in a word, did he go from here? He was still
+musing in an embarrassed and baffled way, having taken the precaution of
+kicking the knife under the sofa, when Mr. Brewster spoke. And there was in,
+both the words and the method of their delivery so much of his old familiar
+self that Archie felt quite relieved.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;So it&rsquo;s you, is it, you wretched blight, you miserable
+weed!&rdquo; said Mr. Brewster, having recovered enough breath to be going on
+with. He glowered at his son-in-law despondently. &ldquo;I might have expected
+it! If I was at the North Pole, I could count on you butting in!&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Shall I get you a drink of water?&rdquo; said Archie.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;What the devil,&rdquo; demanded Mr. Brewster, &ldquo;do you imagine I
+want with a drink of water?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Well&mdash;&rdquo; Archie hesitated delicately. &ldquo;I had a sort of
+idea that you had been feeling the strain a bit. I mean to say, rush of modern
+life and all that sort of thing&mdash;&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;What are you doing in my room?&rdquo; said Mr. Brewster, changing the
+subject.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Well, I came to tell you something, and I came in here and was waiting
+for you, and I saw some chappie biffing about in the dark, and I thought it was
+a burglar or something after some of your things, so, thinking it over, I got
+the idea that it would be a fairly juicy scheme to land on him with both feet.
+No idea it was you, old thing! Frightfully sorry and all that. Meant
+well!&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Mr. Brewster sighed deeply. He was a just man, and he could not but realise
+that, in the circumstances, Archie had behaved not unnaturally.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Oh, well!&rdquo; he said. &ldquo;I might have known something would go
+wrong.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Awfully sorry!&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;It can&rsquo;t be helped. What was it you wanted to tell me?&rdquo; He
+eyed his son-in-law piercingly. &ldquo;Not a cent over twenty dollars!&rdquo;
+he said coldly.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Archie hastened to dispel the pardonable error.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Oh, it wasn&rsquo;t anything like that,&rdquo; he said. &ldquo;As a
+matter of fact, I think it&rsquo;s a good egg. It has bucked me up to no
+inconsiderable degree. I was dining with Lucille just now, and, as we dallied
+with the food-stuffs, she told me something which&mdash;well, I&rsquo;m bound
+to say, it made me feel considerably braced. She told me to trot along and ask
+you if you would mind&mdash;&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;I gave Lucille a hundred dollars only last Tuesday.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Archie was pained.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Adjust this sordid outlook, old thing!&rdquo; he urged. &ldquo;You
+simply aren&rsquo;t anywhere near it. Right off the target, absolutely! What
+Lucille told me to ask you was if you would mind&mdash;at some tolerably near
+date&mdash;being a grandfather! Rotten thing to be, of course,&rdquo; proceeded
+Archie commiseratingly, &ldquo;for a chappie of your age, but there it
+is!&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Mr. Brewster gulped.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Do you mean to say&mdash;?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;I mean, apt to make a fellow feel a bit of a patriarch. Snowy hair and
+what not. And, of course, for a chappie in the prime of life like
+you&mdash;&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Do you mean to tell me&mdash;? Is this true?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Absolutely! Of course, speaking for myself, I&rsquo;m all for it. I
+don&rsquo;t know when I&rsquo;ve felt more bucked. I sang as I came up
+here&mdash;absolutely warbled in the elevator. But you&mdash;&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+A curious change had come over Mr. Brewster. He was one of those men who have
+the appearance of having been hewn out of the solid rock, but now in some
+indescribable way he seemed to have melted. For a moment he gazed at Archie,
+then, moving quickly forward, he grasped his hand in an iron grip.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;This is the best news I&rsquo;ve ever had!&rdquo; he mumbled.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Awfully good of you to take it like this,&rdquo; said Archie cordially.
+&ldquo;I mean, being a grandfather&mdash;&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Mr. Brewster smiled. Of a man of his appearance one could hardly say that he
+smiled playfully; but there was something in his expression that remotely
+suggested playfulness.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;My dear old bean,&rdquo; he said.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Archie started.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;My dear old bean,&rdquo; repeated Mr. Brewster firmly, &ldquo;I&rsquo;m
+the happiest man in America!&rdquo; His eye fell on the picture which lay on
+the floor. He gave a slight shudder, but recovered himself immediately.
+&ldquo;After this,&rdquo; he said, &ldquo;I can reconcile myself to living with
+that thing for the rest of my life. I feel it doesn&rsquo;t matter.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;I say,&rdquo; said Archie, &ldquo;how about that? Wouldn&rsquo;t have
+brought the thing up if you hadn&rsquo;t introduced the topic, but, speaking as
+man to man, what the dickens WERE you up to when I landed on your spine just
+now?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;I suppose you thought I had gone off my head?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Well, I&rsquo;m bound to say&mdash;&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Mr. Brewster cast an unfriendly glance at the picture.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Well, I had every excuse, after living with that infernal thing for a
+week!&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Archie looked at him, astonished.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;I say, old thing, I don&rsquo;t know if I have got your meaning exactly,
+but you somehow give me the impression that you don&rsquo;t like that jolly old
+work of Art.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Like it!&rdquo; cried Mr. Brewster. &ldquo;It&rsquo;s nearly driven me
+mad! Every time it caught my eye, it gave me a pain in the neck. To-night I
+felt as if I couldn&rsquo;t stand it any longer. I didn&rsquo;t want to hurt
+Lucille&rsquo;s feelings, by telling her, so I made up my mind I would cut the
+damned thing out of its frame and tell her it had been stolen.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;What an extraordinary thing! Why, that&rsquo;s exactly what old Wheeler
+did.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Who is old Wheeler?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Artist chappie. Pal of mine. His fiancée painted the thing, and, when I
+lifted it off him, he told her it had been stolen. <i>He</i> didn&rsquo;t seem
+frightfully keen on it, either.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Your friend Wheeler has evidently good taste.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Archie was thinking.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Well, all this rather gets past me,&rdquo; he said. &ldquo;Personally,
+I&rsquo;ve always admired the thing. Dashed ripe bit of work, I&rsquo;ve always
+considered. Still, of course, if you feel that way&mdash;&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;You may take it from me that I do!&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Well, then, in that case&mdash;You know what a clumsy devil I
+am&mdash;You can tell Lucille it was all my fault&mdash;&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The Wigmore Venus smiled up at Archie&mdash;it seemed to Archie with a
+pathetic, pleading smile. For a moment he was conscious of a feeling of guilt;
+then, closing his eyes and hardening his heart, he sprang lightly in the air
+and descended with both feet on the picture. There was a sound of rending
+canvas, and the Venus ceased to smile.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Golly!&rdquo; said Archie, regarding the wreckage remorsefully.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Mr. Brewster did not share his remorse. For the second time that night he
+gripped him by the hand.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;My boy!&rdquo; he quavered. He stared at Archie as if he were seeing him
+with new eyes. &ldquo;My dear boy, you were through the war, were you
+not?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Eh? Oh yes! Right through the jolly old war.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;What was your rank?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Oh, second lieutenant.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;You ought to have been a general!&rdquo; Mr. Brewster clasped his hand
+once more in a vigorous embrace. &ldquo;I only hope,&rdquo; he added
+&ldquo;that your son will be like you!&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+There are certain compliments, or compliments coming from certain sources,
+before which modesty reels, stunned. Archie&rsquo;s did.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+He swallowed convulsively. He had never thought to hear these words from Daniel
+Brewster.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;How would it be, old thing,&rdquo; he said almost brokenly, &ldquo;if
+you and I trickled down to the bar and had a spot of sherbet?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p class="center">
+THE END
+</p>
+
+</div><!--end chapter-->
+
+<div style='display:block; margin-top:4em'>*** END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK INDISCRETIONS OF ARCHIE ***</div>
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+Project Gutenberg (https://www.gutenberg.org) public repository for
+eBook #3756 (https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/3756)
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+The Project Gutenberg EBook of Indiscretions of Archie, by P. G. Wodehouse
+
+This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with
+almost no restrictions whatsoever.  You may copy it, give it away or
+re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included
+with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org
+
+
+Title: Indiscretions of Archie
+
+Author: P. G. Wodehouse
+
+Release Date: June 25, 2008 [EBook #3756]
+
+Language: English
+
+Character set encoding: ASCII
+
+*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK INDISCRETIONS OF ARCHIE ***
+
+
+
+
+Produced by Charles Franks, Chuck Greif and the Online
+Distributed Proofreading Team
+
+
+
+
+
+
+INDISCRETIONS OF ARCHIE
+
+By P. G. Wodehouse
+
+
+It wasn't Archie's fault really. Its true he went to America and fell in
+love with Lucille, the daughter of a millionaire hotel proprietor and if
+he did marry her--well, what else was there to do?
+
+From his point of view, the whole thing was a thoroughly good egg; but
+Mr. Brewster, his father-in-law, thought differently, Archie had
+neither money nor occupation, which was distasteful in the eyes of the
+industrious Mr. Brewster; but the real bar was the fact that he had once
+adversely criticised one of his hotels.
+
+Archie does his best to heal the breach; but, being something of an ass,
+genus priceless, he finds it almost beyond his powers to placate "the
+man-eating fish" whom Providence has given him as a father-in-law
+
+
+P. G. Wodehouse
+
+AUTHOR OF "THE LITTLE WARRIOR," "A DAMSEL IN DISTRESS," "UNEASY MONEY,"
+ETC.
+
+
+NEW YORK
+
+GEORGE H. DORAN COMPANY
+
+
+COPYRIGHT,1921, BY GEORGE H, DORAN COMPANY
+
+COPYRIGHT, 1920, BY INTERNATIONAL MAGAZINE COMPANY (COSMOPOLITAN
+MAGAZINE)
+
+PRINTED IN THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA
+
+
+
+DEDICATION TO B. W. KING-HALL
+
+ My dear Buddy,--
+
+ We have been friends for eighteen years. A considerable proportion of
+ my books were written under your hospitable roof. And yet I have never
+ dedicated one to you. What will be the verdict of Posterity on this? The
+ fact is, I have become rather superstitious about dedications. No sooner
+ do you label a book with the legend--
+
+                          TO MY
+                        BEST FRIEND
+                            X
+
+ than X cuts you in Piccadilly, or you bring a lawsuit against him. There
+ is a fatality about it. However, I can't imagine anyone quarrelling
+ with you, and I am getting more attractive all the time, so let's take a
+ chance.
+
+ Yours ever,
+
+ P. G. WODEHOUSE.
+
+
+
+
+CONTENTS
+
+         I   DISTRESSING SCENE IN A HOTEL
+        II   A SHOCK FOR MR. BREWSTER
+       III   MR. BREWSTER DELIVERS SENTENCE
+        IV   WORK WANTED
+         V   STRANGE EXPERIENCE OF AN ARTIST'S MODEL
+        VI   THE BOMB
+       VII   MR. ROSCOE SHERRIFF HAS AN IDEA
+      VIII   A DISTURBED NIGHT FOR DEAR OLD SQUIFFY
+        IX   A LETTER FROM PARKER
+         X   DOING FATHER A BIT OF GOOD
+        XI   SALVATORE CHOOSES THE WRONG MOMENT
+       XII   BRIGHT EYES-AND A FLY
+      XIII   RALLYING ROUND PERCY
+       XIV   THE SAD CASE OF LOONEY BIDDLE
+        XV   SUMMER STORMS
+       XVI   ARCHIE ACCEPTS A SITUATION
+      XVII   BROTHER BILL'S ROMANCE
+     XVIII   THE SAUSAGE CHAPPIE
+       XIX   REGGIE COMES TO LIFE
+        XX   THE SAUSAGE CHAPPIE CLICKS
+       XXI   THE-GROWING BOY
+      XXII   WASHY STEPS INTO THE HALL OF FAME
+     XXIII   MOTHER'S-KNEE
+      XXIV   THE MELTING OF MR. CONNOLLY
+       XXV   THE WIGMORE VENUS
+      XXVI   A TALE OF A GRANDFATHER
+
+
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER I. DISTRESSING SCENE
+
+
+"I say, laddie!" said Archie.
+
+"Sir?" replied the desk-clerk alertly. All the employes of the Hotel
+Cosmopolis were alert. It was one of the things on which Mr. Daniel
+Brewster, the proprietor, insisted. And as he was always wandering about
+the lobby of the hotel keeping a personal eye on affairs, it was never
+safe to relax.
+
+"I want to see the manager."
+
+"Is there anything I could do, sir?"
+
+Archie looked at him doubtfully.
+
+"Well, as a matter of fact, my dear old desk-clerk," he said, "I want to
+kick up a fearful row, and it hardly seems fair to lug you into it. Why
+you, I mean to say? The blighter whose head I want on a charger is the
+bally manager."
+
+At this point a massive, grey-haired man, who had been standing close
+by, gazing on the lobby with an air of restrained severity, as if daring
+it to start anything, joined in the conversation.
+
+"I am the manager," he said.
+
+His eye was cold and hostile. Others, it seemed to say, might like
+Archie Moffam, but not he. Daniel Brewster was bristling for combat.
+What he had overheard had shocked him to the core of his being. The
+Hotel Cosmopolis was his own private, personal property, and the thing
+dearest to him in the world, after his daughter Lucille. He prided
+himself on the fact that his hotel was not like other New York hotels,
+which were run by impersonal companies and shareholders and boards of
+directors, and consequently lacked the paternal touch which made the
+Cosmopolis what it was. At other hotels things went wrong, and clients
+complained. At the Cosmopolis things never went wrong, because he was
+on the spot to see that they didn't, and as a result clients never
+complained. Yet here was this long, thin, string-bean of an Englishman
+actually registering annoyance and dissatisfaction before his very eyes.
+
+"What is your complaint?" he enquired frigidly.
+
+Archie attached himself to the top button of Mr. Brewster's coat,
+and was immediately dislodged by an irritable jerk of the other's
+substantial body.
+
+"Listen, old thing! I came over to this country to nose about in search
+of a job, because there doesn't seem what you might call a general
+demand for my services in England. Directly I was demobbed, the family
+started talking about the Land of Opportunity and shot me on to a liner.
+The idea was that I might get hold of something in America--"
+
+He got hold of Mr. Brewster's coat-button, and was again shaken off.
+
+"Between ourselves, I've never done anything much in England, and I
+fancy the family were getting a bit fed. At any rate, they sent me over
+here--"
+
+Mr. Brewster disentangled himself for the third time.
+
+"I would prefer to postpone the story of your life," he said coldly,
+"and be informed what is your specific complaint against the Hotel
+Cosmopolis."
+
+"Of course, yes. The jolly old hotel. I'm coming to that. Well, it was
+like this. A chappie on the boat told me that this was the best place to
+stop at in New York--"
+
+"He was quite right," said Mr. Brewster.
+
+"Was he, by Jove! Well, all I can say, then, is that the other New York
+hotels must be pretty mouldy, if this is the best of the lot! I took a
+room here last night," said Archie quivering with self-pity, "and there
+was a beastly tap outside somewhere which went drip-drip-drip all night
+and kept me awake."
+
+Mr. Brewster's annoyance deepened. He felt that a chink had been found
+in his armour. Not even the most paternal hotel-proprietor can keep an
+eye on every tap in his establishment.
+
+"Drip-drip-drip!" repeated Archie firmly. "And I put my boots outside
+the door when I went to bed, and this morning they hadn't been touched.
+I give you my solemn word! Not touched."
+
+"Naturally," said Mr. Brewster. "My employes are honest"
+
+"But I wanted them cleaned, dash it!"
+
+"There is a shoe-shining parlour in the basement. At the Cosmopolis
+shoes left outside bedroom doors are not cleaned."
+
+"Then I think the Cosmopolis is a bally rotten hotel!"
+
+Mr. Brewster's compact frame quivered. The unforgivable insult had been
+offered. Question the legitimacy of Mr. Brewster's parentage, knock Mr.
+Brewster down and walk on his face with spiked shoes, and you did not
+irremediably close all avenues to a peaceful settlement. But make a
+remark like that about his hotel, and war was definitely declared.
+
+"In that case," he said, stiffening, "I must ask you to give up your
+room."
+
+"I'm going to give it up! I wouldn't stay in the bally place another
+minute."
+
+Mr. Brewster walked away, and Archie charged round to the cashier's
+desk to get his bill. It had been his intention in any case, though for
+dramatic purposes he concealed it from his adversary, to leave the hotel
+that morning. One of the letters of introduction which he had brought
+over from England had resulted in an invitation from a Mrs. van Tuyl to
+her house-party at Miami, and he had decided to go there at once.
+
+"Well," mused Archie, on his way to the station, "one thing's certain.
+I'll never set foot in THAT bally place again!"
+
+But nothing in this world is certain.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER II. A SHOCK FOR MR. BREWSTER
+
+
+Mr. Daniel Brewster sat in his luxurious suite at the Cosmopolis,
+smoking one of his admirable cigars and chatting with his old friend,
+Professor Binstead. A stranger who had only encountered Mr. Brewster in
+the lobby of the hotel would have been surprised at the appearance of
+his sitting-room, for it had none of the rugged simplicity which was the
+keynote of its owner's personal appearance. Daniel Brewster was a man
+with a hobby. He was what Parker, his valet, termed a connoozer. His
+educated taste in Art was one of the things which went to make the
+Cosmopolis different from and superior to other New York hotels. He had
+personally selected the tapestries in the dining-room and the various
+paintings throughout the building. And in his private capacity he was an
+enthusiastic collector of things which Professor Binstead, whose
+tastes lay in the same direction, would have stolen without a twinge of
+conscience if he could have got the chance.
+
+The professor, a small man of middle age who wore tortoiseshell-rimmed
+spectacles, flitted covetously about the room, inspecting its treasures
+with a glistening eye. In a corner, Parker, a grave, lean individual,
+bent over the chafing-dish, in which he was preparing for his employer
+and his guest their simple lunch.
+
+"Brewster," said Professor Binstead, pausing at the mantelpiece.
+
+Mr. Brewster looked up amiably. He was in placid mood to-day. Two
+weeks and more had passed since the meeting with Archie recorded in the
+previous chapter, and he had been able to dismiss that disturbing affair
+from his mind. Since then, everything had gone splendidly with Daniel
+Brewster, for he had just accomplished his ambition of the moment
+by completing the negotiations for the purchase of a site further
+down-town, on which he proposed to erect a new hotel. He liked building
+hotels. He had the Cosmopolis, his first-born, a summer hotel in the
+mountains, purchased in the previous year, and he was toying with the
+idea of running over to England and putting up another in London, That,
+however, would have to wait. Meanwhile, he would concentrate on this new
+one down-town. It had kept him busy and worried, arranging for securing
+the site; but his troubles were over now.
+
+"Yes?" he said.
+
+Professor Binstead had picked up a small china figure of delicate
+workmanship. It represented a warrior of pre-khaki days advancing with a
+spear upon some adversary who, judging from the contented expression on
+the warrior's face, was smaller than himself.
+
+"Where did you get this?"
+
+"That? Mawson, my agent, found it in a little shop on the east side."
+
+"Where's the other? There ought to be another. These things go in pairs.
+They're valueless alone."
+
+Mr. Brewster's brow clouded.
+
+"I know that," he said shortly. "Mawson's looking for the other one
+everywhere. If you happen across it, I give you carte blanche to buy it
+for me."
+
+"It must be somewhere."
+
+"Yes. If you find it, don't worry about the expense. I'll settle up, no
+matter what it is."
+
+"I'll bear it in mind," said Professor Binstead. "It may cost you a lot
+of money. I suppose you know that."
+
+"I told you I don't care what it costs."
+
+"It's nice to be a millionaire," sighed Professor Binstead.
+
+"Luncheon is served, sir," said Parker.
+
+He had stationed himself in a statutesque pose behind Mr. Brewster's
+chair, when there was a knock at the door. He went to the door, and
+returned with a telegram.
+
+"Telegram for you, sir."
+
+Mr. Brewster nodded carelessly. The contents of the chafing-dish had
+justified the advance advertising of their odour, and he was too busy to
+be interrupted.
+
+"Put it down. And you needn't wait, Parker."
+
+"Very good, sir."
+
+The valet withdrew, and Mr. Brewster resumed his lunch.
+
+"Aren't you going to open it?" asked Professor Binstead, to whom a
+telegram was a telegram.
+
+"It can wait. I get them all day long. I expect it's from Lucille,
+saying what train she's making."
+
+"She returns to-day?"
+
+"Yes, Been at Miami." Mr. Brewster, having dwelt at adequate length on
+the contents of the chafing-dish, adjusted his glasses and took up the
+envelope. "I shall be glad--Great Godfrey!"
+
+He sat staring at the telegram, his mouth open. His friend eyed him
+solicitously.
+
+"No bad news, I hope?"
+
+Mr. Brewster gurgled in a strangled way.
+
+"Bad news? Bad--? Here, read it for yourself."
+
+Professor Binstead, one of the three most inquisitive men in New York,
+took the slip of paper with gratitude.
+
+"'Returning New York to-day with darling Archie,'" he read. "'Lots of
+love from us both. Lucille.'" He gaped at his host. "Who is Archie?" he
+enquired.
+
+"Who is Archie?" echoed Mr. Brewster helplessly. "Who is--? That's just
+what I would like to know."
+
+"'Darling Archie,'" murmured the professor, musing over the telegram.
+"'Returning to-day with darling Archie.' Strange!"
+
+Mr. Brewster continued to stare before him. When you send your only
+daughter on a visit to Miami minus any entanglements and she mentions
+in a telegram that she has acquired a darling Archie, you are naturally
+startled. He rose from the table with a bound. It had occurred to him
+that by neglecting a careful study of his mail during the past week,
+as was his bad habit when busy, he had lost an opportunity of keeping
+abreast with current happenings. He recollected now that a letter had
+arrived from Lucille some time ago, and that he had put it away unopened
+till he should have leisure to read it. Lucille was a dear girl, he had
+felt, but her letters when on a vacation seldom contained anything that
+couldn't wait a few days for a reading. He sprang for his desk, rummaged
+among his papers, and found what he was seeking.
+
+It was a long letter, and there was silence in the room for some
+moments while he mastered its contents. Then he turned to the professor,
+breathing heavily.
+
+"Good heavens!"
+
+"Yes?" said Professor Binstead eagerly. "Yes?"
+
+"Good Lord!"
+
+"Well?"
+
+"Good gracious!"
+
+"What is it?" demanded the professor in an agony.
+
+Mr. Brewster sat down again with a thud.
+
+"She's married!"
+
+"Married!"
+
+"Married! To an Englishman!"
+
+"Bless my soul!"
+
+"She says," proceeded Mr. Brewster, referring to the letter again, "that
+they were both so much in love that they simply had to slip off and get
+married, and she hopes I won't be cross. Cross!" gasped Mr. Brewster,
+gazing wildly at his friend.
+
+"Very disturbing!"
+
+"Disturbing! You bet it's disturbing! I don't know anything about
+the fellow. Never heard of him in my life. She says he wanted a quiet
+wedding because he thought a fellow looked such a chump getting married!
+And I must love him, because he's all set to love me very much!"
+
+"Extraordinary!"
+
+Mr. Brewster put the letter down.
+
+"An Englishman!"
+
+"I have met some very agreeable Englishmen," said Professor Binstead.
+
+"I don't like Englishmen," growled Mr. Brewster. "Parker's an
+Englishman."
+
+"Your valet?"
+
+"Yes. I believe he wears my shirts on the sly,'" said Mr. Brewster
+broodingly, "If I catch him--! What would you do about this, Binstead?"
+
+"Do?" The professor considered the point judiciary. "Well, really,
+Brewster, I do not see that there is anything you can do. You must
+simply wait and meet the man. Perhaps he will turn out an admirable
+son-in-law."
+
+"H'm!" Mr. Brewster declined to take an optimistic view. "But an
+Englishman, Binstead!" he said with pathos. "Why," he went on, memory
+suddenly stirring, "there was an Englishman at this hotel only a week or
+two ago who went about knocking it in a way that would have amazed you!
+Said it was a rotten place! MY hotel!"
+
+Professor Binstead clicked his tongue sympathetically. He understood his
+friend's warmth.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER III. MR. BREWSTER DELIVERS SENTENCE
+
+
+At about the same moment that Professor Binstead was clicking his tongue
+in Mr. Brewster's sitting-room, Archie Moffam sat contemplating his
+bride in a drawing-room on the express from Miami. He was thinking that
+this was too good to be true. His brain had been in something of a
+whirl these last few days, but this was one thought that never failed to
+emerge clearly from the welter.
+
+Mrs. Archie Moffam, nee Lucille Brewster, was small and slender. She
+had a little animated face, set in a cloud of dark hair. She was so
+altogether perfect that Archie had frequently found himself compelled
+to take the marriage-certificate out of his inside pocket and study it
+furtively, to make himself realise that this miracle of good fortune had
+actually happened to him.
+
+"Honestly, old bean--I mean, dear old thing,--I mean, darling," said
+Archie, "I can't believe it!"
+
+"What?"
+
+"What I mean is, I can't understand why you should have married a
+blighter like me."
+
+Lucille's eyes opened. She squeezed his hand.
+
+"Why, you're the most wonderful thing in the world, precious!--Surely
+you know that?"
+
+"Absolutely escaped my notice. Are you sure?"
+
+"Of course I'm sure! You wonder-child! Nobody could see you without
+loving you!"
+
+Archie heaved an ecstatic sigh. Then a thought crossed his mind. It was
+a thought which frequently came to mar his bliss.
+
+"I say, I wonder if your father will think that!"
+
+"Of course he will!"
+
+"We rather sprung this, as it were, on the old lad," said Archie
+dubiously. "What sort of a man IS your father?"
+
+"Father's a darling, too."
+
+"Rummy thing he should own that hotel," said Archie. "I had a frightful
+row with a blighter of a manager there just before I left for Miami.
+Your father ought to sack that chap. He was a blot on the landscape!"
+
+It had been settled by Lucille during the journey that Archie should be
+broken gently to his father-in-law. That is to say, instead of bounding
+blithely into Mr. Brewster's presence hand in hand, the happy pair
+should separate for half an hour or so, Archie hanging around in the
+offing while Lucille saw her father and told him the whole story, or
+those chapters of it which she had omitted from her letter for want of
+space. Then, having impressed Mr. Brewster sufficiently with his luck in
+having acquired Archie for a son-in-law, she would lead him to where his
+bit of good fortune awaited him.
+
+The programme worked out admirably in its earlier stages. When the two
+emerged from Mr. Brewster's room to meet Archie, Mr. Brewster's general
+idea was that fortune had smiled upon him in an almost unbelievable
+fashion and had presented him with a son-in-law who combined in almost
+equal parts the more admirable characteristics of Apollo, Sir Galahad,
+and Marcus Aurelius. True, he had gathered in the course of the
+conversation that dear Archie had no occupation and no private means;
+but Mr. Brewster felt that a great-souled man like Archie didn't need
+them. You can't have everything, and Archie, according to Lucille's
+account, was practically a hundred per cent man in soul, looks, manners,
+amiability, and breeding. These are the things that count. Mr. Brewster
+proceeded to the lobby in a glow of optimism and geniality.
+
+Consequently, when he perceived Archie, he got a bit of a shock.
+
+"Hullo--ullo--ullo!" said Archie, advancing happily.
+
+"Archie, darling, this is father," said Lucille.
+
+"Good Lord!" said Archie.
+
+There was one of those silences. Mr. Brewster looked at Archie. Archie
+gazed at Mr. Brewster. Lucille, perceiving without understanding why
+that the big introduction scene had stubbed its toe on some unlooked-for
+obstacle, waited anxiously for enlightenment. Meanwhile, Archie
+continued to inspect Mr. Brewster, and Mr. Brewster continued to drink
+in Archie.
+
+After an awkward pause of about three and a quarter minutes, Mr.
+Brewster swallowed once or twice, and finally spoke.
+
+"Lu!"
+
+"Yes, father?"
+
+"Is this true?"
+
+Lucille's grey eyes clouded over with perplexity and apprehension.
+
+"True?"
+
+"Have you really inflicted this--THIS on me for a son-in-law?" Mr.
+Brewster swallowed a few more times, Archie the while watching with
+a frozen fascination the rapid shimmying of his new relative's
+Adam's-apple. "Go away! I want to have a few words alone with
+this--This--WASSYOURDAMNAME?" he demanded, in an overwrought manner,
+addressing Archie for the first time.
+
+"I told you, father. It's Moom."
+
+"Moom?"
+
+"It's spelt M-o-f-f-a-m, but pronounced Moom."
+
+"To rhyme," said Archie, helpfully, "with Bluffinghame."
+
+"Lu," said Mr. Brewster, "run away! I want to speak to-to-to--"
+
+"You called me THIS before," said Archie.
+
+"You aren't angry, father, dear?" said Lucilla.
+
+"Oh no! Oh no! I'm tickled to death!"
+
+When his daughter had withdrawn, Mr. Brewster drew a long breath.
+
+"Now then!" he said.
+
+"Bit embarrassing, all this, what!" said Archie, chattily. "I mean
+to say, having met before in less happy circs. and what not. Rum
+coincidence and so forth! How would it be to bury the jolly old
+hatchet--start a new life--forgive and forget--learn to love each
+other--and all that sort of rot? I'm game if you are. How do we go? Is
+it a bet?"
+
+Mr. Brewster remained entirely unsoftened by this manly appeal to his
+better feelings.
+
+"What the devil do you mean by marrying my daughter?"
+
+Archie reflected.
+
+"Well, it sort of happened, don't you know! You know how these things
+ARE! Young yourself once, and all that. I was most frightfully in love,
+and Lu seemed to think it wouldn't be a bad scheme, and one thing led to
+another, and--well, there you are, don't you know!"
+
+"And I suppose you think you've done pretty well for yourself?"
+
+"Oh, absolutely! As far as I'm concerned, everything's topping! I've
+never felt so braced in my life!"
+
+"Yes!" said Mr. Brewster, with bitterness, "I suppose, from your
+view-point, everything IS 'topping.' You haven't a cent to your name,
+and you've managed to fool a rich man's daughter into marrying you. I
+suppose you looked me up in Bradstreet before committing yourself?"
+
+This aspect of the matter had not struck Archie until this moment.
+
+"I say!" he observed, with dismay. "I never looked at it like that
+before! I can see that, from your point of view, this must look like a
+bit of a wash-out!"
+
+"How do you propose to support Lucille, anyway?"
+
+Archie ran a finger round the inside of his collar. He felt embarrassed,
+His father-in-law was opening up all kinds of new lines of thought.
+
+"Well, there, old bean," he admitted, frankly, "you rather have me!"
+He turned the matter over for a moment. "I had a sort of idea of, as it
+were, working, if you know what I mean."
+
+"Working at what?"
+
+"Now, there again you stump me somewhat! The general scheme was that I
+should kind of look round, you know, and nose about and buzz to and fro
+till something turned up. That was, broadly speaking, the notion!"
+
+"And how did you suppose my daughter was to live while you were doing
+all this?"
+
+"Well, I think," said Archie, "I THINK we rather expected YOU to rally
+round a bit for the nonce!"
+
+"I see! You expected to live on me?"
+
+"Well, you put it a bit crudely, but--as far as I had mapped anything
+out--that WAS what you might call the general scheme of procedure. You
+don't think much of it, what? Yes? No?"
+
+Mr. Brewster exploded.
+
+"No! I do not think much of it! Good God! You go out of my hotel--MY
+hotel--calling it all the names you could think of--roasting it to beat
+the band--"
+
+"Trifle hasty!" murmured Archie, apologetically. "Spoke without
+thinking. Dashed tap had gone DRIP-DRIP-DRIP all night--kept me
+awake--hadn't had breakfast--bygones be bygones--!"
+
+"Don't interrupt! I say, you go out of my hotel, knocking it as no one
+has ever knocked it since it was built, and you sneak straight off and
+marry my daughter without my knowledge."
+
+"Did think of wiring for blessing. Slipped the old bean, somehow. You
+know how one forgets things!"
+
+"And now you come back and calmly expect me to fling my arms round you
+and kiss you, and support you for the rest of your life!"
+
+"Only while I'm nosing about and buzzing to and fro."
+
+"Well, I suppose I've got to support you. There seems no way out of
+it. I'll tell you exactly what I propose to do. You think my hotel is
+a pretty poor hotel, eh? Well, you'll have plenty of opportunity of
+judging, because you're coming to live here. I'll let you have a suite
+and I'll let you have your meals, but outside of that--nothing doing!
+Nothing doing! Do you understand what I mean?"
+
+"Absolutely! You mean, 'Napoo!'"
+
+"You can sign bills for a reasonable amount in my restaurant, and the
+hotel will look after your laundry. But not a cent do you get out me.
+And, if you want your shoes shined, you can pay for it yourself in
+the basement. If you leave them outside your door, I'll instruct the
+floor-waiter to throw them down the air-shaft. Do you understand? Good!
+Now, is there anything more you want to ask?"
+
+Archie smiled a propitiatory smile.
+
+"Well, as a matter of fact, I was going to ask if you would stagger
+along and have a bite with us in the grill-room?"
+
+"I will not!"
+
+"I'll sign the bill," said Archie, ingratiatingly. "You don't think much
+of it? Oh, right-o!"
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER IV. WORK WANTED
+
+
+It seemed to Archie, as he surveyed his position at the end of the first
+month of his married life, that all was for the best in the best of all
+possible worlds. In their attitude towards America, visiting Englishmen
+almost invariably incline to extremes, either detesting all that therein
+is or else becoming enthusiasts on the subject of the country, its
+climate, and its institutions. Archie belonged to the second class. He
+liked America and got on splendidly with Americans from the start. He
+was a friendly soul, a mixer; and in New York, that city of mixers,
+he found himself at home. The atmosphere of good-fellowship and the
+open-hearted hospitality of everybody he met appealed to him. There were
+moments when it seemed to him as though New York had simply been waiting
+for him to arrive before giving the word to let the revels commence.
+
+Nothing, of course, in this world is perfect; and, rosy as were the
+glasses through which Archie looked on his new surroundings, he had to
+admit that there was one flaw, one fly in the ointment, one individual
+caterpillar in the salad. Mr. Daniel Brewster, his father-in-law,
+remained consistently unfriendly. Indeed, his manner towards his new
+relative became daily more and more a manner which would have caused
+gossip on the plantation if Simon Legree had exhibited it in his
+relations with Uncle Tom. And this in spite of the fact that Archie, as
+early as the third morning of his stay, had gone to him and in the
+most frank and manly way, had withdrawn his criticism of the Hotel
+Cosmopolis, giving it as his considered opinion that the Hotel
+Cosmopolis on closer inspection appeared to be a good egg, one of the
+best and brightest, and a bit of all right.
+
+"A credit to you, old thing," said Archie cordially.
+
+"Don't call me old thing!" growled Mr. Brewster.
+
+"Right-o, old companion!" said Archie amiably.
+
+Archie, a true philosopher, bore this hostility with fortitude, but it
+worried Lucille.
+
+"I do wish father understood you better," was her wistful comment when
+Archie had related the conversation.
+
+"Well, you know," said Archie, "I'm open for being understood any time
+he cares to take a stab at it."
+
+"You must try and make him fond of you."
+
+"But how? I smile winsomely at him and what not, but he doesn't
+respond."
+
+"Well, we shall have to think of something. I want him to realise what
+an angel you are. You ARE an angel, you know."
+
+"No, really?"
+
+"Of course you are."
+
+"It's a rummy thing," said Archie, pursuing a train of thought which was
+constantly with him, "the more I see of you, the more I wonder how you
+can have a father like--I mean to say, what I mean to say is, I wish I
+had known your mother; she must have been frightfully attractive."
+
+"What would really please him, I know," said Lucille, "would be if you
+got some work to do. He loves people who work."
+
+"Yes?" said Archie doubtfully. "Well, you know, I heard him interviewing
+that chappie behind the desk this morning, who works like the dickens
+from early morn to dewy eve, on the subject of a mistake in his figures;
+and, if he loved him, he dissembled it all right. Of course, I admit
+that so far I haven't been one of the toilers, but the dashed difficult
+thing is to know how to start. I'm nosing round, but the openings for a
+bright young man seem so scarce."
+
+"Well, keep on trying. I feel sure that, if you could only find
+something to do, it doesn't matter what, father would be quite
+different."
+
+It was possibly the dazzling prospect of making Mr. Brewster quite
+different that stimulated Archie. He was strongly of the opinion that
+any change in his father-in-law must inevitably be for the better. A
+chance meeting with James B. Wheeler, the artist, at the Pen-and-Ink
+Club seemed to open the way.
+
+To a visitor to New York who has the ability to make himself liked
+it almost appears as though the leading industry in that city was
+the issuing of two-weeks' invitation-cards to clubs. Archie since
+his arrival had been showered with these pleasant evidences of his
+popularity; and he was now an honorary member of so many clubs of
+various kinds that he had not time to go to them all. There were the
+fashionable clubs along Fifth Avenue to which his friend Reggie van
+Tuyl, son of his Florida hostess, had introduced him. There were the
+businessmen's clubs of which he was made free by more solid citizens.
+And, best of all, there were the Lambs', the Players', the Friars', the
+Coffee-House, the Pen-and-Ink,--and the other resorts of the artist, the
+author, the actor, and the Bohemian. It was in these that Archie spent
+most of his time, and it was here that he made the acquaintance of J. B.
+Wheeler, the popular illustrator.
+
+To Mr. Wheeler, over a friendly lunch, Archie had been confiding
+some of his ambitions to qualify as the hero of one of the
+Get-on-or-get-out-young-man-step-lively-books.
+
+"You want a job?" said Mr. Wheeler.
+
+"I want a job," said Archie.
+
+Mr. Wheeler consumed eight fried potatoes in quick succession. He was an
+able trencherman.
+
+"I always looked on you as one of our leading lilies of the field," he
+said. "Why this anxiety to toil and spin?"
+
+"Well, my wife, you know, seems to think it might put me one-up with the
+jolly old dad if I did something."
+
+"And you're not particular what you do, so long as it has the outer
+aspect of work?"
+
+"Anything in the world, laddie, anything in the world."
+
+"Then come and pose for a picture I'm doing," said J. B. Wheeler. "It's
+for a magazine cover. You're just the model I want, and I'll pay you at
+the usual rates. Is it a go?"
+
+"Pose?"
+
+"You've only got to stand still and look like a chunk of wood. You can
+do that, surely?"
+
+"I can do that," said Archie.
+
+"Then come along down to my studio to-morrow."
+
+"Right-o!" said Archie.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER V. STRANGE EXPERIENCES OF AN ARTIST'S MODEL
+
+
+"I say, old thing!"
+
+Archie spoke plaintively. Already he was looking back ruefully to the
+time when he had supposed that an artist's model had a soft job. In the
+first five minutes muscles which he had not been aware that he possessed
+had started to ache like neglected teeth. His respect for the toughness
+and durability of artists' models was now solid. How they acquired the
+stamina to go through this sort of thing all day and then bound off to
+Bohemian revels at night was more than he could understand.
+
+"Don't wobble, confound you!" snorted Mr. Wheeler.
+
+"Yes, but, my dear old artist," said Archie, "what you don't seem to
+grasp--what you appear not to realise--is that I'm getting a crick in
+the back."
+
+"You weakling! You miserable, invertebrate worm. Move an inch and
+I'll murder you, and come and dance on your grave every Wednesday and
+Saturday. I'm just getting it."
+
+"It's in the spine that it seems to catch me principally."
+
+"Be a man, you faint-hearted string-bean!" urged J. B. Wheeler. "You
+ought to be ashamed of yourself. Why, a girl who was posing for me last
+week stood for a solid hour on one leg, holding a tennis racket over her
+head and smiling brightly withal."
+
+"The female of the species is more india-rubbery than the male," argued
+Archie.
+
+"Well, I'll be through in a few minutes. Don't weaken. Think how proud
+you'll be when you see yourself on all the bookstalls."
+
+Archie sighed, and braced himself to the task once more. He wished he
+had never taken on this binge. In addition to his physical discomfort,
+he was feeling a most awful chump. The cover on which Mr. Wheeler was
+engaged was for the August number of the magazine, and it had been
+necessary for Archie to drape his reluctant form in a two-piece bathing
+suit of a vivid lemon colour; for he was supposed to be representing one
+of those jolly dogs belonging to the best families who dive off floats
+at exclusive seashore resorts. J. B. Wheeler, a stickler for accuracy,
+had wanted him to remove his socks and shoes; but there Archie had stood
+firm. He was willing to make an ass of himself, but not a silly ass.
+
+"All right," said J. B. Wheeler, laying down his brush. "That will do
+for to-day. Though, speaking without prejudice and with no wish to be
+offensive, if I had had a model who wasn't a weak-kneed, jelly-backboned
+son of Belial, I could have got the darned thing finished without having
+to have another sitting."
+
+"I wonder why you chappies call this sort of thing 'sitting,'" said
+Archie, pensively, as he conducted tentative experiments in osteopathy
+on his aching back. "I say, old thing, I could do with a restorative, if
+you have one handy. But, of course, you haven't, I suppose," he added,
+resignedly. Abstemious as a rule, there were moments when Archie found
+the Eighteenth Amendment somewhat trying.
+
+J. B. Wheeler shook his head.
+
+"You're a little previous," he said. "But come round in another day or
+so, and I may be able to do something for you." He moved with a certain
+conspirator-like caution to a corner of the room, and, lifting to one
+side a pile of canvases, revealed a stout barrel, which, he regarded
+with a fatherly and benignant eye. "I don't mind telling you that, in
+the fullness of time, I believe this is going to spread a good deal of
+sweetness and light."
+
+"Oh, ah," said Archie, interested. "Home-brew, what?"
+
+"Made with these hands. I added a few more raisins yesterday, to speed
+things up a bit. There is much virtue in your raisin. And, talking of
+speeding things up, for goodness' sake try to be a bit more punctual
+to-morrow. We lost an hour of good daylight to-day."
+
+"I like that! I was here on the absolute minute. I had to hang about on
+the landing waiting for you."
+
+"Well, well, that doesn't matter," said J. B. Wheeler, impatiently, for
+the artist soul is always annoyed by petty details. "The point is that
+we were an hour late in getting to work. Mind you're here to-morrow at
+eleven sharp."
+
+It was, therefore, with a feeling of guilt and trepidation that Archie
+mounted the stairs on the following morning; for in spite of his good
+resolutions he was half an hour behind time. He was relieved to find
+that his friend had also lagged by the wayside. The door of the studio
+was ajar, and he went in, to discover the place occupied by a lady of
+mature years, who was scrubbing the floor with a mop. He went into the
+bedroom and donned his bathing suit. When he emerged, ten minutes later,
+the charwoman had gone, but J. B. Wheeler was still absent. Rather glad
+of the respite, he sat down to kill time by reading the morning paper,
+whose sporting page alone he had managed to master at the breakfast
+table.
+
+There was not a great deal in the paper to interest him. The usual
+bond-robbery had taken place on the previous day, and the police were
+reported hot on the trail of the Master-Mind who was alleged to be at
+the back of these financial operations. A messenger named Henry Babcock
+had been arrested and was expected to become confidential. To one who,
+like Archie, had never owned a bond, the story made little appeal. He
+turned with more interest to a cheery half-column on the activities of a
+gentleman in Minnesota who, with what seemed to Archie, as he thought
+of Mr. Daniel Brewster, a good deal of resource and public spirit, had
+recently beaned his father-in-law with the family meat-axe. It was only
+after he had read this through twice in a spirit of gentle approval that
+it occurred to him that J. B. Wheeler was uncommonly late at the
+tryst. He looked at his watch, and found that he had been in the studio
+three-quarters of an hour.
+
+Archie became restless. Long-suffering old bean though he was, he
+considered this a bit thick. He got up and went out on to the landing,
+to see if there were any signs of the blighter. There were none. He
+began to understand now what had happened. For some reason or other the
+bally artist was not coming to the studio at all that day. Probably he
+had called up the hotel and left a message to this effect, and Archie
+had just missed it. Another man might have waited to make certain that
+his message had reached its destination, but not woollen-headed Wheeler,
+the most casual individual in New York.
+
+Thoroughly aggrieved, Archie turned back to the studio to dress and go
+away.
+
+His progress was stayed by a solid, forbidding slab of oak. Somehow or
+other, since he had left the room, the door had managed to get itself
+shut.
+
+"Oh, dash it!" said Archie.
+
+The mildness of the expletive was proof that the full horror of the
+situation had not immediately come home to him. His mind in the first
+few moments was occupied with the problem of how the door had got
+that way. He could not remember shutting it. Probably he had done it
+unconsciously. As a child, he had been taught by sedulous elders that
+the little gentleman always closed doors behind him, and presumably his
+subconscious self was still under the influence. And then, suddenly, he
+realised that this infernal, officious ass of a subconscious self had
+deposited him right in the gumbo. Behind that closed door, unattainable
+as youthful ambition, lay his gent's heather-mixture with the green
+twill, and here he was, out in the world, alone, in a lemon-coloured
+bathing suit.
+
+In all crises of human affairs there are two broad courses open to a
+man. He can stay where he is or he can go elsewhere. Archie, leaning on
+the banisters, examined these alternatives narrowly. If he stayed where
+he was he would have to spend the night on this dashed landing. If he
+legged it, in this kit, he would be gathered up by the constabulary
+before he had gone a hundred yards. He was no pessimist, but he was
+reluctantly forced to the conclusion that he was up against it.
+
+It was while he was musing with a certain tenseness on these things that
+the sound of footsteps came to him from below. But almost in the first
+instant the hope that this might be J. B. Wheeler, the curse of the
+human race, died away. Whoever was coming up the stairs was running, and
+J. B. Wheeler never ran upstairs. He was not one of your lean, haggard,
+spiritual-looking geniuses. He made a large income with his brush and
+pencil, and spent most of it in creature comforts. This couldn't be J.
+B. Wheeler.
+
+It was not. It was a tall, thin man whom he had never seen before. He
+appeared to be in a considerable hurry. He let himself into the studio
+on the floor below, and vanished without even waiting to shut the door.
+
+He had come and disappeared in almost record time, but, brief though
+his passing had been, it had been long enough to bring consolation to
+Archie. A sudden bright light had been vouchsafed to Archie, and he now
+saw an admirably ripe and fruity scheme for ending his troubles. What
+could be simpler than to toddle down one flight of stairs and in an easy
+and debonair manner ask the chappie's permission to use his telephone?
+And what could be simpler, once he was at the 'phone, than to get in
+touch with somebody at the Cosmopolis who would send down a few trousers
+and what not in a kit bag. It was a priceless solution, thought Archie,
+as he made his way downstairs. Not even embarrassing, he meant to say.
+This chappie, living in a place like this, wouldn't bat an eyelid at the
+spectacle of a fellow trickling about the place in a bathing suit. They
+would have a good laugh about the whole thing.
+
+"I say, I hate to bother you--dare say you're busy and all that sort of
+thing--but would you mind if I popped in for half a second and used your
+'phone?"
+
+That was the speech, the extremely gentlemanly and well-phrased speech,
+which Archie had prepared to deliver the moment the man appeared.
+The reason he did not deliver it was that the man did not appear. He
+knocked, but nothing stirred.
+
+"I say!"
+
+Archie now perceived that the door was ajar, and that on an envelope
+attached with a tack to one of the panels was the name "Elmer M. Moon"
+He pushed the door a little farther open and tried again.
+
+"Oh, Mr. Moon! Mr. Moon!" He waited a moment. "Oh, Mr. Moon! Mr. Moon!
+Are you there, Mr. Moon?"
+
+He blushed hotly. To his sensitive ear the words had sounded exactly
+like the opening line of the refrain of a vaudeville song-hit. He
+decided to waste no further speech on a man with such an unfortunate
+surname until he could see him face to face and get a chance of lowering
+his voice a bit. Absolutely absurd to stand outside a chappie's door
+singing song-hits in a lemon-coloured bathing suit. He pushed the door
+open and walked in; and his subconscious self, always the gentleman,
+closed it gently behind him.
+
+"Up!" said a low, sinister, harsh, unfriendly, and unpleasant voice.
+
+"Eh?" said Archie, revolving sharply on his axis.
+
+He found himself confronting the hurried gentleman who had run upstairs.
+This sprinter had produced an automatic pistol, and was pointing it in
+a truculent manner at his head. Archie stared at his host, and his host
+stared at him.
+
+"Put your hands up," he said.
+
+"Oh, right-o! Absolutely!" said Archie. "But I mean to say--"
+
+The other was drinking him in with considerable astonishment. Archie's
+costume seemed to have made a powerful impression upon him.
+
+"Who the devil are you?" he enquired.
+
+"Me? Oh, my name's--"
+
+"Never mind your name. What are you doing here?"
+
+"Well, as a matter of fact, I popped in to ask if I might use your
+'phone. You see--"
+
+A certain relief seemed to temper the austerity of the other's gaze. As
+a visitor, Archie, though surprising, seemed to be better than he had
+expected.
+
+"I don't know what to do with you," he said, meditatively.
+
+"If you'd just let me toddle to the 'phone--"
+
+"Likely!" said the man. He appeared to reach a decision. "Here, go into
+that room."
+
+He indicated with a jerk of his head the open door of what was
+apparently a bedroom at the farther end of the studio.
+
+"I take it," said Archie, chattily, "that all this may seem to you not a
+little rummy."
+
+"Get on!"
+
+"I was only saying--"
+
+"Well, I haven't time to listen. Get a move on!"
+
+The bedroom was in a state of untidiness which eclipsed anything which
+Archie had ever witnessed. The other appeared to be moving house. Bed,
+furniture, and floor were covered with articles of clothing. A silk
+shirt wreathed itself about Archie's ankles as he stood gaping, and,
+as he moved farther into the room, his path was paved with ties and
+collars.
+
+"Sit down!" said Elmer M. Moon, abruptly.
+
+"Right-o! Thanks," said Archie, "I suppose you wouldn't like me to
+explain, and what not, what?"
+
+"No!" said Mr. Moon. "I haven't got your spare time. Put your hands
+behind that chair."
+
+Archie did so, and found them immediately secured by what felt like a
+silk tie. His assiduous host then proceeded to fasten his ankles in a
+like manner. This done, he seemed to feel that he had done all that
+was required of him, and he returned to the packing of a large suitcase
+which stood by the window.
+
+"I say!" said Archie.
+
+Mr. Moon, with the air of a man who has remembered something which
+he had overlooked, shoved a sock in his guest's mouth and resumed his
+packing. He was what might be called an impressionist packer. His aim
+appeared to be speed rather than neatness. He bundled his belongings in,
+closed the bag with some difficulty, and, stepping to the window, opened
+it. Then he climbed out on to the fire-escape, dragged the suit-case
+after him, and was gone.
+
+Archie, left alone, addressed himself to the task of freeing his
+prisoned limbs. The job proved much easier than he had expected. Mr.
+Moon, that hustler, had wrought for the moment, not for all time. A
+practical man, he had been content to keep his visitor shackled merely
+for such a period as would permit him to make his escape unhindered. In
+less than ten minutes Archie, after a good deal of snake-like writhing,
+was pleased to discover that the thingummy attached to his wrists had
+loosened sufficiently to enable him to use his hands. He untied himself
+and got up.
+
+He now began to tell himself that out of evil cometh good. His encounter
+with the elusive Mr. Moon had not been an agreeable one, but it had
+had this solid advantage, that it had left him right in the middle of
+a great many clothes. And Mr. Moon, whatever his moral defects, had the
+one excellent quality of taking about the same size as himself. Archie,
+casting a covetous eye upon a tweed suit which lay on the bed, was on
+the point of climbing into the trousers when on the outer door of the
+studio there sounded a forceful knocking.
+
+"Open up here!"
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VI. THE BOMB
+
+
+Archie bounded silently out into the other room and stood listening
+tensely. He was not a naturally querulous man, but he did feel at this
+point that Fate was picking on him with a somewhat undue severity.
+
+"In th' name av th' Law!"
+
+There are times when the best of us lose our heads. At this juncture
+Archie should undoubtedly have gone to the door, opened it, explained
+his presence in a few well-chosen words, and generally have passed the
+whole thing off with ready tact. But the thought of confronting a posse
+of police in his present costume caused him to look earnestly about him
+for a hiding-place.
+
+Up against the farther wall was a settee with a high, arching back,
+which might have been put there for that special purpose. He inserted
+himself behind this, just as a splintering crash announced that the Law,
+having gone through the formality of knocking with its knuckles, was now
+getting busy with an axe. A moment later the door had given way, and the
+room was full of trampling feet. Archie wedged himself against the wall
+with the quiet concentration of a clam nestling in its shell, and hoped
+for the best.
+
+It seemed to him that his immediate future depended for better or for
+worse entirely on the native intelligence of the Force. If they were the
+bright, alert men he hoped they were, they would see all that junk in
+the bedroom and, deducing from it that their quarry had stood not
+upon the order of his going but had hopped it, would not waste time in
+searching a presumably empty apartment. If, on the other hand, they were
+the obtuse, flat-footed persons who occasionally find their way into
+the ranks of even the most enlightened constabularies, they would
+undoubtedly shift the settee and drag him into a publicity from which
+his modest soul shrank. He was enchanted, therefore, a few moments
+later, to hear a gruff voice state that th' mutt had beaten it down
+th' fire-escape. His opinion of the detective abilities of the New York
+police force rose with a bound.
+
+There followed a brief council of war, which, as it took place in the
+bedroom, was inaudible to Archie except as a distant growling noise.
+He could distinguish no words, but, as it was succeeded by a general
+trampling of large boots in the direction of the door and then by
+silence, he gathered that the pack, having drawn the studio and found
+it empty, had decided to return to other and more profitable duties. He
+gave them a reasonable interval for removing themselves, and then poked
+his head cautiously over the settee.
+
+All was peace. The place was empty. No sound disturbed the stillness.
+
+Archie emerged. For the first time in this morning of disturbing
+occurrences he began to feel that God was in his heaven and all right
+with the world. At last things were beginning to brighten up a bit, and
+life might be said to have taken on some of the aspects of a good egg.
+He stretched himself, for it is cramping work lying under settees, and,
+proceeding to the bedroom, picked up the tweed trousers again.
+
+Clothes had a fascination for Archie. Another man, in similar
+circumstances, might have hurried over his toilet; but Archie, faced by
+a difficult choice of ties, rather strung the thing out. He selected a
+specimen which did great credit to the taste of Mr. Moon, evidently
+one of our snappiest dressers, found that it did not harmonise with the
+deeper meaning of the tweed suit, removed it, chose another, and was
+adjusting the bow and admiring the effect, when his attention was
+diverted by a slight sound which was half a cough and half a sniff; and,
+turning, found himself gazing into the clear blue eyes of a large man
+in uniform, who had stepped into the room from the fire-escape. He was
+swinging a substantial club in a negligent sort of way, and he looked at
+Archie with a total absence of bonhomie.
+
+"Ah!" he observed.
+
+"Oh, THERE you are!" said Archie, subsiding weakly against the chest
+of drawers. He gulped. "Of course, I can see you're thinking all this
+pretty tolerably weird and all that," he proceeded, in a propitiatory
+voice.
+
+The policeman attempted no analysis of his emotions, He opened a mouth
+which a moment before had looked incapable of being opened except with
+the assistance of powerful machinery, and shouted a single word.
+
+"Cassidy!"
+
+A distant voice gave tongue in answer. It was like alligators roaring to
+their mates across lonely swamps.
+
+There was a rumble of footsteps in the region of the stairs, and
+presently there entered an even larger guardian of the Law than the
+first exhibit. He, too, swung a massive club, and, like his colleague,
+he gazed frostily at Archie.
+
+"God save Ireland!" he remarked.
+
+The words appeared to be more in the nature of an expletive than a
+practical comment on the situation. Having uttered them, he draped
+himself in the doorway like a colossus, and chewed gum.
+
+"Where ja get him?" he enquired, after a pause.
+
+"Found him in here attimpting to disguise himself."
+
+"I told Cap. he was hiding somewheres, but he would have it that he'd
+beat it down th' escape," said the gum-chewer, with the sombre triumph
+of the underling whose sound advice has been overruled by those above
+him. He shifted his wholesome (or, as some say, unwholesome) morsel to
+the other side of his mouth, and for the first time addressed Archie
+directly. "Ye're pinched!" he observed.
+
+Archie started violently. The bleak directness of the speech roused him
+with a jerk from the dream-like state into which he had fallen. He had
+not anticipated this. He had assumed that there would be a period of
+tedious explanations to be gone through before he was at liberty to
+depart to the cosy little lunch for which his interior had been sighing
+wistfully this long time past; but that he should be arrested had been
+outside his calculations. Of course, he could put everything right
+eventually; he could call witnesses to his character and the purity of
+his intentions; but in the meantime the whole dashed business would be
+in all the papers, embellished with all those unpleasant flippancies to
+which your newspaper reporter is so prone to stoop when he sees half a
+chance. He would feel a frightful chump. Chappies would rot him about it
+to the most fearful extent. Old Brewster's name would come into it, and
+he could not disguise it from himself that his father-in-law, who liked
+his name in the papers as little as possible, would be sorer than a
+sunburned neck.
+
+"No, I say, you know! I mean, I mean to say!"
+
+"Pinched!" repeated the rather larger policeman.
+
+"And annything ye say," added his slightly smaller colleague, "will be
+used agenst ya 't the trial."
+
+"And if ya try t'escape," said the first speaker, twiddling his club,
+"ya'll getja block knocked off."
+
+And, having sketched out this admirably clear and neatly-constructed
+scenario, the two relapsed into silence. Officer Cassidy restored his
+gum to circulation. Officer Donahue frowned sternly at his boots.
+
+"But, I say," said Archie, "it's all a mistake, you know. Absolutely a
+frightful error, my dear old constables. I'm not the lad you're after
+at all. The chappie you want is a different sort of fellow altogether.
+Another blighter entirely."
+
+New York policemen never laugh when on duty. There is probably something
+in the regulations against it. But Officer Donahue permitted the left
+corner of his mouth to twitch slightly, and a momentary muscular spasm
+disturbed the calm of Officer Cassidy's granite features, as a passing
+breeze ruffles the surface of some bottomless lake.
+
+"That's what they all say!" observed Officer Donahue.
+
+"It's no use tryin' that line of talk," said Officer Cassidy. "Babcock's
+squealed."
+
+"Sure. Squealed 's morning," said Officer Donahue.
+
+Archie's memory stirred vaguely.
+
+"Babcock?" he said. "Do you know, that name seems familiar to me,
+somehow. I'm almost sure I've read it in the paper or something."
+
+"Ah, cut it out!" said Officer Cassidy, disgustedly. The two constables
+exchanged a glance of austere disapproval. This hypocrisy pained them.
+"Read it in th' paper or something!"
+
+"By Jove! I remember now. He's the chappie who was arrested in that
+bond business. For goodness' sake, my dear, merry old constables," said
+Archie, astounded, "you surely aren't labouring under the impression
+that I'm the Master-Mind they were talking about in the paper? Why, what
+an absolutely priceless notion! I mean to say, I ask you, what! Frankly,
+laddies, do I look like a Master-Mind?"
+
+Officer Cassidy heaved a deep sigh, which rumbled up from his interior
+like the first muttering of a cyclone.
+
+"If I'd known," he said, regretfully, "that this guy was going to turn
+out a ruddy Englishman, I'd have taken a slap at him with m' stick and
+chanced it!"
+
+Officer Donahue considered the point well taken.
+
+"Ah!" he said, understandingly. He regarded Archie with an unfriendly
+eye. "I know th' sort well! Trampling on th' face av th' poor!"
+
+"Ya c'n trample on the poor man's face," said Officer Cassidy, severely;
+"but don't be surprised if one day he bites you in the leg!"
+
+"But, my dear old sir," protested Archie, "I've never trampled--"
+
+"One of these days," said Officer Donahue, moodily, "the Shannon will
+flow in blood to the sea!"
+
+"Absolutely! But--"
+
+Officer Cassidy uttered a glad cry.
+
+"Why couldn't we hit him a lick," he suggested, brightly, "an' tell th'
+Cap. he resisted us in th' exercise of our jooty?"
+
+An instant gleam of approval and enthusiasm came into Officer Donahue's
+eyes. Officer Donahue was not a man who got these luminous inspirations
+himself, but that did not prevent him appreciating them in others and
+bestowing commendation in the right quarter. There was nothing petty or
+grudging about Officer Donahue.
+
+"Ye're the lad with the head, Tim!" he exclaimed admiringly.
+
+"It just sorta came to me," said Mr. Cassidy, modestly.
+
+"It's a great idea, Timmy!"
+
+"Just happened to think of it," said Mr. Cassidy, with a coy gesture of
+self-effacement.
+
+Archie had listened to the dialogue with growing uneasiness. Not for the
+first time since he had made their acquaintance, he became vividly aware
+of the exceptional physical gifts of these two men. The New York police
+force demands from those who would join its ranks an extremely high
+standard of stature and sinew, but it was obvious that jolly old Donahue
+and Cassidy must have passed in first shot without any difficulty
+whatever.
+
+"I say, you know," he observed, apprehensively.
+
+And then a sharp and commanding voice spoke from the outer room.
+
+"Donahue! Cassidy! What the devil does this mean?"
+
+Archie had a momentary impression that an angel had fluttered down to
+his rescue. If this was the case, the angel had assumed an effective
+disguise--that of a police captain. The new arrival was a far smaller
+man than his subordinates--so much smaller that it did Archie good to
+look at him. For a long time he had been wishing that it were possible
+to rest his eyes with the spectacle of something of a slightly less
+out-size nature than his two companions.
+
+"Why have you left your posts?"
+
+The effect of the interruption on the Messrs. Cassidy and Donahue
+was pleasingly instantaneous. They seemed to shrink to almost normal
+proportions, and their manner took on an attractive deference.
+
+Officer Donahue saluted.
+
+"If ye plaze, sorr--"
+
+Officer Cassidy also saluted, simultaneously.
+
+"'Twas like this, sorr--"
+
+The captain froze Officer Cassidy with a glance and, leaving him
+congealed, turned to Officer Donahue.
+
+"Oi wuz standing on th' fire-escape, sorr," said Officer Donahue, in
+a tone of obsequious respect which not only delighted, but astounded
+Archie, who hadn't known he could talk like that, "accordin' to
+instructions, when I heard a suspicious noise. I crope in, sorr, and
+found this duck--found the accused, sorr--in front of the mirror,
+examinin' himself. I then called to Officer Cassidy for assistance. We
+pinched--arrested um, sorr."
+
+The captain looked at Archie. It seemed to Archie that he looked at him
+coldly and with contempt.
+
+"Who is he?"
+
+"The Master-Mind, sorr."
+
+"The what?"
+
+"The accused, sorr. The man that's wanted."
+
+"You may want him. I don't," said the captain. Archie, though relieved,
+thought he might have put it more nicely. "This isn't Moon. It's not a
+bit like him."
+
+"Absolutely not!" agreed Archie, cordially. "It's all a mistake, old
+companion, as I was trying to--"
+
+"Cut it out!"
+
+"Oh, right-o!"
+
+"You've seen the photographs at the station. Do you mean to tell me you
+see any resemblance?"
+
+"If ye plaze, sorr," said Officer Cassidy, coming to life.
+
+"Well?"
+
+"We thought he'd bin disguising himself, the way he wouldn't be
+recognised."
+
+"You're a fool!" said the captain.
+
+"Yes, sorr," said Officer Cassidy, meekly.
+
+"So are you, Donahue."
+
+"Yes, sorr."
+
+Archie's respect for this chappie was going up all the time. He seemed
+to be able to take years off the lives of these massive blighters with a
+word. It was like the stories you read about lion-tamers. Archie did
+not despair of seeing Officer Donahue and his old college chum Cassidy
+eventually jumping through hoops.
+
+"Who are you?" demanded the captain, turning to Archie.
+
+"Well, my name is--"
+
+"What are you doing here?"
+
+"Well, it's rather a longish story, you know. Don't want to bore you,
+and all that."
+
+"I'm here to listen. You can't bore ME."
+
+"Dashed nice of you to put it like that," said Archie, gratefully. "I
+mean to say, makes it easier and so forth. What I mean is, you know how
+rotten you feel telling the deuce of a long yarn and wondering if the
+party of the second part is wishing you would turn off the tap and go
+home. I mean--"
+
+"If," said the captain, "you're reciting something, stop. If you're
+trying to tell me what you're doing here, make it shorter and easier."
+
+Archie saw his point. Of course, time was money--the modern spirit of
+hustle--all that sort of thing.
+
+"Well, it was this bathing suit, you know," he said.
+
+"What bathing suit?"
+
+"Mine, don't you know, A lemon-coloured contrivance. Rather bright and
+so forth, but in its proper place not altogether a bad egg. Well, the
+whole thing started, you know, with my standing on a bally pedestal sort
+of arrangement in a diving attitude--for the cover, you know. I don't
+know if you have ever done anything of that kind yourself, but it gives
+you a most fearful crick in the spine. However, that's rather beside the
+point, I suppose--don't know why I mentioned it. Well, this morning he
+was dashed late, so I went out--"
+
+"What the devil are you talking about?"
+
+Archie looked at him, surprised.
+
+"Aren't I making it clear?"
+
+"No."
+
+"Well, you understand about the bathing suit, don't you? The jolly old
+bathing suit, you've grasped that, what?"
+
+"No."
+
+"Oh, I say," said Archie. "That's rather a nuisance. I mean to say,
+the bathing suit's what you might call the good old pivot of the whole
+dashed affair, you see. Well, you understand about the cover, what?
+You're pretty clear on the subject of the cover?"
+
+"What cover?"
+
+"Why, for the magazine."
+
+"What magazine?"
+
+"Now there you rather have me. One of these bright little periodicals,
+you know, that you see popping to and fro on the bookstalls."
+
+"I don't know what you're talking about," said the captain. He looked at
+Archie with an expression of distrust and hostility. "And I'll tell you
+straight out I don't like the looks of you. I believe you're a pal of
+his."
+
+"No longer," said Archie, firmly. "I mean to say, a chappie who makes
+you stand on a bally pedestal sort of arrangement and get a crick in
+the spine, and then doesn't turn up and leaves you biffing all over the
+countryside in a bathing suit--"
+
+The reintroduction of the bathing suit motive seemed to have the worst
+effect on the captain. He flushed darkly.
+
+"Are you trying to josh me? I've a mind to soak you!"
+
+"If ye plaze, sorr," cried Officer Donahue and Officer Cassidy in
+chorus. In the course of their professional career they did not often
+hear their superior make many suggestions with which they saw eye to
+eye, but he had certainly, in their opinion, spoken a mouthful now.
+
+"No, honestly, my dear old thing, nothing was farther from my
+thoughts--"
+
+He would have spoken further, but at this moment the world came to
+an end. At least, that was how it sounded. Somewhere in the immediate
+neighbourhood something went off with a vast explosion, shattering the
+glass in the window, peeling the plaster from the ceiling, and sending
+him staggering into the inhospitable arms of Officer Donahue.
+
+The three guardians of the Law stared at one another.
+
+"If ye plaze, sorr," said. Officer Cassidy, saluting.
+
+"Well?"
+
+"May I spake, sorr?"
+
+"Well?"
+
+"Something's exploded, sorr!"
+
+The information, kindly meant though it was, seemed to annoy the
+captain.
+
+"What the devil did you think I thought had happened?" he demanded, with
+not a little irritation, "It was a bomb!"
+
+Archie could have corrected this diagnosis, for already a faint but
+appealing aroma of an alcoholic nature was creeping into the room
+through a hole in the ceiling, and there had risen before his eyes the
+picture of J. B. Wheeler affectionately regarding that barrel of his on
+the previous morning in the studio upstairs. J. B. Wheeler had wanted
+quick results, and he had got them. Archie had long since ceased to
+regard J. B. Wheeler as anything but a tumour on the social system, but
+he was bound to admit that he had certainly done him a good turn now.
+Already these honest men, diverted by the superior attraction of this
+latest happening, appeared to have forgotten his existence.
+
+"Sorr!" said Officer Donahue.
+
+"Well?"
+
+"It came from upstairs, sorr."
+
+"Of course it came from upstairs. Cassidy!"
+
+"Sorr?"
+
+"Get down into the street, call up the reserves, and stand at the front
+entrance to keep the crowd back. We'll have the whole city here in five
+minutes."
+
+"Right, sorr."
+
+"Don't let anyone in."
+
+"No, sorr."
+
+"Well, see that you don't. Come along, Donahue, now. Look slippy."
+
+"On the spot, sorr!" said Officer Donahue.
+
+A moment later Archie had the studio to himself. Two minutes later he
+was picking his way cautiously down the fire-escape after the manner of
+the recent Mr. Moon. Archie had not seen much of Mr. Moon, but he had
+seen enough to know that in certain crises his methods were sound and
+should be followed. Elmer Moon was not a good man; his ethics were poor
+and his moral code shaky; but in the matter of legging it away from a
+situation of peril and discomfort he had no superior.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VII. MR. ROSCOE SHERRIFF HAS AN IDEA
+
+
+Archie inserted a fresh cigarette in his long holder and began to smoke
+a little moodily. It was about a week after his disturbing adventures in
+J. B. Wheeler's studio, and life had ceased for the moment to be a thing
+of careless enjoyment. Mr. Wheeler, mourning over his lost home-brew and
+refusing, like Niobe, to be comforted, has suspended the sittings for
+the magazine cover, thus robbing Archie of his life-work. Mr. Brewster
+had not been in genial mood of late. And, in addition to all this,
+Lucille was away on a visit to a school-friend. And when Lucille went
+away, she took with her the sunshine. Archie was not surprised at her
+being popular and in demand among her friends, but that did not help him
+to become reconciled to her absence.
+
+He gazed rather wistfully across the table at his friend, Roscoe
+Sherriff, the Press-agent, another of his Pen-and-Ink Club
+acquaintances. They had just finished lunch, and during the meal
+Sherriff, who, like most men of action, was fond of hearing the sound
+of his own voice and liked exercising it on the subject of himself, had
+been telling Archie a few anecdotes about his professional past. From
+these the latter had conceived a picture of Roscoe Sherriff's life as a
+prismatic thing of energy and adventure and well-paid withal--just the
+sort of life, in fact, which he would have enjoyed leading himself.
+He wished that he, too, like the Press-agent, could go about the place
+"slipping things over" and "putting things across." Daniel Brewster, he
+felt, would have beamed upon a son-in-law like Roscoe Sherriff.
+
+"The more I see of America," sighed Archie, "the more it amazes me. All
+you birds seem to have been doing things from the cradle upwards. I wish
+I could do things!"
+
+"Well, why don't you?"
+
+Archie flicked the ash from his cigarette into the finger-bowl.
+
+"Oh, I don't know, you know," he said, "Somehow, none of our family ever
+have. I don't know why it is, but whenever a Moffam starts out to do
+things he infallibly makes a bloomer. There was a Moffam in the Middle
+Ages who had a sudden spasm of energy and set out to make a pilgrimage
+to Jerusalem, dressed as a wandering friar. Rum ideas they had in those
+days."
+
+"Did he get there?"
+
+"Absolutely not! Just as he was leaving the front door his favourite
+hound mistook him for a tramp--or a varlet, or a scurvy knave, or
+whatever they used to call them at that time--and bit him in the fleshy
+part of the leg."
+
+"Well, at least he started."
+
+"Enough to make a chappie start, what?"
+
+Roscoe Sherriff sipped his coffee thoughtfully. He was an apostle of
+Energy, and it seemed to him that he could make a convert of Archie and
+incidentally do himself a bit of good. For several days he had been,
+looking for someone like Archie to help him in a small matter which he
+had in mind.
+
+"If you're really keen on doing things," he said, "there's something you
+can do for me right away."
+
+Archie beamed. Action was what his soul demanded.
+
+"Anything, dear boy, anything! State your case!"
+
+"Would you have any objection to putting up a snake for me?"
+
+"Putting up a snake?"
+
+"Just for a day or two."
+
+"But how do you mean, old soul? Put him up where?"
+
+"Wherever you live. Where do you live? The Cosmopolis, isn't it? Of
+course! You married old Brewster's daughter. I remember reading about
+it."
+
+"But, I say, laddie, I don't want to spoil your day and disappoint you
+and so forth, but my jolly old father-in-law would never let me keep a
+snake. Why, it's as much as I can do to make him let me stop on in the
+place."
+
+"He wouldn't know."
+
+"There's not much that goes on in the hotel that he doesn't know," said
+Archie, doubtfully.
+
+"He mustn't know. The whole point of the thing is that it must be a dead
+secret."
+
+Archie flicked some more ash into the finger-bowl.
+
+"I don't seem absolutely to have grasped the affair in all its aspects,
+if you know what I mean," he said. "I mean to say--in the first
+place--why would it brighten your young existence if I entertained this
+snake of yours?"
+
+"It's not mine. It belongs to Mme. Brudowska. You've heard of her, of
+course?"
+
+"Oh yes. She's some sort of performing snake female in vaudeville or
+something, isn't she, or something of that species or order?"
+
+"You're near it, but not quite right. She is the leading exponent of
+high-brow tragedy on any stage in the civilized world."
+
+"Absolutely! I remember now. My wife lugged me to see her perform one
+night. It all comes back to me. She had me wedged in an orchestra-stall
+before I knew what I was up against, and then it was too late. I
+remember reading in some journal or other that she had a pet snake,
+given her by some Russian prince or other, what?"
+
+"That," said Sherriff, "was the impression I intended to convey when I
+sent the story to the papers. I'm her Press-agent. As a matter of fact,
+I bought Peter-its name's Peter-myself down on the East Side. I always
+believe in animals for Press-agent stunts. I've nearly always had good
+results. But with Her Nibs I'm handicapped. Shackled, so to speak. You
+might almost say my genius is stifled. Or strangled, if you prefer it."
+
+"Anything you say," agreed Archie, courteously, "But how? Why is your
+what-d'you-call-it what's-its-named?"
+
+"She keeps me on a leash. She won't let me do anything with a kick in
+it. If I've suggested one rip-snorting stunt, I've suggested twenty, and
+every time she turns them down on the ground that that sort of thing
+is beneath the dignity of an artist in her position. It doesn't give a
+fellow a chance. So now I've made up my mind to do her good by stealth.
+I'm going to steal her snake."
+
+"Steal it? Pinch it, as it were?"
+
+"Yes. Big story for the papers, you see. She's grown very much attached
+to Peter. He's her mascot. I believe she's practically kidded herself
+into believing that Russian prince story. If I can sneak it away and
+keep it away for a day or two, she'll do the rest. She'll make such a
+fuss that the papers will be full of it."
+
+"I see."
+
+"Wow, any ordinary woman would work in with me. But not Her Nibs. She
+would call it cheap and degrading and a lot of other things. It's got to
+be a genuine steal, and, if I'm caught at it, I lose my job. So that's
+where you come in."
+
+"But where am I to keep the jolly old reptile?"
+
+"Oh, anywhere. Punch a few holes in a hat-box, and make it up a
+shakedown inside. It'll be company for you."
+
+"Something in that. My wife's away just now and it's a bit lonely in the
+evenings."
+
+"You'll never be lonely with Peter around. He's a great scout. Always
+merry and bright."
+
+"He doesn't bite, I suppose, or sting or what-not?"
+
+"He may what-not occasionally. It depends on the weather. But, outside
+of that, he's as harmless as a canary."
+
+"Dashed dangerous things, canaries," said Archie, thoughtfully. "They
+peck at you."
+
+"Don't weaken!" pleaded the Press-agent
+
+"Oh, all right. I'll take him. By the way, touching the matter of
+browsing and sluicing. What do I feed him on?"
+
+"Oh, anything. Bread-and-milk or fruit or soft-boiled egg or dog-biscuit
+or ants'-eggs. You know--anything you have yourself. Well, I'm much
+obliged for your hospitality. I'll do the same for you another time. Now
+I must be getting along to see to the practical end of the thing. By the
+way, Her Nibs lives at the Cosmopolis, too. Very convenient. Well, so
+long. See you later."
+
+Archie, left alone, began for the first time to have serious doubts. He
+had allowed himself to be swayed by Mr. Sherriff's magnetic personality,
+but now that the other had removed himself he began to wonder if he had
+been entirely wise to lend his sympathy and co-operation to the scheme.
+He had never had intimate dealings with a snake before, but he had kept
+silkworms as a child, and there had been the deuce of a lot of fuss and
+unpleasantness over them. Getting into the salad and what-not. Something
+seemed to tell him that he was asking for trouble with a loud voice, but
+he had given his word and he supposed he would have to go through with
+it.
+
+He lit another cigarette and wandered out into Fifth Avenue. His usually
+smooth brow was ruffled with care. Despite the eulogies which Sherriff
+had uttered concerning Peter, he found his doubts increasing. Peter
+might, as the Press-agent had stated, be a great scout, but was his
+little Garden of Eden on the fifth floor of the Cosmopolis Hotel likely
+to be improved by the advent of even the most amiable and winsome of
+serpents? However--
+
+"Moffam! My dear fellow!"
+
+The voice, speaking suddenly in his ear from behind, roused Archie from
+his reflections. Indeed, it roused him so effectually that he jumped a
+clear inch off the ground and bit his tongue. Revolving on his axis, he
+found himself confronting a middle-aged man with a face like a horse.
+The man was dressed in something of an old-world style. His clothes had
+an English cut. He had a drooping grey moustache. He also wore a grey
+bowler hat flattened at the crown--but who are we to judge him?
+
+"Archie Moffam! I have been trying to find you all the morning."
+
+Archie had placed him now. He had not seen General Mannister for several
+years--not, indeed, since the days when he used to meet him at the home
+of young Lord Seacliff, his nephew. Archie had been at Eton and Oxford
+with Seacliff, and had often visited him in the Long Vacation.
+
+"Halloa, General! What ho, what ho! What on earth are you doing over
+here?"
+
+"Let's get out of this crush, my boy." General Mannister steered Archie
+into a side-street, "That's better." He cleared his throat once or
+twice, as if embarrassed. "I've brought Seacliff over," he said,
+finally.
+
+"Dear old Squiffy here? Oh, I say! Great work!"
+
+General Mannister did not seem to share his enthusiasm. He looked like a
+horse with a secret sorrow. He coughed three times, like a horse who, in
+addition to a secret sorrow, had contracted asthma.
+
+"You will find Seacliff changed," he said. "Let me see, how long is it
+since you and he met?"
+
+Archie reflected.
+
+"I was demobbed just about a year ago. I saw him in Paris about a year
+before that. The old egg got a bit of shrapnel in his foot or something,
+didn't he? Anyhow, I remember he was sent home."
+
+"His foot is perfectly well again now. But, unfortunately, the enforced
+inaction led to disastrous results. You recollect, no doubt, that
+Seacliff always had a--a tendency;--a--a weakness--it was a family
+failing--"
+
+"Mopping it up, do you mean? Shifting it? Looking on the jolly old stuff
+when it was red and what not, what?"
+
+"Exactly."
+
+Archie nodded.
+
+"Dear old Squiffy was always rather-a lad for the wassail-bowl. When I
+met him in Paris, I remember, he was quite tolerably blotto."
+
+"Precisely. And the failing has, I regret to say, grown on him since he
+returned from the war. My poor sister was extremely worried. In fact, to
+cut a long story short, I induced him to accompany me to America. I am
+attached to the British Legation in Washington now, you know."
+
+"Oh, really?"
+
+"I wished Seacliff to come with me to Washington, but he insists on
+remaining in New York. He stated specifically that the thought of living
+in Washington gave him the--what was the expression he used?"
+
+"The pip?"
+
+"The pip. Precisely."
+
+"But what was the idea of bringing him to America?"
+
+"This admirable Prohibition enactment has rendered America--to my
+mind--the ideal place for a young man of his views." The General looked
+at his watch. "It is most fortunate that I happened to run into you, my
+dear fellow. My train for Washington leaves in another hour, and I have
+packing to do. I want to leave poor Seacliff in your charge while I am
+gone."
+
+"Oh, I say! What!"
+
+"You can look after him. I am credibly informed that even now there
+are places in New York where a determined young man may obtain
+the--er--stuff, and I should be infinitely obliged--and my poor sister
+would be infinitely grateful--if you would keep an eye on him." He
+hailed a taxi-cab. "I am sending Seacliff round to the Cosmopolis
+to-night. I am sure you, will do everything you can. Good-bye, my boy,
+good-bye."
+
+Archie continued his walk. This, he felt, was beginning to be a bit
+thick. He smiled a bitter, mirthless smile as he recalled the fact that
+less than half an hour had elapsed since he had expressed a regret that
+he did not belong to the ranks of those who do things. Fate since then
+had certainly supplied him with jobs with a lavish hand. By bed-time he
+would be an active accomplice to a theft, valet and companion to a snake
+he had never met, and--as far as could gather the scope of his duties--a
+combination of nursemaid and private detective to dear old Squiffy.
+
+It was past four o'clock when he returned to the Cosmopolis. Roscoe
+Sherriff was pacing the lobby of the hotel nervously, carrying a small
+hand-bag.
+
+"Here you are at last! Good heavens, man, I've been waiting two hours."
+
+"Sorry, old bean. I was musing a bit and lost track of the time."
+
+The Press-agent looked cautiously round. There was nobody within
+earshot.
+
+"Here he is!" he said.
+
+"Who?"
+
+"Peter."
+
+"Where?" said Archie, staring blankly.
+
+"In this bag. Did you expect to find him strolling arm-in-arm with me
+round the lobby? Here you are! Take him!"
+
+He was gone. And Archie, holding the bag, made his way to the lift. The
+bag squirmed gently in his grip.
+
+The only other occupant of the lift was a striking-looking woman of
+foreign appearance, dressed in a way that made Archie feel that she
+must be somebody or she couldn't look like that. Her face, too, seemed
+vaguely familiar. She entered the lift at the second floor where the
+tea-room is, and she had the contented expression of one who had tea'd
+to her satisfaction. She got off at the same floor as Archie, and walked
+swiftly, in a lithe, pantherist way, round the bend in the corridor.
+Archie followed more slowly. When he reached the door of his room, the
+passage was empty. He inserted the key in his door, turned it, pushed
+the door open, and pocketed the key. He was about to enter when the bag
+again squirmed gently in his grip.
+
+From the days of Pandora, through the epoch of Bluebeard's wife, down
+to the present time, one of the chief failings of humanity has been the
+disposition to open things that were better closed. It would have been
+simple for Archie to have taken another step and put a door between
+himself and the world, but there came to him the irresistible desire to
+peep into the bag now--not three seconds later, but now. All the way
+up in the lift he had been battling with the temptation, and now he
+succumbed.
+
+The bag was one of those simple bags with a thingummy which you press.
+Archie pressed it. And, as it opened, out popped the head of Peter. His
+eyes met Archie's. Over his head there seemed to be an invisible mark
+of interrogation. His gaze was curious, but kindly. He appeared to be
+saying to himself, "Have I found a friend?"
+
+Serpents, or Snakes, says the Encyclopaedia, are reptiles of the saurian
+class Ophidia, characterised by an elongated, cylindrical, limbless,
+scaly form, and distinguished from lizards by the fact that the halves
+(RAMI) of the lower jaw are not solidly united at the chin, but movably
+connected by an elastic ligament. The vertebra are very numerous,
+gastrocentrous, and procoelous. And, of course, when they put it like
+that, you can see at once that a man might spend hours with combined
+entertainment and profit just looking at a snake.
+
+Archie would no doubt have done this; but long before he had time really
+to inspect the halves (RAMI) of his new friend's lower jaw and to admire
+its elastic fittings, and long before the gastrocentrous and procoelous
+character of the other's vertebrae had made any real impression on
+him, a piercing scream almost at his elbow--startled him out of his
+scientific reverie. A door opposite had opened, and the woman of the
+elevator was standing staring at him with an expression of horror and
+fury that went through, him like a knife. It was the expression
+which, more than anything else, had made Mme. Brudowska what she was
+professionally. Combined with a deep voice and a sinuous walk, it
+enabled her to draw down a matter of a thousand dollars per week.
+
+Indeed, though the fact gave him little pleasure, Archie, as a matter of
+fact, was at this moment getting about--including war-tax--two dollars
+and seventy-five cents worth of the great emotional star for nothing.
+For, having treated him gratis to the look of horror and fury, she now
+moved towards him with the sinuous walk and spoke in the tone which she
+seldom permitted herself to use before the curtain of act two, unless
+there was a whale of a situation that called for it in act one.
+
+"Thief!"
+
+It was the way she said it.
+
+Archie staggered backwards as though he had been hit between the eyes,
+fell through the open door of his room, kicked it to with a flying foot,
+and collapsed on the bed. Peter, the snake, who had fallen on the floor
+with a squashy sound, looked surprised and pained for a moment; then,
+being a philosopher at heart, cheered up and began hunting for flies
+under the bureau.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VIII. A DISTURBED NIGHT FOR DEAR OLD SQUIFFY
+
+
+Peril sharpens the intellect. Archie's mind as a rule worked in rather a
+languid and restful sort of way, but now it got going with a rush and
+a whir. He glared round the room. He had never seen a room so devoid
+of satisfactory cover. And then there came to him a scheme, a ruse. It
+offered a chance of escape. It was, indeed, a bit of all right.
+
+Peter, the snake, loafing contentedly about the carpet, found himself
+seized by what the Encyclopaedia calls the "distensible gullet" and
+looked up reproachfully. The next moment he was in his bag again; and
+Archie, bounding silently into the bathroom, was tearing the cord off
+his dressing-gown.
+
+There came a banging at the door. A voice spoke sternly. A masculine
+voice this time.
+
+"Say! Open this door!"
+
+Archie rapidly attached the dressing-gown cord to the handle of the bag,
+leaped to the window, opened it, tied the cord to a projecting piece of
+iron on the sill, lowered Peter and the bag into the depths, and closed
+the window again. The whole affair took but a few seconds. Generals have
+received the thanks of their nations for displaying less resource on the
+field of battle.
+
+He opened the-door. Outside stood the bereaved woman, and beside her a
+bullet-headed gentleman with a bowler hat on the back of his head, in
+whom Archie recognised the hotel detective.
+
+The hotel detective also recognised Archie, and the stern cast of his
+features relaxed. He even smiled a rusty but propitiatory smile. He
+imagined--erroneously--that Archie, being the son-in-law of the owner
+of the hotel, had a pull with that gentleman; and he resolved to proceed
+warily lest he jeopardise his job.
+
+"Why, Mr. Moffam!" he said, apologetically. "I didn't know it was you I
+was disturbing."
+
+"Always glad to have a chat," said Archie, cordially. "What seems to be
+the trouble?"
+
+"My snake!" cried the queen of tragedy. "Where is my snake?"
+
+Archie, looked at the detective. The detective looked at Archie.
+
+"This lady," said the detective, with a dry little cough, "thinks her
+snake is in your room, Mr. Moffam."
+
+"Snake?"
+
+"Snake's what the lady said."
+
+"My snake! My Peter!" Mme. Brudowska's voice shook with emotion. "He is
+here--here in this room."
+
+Archie shook his head.
+
+"No snakes here! Absolutely not! I remember noticing when I came in."
+
+"The snake is here--here in this room. This man had it in a bag! I saw
+him! He is a thief!"
+
+"Easy, ma'am!" protested the detective. "Go easy! This gentleman is the
+boss's son-in-law."
+
+"I care not who he is! He has my snake! Here--' here in this room!"
+
+"Mr. Moffam wouldn't go round stealing snakes."
+
+"Rather not," said Archie. "Never stole a snake in my life. None of the
+Moffams have ever gone about stealing snakes. Regular family tradition!
+Though I once had an uncle who kept gold-fish."
+
+"Here he is! Here! My Peter!"
+
+Archie looked at the detective. The detective looked at Archie. "We must
+humour her!" their glances said.
+
+"Of course," said Archie, "if you'd like to search the room, what? What
+I mean to say is, this is Liberty Hall. Everybody welcome! Bring the
+kiddies!"
+
+"I will search the room!" said Mme. Brudowska.
+
+The detective glanced apologetically at Archie.
+
+"Don't blame me for this, Mr. Moffam," he urged.
+
+"Rather not! Only too glad you've dropped in!"
+
+He took up an easy attitude against the window, and watched the empress
+of the emotional drama explore. Presently she desisted, baffled. For an
+instant she paused, as though about to speak, then swept from the room.
+A moment later a door banged across the passage.
+
+"How do they get that way?" queried the detective, "Well, g'bye, Mr.
+Moffam. Sorry to have butted in."
+
+The door closed. Archie waited a few moments, then went to the window
+and hauled in the slack. Presently the bag appeared over the edge of the
+window-sill.
+
+"Good God!" said Archie.
+
+In the rush and swirl of recent events he must have omitted to see that
+the clasp that fastened the bag was properly closed; for the bag, as
+it jumped on to the window-sill, gaped at him like a yawning face. And
+inside it there was nothing.
+
+Archie leaned as far out of the window as he could manage without
+committing suicide. Far below him, the traffic took its usual course
+and the pedestrians moved to and fro upon the pavements. There was no
+crowding, no excitement. Yet only a few moments before a long green
+snake with three hundred ribs, a distensible gullet, and gastrocentrous
+vertebras must have descended on that street like the gentle rain from
+Heaven upon the place beneath. And nobody seemed even interested. Not
+for the first time since he had arrived in America, Archie marvelled
+at the cynical detachment of the New Yorker, who permits himself to be
+surprised at nothing.
+
+He shut the window and moved away with a heavy Heart. He had not had
+the pleasure of an extended acquaintanceship with Peter, but he had
+seen enough of him to realise his sterling qualities. Somewhere beneath
+Peter's three hundred ribs there had lain a heart of gold, and Archie
+mourned for his loss.
+
+Archie had a dinner and theatre engagement that night, and it was late
+when he returned to the hotel. He found his father-in-law prowling
+restlessly about the lobby. There seemed to be something on Mr.
+Brewster's mind. He came up to Archie with a brooding frown on his
+square face.
+
+"Who's this man Seacliff?" he demanded, without preamble. "I hear he's a
+friend of yours."
+
+"Oh, you've met him, what?" said Archie. "Had a nice little chat
+together, yes? Talked of this and that, no!"
+
+"We have not said a word to each other."
+
+"Really? Oh, well, dear old Squiffy is one of those strong, silent
+fellers you know. You mustn't mind if he's a bit dumb. He never says
+much, but it's whispered round the clubs that he thinks a lot. It was
+rumoured in the spring of nineteen-thirteen that Squiffy was on the
+point of making a bright remark, but it never came to anything."
+
+Mr. Brewster struggled with his feelings.
+
+"Who is he? You seem to know him."
+
+"Oh yes. Great pal of mine, Squiffy. We went through Eton, Oxford, and
+the Bankruptcy Court together. And here's a rummy coincidence. When they
+examined ME, I had no assets. And, when they examined Squiffy, HE had no
+assets! Rather extraordinary, what?"
+
+Mr. Brewster seemed to be in no mood for discussing coincidences.
+
+"I might have known he was a friend of yours!" he said, bitterly. "Well,
+if you want to see him, you'll have to do it outside my hotel."
+
+"Why, I thought he was stopping here."
+
+"He is--to-night. To-morrow he can look for some other hotel to break
+up."
+
+"Great Scot! Has dear old Squiffy been breaking the place up?"
+
+Mr. Brewster snorted.
+
+"I am informed that this precious friend of yours entered my grill-room
+at eight o'clock. He must have been completely intoxicated, though the
+head waiter tells me he noticed nothing at the time."
+
+Archie nodded approvingly.
+
+"Dear old Squiffy was always like that. It's a gift. However woozled he
+might be, it was impossible to detect it with the naked eye. I've seen
+the dear old chap many a time whiffled to the eyebrows, and looking as
+sober as a bishop. Soberer! When did it begin to dawn on the lads in the
+grill-room that the old egg had been pushing the boat out?"
+
+"The head waiter," said Mr. Brewster, with cold fury, "tells me that he
+got a hint of the man's condition when he suddenly got up from his table
+and went the round of the room, pulling off all the table-cloths, and
+breaking everything that was on them. He then threw a number of rolls at
+the diners, and left. He seems to have gone straight to bed."
+
+"Dashed sensible of him, what? Sound, practical chap, Squiffy. But where
+on earth did he get the--er--materials?"
+
+"From his room. I made enquiries. He has six large cases in his room."
+
+"Squiffy always was a chap of infinite resource! Well, I'm dashed sorry
+this should have happened, don't you know."
+
+"If it hadn't been for you, the man would never have come here." Mr.
+Brewster brooded coldly. "I don't know why it is, but ever since you
+came to this hotel I've had nothing but trouble."
+
+"Dashed sorry!" said Archie, sympathetically.
+
+"Grrh!" said Mr. Brewster.
+
+Archie made his way meditatively to the lift. The injustice of his
+father-in-law's attitude pained him. It was absolutely rotten and
+all that to be blamed for everything that went wrong in the Hotel
+Cosmopolis.
+
+While this conversation was in progress, Lord Seacliff was enjoying a
+refreshing sleep in his room on the fourth floor. Two hours passed. The
+noise of the traffic in the street below faded away. Only the rattle of
+an occasional belated cab broke the silence. In the hotel all was still.
+Mr. Brewster had gone to bed. Archie, in his room, smoked meditatively.
+Peace may have been said to reign.
+
+At half-past two Lord Seacliff awoke. His hours of slumber were
+always irregular. He sat up in bed and switched the light on. He was a
+shock-headed young man with a red face and a hot brown eye. He yawned
+and stretched himself. His head was aching a little. The room seemed to
+him a trifle close. He got out of bed and threw open the window.
+Then, returning to bed, he picked up a book and began to read. He was
+conscious of feeling a little jumpy, and reading generally sent him to
+sleep.
+
+Much has been written on the subject of bed-books. The general consensus
+of opinion is that a gentle, slow-moving story makes the best opiate.
+If this be so, dear old Squiffy's choice of literature had been rather
+injudicious. His book was The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes, and the
+particular story, which he selected for perusal was the one entitled,
+"The Speckled Band." He was not a great reader, but, when he read, he
+liked something with a bit of zip to it.
+
+Squiffy became absorbed. He had read the story before, but a long time
+back, and its complications were fresh to him. The tale, it may be
+remembered, deals with the activities of an ingenious gentleman who kept
+a snake, and used to loose it into people's bedrooms as a preliminary to
+collecting on their insurance. It gave Squiffy pleasant thrills, for he
+had always had a particular horror of snakes. As a child, he had shrunk
+from visiting the serpent house at the Zoo; and, later, when he had come
+to man's estate and had put off childish things, and settled down
+in real earnest to his self-appointed mission of drinking up all the
+alcoholic fluid in England, the distaste for Ophidia had lingered. To
+a dislike for real snakes had been added a maturer shrinking from
+those which existed only in his imagination. He could still recall his
+emotions on the occasion, scarcely three months before, when he had seen
+a long, green serpent which a majority of his contemporaries had assured
+him wasn't there.
+
+Squiffy read on:--
+
+"Suddenly another sound became audible--a very gentle, soothing sound,
+like that of a small jet of steam escaping continuously from a kettle."
+
+Lord Seacliff looked up from his book with a start Imagination was
+beginning to play him tricks. He could have sworn that he had actually
+heard that identical sound. It had seemed to come from the window. He
+listened again. No! All was still. He returned to his book and went on
+reading.
+
+"It was a singular sight that met our eyes. Beside the table, on a
+wooden chair, sat Doctor Grimesby Rylott, clad in a long dressing-gown.
+His chin was cocked upward and his eyes were fixed in a dreadful, rigid
+stare at the corner of the ceiling. Round his brow he had a peculiar
+yellow band, with brownish speckles, which seemed to be bound tightly
+round his head."
+
+"I took a step forward. In an instant his strange head-gear began
+to move, and there reared itself from among his hair the squat,
+diamond-shaped head and puffed neck of a loathsome serpent..."
+
+"Ugh!" said Squiffy.
+
+He closed the book and put it down. His head was aching worse than ever.
+He wished now that he had read something else. No fellow could read
+himself to sleep with this sort of thing. People ought not to write this
+sort of thing.
+
+His heart gave a bound. There it was again, that hissing sound. And this
+time he was sure it came from the window.
+
+He looked at the window, and remained staring, frozen. Over the sill,
+with a graceful, leisurely movement, a green snake was crawling. As
+it crawled, it raised its head and peered from side to side, like a
+shortsighted man looking for his spectacles. It hesitated a moment on
+the edge of the sill, then wriggled to the floor and began to cross the
+room. Squiffy stared on.
+
+It would have pained Peter deeply, for he was a snake of great
+sensibility, if he had known how much his entrance had disturbed the
+occupant of the room. He himself had no feeling but gratitude for the
+man who had opened the window and so enabled him to get in out of the
+rather nippy night air. Ever since the bag had swung open and shot him
+out onto the sill of the window below Archie's, he had been waiting
+patiently for something of the kind to happen. He was a snake who took
+things as they came, and was prepared to rough it a bit if necessary;
+but for the last hour or two he had been hoping that somebody would do
+something practical in the way of getting him in out of the cold. When
+at home, he had an eiderdown quilt to sleep on, and the stone of the
+window-sill was a little trying to a snake of regular habits. He crawled
+thankfully across the floor under Squiffy's bed. There was a pair of
+trousers there, for his host had undressed when not in a frame of mind
+to fold his clothes neatly and place them upon a chair. Peter looked the
+trousers over. They were not an eiderdown quilt, but they would serve.
+He curled up in them and went to sleep. He had had an exciting day, and
+was glad to turn in.
+
+After about ten minutes, the tension of Squiffy's attitude relaxed. His
+heart, which had seemed to suspend its operations, began beating again.
+Reason reasserted itself. He peeped cautiously under the bed. He could
+see nothing.
+
+Squiffy was convinced. He told himself that he had never really believed
+in Peter as a living thing. It stood to reason that there couldn't
+really be a snake in his room. The window looked out on emptiness.
+His room was several stories above the ground. There was a stern,
+set expression on Squiffy's face as he climbed out of bed. It was the
+expression of a man who is turning over a new leaf, starting a new life.
+He looked about the room for some implement which would carry out the
+deed he had to do, and finally pulled out one of the curtain-rods. Using
+this as a lever, he broke open the topmost of the six cases which stood
+in the corner. The soft wood cracked and split. Squiffy drew out a
+straw-covered bottle. For a moment he stood looking at it, as a man
+might gaze at a friend on the point of death. Then, with a sudden
+determination, he went into the bathroom. There was a crash of glass and
+a gurgling sound.
+
+Half an hour later the telephone in Archie's room rang. "I say, Archie,
+old top," said the voice of Squiffy.
+
+"Halloa, old bean! Is that you?"
+
+"I say, could you pop down here for a second? I'm rather upset."
+
+"Absolutely! Which room?"
+
+"Four-forty-one."
+
+"I'll be with you eftsoons or right speedily."
+
+"Thanks, old man."
+
+"What appears to be the difficulty?"
+
+"Well, as a matter of fact, I thought I saw a snake!"
+
+"A snake!"
+
+"I'll tell you all about it when you come down."
+
+Archie found Lord Seacliff seated on his bed. An arresting aroma of
+mixed drinks pervaded the atmosphere.
+
+"I say! What?" said Archie, inhaling.
+
+"That's all right. I've been pouring my stock away. Just finished the
+last bottle."
+
+"But why?"
+
+"I told you. I thought I saw a snake!"
+
+"Green?"
+
+Squiffy shivered slightly.
+
+"Frightfully green!"
+
+Archie hesitated. He perceived that there are moments when silence is
+the best policy. He had been worrying himself over the unfortunate case
+of his friend, and now that Fate seemed to have provided a solution,
+it would be rash to interfere merely to ease the old bean's mind. If
+Squiffy was going to reform because he thought he had seen an imaginary
+snake, better not to let him know that the snake was a real one.
+
+"Dashed serious!" he said.
+
+"Bally dashed serious!" agreed Squiffy. "I'm going to cut it out!"
+
+"Great scheme!"
+
+"You don't think," asked Squiffy, with a touch of hopefulness, "that it
+could have been a real snake?"
+
+"Never heard of the management supplying them."
+
+"I thought it went under the bed."
+
+"Well, take a look."
+
+Squiffy shuddered.
+
+"Not me! I say, old top, you know, I simply can't sleep in this room
+now. I was wondering if you could give me a doss somewhere in yours."
+
+"Rather! I'm in five-forty-one. Just above. Trot along up. Here's the
+key. I'll tidy up a bit here, and join you in a minute."
+
+Squiffy put on a dressing-gown and disappeared. Archie looked under
+the bed. From the trousers the head of Peter popped up with its usual
+expression of amiable enquiry. Archie nodded pleasantly, and sat down
+on the bed. The problem of his little friend's immediate future wanted
+thinking over.
+
+He lit a cigarette and remained for a while in thought. Then he rose. An
+admirable solution had presented itself. He picked Peter up and placed
+him in the pocket of his dressing-gown. Then, leaving the room, he
+mounted the stairs till he reached the seventh floor. Outside a room
+half-way down the corridor he paused.
+
+From within, through the open transom, came the rhythmical snoring of a
+good man taking his rest after the labours of the day. Mr. Brewster was
+always a heavy sleeper.
+
+"There's always a way," thought Archie, philosophically, "if a chappie
+only thinks of it."
+
+His father-in-law's snoring took on a deeper note. Archie extracted
+Peter from his pocket and dropped him gently through the transom.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER IX. A LETTER FROM PARKER
+
+
+As the days went by and he settled down at the Hotel Cosmopolis, Archie,
+looking about him and revising earlier judgments, was inclined to think
+that of all his immediate circle he most admired Parker, the lean, grave
+valet of Mr. Daniel Brewster. Here was a man who, living in the closest
+contact with one of the most difficult persons in New York, contrived
+all the while to maintain an unbowed head, and, as far as one could
+gather from appearances, a tolerably cheerful disposition. A great man,
+judge him by what standard you pleased. Anxious as he was to earn an
+honest living, Archie would not have changed places with Parker for the
+salary of a movie-star.
+
+It was Parker who first directed Archie's attention to the hidden merits
+of Pongo. Archie had drifted into his father-in-law's suite one morning,
+as he sometimes did in the effort to establish more amicable relations,
+and had found it occupied only by the valet, who was dusting the
+furniture and bric-a-brac with a feather broom rather in the style of a
+man-servant at the rise of the curtain of an old-fashioned farce. After
+a courteous exchange of greetings, Archie sat down and lit a cigarette.
+Parker went on dusting.
+
+"The guv'nor," said Parker, breaking the silence, "has some nice little
+objay dar, sir."
+
+"Little what?"
+
+"Objay dar, sir."
+
+Light dawned upon Archie.
+
+"Of course, yes. French for junk. I see what you mean now. Dare say
+you're right, old friend. Don't know much about these things myself."
+
+Parker gave an appreciative flick at a vase on the mantelpiece.
+
+"Very valuable, some of the guv'nor's things." He had picked up the
+small china figure of the warrior with the spear, and was grooming it
+with the ostentatious care of one brushing flies off a sleeping Venus.
+He regarded this figure with a look of affectionate esteem which
+seemed to Archie absolutely uncalled-for. Archie's taste in Art was not
+precious. To his untutored eye the thing was only one degree less foul
+than his father-in-law's Japanese prints, which he had always observed
+with silent loathing. "This one, now," continued Parker. "Worth a lot of
+money. Oh, a lot of money."
+
+"What, Pongo?" said Archie incredulously.
+
+"Sir?"
+
+"I always call that rummy-looking what-not Pongo. Don't know what else
+you could call him, what!"
+
+The valet seemed to disapprove of this levity. He shook his head and
+replaced the figure on the mantelpiece.
+
+"Worth a lot of money," he repeated. "Not by itself, no."
+
+"Oh, not by itself?"
+
+"No, sir. Things like this come in pairs. Somewhere or other there's the
+companion-piece to this here, and if the guv'nor could get hold of it,
+he'd have something worth having. Something that connoozers would give a
+lot of money for. But one's no good without the other. You have to have
+both, if you understand my meaning, sir."
+
+"I see. Like filling a straight flush, what?"
+
+"Precisely, sir."
+
+Archie gazed at Pongo again, with the dim hope of discovering virtues
+not immediately apparent to the casual observer. But without success.
+Pongo left him cold--even chilly. He would not have taken Pongo as a
+gift, to oblige a dying friend.
+
+"How much would the pair be worth?" he asked. "Ten dollars?"
+
+Parker smiled a gravely superior smile. "A leetle more than that, sir.
+Several thousand dollars, more like it."
+
+"Do you mean to say," said Archie, with honest amazement, "that there
+are chumps going about loose--absolutely loose--who would pay that for a
+weird little object like Pongo?"
+
+"Undoubtedly, sir. These antique china figures are in great demand among
+collectors."
+
+Archie looked at Pongo once more, and shook his head.
+
+"Well, well, well! It takes all sorts to make a world, what!"
+
+What might be called the revival of Pongo, the restoration of Pongo to
+the ranks of the things that matter, took place several weeks later,
+when Archie was making holiday at the house which his father-in-law had
+taken for the summer at Brookport. The curtain of the second act may be
+said to rise on Archie strolling back from the golf-links in the cool of
+an August evening. From time to time he sang slightly, and wondered
+idly if Lucille would put the finishing touch upon the all-rightness of
+everything by coming to meet him and sharing his homeward walk.
+
+She came in view at this moment, a trim little figure in a white skirt
+and a pale blue sweater. She waved to Archie; and Archie, as always
+at the sight of her, was conscious of that jumpy, fluttering sensation
+about the heart, which, translated into words, would have formed the
+question, "What on earth could have made a girl like that fall in love
+with a chump like me?" It was a question which he was continually asking
+himself, and one which was perpetually in the mind also of Mr. Brewster,
+his father-in-law. The matter of Archie's unworthiness to be the husband
+of Lucille was practically the only one on which the two men saw eye to
+eye.
+
+"Hallo--allo--allo!" said Archie. "Here we are, what! I was just hoping
+you would drift over the horizon."
+
+Lucille kissed him.
+
+"You're a darling," she said. "And you look like a Greek god in that
+suit."
+
+"Glad you like it." Archie squinted with some complacency down his
+chest. "I always say it doesn't matter what you pay for a suit, so long
+as it's right. I hope your jolly old father will feel that way when he
+settles up for it."
+
+"Where is father? Why didn't he come back with you?"
+
+"Well, as a matter of fact, he didn't seem any too keen on my company.
+I left him in the locker-room chewing a cigar. Gave me the impression of
+having something on his mind."
+
+"Oh, Archie! You didn't beat him AGAIN?"
+
+Archie looked uncomfortable. He gazed out to sea with something of
+embarrassment.
+
+"Well, as a matter of fact, old thing, to be absolutely frank, I, as it
+were, did!"
+
+"Not badly?"
+
+"Well, yes! I rather fancy I put it across him with some vim and not
+a little emphasis. To be perfectly accurate, I licked him by ten and
+eight."
+
+"But you promised me you would let him beat you to-day. You know how
+pleased it would have made him."
+
+"I know. But, light of my soul, have you any idea how dashed difficult
+it is to get beaten by your festive parent at golf?"
+
+"Oh, well!" Lucille sighed. "It can't be helped, I suppose." She felt in
+the pocket of her sweater. "Oh, there's a letter for you. I've just
+been to fetch the mail. I don't know who it can be from. The handwriting
+looks like a vampire's. Kind of scrawly."
+
+Archie inspected the envelope. It provided no solution.
+
+"That's rummy! Who could be writing to me?"
+
+"Open it and see."
+
+"Dashed bright scheme! I will, Herbert Parker. Who the deuce is Herbert
+Parker?"
+
+"Parker? Father's valet's name was Parker. The one he dismissed when he
+found he was wearing his shirts."
+
+"Do you mean to say any reasonable chappie would willingly wear the
+sort of shirts your father--? I mean to say, there must have been some
+mistake."
+
+"Do read the letter. I expect he wants to use your influence with father
+to have him taken back."
+
+"MY influence? With your FATHER? Well, I'm dashed. Sanguine sort of
+Johnny, if he does. Well, here's what he says. Of course, I remember
+jolly old Parker now--great pal of mine."
+
+     Dear Sir,--It is some time since the undersigned had the
+     honour of conversing with you, but I am respectfully trusting
+     that you may recall me to mind when I mention that until
+     recently I served Mr. Brewster, your father-in-law, in the
+     capacity of valet. Owing to an unfortunate misunderstanding,
+     I was dismissed from that position and am now temporarily out
+     of a job. "How art thou fallen from Heaven, O Lucifer, son of
+     the morning?" (Isaiah xiv. 12.)
+
+"You know," said Archie, admiringly, "this bird is hot stuff! I mean to
+say he writes dashed well."
+
+     It is not, however, with my own affairs that I desire to
+     trouble you, dear sir. I have little doubt that all will be
+     well with me and that I shall not fall like a sparrow to the
+     ground. "I have been young and now am old; yet have I not
+     seen the righteous forsaken, nor his seed begging bread"
+     (Psalms xxxvii. 25). My object in writing to you is as
+     follows. You may recall that I had the pleasure of meeting
+     you one morning in Mr. Brewster's suite, when we had an
+     interesting talk on the subject of Mr. B.'s objets d'art.
+     You may recall being particularly interested in a small
+     china figure. To assist your memory, the figure to which I
+     allude is the one which you whimsically referred to as Pongo.
+     I informed you, if you remember, that, could the accompanying
+     figure be secured, the pair would be extremely valuable.
+
+     I am glad to say, dear sir, that this has now transpired, and
+     is on view at Beale's Art Galleries on West Forty-Fifth Street,
+     where it will be sold to-morrow at auction, the sale commencing
+     at two-thirty sharp. If Mr. Brewster cares to attend, he will,
+     I fancy, have little trouble in securing it at a reasonable price.
+     I confess that I had thought of refraining from apprising my late
+     employer of this matter, but more Christian feelings have
+     prevailed. "If thine enemy hunger, feed him; if he thirst, give
+     him drink; for in so doing thou shalt heap coals of fire on his
+     head" (Romans xii. 20). Nor, I must confess, am I altogether
+     uninfluenced by the thought that my action in this matter may
+     conceivably lead to Mr. B. consenting to forget the past and to
+     reinstate me in my former position. However, I am confident that
+     I can leave this to his good feeling.
+
+                             I remain, respectfully yours,
+                             Herbert Parker.
+
+Lucille clapped her hands.
+
+"How splendid! Father will be pleased!"
+
+"Yes. Friend Parker has certainly found a way to make the old dad fond
+of him. Wish I could!"
+
+"But you can, silly! He'll be delighted when you show him that letter."
+
+"Yes, with Parker. Old Herb. Parker's is the neck he'll fall on--not
+mine."
+
+Lucille reflected.
+
+"I wish--" she began. She stopped. Her eyes lit up. "Oh, Archie,
+darling, I've got an idea!"
+
+"Decant it."
+
+"Why don't you slip up to New York to-morrow and buy the thing, and give
+it to father as a surprise?"
+
+Archie patted her hand kindly. He hated to spoil her girlish day-dreams.
+
+"Yes," he said. "But reflect, queen of my heart! I have at the moment of
+going to press just two dollars fifty in specie, which I took off your
+father this after-noon. We were playing twenty-five cents a Hole.
+He coughed it up without enthusiasm--in fact, with a nasty hacking
+sound--but I've got it. But that's all I have got."
+
+"That's all right. You can pawn that ring and that bracelet of mine."
+
+"Oh, I say, what! Pop the family jewels?"
+
+"Only for a day or two. Of course, once you've got the thing, father
+will pay us back. He would give you all the money we asked him for, if
+he knew what it was for. But I want to surprise him. And if you were to
+go to him and ask him for a thousand dollars without telling him what it
+was for, he might refuse."
+
+"He might!" said Archie. "He might!"
+
+"It all works out splendidly. To-morrow's the Invitation Handicap, and
+father's been looking forward to it for weeks. He'd hate to have to go
+up to town himself and not play in it. But you can slip up and slip back
+without his knowing anything about it."
+
+Archie pondered.
+
+"It sounds a ripe scheme. Yes, it has all the ear-marks of a somewhat
+fruity wheeze! By Jove, it IS a fruity wheeze! It's an egg!"
+
+"An egg?"
+
+"Good egg, you know. Halloa, here's a postscript. I didn't see it."
+
+     P.S.--I should be glad if you would convey my most
+     cordial respects to Mrs. Moffam. Will you also inform
+     her that I chanced to meet Mr. William this morning on
+     Broadway, just off the boat. He desired me to send his
+     regards and to say that he would be joining you at
+     Brookport in the course of a day or so. Mr. B. will be
+     pleased to have him back. "A wise son maketh a glad
+     father" (Proverbs x. 1).
+
+"Who's Mr. William?" asked Archie.
+
+"My brother Bill, of course. I've told you all about him."
+
+"Oh yes, of course. Your brother Bill. Rummy to think I've got a
+brother-in-law I've never seen."
+
+"You see, we married so suddenly. When we married, Bill was in Yale."
+
+"Good God! What for?"
+
+"Not jail, silly. Yale. The university."
+
+"Oh, ah, yes."
+
+"Then he went over to Europe for a trip to broaden his mind. You must
+look him up to-morrow when you get back to New York. He's sure to be at
+his club."
+
+"I'll make a point of it. Well, vote of thanks to good old Parker! This
+really does begin to look like the point in my career where I start to
+have your forbidding old parent eating out of my hand."
+
+"Yes, it's an egg, isn't it!"
+
+"Queen of my soul," said Archie enthusiastically, "it's an omelette!"
+
+The business negotiations in connection with the bracelet and the ring
+occupied Archie on his arrival in New York to an extent which made it
+impossible for him to call on Brother Bill before lunch. He decided to
+postpone the affecting meeting of brothers-in-law to a more convenient
+season, and made his way to his favourite table at the Cosmopolis
+grill-room for a bite of lunch preliminary to the fatigues of the sale.
+He found Salvatore hovering about as usual, and instructed him to come
+to the rescue with a minute steak.
+
+Salvatore was the dark, sinister-looking waiter who attended, among
+other tables, to the one at the far end of the grill-room at which
+Archie usually sat. For several weeks Archie's conversations with the
+other had dealt exclusively with the bill of fare and its contents; but
+gradually he had found himself becoming more personal. Even before the
+war and its democratising influences, Archie had always lacked that
+reserve which characterises many Britons; and since the war he had
+looked on nearly everyone he met as a brother. Long since, through the
+medium of a series of friendly chats, he had heard all about Salvatore's
+home in Italy, the little newspaper and tobacco shop which his mother
+owned down on Seventh Avenue, and a hundred other personal details.
+Archie had an insatiable curiosity about his fellow-man.
+
+"Well done," said Archie.
+
+"Sare?"
+
+"The steak. Not too rare, you know."
+
+"Very good, sare."
+
+Archie looked at the waiter closely. His tone had been subdued and sad.
+Of course, you don't expect a waiter to beam all over his face and give
+three rousing cheers simply because you have asked him to bring you a
+minute steak, but still there was something about Salvatore's manner
+that disturbed Archie. The man appeared to have the pip. Whether he was
+merely homesick and brooding on the lost delights of his sunny
+native land, or whether his trouble was more definite, could only be
+ascertained by enquiry. So Archie enquired.
+
+"What's the matter, laddie?" he said sympathetically. "Something on your
+mind?"
+
+"Sare?"
+
+"I say, there seems to be something on your mind. What's the trouble?"
+
+The waiter shrugged his shoulders, as if indicating an unwillingness to
+inflict his grievances on one of the tipping classes.
+
+"Come on!" persisted Archie encouragingly. "All pals here. Barge along,
+old thing, and let's have it."
+
+Salvatore, thus admonished, proceeded in a hurried undertone--with one
+eye on the headwaiter--to lay bare his soul. What he said was not very
+coherent, but Archie could make out enough of it to gather that it was a
+sad story of excessive hours and insufficient pay. He mused awhile. The
+waiter's hard case touched him.
+
+"I'll tell you what," he said at last. "When jolly old Brewster conies
+back to town--he's away just now--I'll take you along to him and we'll
+beard the old boy in his den. I'll introduce you, and you get that
+extract from Italian opera-off your chest which you've just been singing
+to me, and you'll find it'll be all right. He isn't what you might call
+one of my greatest admirers, but everybody says he's a square sort of
+cove and he'll see you aren't snootered. And now, laddie, touching the
+matter of that steak."
+
+The waiter disappeared, greatly cheered, and Archie, turning, perceived
+that his friend Reggie van Tuyl was entering the room. He waved to him
+to join his table. He liked Reggie, and it also occurred to him that a
+man of the world like the heir of the van Tuyls, who had been popping
+about New York for years, might be able to give him some much-needed
+information on the procedure at an auction sale, a matter on which he
+himself was profoundly ignorant.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER X. DOING FATHER A BIT OF GOOD
+
+
+Reggie Van Tuyl approached the table languidly, and sank down into a
+chair. He was a long youth with a rather subdued and deflated look,
+as though the burden of the van Tuyl millions was more than his frail
+strength could support. Most things tired him.
+
+"I say, Reggie, old top," said Archie, "you're just the lad I wanted to
+see. I require the assistance of a blighter of ripe intellect. Tell me,
+laddie, do you know anything about sales?"
+
+Reggie eyed him sleepily.
+
+"Sales?"
+
+"Auction sales."
+
+Reggie considered.
+
+"Well, they're sales, you know." He checked a yawn. "Auction sales, you
+understand."
+
+"Yes," said Archie encouragingly. "Something--the name or
+something--seemed to tell me that."
+
+"Fellows put things up for sale you know, and other fellows--other
+fellows go in and--and buy 'em, if you follow me."
+
+"Yes, but what's the procedure? I mean, what do I do? That's what I'm
+after. I've got to buy something at Beale's this afternoon. How do I set
+about it?"
+
+"Well," said Reggie, drowsily, "there are several ways of bidding, you
+know. You can shout, or you can nod, or you can twiddle your fingers--"
+The effort of concentration was too much for him. He leaned back limply
+in his chair. "I'll tell you what. I've nothing to do this afternoon.
+I'll come with you and show you."
+
+When he entered the Art Galleries a few minutes later, Archie was glad
+of the moral support of even such a wobbly reed as Reggie van Tuyl.
+There is something about an auction room which weighs heavily upon the
+novice. The hushed interior was bathed in a dim, religious light; and
+the congregation, seated on small wooden chairs, gazed in reverent
+silence at the pulpit, where a gentleman of commanding presence and
+sparkling pince-nez was delivering a species of chant. Behind a gold
+curtain at the end of the room mysterious forms flitted to and fro.
+Archie, who had been expecting something on the lines of the New York
+Stock Exchange, which he had once been privileged to visit when it was
+in a more than usually feverish mood, found the atmosphere oppressively
+ecclesiastical. He sat down and looked about him. The presiding priest
+went on with his chant.
+
+"Sixteen-sixteen-sixteen-sixteen-sixteen--worth three
+hundred--sixteen-sixteen-sixteen-sixteen-sixteen--ought to bring five
+hundred--sixteen-sixteen-seventeen-seventeen-eighteen-eighteen
+nineteen-nineteen-nineteen."
+
+He stopped and eyed the worshippers with a glittering and reproachful
+eye. They had, it seemed, disappointed him. His lips curled, and he
+waved a hand towards a grimly uncomfortable-looking chair with insecure
+legs and a good deal of gold paint about it. "Gentlemen! Ladies and
+gentlemen! You are not here to waste my time; I am not here to
+waste yours. Am I seriously offered nineteen dollars for this
+eighteenth-century chair, acknowledged to be the finest piece sold
+in New York for months and months? Am I--twenty? I thank you.
+Twenty-twenty-twenty-twenty. YOUR opportunity! Priceless. Very few
+extant. Twenty-five-five-five-five-thirty-thirty. Just what
+you are looking for. The only one in the City of New York.
+Thirty-five-five-five-five. Forty-forty-forty-forty-forty. Look at those
+legs! Back it into the light, Willie. Let the light fall on those legs!"
+
+Willie, a sort of acolyte, manoeuvred the chair as directed. Reggie van
+Tuyl, who had been yawning in a hopeless sort of way, showed his first
+flicker of interest.
+
+"Willie," he observed, eyeing that youth more with pity than reproach,
+"has a face like Jo-Jo the dog-faced boy, don't you think so?"
+
+Archie nodded briefly. Precisely the same criticism had occurred to him.
+
+"Forty-five-five-five-five-five," chanted the high-priest. "Once
+forty-five. Twice forty-five. Third and last call, forty-five. Sold at
+forty-five. Gentleman in the fifth row."
+
+Archie looked up and down the row with a keen eye. He was anxious to
+see who had been chump enough to give forty-five dollars for such
+a frightful object. He became aware of the dog-faced Willie leaning
+towards him.
+
+"Name, please?" said the canine one.
+
+"Eh, what?" said Archie. "Oh, my name's Moffam, don't you know." The
+eyes of the multitude made him feel a little nervous "Er--glad to meet
+you and all that sort of rot."
+
+"Ten dollars deposit, please," said Willie.
+
+"I don't absolutely follow you, old bean. What is the big thought at the
+back of all this?"
+
+"Ten dollars deposit on the chair."
+
+"What chair?"
+
+"You bid forty-five dollars for the chair."
+
+"Me?"
+
+"You nodded," said Willie, accusingly. "If," he went on, reasoning
+closely, "you didn't want to bid, why did you nod?"
+
+Archie was embarrassed. He could, of course, have pointed out that he
+had merely nodded in adhesion to the statement that the other had a face
+like Jo-Jo the dog-faced boy; but something seemed to tell him that
+a purist might consider the excuse deficient in tact. He hesitated
+a moment, then handed over a ten-dollar bill, the price of Willie's
+feelings. Willie withdrew like a tiger slinking from the body of its
+victim.
+
+"I say, old thing," said Archie to Reggie, "this is a bit thick, you
+know. No purse will stand this drain."
+
+Reggie considered the matter. His face seemed drawn under the mental
+strain.
+
+"Don't nod again," he advised. "If you aren't careful, you get into
+the habit of it. When you want to bid, just twiddle your fingers. Yes,
+that's the thing. Twiddle!"
+
+He sighed drowsily. The atmosphere of the auction room was close; you
+weren't allowed to smoke; and altogether he was beginning to regret that
+he had come. The service continued. Objects of varying unattractiveness
+came and went, eulogised by the officiating priest, but coldly received
+by the congregation. Relations between the former and the latter were
+growing more and more distant. The congregation seemed to suspect the
+priest of having an ulterior motive in his eulogies, and the priest
+seemed to suspect the congregation of a frivolous desire to waste his
+time. He had begun to speculate openly as to why they were there at all.
+Once, when a particularly repellent statuette of a nude female with an
+unwholesome green skin had been offered at two dollars and had found no
+bidders--the congregation appearing silently grateful for his statement
+that it was the only specimen of its kind on the continent--he had
+specifically accused them of having come into the auction room merely
+with the purpose of sitting down and taking the weight off their feet.
+
+"If your thing--your whatever-it-is, doesn't come up soon, Archie," said
+Reggie, fighting off with an effort the mists of sleep, "I rather think
+I shall be toddling along. What was it you came to get?"
+
+"It's rather difficult to describe. It's a rummy-looking sort of
+what-not, made of china or something. I call it Pongo. At least, this
+one isn't Pongo, don't you know--it's his little brother, but presumably
+equally foul in every respect. It's all rather complicated, I know,
+but--hallo!" He pointed excitedly. "By Jove! We're off! There it is!
+Look! Willie's unleashing it now!"
+
+Willie, who had disappeared through the gold curtain, had now returned,
+and was placing on a pedestal a small china figure of delicate
+workmanship. It was the figure of a warrior in a suit of armour
+advancing with raised spear upon an adversary. A thrill permeated
+Archie's frame. Parker had not been mistaken. This was undoubtedly the
+companion-figure to the redoubtable Pongo. The two were identical. Even
+from where he sat Archie could detect on the features of the figure on
+the pedestal the same expression of insufferable complacency which had
+alienated his sympathies from the original Pongo.
+
+The high-priest, undaunted by previous rebuffs, regarded the figure
+with a gloating enthusiasm wholly unshared by the congregation, who were
+plainly looking upon Pongo's little brother as just another of those
+things.
+
+"This," he said, with a shake in his voice, "is something very special.
+China figure, said to date back to the Ming Dynasty. Unique. Nothing
+like it on either side of the Atlantic. If I were selling this at
+Christie's in London, where people," he said, nastily, "have an educated
+appreciation of the beautiful, the rare, and the exquisite, I should
+start the bidding at a thousand dollars. This afternoon's experience has
+taught me that that might possibly be too high." His pince-nez sparkled
+militantly, as he gazed upon the stolid throng. "Will anyone offer me a
+dollar for this unique figure?"
+
+"Leap at it, old top," said Reggie van Tuyl. "Twiddle, dear boy,
+twiddle! A dollar's reasonable."
+
+Archie twiddled.
+
+"One dollar I am offered," said the high-priest, bitterly. "One
+gentleman here is not afraid to take a chance. One gentleman here knows
+a good thing when he sees one." He abandoned the gently sarcastic manner
+for one of crisp and direct reproach. "Come, come, gentlemen, we are not
+here to waste time. Will anyone offer me one hundred dollars for
+this superb piece of--" He broke off, and seemed for a moment almost
+unnerved. He stared at someone in one of the seats in front of Archie.
+"Thank you," he said, with a sort of gulp. "One hundred dollars I am
+offered! One hundred--one hundred--one hundred--"
+
+Archie was startled. This sudden, tremendous jump, this wholly
+unforeseen boom in Pongos, if one might so describe it, was more than
+a little disturbing. He could not see who his rival was, but it was
+evident that at least one among those present did not intend to allow
+Pongo's brother to slip by without a fight. He looked helplessly at
+Reggie for counsel, but Reggie had now definitely given up the struggle.
+Exhausted nature had done its utmost, and now he was leaning back
+with closed eyes, breathing softly through his nose. Thrown on his own
+resources, Archie could think of no better course than to twiddle his
+fingers again. He did so, and the high-priest's chant took on a note of
+positive exuberance.
+
+"Two hundred I am offered. Much better! Turn the pedestal round,
+Willie, and let them look at it. Slowly! Slowly! You aren't spinning a
+roulette-wheel. Two hundred. Two-two-two-two-two." He became suddenly
+lyrical. "Two-two-two--There was a young lady named Lou, who was
+catching a train at two-two. Said the porter, 'Don't worry or hurry or
+scurry. It's a minute or two to two-two!' Two-two-two-two-two!"
+
+Archie's concern increased. He seemed to be twiddling at this voluble
+man across seas of misunderstanding. Nothing is harder to interpret to a
+nicety than a twiddle, and Archie's idea of the language of twiddles
+and the high-priest's idea did not coincide by a mile. The high-priest
+appeared to consider that, when Archie twiddled, it was his intention
+to bid in hundreds, whereas in fact Archie had meant to signify that he
+raised the previous bid by just one dollar. Archie felt that, if given
+time, he could make this clear to the high-priest, but the latter gave
+him no time. He had got his audience, so to speak, on the run, and he
+proposed to hustle them before they could rally.
+
+"Two hundred--two hundred--two--three--thank you,
+sir--three-three-three-four-four-five-five-six-six-seven-seven-seven--"
+
+Archie sat limply in his wooden chair. He was conscious of a feeling
+which he had only experienced twice in his life--once when he had taken
+his first lesson in driving a motor and had trodden on the accelerator
+instead of the brake; the second time more recently, when he had made
+his first down-trip on an express lift. He had now precisely the same
+sensation of being run away with by an uncontrollable machine, and of
+having left most of his internal organs at some little distance from the
+rest of his body. Emerging from this welter of emotion, stood out the
+one clear fact that, be the opposition bidding what it might, he
+must nevertheless secure the prize. Lucille had sent him to New York
+expressly to do so. She had sacrificed her jewellery for the cause. She
+relied on him. The enterprise had become for Archie something almost
+sacred. He felt dimly like a knight of old hot on the track of the Holy
+Grail.
+
+He twiddled again. The ring and the bracelet had fetched nearly twelve
+hundred dollars. Up to that figure his hat was in the ring.
+
+"Eight hundred I am offered. Eight hundred. Eight-eight-eight-eight--"
+
+A voice spoke from somewhere at the back of the room. A quiet, cold,
+nasty, determined voice.
+
+"Nine!"
+
+Archie rose from his seat and spun round. This mean attack from the rear
+stung his fighting spirit. As he rose, a young man sitting immediately
+in front of him rose too and stared likewise. He was a square-built
+resolute-looking young man, who reminded Archie vaguely of somebody he
+had seen before. But Archie was too busy trying to locate the man at the
+back to pay much attention to him. He detected him at last, owing to the
+fact that the eyes of everybody in that part of the room were fixed
+upon him. He was a small man of middle age, with tortoise-shell-rimmed
+spectacles. He might have been a professor or something of the kind.
+Whatever he was, he was obviously a man to be reckoned with. He had a
+rich sort of look, and his demeanour was the demeanour of a man who is
+prepared to fight it out on these lines if it takes all the summer.
+
+"Nine hundred I am offered. Nine-nine-nine-nine--"
+
+Archie glared defiantly at the spectacled man.
+
+"A thousand!" he cried.
+
+The irruption of high finance into the placid course of the afternoon's
+proceedings had stirred the congregation out of its lethargy. There
+were excited murmurs. Necks were craned, feet shuffled. As for the
+high-priest, his cheerfulness was now more than restored, and his faith
+in his fellow-man had soared from the depths to a very lofty altitude.
+He beamed with approval. Despite the warmth of his praise he would have
+been quite satisfied to see Pongo's little brother go at twenty dollars,
+and the reflection that the bidding had already reached one thousand and
+that his commission was twenty per cent, had engendered a mood of sunny
+happiness.
+
+"One thousand is bid!" he carolled. "Now, gentlemen, I don't want to
+hurry you over this. You are all connoisseurs here, and you don't want
+to see a priceless china figure of the Ming Dynasty get away from you
+at a sacrifice price. Perhaps you can't all see the figure where it
+is. Willie, take it round and show it to 'em. We'll take a little
+intermission while you look carefully at this wonderful figure. Get a
+move on, Willie! Pick up your feet!"
+
+Archie, sitting dazedly, was aware that Reggie van Tuyl had finished his
+beauty sleep and was addressing the young man in the seat in front.
+
+"Why, hallo," said Reggie. "I didn't know you were back. You remember
+me, don't you? Reggie van Tuyl. I know your sister very well. Archie,
+old man, I want you to meet my friend, Bill Brewster. Why, dash it!" He
+chuckled sleepily. "I was forgetting. Of course! He's your--"
+
+"How are you?" said the young man. "Talking of my sister," he said to
+Reggie, "I suppose you haven't met her husband by any chance? I suppose
+you know she married some awful chump?"
+
+"Me," said Archie.
+
+"How's that?"
+
+"I married your sister. My name's Moffam."
+
+The young man seemed a trifle taken aback.
+
+"Sorry," he said.
+
+"Not at all," said Archie.
+
+"I was only going by what my father said in his letters," he explained,
+in extenuation.
+
+Archie nodded.
+
+"I'm afraid your jolly old father doesn't appreciate me. But I'm hoping
+for the best. If I can rope in that rummy-looking little china thing
+that Jo-Jo the dog-faced boy is showing the customers, he will be all
+over me. I mean to say, you know, he's got another like it, and, if
+he can get a full house, as it were, I'm given to understand he'll be
+bucked, cheered, and even braced."
+
+The young man stared.
+
+"Are YOU the fellow who's been bidding against me?"
+
+"Eh, what? Were you bidding against ME?"
+
+"I wanted to buy the thing for my father. I've a special reason for
+wanting to get in right with him just now. Are you buying it for him,
+too?"
+
+"Absolutely. As a surprise. It was Lucille's idea. His valet, a chappie
+named Parker, tipped us off that the thing was to be sold."
+
+"Parker? Great Scot! It was Parker who tipped ME off. I met him on
+Broadway, and he told me about it."
+
+"Rummy he never mentioned it in his letter to me. Why, dash it, we could
+have got the thing for about two dollars if we had pooled our bids."
+
+"Well, we'd better pool them now, and extinguish that pill at the back
+there. I can't go above eleven hundred. That's all I've got."
+
+"I can't go above eleven hundred myself."
+
+"There's just one thing. I wish you'd let me be the one to hand the
+thing over to Father. I've a special reason for wanting to make a hit
+with him."
+
+"Absolutely!" said Archie, magnanimously. "It's all the same to me. I
+only wanted to get him generally braced, as it were, if you know what I
+mean."
+
+"That's awfully good of you."
+
+"Not a bit, laddie, no, no, and far from it. Only too glad."
+
+Willie had returned from his rambles among the connoisseurs, and Pongo's
+brother was back on his pedestal. The high-priest cleared his throat and
+resumed his discourse.
+
+"Now that you have all seen this superb figure we will--I was offered
+one thousand--one thousand-one-one-one-one--eleven hundred. Thank you,
+sir. Eleven hundred I am offered."
+
+The high-priest was now exuberant. You could see him doing figures in
+his head.
+
+"You do the bidding," said Brother Bill.
+
+"Right-o!" said Archie.
+
+He waved a defiant hand.
+
+"Thirteen," said the man at the back.
+
+"Fourteen, dash it!"
+
+"Fifteen!"
+
+"Sixteen!"
+
+"Seventeen!"
+
+"Eighteen!"
+
+"Nineteen!"
+
+"Two thousand!"
+
+The high-priest did everything but sing. He radiated good will and
+bonhomie.
+
+"Two thousand I am offered. Is there any advance on two thousand? Come,
+gentlemen, I don't want to give this superb figure away. Twenty-one
+hundred. Twenty-one-one-one-one. This is more the sort of thing I have
+been accustomed to. When I was at Sotheby's Rooms in London, this kind
+of bidding was a common-place. Twenty-two-two-two-two-two. One hardly
+noticed it. Three-three-three. Twenty-three-three-three. Twenty-three
+hundred dollars I am offered."
+
+He gazed expectantly at Archie, as a man gazes at some favourite dog
+whom he calls upon to perform a trick. But Archie had reached the end of
+his tether. The hand that had twiddled so often and so bravely lay inert
+beside his trouser-leg, twitching feebly. Archie was through.
+
+"Twenty-three hundred," said the high-priest, ingratiatingly.
+
+Archie made no movement. There was a tense pause. The high-priest gave a
+little sigh, like one waking from a beautiful dream.
+
+"Twenty-three hundred," he said. "Once twenty-three. Twice twenty-three.
+Third, last, and final call, twenty-three. Sold at twenty-three hundred.
+I congratulate you, sir, on a genuine bargain!"
+
+Reggie van Tuyl had dozed off again. Archie tapped his brother-in-law on
+the shoulder.
+
+"May as well be popping, what?"
+
+They threaded their way sadly together through the crowd, and made for
+the street. They passed into Fifth Avenue without breaking the silence.
+
+"Bally nuisance," said Archie, at last.
+
+"Rotten!"
+
+"Wonder who that chappie was?"
+
+"Some collector, probably."
+
+"Well, it can't be helped," said Archie.
+
+Brother Bill attached himself to Archie's arm, and became communicative.
+
+"I didn't want to mention it in front of van Tuyl," he said, "because
+he's such a talking-machine, and it would have been all over New York
+before dinner-time. But you're one of the family, and you can keep a
+secret."
+
+"Absolutely! Silent tomb and what not."
+
+"The reason I wanted that darned thing was because I've just got engaged
+to a girl over in England, and I thought that, if I could hand my father
+that china figure-thing with one hand and break the news with the other,
+it might help a bit. She's the most wonderful girl!"
+
+"I'll bet she is," said Archie, cordially.
+
+"The trouble is she's in the chorus of one of the revues over there,
+and Father is apt to kick. So I thought--oh, well, it's no good worrying
+now. Come along where it's quiet, and I'll tell you all about her."
+
+"That'll be jolly," said Archie.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XI. SALVATORE CHOOSES THE WRONG MOMENT
+
+
+Archie reclaimed the family jewellery from its temporary home next
+morning; and, having done so, sauntered back to the Cosmopolis. He
+was surprised, on entering the lobby, to meet his father-in-law. More
+surprising still, Mr. Brewster was manifestly in a mood of extraordinary
+geniality. Archie could hardly believe his eyes when the other waved
+cheerily to him--nor his ears a moment later when Mr. Brewster,
+addressing him as "my boy," asked him how he was and mentioned that the
+day was a warm one.
+
+Obviously this jovial frame of mind must be taken advantage of; and
+Archie's first thought was of the downtrodden Salvatore, to the tale of
+whose wrongs he had listened so sympathetically on the previous day. Now
+was plainly the moment for the waiter to submit his grievance, before
+some ebb-tide caused the milk of human kindness to flow out of Daniel
+Brewster. With a swift "Cheerio!" in his father-in-law's direction,
+Archie bounded into the grill-room. Salvatore, the hour for luncheon
+being imminent but not yet having arrived, was standing against the far
+wall in an attitude of thought.
+
+"Laddie!" cried Archie.
+
+"Sare?"
+
+"A most extraordinary thing has happened. Good old Brewster has suddenly
+popped up through a trap and is out in the lobby now. And what's still
+more weird, he's apparently bucked."
+
+"Sare?"
+
+"Braced, you know. In the pink. Pleased about something. If you go to
+him now with that yarn of yours, you can't fail. He'll kiss you on both
+cheeks and give you his bank-roll and collar-stud. Charge along and ask
+the head-waiter if you can have ten minutes off."
+
+Salvatore vanished in search of the potentate named, and Archie returned
+to the lobby to bask in the unwonted sunshine.
+
+"Well, well, well, what!" he said. "I thought you were at Brookport."
+
+"I came up this morning to meet a friend of mine," replied Mr. Brewster
+genially. "Professor Binstead."
+
+"Don't think I know him."
+
+"Very interesting man," said Mr. Brewster, still with the same uncanny
+amiability. "He's a dabbler in a good many things--science, phrenology,
+antiques. I asked him to bid for me at a sale yesterday. There was a
+little china figure--"
+
+Archie's jaw fell.
+
+"China figure?" he stammered feebly.
+
+"Yes. The companion to one you may have noticed on my mantelpiece
+upstairs. I have been trying to get the pair of them for years. I should
+never have heard of this one if it had not been for that valet of mine,
+Parker. Very good of him to let me know of it, considering I had fired
+him. Ah, here is Binstead."-He moved to greet the small, middle-aged
+man with the tortoiseshell-rimmed spectacles who was bustling across the
+lobby. "Well, Binstead, so you got it?"
+
+"Yes."
+
+"I suppose the price wasn't particularly stiff?"
+
+"Twenty-three hundred."
+
+"Twenty-three hundred!" Mr. Brewster seemed to reel in his tracks.
+"Twenty-three HUNDRED!"
+
+"You gave me carte blanche."
+
+"Yes, but twenty-three hundred!"
+
+"I could have got it for a few dollars, but unfortunately I was a little
+late, and, when I arrived, some young fool had bid it up to a thousand,
+and he stuck to me till I finally shook him off at twenty-three hundred.
+Why, this is the very man! Is he a friend of yours?"
+
+Archie coughed.
+
+"More a relation than a friend, what? Son-in-law, don't you know!"
+
+Mr. Brewster's amiability had vanished.
+
+"What damned foolery have you been up to NOW?" he demanded. "Can't I
+move a step without stubbing my toe on you? Why the devil did you bid?"
+
+"We thought it would be rather a fruity scheme. We talked it over and
+came to the conclusion that it was an egg. Wanted to get hold of the
+rummy little object, don't you know, and surprise you."
+
+"Who's we?"
+
+"Lucille and I."
+
+"But how did you hear of it at all?"
+
+"Parker, the valet-chappie, you know, wrote me a letter about it."
+
+"Parker! Didn't he tell you that he had told me the figure was to be
+sold?"
+
+"Absolutely not!" A sudden suspicion came to Archie. He was normally a
+guileless young man, but even to him the extreme fishiness of the part
+played by Herbert Parker had become apparent. "I say, you know, it looks
+to me as if friend Parker had been having us all on a bit, what? I
+mean to say it was jolly old Herb, who tipped your son off--Bill, you
+know--to go and bid for the thing."
+
+"Bill! Was Bill there?"
+
+"Absolutely in person! We were bidding against each other like the
+dickens till we managed to get together and get acquainted. And then
+this bird--this gentleman--sailed in and started to slip it across us."
+
+Professor Binstead chuckled--the care-free chuckle of a man who sees
+all those around him smitten in the pocket, while he himself remains
+untouched.
+
+"A very ingenious rogue, this Parker of yours, Brewster. His method
+seems to have been simple but masterly. I have no doubt that either he
+or a confederate obtained the figure and placed it with the auctioneer,
+and then he ensured a good price for it by getting us all to bid against
+each other. Very ingenious!"
+
+Mr. Brewster struggled with his feelings. Then he seemed to overcome
+them and to force himself to look on the bright side.
+
+"Well, anyway," he said. "I've got the pair of figures, and that's what
+I wanted. Is that it in that parcel?"
+
+"This is it. I wouldn't trust an express company to deliver it. Suppose
+we go up to your room and see how the two look side by side."
+
+They crossed the lobby to the lift.-The cloud was still on Mr.
+Brewster's brow as they stepped out and made their way to his suite.
+Like most men who have risen from poverty to wealth by their
+own exertions, Mr. Brewster objected to parting with his money
+unnecessarily, and it was plain that that twenty-three hundred dollars
+still rankled.
+
+Mr. Brewster unlocked the door and crossed the room. Then, suddenly, he
+halted, stared, and stared again. He sprang to the bell and pressed it,
+then stood gurgling wordlessly.
+
+"Anything wrong, old bean?" queried Archie, solicitously.
+
+"Wrong! Wrong! It's gone!"
+
+"Gone?"
+
+"The figure!"
+
+The floor-waiter had manifested himself silently in answer to the bell,
+and was standing in the doorway.
+
+"Simmons!" Mr. Brewster turned to him wildly. "Has anyone been in this
+suite since I went away?"
+
+"No, sir."
+
+"Nobody?"
+
+"Nobody except your valet, sir--Parker. He said he had come to
+fetch some things away. I supposed he had come from you, sir, with
+instructions."
+
+"Get out!"
+
+Professor Binstead had unwrapped his parcel, and had placed the Pongo
+on the table. There was a weighty silence. Archie picked up the little
+china figure and balanced it on the palm of his hand. It was a small
+thing, he reflected philosophically, but it had made quite a stir in the
+world.
+
+Mr. Brewster fermented for a while without speaking.
+
+"So," he said, at last, in a voice trembling with self-pity, "I have
+been to all this trouble--"
+
+"And expense," put in Professor Binstead, gently.
+
+"Merely to buy back something which had been stolen from me! And, owing
+to your damned officiousness," he cried, turning on Archie, "I have had
+to pay twenty-three hundred dollars for it! I don't know why they make
+such a fuss about Job. Job never had anything like you around!"
+
+"Of course," argued Archie, "he had one or two boils."
+
+"Boils! What are boils?"
+
+"Dashed sorry," murmured Archie. "Acted for the best. Meant well. And
+all that sort of rot!"
+
+Professor Binstead's mind seemed occupied to the exclusion of all other
+aspects of the affair, with the ingenuity of the absent Parker.
+
+"A cunning scheme!" he said. "A very cunning scheme! This man Parker
+must have a brain of no low order. I should like to feel his bumps!"
+
+"I should like to give him some!" said the stricken Mr. Brewster. He
+breathed a deep breath. "Oh, well," he said, "situated as I am, with a
+crook valet and an imbecile son-in-law, I suppose I ought to be
+thankful that I've still got my own property, even if I have had to
+pay twenty-three hundred dollars for the privilege of keeping it." He
+rounded on Archie, who was in a reverie. The thought of the unfortunate
+Bill had just crossed Archie's mind. It would be many moons, many
+weary moons, before Mr. Brewster would be in a suitable mood to listen
+sympathetically to the story of love's young dream. "Give me that
+figure!"
+
+Archie continued to toy absently with Pongo. He was wondering now
+how best to break this sad occurrence to Lucille. It would be a
+disappointment for the poor girl.
+
+"GIVE ME THAT FIGURE!"
+
+Archie started violently. There was an instant in which Pongo seemed to
+hang suspended, like Mohammed's coffin, between heaven and earth, then
+the force of gravity asserted itself. Pongo fell with a sharp crack and
+disintegrated. And as it did so there was a knock at the door, and in
+walked a dark, furtive person, who to the inflamed vision of Mr. Daniel
+Brewster looked like something connected with the executive staff of the
+Black Hand. With all time at his disposal, the unfortunate Salvatore had
+selected this moment for stating his case.
+
+"Get out!" bellowed Mr. Brewster. "I didn't ring for a waiter."
+
+Archie, his mind reeling beneath the catastrophe, recovered himself
+sufficiently to do the honours. It was at his instigation that Salvatore
+was there, and, greatly as he wished that he could have seen fit to
+choose a more auspicious moment for his business chat, he felt compelled
+to do his best to see him through.
+
+"Oh, I say, half a second," he said. "You don't quite understand. As
+a matter of fact, this chappie is by way of being downtrodden and
+oppressed and what not, and I suggested that he should get hold of you
+and speak a few well-chosen words. Of course, if you'd rather--some
+other time--"
+
+But Mr. Brewster was not permitted to postpone the interview. Before
+he could get his breath, Salvatore had begun to talk. He was a strong,
+ambidextrous talker, whom it was hard to interrupt; and it was not for
+some moments that Mr. Brewster succeeded in getting a word in. When he
+did, he spoke to the point. Though not a linguist, he had been able
+to follow the discourse closely enough to realise that the waiter was
+dissatisfied with conditions in his hotel; and Mr. Brewster, as has been
+indicated, had a short way with people who criticised the Cosmopolis.
+
+"You're fired!" said Mr. Brewster.
+
+"Oh, I say!" protested Archie.
+
+Salvatore muttered what sounded like a passage from Dante.
+
+"Fired!" repeated Mr. Brewster resolutely. "And I wish to heaven," he
+added, eyeing his son-in-law malignantly, "I could fire you!"
+
+"Well," said Professor Binstead cheerfully, breaking the grim silence
+which followed this outburst, "if you will give me your cheque,
+Brewster, I think I will be going. Two thousand three hundred dollars.
+Make it open, if you will, and then I can run round the corner and cash
+it before lunch. That will be capital!"
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XII. BRIGHT EYES--AND A FLY
+
+
+The Hermitage (unrivalled scenery, superb cuisine, Daniel Brewster,
+proprietor) was a picturesque summer hotel in the green heart of the
+mountains, built by Archie's father-in-law shortly after he assumed
+control of the Cosmopolis. Mr. Brewster himself seldom went there,
+preferring to concentrate his attention on his New York establishment;
+and Archie and Lucille, breakfasting in the airy dining-room some ten
+days after the incidents recorded in the last chapter, had consequently
+to be content with two out of the three advertised attractions of the
+place. Through the window at their side quite a slab of the unrivalled
+scenery was visible; some of the superb cuisine was already on the
+table; and the fact that the eye searched in vain for Daniel Brewster,
+proprietor, filled Archie, at any rate, with no sense of aching loss. He
+bore it with equanimity and even with positive enthusiasm. In Archie's
+opinion, practically all a place needed to make it an earthly Paradise
+was for Mr. Daniel Brewster to be about forty-seven miles away from it.
+
+It was at Lucille's suggestion that they had come to the Hermitage.
+Never a human sunbeam, Mr. Brewster had shown such a bleak front to the
+world, and particularly to his son-in-law, in the days following the
+Pongo incident, that Lucille had thought that he and Archie would for a
+time at least be better apart--a view with which her husband cordially
+agreed. He had enjoyed his stay at the Hermitage, and now he regarded
+the eternal hills with the comfortable affection of a healthy man who is
+breakfasting well.
+
+"It's going to be another perfectly topping day," he observed, eyeing
+the shimmering landscape, from which the morning mists were swiftly
+shredding away like faint puffs of smoke. "Just the day you ought to
+have been here."
+
+"Yes, it's too bad I've got to go. New York will be like an oven."
+
+"Put it off."
+
+"I can't, I'm afraid. I've a fitting."
+
+Archie argued no further. He was a married man of old enough standing to
+know the importance of fittings.
+
+"Besides," said Lucille, "I want to see father." Archie repressed an
+exclamation of astonishment. "I'll be back to-morrow evening. You will
+be perfectly happy."
+
+"Queen of my soul, you know I can't be happy with you away. You know--"
+
+"Yes?" murmured Lucille, appreciatively. She never tired of hearing
+Archie say this sort of thing.
+
+Archie's voice had trailed off. He was looking across the room.
+
+"By Jove!" he exclaimed. "What an awfully pretty woman!"
+
+"Where?"
+
+"Over there. Just coming in, I say, what wonderful eyes! I don't think
+I ever saw such eyes. Did you notice her eyes? Sort of flashing! Awfully
+pretty woman!"
+
+Warm though the morning was, a suspicion of chill descended upon the
+breakfast-table. A certain coldness seemed to come into Lucille's face.
+She could not always share Archie's fresh young enthusiasms.
+
+"Do you think so?"
+
+"Wonderful figure, too!"
+
+"Yes?"
+
+"Well, what I mean to say, fair to medium," said Archie, recovering a
+certain amount of that intelligence which raises man above the level
+of the beasts of the field. "Not the sort of type I admire myself, of
+course."
+
+"You know her, don't you?"
+
+"Absolutely not and far from it," said Archie, hastily. "Never met her
+in my life."
+
+"You've seen her on the stage. Her name's Vera Silverton. We saw her
+in--"
+
+"Of course, yes. So we did. I say, I wonder what she's doing here?
+She ought to be in New York, rehearsing. I remember meeting
+what's-his-name--you know--chappie who writes plays and what not--George
+Benham--I remember meeting George Benham, and he told me she was
+rehearsing in a piece of his called--I forget the name, but I know it
+was called something or other. Well, why isn't she?"
+
+"She probably lost her temper and broke her contract and came away.
+She's always doing that sort of thing. She's known for it. She must be a
+horrid woman."
+
+"Yes."
+
+"I don't want to talk about her. She used to be married to someone,
+and she divorced him. And then she was married to someone else, and he
+divorced her. And I'm certain her hair wasn't that colour two years ago,
+and I don't think a woman ought to make up like that, and her dress is
+all wrong for the country, and those pearls can't be genuine, and I hate
+the way she rolls her eyes about, and pink doesn't suit her a bit. I
+think she's an awful woman, and I wish you wouldn't keep on talking
+about her."
+
+"Right-o!" said Archie, dutifully.
+
+They finished breakfast, and Lucille went up to pack her bag. Archie
+strolled out on to the terrace outside the hotel, where he smoked,
+communed with nature, and thought of Lucille. He always thought of
+Lucille when he was alone, especially when he chanced to find himself
+in poetic surroundings like those provided by the unrivalled scenery
+encircling the Hotel Hermitage. The longer he was married to her the
+more did the sacred institution seem to him a good egg. Mr. Brewster
+might regard their marriage as one of the world's most unfortunate
+incidents, but to Archie it was, and always had been, a bit of all
+right. The more he thought of it the more did he marvel that a girl like
+Lucille should have been content to link her lot with that of a Class C
+specimen like himself. His meditations were, in fact, precisely what a
+happily-married man's meditations ought to be.
+
+He was roused from them by a species of exclamation or cry almost at
+his elbow, and turned to find that the spectacular Miss Silverton was
+standing beside him. Her dubious hair gleamed in the sunlight, and one
+of the criticised eyes was screwed up. The other gazed at Archie with an
+expression of appeal.
+
+"There's something in my eye," she said.
+
+"No, really!"
+
+"I wonder if you would mind? It would be so kind of you!"
+
+Archie would have preferred to remove himself, but no man worthy of
+the name can decline to come to the rescue of womanhood in distress. To
+twist the lady's upper lid back and peer into it and jab at it with the
+corner of his handkerchief was the only course open to him. His conduct
+may be classed as not merely blameless but definitely praiseworthy. King
+Arthur's knights used to do this sort of thing all the time, and look
+what people think of them. Lucille, therefore, coming out of the
+hotel just as the operation was concluded, ought not to have felt
+the annoyance she did. But, of course, there is a certain superficial
+intimacy about the attitude of a man who is taking a fly out of a
+woman's eye which may excusably jar upon the sensibilities of his wife.
+It is an attitude which suggests a sort of rapprochement or camaraderie
+or, as Archie would have put it, what not.
+
+"Thanks so much!" said Miss Silverton.
+
+"Oh no, rather not," said Archie.
+
+"Such a nuisance getting things in your eye."
+
+"Absolutely!"
+
+"I'm always doing it!"
+
+"Rotten luck!"
+
+"But I don't often find anyone as clever as you to help me."
+
+Lucille felt called upon to break in on this feast of reason and flow of
+soul.
+
+"Archie," she said, "if you go and get your clubs now, I shall just have
+time to walk round with you before my train goes."
+
+"Oh, ah!" said Archie, perceiving her for the first time. "Oh, ah, yes,
+right-o, yes, yes, yes!"
+
+On the way to the first tee it seemed to Archie that Lucille was
+distrait and abstracted in her manner; and it occurred to him, not for
+the first time in his life, what a poor support a clear conscience is
+in moments of crisis. Dash it all, he didn't see what else he could have
+done. Couldn't leave the poor female staggering about the place with
+squads of flies wedged in her eyeball. Nevertheless--
+
+"Rotten thing getting a fly in your eye," he hazarded at length. "Dashed
+awkward, I mean."
+
+"Or convenient."
+
+"Eh?"
+
+"Well, it's a very good way of dispensing with an introduction."
+
+"Oh, I say! You don't mean you think--"
+
+"She's a horrid woman!"
+
+"Absolutely! Can't think what people see in her."
+
+"Well, you seemed to enjoy fussing over her!"
+
+"No, no! Nothing of the kind! She inspired me with absolute
+what-d'you-call-it--the sort of thing chappies do get inspired with, you
+know."
+
+"You were beaming all over your face."
+
+"I wasn't. I was just screwing up my face because the sun was in my
+eye."
+
+"All sorts of things seem to be in people's eyes this morning!"
+
+ Archie was saddened. That this sort of misunderstanding should have
+occurred on such a topping day and at a moment when they were to be torn
+asunder for about thirty-six hours made him feel--well, it gave him the
+pip. He had an idea that there were words which would have straightened
+everything out, but he was not an eloquent young man and could not find
+them. He felt aggrieved. Lucille, he considered, ought to have
+known that he was immune as regarded females with flashing eyes and
+experimentally-coloured hair. Why, dash it, he could have extracted
+flies from the eyes of Cleopatra with one hand and Helen of Troy with
+the other, simultaneously, without giving them a second thought. It was
+in depressed mood that he played a listless nine holes; nor had life
+brightened for him when he came back to the hotel two hours later, after
+seeing Lucille off in the train to New York. Never till now had they had
+anything remotely resembling a quarrel. Life, Archie felt, was a bit of
+a wash-out. He was disturbed and jumpy, and the sight of Miss Silverton,
+talking to somebody on a settee in the corner of the hotel lobby, sent
+him shooting off at right angles and brought him up with a bump against
+the desk behind which the room-clerk sat.
+
+The room-clerk, always of a chatty disposition, was saying something to
+him, but Archie did not listen. He nodded mechanically. It was something
+about his room. He caught the word "satisfactory."
+
+"Oh, rather, quite!" said Archie.
+
+A fussy devil, the room-clerk! He knew perfectly well that Archie found
+his room satisfactory. These chappies gassed on like this so as to try
+to make you feel that the management took a personal interest in you.
+It was part of their job. Archie beamed absently and went in to lunch.
+Lucille's empty seat stared at him mournfully, increasing his sense of
+desolation.
+
+He was half-way through his lunch, when the chair opposite ceased to
+be vacant. Archie, transferring his gaze from the scenery outside the
+window, perceived that his friend, George Benham, the playwright, had
+materialised from nowhere and was now in his midst.
+
+"Hallo!" he said.
+
+George Benham was a grave young man whose spectacles gave him the look
+of a mournful owl. He seemed to have something on his mind besides the
+artistically straggling mop of black hair which swept down over his
+brow. He sighed wearily, and ordered fish-pie.
+
+"I thought I saw you come through the lobby just now," he said.
+
+"Oh, was that you on the settee, talking to Miss Silverton?"
+
+"She was talking to ME," said the playwright, moodily.
+
+"What are you doing here?" asked Archie. He could have wished Mr. Benham
+elsewhere, for he intruded on his gloom, but, the chappie being amongst
+those present, it was only civil to talk to him. "I thought you were in
+New York, watching the rehearsals of your jolly old drama."
+
+"The rehearsals are hung up. And it looks as though there wasn't going
+to be any drama. Good Lord!" cried George Benham, with honest warmth,
+"with opportunities opening out before one on every side--with life
+extending prizes to one with both hands--when you see coal-heavers
+making fifty dollars a week and the fellows who clean out the sewers
+going happy and singing about their work--why does a man deliberately
+choose a job like writing plays? Job was the only man that ever lived
+who was really qualified to write a play, and he would have found
+it pretty tough going if his leading woman had been anyone like Vera
+Silverton!"
+
+Archie--and it was this fact, no doubt, which accounted for his
+possession of such a large and varied circle of friends--was always
+able to shelve his own troubles in order to listen to other people's
+hard-luck stories.
+
+"Tell me all, laddie," he said. "Release the film! Has she walked out on
+you?"
+
+"Left us flat! How did you hear about it? Oh, she told you, of course?"
+
+Archie hastened to try to dispel the idea that he was on any such terms
+of intimacy with Miss Silverton.
+
+"No, no! My wife said she thought it must be something of that nature or
+order when we saw her come in to breakfast. I mean to say," said
+Archie, reasoning closely, "woman can't come into breakfast here and
+be rehearsing in New York at the same time. Why did she administer the
+raspberry, old friend?"
+
+Mr. Benham helped himself to fish-pie, and spoke dully through the
+steam.
+
+"Well, what happened was this. Knowing her as intimately as you do--"
+
+"I DON'T know her!"
+
+"Well, anyway, it was like this. As you know, she has a dog--"
+
+"I didn't know she had a dog," protested Archie. It seemed to him that
+the world was in conspiracy to link him with this woman.
+
+"Well, she has a dog. A beastly great whacking brute of a bulldog. And
+she brings it to rehearsal." Mr. Benham's eyes filled with tears, as
+in his emotion he swallowed a mouthful of fish-pie some eighty-three
+degrees Fahrenheit hotter than it looked. In the intermission caused by
+this disaster his agile mind skipped a few chapters of the story, and,
+when he was able to speak again, he said, "So then there was a lot of
+trouble. Everything broke loose!"
+
+"Why?" Archie was puzzled. "Did the management object to her bringing
+the dog to rehearsal?"
+
+"A lot of good that would have done! She does what she likes in the
+theatre."
+
+"Then why was there trouble?"
+
+"You weren't listening," said Mr. Benham, reproachfully. "I told you.
+This dog came snuffling up to where I was sitting--it was quite dark in
+the body of the theatre, you know--and I got up to say something about
+something that was happening on the stage, and somehow I must have given
+it a push with my foot."
+
+"I see," said Archie, beginning to get the run of the plot. "You kicked
+her dog."
+
+"Pushed it. Accidentally. With my foot."
+
+"I understand. And when you brought off this kick--"
+
+"Push," said Mr. Benham, austerely.
+
+"This kick or push. When you administered this kick or push--"
+
+"It was more a sort of light shove."
+
+"Well, when you did whatever you did, the trouble started?"
+
+Mr. Benham gave a slight shiver.
+
+"She talked for a while, and then walked out, taking the dog with her.
+You see, this wasn't the first time it had happened."
+
+"Good Lord! Do you spend your whole time doing that sort of thing?"
+
+"It wasn't me the first time. It was the stage-manager. He didn't know
+whose dog it was, and it came waddling on to the stage, and he gave it a
+sort of pat, a kind of flick--"
+
+"A slosh?"
+
+"NOT a slosh," corrected Mr. Benham, firmly. "You might call it a
+tap--with the promptscript. Well, we had a lot of difficulty smoothing
+her over that time. Still, we managed to do it, but she said that if
+anything of the sort occurred again she would chuck up her part."
+
+"She must be fond of the dog," said Archie, for the first time feeling a
+touch of goodwill and sympathy towards the lady.
+
+"She's crazy about, it. That's what made it so awkward when I
+happened--quite inadvertently--to give it this sort of accidental shove.
+Well, we spent the rest of the day trying to get her on the 'phone at
+her apartment, and finally we heard that she had come here. So I took
+the next train, and tried to persuade her to come back. She wouldn't
+listen. And that's how matters stand."
+
+"Pretty rotten!" said Archie, sympathetically.
+
+"You can bet it's pretty rotten--for me. There's nobody else who can
+play the part. Like a chump, I wrote the thing specially for her. It
+means the play won't be produced at all, if she doesn't do it. So you're
+my last hope!"
+
+Archie, who was lighting a cigarette, nearly swallowed it.
+
+"_I_ am?"
+
+"I thought you might persuade her. Point out to her what a lot hangs on
+her coming back. Jolly her along, YOU know the sort of thing!"
+
+"But, my dear old friend, I tell you I don't know her!"
+
+Mr. Benham's eyes opened behind their zareba of glass.
+
+"Well, she knows YOU. When you came through the lobby just now she said
+that you were the only real human being she had ever met."
+
+"Well, as a matter of fact, I did take a fly out of her eye. But--"
+
+"You did? Well, then, the whole thing's simple. All you have to do is to
+ask her how her eye is, and tell her she has the most beautiful eyes you
+ever saw, and coo a bit."
+
+"But, my dear old son!" The frightful programme which his friend had
+mapped out stunned Archie. "I simply can't! Anything to oblige and all
+that sort of thing, but when it comes to cooing, distinctly Napoo!"
+
+"Nonsense! It isn't hard to coo."
+
+"You don't understand, laddie. You're not a married man. I mean to say,
+whatever you say for or against marriage--personally I'm all for it and
+consider it a ripe egg--the fact remains that it practically makes a
+chappie a spent force as a cooer. I don't want to dish you in any way,
+old bean, but I must firmly and resolutely decline to coo."
+
+Mr. Benham rose and looked at his watch.
+
+"I'll have to be moving," he said. "I've got to get back to New York and
+report. I'll tell them that I haven't been able to do anything myself,
+but that I've left the matter in good hands. I know you will do your
+best."
+
+"But, laddie!"
+
+"Think," said Mr. Benham, solemnly, "of all that depends on it! The
+other actors! The small-part people thrown out of a job! Myself--but no!
+Perhaps you had better touch very lightly or not at all on my connection
+with the thing. Well, you know how to handle it. I feel I can leave
+it to you. Pitch it strong! Good-bye, my dear old man, and a thousand
+thanks. I'll do the same for you another time." He moved towards the
+door, leaving Archie transfixed. Half-way there he turned and came back.
+"Oh, by the way," he said, "my lunch. Have it put on your bill, will
+you? I haven't time to stay and settle. Good-bye! Good-bye!"
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XIII. RALLYING ROUND PERCY
+
+
+It amazed Archie through the whole of a long afternoon to reflect how
+swiftly and unexpectedly the blue and brilliant sky of life can cloud
+over and with what abruptness a man who fancies that his feet are on
+solid ground can find himself immersed in Fate's gumbo. He recalled,
+with the bitterness with which one does recall such things, that that
+morning he had risen from his bed without a care in the world, his
+happiness unruffled even by the thought that Lucille would be leaving
+him for a short space. He had sung in his bath. Yes, he had chirruped
+like a bally linnet. And now--
+
+Some men would have dismissed the unfortunate affairs of Mr. George
+Benham from their mind as having nothing to do with themselves, but
+Archie had never been made of this stern stuff. The fact that Mr.
+Benham, apart from being an agreeable companion with whom he had lunched
+occasionally in New York, had no claims upon him affected him little. He
+hated to see his fellowman in trouble. On the other hand, what could
+he do? To seek Miss Silverton out and plead with her--even if he did
+it without cooing--would undoubtedly establish an intimacy between them
+which, instinct told him, might tinge her manner after Lucille's return
+with just that suggestion of Auld Lang Syne which makes things so
+awkward.
+
+His whole being shrank from extending to Miss Silverton that inch which
+the female artistic temperament is so apt to turn into an ell; and when,
+just as he was about to go in to dinner, he met her in the lobby and she
+smiled brightly at him and informed him that her eye was now completely
+recovered, he shied away like a startled mustang of the prairie, and,
+abandoning his intention of worrying the table d'hote in the same room
+with the amiable creature, tottered off to the smoking-room, where he
+did the best he could with sandwiches and coffee.
+
+Having got through the time as best he could till eleven o'clock, he
+went up to bed.
+
+The room to which he and Lucille had been assigned by the management was
+on the second floor, pleasantly sunny by day and at night filled with
+cool and heartening fragrance of the pines. Hitherto Archie had always
+enjoyed taking a final smoke on the balcony overlooking the woods,
+but, to-night such was his mental stress that he prepared to go to bed
+directly he had closed the door. He turned to the cupboard to get his
+pyjamas.
+
+His first thought, when even after a second scrutiny no pyjamas were
+visible, was that this was merely another of those things which happen
+on days when life goes wrong. He raked the cupboard for a third time
+with an annoyed eye. From every hook hung various garments of Lucille's,
+but no pyjamas. He was breathing a soft malediction preparatory to
+embarking on a point-to-point hunt for his missing property, when
+something in the cupboard caught his eye and held him for a moment
+puzzled.
+
+He could have sworn that Lucille did not possess a mauve neglige. Why,
+she had told him a dozen times that mauve was a colour which she did
+not like. He frowned perplexedly; and as he did so, from near the window
+came a soft cough.
+
+Archie spun round and subjected the room to as close a scrutiny as that
+which he had bestowed upon the cupboard. Nothing was visible. The window
+opening on to the balcony gaped wide. The balcony was manifestly empty.
+
+"URRF!"
+
+This time there was no possibility of error. The cough had come from the
+immediate neighbourhood of the window.
+
+Archie was conscious of a pringly sensation about the roots of his
+closely-cropped back-hair, as he moved cautiously across the room. The
+affair was becoming uncanny; and, as he tip-toed towards the window, old
+ghost stories, read in lighter moments before cheerful fires with
+plenty of light in the room, flitted through his mind. He had the
+feeling--precisely as every chappie in those stories had had--that he
+was not alone.
+
+Nor was he. In a basket behind an arm-chair, curled up, with his massive
+chin resting on the edge of the wicker-work, lay a fine bulldog.
+
+"Urrf!" said the bulldog.
+
+"Good God!" said Archie.
+
+There was a lengthy pause in which the bulldog looked earnestly at
+Archie and Archie looked earnestly at the bulldog.
+
+Normally, Archie was a dog-lover. His hurry was never so great as to
+prevent him stopping, when in the street, and introducing himself to any
+dog he met. In a strange house, his first act was to assemble the canine
+population, roll it on its back or backs, and punch it in the ribs. As a
+boy, his earliest ambition had been to become a veterinary surgeon; and,
+though the years had cheated him of his career, he knew all about dogs,
+their points, their manners, their customs, and their treatment in
+sickness and in health. In short, he loved dogs, and, had they met under
+happier conditions, he would undoubtedly have been on excellent terms
+with this one within the space of a minute. But, as things were, he
+abstained from fraternising and continued to goggle dumbly.
+
+And then his eye, wandering aside, collided with the following objects:
+a fluffy pink dressing-gown, hung over the back of a chair, an entirely
+strange suit-case, and, on the bureau, a photograph in a silver frame of
+a stout gentleman in evening-dress whom he had never seen before in his
+life.
+
+Much has been written of the emotions of the wanderer who, returning to
+his childhood home, finds it altered out of all recognition; but poets
+have neglected the theme--far more poignant--of the man who goes up to
+his room in an hotel and finds it full of somebody else's dressing-gowns
+and bulldogs.
+
+Bulldogs! Archie's heart jumped sideways and upwards with a wiggling
+movement, turning two somersaults, and stopped beating. The hideous
+truth, working its way slowly through the concrete, had at last
+penetrated to his brain. He was not only in somebody else's room, and a
+woman's at that. He was in the room belonging to Miss Vera Silverton.
+
+He could not understand it. He would have been prepared to stake the
+last cent he could borrow from his father-in-law on the fact that he had
+made no error in the number over the door. Yet, nevertheless, such was
+the case, and, below par though his faculties were at the moment, he was
+sufficiently alert to perceive that it behoved him to withdraw.
+
+He leaped to the door, and, as he did so, the handle began to turn.
+
+The cloud which had settled on Archie's mind lifted abruptly. For an
+instant he was enabled to think about a hundred times more quickly than
+was his leisurely wont. Good fortune had brought him to within easy
+reach of the electric-light switch. He snapped it back, and was in
+darkness. Then, diving silently and swiftly to the floor, he wriggled
+under the bed. The thud of his head against what appeared to be some
+sort of joist or support, unless it had been placed there by the maker
+as a practical joke, on the chance of this kind of thing happening some
+day, coincided with the creak of the opening door. Then the light
+was switched on again, and the bulldog in the corner gave a welcoming
+woofle.
+
+"And how is mamma's precious angel?"
+
+Rightly concluding that the remark had not been addressed to himself
+and that no social obligation demanded that he reply, Archie pressed
+his cheek against the boards and said nothing. The question was not
+repeated, but from the other side of the room came the sound of a patted
+dog.
+
+"Did he think his muzzer had fallen down dead and was never coming up?"
+
+The beautiful picture which these words conjured up filled Archie with
+that yearning for the might-have-been which is always so painful. He was
+finding his position physically as well as mentally distressing. It was
+cramped under the bed, and the boards were harder than anything he had
+ever encountered. Also, it appeared to be the practice of the housemaids
+at the Hotel Hermitage to use the space below the beds as a depository
+for all the dust which they swept off the carpet, and much of this was
+insinuating itself into his nose and mouth. The two things which Archie
+would have liked most to do at that moment were first to kill Miss
+Silverton--if possible, painfully--and then to spend the remainder of
+his life sneezing.
+
+After a prolonged period he heard a drawer open, and noted the fact as
+promising. As the old married man, he presumed that it signified the
+putting away of hair-pins. About now the dashed woman would be looking
+at herself in the glass with her hair down. Then she would brush it.
+Then she would twiddle it up into thingummies. Say, ten minutes for
+this. And after that she would go to bed and turn out the light, and he
+would be able, after giving her a bit of time to go to sleep, to creep
+out and leg it. Allowing at a conservative estimate three-quarters of--
+
+"Come out!"
+
+Archie stiffened. For an instant a feeble hope came to him that this
+remark, like the others, might be addressed to the dog.
+
+"Come out from under that bed!" said a stern voice. "And mind how you
+come! I've got a pistol!"
+
+"Well, I mean to say, you know," said Archie, in a propitiatory voice,
+emerging from his lair like a tortoise and smiling as winningly as a man
+can who has just bumped his head against the leg of a bed, "I suppose
+all this seems fairly rummy, but--"
+
+"For the love of Mike!" said Miss Silverton.
+
+The point seemed to Archie well taken and the comment on the situation
+neatly expressed.
+
+"What are you doing in my room?"
+
+"Well, if it comes to that, you know--shouldn't have mentioned it if you
+hadn't brought the subject up in the course of general chit-chat--what
+are you doing in mine?"
+
+"Yours?"
+
+"Well, apparently there's been a bloomer of some species somewhere, but
+this was the room I had last night," said Archie.
+
+"But the desk-clerk said that he had asked you if it would be quite
+satisfactory to you giving it up to me, and you said yes. I come here
+every summer, when I'm not working, and I always have this room."
+
+"By Jove! I remember now. The chappie did say something to me about the
+room, but I was thinking of something else and it rather went over the
+top. So that's what he was talking about, was it?"
+
+Miss Silverton was frowning. A moving-picture director, scanning her
+face, would have perceived that she was registering disappointment.
+
+"Nothing breaks right for me in this darned world," she said,
+regretfully. "When I caught sight of your leg sticking out from under
+the bed, I did think that everything was all lined up for a real find
+and, at last, I could close my eyes and see the thing in the papers.
+On the front page, with photographs: 'Plucky Actress Captures Burglar.'
+Darn it!"
+
+"Fearfully sorry, you know!"
+
+"I just needed something like that. I've got a Press-agent, and I
+will say for him that he eats well and sleeps well and has just enough
+intelligence to cash his monthly cheque without forgetting what he went
+into the bank for, but outside of that you can take it from me he's not
+one of the world's workers! He's about as much solid use to a girl with
+aspirations as a pain in the lower ribs. It's three weeks since he got
+me into print at all, and then the brightest thing he could think up was
+that my favourite breakfast-fruit was an apple. Well, I ask you!"
+
+"Rotten!" said Archie.
+
+"I did think that for once my guardian angel had gone back to work
+and was doing something for me. 'Stage Star and Midnight Marauder,'"
+murmured Miss Silverton, wistfully. "'Footlight Favourite Foils Felon.'"
+
+"Bit thick!" agreed Archie, sympathetically. "Well, you'll probably
+be wanting to get to bed and all that sort of rot, so I may as well be
+popping, what! Cheerio!"
+
+A sudden gleam came into Miss Silverton's compelling eyes.
+
+"Wait!"
+
+"Eh?"
+
+"Wait! I've got an idea!" The wistful sadness had gone from her manner.
+She was bright and alert. "Sit down!"
+
+"Sit down?"
+
+"Sure. Sit down and take the chill off the arm-chair. I've thought of
+something."
+
+Archie sat down as directed. At his elbow the bulldog eyed him gravely
+from the basket.
+
+"Do they know you in this hotel?"
+
+"Know me? Well, I've been here about a week."
+
+"I mean, do they know who you are? Do they know you're a good citizen?"
+
+"Well, if it comes to that, I suppose they don't. But--"
+
+"Fine!" said Miss Silverton, appreciatively. "Then it's all right. We
+can carry on!"
+
+"Carry on!"
+
+"Why, sure! All I want is to get the thing into the papers. It doesn't
+matter to me if it turns out later that there was a mistake and that you
+weren't a burglar trying for my jewels after all. It makes just as good
+a story either way. I can't think why that never struck me before. Here
+have I been kicking because you weren't a real burglar, when it doesn't
+amount to a hill of beans whether you are or not. All I've got to do
+is to rush out and yell and rouse the hotel, and they come in and pinch
+you, and I give the story to the papers, and everything's fine!"
+
+Archie leaped from his chair.
+
+"I say! What!"
+
+"What's on your mind?" enquired Miss Silverton, considerately. "Don't
+you think it's a nifty scheme?"
+
+"Nifty! My dear old soul! It's frightful!"
+
+"Can't see what's wrong with it," grumbled Miss Silverton. "After I've
+had someone get New York on the long-distance 'phone and give the
+story to the papers you can explain, and they'll let you out. Surely to
+goodness you don't object, as a personal favour to me, to spending an
+hour or two in a cell? Why, probably they haven't got a prison at all
+out in these parts, and you'll simply be locked in a room. A child of
+ten could do it on his head," said Miss Silverton. "A child of six," she
+emended.
+
+"But, dash it--I mean--what I mean to say--I'm married!"
+
+"Yes?" said Miss Silverton, with the politeness of faint interest. "I've
+been married myself. I wouldn't say it's altogether a bad thing, mind
+you, for those that like it, but a little of it goes a long way. My
+first husband," she proceeded, reminiscently, "was a travelling man. I
+gave him a two-weeks' try-out, and then I told him to go on travelling.
+My second husband--now, HE wasn't a gentleman in any sense of the word.
+I remember once--"
+
+"You don't grasp the point. The jolly old point! You fail to grasp it.
+If this bally thing comes out, my wife will be most frightfully sick!"
+
+Miss Silverton regarded him with pained surprise.
+
+"Do you mean to say you would let a little thing like that stand in the
+way of my getting on the front page of all the papers--WITH photographs?
+Where's your chivalry?"
+
+"Never mind my dashed chivalry!"
+
+"Besides, what does it matter if she does get a little sore? She'll soon
+get over it. You can put that right. Buy her a box of candy. Not that
+I'm strong for candy myself. What I always say is, it may taste good,
+but look what it does to your hips! I give you my honest word that, when
+I gave up eating candy, I lost eleven ounces the first week. My second
+husband--no, I'm a liar, it was my third--my third husband said--Say,
+what's the big idea? Where are you going?"
+
+"Out!" said Archie, firmly. "Bally out!"
+
+A dangerous light flickered in Miss Silverton's eyes.
+
+"That'll be all of that!" she said, raising the pistol. "You stay right
+where you are, or I'll fire!"
+
+"Right-o!"
+
+"I mean it!"
+
+"My dear old soul," said Archie, "in the recent unpleasantness in France
+I had chappies popping off things like that at me all day and every day
+for close on five years, and here I am, what! I mean to say, if I've
+got to choose between staying here and being pinched in your room by the
+local constabulary and having the dashed thing get into the papers and
+all sorts of trouble happening, and my wife getting the wind up and--I
+say, if I've got to choose--"
+
+"Suck a lozenge and start again!" said Miss Silverton.
+
+"Well, what I mean to say is, I'd much rather take a chance of getting a
+bullet in the old bean than that. So loose it off and the best o' luck!"
+
+Miss Silverton lowered the pistol, sank into a chair, and burst into
+tears.
+
+"I think you're the meanest man I ever met!" she sobbed. "You know
+perfectly well the bang would send me into a fit!"
+
+"In that case," said Archie, relieved, "cheerio, good luck, pip-pip,
+toodle-oo, and good-bye-ee! I'll be shifting!"
+
+"Yes, you will!" cried Miss Silverton, energetically, recovering with
+amazing swiftness from her collapse. "Yes, you will, I by no means
+suppose! You think, just because I'm no champion with a pistol, I'm
+helpless. You wait! Percy!"
+
+"My name is not Percy."
+
+"I never said it was. Percy! Percy, come to muzzer!"
+
+There was a creaking rustle from behind the arm-chair. A heavy body
+flopped on the carpet. Out into the room, heaving himself along as
+though sleep had stiffened his joints, and breathing stertorously
+through his tilted nose, moved the fine bulldog. Seen in the open, he
+looked even more formidable than he had done in his basket.
+
+"Guard him, Percy! Good dog, guard him! Oh, heavens! What's the matter
+with him?"
+
+And with these words the emotional woman, uttering a wail of anguish,
+flung herself on the floor beside the animal.
+
+Percy was, indeed, in manifestly bad shape. He seemed quite unable to
+drag his limbs across the room. There was a curious arch in his back,
+and, as his mistress touched him, he cried out plaintively,
+
+"Percy! Oh, what IS the matter with him? His nose is burning!"
+
+Now was the time, with both sections of the enemy's forces occupied, for
+Archie to have departed softly from the room. But never, since the
+day when at the age of eleven he had carried a large, damp, and muddy
+terrier with a sore foot three miles and deposited him on the best sofa
+in his mother's drawing-room, had he been able to ignore the spectacle
+of a dog in trouble.
+
+"He does look bad, what!"
+
+"He's dying! Oh, he's dying! Is it distemper? He's never had distemper."
+
+Archie regarded the sufferer with the grave eye of the expert. He shook
+his head.
+
+"It's not that," he said. "Dogs with distemper make a sort of snifting
+noise."
+
+"But he IS making a snifting noise!"
+
+"No, he's making a snuffling noise. Great difference between snuffling
+and snifting. Not the same thing at all. I mean to say, when they snift
+they snift, and when they snuffle they--as it were--snuffle. That's how
+you can tell. If you ask ME"--he passed his hand over the dog's back.
+Percy uttered another cry. "I know what's the matter with him."
+
+"A brute of a man kicked him at rehearsal. Do you think he's injured
+internally?"
+
+"It's rheumatism," said Archie. "Jolly old rheumatism. That's all that's
+the trouble."
+
+"Are you sure?"
+
+"Absolutely!"
+
+"But what can I do?"
+
+"Give him a good hot bath, and mind and dry him well. He'll have a good
+sleep then, and won't have any pain. Then, first thing to-morrow, you
+want to give him salicylate of soda."
+
+"I'll never remember that."-"I'll write it down for you. You ought to
+give him from ten to twenty grains three times a day in an ounce of
+water. And rub him with any good embrocation."
+
+"And he won't die?"
+
+"Die! He'll live to be as old as you are!-I mean to say--"
+
+"I could kiss you!" said Miss Silverton, emotionally.
+
+Archie backed hastily.
+
+"No, no, absolutely not! Nothing like that required, really!"
+
+"You're a darling!"
+
+"Yes. I mean no. No, no, really!"
+
+"I don't know what to say. What can I say?"
+
+"Good night," said Archie.
+
+"I wish there was something I could do! If you hadn't been here, I
+should have gone off my head!"
+
+A great idea flashed across Archie's brain.
+
+"Do you really want to do something?"
+
+"Anything!"
+
+"Then I do wish, like a dear sweet soul, you would pop straight back to
+New York to-morrow and go on with those rehearsals."
+
+Miss Silverton shook her head.
+
+"I can't do that!"
+
+"Oh, right-o! But it isn't much to ask, what!"
+
+"Not much to ask! I'll never forgive that man for kicking Percy!"
+
+"Now listen, dear old soul. You've got the story all wrong. As a matter
+of fact, jolly old Benham told me himself that he has the greatest
+esteem and respect for Percy, and wouldn't have kicked him for the
+world. And, you know it was more a sort of push than a kick. You might
+almost call it a light shove. The fact is, it was beastly dark in the
+theatre, and he was legging it sideways for some reason or other, no
+doubt with the best motives, and unfortunately he happened to stub his
+toe on the poor old bean."
+
+"Then why didn't he say so?"
+
+"As far as I could make out, you didn't give him a chance."
+
+Miss Silverton wavered.
+
+"I always hate going back after I've walked out on a show," she said.
+"It seems so weak!"
+
+"Not a bit of it! They'll give three hearty cheers and think you a
+topper. Besides, you've got to go to New York in any case. To take Percy
+to a vet., you know, what!"
+
+"Of course. How right you always are!" Miss Silverton hesitated again.
+"Would you really be glad if I went back to the show?"
+
+"I'd go singing about the hotel! Great pal of mine, Benham. A thoroughly
+cheery old bean, and very cut up about the whole affair. Besides, think
+of all the coves thrown out of work--the thingummabobs and the poor
+what-d'you-call-'ems!"
+
+"Very well."
+
+"You'll do it?"
+
+"Yes."
+
+"I say, you really are one of the best! Absolutely like mother made!
+That's fine! Well, I think I'll be saying good night."
+
+"Good night. And thank you so much!"
+
+"Oh, no, rather not!"
+
+Archie moved to the door.
+
+"Oh, by the way."
+
+"Yes?"
+
+"If I were you, I think I should catch the very first train you can get
+to New York. You see--er--you ought to take Percy to the vet. as soon as
+ever you can."
+
+"You really do think of everything," said Miss Silverton.
+
+"Yes," said Archie, meditatively.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XIV. THE SAD CASE OF LOONEY BIDDLE
+
+
+Archie was a simple soul, and, as is the case with most simple souls,
+gratitude came easily to him. He appreciated kind treatment. And when,
+on the following day, Lucille returned to the Hermitage, all smiles and
+affection, and made no further reference to Beauty's Eyes and the flies
+that got into them, he was conscious of a keen desire to show some solid
+recognition of this magnanimity. Few wives, he was aware, could have
+had the nobility and what not to refrain from occasionally turning the
+conversation in the direction of the above-mentioned topics. It had not
+needed this behaviour on her part to convince him that Lucille was a
+topper and a corker and one of the very best, for he had been cognisant
+of these facts since the first moment he had met her: but what he did
+feel was that she deserved to be rewarded in no uncertain manner. And
+it seemed a happy coincidence to him that her birthday should be coming
+along in the next week or so. Surely, felt Archie, he could whack up
+some sort of a not unjuicy gift for that occasion--something pretty ripe
+that would make a substantial hit with the dear girl. Surely something
+would come along to relieve his chronic impecuniosity for just
+sufficient length of time to enable him to spread himself on this great
+occasion.
+
+And, as if in direct answer to prayer, an almost forgotten aunt in
+England suddenly, out of an absolutely blue sky, shot no less a sum than
+five hundred dollars across the ocean. The present was so lavish and
+unexpected that Archie had the awed feeling of one who participates in
+a miracle. He felt, like Herbert Parker, that the righteous was not
+forsaken. It was the sort of thing that restored a fellow's faith in
+human nature. For nearly a week he went about in a happy trance: and
+when, by thrift and enterprise--that is to say, by betting Reggie van
+Tuyl that the New York Giants would win the opening game of the series
+against the Pittsburg baseball team--he contrived to double his capital,
+what it amounted to was simply that life had nothing more to offer. He
+was actually in a position to go to a thousand dollars for Lucille's
+birthday present. He gathered in Mr. van Tuyl, of whose taste in these
+matters he had a high opinion, and dragged him off to a jeweller's on
+Broadway.
+
+The jeweller, a stout, comfortable man, leaned on the counter and
+fingered lovingly the bracelet which he had lifted out of its nest of
+blue plush. Archie, leaning on the other side of the counter, inspected
+the bracelet searchingly, wishing that he knew more about these things;
+for he had rather a sort of idea that the merchant was scheming to do
+him in the eyeball. In a chair by his side, Reggie van Tuyl, half asleep
+as usual, yawned despondently. He had permitted Archie to lug him into
+this shop; and he wanted to buy something and go. Any form of sustained
+concentration fatigued Reggie.
+
+"Now this," said the jeweller, "I could do at eight hundred and fifty
+dollars."
+
+"Grab it!" murmured Mr. van Tuyl.
+
+The jeweller eyed him approvingly, a man after his own heart; but Archie
+looked doubtful. It was all very well for Reggie to tell him to grab
+it in that careless way. Reggie was a dashed millionaire, and no doubt
+bought bracelets by the pound or the gross or what not; but he himself
+was in an entirely different position.
+
+"Eight hundred and fifty dollars!" he said, hesitating.
+
+"Worth it," mumbled Reggie van Tuyl.
+
+"More than worth it," amended the jeweller. "I can assure you that it is
+better value than you could get anywhere on Fifth Avenue."
+
+"Yes?" said Archie. He took the bracelet and twiddled it thoughtfully.
+"Well, my dear old jeweller, one can't say fairer than that, can one--or
+two, as the case may be!" He frowned. "Oh, well, all right! But it's
+rummy that women are so fearfully keen on these little thingummies,
+isn't it? I mean to say, can't see what they see in them. Stones, and
+all that. Still, there, it is, of course!"
+
+"There," said the jeweller, "as you say, it is, sir."
+
+"Yes, there it is!"
+
+"Yes, there it is," said the jeweller, "fortunately for people in my
+line of business. Will you take it with you, sir?"
+
+Archie reflected.
+
+"No. No, not take it with me. The fact is, you know, my wife's coming
+back from the country to-night, and it's her birthday to-morrow, and the
+thing's for her, and, if it was popping about the place to-night, she
+might see it, and it would sort of spoil the surprise. I mean to say,
+she doesn't know I'm giving it her, and all that!"
+
+"Besides," said Reggie, achieving a certain animation now that the
+tedious business interview was concluded, "going to the ball-game this
+afternoon--might get pocket picked--yes, better have it sent."
+
+"Where shall I send it, sir?"
+
+"Eh? Oh, shoot it along to Mrs. Archibald Moffam, at the Cosmopolis. Not
+to-day, you know. Buzz it in first thing to-morrow."
+
+Having completed the satisfactory deal, the jeweller threw off the
+business manner and became chatty.
+
+"So you are going to the ball-game? It should be an interesting
+contest."
+
+Reggie van Tuyl, now--by his own standards--completely awake, took
+exception to this remark.
+
+"Not a bit of it!" he said, decidedly. "No contest! Can't call it a
+contest! Walkover for the Pirates!"
+
+Archie was stung to the quick. There is that about baseball which
+arouses enthusiasm and the partisan spirit in the unlikeliest bosoms. It
+is almost impossible for a man to live in America and not become gripped
+by the game; and Archie had long been one of its warmest adherents.
+He was a whole-hearted supporter of the Giants, and his only grievance
+against Reggie, in other respects an estimable young man, was that the
+latter, whose money had been inherited from steel-mills in that city,
+had an absurd regard for the Pirates of Pittsburg.
+
+"What absolute bally rot!" he exclaimed. "Look what the Giants did to
+them yesterday!"
+
+"Yesterday isn't to-day," said Reggie.
+
+"No, it'll be a jolly sight worse," said Archie. "Looney Biddle'll be
+pitching for the Giants to-day."
+
+"That's just what I mean. The Pirates have got him rattled. Look what
+happened last time."
+
+Archie understood, and his generous nature chafed at the innuendo.
+Looney Biddle--so-called by an affectionately admiring public as the
+result of certain marked eccentricities--was beyond dispute the greatest
+left-handed pitcher New York had possessed in the last decade. But there
+was one blot on Mr. Biddle's otherwise stainless scutcheon. Five weeks
+before, on the occasion of the Giants' invasion of Pittsburg, he had
+gone mysteriously to pieces. Few native-born partisans, brought up to
+baseball from the cradle, had been plunged into a profounder gloom on
+that occasion than Archie; but his soul revolted at the thought that
+that sort of thing could ever happen again.
+
+"I'm not saying," continued Reggie, "that Biddle isn't a very fair
+pitcher, but it's cruel to send him against the Pirates, and somebody
+ought to stop it. His best friends should interfere. Once a team gets
+a pitcher rattled, he's never any good against them again. He loses his
+nerve."
+
+The jeweller nodded approval of this sentiment.
+
+"They never come back," he said, sententiously.
+
+The fighting blood of the Moffams was now thoroughly stirred. Archie
+eyed his friend sternly. Reggie was a good chap--in many respects an
+extremely sound egg--but he must not be allowed to talk rot of this
+description about the greatest left-handed pitcher of the age.
+
+"It seems to me, old companion," he said, "that a small bet is indicated
+at this juncture. How about it?"
+
+"Don't want to take your money."
+
+"You won't have to! In the cool twilight of the merry old summer
+evening I, friend of my youth and companion of my riper years, shall be
+trousering yours."
+
+Reggie yawned. The day was very hot, and this argument was making him
+feel sleepy again.
+
+"Well, just as you like, of course. Double or quits on yesterday's bet,
+if that suits you."
+
+For a moment Archie hesitated. Firm as his faith was in Mr. Biddle's
+stout left arm, he had not intended to do the thing on quite this
+scale. That thousand dollars of his was earmarked for Lucille's birthday
+present, and he doubted whether he ought to risk it. Then the thought
+that the honour of New York was in his hands decided him. Besides, the
+risk was negligible. Betting on Looney Biddle was like betting on the
+probable rise of the sun in the east. The thing began to seem to Archie
+a rather unusually sound and conservative investment. He remembered that
+the jeweller, until he drew him firmly but kindly to earth and urged
+him to curb his exuberance and talk business on a reasonable plane, had
+started brandishing bracelets that cost about two thousand. There would
+be time to pop in at the shop this evening after the game and change the
+one he had selected for one of those. Nothing was too good for Lucille
+on her birthday.
+
+"Right-o!" he said. "Make it so, old friend!"
+
+Archie walked back to the Cosmopolis. No misgivings came to mar his
+perfect contentment. He felt no qualms about separating Reggie from
+another thousand dollars. Except for a little small change in the
+possession of the Messrs. Rockefeller and Vincent Astor, Reggie had all
+the money in the world and could afford to lose. He hummed a gay air
+as he entered the lobby and crossed to the cigar-stand to buy a few
+cigarettes to see him through the afternoon.
+
+The girl behind the cigar counter welcomed him with a bright smile.
+Archie was popular with all the employes of the Cosmopolis.
+
+"'S a great day, Mr. Moffam!"
+
+"One of the brightest and best," Agreed Archie. "Could you dig me out
+two, or possibly three, cigarettes of the usual description? I shall
+want something to smoke at the ball-game."
+
+"You going to the ball-game?"
+
+"Rather! Wouldn't miss it for a fortune."
+
+"No?"
+
+"Absolutely no! Not with jolly old Biddle pitching."
+
+The cigar-stand girl laughed amusedly.
+
+"Is he pitching this afternoon? Say, that feller's a nut? D'you know
+him?"
+
+"Know him? Well, I've seen him pitch and so forth."
+
+"I've got a girl friend who's engaged to him!"
+
+Archie looked at her with positive respect. It would have been more
+dramatic, of course, if she had been engaged to the great man herself,
+but still the mere fact that she had a girl friend in that astounding
+position gave her a sort of halo.
+
+"No, really!" he said. "I say, by Jove, really! Fancy that!"
+
+"Yes, she's engaged to him all right. Been engaged close on a coupla
+months now."
+
+"I say! That's frightfully interesting! Fearfully interesting, really!"
+
+"It's funny about that guy," said the cigar-stand girl. "He's a nut!
+The fellow who said there's plenty of room at the top must have been
+thinking of Gus Biddle's head! He's crazy about m' girl friend, y' know,
+and, whenever they have a fuss, it seems like he sort of flies right off
+the handle."
+
+"Goes in off the deep end, eh?"
+
+"Yes, SIR! Loses what little sense he's got. Why, the last time him and
+m' girl friend got to scrapping was when he was going on to Pittsburg
+to play, about a month ago. He'd been out with her the day he left for
+there, and he had a grouch or something, and he started making low,
+sneaky cracks about her Uncle Sigsbee. Well, m' girl friend's got a nice
+disposition, but she c'n get mad, and she just left him flat and told
+him all was over. And he went off to Pittsburg, and, when he started in
+to pitch the opening game, he just couldn't keep his mind on his
+job, and look what them assassins done to him! Five runs in the first
+innings! Yessir, he's a nut all right!"
+
+Archie was deeply concerned. So this was the explanation of that
+mysterious disaster, that weird tragedy which had puzzled the sporting
+press from coast to coast.
+
+"Good God! Is he often taken like that?"
+
+"Oh, he's all right when he hasn't had a fuss with m' girl friend," said
+the cigar-stand girl, indifferently. Her interest in baseball was tepid.
+Women are too often like this--mere butterflies, with no concern for the
+deeper side of life.
+
+"Yes, but I say! What I mean to say, you know! Are they pretty pally
+now? The good old Dove of Peace flapping its little wings fairly briskly
+and all that?"
+
+"Oh, I guess everything's nice and smooth just now. I seen m' girl
+friend yesterday, and Gus was taking her to the movies last night, so I
+guess everything's nice and smooth."
+
+Archie breathed a sigh of relief.
+
+"Took her to the movies, did he? Stout fellow!"
+
+"I was at the funniest picture last week," said the cigar-stand girl.
+"Honest, it was a scream! It was like this--"
+
+Archie listened politely; then went in to get a bite of lunch. His
+equanimity, shaken by the discovery of the rift in the peerless one's
+armour, was restored. Good old Biddle had taken the girl to the movies
+last night. Probably he had squeezed her hand a goodish bit in the dark.
+With what result? Why, the fellow would be feeling like one of those
+chappies who used to joust for the smiles of females in the Middle Ages.
+What he meant to say, presumably the girl would be at the game this
+afternoon, whooping him on, and good old Biddle would be so full of
+beans and buck that there would be no holding him.
+
+Encouraged by these thoughts, Archie lunched with an untroubled mind.
+Luncheon concluded, he proceeded to the lobby to buy back his hat and
+stick from the boy brigand with whom he had left them. It was while he
+was conducting this financial operation that he observed that at the
+cigar-stand, which adjoined the coat-and-hat alcove, his friend behind
+the counter had become engaged in conversation with another girl.
+
+This was a determined looking young woman in a blue dress and a large
+hat of a bold and flowery species, Archie happening to attract her
+attention, she gave him a glance out of a pair of fine brown eyes, then,
+as if she did not think much of him, turned to her companion and resumed
+their conversation--which, being of an essentially private and intimate
+nature, she conducted, after the manner of her kind, in a ringing
+soprano which penetrated into every corner of the lobby. Archie,
+waiting while the brigand reluctantly made change for a dollar bill, was
+privileged to hear every word.
+
+"Right from the start I seen he was in a ugly mood. YOU know how he
+gets, dearie! Chewing his upper lip and looking at you as if you were
+so much dirt beneath his feet! How was _I_ to know he'd lost fifteen
+dollars fifty-five playing poker, and anyway, I don't see where he gets
+a licence to work off his grouches on me. And I told him so. I said to
+him, 'Gus,' I said, 'if you can't be bright and smiling and cheerful
+when you take me out, why do you come round at all? Was I wrong or
+right, dearie?"
+
+The girl behind the counter heartily endorsed her conduct. "Once you let
+a man think he could use you as a door-mat, where were you?"
+
+"What happened then, honey?"
+
+"Well, after that we went to the movies."
+
+Archie started convulsively. The change from his dollar-bill leaped in
+his hand. Some of it sprang overboard and tinkled across the floor, with
+the brigand in pursuit. A monstrous suspicion had begun, to take root in
+his mind.
+
+"Well, we got good seats, but--well, you know how it is, once things
+start going wrong. You know that hat of mine, the one with the daisies
+and cherries and the feather--I'd taken it off and given it him to hold
+when we went in, and what do you think that fell'r'd done? Put it on the
+floor and crammed it under the seat, just to save himself the trouble of
+holding it on his lap! And, when I showed him I was upset, all he said
+was that he was a pitcher and not a hatstand!"
+
+Archie was paralysed. He paid no attention to the hat-check boy, who
+was trying to induce him to accept treasure-trove to the amount of
+forty-five cents. His whole being was concentrated on this frightful
+tragedy which had burst upon him like a tidal wave. No possible room for
+doubt remained. "Gus" was the only Gus in New York that mattered, and
+this resolute and injured female before him was the Girl Friend, in
+whose slim hands rested the happiness of New York's baseball followers,
+the destiny of the unconscious Giants, and the fate of his thousand
+dollars. A strangled croak proceeded from his parched lips.
+
+"Well, I didn't say anything at the moment. It just shows how them
+movies can work on a girl's feelings. It was a Bryant Washburn film, and
+somehow, whenever I see him on the screen, nothing else seems to matter.
+I just get that goo-ey feeling, and couldn't start a fight if you asked
+me to. So we go off to have a soda, and I said to him, 'That sure was a
+lovely film, Gus!' and would you believe me, he says straight out that
+he didn't think it was such a much, and he thought Bryant Washburn was a
+pill! A pill!" The Girl Friend's penetrating voice shook with emotion.
+
+"He never!" exclaimed the shocked cigar-stand girl.
+
+"He did, if I die the next moment! I wasn't more than half-way through
+my vanilla and maple, but I got up without a word and left him. And I
+ain't seen a sight of him since. So there you are, dearie! Was I right
+or wrong?"
+
+The cigar-stand girl gave unqualified approval. What men like Gus Biddle
+needed for the salvation of their souls was an occasional good jolt
+right where it would do most good.
+
+"I'm glad you think I acted right, dearie," said the Girl Friend. "I
+guess I've been too weak with Gus, and he's took advantage of it. I
+s'pose I'll have to forgive him one of these old days, but, believe me,
+it won't be for a week."
+
+The cigar-stand girl was in favour of a fortnight.
+
+"No," said the Girl Friend, regretfully. "I don't believe I could hold
+out that long. But, if I speak to him inside a week, well--! Well, I
+gotta be going. Goodbye, honey."
+
+The cigar-stand girl turned to attend to an impatient customer, and the
+Girl Friend, walking with the firm and decisive steps which indicate
+character, made for the swing-door leading to the street. And as she
+went, the paralysis which had pipped Archie released its hold. Still
+ignoring the forty-five cents which the boy continued to proffer, he
+leaped in her wake like a panther and came upon her just as she was
+stepping into a car. The car was full, but not too full for Archie. He
+dropped his five cents into the box and reached for a vacant strap.
+He looked down upon the flowered hat. There she was. And there he was.
+Archie rested his left ear against the forearm of a long, strongly-built
+young man in a grey suit who had followed him into the car and was
+sharing his strap, and pondered.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XV. SUMMER STORMS
+
+
+Of course, in a way, the thing was simple. The wheeze was, in a sense,
+straightforward and uncomplicated. What he wanted to do was to point out
+to the injured girl all that hung on her. He wished to touch her
+heart, to plead with her, to desire her to restate her war-aims, and to
+persuade her--before three o'clock when that stricken gentleman would be
+stepping into the pitcher's box to loose off the first ball against
+the Pittsburg Pirates--to let bygones be bygones and forgive Augustus
+Biddle. But the blighted problem was, how the deuce to find the
+opportunity to start. He couldn't yell at the girl in a crowded
+street-car; and, if he let go of his strap and bent over her, somebody
+would step on his neck.
+
+The Girl Friend, who for the first five minutes had remained entirely
+concealed beneath her hat, now sought diversion by looking up and
+examining the faces of the upper strata of passengers. Her eye caught
+Archie's in a glance of recognition, and he smiled feebly, endeavouring
+to register bonhomie and good-will. He was surprised to see a startled
+expression come into her brown eyes. Her face turned pink. At least, it
+was pink already, but it turned pinker. The next moment, the car having
+stopped to pick up more passengers, she jumped off and started to hurry
+across the street.
+
+Archie was momentarily taken aback. When embarking on this business
+he had never intended it to become a blend of otter-hunting and a
+moving-picture chase. He followed her off the car with a sense that his
+grip on the affair was slipping. Preoccupied with these thoughts, he
+did not perceive that the long young man who had shared his strap had
+alighted too. His eyes were fixed on the vanishing figure of the Girl
+Friend, who, having buzzed at a smart pace into Sixth Avenue, was now
+legging it in the direction of the staircase leading to one of the
+stations of the Elevated Railroad. Dashing up the stairs after her,
+he shortly afterwards found himself suspended as before from a strap,
+gazing upon the now familiar flowers on top of her hat. From another
+strap farther down the carriage swayed the long young man in the grey
+suit.
+
+The train rattled on. Once or twice, when it stopped, the girl seemed
+undecided whether to leave or remain. She half rose, then sank back
+again. Finally she walked resolutely out of the car, and Archie,
+following, found himself in a part of New York strange to him. The
+inhabitants of this district appeared to eke out a precarious existence,
+not by taking in one another's washing, but by selling one another
+second-hand clothes.
+
+Archie glanced at his watch. He had lunched early, but so crowded with
+emotions had been the period following lunch that he was surprised to
+find that the hour was only just two. The discovery was a pleasant one.
+With a full hour before the scheduled start of the game, much might be
+achieved. He hurried after the girl, and came up with her just as she
+turned the corner into one of those forlorn New York side-streets which
+are populated chiefly by children, cats, desultory loafers, and empty
+meat-tins.
+
+The girl stopped and turned. Archie smiled a winning smile.
+
+"I say, my dear sweet creature!" he said. "I say, my dear old thing, one
+moment!"
+
+"Is that so?" said the Girl Friend.
+
+"I beg your pardon?"
+
+"Is that so?"
+
+Archie began to feel certain tremors. Her eyes were gleaming, and her
+determined mouth had become a perfectly straight line of scarlet. It was
+going to be difficult to be chatty to this girl. She was going to be a
+hard audience. Would mere words be able to touch her heart? The thought
+suggested itself that, properly speaking, one would need to use a
+pick-axe.
+
+"If you could spare me a couples of minutes of your valuable time--"
+
+"Say!" The lady drew herself up menacingly. "You tie a can to yourself
+and disappear! Fade away, or I'll call a cop!"
+
+Archie was horrified at this misinterpretation of his motives. One or
+two children, playing close at hand, and a loafer who was trying to
+keep the wall from falling down, seemed pleased. Theirs was a colourless
+existence and to the rare purple moments which had enlivened it in the
+past the calling of a cop had been the unfailing preliminary. The loafer
+nudged a fellow-loafer, sunning himself against the same wall. The
+children, abandoning the meat-tin round which their game had centred,
+drew closer.
+
+"My dear old soul!" said Archie. "You don't understand!"
+
+"Don't I! I know your sort, you trailing arbutus!"
+
+"No, no! My dear old thing, believe me! I wouldn't dream!"
+
+"Are you going or aren't you?"
+
+Eleven more children joined the ring of spectators. The loafers stared
+silently, like awakened crocodiles.
+
+"But, I say, listen! I only wanted--"
+
+At this point another voice spoke.
+
+"Say!"
+
+The word "Say!" more almost than any word in the American language, is
+capable of a variety of shades of expression. It can be genial, it can
+be jovial, it can be appealing. It can also be truculent The "Say!"
+which at this juncture smote upon Archie's ear-drum with a suddenness
+which made him leap in the air was truculent; and the two loafers and
+twenty-seven children who now formed the audience were well satisfied
+with the dramatic development of the performance. To their experienced
+ears the word had the right ring.
+
+Archie spun round. At his elbow stood a long, strongly-built young man
+in a grey suit.
+
+"Well!" said the young man, nastily. And he extended a large, freckled
+face toward Archie's. It seemed to the latter, as he backed against the
+wall, that the young man's neck must be composed of india-rubber. It
+appeared to be growing longer every moment. His face, besides being
+freckled, was a dull brick-red in colour; his lips curled back in an
+unpleasant snarl, showing a gold tooth; and beside him, swaying in an
+ominous sort of way, hung two clenched red hands about the size of two
+young legs of mutton. Archie eyed him with a growing apprehension. There
+are moments in life when, passing idly on our way, we see a strange
+face, look into strange eyes, and with a sudden glow of human warmth
+say to ourselves, "We have found a friend!" This was not one of those
+moments. The only person Archie had ever seen in his life who looked
+less friendly was the sergeant-major who had trained him in the early
+days of the war, before he had got his commission.
+
+"I've had my eye on you!" said the young man.
+
+He still had his eye on him. It was a hot, gimlet-like eye, and it
+pierced the recesses of Archie's soul. He backed a little farther
+against the wall.
+
+Archie was frankly disturbed. He was no poltroon, and had proved the
+fact on many occasions during the days when the entire German army
+seemed to be picking on him personally, but he hated and shrank from
+anything in the nature of a bally public scene.
+
+"What," enquired the young man, still bearing the burden of the
+conversation, and shifting his left hand a little farther behind his
+back, "do you mean by following this young lady?"
+
+Archie was glad he had asked him. This was precisely what he wanted to
+explain.
+
+"My dear old lad--" he began.
+
+In spite of the fact that he had asked a question and presumably desired
+a reply, the sound of Archie's voice seemed to be more than the young
+man could endure. It deprived him of the last vestige of restraint. With
+a rasping snarl he brought his left fist round in a sweeping semicircle
+in the direction of Archie's head.
+
+Archie was no novice in the art of self-defence. Since his early days at
+school he had learned much from leather-faced professors of the science.
+He had been watching this unpleasant young man's eyes with close
+attention, and the latter could not have indicated his scheme of action
+more clearly if he had sent him a formal note. Archie saw the swing all
+the way. He stepped nimbly aside, and the fist crashed against the wall.
+The young man fell back with a yelp of anguish.
+
+"Gus!" screamed the Girl Friend, bounding forward.
+
+She flung her arms round the injured man, who was ruefully examining
+a hand which, always of an out-size, was now swelling to still further
+dimensions.
+
+"Gus, darling!"
+
+A sudden chill gripped Archie. So engrossed had he been with his mission
+that it had never occurred to him that the love-lorn pitcher might have
+taken it into his head to follow the girl as well in the hope of putting
+in a word for himself. Yet such apparently had been the case. Well, this
+had definitely torn it. Two loving hearts were united again in complete
+reconciliation, but a fat lot of good that was. It would be days before
+the misguided Looney Biddle would be able to pitch with a hand like
+that. It looked like a ham already, and was still swelling. Probably the
+wrist was sprained. For at least a week the greatest left-handed pitcher
+of his time would be about as much use to the Giants in any professional
+capacity as a cold in the head. And on that crippled hand depended the
+fate of all the money Archie had in the world. He wished now that he
+had not thwarted the fellow's simple enthusiasm. To have had his head
+knocked forcibly through a brick wall would not have been pleasant, but
+the ultimate outcome would not have been as unpleasant as this. With a
+heavy heart Archie prepared to withdraw, to be alone with his sorrow.
+
+At this moment, however, the Girl Friend, releasing her wounded lover,
+made a sudden dash for him, with the plainest intention of blotting him
+from the earth.
+
+"No, I say! Really!" said Archie, bounding backwards. "I mean to say!"
+
+In a series of events, all of which had been a bit thick, this, in his
+opinion, achieved the maximum of thickness. It was the extreme ragged,
+outside edge of the limit. To brawl with a fellow-man in a public street
+had been bad, but to be brawled with by a girl--the shot was not on the
+board. Absolutely not on the board. There was only one thing to be done.
+It was dashed undignified, no doubt, for a fellow to pick up the old
+waukeesis and leg it in the face of the enemy, but there was no other
+course. Archie started to run; and, as he did so, one of the loafers
+made the mistake of gripping him by the collar of his coat.
+
+"I got him!" observed the loafer.-There is a time for all things. This
+was essentially not the time for anyone of the male sex to grip the
+collar of Archie's coat. If a syndicate of Dempsey, Carpentier, and one
+of the Zoo gorillas had endeavoured to stay his progress at that moment,
+they would have had reason to consider it a rash move. Archie wanted to
+be elsewhere, and the blood of generations of Moffams, many of whom
+had swung a wicked axe in the free-for-all mix-ups of the Middle Ages,
+boiled within him at any attempt to revise his plans. There was a
+good deal of the loafer, but it was all soft. Releasing his hold when
+Archie's heel took him shrewdly on the shin, he received a nasty punch
+in what would have been the middle of his waistcoat if he had worn one,
+uttered a gurgling bleat like a wounded sheep, and collapsed against the
+wall. Archie, with a torn coat, rounded the corner, and sprinted down
+Ninth Avenue.
+
+The suddenness of the move gave him an initial advantage. He was halfway
+down the first block before the vanguard of the pursuit poured out of
+the side street. Continuing to travel well, he skimmed past a large dray
+which had pulled up across the road, and moved on. The noise of those
+who pursued was loud and clamorous in the rear, but the dray hid him
+momentarily from their sight, and it was this fact which led Archie, the
+old campaigner, to take his next step.
+
+It was perfectly obvious--he was aware of this even in the novel
+excitement of the chase--that a chappie couldn't hoof it at twenty-five
+miles an hour indefinitely along a main thoroughfare of a great city
+without exciting remark. He must take cover. Cover! That was the wheeze.
+He looked about him for cover.
+
+"You want a nice suit?"
+
+It takes a great deal to startle your commercial New Yorker. The small
+tailor, standing in his doorway, seemed in no way surprised at the
+spectacle of Archie, whom he had seen pass at a conventional walk some
+five minutes before, returning like this at top speed. He assumed that
+Archie had suddenly remembered that he wanted to buy something.
+
+This was exactly what Archie had done. More than anything else in the
+world, what he wanted to do now was to get into that shop and have a
+long talk about gents' clothing. Pulling himself up abruptly, he shot
+past the small tailor into the dim interior. A confused aroma of cheap
+clothing greeted him. Except for a small oasis behind a grubby counter,
+practically all the available space was occupied by suits. Stiff suits,
+looking like the body when discovered by the police, hung from hooks.
+Limp suits, with the appearance of having swooned from exhaustion, lay
+about on chairs and boxes. The place was a cloth morgue, a Sargasso Sea
+of serge.
+
+Archie would not have had it otherwise. In these quiet groves of
+clothing a regiment could have lain hid.
+
+"Something nifty in tweeds?" enquired the business-like proprietor of
+this haven, following him amiably into the shop, "Or, maybe, yes, a nice
+serge? Say, mister, I got a sweet thing in blue serge that'll fit you
+like the paper on the wall!"
+
+Archie wanted to talk about clothes, but not yet.
+
+"I say, laddie," he said, hurriedly. "Lend me, your ear for half a
+jiffy!" Outside the baying of the pack had become imminent. "Stow me
+away for a moment in the undergrowth, and I'll buy anything you want."
+
+He withdrew into the jungle. The noise outside grew in volume. The
+pursuit had been delayed for a priceless few instants by the arrival of
+another dray, moving northwards, which had drawn level with the first
+dray and dexterously bottled up the fairway. This obstacle had now been
+overcome, and the original searchers, their ranks swelled by a few dozen
+more of the leisured classes, were hot on the trail again.
+
+"You done a murder?" enquired the voice of the proprietor, mildly
+interested, filtering through a wall of cloth. "Well, boys will be
+boys!" he said, philosophically. "See anything there that you like?
+There some sweet things there!"
+
+"I'm inspecting them narrowly," replied Archie. "If you don't let those
+chappies find me, I shouldn't be surprised if I bought one."
+
+"One?" said the proprietor, with a touch of austerity.
+
+"Two," said Archie, quickly. "Or possibly three or six."
+
+The proprietor's cordiality returned.
+
+"You can't have too many nice suits," he said, approvingly, "not a young
+feller like you that wants to look nice. All the nice girls like a
+young feller that dresses nice. When you go out of here in a suit I got
+hanging up there at the back, the girls 'll be all over you like flies
+round a honey-pot."
+
+"Would you mind," said Archie, "would you mind, as a personal favour to
+me, old companion, not mentioning that word 'girls'?"
+
+He broke off. A heavy foot had crossed the threshold of the shop.
+
+"Say, uncle," said a deep voice, one of those beastly voices that only
+the most poisonous blighters have, "you seen a young feller run past
+here?"
+
+"Young feller?" The proprietor appeared to reflect. "Do you mean a young
+feller in blue, with a Homburg hat?"
+
+"That's the duck! We lost him. Where did he go?"
+
+"Him! Why, he come running past, quick as he could go. I wondered what
+he was running for, a hot day like this. He went round the corner at the
+bottom of the block."
+
+There was a silence.
+
+"Well, I guess he's got away," said the voice, regretfully.
+
+"The way he was travelling," agreed the proprietor, "I wouldn't be
+surprised if he was in Europe by this. You want a nice suit?"
+
+The other, curtly expressing a wish that the proprietor would go to
+eternal perdition and take his entire stock with him, stumped out.
+
+"This," said the proprietor, tranquilly, burrowing his way to where
+Archie stood and exhibiting a saffron-coloured outrage, which appeared
+to be a poor relation of the flannel family, "would put you back fifty
+dollars. And cheap!"
+
+"Fifty dollars!"
+
+"Sixty, I said. I don't speak always distinct."
+
+Archie regarded the distressing garment with a shuddering horror. A
+young man with an educated taste in clothes, it got right in among his
+nerve centres.
+
+"But, honestly, old soul, I don't want to hurt your feelings, but that
+isn't a suit, it's just a regrettable incident!"
+
+The proprietor turned to the door in a listening attitude.
+
+"I believe I hear that feller coming back," he said.
+
+Archie gulped.
+
+"How about trying it on?" he said. "I'm not sure, after all, it isn't
+fairly ripe."
+
+"That's the way to talk," said the proprietor, cordially. "You try it
+on. You can't judge a suit, not a real nice suit like this, by looking
+at it. You want to put it on. There!" He led the way to a dusty
+mirror at the back of the shop. "Isn't that a bargain at seventy
+dollars?...Why, say, your mother would be proud if she could see her boy
+now!"
+
+A quarter of an hour later, the proprietor, lovingly kneading a little
+sheaf of currency bills, eyed with a fond look the heap of clothes which
+lay on the counter.
+
+"As nice a little lot as I've ever had in my shop!" Archie did not deny
+this. It was, he thought, probably only too true.
+
+"I only wish I could see you walking up Fifth Avenue in them!"
+rhapsodised the proprietor. "You'll give 'em a treat! What you going
+to do with 'em? Carry 'em under your arm?" Archie shuddered strongly.
+"Well, then, I can send 'em for you anywhere you like. It's all the same
+to me. Where'll I send 'em?"
+
+Archie meditated. The future was black enough as it was. He shrank from
+the prospect of being confronted next day, at the height of his misery,
+with these appalling reach-me-downs.
+
+An idea struck him.
+
+"Yes, send 'em," he said.
+
+"What's the name and address?"
+
+"Daniel Brewster," said Archie, "Hotel Cosmopolis."
+
+It was a long time since he had given his father-in-law a present.
+
+Archie went out into the street, and began to walk pensively down a now
+peaceful Ninth Avenue. Out of the depths that covered him, black as the
+pit from pole to pole, no single ray of hope came to cheer him. He could
+not, like the poet, thank whatever gods there be for his unconquerable
+soul, for his soul was licked to a splinter. He felt alone and
+friendless in a rotten world. With the best intentions, he had succeeded
+only in landing himself squarely amongst the ribstons. Why had he not
+been content with his wealth, instead of risking it on that blighted bet
+with Reggie? Why had he trailed the Girl Friend, dash her! He might have
+known that he would only make an ass of himself, And, because he had
+done so, Looney Biddle's left hand, that priceless left hand before
+which opposing batters quailed and wilted, was out of action, resting in
+a sling, careened like a damaged battleship; and any chance the Giants
+might have had of beating the Pirates was gone--gone--as surely as
+that thousand dollars which should have bought a birthday present for
+Lucille.
+
+A birthday present for Lucille! He groaned in bitterness of spirit.
+She would be coming back to-night, dear girl, all smiles and happiness,
+wondering what he was going to give her tomorrow. And when to-morrow
+dawned, all he would be able to give her would be a kind smile. A nice
+state of things! A jolly situation! A thoroughly good egg, he did NOT
+think!
+
+It seemed to Archie that Nature, contrary to her usual custom of
+indifference to human suffering, was mourning with him. The sky
+was overcast, and the sun had ceased to shine. There was a sort of
+sombreness in the afternoon, which fitted in with his mood. And then
+something splashed on his face.
+
+It says much for Archie's pre-occupation that his first thought, as,
+after a few scattered drops, as though the clouds were submitting
+samples for approval, the whole sky suddenly began to stream like a
+shower-bath, was that this was simply an additional infliction which he
+was called upon to bear, On top of all his other troubles he would get
+soaked to the skin or have to hang about in some doorway. He cursed
+richly, and sped for shelter.
+
+The rain was setting about its work in earnest. The world was full of
+that rending, swishing sound which accompanies the more violent summer
+storms. Thunder crashed, and lightning flicked out of the grey heavens.
+Out in the street the raindrops bounded up off the stones like fairy
+fountains. Archie surveyed them morosely from his refuge in the entrance
+of a shop.
+
+And then, suddenly, like one of those flashes which were lighting up the
+gloomy sky, a thought lit up his mind.
+
+"By Jove! If this keeps up, there won't be a ball-game to-day!"
+
+With trembling fingers he pulled out his watch. The hands pointed to
+five minutes to three. A blessed vision came to him of a moist and
+disappointed crowd receiving rain-checks up at the Polo Grounds.
+
+"Switch it on, you blighters!" he cried, addressing the leaden clouds.
+"Switch it on more and more!"
+
+It was shortly before five o'clock that a young man bounded into a
+jeweller's shop near the Hotel Cosmopolis--a young man who, in spite of
+the fact that his coat was torn near the collar and that he oozed
+water from every inch of his drenched clothes, appeared in the highest
+spirits.. It was only when he spoke that the jeweller recognised in
+the human sponge the immaculate youth who had looked in that morning to
+order a bracelet.
+
+"I say, old lad," said this young man, "you remember that jolly little
+what-not you showed me before lunch?"
+
+"The bracelet, sir?"
+
+"As you observe with a manly candour which does you credit, my dear
+old jeweller, the bracelet. Well, produce, exhibit, and bring it forth,
+would you mind? Trot it out! Slip it across on a lordly dish!"
+
+"You wished me, surely, to put it aside and send it to the Cosmopolis
+to-morrow?"
+
+The young man tapped the jeweller earnestly on his substantial chest.
+
+"What I wished and what I wish now are two bally separate and dashed
+distinct things, friend of my college days! Never put off till to-morrow
+what you can do to-day, and all that! I'm not taking any more chances.
+Not for me! For others, yes, but not for Archibald! Here are the
+doubloons, produce the jolly bracelet Thanks!"
+
+The jeweller counted the notes with the same unction which Archie
+had observed earlier in the day in the proprietor of the second-hand
+clothes-shop. The process made him genial.
+
+"A nasty, wet day, sir, it's been," he observed, chattily.
+
+Archie shook his head.
+
+"Old friend," he said, "you're all wrong. Far otherwise, and not a bit
+like it, my dear old trafficker in gems! You've put your finger on
+the one aspect of this blighted p.m. that really deserves credit and
+respect. Rarely in the experience of a lifetime have I encountered a day
+so absolutely bally in nearly every shape and form, but there was one
+thing that saved it, and that was its merry old wetness! Toodle-oo,
+laddie!"
+
+"Good evening, sir," said the jeweller.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XVI. ARCHIE ACCEPTS A SITUATION
+
+
+Lucille moved her wrist slowly round, the better to examine the new
+bracelet.
+
+"You really are an angel, angel!" she murmured.
+
+"Like it?" said Archie complacently.
+
+"LIKE it! Why, it's gorgeous! It must have cost a fortune."
+
+"Oh, nothing to speak of. Just a few hard-earned pieces of eight. Just a
+few doubloons from the old oak chest."
+
+"But I didn't know there were any doubloons in the old oak chest."
+
+"Well, as a matter of fact," admitted Archie, "at one point in the
+proceedings there weren't. But an aunt of mine in England--peace be
+on her head!--happened to send me a chunk of the necessary at what you
+might call the psychological moment."
+
+"And you spent it all on a birthday present for me! Archie!" Lucille
+gazed at her husband adoringly. "Archie, do you know what I think?"
+
+"What?"
+
+"You're the perfect man!"
+
+"No, really! What ho!"
+
+"Yes," said Lucille firmly. "I've long suspected it, and now I know. I
+don't think there's anybody like you in the world."
+
+Archie patted her hand.
+
+"It's a rummy thing," he observed, "but your father said almost exactly
+that to me only yesterday. Only I don't fancy he meant the same as you.
+To be absolutely frank, his exact expression was that he thanked God
+there was only one of me."
+
+A troubled look came into Lucille's grey eyes.
+
+"It's a shame about father. I do wish he appreciated you. But you
+mustn't be too hard on him."
+
+"Me?" said Archie. "Hard on your father? Well, dash it all, I don't
+think I treat him with what you might call actual brutality, what! I
+mean to say, my whole idea is rather to keep out of the old lad's way
+and curl up in a ball if I can't dodge him. I'd just as soon be hard on
+a stampeding elephant! I wouldn't for the world say anything derogatory,
+as it were, to your jolly old pater, but there is no getting away from
+the fact that he's by way of being one of our leading man-eating fishes.
+It would be idle to deny that he considers that you let down the proud
+old name of Brewster a bit when you brought me in and laid me on the
+mat."
+
+"Anyone would be lucky to get you for a son-in-law, precious."
+
+"I fear me, light of my life, the dad doesn't see eye to eye with you
+on that point. No, every time I get hold of a daisy, I give him another
+chance, but it always works out at 'He loves me not!'"
+
+"You must make allowances for him, darling."
+
+"Right-o! But I hope devoutly that he doesn't catch me at it. I've a
+sort of idea that if the old dad discovered that I was making allowances
+for him, he would have from ten to fifteen fits."
+
+"He's worried just now, you know."
+
+"I didn't know. He doesn't confide in me much."
+
+"He's worried about that waiter."
+
+"What waiter, queen of my soul?"
+
+"A man called Salvatore. Father dismissed him some time ago."
+
+"Salvatore!"
+
+"Probably you don't remember him. He used to wait on this table."
+
+"Why--"
+
+"And father dismissed him, apparently, and now there's all sorts of
+trouble. You see, father wants to build this new hotel of his, and he
+thought he'd got the site and everything and could start building right
+away: and now he finds that this man Salvatore's mother owns a little
+newspaper and tobacco shop right in the middle of the site, and there's
+no way of getting him out without buying the shop, and he won't sell. At
+least, he's made his mother promise that she won't sell."
+
+"A boy's best friend is his mother," said Archie approvingly. "I had a
+sort of idea all along--"
+
+"So father's in despair."
+
+Archie drew at his cigarette meditatively.
+
+"I remember a chappie--a policeman he was, as a matter of fact, and
+incidentally a fairly pronounced blighter--remarking to me some time
+ago that you could trample on the poor man's face but you mustn't be
+surprised if he bit you in the leg while you were doing it. Apparently
+this is what has happened to the old dad. I had a sort of idea all along
+that old friend Salvatore would come out strong in the end if you only
+gave him time. Brainy sort of feller! Great pal of mine."-Lucille's
+small face lightened. She gazed at Archie with proud affection. She
+felt that she ought to have known that he was the one to solve this
+difficulty.
+
+"You're wonderful, darling! Is he really a friend of yours?"
+
+"Absolutely. Many's the time he and I have chatted in this very
+grill-room."
+
+"Then it's all right. If you went to him and argued with him, he would
+agree to sell the shop, and father would be happy. Think how grateful
+father would be to you! It would make all the difference."
+
+Archie turned this over in his mind.
+
+"Something in that," he agreed.
+
+"It would make him see what a pet lambkin you really are!"
+
+"Well," said Archie, "I'm bound to say that any scheme which what you
+might call culminates in your father regarding me as a pet lambkin ought
+to receive one's best attention. How much did he offer Salvatore for his
+shop?"
+
+"I don't know. There is father.--Call him over and ask him."
+
+Archie glanced over to where Mr. Brewster had sunk moodily into a chair
+at a neighbouring table. It was plain even at that distance that Daniel
+Brewster had his troubles and was bearing them with an ill grace. He was
+scowling absently at the table-cloth.
+
+"YOU call him," said Archie, having inspected his formidable relative.
+"You know him better."
+
+"Let's go over to him."
+
+They crossed the room. Lucille sat down opposite her father.-Archie
+draped himself over a chair in the background.
+
+"Father, dear," said Lucille. "Archie has got an idea."
+
+"Archie?" said Mr. Brewster incredulously.
+
+"This is me," said Archie, indicating himself with a spoon. "The tall,
+distinguished-looking bird."
+
+"What new fool-thing is he up to now?"
+
+"It's a splendid idea, father. He wants to help you over your new
+hotel."
+
+"Wants to run it for me, I suppose?"
+
+"By Jove!" said Archie, reflectively. "That's not a bad scheme! I never
+thought of running an hotel. I shouldn't mind taking a stab at it."
+
+"He has thought of a way of getting rid of Salvatore and his shop."
+
+For the first time Mr. Brewster's interest in the conversation seemed to
+stir. He looked sharply at his son-in-law.
+
+"He has, has he?" he said.
+
+Archie balanced a roll on a fork and inserted a plate underneath. The
+roll bounded away into a corner.
+
+"Sorry!" said Archie. "My fault, absolutely! I owe you a roll. I'll sign
+a bill for it. Oh, about this sportsman Salvatore, Well, it's like this,
+you know. He and I are great pals. I've known him for years and years.
+At least, it seems like years and years. Lu was suggesting that I
+seek him out in his lair and ensnare him with my diplomatic manner and
+superior brain power and what not."
+
+"It was your idea, precious," said Lucille.
+
+Mr. Brewster was silent.--Much as it went against the grain to have to
+admit it, there seemed to be something in this.
+
+"What do you propose to do?"
+
+"Become a jolly old ambassador. How much did you offer the chappie?"
+
+"Three thousand dollars. Twice as much as the place is worth. He's
+holding out on me for revenge."
+
+"Ah, but how did you offer it to him, what? I mean to say, I bet you got
+your lawyer to write him a letter full of whereases, peradventures, and
+parties of the first part, and so forth. No good, old companion!"
+
+"Don't call me old companion!"
+
+"All wrong, laddie! Nothing like it, dear heart! No good at all, friend
+of my youth! Take it from your Uncle Archibald! I'm a student of human
+nature, and I know a thing or two."
+
+"That's not much," growled Mr. Brewster, who was finding his
+son-in-law's superior manner a little trying.
+
+"Now, don't interrupt, father," said Lucille, severely. "Can't you see
+that Archie is going to be tremendously clever in a minute?"
+
+"He's got to show me!"
+
+"What you ought to do," said Archie, "is to let me go and see him,
+taking the stuff in crackling bills. I'll roll them about on the
+table in front of him. That'll fetch him!" He prodded Mr. Brewster
+encouragingly with a roll. "I'll tell you what to do. Give me three
+thousand of the best and crispest, and I'll undertake to buy that shop.
+It can't fail, laddie!"
+
+"Don't call me laddie!" Mr. Brewster pondered. "Very well," he said at
+last. "I didn't know you had so much sense," he added grudgingly.
+
+"Oh, positively!" said Archie. "Beneath a rugged exterior I hide a brain
+like a buzz-saw. Sense? I exude it, laddie; I drip with it."
+
+There were moments during the ensuing days when Mr. Brewster permitted
+himself to hope; but more frequent were the moments when he told himself
+that a pronounced chump like his son-in-law could not fail somehow to
+make a mess of the negotiations. His relief, therefore, when Archie
+curveted into his private room and announced that he had succeeded was
+great.
+
+"You really managed to make that wop sell out?"
+
+Archie brushed some papers off the desk with a careless gesture, and
+seated himself on the vacant spot.
+
+"Absolutely! I spoke to him as one old friend to another, sprayed the
+bills all over the place; and he sang a few bars from 'Rigoletto,' and
+signed on the dotted line."
+
+"You're not such a fool as you look," owned Mr. Brewster.
+
+Archie scratched a match on the desk and lit a cigarette.
+
+"It's a jolly little shop," he said. "I took quite a fancy to it. Full
+of newspapers, don't you know, and cheap novels, and some weird-looking
+sort of chocolates, and cigars with the most fearfully attractive
+labels. I think I'll make a success of it. It's bang in the middle of a
+dashed good neighbourhood. One of these days somebody will be building
+a big hotel round about there, and that'll help trade a lot. I look
+forward to ending my days on the other side of the counter with a
+full set of white whiskers and a skull-cap, beloved by everybody.
+Everybody'll say, 'Oh, you MUST patronise that quaint, delightful old
+blighter! He's quite a character.'"
+
+Mr. Brewster's air of grim satisfaction had given way to a look of
+discomfort, almost of alarm. He presumed his son-in-law was merely
+indulging in badinage; but even so, his words were not soothing.
+
+"Well, I'm much obliged," he said. "That infernal shop was holding up
+everything. Now I can start building right away."
+
+Archie raised his eyebrows.
+
+"But, my dear old top, I'm sorry to spoil your daydreams and stop you
+chasing rainbows, and all that, but aren't you forgetting that the shop
+belongs to me? I don't at all know that I want to sell, either!"
+
+"I gave you the money to buy that shop!"
+
+"And dashed generous of you it was, too!" admitted Archie, unreservedly.
+"It was the first money you ever gave me, and I shall always, tell
+interviewers that it was you who founded my fortunes. Some day, when I'm
+the Newspaper-and-Tobacco-Shop King, I'll tell the world all about it in
+my autobiography."
+
+Mr. Brewster rose dangerously from his seat.
+
+"Do you think you can hold me up, you--you worm?"
+
+"Well," said Archie, "the way I look at it is this. Ever since we met,
+you've been after me to become one of the world's workers, and earn a
+living for myself, and what not; and now I see a way to repay you for
+your confidence and encouragement. You'll look me up sometimes at the
+good old shop, won't you?" He slid off the table and moved towards the
+door. "There won't be any formalities where you are concerned. You can
+sign bills for any reasonable amount any time you want a cigar or a
+stick of chocolate. Well, toodle-oo!"
+
+"Stop!"
+
+"Now what?"
+
+"How much do you want for that damned shop?"
+
+"I don't want money.-I want a job.-If you are going to take my life-work
+away from me, you ought to give me something else to do."
+
+"What job?"
+
+"You suggested it yourself the other day. I want to manage your new
+hotel."
+
+"Don't be a fool! What do you know about managing an hotel?"
+
+"Nothing. It will be your pleasing task to teach me the business while
+the shanty is being run up."
+
+There was a pause, while Mr. Brewster chewed three inches off a
+pen-holder.
+
+"Very well," he said at last.
+
+"Topping!" said Archie. "I knew you'd, see it. I'll study your methods,
+what! Adding some of my own, of course. You know, I've thought of one
+improvement on the Cosmopolis already."
+
+"Improvement on the Cosmopolis!" cried Mr. Brewster, gashed in his
+finest feelings.
+
+"Yes. There's one point where the old Cosmop slips up badly, and I'm
+going to see that it's corrected at my little shack. Customers will be
+entreated to leave their boots outside their doors at night, and they'll
+find them cleaned in the morning. Well, pip, pip! I must be popping.
+Time is money, you know, with us business men."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XVII. BROTHER BILL'S ROMANCE
+
+
+"Her eyes," said Bill Brewster, "are like--like--what's the word I
+want?"
+
+He looked across at Lucille and Archie. Lucille was leaning forward
+with an eager and interested face; Archie was leaning back with his
+finger-tips together and his eyes closed. This was not the first time
+since their meeting in Beale's Auction Rooms that his brother-in-law had
+touched on the subject of the girl he had become engaged to marry during
+his trip to England. Indeed, Brother Bill had touched on very little
+else: and Archie, though of a sympathetic nature and fond of his young
+relative, was beginning to feel that he had heard all he wished to hear
+about Mabel Winchester. Lucille, on the other hand, was absorbed. Her
+brother's recital had thrilled her.
+
+"Like--" said Bill. "Like--"
+
+"Stars?" suggested Lucille.
+
+"Stars," said Bill gratefully. "Exactly the word. Twin stars shining in
+a clear sky on a summer night. Her teeth are like--what shall I say?"
+
+"Pearls?"
+
+"Pearls. And her hair is a lovely brown, like leaves in autumn. In
+fact," concluded Bill, slipping down from the heights with something of
+a jerk, "she's a corker. Isn't she, Archie?"
+
+Archie opened his eyes.
+
+"Quite right, old top!" he said. "It was the only thing to do."
+
+"What the devil are you talking about?" demanded Bill coldly. He had
+been suspicious all along of Archie's statement that he could listen
+better with his eyes shut.
+
+"Eh? Oh, sorry! Thinking of something else."
+
+"You were asleep."
+
+"No, no, positively and distinctly not. Frightfully interested and rapt
+and all that, only I didn't quite get what you said."
+
+"I said that Mabel was a corker."
+
+"Oh, absolutely in every respect."
+
+"There!" Bill turned to Lucille triumphantly. "You hear that? And Archie
+has only seen her photograph. Wait till he sees her in the flesh."
+
+"My dear old chap!" said Archie, shocked. "Ladies present! I mean to
+say, what!"
+
+"I'm afraid that father will be the one you'll find it hard to
+convince."
+
+"Yes," admitted her brother gloomily.
+
+"Your Mabel sounds perfectly charming, but--well, you know what father
+is. It IS a pity she sings in the chorus."
+
+"She-hasn't much of a voice,"-argued Bill-in extenuation.
+
+"All the same--"
+
+Archie, the conversation having reached a topic on which he considered
+himself one of the greatest living authorities--to wit, the unlovable
+disposition of his father-in-law--addressed the meeting as one who has a
+right to be heard.
+
+"Lucille's absolutely right, old thing.--Absolutely correct-o! Your
+esteemed progenitor is a pretty tough nut, and it's no good trying to
+get away from it.-And I'm sorry to have to say it, old bird, but, if you
+come bounding in with part of the personnel of the ensemble on your arm
+and try to dig a father's blessing out of him, he's extremely apt to
+stab you in the gizzard."
+
+"I wish," said Bill, annoyed, "you wouldn't talk as though Mabel were
+the ordinary kind of chorus-girl. She's only on the stage because her
+mother's hard-up and she wants to educate her little brother."
+
+"I say," said Archie, concerned. "Take my tip, old top. In chatting the
+matter over with the pater, don't dwell too much on that aspect of
+the affair.--I've been watching him closely, and it's about all he
+can stick, having to support ME. If you ring in a mother and a little
+brother on him, he'll crack under the strain."
+
+"Well, I've got to do something about it. Mabel will be over here in a
+week."
+
+"Great Scot! You never told us that."
+
+"Yes. She's going to be in the new Billington show. And, naturally, she
+will expect to meet my family. I've told her all about you."
+
+"Did you explain father to her?" asked Lucille.
+
+"Well, I just said she mustn't mind him, as his bark was worse than his
+bite."
+
+"Well," said Archie, thoughtfully, "he hasn't bitten me yet, so you may
+be right. But you've got to admit that he's a bit of a barker."
+
+Lucille considered.
+
+"Really, Bill, I think your best plan would be to go straight to father
+and tell him the whole thing.--You don't want him to hear about it in a
+roundabout way."
+
+"The trouble is that, whenever I'm with father, I can't think of
+anything to say."
+
+Archie found himself envying his father-in-law this merciful
+dispensation of Providence; for, where he himself was concerned, there
+had been no lack of eloquence on Bill's part. In the brief period in
+which he had known him, Bill had talked all the time and always on
+the one topic. As unpromising a subject as the tariff laws was easily
+diverted by him into a discussion of the absent Mabel.
+
+"When I'm with father," said Bill, "I sort of lose my nerve, and
+yammer."
+
+"Dashed awkward," said Archie, politely. He sat up suddenly. "I say! By
+Jove! I know what you want, old friend! Just thought of it!"
+
+"That busy brain is never still," explained Lucille.
+
+"Saw it in the paper this morning. An advertisement of a book, don't you
+know."
+
+"I've no time for reading."
+
+"You've time for reading this one, laddie, for you can't afford to miss
+it. It's a what-d'you-call-it book. What I mean to say is, if you read
+it and take its tips to heart, it guarantees to make you a convincing
+talker. The advertisement says so. The advertisement's all about a
+chappie whose name I forget, whom everybody loved because he talked so
+well. And, mark you, before he got hold of this book--The Personality
+That Wins was the name of it, if I remember rightly--he was known to
+all the lads in the office as Silent Samuel or something. Or it may have
+been Tongue-Tied Thomas. Well, one day he happened by good luck to blow
+in the necessary for the good old P. that W.'s, and now, whenever they
+want someone to go and talk Rockefeller or someone into lending them a
+million or so, they send for Samuel. Only now they call him Sammy the
+Spell-Binder and fawn upon him pretty copiously and all that. How about
+it, old son? How do we go?"
+
+"What perfect nonsense," said Lucille.
+
+"I don't know," said Bill, plainly impressed. "There might be something
+in it."
+
+"Absolutely!" said Archie. "I remember it said, 'Talk convincingly, and
+no man will ever treat you with cold, unresponsive indifference.' Well,
+cold, unresponsive indifference is just what you don't want the pater to
+treat you with, isn't it, or is it, or isn't it, what? I mean, what?"
+
+"It sounds all right," said Bill.
+
+"It IS all right," said Archie. "It's a scheme! I'll go farther. It's an
+egg!"
+
+"The idea I had," said Bill, "was to see if I couldn't get Mabel a job
+in some straight comedy. That would take the curse off the thing a bit.
+Then I wouldn't have to dwell on the chorus end of the business, you
+see."
+
+"Much more sensible," said Lucille.
+
+"But what a-deuce of a sweat"--argued Archie. "I mean to say, having to
+pop round and nose about and all that."
+
+"Aren't you willing to take a little trouble for your stricken
+brother-in-law, worm?" said Lucille severely.
+
+"Oh, absolutely! My idea was to get this book and coach the dear old
+chap. Rehearse him, don't you know. He could bone up the early chapters
+a bit and then drift round and try his convincing talk on me."
+
+"It might be a good idea," said Bill reflectively.
+
+"Well, I'll tell you what _I'm_ going to do," said Lucille. "I'm going
+to get Bill to introduce me to his Mabel, and, if she's as nice as he
+says she is, _I'll_ go to father and talk convincingly to him."
+
+"You're an ace!" said Bill.
+
+"Absolutely!" agreed Archie cordially. "MY partner, what! All the same,
+we ought to keep the book as a second string, you know. I mean to say,
+you are a young and delicately nurtured girl--full of sensibility and
+shrinking what's-its-name and all that--and you know what the jolly old
+pater is. He might bark at you and put you out of action in the first
+round. Well, then, if anything like that happened, don't you see, we
+could unleash old Bill, the trained silver-tongued expert, and let him
+have a shot. Personally, I'm all for the P. that W.'s."-"Me, too," said
+Bill.
+
+Lucille looked at her watch.
+
+"Good gracious! It's nearly one o'clock!"
+
+"No!" Archie heaved himself up from his chair. "Well, it's a shame to
+break up this feast of reason and flow of soul and all that, but, if we
+don't leg it with some speed, we shall be late."
+
+"We're lunching at the Nicholson's!" explained Lucille to her brother.
+"I wish you were coming too."
+
+"Lunch!" Bill shook his head with a kind of tolerant scorn. "Lunch means
+nothing to me these days. I've other things to think of besides food."
+He looked as spiritual as his rugged features would permit. "I haven't
+written to Her yet to-day."
+
+"But, dash it, old scream, if she's going to be over here in a week,
+what's the good of writing? The letter would cross her."
+
+"I'm not mailing my letters to England." said Bill. "I'm keeping them
+for her to read when she arrives."
+
+"My sainted aunt!" said Archie.
+
+Devotion like this was something beyond his outlook.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XVIII. THE SAUSAGE CHAPPIE
+
+
+The personality that wins cost Archie two dollars in cash and a lot of
+embarrassment when he asked for it at the store. To buy a treatise of
+that name would automatically seem to argue that you haven't a winning
+personality already, and Archie was at some pains to explain to the girl
+behind the counter that he wanted it for a friend. The girl seemed more
+interested in his English accent than in his explanation, and Archie
+was uncomfortably aware, as he receded, that she was practising it in an
+undertone for the benefit of her colleagues and fellow-workers. However,
+what is a little discomfort, if endured in friendship's name?
+
+He was proceeding up Broadway after leaving the store when he
+encountered Reggie van Tuyl, who was drifting along in somnambulistic
+fashion near Thirty-Ninth Street.
+
+"Hullo, Reggie old thing!" said Archie.
+
+"Hullo!" said Reggie, a man of few words.
+
+"I've just been buying a book for Bill Brewster," went on Archie. "It
+appears that old Bill--What's the matter?"
+
+He broke off his recital abruptly. A sort of spasm had passed across
+his companion's features. The hand holding Archie's arm had tightened
+convulsively. One would have said that Reginald had received a shock.
+
+"It's nothing," said Reggie. "I'm all right now. I caught sight of that
+fellow's clothes rather suddenly. They shook me a bit. I'm all right
+now," he said, bravely.
+
+Archie, following his friend's gaze, understood. Reggie van Tuyl was
+never at his strongest in the morning, and he had a sensitive eye for
+clothes. He had been known to resign from clubs because members exceeded
+the bounds in the matter of soft shirts with dinner-jackets. And the
+short, thick-set man who was standing just in front of them in attitude
+of restful immobility was certainly no dandy. His best friend could
+not have called him dapper. Take him for all in all and on the hoof, he
+might have been posing as a model for a sketch of What the Well-Dressed
+Man Should Not Wear.
+
+In costume, as in most other things, it is best to take a definite line
+and stick to it. This man had obviously vacillated. His neck was swathed
+in a green scarf; he wore an evening-dress coat; and his lower limbs
+were draped in a pair of tweed trousers built for a larger man. To the
+north he was bounded by a straw hat, to the south by brown shoes.
+
+Archie surveyed the man's back carefully.
+
+"Bit thick!" he said, sympathetically. "But of course Broadway isn't
+Fifth Avenue. What I mean to say is, Bohemian licence and what not.
+Broadway's crammed with deuced brainy devils who don't care how they
+look. Probably this bird is a master-mind of some species."
+
+"All the same, man's no right to wear evening-dress coat with tweed
+trousers."
+
+"Absolutely not! I see what you mean."
+
+At this point the sartorial offender turned. Seen from the front, he was
+even more unnerving. He appeared to possess no shirt, though this defect
+was offset by the fact that the tweed trousers fitted snugly under the
+arms. He was not a handsome man. At his best he could never have been
+that, and in the recent past he had managed to acquire a scar that ran
+from the corner of his mouth half-way across his cheek. Even when his
+face was in repose he had an odd expression; and when, as he chanced
+to do now, he smiled, odd became a mild adjective, quite inadequate
+for purposes of description. It was not an unpleasant face, however.
+Unquestionably genial, indeed. There was something in it that had a
+quality of humorous appeal.
+
+Archie started. He stared at the man, Memory stirred.
+
+"Great Scot!" he cried. "It's the Sausage Chappie!"
+
+Reginald van Tuyl gave a little moan. He was not used to this sort of
+thing. A sensitive young man as regarded scenes, Archie's behaviour
+unmanned him. For Archie, releasing his arm, had bounded forward and was
+shaking the other's hand warmly.
+
+"Well, well, well! My dear old chap! You must remember me, what? No?
+Yes?"
+
+The man with the scar seemed puzzled. He shuffled the brown shoes,
+patted the straw hat, and eyed Archie questioningly.
+
+"I don't seem to place you," he said.
+
+Archie slapped the back of the evening-dress coat. He linked his arm
+affectionately with that of the dress-reformer.
+
+"We met outside St Mihiel in the war. You gave me a bit of sausage.
+One of the most sporting events in history. Nobody but a real sportsman
+would have parted with a bit of sausage at that moment to a stranger.
+Never forgotten it, by Jove. Saved my life, absolutely. Hadn't chewed
+a morsel for eight hours. Well, have you got anything on? I mean to say,
+you aren't booked for lunch or any rot of that species, are you? Fine!
+Then I move we all toddle off and get a bite somewhere." He squeezed
+the other's arm fondly. "Fancy meeting you again like this! I've often
+wondered what became of you. But, by Jove, I was forgetting. Dashed rude
+of me. My friend, Mr. van Tuyl."
+
+Reggie gulped. The longer he looked at it, the harder this man's costume
+was to bear. His eye passed shudderingly from the brown shoes to the
+tweed trousers, to the green scarf, from the green scarf to the straw
+hat.
+
+"Sorry," he mumbled. "Just remembered. Important date. Late already.
+Er--see you some time--"
+
+He melted away, a broken man. Archie was not sorry to see him go. Reggie
+was a good chap, but he would undoubtedly have been de trop at this
+reunion.
+
+"I vote we go to the Cosmopolis," he said, steering his newly-found
+friend through the crowd. "The browsing and sluicing isn't bad there,
+and I can sign the bill which is no small consideration nowadays."
+
+The Sausage Chappie chuckled amusedly.
+
+"I can't go to a place like the Cosmopolis looking like this."
+
+Archie, was a little embarrassed.
+
+"Oh, I don't know, you know, don't you know!" he said. "Still, since you
+have brought the topic up, you DID get the good old wardrobe a bit mixed
+this morning what? I mean to say, you seem absent-mindedly, as it
+were, to have got hold of samples from a good number of your various
+suitings."
+
+"Suitings? How do you mean, suitings? I haven't any suitings! Who do you
+think I am? Vincent Astor? All I have is what I stand up in."
+
+Archie was shocked. This tragedy touched him. He himself had never had
+any money in his life, but somehow he had always seemed to manage to
+have plenty of clothes. How this was he could not say. He had always had
+a vague sort of idea that tailors were kindly birds who never failed to
+have a pair of trousers or something up their sleeve to present to the
+deserving. There was the drawback, of course, that once they had given
+you things they were apt to write you rather a lot of letters about it;
+but you soon managed to recognise their handwriting, and then it was a
+simple task to extract their communications from your morning mail and
+drop them in the waste-paper basket. This was the first case he had
+encountered of a man who was really short of clothes.
+
+"My dear old lad," he said, briskly, "this must be remedied! Oh,
+positively! This must be remedied at once! I suppose my things wouldn't
+fit you? No. Well, I tell you what. We'll wangle something from
+my father-in-law. Old Brewster, you know, the fellow who runs the
+Cosmopolis. His'll fit you like the paper on the wall, because he's
+a tubby little blighter, too. What I mean to say is, he's also one of
+those sturdy, square, fine-looking chappies of about the middle height.
+By the way, where are you stopping these days?"
+
+"Nowhere just at present. I thought of taking one of those
+self-contained Park benches."
+
+"Are you broke?"
+
+"Am I!"
+
+Archie was concerned.
+
+"You ought to get a job."
+
+"I ought. But somehow I don't seem able to."
+
+"What did you do before the war?"
+
+"I've forgotten."
+
+"Forgotten!"
+
+"Forgotten."
+
+"How do you mean--forgotten? You can't mean--FORGOTTEN?"
+
+"Yes. It's quite gone."
+
+"But I mean to say. You can't have forgotten a thing like that."
+
+"Can't I! I've forgotten all sorts of things. Where I was born. How old
+I am. Whether I'm married or single. What my name is--"
+
+"Well, I'm dashed!" said Archie, staggered. "But you remembered about
+giving me a bit of sausage outside St. Mihiel?"
+
+"No, I didn't. I'm taking your word for it. For all I know you may be
+luring me into some den to rob me of my straw hat. I don't know you
+from Adam. But I like your conversation--especially the part about
+eating--and I'm taking a chance."
+
+Archie was concerned.
+
+"Listen, old bean. Make an effort. You must remember that sausage
+episode? It was just outside St. Mihiel, about five in the evening. Your
+little lot were lying next to my little lot, and we happened to meet,
+and I said 'What ho!' and you said 'Halloa!' and I said 'What ho! What
+ho!' and you said 'Have a bit of sausage?' and I said 'What ho! What ho!
+What HO!'"
+
+"The dialogue seems to have been darned sparkling but I don't remember
+it. It must have been after that that I stopped one. I don't seem quite
+to have caught up with myself since I got hit."
+
+"Oh! That's how you got that scar?"
+
+"No. I got that jumping through a plate-glass window in London on
+Armistice night."
+
+"What on earth did you do that for?"
+
+"Oh, I don't know. It seemed a good idea at the time."
+
+"But if you can remember a thing like that, why can't you remember your
+name?"
+
+"I remember everything that happened after I came out of hospital. It's
+the part before that's gone."
+
+Archie patted him on the shoulder.
+
+"I know just what you want. You need a bit of quiet and repose, to think
+things over and so forth. You mustn't go sleeping on Park benches. Won't
+do at all. Not a bit like it. You must shift to the Cosmopolis. It isn't
+half a bad spot, the old Cosmop. I didn't like it much the first night
+I was there, because there was a dashed tap that went drip-drip-drip all
+night and kept me awake, but the place has its points."
+
+"Is the Cosmopolis giving free board and lodging these days?"
+
+"Rather! That'll be all right. Well, this is the spot. We'll start by
+trickling up to the old boy's suite and looking over his reach-me-downs.
+I know the waiter on his floor. A very sound chappie. He'll let us in
+with his pass-key."
+
+And so it came about that Mr. Daniel Brewster, returning to his suite in
+the middle of lunch in order to find a paper dealing with the subject he
+was discussing with his guest, the architect of his new hotel, was aware
+of a murmur of voices behind the closed door of his bedroom. Recognising
+the accents of his son-in-law, he breathed an oath and charged in. He
+objected to Archie wandering at large about his suite.
+
+The sight that met his eyes when he opened the door did nothing to
+soothe him. The floor was a sea of clothes. There were coats on the
+chairs, trousers on the bed, shirts on the bookshelf. And in the middle
+of his welter stood Archie, with a man who, to Mr. Brewster's heated
+eye, looked like a tramp comedian out of a burlesque show.
+
+"Great Godfrey!" ejaculated Mr. Brewster.
+
+Archie looked up with a friendly smile.
+
+"Oh, halloa-halloa!" he said, affably, "We were just glancing through
+your spare scenery to see if we couldn't find something for my pal here.
+This is Mr. Brewster, my father-in-law, old man."
+
+Archie scanned his relative's twisted features. Something in his
+expression seemed not altogether encouraging. He decided that the
+negotiations had better be conducted in private. "One moment, old lad,"
+he said to his new friend. "I just want to have a little talk with my
+father-in-law in the other room. Just a little friendly business chat.
+You stay here."
+
+In the other room Mr. Brewster turned on Archie like a wounded lion of
+the desert.
+
+"What the--!"
+
+Archie secured one of his coat-buttons and began to massage it
+affectionately.
+
+"Ought to have explained!" said Archie, "only didn't want to interrupt
+your lunch. The sportsman on the horizon is a dear old pal of mine--"
+
+Mr. Brewster wrenched himself free.
+
+"What the devil do you mean, you worm, by bringing tramps into my
+bedroom and messing about with my clothes?"
+
+"That's just what I'm trying to explain, if you'll only listen. This
+bird is a bird I met in France during the war. He gave me a bit of
+sausage outside St. Mihiel--"
+
+"Damn you and him and the sausage!"
+
+"Absolutely. But listen. He can't remember who he is or where he was
+born or what his name is, and he's broke; so, dash it, I must look after
+him. You see, he gave me a bit of sausage."
+
+Mr. Brewster's frenzy gave way to an ominous calm.
+
+"I'll give him two seconds to clear out of here. If he isn't gone by
+then I'll have him thrown out."
+
+Archie was shocked.
+
+"You don't mean that?"
+
+"I do mean that."
+
+"But where is he to go?"
+
+"Outside."
+
+"But you don't understand. This chappie has lost his memory because he
+was wounded in the war. Keep that fact firmly fixed in the old bean. He
+fought for you. Fought and bled for you. Bled profusely, by Jove. AND he
+saved my life!"
+
+"If I'd got nothing else against him, that would be enough."
+
+"But you can't sling a chappie out into the cold hard world who bled in
+gallons to make the world safe for the Hotel Cosmopolis."
+
+Mr. Brewster looked ostentatiously at his watch.
+
+"Two seconds!" he said.
+
+There was a silence. Archie appeared to be thinking. "Right-o!" he said
+at last. "No need to get the wind up. I know where he can go. It's just
+occurred to me I'll put him up at my little shop."
+
+The purple ebbed from Mr. Brewster's face. Such was his emotion that he
+had forgotten that infernal shop. He sat down. There was more silence.
+
+"Oh, gosh!" said Mr. Brewster.
+
+"I knew you would be reasonable about it," said Archie, approvingly.
+"Now, honestly, as man to man, how do we go?"
+
+"What do you want me to do?" growled Mr. Brewster.
+
+"I thought you might put the chappie up for a while, and give him a
+chance to look round and nose about a bit."
+
+"I absolutely refuse to give any more loafers free board and lodging."
+
+"Any MORE?"
+
+"Well, he would be the second, wouldn't he?"
+
+Archie looked pained.
+
+"It's true," he said, "that when I first came here I was temporarily
+resting, so to speak; but didn't I go right out and grab the managership
+of your new hotel? Positively!"
+
+"I will NOT adopt this tramp."
+
+"Well, find him a job, then."
+
+"What sort of a job?"
+
+"Oh, any old sort"
+
+"He can be a waiter if he likes."
+
+"All right; I'll put the matter before him."
+
+He returned to the bedroom. The Sausage Chappie was gazing fondly into
+the mirror with a spotted tie draped round his neck.
+
+"I say, old top," said Archie, apologetically, "the Emperor of the
+Blighters out yonder says you can have a job here as waiter, and he
+won't do another dashed thing for you. How about it?"
+
+"Do waiters eat?"
+
+"I suppose so. Though, by Jove, come to think of it, I've never seen one
+at it."
+
+"That's good enough for me!" said the Sausage Chappie. "When do I
+begin?"
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XIX. REGGIE COMES TO LIFE
+
+
+The advantage of having plenty of time on one's hands is that one has
+leisure to attend to the affairs of all one's circle of friends; and
+Archie, assiduously as he watched over the destinies of the Sausage
+Chappie, did not neglect the romantic needs of his brother-in-law Bill.
+A few days later, Lucille, returning one morning to their mutual suite,
+found her husband seated in an upright chair at the table, an unusually
+stern expression on his amiable face. A large cigar was in the corner
+of his mouth. The fingers of one hand rested in the armhole of his
+waistcoat: with the other hand he tapped menacingly on the table.
+
+As she gazed upon him, wondering what could be the matter with him,
+Lucille was suddenly aware of Bill's presence. He had emerged sharply
+from the bedroom and was walking briskly across the floor. He came to a
+halt in front of the table.
+
+"Father!" said Bill.
+
+Archie looked up sharply, frowning heavily over his cigar.
+
+"Well, my boy," he said in a strange, rasping voice. "What is it? Speak
+up, my boy, speak up! Why the devil can't you speak up? This is my busy
+day!"
+
+"What on earth are you doing?" asked Lucille.
+
+Archie waved her away with the large gesture of a man of blood and iron
+interrupted while concentrating.
+
+"Leave us, woman! We would be alone! Retire into the jolly old
+background and amuse yourself for a bit. Read a book. Do acrostics.
+Charge ahead, laddie."
+
+"Father!" said Bill, again.
+
+"Yes, my boy, yes? What is it?"
+
+"Father!"
+
+Archie picked up the red-covered volume that lay on the table.
+
+"Half a mo', old son. Sorry to stop you, but I knew there was something.
+I've just remembered. Your walk. All wrong!"
+
+"All wrong?"
+
+"All wrong! Where's the chapter on the Art. of Walking? Here we are.
+Listen, dear old soul. Drink this in. 'In walking, one should strive to
+acquire that swinging, easy movement from the hips. The correctly-poised
+walker seems to float along, as it were.' Now, old bean, you didn't
+float a dam' bit. You just galloped in like a chappie charging into
+a railway restaurant for a bowl of soup when his train leaves in two
+minutes. Dashed important, this walking business, you know. Get started
+wrong, and where are you? Try it again.... Much better." He turned to
+Lucille. "Notice him float along that time? Absolutely skimmed, what?"
+
+Lucille had taken a seat,-and was waiting for enlightenment.
+
+"Are you and Bill going into vaudeville?" she asked.
+
+Archie, scrutinising-his-brother-in-law closely, had further criticism
+to make.
+
+"'The man of self-respect and self-confidence,'" he read, "'stands erect
+in an easy, natural, graceful attitude. Heels not too far apart, head
+erect, eyes to the front with a level gaze'--get your gaze level, old
+thing!--'shoulders thrown back, arms hanging naturally at the sides when
+not otherwise employed'--that means that, if he tries to hit you, it's
+all right to guard--'chest expanded naturally, and abdomen'--this is
+no place for you, Lucille. Leg it out of earshot--'ab--what I said
+before--drawn in somewhat and above all not protruded.' Now, have you
+got all that? Yes, you look all right. Carry on, laddie, carry on. Let's
+have two-penn'orth of the Dynamic Voice and the Tone of Authority--some
+of the full, rich, round stuff we hear so much about!"
+
+Bill fastened a gimlet eye upon his brother-in-law and drew a deep
+breath.
+
+"Father!" he said. "Father!"
+
+"You'll have to brighten up Bill's dialogue a lot," said Lucille,
+critically, "or you will never get bookings."
+
+"Father!"
+
+"I mean, it's all right as far as it goes, but it's sort of monotonous.
+Besides, one of you ought to be asking questions and the other
+answering. Bill ought to be saying, 'Who was that lady I saw you coming
+down the street with?' so that you would be able to say, 'That wasn't a
+lady. That was my wife.' I KNOW! I've been to lots of vaudeville shows."
+
+Bill relaxed his attitude. He deflated his chest, spread his heels, and
+ceased to draw in his abdomen.
+
+"We'd better try this another time, when we're alone," he said,
+frigidly. "I can't do myself justice."
+
+"Why do you want to do yourself justice?" asked Lucille.
+
+"Right-o!" said Archie, affably, casting off his forbidding expression
+like a garment. "Rehearsal postponed. I was just putting old Bill
+through it," he explained, "with a view to getting him into mid-season
+form for the jolly old pater."
+
+"Oh!" Lucille's voice was the voice of one who sees light in darkness.
+"When Bill walked in like a cat on hot bricks and stood there looking
+stuffed, that was just the Personality That Wins!"
+
+"That was it."
+
+"Well, you couldn't blame me for not recognising it, could you?"
+
+Archie patted her head paternally.
+
+"A little less of the caustic critic stuff," he said. "Bill will be
+all right on the night. If you hadn't come in then and put him off his
+stroke, he'd have shot out some amazing stuff, full of authority and
+dynamic accents and what not. I tell you, light of my soul, old Bill is
+all right! He's got the winning personality up a tree, ready whenever
+he wants to go and get it. Speaking as his backer and trainer, I think
+he'll twist your father round his little finger. Absolutely! It wouldn't
+surprise me if at the end of five minutes the good old dad started
+pumping through hoops and sitting up for lumps of sugar."
+
+"It would surprise ME."
+
+"Ah, that's because you haven't seen old Bill in action. You crabbed his
+act before he had begun to spread himself."
+
+"It isn't that at all. The reason why I think that Bill, however winning
+his personality may be, won't persuade father to let him marry a girl in
+the chorus is something that happened last night."
+
+"Last night?"
+
+"Well, at three o'clock this morning. It's on the front page of the
+early editions of the evening papers. I brought one in for you to see,
+only you were so busy. Look! There it is!"
+
+Archie seized the paper.
+
+"Oh, Great Scot!"
+
+"What is it?" asked Bill, irritably. "Don't stand goggling there! What
+the devil is it?"
+
+"Listen to this, old thing!"
+
+
+                       REVELRY BY NIGHT.
+                SPIRITED BATTLE ROYAL AT HOTEL
+                         COSMOPOLIS.
+             THE HOTEL DETECTIVE HAD A GOOD HEART
+                 BUT PAULINE PACKED THE PUNCH.
+
+
+The logical contender for Jack Dempsey's championship honours has been
+discovered; and, in an age where women are stealing men's jobs all the
+time, it will not come as a surprise to our readers to learn that she
+belongs to the sex that is more deadly than the male. Her name is Miss
+Pauline Preston, and her wallop is vouched for under oath--under many
+oaths--by Mr. Timothy O'Neill, known to his intimates as Pie-Face, who
+holds down the arduous job of detective at the Hotel Cosmopolis.
+
+At three o'clock this morning, Mr. O'Neill was advised by the
+night-clerk that the occupants of every room within earshot of number
+618 had 'phoned the desk to complain of a disturbance, a noise, a vocal
+uproar proceeding from the room mentioned. Thither, therefore, marched
+Mr. O'Neill, his face full of cheese-sandwich, (for he had been
+indulging in an early breakfast or a late supper) and his heart of
+devotion to duty. He found there the Misses Pauline Preston and
+"Bobbie" St. Clair, of the personnel of the chorus of the Frivolities,
+entertaining a few friends of either sex. A pleasant time was being had
+by all, and at the moment of Mr. O'Neill's entry the entire strength
+of the company was rendering with considerable emphasis that touching
+ballad, "There's a Place For Me In Heaven, For My Baby-Boy Is There."
+
+The able and efficient officer at once suggested that there was a place
+for them in the street and the patrol-wagon was there; and, being a man
+of action as well as words, proceeded to gather up an armful of assorted
+guests as a preliminary to a personally-conducted tour onto the
+cold night. It was at this point that Miss Preston stepped into the
+limelight. Mr. O'Neill contends that she hit him with a brick, an iron
+casing, and the Singer Building. Be that as it may, her efforts were
+sufficiently able to induce him to retire for reinforcements, which,
+arriving, arrested the supper-party regardless of age or sex.
+
+At the police-court this morning Miss Preston maintained that she and
+her friends were merely having a quiet home-evening and that Mr. O'Neill
+was no gentleman. The male guests gave their names respectively as
+Woodrow Wilson, David Lloyd-George, and William J. Bryan. These,
+however, are believed to be incorrect. But the moral is, if you want
+excitement rather than sleep, stay at the Hotel Cosmopolis.
+
+Bill may have quaked inwardly as he listened to this epic but outwardly
+he was unmoved.
+
+"Well," he said, "what about it?"
+
+"What about it!" said Lucille.
+
+"What about it!" said Archie. "Why, my dear old friend, it simply means
+that all the time we've been putting in making your personality winning
+has been chucked away. Absolutely a dead loss! We might just as well
+have read a manual on how to knit sweaters."
+
+"I don't see it," maintained Bill, stoutly.
+
+Lucille turned apologetically to her husband.
+
+"You mustn't judge me by him, Archie, darling. This sort of thing
+doesn't run in the family.-We are supposed to be rather bright on the
+whole. But poor Bill was dropped by his nurse when he was a baby, and
+fell on his head."
+
+"I suppose what you're driving at," said the goaded Bill, "is that what
+has happened will make father pretty sore against girls who happen to be
+in the chorus?"
+
+"That's absolutely it, old thing, I'm sorry to say. The next person who
+mentions the word chorus-girl in the jolly old governor's presence is
+going to take his life in his hands. I tell you, as one man to another,
+that I'd much rather be back in France hopping over the top than do it
+myself."
+
+"What darned nonsense! Mabel may be in the chorus, but she isn't like
+those girls."
+
+"Poor old Bill!" said Lucille. "I'm awfully sorry, but it's no use not
+facing facts. You know perfectly well that the reputation of the hotel
+is the thing father cares more about than anything else in the world,
+and that this is going to make him furious with all the chorus-girls in
+creation. It's no good trying to explain to him that your Mabel is in
+the chorus but not of the chorus, so to speak."
+
+"Deuced well put!" said Archie, approvingly. "You're absolutely right. A
+chorus-girl by the river's brim, so to speak, a simple chorus-girl is to
+him, as it were, and she is nothing more, if you know what I mean."
+
+"So now," said Lucille, "having shown you that the imbecile scheme which
+you concocted with my poor well-meaning husband is no good at all, I
+will bring you words of cheer. Your own original plan--of getting your
+Mabel a part in a comedy--was always the best one. And you can do it.
+I wouldn't have broken the bad news so abruptly if I hadn't had some
+consolation to give you afterwards. I met Reggie van Tuyl just now,
+wandering about as if the cares of the world were on his shoulders,
+and he told me that he was putting up most of the money for a new play
+that's going into rehearsal right away. Reggie's an old friend of yours.
+All you have to do is to go to him and ask him to use his influence to
+get your Mabel a small part. There's sure to be a maid or something with
+only a line or two that won't matter."
+
+"A ripe scheme!" said Archie. "Very sound and fruity!"
+
+The cloud did not lift from Bill's corrugated brow.
+
+"That's all very well," he said. "But you know what a talker Reggie
+is. He's an obliging sort of chump, but his tongue's fastened on at the
+middle and waggles at both ends. I don't want the whole of New York to
+know about my engagement, and have somebody spilling the news to father,
+before I'm ready."
+
+"That's all right," said Lucille. "Archie can speak to him. There's no
+need for him to mention your name at all. He can just say there's a girl
+he wants to get a part for. You would do it, wouldn't you, angel-face?"
+
+"Like a bird, queen of my soul."
+
+"Then that's splendid. You'd better give Archie that photograph of Mabel
+to give to Reggie, Bill."
+
+"Photograph?" said Bill. "Which photograph? I have twenty-four!"
+
+Archie found Reggie van Tuyl brooding in a window of his club that
+looked over Fifth Avenue. Reggie was a rather melancholy young man who
+suffered from elephantiasis of the bank-roll and the other evils
+that arise from that complaint. Gentle and sentimental by nature, his
+sensibilities had been much wounded by contact with a sordid world; and
+the thing that had first endeared Archie to him was the fact that the
+latter, though chronically hard-up, had never made any attempt to borrow
+money from him. Reggie would have parted with it on demand, but it
+had delighted him to find that Archie seemed to take a pleasure in his
+society without having any ulterior motives. He was fond of Archie,
+and also of Lucille; and their happy marriage was a constant source of
+gratification to him.
+
+For Reggie was a sentimentalist. He would have liked to live in a world
+of ideally united couples, himself ideally united to some charming and
+affectionate girl. But, as a matter of cold fact, he was a bachelor,
+and most of the couples he knew were veterans of several divorces. In
+Reggie's circle, therefore, the home-life of Archie and Lucille shone
+like a good deed in a naughty world. It inspired him. In moments of
+depression it restored his waning faith in human nature.
+
+Consequently, when Archie, having greeted him and slipped into a chair
+at his side, suddenly produced from his inside pocket the photograph of
+an extremely pretty girl and asked him to get her a small part in the
+play which he was financing, he was shocked and disappointed. He was in
+a more than usually sentimental mood that afternoon, and had, indeed,
+at the moment of Archie's arrival, been dreaming wistfully of soft arms
+clasped snugly about his collar and the patter of little feet and all
+that sort of thing.-He gazed reproachfully at Archie.
+
+"Archie!" his voice quivered with emotion. "Is it worth it?, is it worth
+it, old man?-Think of the poor little woman at home!"
+
+Archie was puzzled.
+
+"Eh, old top? Which poor little woman?"
+
+"Think of her trust in you, her faith--".
+
+"I don't absolutely get you, old bean."
+
+"What would Lucille say if she knew about this?"
+
+"Oh, she does. She knows all about it."
+
+"Good heavens!" cried Reggie.-He was shocked to the core of his
+being.-One of the articles of his faith was, that the union of Lucille
+and Archie was different from those loose partnerships which were
+the custom in his world.-He had not been conscious of such a poignant
+feeling that the foundations of the universe were cracked and tottering
+and that there was no light and sweetness in life since the morning,
+eighteen months back, when a negligent valet had sent him out into Fifth
+Avenue with only one spat on.
+
+"It was Lucille's idea," explained Archie. He was about to mention his
+brother-in-law's connection with the matter, but checked himself
+in time, remembering Bill's specific objection to having his secret
+revealed to Reggie. "It's like this, old thing, I've never met this
+female, but she's a pal of Lucille's"-he comforted his conscience by
+the reflection that, if she wasn't now, she would be in a few days-"and
+Lucille wants to do her a bit of good. She's been on the stage in
+England, you know, supporting a jolly old widowed mother and educating a
+little brother and all that kind and species of rot, you understand, and
+now she's coming over to America, and Lucille wants you to rally round
+and shove her into your show and generally keep the home fires burning
+and so forth. How do we go?"
+
+Reggie beamed with relief. He felt just as he had felt on that other
+occasion at the moment when a taxi-cab had rolled up and enabled him to
+hide his spatless leg from the public gaze.
+
+"Oh, I see!" he said. "Why, delighted, old man, quite delighted!"
+
+"Any small part would do. Isn't there a maid or something in your
+bob's-worth of refined entertainment who drifts about saying, 'Yes,
+madam,' and all that sort of thing? Well, then that's just the thing.
+Topping! I knew I could rely on you, old bird. I'll get Lucille to ship
+her round to your address when she arrives. I fancy she's due to totter
+in somewhere in the next few days. Well, I must be popping. Toodle-oo!"
+
+"Pip-pip!" said Reggie.
+
+ It was about a week later that Lucille came into the suite at the
+Hotel Cosmopolis that was her home, and found Archie lying on the couch,
+smoking a refreshing pipe after the labours of the day. It seemed to
+Archie that his wife was not in her usual cheerful frame of mind. He
+kissed her, and, having relieved her of her parasol, endeavoured without
+success to balance it on his chin. Having picked it up from the floor
+and placed it on the table, he became aware that Lucille was looking at
+him in a despondent sort of way. Her grey eyes were clouded.
+
+"Halloa, old thing," said Archie. "What's up?"
+
+Lucille sighed wearily.
+
+"Archie, darling, do you know any really good swear-words?"
+
+"Well," said Archie, reflectively, "let me see. I did pick up a few
+tolerably ripe and breezy expressions out in France. All through my
+military career there was something about me--some subtle magnetism,
+don't you know, and that sort of thing--that seemed to make colonels and
+blighters of that order rather inventive. I sort of inspired them, don't
+you know. I remember one brass-hat addressing me for quite ten minutes,
+saying something new all the time. And even then he seemed to think he
+had only touched the fringe of the subject. As a matter of fact, he
+said straight out in the most frank and confiding way that mere words
+couldn't do justice to me. But why?"
+
+"Because I want to relieve my feelings."
+
+"Anything wrong?"
+
+"Everything's wrong. I've just been having tea with Bill and his Mabel."
+
+"Oh, ah!" said Archie, interested. "And what's the verdict?"
+
+"Guilty!" said Lucille. "And the sentence, if I had anything to do
+with it, would be transportation for life." She peeled off her gloves
+irritably. "What fools men are! Not you, precious! You're the only man
+in the world that isn't, it seems to me. You did marry a nice girl,
+didn't you? YOU didn't go running round after females with crimson hair,
+goggling at them with your eyes popping out of your head like a bulldog
+waiting for a bone."
+
+"Oh, I say! Does old Bill look like that?"
+
+"Worse!"
+
+Archie rose to a point of order.
+
+"But one moment, old lady. You speak of crimson hair. Surely old
+Bill--in the extremely jolly monologues he used to deliver whenever I
+didn't see him coming and he got me alone--used to allude to her hair as
+brown."
+
+"It isn't brown now. It's bright scarlet. Good gracious, I ought to
+know. I've been looking at it all the afternoon. It dazzled me. If I've
+got to meet her again, I mean to go to the oculist's and get a pair of
+those smoked glasses you wear at Palm Beach." Lucille brooded silently
+for a while over the tragedy. "I don't want to say anything against her,
+of course."
+
+"No, no, of course not."
+
+"But of all the awful, second-rate girls I ever met, she's the worst!
+She has vermilion hair and an imitation Oxford manner. She's so horribly
+refined that it's dreadful to listen to her. She's a sly, creepy,
+slinky, made-up, insincere vampire! She's common! She's awful! She's a
+cat!"
+
+"You're quite right not to say anything against her," said Archie,
+approvingly. "It begins to look," he went on, "as if the good old pater
+was about due for another shock. He has a hard life!"
+
+"If Bill DARES to introduce that girl to Father, he's taking his life in
+his hands."
+
+"But surely that was the idea--the scheme--the wheeze, wasn't it? Or do
+you think there's any chance of his weakening?"
+
+"Weakening! You should have seen him looking at her! It was like a small
+boy flattening his nose against the window of a candy-store."
+
+"Bit thick!"
+
+Lucille kicked the leg of the table.
+
+"And to think," she said, "that, when I was a little girl, I used to
+look up to Bill as a monument of wisdom. I used to hug his knees and
+gaze into his face and wonder how anyone could be so magnificent." She
+gave the unoffending table another kick. "If I could have looked into
+the future," she said, with feeling, "I'd have bitten him in the ankle!"
+
+ In the days which followed, Archie found himself a little out of
+touch with Bill and his romance. Lucille referred to the matter only
+when he brought the subject up, and made it plain that the topic of
+her future sister-in-law was not one which she enjoyed discussing. Mr.
+Brewster, senior, when Archie, by way of delicately preparing his mind
+for what was about to befall, asked him if he liked red hair, called him
+a fool, and told him to go away and bother someone else when they were
+busy. The only person who could have kept him thoroughly abreast of the
+trend of affairs was Bill himself; and experience had made Archie wary
+in the matter of meeting Bill. The position of confidant to a young man
+in the early stages of love is no sinecure, and it made Archie sleepy
+even to think of having to talk to his brother-in-law. He sedulously
+avoided his love-lorn relative, and it was with a sinking feeling
+one day that, looking over his shoulder as he sat in the Cosmopolis
+grill-room preparatory to ordering lunch, he perceived Bill bearing down
+upon him, obviously resolved upon joining his meal.
+
+To his surprise, however, Bill did not instantly embark upon his usual
+monologue. Indeed, he hardly spoke at all. He champed a chop, and seemed
+to Archie to avoid his eye. It was not till lunch was over and they were
+smoking that he unburdened himself.
+
+"Archie!" he said.
+
+"Hallo, old thing!" said Archie. "Still there? I thought you'd died or
+something. Talk about our old pals, Tongue-tied Thomas and Silent Sammy!
+You could beat 'em both on the same evening."
+
+"It's enough to make me silent."
+
+"What is?"
+
+Bill had relapsed into a sort of waking dream. He sat frowning sombrely,
+lost to the world. Archie, having waited what seemed to him a sufficient
+length of time for an answer to his question, bent forward and touched
+his brother-in-law's hand gently with the lighted end of his cigar. Bill
+came to himself with a howl.
+
+"What is?" said Archie.
+
+"What is what?" said Bill.
+
+"Now listen, old thing," protested Archie. "Life is short and time
+is flying. Suppose we cut out the cross-talk. You hinted there was
+something on your mind--something worrying the old bean--and I'm waiting
+to hear what it is."
+
+Bill fiddled a moment with his coffee-spoon.
+
+"I'm in an awful hole," he said at last.
+
+"What's the trouble?"
+
+"It's about that darned girl!"
+
+Archie blinked.
+
+"What!"
+
+"That darned girl!"
+
+Archie could scarcely credit his senses. He had been prepared--indeed,
+he had steeled himself--to hear Bill allude to his affinity in a number
+of ways. But "that darned girl" was not one of them.
+
+"Companion of my riper years," he said, "let's get this thing straight.
+When you say 'that darned girl,' do you by any possibility allude to--?"
+
+"Of course I do!"
+
+"But, William, old bird--"
+
+"Oh, I know, I know, I know!" said Bill, irritably. "You're surprised to
+hear me talk like that about her?"
+
+"A trifle, yes. Possibly a trifle. When last heard from, laddie, you
+must recollect, you were speaking of the lady as your soul-mate, and
+at least once--if I remember rightly--you alluded to her as your little
+dusky-haired lamb."
+
+A sharp howl escaped Bill.
+
+"Don't!" A strong shudder convulsed his frame. "Don't remind me of it!"
+
+"There's been a species of slump, then, in dusky-haired lambs?"
+
+"How," demanded Bill, savagely, "can a girl be a dusky-haired lamb when
+her hair's bright scarlet?"
+
+"Dashed difficult!" admitted Archie.
+
+"I suppose Lucille told you about that?"
+
+"She did touch on it. Lightly, as it were. With a sort of gossamer
+touch, so to speak."
+
+Bill threw off the last fragments of reserve.
+
+"Archie, I'm in the devil of a fix. I don't know why it was, but
+directly I saw her--things seemed so different over in England--I mean."
+He swallowed ice-water in gulps. "I suppose it was seeing her with
+Lucille. Old Lu is such a thoroughbred. Seemed to kind of show her
+up. Like seeing imitation pearls by the side of real pearls. And that
+crimson hair! It sort of put the lid on it." Bill brooded morosely. "It
+ought to be a criminal offence for women to dye their hair. Especially
+red. What the devil do women do that sort of thing for?"
+
+"Don't blame me, old thing. It's not my fault."
+
+Bill looked furtive and harassed.
+
+"It makes me feel such a cad. Here am I, feeling that I would give all
+I've got in the world to get out of the darned thing, and all the time
+the poor girl seems to be getting fonder of me than ever."
+
+"How do you know?" Archie surveyed his brother-in-law critically.
+"Perhaps her feelings have changed too. Very possibly she may not like
+the colour of YOUR hair. I don't myself. Now if you were to dye yourself
+crimson--"
+
+"Oh, shut up! Of course a man knows when a girl's fond of him."
+
+"By no means, laddie. When you're my age--"
+
+"I AM your age."
+
+"So you are! I forgot that. Well, now, approaching the matter from
+another angle, let us suppose, old son, that Miss What's-Her-Name--the
+party of the second part--"
+
+"Stop it!" said Bill suddenly. "Here comes Reggie!"
+
+"Eh?"
+
+"Here comes Reggie van Tuyl. I don't want him to hear us talking about
+the darned thing."
+
+Archie looked over his shoulder and perceived that it was indeed so.
+Reggie was threading his way among the tables.
+
+"Well, HE looks pleased with things, anyway," said Bill, enviously.
+"Glad somebody's happy."
+
+He was right. Reggie van Tuyl's usual mode of progress through a
+restaurant was a somnolent slouch. Now he was positively bounding along.
+Furthermore, the usual expression on Reggie's face was a sleepy sadness.
+Now he smiled brightly and with animation. He curveted towards their
+table, beaming and erect, his head up, his gaze level, and his chest
+expanded, for all the world as if he had been reading the hints in "The
+Personality That Wins."
+
+Archie was puzzled. Something had plainly happened to Reggie. But what?
+It was idle to suppose that somebody had left him money, for he had been
+left practically all the money there was a matter of ten years before.
+
+"Hallo, old bean," he said, as the new-comer, radiating good will and
+bonhomie, arrived at the table and hung over it like a noon-day sun.
+"We've finished. But rally round and we'll watch you eat. Dashed
+interesting, watching old Reggie eat. Why go to the Zoo?"
+
+Reggie shook his head.
+
+"Sorry, old man. Can't. Just on my way to the Ritz. Stepped in because
+I thought you might be here. I wanted you to be the first to hear the
+news."
+
+"News?"
+
+"I'm the happiest man alive!"
+
+"You look it, darn you!" growled Bill, on whose mood of grey gloom this
+human sunbeam was jarring heavily.
+
+"I'm engaged to be married!"
+
+"Congratulations, old egg!" Archie shook his hand cordially. "Dash it,
+don't you know, as an old married man I like to see you young fellows
+settling down."
+
+"I don't know how to thank you enough, Archie, old man," said Reggie,
+fervently.
+
+"Thank me?"
+
+"It was through you that I met her. Don't you remember the girl you sent
+to me? You wanted me to get her a small part--"
+
+He stopped, puzzled. Archie had uttered a sound that was half gasp and
+half gurgle, but it was swallowed up in the extraordinary noise from the
+other side of the table. Bill Brewster was leaning forward with bulging
+eyes and soaring eyebrows.
+
+"Are you engaged to Mabel Winchester?"
+
+"Why, by George!" said Reggie. "Do you know her?"
+
+Archie recovered himself.
+
+"Slightly," he said. "Slightly. Old Bill knows her slightly, as it were.
+Not very well, don't you know, but--how shall I put it?"
+
+"Slightly," suggested Bill.
+
+"Just the word. Slightly."
+
+"Splendid!" said Reggie van Tuyl. "Why don't you come along to the Ritz
+and meet her now?"
+
+Bill stammered. Archie came to the rescue again.
+
+"Bill can't come now. He's got a date."
+
+"A date?" said Bill.
+
+"A date," said Archie. "An appointment, don't you know. A--a--in fact, a
+date."
+
+"But--er--wish her happiness from me," said Bill, cordially.
+
+"Thanks very much, old man," said Reggie.
+
+"And say I'm delighted, will you?"
+
+"Certainly."
+
+"You won't forget the word, will you? Delighted."
+
+"Delighted."
+
+"That's right. Delighted."
+
+Reggie looked at his watch.
+
+"Halloa! I must rush!"
+
+Bill and Archie watched him as he bounded out of the restaurant.
+
+"Poor old Reggie!" said Bill, with a fleeting compunction.
+
+"Not necessarily," said Archie. "What I mean to say is, tastes differ,
+don't you know. One man's peach is another man's poison, and vice
+versa."
+
+"There's something in that."
+
+"Absolutely! Well," said Archie, judicially, "this would appear to be,
+as it were, the maddest, merriest day in all the glad New Year, yes,
+no?"
+
+Bill drew a deep breath.
+
+"You bet your sorrowful existence it is!" he said. "I'd like to do
+something to celebrate it."
+
+"The right spirit!" said Archie. "Absolutely the right spirit! Begin by
+paying for my lunch!"
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XX. THE-SAUSAGE-CHAPPIE-CLICKS
+
+
+Rendered restless by relief, Bill Brewster did not linger long at the
+luncheon-table. Shortly after Reggie van Tuyl had retired, he got up and
+announced his intention of going for a bit of a walk to calm his excited
+mind. Archie dismissed him with a courteous wave of the hand; and,
+beckoning to the Sausage Chappie, who in his role of waiter was hovering
+near, requested him to bring the best cigar the hotel could supply. The
+padded seat in which he sat was comfortable; he had no engagements; and
+it seemed to him that a pleasant half-hour could be passed in smoking
+dreamily and watching his fellow-men eat.
+
+The grill-room had filled up. The Sausage Chappie, having brought Archie
+his cigar, was attending to a table close by, at which a woman with
+a small boy in a sailor suit had seated themselves. The woman was
+engrossed with the bill of fare, but the child's attention seemed
+riveted upon the Sausage Chappie. He was drinking him in with wide eyes.
+He seemed to be brooding on him.
+
+Archie, too, was brooding on the Sausage Chappie, The latter made an
+excellent waiter: he was brisk and attentive, and did the work as if
+he liked it; but Archie was not satisfied. Something seemed to tell him
+that the man was fitted for higher things. Archie was a grateful soul.
+That sausage, coming at the end of a five-hour hike, had made a
+deep impression on his plastic nature. Reason told him that only an
+exceptional man could have parted with half a sausage at such a moment;
+and he could not feel that a job as waiter at a New York hotel was an
+adequate job for an exceptional man. Of course, the root of the trouble
+lay in the fact that the fellow could not remember what his real
+life-work had been before the war. It was exasperating to reflect, as
+the other moved away to take his order to the kitchen, that there, for
+all one knew, went the dickens of a lawyer or doctor or architect or
+what not.
+
+His meditations were broken by the voice of the child.
+
+"Mummie," asked the child interestedly, following the Sausage Chappie
+with his eyes as the latter disappeared towards the kitchen, "why has
+that man got such a funny face?"
+
+"Hush, darling."
+
+"Yes, but why HAS he?"
+
+"I don't know, darling."
+
+The child's faith in the maternal omniscience seemed to have received a
+shock. He had the air of a seeker after truth who has been baffled. His
+eyes roamed the room discontentedly.
+
+"He's got a funnier face than that man there," he said, pointing to
+Archie.
+
+"Hush, darling!"
+
+"But he has. Much funnier."
+
+In a way it was a sort of compliment, but Archie felt embarrassed. He
+withdrew coyly into the cushioned recess. Presently the Sausage Chappie
+returned, attended to the needs of the woman and the child, and came
+over to Archie. His homely face was beaming.
+
+"Say, I had a big night last night," he said, leaning on the table.
+
+"Yes?" said Archie. "Party or something?"
+
+"No, I mean I suddenly began to remember things. Something seems to have
+happened to the works."
+
+Archie sat up excitedly. This was great news.
+
+"No, really? My dear old lad, this is absolutely topping. This is
+priceless."
+
+"Yessir! First thing I remembered was that I was born at Springfield,
+Ohio. It was like a mist starting to lift. Springfield, Ohio. That was
+it. It suddenly came back to me."
+
+"Splendid! Anything else?"
+
+"Yessir! Just before I went to sleep I remembered my name as well."
+
+Archie was stirred to his depths.
+
+"Why, the thing's a walk-over!" he exclaimed. "Now you've once got
+started, nothing can stop you. What is your name?"
+
+"Why, it's--That's funny! It's gone again. I have an idea it began with
+an S. What was it? Skeffington? Skillington?"
+
+"Sanderson?"
+
+"No; I'll get it in a moment. Cunningham? Carrington? Wilberforce?
+Debenham?"
+
+"Dennison?" suggested Archie, helpfully.--"No, no, no. It's on the
+tip of my tongue. Barrington? Montgomery? Hepplethwaite? I've got it!
+Smith!"
+
+"By Jove! Really?"
+
+"Certain of it."
+
+"What's the first name?"
+
+An anxious expression came into the man's eyes. He hesitated. He lowered
+his voice.
+
+"I have a horrible feeling that it's Lancelot!"
+
+"Good God!" said Archie.
+
+"It couldn't really be that, could it?"
+
+Archie looked grave. He hated to give pain, but he felt he must be
+honest.
+
+"It might," he said. "People give their children all sorts of rummy
+names. My second name's Tracy. And I have a pal in England who was
+christened Cuthbert de la Hay Horace. Fortunately everyone calls him
+Stinker."
+
+The head-waiter began to drift up like a bank of fog, and the Sausage
+Chappie returned to his professional duties. When he came back, he was
+beaming again.
+
+"Something else I remembered," he said, removing the cover. "I'm
+married!"
+
+"Good Lord!"
+
+"At least I was before the war. She had blue eyes and brown hair and a
+Pekingese dog."
+
+"What was her name?"
+
+"I don't know."
+
+"Well, you're coming on," said Archie. "I'll admit that. You've still
+got a bit of a way to go before you become like one of those blighters
+who take the Memory Training Courses in the magazine advertisements--I
+mean to say, you know, the lads who meet a fellow once for five minutes,
+and then come across him again ten years later and grasp him by the hand
+and say, 'Surely this is Mr. Watkins of Seattle?' Still, you're doing
+fine. You only need patience. Everything comes to him who waits."
+Archie sat up, electrified. "I say, by Jove, that's rather good, what!
+Everything comes to him who waits, and you're a waiter, what, what. I
+mean to say, what!"
+
+"Mummie," said the child at the other table, still speculative, "do you
+think something trod on his face?"
+
+"Hush, darling."
+
+"Perhaps it was bitten by something?"
+
+"Eat your nice fish, darling," said the mother, who seemed to be one
+of those dull-witted persons whom it is impossible to interest in a
+discussion on first causes.
+
+Archie felt stimulated. Not even the advent of his father-in-law, who
+came in a few moments later and sat down at the other end of the room,
+could depress his spirits.
+
+The Sausage Chappie came to his table again.
+
+"It's a funny thing," he said. "Like waking up after you've been asleep.
+Everything seems to be getting clearer. The dog's name was Marie. My
+wife's dog, you know. And she had a mole on her chin."
+
+"The dog?"
+
+"No. My wife. Little beast! She bit me in the leg once."
+
+"Your wife?"
+
+"No. The dog. Good Lord!" said the Sausage Chappie.
+
+Archie looked up and followed his gaze.
+
+A couple of tables away, next to a sideboard on which the management
+exposed for view the cold meats and puddings and pies mentioned in
+volume two of the bill of fare ("Buffet Froid"), a man and a girl had
+just seated themselves. The man was stout and middle-aged. He bulged
+in practically every place in which a man can bulge, and his head was
+almost entirely free from hair. The girl was young and pretty. Her eyes
+were blue. Her hair was brown. She had a rather attractive little mole
+on the left side of her chin.
+
+"Good Lord!" said the Sausage Chappie.
+
+"Now what?" said Archie.
+
+"Who's that? Over at the table there?"
+
+Archie, through long attendance at the Cosmopolis Grill, knew most of
+the habitues by sight.
+
+"That's a man named Gossett. James J. Gossett. He's a motion-picture
+man. You must have seen his name around."
+
+"I don't mean him. Who's the girl?"
+
+"I've never seen her before."
+
+"It's my wife!" said the Sausage Chappie.
+
+"Your wife!"
+
+"Yes!"
+
+"Are you sure?"
+
+"Of course I'm sure!"
+
+"Well, well, well!" said Archie. "Many happy returns of the day!"
+
+At the other table, the girl, unconscious of the drama which was about
+to enter her life, was engrossed in conversation with the stout man. And
+at this moment the stout man leaned forward and patted her on the cheek.
+
+It was a paternal pat, the pat which a genial uncle might bestow on
+a favourite niece, but it did not strike the Sausage Chappie in that
+light. He had been advancing on the table at a fairly rapid pace, and
+now, stirred to his depths, he bounded forward with a hoarse cry.
+
+Archie was at some pains to explain to his father-in-law later that, if
+the management left cold pies and things about all over the place, this
+sort of thing was bound to happen sooner or later. He urged that it
+was putting temptation in people's way, and that Mr. Brewster had only
+himself to blame. Whatever the rights of the case, the Buffet Froid
+undoubtedly came in remarkably handy at this crisis in the Sausage
+Chappie's life. He had almost reached the sideboard when the stout man
+patted the girl's cheek, and to seize a huckleberry pie was with him the
+work of a moment. The next instant the pie had whizzed past the other's
+head and burst like a shell against the wall.
+
+There are, no doubt, restaurants where this sort of thing would
+have excited little comment, but the Cosmopolis was not one of them.
+Everybody had something to say, but the only one among those present who
+had anything sensible to say was the child in the sailor suit.
+
+"Do it again!" said the child, cordially.
+
+The Sausage Chappie did it again. He took up a fruit salad, poised it
+for a moment, then decanted it over Mr. Gossett's bald head. The child's
+happy laughter rang over the restaurant. Whatever anybody else might
+think of the affair, this child liked it and was prepared to go on
+record to that effect.
+
+Epic events have a stunning quality. They paralyse the faculties. For
+a moment there was a pause. The world stood still. Mr. Brewster bubbled
+inarticulately. Mr. Gossett dried himself sketchily with a napkin. The
+Sausage Chappie snorted.
+
+The girl had risen to her feet and was staring wildly.
+
+"John!" she cried.
+
+Even at this moment of crisis the Sausage Chappie was able to look
+relieved.
+
+"So it is!" he said. "And I thought it was Lancelot!"
+
+"I thought you were dead!"
+
+"I'm not!" said the Sausage Chappie.
+
+Mr. Gossett, speaking thickly through the fruit-salad, was understood
+to say that he regretted this. And then confusion broke loose again.
+Everybody began to talk at once.
+
+"I say!" said Archie. "I say! One moment!"
+
+Of the first stages of this interesting episode Archie had been a
+paralysed spectator. The thing had numbed him. And then--
+
+     Sudden a thought came, like a full-blown rose.
+     Flushing his brow.
+
+When he reached the gesticulating group, he was calm and business-like.
+He had a constructive policy to suggest.
+
+"I say," he said. "I've got an idea!"
+
+"Go away!" said Mr. Brewster. "This is bad enough without you butting
+in."
+
+Archie quelled him with a gesture.
+
+"Leave us," he said. "We would be alone. I want to have a little
+business-talk with Mr. Gossett." He turned to the movie-magnate, who
+was gradually emerging from the fruit-salad rather after the manner of
+a stout Venus rising from the sea. "Can you spare me a moment of your
+valuable time?"
+
+"I'll have him arrested!"
+
+"Don't you do it, laddie. Listen!"
+
+"The man's mad. Throwing pies!"
+
+Archie attached himself to his coat-button.
+
+"Be calm, laddie. Calm and reasonable!"
+
+For the first time Mr. Gossett seemed to become aware that what he had
+been looking on as a vague annoyance was really an individual.
+
+"Who the devil are you?"
+
+Archie drew himself up with dignity.
+
+"I am this gentleman's representative," he replied, indicating the
+Sausage Chappie with a motion of the hand. "His jolly old personal
+representative. I act for him. And on his behalf I have a pretty ripe
+proposition to lay before you. Reflect, dear old bean," he proceeded
+earnestly. "Are you going to let this chance slip? The opportunity of a
+lifetime which will not occur again. By Jove, you ought to rise up and
+embrace this bird. You ought to clasp the chappie to your bosom! He has
+thrown pies at you, hasn't he? Very well. You are a movie-magnate. Your
+whole fortune is founded on chappies who throw pies. You probably scour
+the world for chappies who throw pies. Yet, when one comes right to you
+without any fuss or trouble and demonstrates before your very eyes the
+fact that he is without a peer as a pie-propeller, you get the wind up
+and talk about having him arrested. Consider! (There's a bit of cherry
+just behind your left ear.) Be sensible. Why let your personal feeling
+stand in the way of doing yourself a bit of good? Give this chappie a
+job and give it him quick, or we go elsewhere. Did you ever see Fatty
+Arbuckle handle pastry with a surer touch? Has Charlie Chaplin got this
+fellow's speed and control. Absolutely not. I tell you, old friend,
+you're in danger of throwing away a good thing!"
+
+He paused. The Sausage Chappie beamed.
+
+"I've aways wanted to go into the movies," he said. "I was an actor
+before the war. Just remembered."
+
+Mr. Brewster attempted to speak. Archie waved him down.
+
+"How many times have I got to tell you not to butt in?" he said,
+severely.
+
+Mr. Gossett's militant demeanour had become a trifle modified during
+Archie's harangue. First and foremost a man of business, Mr. Gossett was
+not insensible to the arguments which had been put forward. He brushed a
+slice of orange from the back of his neck, and mused awhile.
+
+"How do I know this fellow would screen well?" he said, at length.
+
+"Screen well!" cried Archie. "Of course he'll screen well. Look at
+his face. I ask you! The map! I call your attention to it." He turned
+apologetically to the Sausage Chappie. "Awfully sorry, old lad, for
+dwelling on this, but it's business, you know." He turned to Mr.
+Gossett. "Did you ever see a face like that? Of course not. Why should
+I, as this gentleman's personal representative, let a face like that go
+to waste? There's a fortune in it. By Jove, I'll give you two minutes to
+think the thing over, and, if you don't talk business then, I'll jolly
+well take my man straight round to Mack Sennett or someone. We don't
+have to ask for jobs. We consider offers."
+
+There was a silence. And then the clear voice of the child in the sailor
+suit made itself heard again.
+
+"Mummie!"
+
+"Yes, darling?"
+
+"Is the man with the funny face going to throw any more pies?"
+
+"No, darling."
+
+The child uttered a scream of disappointed fury.
+
+"I want the funny man to throw some more pies! I want the funny man to
+throw some more pies!"
+
+A look almost of awe came into Mr. Gossett's face. He had heard the
+voice of the Public. He had felt the beating of the Public's pulse.
+
+"Out of the mouths of babes and sucklings," he said, picking a piece of
+banana off his right eyebrow, "Out of the mouths of babes and sucklings.
+Come round to my office!"
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXI. THE GROWING BOY
+
+
+The lobby of the Cosmopolis Hotel was a favourite stamping-ground of Mr.
+Daniel Brewster, its proprietor. He liked to wander about there, keeping
+a paternal eye on things, rather in the manner of the Jolly Innkeeper
+(hereinafter to be referred to as Mine Host) of the old-fashioned novel.
+Customers who, hurrying in to dinner, tripped over Mr. Brewster, were
+apt to mistake him for the hotel detective--for his eye was keen and
+his aspect a trifle austere--but, nevertheless, he was being as jolly an
+innkeeper as he knew how. His presence in the lobby supplied a personal
+touch to the Cosmopolis which other New York hotels lacked, and it
+undeniably made the girl at the book-stall extraordinarily civil to her
+clients, which was all to the good.
+
+Most of the time Mr. Brewster stood in one spot and just looked
+thoughtful; but now and again he would wander to the marble slab behind
+which he kept the desk-clerk and run his eye over the register, to see
+who had booked rooms--like a child examining the stocking on Christmas
+morning to ascertain what Santa Claus had brought him.
+
+As a rule, Mr. Brewster concluded this performance by shoving the book
+back across the marble slab and resuming his meditations. But one night
+a week or two after the Sausage Chappie's sudden restoration to the
+normal, he varied this procedure by starting rather violently, turning
+purple, and uttering an exclamation which was manifestly an exclamation
+of chagrin. He turned abruptly and cannoned into Archie, who, in company
+with Lucille, happened to be crossing the lobby at the moment on his way
+to dine in their suite.
+
+Mr. Brewster apologised gruffly; then, recognising his victim, seemed to
+regret having done so.
+
+"Oh, it's you! Why can't you look where you're going?" he demanded. He
+had suffered much from his son-in-law.
+
+"Frightfully sorry," said Archie, amiably. "Never thought you were going
+to fox-trot backwards all over the fairway."
+
+"You mustn't bully Archie," said Lucille, severely, attaching herself
+to her father's back hair and giving it a punitive tug, "because he's an
+angel, and I love him, and you must learn to love him, too."
+
+"Give you lessons at a reasonable rate," murmured Archie.
+
+Mr. Brewster regarded his young relative with a lowering eye.
+
+"What's the matter, father darling?" asked Lucille. "You seem upset"
+
+"I am upset!" Mr. Brewster snorted. "Some people have got a nerve!" He
+glowered forbiddingly at an inoffensive young man in a light overcoat
+who had just entered, and the young man, though his conscience was quite
+clear and Mr. Brewster an entire stranger to him, stopped dead, blushed,
+and went out again--to dine elsewhere. "Some people have got the nerve
+of an army mule!"
+
+"Why, what's happened?"
+
+"Those darned McCalls have registered here!"
+
+"No!"
+
+"Bit beyond me, this," said Archie, insinuating himself into the
+conversation. "Deep waters and what not! Who are the McCalls?"
+
+"Some people father dislikes," said Lucille. "And they've chosen his
+hotel to stop at. But, father dear, you mustn't mind. It's really a
+compliment. They've come because they know it's the best hotel in New
+York."
+
+"Absolutely!" said Archie. "Good accommodation for man and beast! All
+the comforts of home! Look on the bright side, old bean. No good getting
+the wind up. Cherrio, old companion!"
+
+"Don't call me old companion!"
+
+"Eh, what? Oh, right-o!"
+
+Lucille steered her husband out of the danger zone, and they entered the
+lift.
+
+"Poor father!" she said, as they went to their suite, "it's a shame.
+They must have done it to annoy him. This man McCall has a place next to
+some property father bought in Westchester, and he's bringing a law-suit
+against father about a bit of land which he claims belongs to him. He
+might have had the tact to go to another hotel. But, after all, I don't
+suppose it was the poor little fellow's fault. He does whatever his wife
+tells him to."
+
+"We all do that," said Archie the married man.
+
+Lucille eyed him fondly.
+
+"Isn't it a shame, precious, that all husbands haven't nice wives like
+me?"
+
+"When I think of you, by Jove," said Archie, fervently, "I want to
+babble, absolutely babble!"
+
+"Oh, I was telling you about the McCalls. Mr. McCall is one of those
+little, meek men, and his wife's one of those big, bullying women. It
+was she who started all the trouble with father. Father and Mr. McCall
+were very fond of each other till she made him begin the suit. I feel
+sure she made him come to this hotel just to annoy father. Still,
+they've probably taken the most expensive suite in the place, which is
+something."
+
+Archie was at the telephone. His mood was now one of quiet peace. Of
+all the happenings which went to make up existence in New York, he liked
+best the cosy tete-a-tete dinners with Lucille in their suite, which,
+owing to their engagements--for Lucille was a popular girl, with many
+friends--occurred all too seldom.
+
+"Touching now the question of browsing and sluicing," he said. "I'll be
+getting them to send along a waiter."
+
+"Oh, good gracious!"
+
+"What's the matter?"
+
+"I've just remembered. I promised faithfully I would go and see Jane
+Murchison to-day. And I clean forgot. I must rush."
+
+"But light of my soul, we are about to eat. Pop around and see her after
+dinner."
+
+"I can't. She's going to a theatre to-night."
+
+"Give her the jolly old miss-in-baulk, then, for the nonce, and spring
+round to-morrow."
+
+"She's sailing for England to-morrow morning, early. No, I must go and
+see her now. What a shame! She's sure to make me stop to dinner, I tell
+you what. Order something for me, and, if I'm not back in half an hour,
+start."
+
+"Jane Murchison," said Archie, "is a bally nuisance."
+
+"Yes. But I've known her since she was eight."
+
+"If her parents had had any proper feeling," said Archie, "they would
+have drowned her long before that."
+
+He unhooked the receiver, and asked despondently to be connected
+with Room Service. He thought bitterly of the exigent Jane, whom he
+recollected dimly as a tall female with teeth. He half thought of going
+down to the grill-room on the chance of finding a friend there, but the
+waiter was on his way to the room. He decided that he might as well stay
+where he was.
+
+The waiter arrived, booked the order, and departed. Archie had just
+completed his toilet after a shower-bath when a musical clinking without
+announced the advent of the meal. He opened the door. The waiter was
+there with a table congested with things under covers, from which
+escaped a savoury and appetising odour. In spite of his depression,
+Archie's soul perked up a trifle.
+
+Suddenly he became aware that he was not the only person present who
+was deriving enjoyment from the scent of the meal. Standing beside the
+waiter and gazing wistfully at the foodstuffs was a long, thin boy of
+about sixteen. He was one of those boys who seem all legs and knuckles.
+He had pale red hair, sandy eyelashes, and a long neck; and his eyes, as
+he removed them from the-table and raised them to Archie's, had a hungry
+look. He reminded Archie of a half-grown, half-starved hound.
+
+"That smells good!" said the long boy. He inhaled deeply. "Yes, sir," he
+continued, as one whose mind is definitely made up, "that smells good!"
+
+Before Archie could reply, the telephone bell rang. It was Lucille,
+confirming her prophecy that the pest Jane would insist on her staying
+to dine.
+
+"Jane," said Archie, into the telephone, "is a pot of poison. The waiter
+is here now, setting out a rich banquet, and I shall have to eat two of
+everything by myself."
+
+He hung up the receiver, and, turning, met the pale eye of the long boy,
+who had propped himself up in the doorway.
+
+"Were you expecting somebody to dinner?" asked the boy.
+
+"Why, yes, old friend, I was."
+
+"I wish--"
+
+"Yes?"
+
+"Oh, nothing."
+
+The waiter left. The long boy hitched his back more firmly against the
+doorpost, and returned to his original theme.
+
+"That surely does smell good!" He basked a moment in the aroma. "Yes,
+sir! I'll tell the world it does!"
+
+Archie was not an abnormally rapid thinker, but he began at this point
+to get a clearly defined impression that this lad, if invited, would
+waive the formalities and consent to join his meal. Indeed, the idea
+Archie got was that, if he were not invited pretty soon, he would invite
+himself.
+
+"Yes," he agreed. "It doesn't smell bad, what!"
+
+"It smells GOOD!" said the boy. "Oh, doesn't it! Wake me up in the night
+and ask me if it doesn't!"
+
+"Poulet en casserole," said Archie.
+
+"Golly!" said the boy, reverently.
+
+There was a pause. The situation began to seem to Archie a trifle
+difficult. He wanted to start his meal, but it began to appear that he
+must either do so under the penetrating gaze of his new friend or else
+eject the latter forcibly. The boy showed no signs of ever wanting to
+leave the doorway.
+
+"You've dined, I suppose, what?" said Archie.
+
+"I never dine."
+
+"What!"
+
+"Not really dine, I mean. I only get vegetables and nuts and things."
+
+"Dieting?"
+
+"Mother is."
+
+"I don't absolutely catch the drift, old bean," said Archie. The boy
+sniffed with half-closed eyes as a wave of perfume from the poulet en
+casserole floated past him. He seemed to be anxious to intercept as much
+of it as possible before it got through the door.
+
+"Mother's a food-reformer," he vouchsafed. "She lectures on it. She
+makes Pop and me live on vegetables and nuts and things."
+
+Archie was shocked. It was like listening to a tale from the abyss.
+
+"My dear old chap, you must suffer agonies--absolute shooting pains!"
+He had no hesitation now. Common humanity pointed out his course. "Would
+you care to join me in a bite now?"
+
+"Would I!" The boy smiled a wan smile. "Would I! Just stop me on the
+street and ask me!"
+
+"Come on in, then," said Archie, rightly taking this peculiar phrase
+for a formal acceptance. "And close the door. The fatted calf is getting
+cold."
+
+Archie was not a man with a wide visiting-list among people with
+families, and it was so long since he had seen a growing boy in action
+at the table that he had forgotten what sixteen is capable of doing
+with a knife and fork, when it really squares its elbows, takes a
+deep breath, and gets going. The spectacle which he witnessed was
+consequently at first a little unnerving. The long boy's idea of
+trifling with a meal appeared to be to swallow it whole and reach out
+for more. He ate like a starving Eskimo. Archie, in the time he had
+spent in the trenches making the world safe for the working-man to
+strike in, had occasionally been quite peckish, but he sat dazed before
+this majestic hunger. This was real eating.
+
+There was little conversation. The growing boy evidently did not believe
+in table-talk when he could use his mouth for more practical purposes.
+It was not until the final roll had been devoured to its last crumb that
+the guest found leisure to address his host. Then he leaned back with a
+contented sigh.
+
+"Mother," said the human python, "says you ought to chew every mouthful
+thirty-three times...."
+
+"Yes, sir! Thirty-three times!" He sighed again, "I haven't ever had
+meal like that."
+
+"All right, was it, what?"
+
+"Was it! Was it! Call me up on the 'phone and ask me!-Yes, sir!-Mother's
+tipped off these darned waiters not to serve-me anything but vegetables
+and nuts and things, darn it!"
+
+"The mater seems to have drastic ideas about the good old feed-bag,
+what!"
+
+"I'll say she has! Pop hates it as much as me, but he's scared to kick.
+Mother says vegetables contain all the proteins you want. Mother says,
+if you eat meat, your blood-pressure goes all blooey. Do you think it
+does?"
+
+"Mine seems pretty well in the pink."
+
+"She's great on talking," conceded the boy. "She's out to-night
+somewhere, giving a lecture on Rational Eating to some ginks. I'll
+have to be slipping up to our suite before she gets back." He rose,
+sluggishly. "That isn't a bit of roll under that napkin, is it?" he
+asked, anxiously.
+
+Archie raised the napkin.
+
+"No. Nothing of that species."
+
+"Oh, well!" said the boy, resignedly. "Then I believe I'll be going.
+Thanks very much for the dinner."
+
+"Not a bit, old top. Come again if you're ever trickling round in this
+direction."
+
+The long boy removed himself slowly, loath to leave. At the door he cast
+an affectionate glance back at the table.
+
+"Some meal!" he said, devoutly. "Considerable meal!"
+
+Archie lit a cigarette. He felt like a Boy Scout who has done his day's
+Act of Kindness.
+
+On the following morning it chanced that Archie needed a fresh supply
+of tobacco. It was his custom, when this happened, to repair to a small
+shop on Sixth Avenue which he had discovered accidentally in the course
+of his rambles about the great city. His relations with Jno. Blake, the
+proprietor, were friendly and intimate. The discovery that Mr. Blake
+was English and had, indeed, until a few years back maintained an
+establishment only a dozen doors or so from Archie's London club, had
+served as a bond.
+
+To-day he found Mr. Blake in a depressed mood. The tobacconist was a
+hearty, red-faced man, who looked like an English sporting publican--the
+kind of man who wears a fawn-coloured top-coat and drives to the Derby
+in a dog-cart; and usually there seemed to be nothing on his mind
+except the vagaries of the weather, concerning which he was a great
+conversationalist. But now moodiness had claimed him for its own.
+After a short and melancholy "Good morning," he turned to the task of
+measuring out the tobacco in silence.
+
+Archie's sympathetic nature was perturbed.--"What's the matter, laddie?"
+he enquired. "You would seem to be feeling a bit of an onion this bright
+morning, what, yes, no? I can see it with the naked eye."
+
+Mr. Blake grunted sorrowfully.
+
+"I've had a knock, Mr. Moffam."
+
+"Tell me all, friend of my youth."
+
+Mr. Blake, with a jerk of his thumb, indicated a poster which hung on
+the wall behind the counter. Archie had noticed it as he came in, for
+it was designed to attract the eye. It was printed in black letters on a
+yellow ground, and ran as follows:
+
+               CLOVER-LEAF SOCIAL AND OUTING CLUB
+
+                         GRAND CONTEST
+
+            PIE-EATING CHAMPIONSHIP OF THE WEST SIDE
+
+                         SPIKE O'DOWD
+                          (Champion)
+
+                              v.
+
+                       BLAKE'S UNKNOWN
+
+                  FOR A PURSE OF $50 AND SIDE-BET
+
+Archie examined this document gravely. It conveyed nothing to him
+except--what he had long suspected--that his sporting-looking friend had
+sporting blood as well as that kind of exterior. He expressed a kindly
+hope that the other's Unknown would bring home the bacon.
+
+Mr. Blake laughed one of those hollow, mirthless laughs.
+
+"There ain't any blooming Unknown," he said, bitterly. This man had
+plainly suffered. "Yesterday, yes, but not now."
+
+Archie sighed.
+
+"In the midst of life--Dead?" he enquired, delicately.
+
+"As good as," replied the stricken tobacconist. He cast aside his
+artificial restraint and became voluble. Archie was one of those
+sympathetic souls in whom even strangers readily confided their most
+intimate troubles. He was to those in travail of spirit very much what
+catnip is to a cat. "It's 'ard, sir, it's blooming 'ard! I'd got the
+event all sewed up in a parcel, and now this young feller-me-lad 'as to
+give me the knock. This lad of mine--sort of cousin 'e is; comes from
+London, like you and me--'as always 'ad, ever since he landed in this
+country, a most amazing knack of stowing away grub. 'E'd been a bit
+underfed these last two or three years over in the old country, what
+with food restrictions and all, and 'e took to the food over 'ere
+amazing. I'd 'ave backed 'im against a ruddy orstridge! Orstridge! I'd
+'ave backed 'im against 'arff a dozen orstridges--take 'em on one
+after the other in the same ring on the same evening--and given 'em a
+handicap, too! 'E was a jewel, that boy. I've seen him polish off four
+pounds of steak and mealy potatoes and then look round kind of wolfish,
+as much as to ask when dinner was going to begin! That's the kind of a
+lad 'e was till this very morning. 'E would have out-swallowed this 'ere
+O'Dowd without turning a hair, as a relish before 'is tea! I'd got a
+couple of 'undred dollars on 'im, and thought myself lucky to get the
+odds. And now--"
+
+Mr. Blake relapsed into a tortured silence.
+
+"But what's the matter with the blighter? Why can't he go over the top?
+Has he got indigestion?"
+
+"Indigestion?" Mr. Blaife laughed another of his hollow laughs. "You
+couldn't give that boy indigestion if you fed 'im in on safety-razor
+blades. Religion's more like what 'e's got."
+
+"Religion?"
+
+"Well, you can call it that. Seems last night, instead of goin' and
+resting 'is mind at a picture-palace like I told him to, 'e sneaked off
+to some sort of a lecture down on Eighth Avenue. 'E said 'e'd seen a
+piece about it in the papers, and it was about Rational Eating, and that
+kind of attracted 'im. 'E sort of thought 'e might pick up a few hints,
+like. 'E didn't know what rational eating was, but it sounded to 'im as
+if it must be something to do with food, and 'e didn't want to miss it.
+'E came in here just now," said Mr. Blake, dully, "and 'e was a changed
+lad! Scared to death 'e was! Said the way 'e'd been goin' on in the
+past, it was a wonder 'e'd got any stummick left! It was a lady that
+give the lecture, and this boy said it was amazing what she told 'em
+about blood-pressure and things 'e didn't even know 'e 'ad. She showed
+'em pictures, coloured pictures, of what 'appens inside the injudicious
+eater's stummick who doesn't chew his food, and it was like a
+battlefield! 'E said 'e would no more think of eatin' a lot of pie than
+'e would of shootin' 'imself, and anyhow eating pie would be a quicker
+death. I reasoned with 'im, Mr. Moffam, with tears in my eyes. I asked
+'im was he goin' to chuck away fame and wealth just because a woman
+who didn't know what she was talking about had shown him a lot of faked
+pictures. But there wasn't any doin' anything with him. 'E give me the
+knock and 'opped it down the street to buy nuts." Mr. Blake moaned. "Two
+'undred dollars and more gone pop, not to talk of the fifty dollars 'e
+would have won and me to get twenty-five of!"
+
+Archie took his tobacco and walked pensively back to the hotel. He was
+fond of Jno. Blake, and grieved for the trouble that had come upon him.
+It was odd, he felt, how things seemed to link themselves up together.
+The woman who had delivered the fateful lecture to injudicious eaters
+could not be other than the mother of his young guest of last night. An
+uncomfortable woman! Not content with starving her own family--Archie
+stopped in his tracks. A pedestrian, walking behind him, charged into
+his back, but Archie paid no attention. He had had one of those sudden,
+luminous ideas, which help a man who does not do much thinking as a rule
+to restore his average. He stood there for a moment, almost dizzy at the
+brilliance of his thoughts; then hurried on. Napoleon, he mused as he
+walked, must have felt rather like this after thinking up a hot one to
+spring on the enemy.
+
+As if Destiny were suiting her plans to his, one of the first persons he
+saw as he entered the lobby of the Cosmopolis was the long boy. He was
+standing at the bookstall, reading as much of a morning paper as could
+be read free under the vigilant eyes of the presiding girl. Both he and
+she were observing the unwritten rules which govern these affairs--to
+wit, that you may read without interference as much as can be read
+without touching the paper. If you touch the paper, you lose, and have
+to buy.
+
+"Well, well, well!" said Archie. "Here we are again, what!" He prodded
+the boy amiably in the lower ribs. "You're just the chap I was looking
+for. Got anything on for the time being?"
+
+The boy said he had no engagements.
+
+"Then I want you to stagger round with me to a chappie I know on Sixth
+Avenue. It's only a couple of blocks away. I think I can do you a bit of
+good. Put you on to something tolerably ripe, if you know what I mean.
+Trickle along, laddie. You don't need a hat."
+
+They found Mr. Blake brooding over his troubles in an empty shop.
+
+"Cheer up, old thing!" said Archie. "The relief expedition has arrived."
+He directed his companion's gaze to the poster. "Cast your eye over
+that. How does that strike you?"
+
+The long boy scanned the poster. A gleam appeared in his rather dull
+eye.
+
+"Well?"
+
+"Some people have all the luck!" said the long boy, feelingly.
+
+"Would you like to compete, what?"
+
+The boy smiled a sad smile.
+
+"Would I! Would I! Say!..."
+
+"I know," interrupted Archie. "Wake you up in the night and ask you! I
+knew I could rely on you, old thing." He turned to Mr. Blake. "Here's
+the fellow you've been wanting to meet. The finest left-and-right-hand
+eater east of the Rockies! He'll fight the good fight for you."
+
+Mr. Blake's English training had not been wholly overcome by residence
+in New York. He still retained a nice eye for the distinctions of class.
+
+"But this is young gentleman's a young gentleman," he urged, doubtfully,
+yet with hope shining in his eye. "He wouldn't do it."
+
+"Of course, he would. Don't be ridic, old thing."
+
+"Wouldn't do what?" asked the boy.
+
+"Why save the old homestead by taking on the champion. Dashed sad case,
+between ourselves! This poor egg's nominee has given him the raspberry
+at the eleventh hour, and only you can save him. And you owe it to him
+to do something you know, because it was your jolly old mater's lecture
+last night that made the nominee quit. You must charge in and take his
+place. Sort of poetic justice, don't you know, and what not!" He turned
+to Mr. Blake. "When is the conflict supposed to start? Two-thirty? You
+haven't any important engagement for two-thirty, have you?"
+
+"No. Mother's lunching at some ladies' club, and giving a lecture
+afterwards. I can slip away."
+
+Archie patted his head.
+
+"Then leg it where glory waits you, old bean!"
+
+The long boy was gazing earnestly at the poster. It seemed to fascinate
+him.
+
+"Pie!" he said in a hushed voice.
+
+The word was like a battle-cry.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXII. WASHY STEPS INTO THE HALL OF FAME
+
+
+At about nine o'clock next morning, in a suite at the Hotel Cosmopolis,
+Mrs. Cora Bates McCall, the eminent lecturer on Rational Eating, was
+seated at breakfast with her family. Before her sat Mr. McCall, a
+little hunted-looking man, the natural peculiarities of whose face were
+accentuated by a pair of glasses of semicircular shape, like half-moons
+with the horns turned up. Behind these, Mr. McCall's eyes played a
+perpetual game of peekaboo, now peering over them, anon ducking down and
+hiding behind them. He was sipping a cup of anti-caffeine. On his right,
+toying listlessly with a plateful of cereal, sat his son, Washington.
+Mrs. McCall herself was eating a slice of Health Bread and nut butter.
+For she practised as well as preached the doctrines which she had
+striven for so many years to inculcate in an unthinking populace. Her
+day always began with a light but nutritious breakfast, at which a
+peculiarly uninviting cereal, which looked and tasted like an old straw
+hat that had been run through a meat chopper, competed for first place
+in the dislike of her husband and son with a more than usually offensive
+brand of imitation coffee. Mr. McCall was inclined to think that he
+loathed the imitation coffee rather more than the cereal, but Washington
+held strong views on the latter's superior ghastliness. Both Washington
+and his father, however, would have been fair-minded enough to admit
+that it was a close thing.
+
+Mrs. McCall regarded her offspring with grave approval.
+
+"I am glad to see, Lindsay," she said to her husband, whose eyes sprang
+dutifully over the glass fence as he heard his name, "that Washy has
+recovered his appetite. When he refused his dinner last night, I was
+afraid that he might be sickening for something. Especially as he had
+quite a flushed look. You noticed his flushed look?"
+
+"He did look flushed."
+
+"Very flushed. And his breathing was almost stertorous. And, when he
+said that he had no appetite, I am bound to say that I was anxious. But
+he is evidently perfectly well this morning. You do feel perfectly well
+this morning, Washy?"
+
+The heir of the McCall's looked up from his cereal. He was a long, thin
+boy of about sixteen, with pale red hair, sandy eyelashes, and a long
+neck.
+
+"Uh-huh," he said.
+
+Mrs. McCall nodded.
+
+"Surely now you will agree, Lindsay, that a careful and rational diet
+is what a boy needs? Washy's constitution is superb. He has a remarkable
+stamina, and I attribute it entirely to my careful supervision of his
+food. I shudder when I think of the growing boys who are permitted by
+irresponsible people to devour meat, candy, pie--" She broke off. "What
+is the matter, Washy?"
+
+It seemed that the habit of shuddering at the thought of pie ran in the
+McCall family, for at the mention of the word a kind of internal shimmy
+had convulsed Washington's lean frame, and over his face there had come
+an expression that was almost one of pain. He had been reaching out
+his hand for a slice of Health Bread, but now he withdrew it rather
+hurriedly and sat back breathing hard.
+
+"I'm all right," he said, huskily.
+
+"Pie," proceeded Mrs. McCall, in her platform voice. She stopped again
+abruptly. "Whatever is the matter, Washington? You are making me feel
+nervous."
+
+"I'm all right."
+
+Mrs. McCall had lost the thread of her remarks. Moreover, having now
+finished her breakfast, she was inclined for a little light reading. One
+of the subjects allied to the matter of dietary on which she felt deeply
+was the question of reading at meals. She was of the opinion that the
+strain on the eye, coinciding with the strain on the digestion, could
+not fail to give the latter the short end of the contest; and it was a
+rule at her table that the morning paper should not even be glanced at
+till the conclusion of the meal. She said that it was upsetting to begin
+the day by reading the paper, and events were to prove that she was
+occasionally right.
+
+All through breakfast the New York Chronicle had been lying neatly
+folded beside her plate. She now opened it, and, with a remark about
+looking for the report of her yesterday's lecture at the Butterfly Club,
+directed her gaze at the front page, on which she hoped that an editor
+with the best interests of the public at heart had decided to place her.
+
+Mr. McCall, jumping up and down behind his glasses, scrutinised her face
+closely as she began to read. He always did this on these occasions, for
+none knew better than he that his comfort for the day depended
+largely on some unknown reporter whom he had never met. If this unseen
+individual had done his work properly and as befitted the importance of
+his subject, Mrs. McCall's mood for the next twelve hours would be
+as uniformly sunny as it was possible for it to be. But sometimes the
+fellows scamped their job disgracefully; and once, on a day which lived
+in Mr. McCall's memory, they had failed to make a report at all.
+
+To-day, he noted with relief, all seemed to be well. The report
+actually was on the front page, an honour rarely accorded to his wife's
+utterances. Moreover, judging from the time it took her to read the
+thing, she had evidently been reported at length.
+
+"Good, my dear?" he ventured. "Satisfactory?"
+
+"Eh?" Mrs. McCall smiled meditatively. "Oh, yes, excellent. They have
+used my photograph, too. Not at all badly reproduced."
+
+"Splendid!" said Mr. McCall.
+
+Mrs. McCall gave a sharp shriek, and the paper fluttered from her hand.
+
+"My dear!" said Mr. McCall, with concern.
+
+His wife had recovered the paper, and was reading with burning eyes. A
+bright wave of colour had flowed over her masterful features. She was
+breathing as stertorously as ever her son Washington had done on the
+previous night.
+
+"Washington!"
+
+A basilisk glare shot across the table and turned the long boy to
+stone--all except his mouth, which opened feebly.
+
+"Washington! Is this true?"
+
+Washy closed his mouth, then let it slowly open again.
+
+"My dear!" Mr. McCall's voice was alarmed. "What is it?" His eyes had
+climbed up over his glasses and remained there. "What is the matter? Is
+anything wrong?"
+
+"Wrong! Read for yourself!"
+
+Mr. McCall was completely mystified. He could not even formulate a
+guess at the cause of the trouble. That it appeared to concern his son
+Washington seemed to be the one solid fact at his disposal, and that
+only made the matter still more puzzling. Where, Mr. McCall asked
+himself, did Washington come in?
+
+He looked at the paper, and received immediate enlightenment. Headlines
+met his eyes:
+
+                  GOOD STUFF IN THIS BOY.
+                    ABOUT A TON OF IT.
+                 SON OF CORA BATES McCALL
+               FAMOUS FOOD-REFORM LECTURER
+             WINS PIE-EATING CHAMPIONSHIP OF
+                       WEST SIDE.
+
+There followed a lyrical outburst. So uplifted had the reporter
+evidently felt by the importance of his news that he had been unable to
+confine himself to prose:--
+
+
+
+     My children, if you fail to shine or triumph in your
+     special line; if, let us say, your hopes are bent on
+     some day being President, and folks ignore your proper
+     worth, and say you've not a chance on earth--Cheer up!
+     for in these stirring days Fame may be won in many ways.
+     Consider, when your spirits fall, the case of Washington
+     McCall.
+
+     Yes, cast your eye on Washy, please! He looks just like
+     a piece of cheese: he's not a brilliant sort of chap: he
+     has a dull and vacant map: his eyes are blank, his face
+     is red, his ears stick out beside his head. In fact, to
+     end these compliments, he would be dear at thirty cents.
+     Yet Fame has welcomed to her Hall this self-same
+     Washington McCall.
+
+     His mother (nee Miss Cora Bates) is one who frequently
+     orates upon the proper kind of food which every menu
+     should include. With eloquence the world she weans from
+     chops and steaks and pork and beans. Such horrid things
+     she'd like to crush, and make us live on milk and mush.
+     But oh! the thing that makes her sigh is when she sees
+     us eating pie. (We heard her lecture last July upon "The
+     Nation's Menace--Pie.") Alas, the hit it made was small
+     with Master Washington McCall.
+
+     For yesterday we took a trip to see the great Pie
+     Championship, where men with bulging cheeks and eyes
+     consume vast quantities of pies. A fashionable West Side
+     crowd beheld the champion, Spike O'Dowd, endeavour to
+     defend his throne against an upstart, Blake's Unknown.
+     He wasn't an Unknown at all. He was young Washington
+     McCall.
+
+     We freely own we'd give a leg if we could borrow, steal,
+     or beg the skill old Homer used to show. (He wrote the
+     Iliad, you know.) Old Homer swung a wicked pen, but we
+     are ordinary men, and cannot even start to dream of
+     doing justice to our theme. The subject of that great
+     repast is too magnificent and vast. We can't describe
+     (or even try) the way those rivals wolfed their pie.
+     Enough to say that, when for hours each had extended all
+     his pow'rs, toward the quiet evenfall O'Dowd succumbed
+     to young McCall.
+
+     The champion was a willing lad. He gave the public all
+     he had. His was a genuine fighting soul. He'd lots of
+     speed and much control. No yellow streak did he evince.
+     He tackled apple-pie and mince. This was the motto on
+     his shield--"O'Dowds may burst. They never yield." His
+     eyes began to start and roll. He eased his belt another
+     hole. Poor fellow! With a single glance one saw that he
+     had not a chance. A python would have had to crawl and
+     own defeat from young McCall.
+
+     At last, long last, the finish came. His features
+     overcast with shame, O'Dowd, who'd faltered once or
+     twice, declined to eat another slice. He tottered off,
+     and kindly men rallied around with oxygen. But Washy,
+     Cora Bates's son, seemed disappointed it was done. He
+     somehow made those present feel he'd barely started on
+     his meal. We ask him, "Aren't you feeling bad?" "Me!"
+     said the lion-hearted lad. "Lead me"--he started for the
+     street--"where I can get a bite to eat!" Oh, what a
+     lesson does it teach to all of us, that splendid speech!
+     How better can the curtain fall on Master Washington
+     McCall!
+
+
+Mr. McCall read this epic through, then he looked at his son. He first
+looked at him over his glasses, then through his glasses, then over his
+glasses again, then through his glasses once more. A curious expression
+was in his eyes. If such a thing had not been so impossible, one would
+have said that his gaze had in it something of respect, of admiration,
+even of reverence.
+
+"But how did they find out your name?" he asked, at length.
+
+Mrs. McCall exclaimed impatiently.
+
+"Is THAT all you have to say?"
+
+"No, no, my dear, of course not, quite so. But the point struck me as
+curious."
+
+"Wretched boy," cried Mrs. McCall, "were you insane enough to reveal
+your name?"
+
+Washington wriggled uneasily. Unable to endure the piercing stare of
+his mother, he had withdrawn to the window, and was looking out with his
+back turned. But even there he could feel her eyes on the back of his
+neck.
+
+"I didn't think it 'ud matter," he mumbled. "A fellow with
+tortoiseshell-rimmed specs asked me, so I told him. How was I to know--"
+
+His stumbling defence was cut short by the opening of the door.
+
+"Hallo-allo-allo! What ho! What ho!"
+
+Archie was standing in the doorway, beaming ingratiatingly on the
+family.
+
+The apparition of an entire stranger served to divert the lightning
+of Mrs. McCall's gaze from the unfortunate Washy. Archie, catching
+it between the eyes, blinked and held on to the wall. He had begun
+to regret that he had yielded so weakly to Lucille's entreaty that he
+should look in on the McCalls and use the magnetism of his personality
+upon them in the hope of inducing them to settle the lawsuit. He wished,
+too, if the visit had to be paid that he had postponed it till after
+lunch, for he was never at his strongest in the morning. But Lucille had
+urged him to go now and get it over, and here he was.
+
+"I think," said Mrs. McCall, icily, "that you must have mistaken your
+room."
+
+Archie rallied his shaken forces.
+
+"Oh, no. Rather not. Better introduce myself, what? My name's Moffam,
+you know. I'm old Brewster's son-in-law, and all that sort of rot, if
+you know what I mean." He gulped and continued. "I've come about this
+jolly old lawsuit, don't you know."
+
+Mr. McCall seemed about to speak, but his wife anticipated him.
+
+"Mr. Brewster's attorneys are in communication with ours. We do not wish
+to discuss the matter."
+
+Archie took an uninvited seat, eyed the Health Bread on the breakfast
+table for a moment with frank curiosity, and resumed his discourse.
+
+"No, but I say, you know! I'll tell you what happened. I hate to totter
+in where I'm not wanted and all that, but my wife made such a point
+of it. Rightly or wrongly she regards me as a bit of a hound in the
+diplomacy line, and she begged me to look you up and see whether we
+couldn't do something about settling the jolly old thing. I mean to
+say, you know, the old bird--old Brewster, you know--is considerably
+perturbed about the affair--hates the thought of being in a posish where
+he has either got to bite his old pal McCall in the neck or be bitten
+by him--and--well, and so forth, don't you know! How about it?" He broke
+off. "Great Scot! I say, what!"
+
+So engrossed had he been in his appeal that he had not observed the
+presence of the pie-eating champion, between whom and himself a large
+potted plant intervened. But now Washington, hearing the familiar voice,
+had moved from the window and was confronting him with an accusing
+stare.
+
+"HE made me do it!" said Washy, with the stern joy a sixteen-year-old
+boy feels when he sees somebody on to whose shoulders he can shift
+trouble from his own. "That's the fellow who took me to the place!"
+
+"What are you talking about, Washington?"
+
+"I'm telling you! He got me into the thing."
+
+"Do you mean this--this--" Mrs. McCall shuddered. "Are you referring to
+this pie-eating contest?"
+
+"You bet I am!"
+
+"Is this true?" Mrs. McCall glared stonily at Archie, "Was it you who
+lured my poor boy into that--that--"
+
+"Oh, absolutely. The fact is, don't you know, a dear old pal of mine
+who runs a tobacco shop on Sixth Avenue was rather in the soup. He had
+backed a chappie against the champion, and the chappie was converted by
+one of your lectures and swore off pie at the eleventh hour. Dashed hard
+luck on the poor chap, don't you know! And then I got the idea that our
+little friend here was the one to step in and save the situash, so I
+broached the matter to him. And I'll tell you one thing," said Archie,
+handsomely, "I don't know what sort of a capacity the original chappie
+had, but I'll bet he wasn't in your son's class. Your son has to be seen
+to be believed! Absolutely! You ought to be proud of him!" He turned in
+friendly fashion to Washy. "Rummy we should meet again like this! Never
+dreamed I should find you here. And, by Jove, it's absolutely marvellous
+how fit you look after yesterday. I had a sort of idea you would be
+groaning on a bed of sickness and all that."
+
+There was a strange gurgling sound in the background. It resembled
+something getting up steam. And this, curiously enough, is precisely
+what it was. The thing that was getting up steam was Mr. Lindsay McCall.
+
+The first effect of the Washy revelations on Mr. McCall had been merely
+to stun him. It was not until the arrival of Archie that he had had
+leisure to think; but since Archie's entrance he had been thinking
+rapidly and deeply.
+
+For many years Mr. McCall had been in a state of suppressed revolution.
+He had smouldered, but had not dared to blaze. But this startling
+upheaval of his fellow-sufferer, Washy, had acted upon him like a
+high explosive. There was a strange gleam in his eye, a gleam of
+determination. He was breathing hard.
+
+"Washy!"
+
+His voice had lost its deprecating mildness. It rang strong and clear.
+
+"Yes, pop?"
+
+"How many pies did you eat yesterday?"
+
+Washy considered.
+
+"A good few."
+
+"How many? Twenty?"
+
+"More than that. I lost count. A good few."
+
+"And you feel as well as ever?"
+
+"I feel fine."
+
+Mr. McCall dropped his glasses. He glowered for a moment at the
+breakfast table. His eye took in the Health Bread, the imitation
+coffee-pot, the cereal, the nut-butter. Then with a swift movement he
+seized the cloth, jerked it forcibly, and brought the entire contents
+rattling and crashing to the floor.
+
+"Lindsay!"
+
+Mr. McCall met his wife's eye with quiet determination. It was plain
+that something had happened in the hinterland of Mr. McCall's soul.
+
+"Cora," he said, resolutely, "I have come to a decision. I've been
+letting you run things your own way a little too long in this family.
+I'm going to assert myself. For one thing, I've had all I want of this
+food-reform foolery. Look at Washy! Yesterday that boy seems to have
+consumed anything from a couple of hundredweight to a ton of pie, and
+he has thriven on it! Thriven! I don't want to hurt your feelings, Cora,
+but Washington and I have drunk our last cup of anti-caffeine! If you
+care to go on with the stuff, that's your look-out. But Washy and I are
+through."
+
+He silenced his wife with a masterful gesture and turned to Archie. "And
+there's another thing. I never liked the idea of that lawsuit, but I let
+you talk me into it. Now I'm going to do things my way. Mr. Moffam, I'm
+glad you looked in this morning. I'll do just what you want. Take me to
+Dan Brewster now, and let's call the thing off, and shake hands on it."
+
+"Are you mad, Lindsay?"
+
+It was Cora Bates McCall's last shot. Mr. McCall paid no attention to
+it. He was shaking hands with Archie.
+
+"I consider you, Mr. Moffam," he said, "the most sensible young man I
+have ever met!"
+
+Archie blushed modestly.
+
+"Awfully good of you, old bean," he said. "I wonder if you'd mind
+telling my jolly old father-in-law that? It'll be a bit of news for
+him!"
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXIII. MOTHER'S KNEE
+
+
+Archie Moffam's connection with that devastatingly popular ballad,
+"Mother's Knee," was one to which he always looked back later with a
+certain pride. "Mother's Knee," it will be remembered, went through the
+world like a pestilence. Scots elders hummed it on their way to kirk;
+cannibals crooned it to their offspring in the jungles of Borneo; it was
+a best-seller among the Bolshevists. In the United States alone three
+million copies were disposed of. For a man who has not accomplished
+anything outstandingly great in his life, it is something to have been
+in a sense responsible for a song like that; and, though there were
+moments when Archie experienced some of the emotions of a man who has
+punched a hole in the dam of one of the larger reservoirs, he never
+really regretted his share in the launching of the thing.
+
+It seems almost bizarre now to think that there was a time when even one
+person in the world had not heard "Mother's Knee"; but it came fresh to
+Archie one afternoon some weeks after the episode of Washy, in his suite
+at the Hotel Cosmopolis, where he was cementing with cigarettes and
+pleasant conversation his renewed friendship with Wilson Hymack, whom he
+had first met in the neighbourhood of Armentieres during the war.
+
+"What are you doing these days?" enquired Wilson Hymack.
+
+"Me?" said Archie. "Well, as a matter of fact, there is what you might
+call a sort of species of lull in my activities at the moment. But my
+jolly old father-in-law is bustling about, running up a new hotel a
+bit farther down-town, and the scheme is for me to be manager when it's
+finished. From what I have seen in this place, it's a simple sort of
+job, and I fancy I shall be somewhat hot stuff. How are you filling in
+the long hours?"
+
+"I'm in my uncle's office, darn it!"
+
+"Starting at the bottom and learning the business and all that? A noble
+pursuit, no doubt, but I'm bound to say it would give me the pip in no
+uncertain manner."
+
+"It gives me," said Wilson Hymack, "a pain in the thorax. I want to be a
+composer."
+
+"A composer, eh?"
+
+Archie felt that he should have guessed this. The chappie had a
+distinctly artistic look. He wore a bow-tie and all that sort of thing.
+His trousers bagged at the knees, and his hair, which during the martial
+epoch of his career had been pruned to the roots, fell about his ears in
+luxuriant disarray.
+
+"Say! Do you want to hear the best thing I've ever done?"
+
+"Indubitably," said Archie, politely. "Carry on, old bird!"
+
+"I wrote the lyric as well as the melody," said Wilson Hymack, who had
+already seated himself at the piano. "It's got the greatest title you
+ever heard. It's a lallapaloosa! It's called 'It's a Long Way Back to
+Mother's Knee.' How's that? Poor, eh?"
+
+Archie expelled a smoke-ring doubtfully.
+
+"Isn't it a little stale?"
+
+"Stale? What do you mean, stale? There's always room for another song
+boosting Mother."
+
+"Oh, is it boosting Mother?" Archie's face cleared. "I thought it was a
+hit at the short skirts. Why, of course, that makes all the difference.
+In that case, I see no reason why it should not be ripe, fruity, and
+pretty well all to the mustard. Let's have it."
+
+Wilson Hymack pushed as much of his hair out of his eyes as he could
+reach with one hand, cleared his throat, looked dreamily over the top
+of the piano at a photograph of Archie's father-in-law, Mr. Daniel
+Brewster, played a prelude, and began to sing in a weak, high,
+composer's voice. All composers sing exactly alike, and they have to be
+heard to be believed.
+
+"One night a young man wandered through the glitter of Broadway: His
+money he had squandered. For a meal he couldn't pay."
+
+"Tough luck!" murmured Archie, sympathetically.
+
+    "He thought about the village where his boyhood he had
+     spent, And yearned for all the simple joys with which
+     he'd been content."
+
+"The right spirit!" said Archie, with approval. "I'm beginning to like
+this chappie!"
+
+"Don't interrupt!"
+
+"Oh, right-o! Carried away and all that!"
+
+    "He looked upon the city, so frivolous and gay; And,
+     as he heaved a weary sigh, these words he then did say:
+          It's a long way back to Mother's knee,
+                                  Mother's knee,
+                                  Mother's knee:
+          It's a long way back to Mother's knee,
+               Where I used to stand and prattle
+               With my teddy-bear and rattle:
+          Oh, those childhood days in Tennessee,
+          They sure look good to me!
+     It's a long, long way, but I'm gonna start to-day!
+          I'm going back,
+          Believe me, oh!
+     I'm going back
+          (I want to go!)
+     I'm going back--back--on the seven-three
+     To the dear old shack where I used to be!
+     I'm going back to Mother's knee!"
+
+Wilson Hymack's voice cracked on the final high note, which was of an
+altitude beyond his powers. He turned with a modest cough.
+
+"That'll give you an idea of it!"
+
+"It has, old thing, it has!"
+
+"Is it or is it not a ball of fire?"
+
+"It has many of the earmarks of a sound egg," admitted Archie. "Of
+course--"
+
+"Of course, it wants singing."
+
+"Just what I was going to suggest."
+
+"It wants a woman to sing it. A woman who could reach out for that last
+high note and teach it to take a joke. The whole refrain is working up
+to that. You need Tetrazzini or someone who would just pick that note
+off the roof and hold it till the janitor came round to lock up the
+building for the night."
+
+"I must buy a copy for my wife. Where can I get it?"
+
+"You can't get it! It isn't published. Writing music's the darndest
+job!" Wilson Hymack snorted fiercely. It was plain that the man was
+pouring out the pent-up emotion of many days. "You write the biggest
+thing in years and you go round trying to get someone to sing it, and
+they say you're a genius and then shove the song away in a drawer and
+forget about it."
+
+Archie lit another cigarette.
+
+"I'm a jolly old child in these matters, old lad," he said, "but why
+don't you take it direct to a publisher? As a matter of fact, if it
+would be any use to you, I was foregathering with a music-publisher only
+the other day. A bird of the name of Blumenthal. He was lunching in here
+with a pal of mine, and we got tolerably matey. Why not let me tool you
+round to the office to-morrow and play it to him?"
+
+"No, thanks. Much obliged, but I'm not going to play that melody in
+any publisher's office with his hired gang of Tin-Pan Alley composers
+listening at the keyhole and taking notes. I'll have to wait till I can
+find somebody to sing it. Well, I must be going along. Glad to have seen
+you again. Sooner or later I'll take you to hear that high note sung by
+someone in a way that'll make your spine tie itself in knots round the
+back of your neck."
+
+"I'll count the days," said Archie, courteously. "Pip-pip!"
+
+Hardly had the door closed behind the composer when it opened again to
+admit Lucille.
+
+"Hallo, light of my soul!" said Archie, rising and embracing his wife.
+"Where have you been all the afternoon? I was expecting you this many an
+hour past. I wanted you to meet--"
+
+"I've been having tea with a girl down in Greenwich Village. I couldn't
+get away before. Who was that who went out just as I came along the
+passage?"
+
+"Chappie of the name of Hymack. I met him in France. A composer and what
+not."
+
+"We seem to have been moving in artistic circles this afternoon. The
+girl I went to see is a singer. At least, she wants to sing, but gets no
+encouragement."
+
+"Precisely the same with my bird. He wants to get his music sung but
+nobody'll sing it. But I didn't know you knew any Greenwich Village
+warblers, sunshine of my home. How did you meet this female?"
+
+Lucille sat down and gazed forlornly at him with her big grey eyes. She
+was registering something, but Archie could not gather what it was.
+
+"Archie, darling, when you married me you undertook to share my sorrows,
+didn't you?"
+
+"Absolutely! It's all in the book of words. For better or for worse, in
+sickness and in health, all-down-set-'em-up-in-the-other-alley. Regular
+iron-clad contract!"
+
+"Then share 'em!" said Lucille. "Bill's in love again!"
+
+Archie blinked.
+
+"Bill? When you say Bill, do you mean Bill? Your brother Bill? My
+brother-in-law Bill? Jolly old William, the son and heir of the
+Brewsters?"
+
+"I do."
+
+"You say he's in love? Cupid's dart?"
+
+"Even so!"
+
+"But, I say! Isn't this rather--What I mean to say is, the lad's an
+absolute scourge! The Great Lover, what! Also ran, Brigham Young, and
+all that sort of thing! Why, it's only a few weeks ago that he was
+moaning brokenly about that vermilion-haired female who subsequently
+hooked on to old Reggie van Tuyl!"
+
+"She's a little better than that girl, thank goodness. All the same, I
+don't think Father will approve."
+
+"Of what calibre is the latest exhibit?"
+
+"Well, she comes from the Middle West, and seems to be trying to be
+twice as Bohemian as the rest of the girls down in Greenwich Village.
+She wears her hair bobbed and goes about in a kimono. She's probably
+read magazine stories about Greenwich Village, and has modelled herself
+on them. It's so silly, when you can see Hicks Corners sticking out of
+her all the time."
+
+"That one got past me before I could grab it. What did you say she had
+sticking out of her?"
+
+"I meant that anybody could see that she came from somewhere out in the
+wilds. As a matter of fact, Bill tells me that she was brought up in
+Snake Bite, Michigan."
+
+"Snake Bite? What rummy names you have in America! Still, I'll admit
+there's a village in England called Nether Wallop, so who am I to cast
+the first stone? How is old Bill? Pretty feverish?"
+
+"He says this time it is the real thing."
+
+"That's what they all say! I wish I had a dollar for every
+time--Forgotten what I was going to say!" broke off Archie, prudently.
+"So you think," he went on, after a pause, "that William's latest is
+going to be one more shock for the old dad?"
+
+"I can't imagine Father approving of her."
+
+"I've studied your merry old progenitor pretty closely," said Archie,
+"and, between you and me, I can't imagine him approving of anybody!"
+
+"I can't understand why it is that Bill goes out of his way to pick
+these horrors. I know at least twenty delightful girls, all pretty and
+with lots of money, who would be just the thing for him; but he sneaks
+away and goes falling in love with someone impossible. And the worst
+of it is that one always feels one's got to do one's best to see him
+through."
+
+"Absolutely! One doesn't want to throw a spanner into the works of
+Love's young dream. It behoves us to rally round. Have you heard this
+girl sing?"
+
+"Yes. She sang this afternoon."
+
+"What sort of a voice has she got?"
+
+"Well, it's--loud!"
+
+"Could she pick a high note off the roof and hold it till the janitor
+came round to lock up the building for the night?"
+
+"What on earth do you mean?"
+
+"Answer me this, woman, frankly. How is her high note? Pretty lofty?"
+
+"Why, yes."
+
+"Then say no more," said Archie. "Leave this to me, my dear old better
+four-fifths! Hand the whole thing over to Archibald, the man who never
+lets you down. I have a scheme!"
+
+ As Archie approached his suite on the following afternoon he heard
+through the closed door the drone of a gruff male voice; and, going in,
+discovered Lucille in the company of his brother-in-law. Lucille, Archie
+thought, was looking a trifle fatigued. Bill, on the other hand, was in
+great shape. His eyes were shining, and his face looked so like that of
+a stuffed frog that Archie had no difficulty in gathering that he had
+been lecturing on the subject of his latest enslaver.
+
+"Hallo, Bill, old crumpet!" he said.
+
+"Hallo, Archie!"
+
+"I'm so glad you've come," said Lucille. "Bill is telling me all about
+Spectatia."
+
+"Who?"
+
+"Spectatia. The girl, you know. Her name is Spectatia Huskisson."
+
+"It can't be!" said Archie, incredulously.
+
+"Why not?" growled Bill.
+
+"Well, how could it?" said Archie, appealing to him as a reasonable man.
+"I mean to say! Spectatia Huskisson! I gravely doubt whether there is
+such a name."
+
+"What's wrong with it?" demanded the incensed Bill. "It's a darned sight
+better name than Archibald Moffam."
+
+"Don't fight, you two children!" intervened Lucille, firmly. "It's a
+good old Middle West name. Everybody knows the Huskissons of Snake Bite,
+Michigan. Besides, Bill calls her Tootles."
+
+"Pootles," corrected Bill, austerely.
+
+"Oh, yes, Pootles. He calls her Pootles."
+
+"Young blood! Young blood!" sighed Archie.
+
+"I wish you wouldn't talk as if you were my grandfather."
+
+"I look on you as a son, laddie, a favourite son!"
+
+"If I had a father like you--!"-"Ah, but you haven't,
+young-feller-me-lad, and that's the trouble. If you had, everything
+would be simple. But as your actual father, if you'll allow me to
+say so, is one of the finest specimens of the human vampire-bat in
+captivity, something has got to be done about it, and you're dashed
+lucky to have me in your corner, a guide, philosopher, and friend,
+full of the fruitiest ideas. Now, if you'll kindly listen to me for a
+moment--"
+
+"I've been listening to you ever since you came in."
+
+"You wouldn't speak in that harsh tone of voice if you knew all!
+William, I have a scheme!"
+
+"Well?"
+
+"The scheme to which I allude is what Maeterlinck would call a
+lallapaloosa!"
+
+"What a little marvel he is!" said Lucille, regarding her husband
+affectionately. "He eats a lot of fish, Bill. That's what makes him so
+clever!"
+
+"Shrimps!" diagnosed Bill, churlishly.
+
+"Do you know the leader of the orchestra in the restaurant downstairs?"
+asked Archie, ignoring the slur.
+
+"I know there IS a leader of the orchestra. What about him?"
+
+"A sound fellow. Great pal of mine. I've forgotten his name--"
+
+"Call him Pootles!" suggested Lucille.
+
+"Desist!" said Archie, as a wordless growl proceeded from his stricken
+brother-in-law. "Temper your hilarity with a modicum of reserve. This
+girlish frivolity is unseemly. Well, I'm going to have a chat with this
+chappie and fix it all up."
+
+"Fix what up?"
+
+"The whole jolly business. I'm going to kill two birds with one stone.
+I've a composer chappie popping about in the background whose one
+ambish. is to have his pet song sung before a discriminating audience.
+You have a singer straining at the leash. I'm going to arrange with this
+egg who leads the orchestra that your female shall sing my chappie's
+song downstairs one night during dinner. How about it? Is it or is it
+not a ball of fire?"
+
+"It's not a bad idea," admitted Bill, brightening visibly. "I wouldn't
+have thought you had it in you."
+
+"Why not?"
+
+"Well--"
+
+"It's a capital idea," said Lucille. "Quite out of the question, of
+course."
+
+"How do you mean?"
+
+"Don't you know that the one thing Father hates more than anything else
+in the world is anything like a cabaret? People are always coming to
+him, suggesting that it would brighten up the dinner hour if he had
+singers and things, and he crushes them into little bits. He thinks
+there's nothing that lowers the tone of a place more. He'll bite you in
+three places when you suggest it to him!"
+
+"Ah! But has it escaped your notice, lighting system of my soul, that
+the dear old dad is not at present in residence? He went off to fish at
+Lake What's-its-name this morning."
+
+"You aren't dreaming of doing this without asking him?"
+
+"That was the general idea."
+
+"But he'll be furious when he finds out."
+
+"But will he find out? I ask you, will he?"
+
+"Of course he will."
+
+"I don't see why he should," said Bill, on whose plastic mind the plan
+had made a deep impression.
+
+"He won't," said Archie, confidently. "This wheeze is for one night
+only. By the time the jolly old guv'nor returns, bitten to the bone by
+mosquitoes, with one small stuffed trout in his suit-case, everything
+will be over and all quiet once more along the Potomac. The scheme is
+this. My chappie wants his song heard by a publisher. Your girl wants
+her voice heard by one of the blighters who get up concerts and all that
+sort of thing. No doubt you know such a bird, whom you could invite to
+the hotel for a bit of dinner?"
+
+"I know Carl Steinburg. As a matter of fact, I was thinking of writing
+to him about Spectatia."
+
+"You're absolutely sure that IS her name?" said Archie, his voice still
+tinged with incredulity. "Oh, well, I suppose she told you so herself,
+and no doubt she knows best. That will be topping. Rope in your pal
+and hold him down at the table till the finish. Lucille, the beautiful
+vision on the sky-line yonder, and I will be at another table
+entertaining Maxie Blumenthal"
+
+"Who on earth is Maxie Blumenthal?" asked Lucille.
+
+"One of my boyhood chums. A music-publisher. I'll get him to come along,
+and then we'll all be set. At the conclusion of the performance Miss--"
+Archie winced--"Miss Spectatia Huskisson will be signed up for a forty
+weeks' tour, and jovial old Blumenthal will be making all arrangements
+for publishing the song. Two birds, as I indicated before, with one
+stone! How about it?"
+
+"It's a winner," said Bill.
+
+"Of course," said Archie, "I'm not urging you. I merely make the
+suggestion. If you know a better 'ole go to it!"
+
+"It's terrific!" said Bill.
+
+"It's absurd!" said Lucille.
+
+"My dear old partner of joys and sorrows," said Archie, wounded,
+"we court criticism, but this is mere abuse. What seems to be the
+difficulty?"
+
+"The leader of the orchestra would be afraid to do it."
+
+"Ten dollars--supplied by William here--push it over, Bill, old
+man--will remove his tremors."
+
+"And Father's certain to find out."
+
+"Am I afraid of Father?" cried Archie, manfully. "Well, yes, I am!" he
+added, after a moment's reflection. "But I don't see how he can possibly
+get to know."
+
+"Of course he can't," said Bill, decidedly. "Fix it up as soon as you
+can, Archie. This is what the doctor ordered."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXIV. THE MELTING OF MR. CONNOLLY
+
+
+The main dining-room of the Hotel Cosmopolis is a decorous place. The
+lighting is artistically dim, and the genuine old tapestries on the
+walls seem, with their mediaeval calm, to discourage any essay in the
+riotous. Soft-footed waiters shimmer to and fro over thick, expensive
+carpets to the music of an orchestra which abstains wholly from the
+noisy modernity of jazz. To Archie, who during the past few days had
+been privileged to hear Miss Huskisson rehearsing, the place had a sort
+of brooding quiet, like the ocean just before the arrival of a cyclone.
+As Lucille had said, Miss Huskisson's voice was loud. It was a powerful
+organ, and there was no doubt that it would take the cloistered
+stillness of the Cosmopolis dining-room and stand it on one ear. Almost
+unconsciously, Archie found himself bracing his muscles and holding his
+breath as he had done in France at the approach of the zero hour, when
+awaiting the first roar of a barrage. He listened mechanically to the
+conversation of Mr. Blumenthal.
+
+The music-publisher was talking with some vehemence on the subject
+of Labour. A recent printers' strike had bitten deeply into Mr.
+Blumenthal's soul. The working man, he considered, was rapidly landing
+God's Country in the soup, and he had twice upset his glass with the
+vehemence of his gesticulation. He was an energetic right-and-left-hand
+talker.
+
+"The more you give 'em the more they want!" he complained. "There's no
+pleasing 'em! It isn't only in my business. There's your father, Mrs.
+Moffam!"
+
+"Good God! Where?" said Archie, starting.
+
+"I say, take your father's case. He's doing all he knows to get this new
+hotel of his finished, and what happens? A man gets fired for loafing
+on his job, and Connolly calls a strike. And the building operations are
+held up till the thing's settled! It isn't right!"
+
+"It's a great shame," agreed Lucille. "I was reading about it in the
+paper this morning."
+
+"That man Connolly's a tough guy. You'd think, being a personal friend
+of your father, he would--"
+
+"I didn't know they were friends."
+
+"Been friends for years. But a lot of difference that makes. Out come
+the men just the same. It isn't right! I was saying it wasn't right!"
+repeated Mr. Blumenthal to Archie, for he was a man who liked the
+attention of every member of his audience.
+
+Archie did not reply. He was staring glassily across the room at two
+men who had just come in. One was a large, stout, square-faced man of
+commanding personality. The other was Mr. Daniel Brewster.
+
+Mr. Blumenthal followed his gaze.
+
+"Why, there is Connolly coming in now!"
+
+"Father!" gasped Lucille.
+
+Her eyes met Archie's. Archie took a hasty drink of ice-water.
+
+"This," he murmured, "has torn it!"
+
+"Archie, you must do something!"
+
+"I know! But what?"
+
+"What's the trouble?" enquired Mr. Blumenthal, mystified.
+
+"Go over to their table and talk to them," said Lucille.
+
+"Me!" Archie quivered. "No, I say, old thing, really!"
+
+"Get them away!"
+
+"How do you mean?"
+
+"I know!" cried Lucille, inspired, "Father promised that you should
+be manager of the new hotel when it was built. Well, then, this strike
+affects you just as much as anybody else. You have a perfect right to
+talk it over with them. Go and ask them to have dinner up in our suite
+where you can discuss it quietly. Say that up there they won't be
+disturbed by the--the music."
+
+At this moment, while Archie wavered, hesitating like a diver on the
+edge of a spring-board who is trying to summon up the necessary nerve to
+project himself into the deep, a bell-boy approached the table where
+the Messrs. Brewster and Connolly had seated themselves. He murmured
+something in Mr. Brewster's ear, and the proprietor of the Cosmopolis
+rose and followed him out of the room.
+
+"Quick! Now's your chance!" said Lucille, eagerly. "Father's been called
+to the telephone. Hurry!"
+
+Archie took another drink of ice-water to steady his shaking
+nerve-centers, pulled down his waistcoat, straightened his tie, and
+then, with something of the air of a Roman gladiator entering the arena,
+tottered across the room. Lucille turned to entertain the perplexed
+music-publisher.
+
+The nearer Archie got to Mr. Aloysius Connolly the less did he like the
+looks of him. Even at a distance the Labour leader had had a formidable
+aspect. Seen close to, he looked even more uninviting. His face had
+the appearance of having been carved out of granite, and the eye which
+collided with Archie's as the latter, with an attempt at an ingratiating
+smile, pulled up a chair and sat down at the table was hard and frosty.
+Mr. Connolly gave the impression that he would be a good man to have on
+your side during a rough-and-tumble fight down on the water-front or in
+some lumber-camp, but he did not look chummy.
+
+"Hallo-allo-allo!" said Archie.
+
+"Who the devil," inquired Mr. Connolly, "are you?"
+
+"My name's Archibald Moffam."
+
+"That's not my fault."
+
+"I'm jolly old Brewster's son-in-law."
+
+"Glad to meet you."
+
+"Glad to meet YOU," said Archie, handsomely.
+
+"Well, good-bye!" said Mr. Connolly.
+
+"Eh?"
+
+"Run along and sell your papers. Your father-in-law and I have business
+to discuss."
+
+"Yes, I know."
+
+"Private," added Mr. Connolly.
+
+"Oh, but I'm in on this binge, you know. I'm going to be the manager of
+the new hotel."
+
+"You!"
+
+"Absolutely!"
+
+"Well, well!" said Mr. Connolly, noncommittally.
+
+Archie, pleased with the smoothness with which matters had opened, bent
+forward winsomely.
+
+"I say, you know! It won't do, you know! Absolutely no! Not a bit like
+it! No, no, far from it! Well, how about it? How do we go? What? Yes?
+No?"
+
+"What on earth are you talking about?"
+
+"Call it off, old thing!"
+
+"Call what off?"
+
+"This festive old strike."
+
+"Not on your--hallo, Dan! Back again?"
+
+Mr. Brewster, looming over the table like a thundercloud, regarded
+Archie with more than his customary hostility. Life was no pleasant
+thing for the proprietor of the Cosmopolis just now. Once a man starts
+building hotels, the thing becomes like dram-drinking. Any hitch, any
+sudden cutting-off of the daily dose, has the worst effects; and the
+strike which was holding up the construction of his latest effort had
+plunged Mr. Brewster into a restless gloom. In addition to having this
+strike on his hands, he had had to abandon his annual fishing-trip just
+when he had begun to enjoy it; and, as if all this were not enough, here
+was his son-in-law sitting at his table. Mr. Brewster had a feeling that
+this was more than man was meant to bear.
+
+"What do you want?" he demanded.
+
+"Hallo, old thing!" said Archie. "Come and join the party!"
+
+"Don't call me old thing!"
+
+"Right-o, old companion, just as you say. I say, I was just going to
+suggest to Mr. Connolly that we should all go up to my suite and talk
+this business over quietly."
+
+"He says he's the manager of your new hotel," said Mr. Connolly. "Is
+that right?"
+
+"I suppose so," said Mr. Brewster, gloomily.
+
+"Then I'm doing you a kindness," said Mr. Connolly, "in not letting it
+be built."
+
+Archie dabbed at his forehead with his handkerchief. The moments were
+flying, and it began to seem impossible to shift these two men. Mr.
+Connolly was as firmly settled in his chair as some primeval rock. As
+for Mr. Brewster, he, too, had seated himself, and was gazing at Archie
+with a weary repulsion. Mr. Brewster's glance always made Archie feel as
+though there were soup on his shirt-front.
+
+And suddenly from the orchestra at the other end of the room there came
+a familiar sound, the prelude of "Mother's Knee."
+
+"So you've started a cabaret, Dan?" said Mr. Connolly, in a satisfied
+voice. "I always told you you were behind the times here!"
+
+Mr. Brewster jumped.
+
+"Cabaret!"
+
+He stared unbelievingly at the white-robed figure which had just mounted
+the orchestra dais, and then concentrated his gaze on Archie.
+
+Archie would not have looked at his father-in-law at this juncture if he
+had had a free and untrammelled choice; but Mr. Brewster's eye drew his
+with something of the fascination which a snake's has for a rabbit. Mr.
+Brewster's eye was fiery and intimidating. A basilisk might have gone to
+him with advantage for a course of lessons. His gaze went right through
+Archie till the latter seemed to feel his back-hair curling crisply in
+the flames.
+
+"Is this one of your fool-tricks?"
+
+Even in this tense moment Archie found time almost unconsciously to
+admire his father-in-law's penetration and intuition. He seemed to have
+a sort of sixth sense. No doubt this was how great fortunes were made.
+
+"Well, as a matter of fact--to be absolutely accurate--it was like
+this--"
+
+"Say, cut it out!" said Mr. Connolly. "Can the chatter! I want to
+listen."
+
+Archie was only too ready to oblige him. Conversation at the moment was
+the last thing he himself desired. He managed with a strong effort to
+disengage himself from Mr. Brewster's eye, and turned to the orchestra
+dais, where Miss Spectatia Huskisson was now beginning the first verse
+of Wilson Hymack's masterpiece.
+
+Miss Huskisson, like so many of the female denizens of the Middle West,
+was tall and blonde and constructed on substantial lines. She was a girl
+whose appearance suggested the old homestead and fried pancakes and pop
+coming home to dinner after the morning's ploughing. Even her bobbed
+hair did not altogether destroy this impression. She looked big and
+strong and healthy, and her lungs were obviously good. She attacked the
+verse of the song with something of the vigour and breadth of treatment
+with which in other days she had reasoned with refractory mules. Her
+diction was the diction of one trained to call the cattle home in the
+teeth of Western hurricanes. Whether you wanted to or not, you heard
+every word.
+
+The subdued clatter of knives and forks had ceased. The diners, unused
+to this sort of thing at the Cosmopolis, were trying to adjust their
+faculties to cope with the outburst. Waiters stood transfixed, frozen,
+in attitudes of service. In the momentary lull between verse and refrain
+Archie could hear the deep breathing of Mr. Brewster. Involuntarily
+he turned to gaze at him once more, as refugees from Pompeii may have
+turned to gaze upon Vesuvius; and, as he did so, he caught sight of Mr.
+Connolly, and paused in astonishment.
+
+Mr. Connolly was an altered man. His whole personality had undergone
+a subtle change. His face still looked as though hewn from the living
+rock, but into his eyes had crept an expression which in another man
+might almost have been called sentimental. Incredible as it seemed
+to Archie, Mr. Connolly's eyes were dreamy. There was even in them a
+suggestion of unshed tears. And when with a vast culmination of sound
+Miss Huskisson reached the high note at the end of the refrain and,
+after holding it as some storming-party, spent but victorious, holds the
+summit of a hard-won redoubt, broke off suddenly, in the stillness which
+followed there proceeded from Mr. Connolly a deep sigh.
+
+Miss Huskisson began the second verse. And Mr. Brewster, seeming to
+recover from some kind of a trance, leaped to his feet.
+
+"Great Godfrey!"
+
+"Sit down!" said Mr. Connolly, in a broken voice. "Sit down, Dan!"
+
+    "He went back to his mother on the train that very day:
+     He knew there was no other who could make him bright and
+        gay:
+     He kissed her on the forehead and he whispered, 'I've come
+        home!'
+     He told her he was never going any more to roam.
+     And onward through the happy years, till he grew old and
+        grey,
+     He never once regretted those brave words he once did say:
+     It's a long way back to mother's knee--"
+
+The last high note screeched across the room like a shell, and the
+applause that followed was like a shell's bursting. One could hardly
+have recognised the refined interior of the Cosmopolis dining-room. Fair
+women were waving napkins; brave men were hammering on the tables with
+the butt-end of knives, for all the world as if they imagined themselves
+to be in one of those distressing midnight-revue places. Miss Huskisson
+bowed, retired, returned, bowed, and retired again, the tears
+streaming down her ample face. Over in a corner Archie could see his
+brother-in-law clapping strenuously. A waiter, with a display of manly
+emotion that did him credit, dropped an order of new peas.
+
+"Thirty years ago last October," said Mr. Connolly, in a shaking voice,
+"I--"
+
+Mr. Brewster interrupted him violently.
+
+"I'll fire that orchestra-leader! He goes to-morrow! I'll fire--" He
+turned on Archie. "What the devil do you mean by it, you--you--"
+
+"Thirty years ago," said Mr. Connolly, wiping away a tear with his
+napkin, "I left me dear old home in the old country--"
+
+"MY hotel a bear-garden!"
+
+"Frightfully sorry and all that, old companion--"
+
+"Thirty years ago last October! 'Twas a fine autumn evening the finest
+ye'd ever wish to see. Me old mother, she came to the station to see me
+off."
+
+Mr. Brewster, who was not deeply interested in Mr. Connolly's old
+mother, continued to splutter inarticulately, like a firework trying to
+go off.
+
+"'Ye'll always be a good boy, Aloysius?' she said to me," said Mr.
+Connolly, proceeding with, his autobiography. "And I said: 'Yes, Mother,
+I will!'" Mr. Connolly sighed and applied the napkin again. "'Twas a
+liar I was!" he observed, remorsefully. "Many's the dirty I've played
+since then. 'It's a long way back to Mother's knee.' 'Tis a true word!"
+He turned impulsively to Mr. Brewster. "Dan, there's a deal of trouble
+in this world without me going out of me way to make more. The strike is
+over! I'll send the men back tomorrow! There's me hand on it!"
+
+Mr. Brewster, who had just managed to co-ordinate his views on the
+situation and was about to express them with the generous strength which
+was ever his custom when dealing with his son-in-law, checked himself
+abruptly. He stared at his old friend and business enemy, wondering if
+he could have heard aright. Hope began to creep back into Mr. Brewster's
+heart, like a shamefaced dog that has been away from home hunting for a
+day or two.
+
+"You'll what!"
+
+"I'll send the men back to-morrow! That song was sent to guide me, Dan!
+It was meant! Thirty years ago last October me dear old mother--"
+
+Mr. Brewster bent forward attentively. His views on Mr. Connolly's dear
+old mother had changed. He wanted to hear all about her.
+
+"'Twas that last note that girl sang brought it all back to me as if
+'twas yesterday. As we waited on the platform, me old mother and I, out
+comes the train from the tunnel, and the engine lets off a screech the
+way ye'd hear it ten miles away. 'Twas thirty years ago--"
+
+Archie stole softly from the table. He felt that his presence, if it had
+ever been required, was required no longer. Looking back, he could see
+his father-in-law patting Mr. Connolly affectionately on the shoulder.
+
+Archie and Lucille lingered over their coffee. Mr. Blumenthal was out
+in the telephone-box settling the business end with Wilson Hymack. The
+music-publisher had been unstinted in his praise of "Mother's Knee."
+It was sure-fire, he said. The words, stated Mr. Blumenthal, were gooey
+enough to hurt, and the tune reminded him of every other song-hit he had
+ever heard. There was, in Mr. Blumenthal's opinion, nothing to stop this
+thing selling a million copies.
+
+Archie smoked contentedly.
+
+"Not a bad evening's work, old thing," he said. "Talk about birds with
+one stone!" He looked at Lucille reproachfully. "You don't seem bubbling
+over with joy."
+
+"Oh, I am, precious!" Lucille sighed. "I was only thinking about Bill."
+
+"What about Bill?"
+
+"Well, it's rather awful to think of him tied for life to that-that
+steam-siren."
+
+"Oh, we mustn't look on the jolly old dark side. Perhaps--Hallo, Bill,
+old top! We were just talking about you."
+
+"Were you?" said Bill Brewster, in a dispirited voice.
+
+"I take it that you want congratulations, what?"
+
+"I want sympathy!"
+
+"Sympathy?"
+
+"Sympathy! And lots of it! She's gone!"
+
+"Gone! Who?"
+
+"Spectatia!"
+
+"How do you mean, gone?"
+
+Bill glowered at the tablecloth.
+
+"Gone home. I've just seen her off in a cab. She's gone back to
+Washington Square to pack. She's catching the ten o'clock train back
+to Snake Bite. It was that damned song!" muttered Bill, in a stricken
+voice. "She says she never realised before she sang it to-night how
+hollow New York was. She said it suddenly came over her. She says she's
+going to give up her career and go back to her mother. What the deuce
+are you twiddling your fingers for?" he broke off, irritably.
+
+"Sorry, old man. I was just counting."
+
+"Counting? Counting what?"
+
+"Birds, old thing. Only birds!" said Archie.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXV. THE WIGMORE VENUS
+
+
+The morning was so brilliantly fine; the populace popped to and fro
+in so active and cheery a manner; and everybody appeared to be so
+absolutely in the pink, that a casual observer of the city of New York
+would have said that it was one of those happy days. Yet Archie Moffam,
+as he turned out of the sun-bathed street into the ramshackle building
+on the third floor of which was the studio belonging to his artist
+friend, James B. Wheeler, was faintly oppressed with a sort of a kind
+of feeling that something was wrong. He would not have gone so far as to
+say that he had the pip--it was more a vague sense of discomfort. And,
+searching for first causes as he made his way upstairs, he came to the
+conclusion that the person responsible for this nebulous depression was
+his wife, Lucille. It seemed to Archie that at breakfast that morning
+Lucille's manner had been subtly rummy. Nothing you could put your
+finger on, still--rummy.
+
+Musing thus, he reached the studio, and found the door open and the room
+empty. It had the air of a room whose owner has dashed in to fetch
+his golf-clubs and biffed off, after the casual fashion of the artist
+temperament, without bothering to close up behind him. And such, indeed,
+was the case. The studio had seen the last of J. B. Wheeler for that
+day: but Archie, not realising this and feeling that a chat with Mr.
+Wheeler, who was a light-hearted bird, was what he needed this morning,
+sat down to wait. After a few moments, his gaze, straying over the room,
+encountered a handsomely framed picture, and he went across to take a
+look at it.
+
+J. B. Wheeler was an artist who made a large annual income as an
+illustrator for the magazines, and it was a surprise to Archie to find
+that he also went in for this kind of thing. For the picture, dashingly
+painted in oils, represented a comfortably plump young woman who, from
+her rather weak-minded simper and the fact that she wore absolutely
+nothing except a small dove on her left shoulder, was plainly intended
+to be the goddess Venus. Archie was not much of a lad around the
+picture-galleries, but he knew enough about Art to recognise Venus when
+he saw her; though once or twice, it is true, artists had double-crossed
+him by ringing in some such title as "Day Dreams," or "When the Heart is
+Young."
+
+He inspected this picture for awhile, then, returning to his seat, lit
+a cigarette and began to meditate on Lucille once more. "Yes, the dear
+girl had been rummy at breakfast. She had not exactly said anything or
+done anything out of the ordinary; but--well, you know how it is. We
+husbands, we lads of the for-better-or-for-worse brigade, we learn
+to pierce the mask. There had been in Lucille's manner that curious,
+strained sweetness which comes to women whose husbands have failed to
+match the piece of silk or forgotten to post an important letter. If his
+conscience had not been as clear as crystal, Archie would have said
+that that was what must have been the matter. But, when Lucille wrote
+letters, she just stepped out of the suite and dropped them in the
+mail-chute attached to the elevator. It couldn't be that. And he
+couldn't have forgotten anything else, because--"
+
+"Oh my sainted aunt!"
+
+Archie's cigarette smouldered, neglected, between his fingers. His
+jaw had fallen and his eyes were staring glassily before him. He was
+appalled. His memory was weak, he knew; but never before had it let him
+down, so scurvily as this. This was a record. It stood in a class by
+itself, printed in red ink and marked with a star, as the bloomer of a
+lifetime. For a man may forget many things: he may forget his name, his
+umbrella, his nationality, his spats, and the friends of his
+youth: but there is one thing which your married man, your
+in-sickness-and-in-health lizard must not forget: and that is the
+anniversary of his wedding-day.
+
+Remorse swept over Archie like a wave. His heart bled for Lucille. No
+wonder the poor girl had been rummy at breakfast. What girl wouldn't be
+rummy at breakfast, tied for life to a ghastly outsider like himself? He
+groaned hollowly, and sagged forlornly in his chair: and, as he did so,
+the Venus caught his eye. For it was an eye-catching picture. You might
+like it or dislike it, but you could not ignore it.
+
+As a strong swimmer shoots to the surface after a high dive, Archie's
+soul rose suddenly from the depths to which it had descended. He did not
+often get inspirations, but he got one now. Hope dawned with a jerk. The
+one way out had presented itself to him. A rich present! That was the
+wheeze. If he returned to her bearing a rich present, he might, with the
+help of Heaven and a face of brass, succeed in making her believe that
+he had merely pretended to forget the vital date in order to enhance the
+surprise.
+
+It was a scheme. Like some great general forming his plan of campaign on
+the eve of battle, Archie had the whole binge neatly worked out inside a
+minute. He scribbled a note to Mr. Wheeler, explaining the situation and
+promising reasonable payment on the instalment system; then, placing the
+note in a conspicuous position on the easel, he leaped to the telephone:
+and presently found himself connected with Lucille's room at the
+Cosmopolis.
+
+"Hullo, darling," he cooed.
+
+There was a slight pause at the other end of the wire.
+
+"Oh, hullo, Archie!"
+
+Lucille's voice was dull and listless, and Archie's experienced ear
+could detect that she had been crying. He raised his right foot, and
+kicked himself indignantly on the left ankle.
+
+"Many happy returns of the day, old thing!"
+
+A muffled sob floated over the wire.
+
+"Have you only just remembered?" said Lucille in a small voice.
+
+Archie, bracing himself up, cackled gleefully into the receiver.
+
+"Did I take you in, light of my home? Do you mean to say you really
+thought I had forgotten? For Heaven's sake!"
+
+"You didn't say a word at breakfast."
+
+"Ah, but that was all part of the devilish cunning. I hadn't got a
+present for you then. At least, I didn't know whether it was ready."
+
+"Oh, Archie, you darling!" Lucille's voice had lost its crushed
+melancholy. She trilled like a thrush, or a linnet, or any bird that
+goes in largely for trilling. "Have you really got me a present?"
+
+"It's here now. The dickens of a fruity picture. One of J. B. Wheeler's
+things. You'll like it."
+
+"Oh, I know I shall. I love his work. You are an angel. We'll hang it
+over the piano."
+
+"I'll be round with it in something under three ticks, star of my soul.
+I'll take a taxi."
+
+"Yes, do hurry! I want to hug you!"
+
+"Right-o!" said Archie. "I'll take two taxis."
+
+It is not far from Washington Square to the Hotel Cosmopolis, and Archie
+made the journey without mishap. There was a little unpleasantness
+with the cabman before starting--he, on the prudish plea that he was a
+married man with a local reputation to keep up, declining at first to be
+seen in company with the masterpiece. But, on Archie giving a promise to
+keep the front of the picture away from the public gaze, he consented
+to take the job on; and, some ten minutes later, having made his way
+blushfully through the hotel lobby and endured the frank curiosity of
+the boy who worked the elevator, Archie entered his suite, the picture
+under his arm.
+
+He placed it carefully against the wall in order to leave himself more
+scope for embracing Lucille, and when the joyful reunion--or the sacred
+scene, if you prefer so to call it, was concluded, he stepped forward to
+turn it round and exhibit it.
+
+"Why, it's enormous," said Lucille. "I didn't know Mr. Wheeler ever
+painted pictures that size. When you said it was one of his, I thought
+it must be the original of a magazine drawing or something like--Oh!"
+
+Archie had moved back and given her an uninterrupted view of the work of
+art, and she had started as if some unkindly disposed person had driven
+a bradawl into her.
+
+"Pretty ripe, what?" said Archie enthusiastically.
+
+Lucille did not speak for a moment. It may have been sudden joy that
+kept her silent. Or, on the other hand, it may not. She stood looking at
+the picture with wide eyes and parted lips.
+
+"A bird, eh?" said Archie.
+
+"Y--yes," said Lucille.
+
+"I knew you'd like it," proceeded Archie with animation, "You see?
+you're by way of being a picture-hound--know all about the things,
+and what not--inherit it from the dear old dad, I shouldn't wonder.
+Personally, I can't tell one picture from another as a rule, but I'm
+bound to say, the moment I set eyes on this, I said to myself 'What
+ho!' or words to that effect, I rather think this will add a touch of
+distinction to the home, yes, no? I'll hang it up, shall I? 'Phone down
+to the office, light of my soul, and tell them to send up a nail, a bit
+of string, and the hotel hammer."
+
+"One moment, darling. I'm not quite sure."
+
+"Eh?"
+
+"Where it ought to hang, I mean. You see--"
+
+"Over the piano, you said. The jolly old piano."
+
+"Yes, but I hadn't seen it then."
+
+A monstrous suspicion flitted for an instant into Archie's mind.
+
+"I say, you do like it, don't you?" he said anxiously.
+
+"Oh, Archie, darling! Of course I do!-And it was so sweet of you to give
+it to me. But, what I was trying to say was that this picture is so--so
+striking that I feel that we ought to wait a little while and decide
+where it would have the best effect. The light over the piano is rather
+strong."
+
+"You think it ought to hang in a dimmish light, what?"
+
+"Yes, yes. The dimmer the--I mean, yes, in a dim light. Suppose we leave
+it in the corner for the moment--over there--behind the sofa, and--and
+I'll think it over. It wants a lot of thought, you know."
+
+"Right-o! Here?"
+
+"Yes, that will do splendidly. Oh, and, Archie."
+
+"Hullo?"
+
+"I think perhaps... Just turn its face to the wall, will you?" Lucille
+gave a little gulp. "It will prevent it getting dusty."
+
+It perplexed Archie a little during the next few days to notice in
+Lucille, whom he had always looked on as pre-eminently a girl who knew
+her own mind, a curious streak of vacillation. Quite half a dozen times
+he suggested various spots on the wall as suitable for the Venus, but
+Lucille seemed unable to decide. Archie wished that she would settle on
+something definite, for he wanted to invite J. B. Wheeler to the suite
+to see the thing. He had heard nothing from the artist since the day he
+had removed the picture, and one morning, encountering him on Broadway,
+he expressed his appreciation of the very decent manner in which the
+other had taken the whole affair.
+
+"Oh, that!" said J. B. Wheeler. "My dear fellow, you're welcome." He
+paused for a moment. "More than welcome," he added. "You aren't much of
+an expert on pictures, are you?"
+
+"Well," said Archie, "I don't know that you'd call me an absolute nib,
+don't you know, but of course I know enough to see that this particular
+exhibit is not a little fruity. Absolutely one of the best things you've
+ever done, laddie."
+
+A slight purple tinge manifested itself in Mr. Wheeler's round and rosy
+face. His eyes bulged.
+
+"What are you talking about, you Tishbite? You misguided son of Belial,
+are you under the impression that _I_ painted that thing?"
+
+"Didn't you?"
+
+Mr. Wheeler swallowed a little convulsively.
+
+"My fiancee painted it," he said shortly.
+
+"Your fiancee? My dear old lad, I didn't know you were engaged. Who is
+she? Do I know her?"
+
+"Her name is Alice Wigmore. You don't know her."
+
+"And she painted that picture?" Archie was perturbed. "But, I say! Won't
+she be apt to wonder where the thing has got to?"
+
+"I told her it had been stolen. She thought it a great compliment, and
+was tickled to death. So that's all right."
+
+"And, of course, she'll paint you another."
+
+"Not while I have my strength she won't," said J. B. Wheeler firmly.
+"She's given up painting since I taught her golf, thank goodness, and
+my best efforts shall be employed in seeing that she doesn't have a
+relapse."
+
+"But, laddie," said Archie, puzzled, "you talk as though there were
+something wrong with the picture. I thought it dashed hot stuff."
+
+"God bless you!" said J. B. Wheeler.
+
+Archie proceeded on his way, still mystified. Then he reflected that
+artists as a class were all pretty weird and rummy and talked more or
+less consistently through their hats. You couldn't ever take an artist's
+opinion on a picture. Nine out of ten of them had views on Art which
+would have admitted them to any looney-bin, and no questions asked. He
+had met several of the species who absolutely raved over things which
+any reasonable chappie would decline to be found dead in a ditch with.
+His admiration for the Wigmore Venus, which had faltered for a moment
+during his conversation with J. B. Wheeler, returned in all its pristine
+vigour. Absolute rot, he meant to say, to try to make out that it wasn't
+one of the ones and just like mother used to make. Look how Lucille had
+liked it!
+
+At breakfast next morning, Archie once more brought up the question of
+the hanging of the picture. It was absurd to let a thing like that go on
+wasting its sweetness behind a sofa with its face to the wall.
+
+"Touching the jolly old masterpiece," he said, "how about it? I think
+it's time we hoisted it up somewhere."
+
+Lucille fiddled pensively with her coffee-spoon.
+
+"Archie, dear," she said, "I've been thinking."
+
+"And a very good thing to do," said Archie. "I've often meant to do it
+myself when I got a bit of time."
+
+"About that picture, I mean. Did you know it was father's birthday
+to-morrow?"
+
+"Why no, old thing, I didn't, to be absolutely honest. Your revered
+parent doesn't confide in me much these days, as a matter of fact."
+
+"Well, it is. And I think we ought to give him a present."
+
+"Absolutely. But how? I'm all for spreading sweetness and light, and
+cheering up the jolly old pater's sorrowful existence, but I haven't a
+bean. And, what is more, things have come to such a pass that I scan the
+horizon without seeing a single soul I can touch. I suppose I could get
+into Reggie van Tuyl's ribs for a bit, but--I don't know--touching poor
+old Reggie always seems to me rather like potting a sitting bird."
+
+"Of course, I don't want you to do anything like that. I was
+thinking--Archie, darling, would you be very hurt if I gave father the
+picture?"
+
+"Oh, I say!"
+
+"Well, I can't think of anything else."
+
+"But wouldn't you miss it most frightfully?"
+
+"Oh, of course I should. But you see--father's birthday--"
+
+Archie had always thought Lucille the dearest and most unselfish angel
+in the world, but never had the fact come home to him so forcibly as
+now. He kissed her fondly.
+
+"By Jove!" he exclaimed. "You really are, you know! This is the biggest
+thing since jolly old Sir Philip What's-his-name gave the drink of water
+to the poor blighter whose need was greater than his, if you recall the
+incident. I had to sweat it up at school, I remember. Sir Philip, poor
+old bean, had a most ghastly thirst on, and he was just going to
+have one on the house, so to speak, when... but it's all in the
+history-books. This is the sort of thing Boy Scouts do! Well, of course,
+it's up to you, queen of my soul. If you feel like making the sacrifice,
+right-o! Shall I bring the pater up here and show him the picture?"
+
+"No, I shouldn't do that. Do you think you could get into his suite
+to-morrow morning and hang it up somewhere? You see, if he had the
+chance of--what I mean is, if--yes, I think it would be best to hang it
+up and let him discover it there."
+
+"It would give him a surprise, you mean, what?"
+
+"Yes."
+
+Lucille sighed inaudibly. She was a girl with a conscience, and that
+conscience was troubling her a little. She agreed with Archie that the
+discovery of the Wigmore Venus in his artistically furnished suite
+would give Mr. Brewster a surprise. Surprise, indeed, was perhaps an
+inadequate word. She was sorry for her father, but the instinct of
+self-preservation is stronger than any other emotion.
+
+Archie whistled merrily on the following morning as, having driven a
+nail into his father-in-law's wallpaper, he adjusted the cord from which
+the Wigmore Venus was suspended. He was a kind-hearted young man, and,
+though Mr. Daniel Brewster had on many occasions treated him with a good
+deal of austerity, his simple soul was pleased at the thought of
+doing him a good turn, He had just completed his work and was
+stepping cautiously down, when a voice behind him nearly caused him to
+overbalance.
+
+"What the devil?"
+
+Archie turned beamingly.
+
+"Hullo, old thing! Many happy returns of the day!"
+
+Mr. Brewster was standing in a frozen attitude. His strong face was
+slightly flushed.
+
+"What--what--?" he gurgled.
+
+Mr. Brewster was not in one of his sunniest moods that morning. The
+proprietor of a large hotel has many things to disturb him, and to-day
+things had been going wrong. He had come up to his suite with the idea
+of restoring his shaken nerve system with a quiet cigar, and the sight
+of his son-in-law had, as so frequently happened, made him feel worse
+than ever. But, when Archie had descended from the chair and moved aside
+to allow him an uninterrupted view of the picture, Mr. Brewster realised
+that a worse thing had befallen him than a mere visit from one who
+always made him feel that the world was a bleak place.
+
+He stared at the Venus dumbly. Unlike most hotel-proprietors, Daniel
+Brewster was a connoisseur of Art. Connoisseuring was, in fact, his
+hobby. Even the public rooms of the Cosmopolis were decorated with
+taste, and his own private suite was a shrine of all that was best and
+most artistic. His tastes were quiet and restrained, and it is not too
+much to say that the Wigmore Venus hit him behind the ear like a stuffed
+eel-skin.
+
+So great was the shock that for some moments it kept him silent, and
+before he could recover speech Archie had explained.
+
+"It's a birthday present from Lucille, don't you know."
+
+Mr. Brewster crushed down the breezy speech he had intended to utter.
+
+"Lucille gave me--that?" he muttered.
+
+He swallowed pathetically. He was suffering, but the iron courage of the
+Brewsters stood him in good stead. This man was no weakling. Presently
+the rigidity of his face relaxed. He was himself again. Of all things
+in the world he loved his daughter most, and if, in whatever mood of
+temporary insanity, she had brought herself to suppose that this beastly
+daub was the sort of thing he would like for a birthday present, he must
+accept the situation like a man. He would on the whole have preferred
+death to a life lived in the society of the Wigmore Venus, but even that
+torment must be endured if the alternative was the hurting of Lucille's
+feelings.
+
+"I think I've chosen a pretty likely spot to hang the thing, what?" said
+Archie cheerfully. "It looks well alongside those Japanese prints, don't
+you think? Sort of stands out."
+
+Mr. Brewster licked his dry lips and grinned a ghastly grin.
+
+"It does stand out!" he agreed.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXVI. A TALE OF A GRANDFATHER
+
+
+Archie was not a man who readily allowed himself to become worried,
+especially about people who were not in his own immediate circle of
+friends, but in the course of the next week he was bound to admit that
+he was not altogether easy in his mind about his father-in-law's mental
+condition. He had read all sorts of things in the Sunday papers and
+elsewhere about the constant strain to which captains of industry are
+subjected, a strain which sooner or later is only too apt to make
+the victim go all blooey, and it seemed to him that Mr. Brewster
+was beginning to find the going a trifle too tough for his stamina.
+Undeniably he was behaving in an odd manner, and Archie, though
+no physician, was aware that, when the American business-man, that
+restless, ever-active human machine, starts behaving in an odd manner,
+the next thing you know is that two strong men, one attached to each
+arm, are hurrying him into the cab bound for Bloomingdale.
+
+He did not confide his misgivings to Lucille, not wishing to cause her
+anxiety. He hunted up Reggie van Tuyl at the club, and sought advice
+from him.
+
+"I say, Reggie, old thing--present company excepted--have there been any
+loonies in your family?"
+
+Reggie stirred in the slumber which always gripped him in the early
+afternoon.
+
+"Loonies?" he mumbled, sleepily. "Rather! My uncle Edgar thought he was
+twins."
+
+"Twins, eh?"
+
+"Yes. Silly idea! I mean, you'd have thought one of my uncle Edgar would
+have been enough for any man."
+
+"How did the thing start?" asked Archie.
+
+"Start? Well, the first thing we noticed was when he began wanting two
+of everything. Had to set two places for him at dinner and so on. Always
+wanted two seats at the theatre. Ran into money, I can tell you."
+
+"He didn't behave rummily up till then? I mean to say, wasn't sort of
+jumpy and all that?"
+
+"Not that I remember. Why?"
+
+Archie's tone became grave.
+
+"Well, I'll tell you, old man, though I don't want it to go any farther,
+that I'm a bit worried about my jolly old father-in-law. I believe he's
+about to go in off the deep-end. I think he's cracking under the strain.
+Dashed weird his behaviour has been the last few days."
+
+"Such as?" murmured Mr. van Tuyl.
+
+"Well, the other morning I happened to be in his suite--incidentally he
+wouldn't go above ten dollars, and I wanted twenty-five-and he suddenly
+picked up a whacking big paper-weight and bunged it for all he was
+worth."
+
+"At you?"
+
+"Not at me. That was the rummy part of it. At a mosquito on the wall, he
+said. Well, I mean to say, do chappies bung paper-weights at mosquitoes?
+I mean, is it done?"
+
+"Smash anything?"
+
+"Curiously enough, no. But he only just missed a rather decent picture
+which Lucille had given him for his birthday. Another foot to the left
+and it would have been a goner."
+
+"Sounds queer."
+
+"And, talking of that picture, I looked in on him about a couple of
+afternoons later, and he'd taken it down from the wall and laid it on
+the floor and was staring at it in a dashed marked sort of manner. That
+was peculiar, what?"
+
+"On the floor?"
+
+"On the jolly old carpet. When I came in, he was goggling at it in a
+sort of glassy way. Absolutely rapt, don't you know. My coming in gave
+him a start--seemed to rouse him from a kind of trance, you know--and he
+jumped like an antelope; and, if I hadn't happened to grab him, he would
+have trampled bang on the thing. It was deuced unpleasant, you know. His
+manner was rummy. He seemed to be brooding on something. What ought I to
+do about it, do you think? It's not my affair, of course, but it
+seems to me that, if he goes on like this, one of these days he'll be
+stabbing someone with a pickle-fork."
+
+To Archie's relief, his father-in-law's symptoms showed no signs of
+development. In fact, his manner reverted to the normal once more, and
+a few days later, meeting Archie in the lobby of the hotel, he seemed
+quite cheerful. It was not often that he wasted his time talking to his
+son-in-law, but on this occasion he chatted with him for several minutes
+about the big picture-robbery which had formed the chief item of news
+on the front pages of the morning papers that day. It was Mr. Brewster's
+opinion that the outrage had been the work of a gang and that nobody was
+safe.
+
+Daniel Brewster had spoken of this matter with strange earnestness, but
+his words had slipped from Archie's mind when he made his way that night
+to his father-in-law's suite. Archie was in an exalted mood. In the
+course of dinner he had had a bit of good news which was occupying his
+thoughts to the exclusion of all other matters. It had left him in a
+comfortable, if rather dizzy, condition of benevolence to all created
+things. He had smiled at the room-clerk as he crossed the lobby, and if
+he had had a dollar, he would have given it to the boy who took him up
+in the elevator.
+
+He found the door of the Brewster suite unlocked which at any other time
+would have struck him as unusual; but to-night he was in no frame of
+mind to notice these trivialities. He went in, and, finding the room
+dark and no one at home, sat down, too absorbed in his thoughts to
+switch on the lights, and gave himself up to dreamy meditation.
+
+There are certain moods in which one loses count of time, and Archie
+could not have said how long he had been sitting in the deep arm-chair
+near the window when he first became aware that he was not alone in the
+room. He had closed his eyes, the better to meditate, so had not seen
+anyone enter. Nor had he heard the door open. The first intimation
+he had that somebody had come in was when some hard substance knocked
+against some other hard object, producing a sharp sound which brought
+him back to earth with a jerk.
+
+He sat up silently. The fact that the room was still in darkness made it
+obvious that something nefarious was afoot. Plainly there was dirty work
+in preparation at the cross-roads. He stared into the blackness, and, as
+his eyes grew accustomed to it, was presently able to see an indistinct
+form bending over something on the floor. The sound of rather stertorous
+breathing came to him.
+
+Archie had many defects which prevented him being the perfect man,
+but lack of courage was not one of them. His somewhat rudimentary
+intelligence had occasionally led his superior officers during the war
+to thank God that Great Britain had a Navy, but even these stern critics
+had found nothing to complain of in the manner in which he bounded over
+the top. Some of us are thinkers, others men of action. Archie was a man
+of action, and he was out of his chair and sailing in the direction of
+the back of the intruder's neck before a wiser man would have completed
+his plan of campaign. The miscreant collapsed under him with a squashy
+sound, like the wind going out of a pair of bellows, and Archie, taking
+a firm seat on his spine, rubbed the other's face in the carpet and
+awaited the progress of events.
+
+At the end of half a minute it became apparent that there was going
+to be no counter-attack. The dashing swiftness of the assault had
+apparently had the effect of depriving the marauder of his entire stock
+of breath. He was gurgling to himself in a pained sort of way and making
+no effort to rise. Archie, feeling that it would be safe to get up
+and switch on the light, did so, and, turning after completing this
+manoeuvre, was greeted by the spectacle of his father-in-law, seated
+on the floor in a breathless and dishevelled condition, blinking at the
+sudden illumination. On the carpet beside Mr. Brewster lay a long knife,
+and beside the knife lay the handsomely framed masterpiece of J. B.
+Wheeler's fiancee, Miss Alice Wigmore. Archie stared at this collection
+dumbly.
+
+"Oh, what-ho!" he observed at length, feebly.
+
+A distinct chill manifested itself in the region of Archie's spine. This
+could mean only one thing. His fears had been realised. The strain of
+modern life, with all its hustle and excitement, had at last proved too
+much for Mr. Brewster. Crushed by the thousand and one anxieties and
+worries of a millionaire's existence, Daniel Brewster had gone off his
+onion.
+
+Archie was nonplussed. This was his first experience of this kind of
+thing. What, he asked himself, was the proper procedure in a situation
+of this sort? What was the local rule? Where, in a word, did he go from
+here? He was still musing in an embarrassed and baffled way, having
+taken the precaution of kicking the knife under the sofa, when Mr.
+Brewster spoke. And there was in, both the words and the method of
+their delivery so much of his old familiar self that Archie felt quite
+relieved.
+
+"So it's you, is it, you wretched blight, you miserable weed!" said
+Mr. Brewster, having recovered enough breath to be going on with. He
+glowered at his son-in-law despondently. "I might have, expected it! If
+I was at the North Pole, I could count on you butting in!"
+
+"Shall I get you a drink of water?" said Archie.
+
+"What the devil," demanded Mr. Brewster, "do you imagine I want with a
+drink of water?"
+
+"Well--" Archie hesitated delicately. "I had a sort of idea that you had
+been feeling the strain a bit. I mean to say, rush of modern life and
+all that sort of thing--"
+
+"What are you doing in my room?" said Mr. Brewster, changing the
+subject.
+
+"Well, I came to tell you something, and I came in here and was waiting
+for you, and I saw some chappie biffing about in the dark, and I thought
+it was a burglar or something after some of your things, so, thinking it
+over, I got the idea that it would be a fairly juicy scheme to land on
+him with both feet. No idea it was you, old thing! Frightfully sorry and
+all that. Meant well!"
+
+Mr. Brewster sighed deeply. He was a just man, and he could not but
+realise that, in the circumstances, Archie had behaved not unnaturally.
+
+"Oh, well!" he said. "I might have known something would go wrong."
+
+"Awfully sorry!"
+
+"It can't be helped. What was it you wanted to tell me?" He eyed his
+son-in-law piercingly. "Not a cent over twenty dollars!" he said coldly.
+
+Archie hastened to dispel the pardonable error.
+
+"Oh, it wasn't anything like that," he said. "As a matter of fact, I
+think it's a good egg. It has bucked me up to no inconsiderable
+degree. I was dining with Lucille just now, and, as we dallied with the
+food-stuffs, she told me something which--well, I'm bound to say, it
+made me feel considerably braced. She told me to trot along and ask you
+if you would mind--"
+
+"I gave Lucille a hundred dollars only last Tuesday."
+
+Archie was pained.
+
+"Adjust this sordid outlook, old thing!" he urged. "You simply aren't
+anywhere near it. Right off the target, absolutely! What Lucille told me
+to ask you was if you would mind--at some tolerably near date--being
+a grandfather! Rotten thing to be, of course," proceeded Archie
+commiseratingly, "for a chappie of your age, but there it is!"
+
+Mr. Brewster gulped.
+
+"Do you mean to say--?"
+
+"I mean, apt to make a fellow feel a bit of a patriarch. Snowy hair and
+what not. And, of course, for a chappie in the prime of life like you--"
+
+"Do you mean to tell me--? Is this true?"
+
+"Absolutely! Of course, speaking for myself, I'm all for it. I don't
+know when I've felt more bucked. I sang as I came up here--absolutely
+warbled in the elevator. But you--"
+
+A curious change had come over Mr. Brewster. He was one of those men who
+have the appearance of having been hewn out of the solid rock, but now
+in some indescribable way he seemed to have melted. For a moment he
+gazed at Archie, then, moving quickly forward, he grasped his hand in an
+iron grip.
+
+"This is the best news I've ever had!" he mumbled.
+
+"Awfully good of you to take it like this," said Archie cordially. "I
+mean, being a grandfather--"
+
+Mr. Brewster smiled. Of a man of his appearance one could hardly say
+that he smiled playfully; but there was something in his expression that
+remotely suggested playfulness.
+
+"My dear old bean," he said.
+
+Archie started.
+
+"My dear old bean," repeated Mr. Brewster firmly, "I'm the happiest man
+in America!" His eye fell on the picture which lay on the floor. He gave
+a slight shudder, but recovered himself immediately. "After this," he
+said, "I can reconcile myself to living with that thing for the rest of
+my life. I feel it doesn't matter."
+
+"I say," said Archie, "how about that? Wouldn't have brought the thing
+up if you hadn't introduced the topic, but, speaking as man to man, what
+the dickens WERE you up to when I landed on your spine just now?"
+
+"I suppose you thought I had gone off my head?"
+
+"Well, I'm bound to say--"
+
+Mr. Brewster cast an unfriendly glance at the picture.
+
+"Well, I had every excuse, after living with that infernal thing for a
+week!"
+
+Archie looked at him, astonished.
+
+"I say, old thing, I don't know if I have got your meaning exactly, but
+you somehow give me the impression that you don't like that jolly old
+work of Art."
+
+"Like it!" cried Mr. Brewster. "It's nearly driven me mad! Every time
+it caught my eye, it gave me a pain in the neck. To-night I felt as if I
+couldn't stand it any longer. I didn't want to hurt Lucille's feelings,
+by telling her, so I made up my mind I would cut the damned thing out of
+its frame and tell her it had been stolen."
+
+"What an extraordinary thing! Why, that's exactly what old Wheeler did."
+
+"Who is old Wheeler?"
+
+"Artist chappie. Pal of mine. His fiancee painted the thing, and, when
+I lifted it off him, he told her it had been stolen. HE didn't seem
+frightfully keen on it, either."
+
+"Your friend Wheeler has evidently good taste."
+
+Archie was thinking.
+
+"Well, all this rather gets past me," he said. "Personally, I've always
+admired the thing. Dashed ripe bit of work, I've always considered.
+Still, of course, if you feel that way--"
+
+"You may take it from me that I do!"
+
+"Well, then, in that case--You know what a clumsy devil I am--You can
+tell Lucille it was all my fault--"
+
+The Wigmore Venus smiled up at Archie--it seemed to Archie with a
+pathetic, pleading smile. For a moment he was conscious of a feeling of
+guilt; then, closing his eyes and hardening his heart, he sprang lightly
+in the air and descended with both feet on the picture. There was a
+sound of rending canvas, and the Venus ceased to smile.
+
+"Golly!" said Archie, regarding the wreckage remorsefully.
+
+Mr. Brewster did not share his remorse. For the second time that night
+he gripped him by the hand.
+
+"My boy!" he quavered. He stared at Archie as if he were seeing him with
+new eyes. "My dear boy, you were through the war, were you not?"
+
+"Eh? Oh yes! Right through the jolly old war."
+
+"What was your rank?"
+
+"Oh, second lieutenant."
+
+"You ought to have been a general!" Mr. Brewster clasped his hand once
+more in a vigorous embrace. "I only hope," he added "that your son will
+be like you!"
+
+There are certain compliments, or compliments coming from certain
+sources, before which modesty reels, stunned. Archie's did.
+
+He swallowed convulsively. He had never thought to hear these words from
+Daniel Brewster.
+
+"How would it be, old thing," he said almost brokenly, "if you and I
+trickled down to the bar and had a spot of sherbet?"
+
+THE END
+
+
+
+
+
+End of Project Gutenberg's Indiscretions of Archie, by P. G. Wodehouse
+
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diff --git a/old/3756.zip b/old/3756.zip
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+The Project Gutenberg Etext of Indiscretions of Archie
+by P. G. Wodehouse
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+Title: Indiscretions of Archie
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+
+INDISCRETIONS OF ARCHIE
+
+
+P. G. WODEHOUSE
+
+
+
+
+It wasn't Archie's fault really. Its true he went to America and
+fell in love with Lucille, the daughter of a millionaire hotel
+proprietor and if he did marry her--well, what else was there to do?
+
+From his point of view, the whole thing was a thoroughly good egg;
+but Mr. Brewster, his father-in-law, thought differently, Archie had
+neither money nor occupation, which was distasteful in the eyes of
+the industrious Mr. Brewster; but the real bar was the fact that he
+had once adversely criticised one of his hotels.
+
+Archie does his best to heal the breach; but, being something of an
+ass, genus priceless, he finds it almost beyond his powers to
+placate "the man-eating fish" whom Providence has given him as a
+father-in-law
+
+
+
+
+INDISCRETIONS OF ARCHIE
+
+BY
+
+P. G. WODEHOUSE
+
+AUTHOR OF "THE LITTLE WARRIOR," "A DAMSEL IN DISTRESS," "ONEASY
+MONEY," ETC.
+
+
+
+
+
+NEW YORK
+
+GEORGE H. DORAN COMPANY
+
+
+
+COPYRIGHT,1921, BY GEORGE H, DORAN COMPANY
+COPYRIGHT, 1920, BY INTERNATIONAL MAGAZINE COMPANY (COSMOPOLITAN
+MAGAZINE)
+
+PRINTED IN-THE-UNITED STATES OF AMERICA
+
+
+
+
+DEDICATION TO B. W. KING-HALL
+
+My dear Buddy,--
+
+We have been friends for eighteen years. A considerable proportion
+of my books were written under your hospitable roof. And yet I have
+never dedicated one to you. What will be the verdict of Posterity on
+this? The fact is, I have become rather superstitious about
+dedications. No sooner do you label a book with the legend--
+
+                         TO MY
+                       BEST FRIEND
+                           X
+
+than X cuts you in Piccadilly, or you bring a lawsuit against him.
+There is a fatality about it. However, I can't imagine anyone
+quarrelling with you, and I am getting more attractive all the time,
+so let's take a chance.
+
+Yours ever,
+
+P. G. WODEHOUSE.
+
+
+
+
+CONTENTS
+
+    I   DISTRESSING SCENE IN A HOTEL
+   II   A SHOCK FOR MR. BREWSTER
+  III   MR. BREWSTER DELIVERS SENTENCE
+   IV   WORK WANTED
+    V   STRANGE EXPERIENCE OF AN ARTIST'S MODEL
+   VI   THE BOMB
+  VII   MR. ROSCOE SHERRIFF HAS AN IDEA
+ VIII   A DISTURBED NIGHT FOR DEAR OLD SQUIFFY
+   IX   A LETTER FROM PARKER
+    X   DOING FATHER A BIT OF GOOD
+   XI   SALVATORE CHOOSES THE WRONG MOMENT
+  XII   BRIGHT EYES-AND A FLY
+ XIII   RALLYING ROUND PERCY
+  XIV   THE SAD CASE OF LOONEY BIDDLE
+   XV   SUMMER STORMS
+  XVI   ARCHIE ACCEPTS A SITUATION
+ XVII   BROTHER BILL'S ROMANCE
+XVIII   THE SAUSAGE CHAPPIE
+  XIX   REGGIE COMES TO LIFE
+   XX   THE SAUSAGE CHAPPIE CLICKS
+  XXI   THE-GROWING BOY
+ XXII   WASHY STEPS INTO THE HALL OF FAME
+XXIII   MOTHER'S-KNEE
+ XXIV   THE MELTING OF MR. CONNOLLY
+  XXV   THE WIGMORE VENUS
+ XXVI   A TALE OF A GRANDFATHER
+
+
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER I
+
+DISTRESSING SCENE
+
+
+"I say, laddie!" said Archie.
+
+"Sir?" replied the desk-clerk alertly. All the employes of the Hotel
+Cosmopolis were alert. It was one of the things on which Mr. Daniel
+Brewster, the proprietor, insisted. And as he was always wandering
+about the lobby of the hotel keeping a personal eye on affairs, it
+was never safe to relax.
+
+"I want to see the manager."
+
+"Is there anything I could do, sir?"
+
+Archie looked at him doubtfully.
+
+"Well, as a matter of fact, my dear old desk-clerk," he said, "I
+want to kick up a fearful row, and it hardly seems fair to lug you
+into it. Why you, I mean to say? The blighter whose head I want on a
+charger is the bally manager."
+
+At this point a massive, grey-haired man, who had been standing
+close by, gazing on the lobby with an air of restrained severity, as
+if daring it to start anything, joined in the conversation.
+
+"I am the manager," he said.
+
+His eye was cold and hostile. Others, it seemed to say, might like
+Archie Moffam, but not he. Daniel Brewster was bristling for combat.
+What he had overheard had shocked him to the core of his being. The
+Hotel Cosmopolis was his own private, personal property, and the
+thing dearest to him in the world, after his daughter Lucille. He
+prided himself on the fact that his hotel was not like other New
+York hotels, which were run by impersonal companies and shareholders
+and boards of directors, and consequently lacked the paternal touch
+which made the Cosmopolis what it was. At other hotels things went
+wrong, and clients complained. At the Cosmopolis things never went
+wrong, because he was on the spot to see that they didn't, and as a
+result clients never complained. Yet here was this long, thin,
+string-bean of an Englishman actually registering annoyance and
+dissatisfaction before his very eyes.
+
+"What is your complaint?" he enquired frigidly.
+
+Archie attached himself to the top button of Mr. Brewster's coat,
+and was immediately dislodged by an irritable jerk of the other's
+substantial body.
+
+"Listen, old thing! I came over to this country to nose about in
+search of a job, because there doesn't seem what you might call a
+general demand for my services in England. Directly I was demobbed,
+the family started talking about the Land of Opportunity and shot me
+on to a liner. The idea was that I might get hold of something in
+America--"
+
+He got hold of Mr. Brewster's coat-button, and was again shaken off.
+
+"Between ourselves, I've never done anything much in England, and I
+fancy the family were getting a bit fed. At any rate, they sent me
+over here--"
+
+Mr. Brewster disentangled himself for the third time.
+
+"I would prefer to postpone the story of your life," he said coldly,
+"and be informed what is your specific complaint against the Hotel
+Cosmopolis."
+
+"Of course, yes. The jolly old hotel. I'm coming to
+that. Well, it was like this. A chappie on the boat told me that
+this was the best place to stop at in New York--"
+
+"He was quite right," said Mr. Brewster.
+
+"Was he, by Jove! Well, all I can say, then, is that the other New
+York hotels must be pretty mouldy, if this is the best of the lot! I
+took a room here last night," said Archie quivering with self-pity,
+"and there was a beastly tap outside somewhere which went drip-drip-
+drip all night and kept me awake."
+
+Mr. Brewster's annoyance deepened. He felt that a chink had been
+found in his armour. Not even the most paternal hotel-proprietor can
+keep an eye on every tap in his establishment.
+
+"Drip-drip-drip!" repeated Archie firmly. "And I put my boots
+outside the door when I went to bed, and this morning they hadn't
+been touched. I give you my solemn word! Not touched."
+
+"Naturally," said Mr. Brewster. "My employes are honest"
+
+"But I wanted them cleaned, dash it!"
+
+"There is a shoe-shining parlour in the basement. At the Cosmopolis
+shoes left outside bedroom doors are not cleaned."
+
+"Then I think the Cosmopolis is a bally rotten hotel!"
+
+Mr. Brewster's compact frame quivered. The unforgivable insult had
+been offered. Question the legitimacy of Mr. Brewster's parentage,
+knock Mr. Brewster down and walk on his face with spiked shoes, and
+you did not irremediably close all avenues to a peaceful settlement.
+But make a remark like that about his hotel, and war was definitely
+declared.
+
+"In that case," he said, stiffening, "I must ask you to give up your
+room."
+
+"I'm going to give it up! I wouldn't stay in the bally place another
+minute."
+
+Mr. Brewster walked away, and Archie charged round to the cashier's
+desk to get his bill. It had been his intention in any case, though
+for dramatic purposes he concealed it from his adversary, to leave
+the hotel that morning. One of the letters of introduction which he
+had brought over from England had resulted in an invitation from a
+Mrs. van Tuyl to her house-party at Miami, and he had decided to go
+there at once.
+
+"Well," mused Archie, on his way to the station, "one thing's
+certain. I'll never set foot in THAT bally place again!"
+
+But nothing in this world is certain.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER II
+
+A SHOCK FOR MR. BREWSTER
+
+
+Mr. Daniel Brewster sat in his luxurious suite at the Cosmopolis,
+smoking one of his admirable cigars and chatting with his old
+friend, Professor Binstead. A stranger who had only encountered Mr.
+Brewster in the lobby of the hotel would have been surprised at the
+appearance of his sitting-room, for it had none of the rugged
+simplicity which was the keynote of its owner's personal appearance.
+Daniel Brewster was a man with a hobby, He was what Parker, his
+valet, termed a connoozer. His educated taste in Art was one of the
+things which went to make the Cosmopolis different from and superior
+to other New York hotels. He had personally selected the tapestries
+in the dining-room and the various paintings throughout the
+building. And in his private capacity he was an enthusiastic
+collector of things which Professor Binstead, whose tastes lay in
+the same direction, would have stolen without a twinge of conscience
+if he could have got the chance.
+
+The professor, a small man of middle age who wore tortoiseshell-
+rimmed spectacles, flitted covetously about the room, inspecting its
+treasures with a glistening eye. In a corner, Parker, a grave, lean
+individual, bent over the chafing-dish, in which he was preparing
+for his employer and his guest their simple lunch.
+
+"Brewster," said Professor Binstead, pausing at the mantelpiece.
+
+Mr. Brewster looked up amiably. He was in placid mood to-day. Two
+weeks and more had passed since the meeting with Archie recorded in
+the previous chapter, and he had been able to dismiss that
+disturbing affair from his mind. Since then, everything had gone
+splendidly with Daniel Brewster, for he had just accomplished his
+ambition of the moment by completing the negotiations for the
+purchase of a site further down-town, on which he proposed to erect
+a new hotel. He liked building hotels. He had the Cosmopolis, his
+first-born, a summer hotel in the mountains, purchased in the
+previous year, and he was toying with the idea of running over to
+England and putting up another in London, That, however, would have
+to wait. Meanwhile, he would concentrate on this new one down-town.
+It had kept him busy and worried, arranging for securing the site;
+but his troubles were over now.
+
+"Yes?" he said.
+
+Professor Binstead had picked up a small china figure of delicate
+workmanship. It represented a warrior of pre-khaki days advancing
+with a spear upon some adversary who, judging from the contented
+expression on the warrior's face, was smaller than himself.
+
+"Where did you get this?"
+
+"That? Mawson, my agent, found it in a little shop on the east
+side."
+
+"Where's the other? There ought to be another. These things go in
+pairs. They're valueless alone."
+
+Mr. Brewster's brow clouded.
+
+"I know that," he said shortly. "Mawson's looking for the other one
+everywhere. If you happen across it, I give you carte blanche to buy
+it for me."
+
+"It must be somewhere."
+
+"Yes. If you find it, don't worry about the expense. I'll settle up,
+no matter what it is."
+
+"I'll bear it in mind," said Professor Binstead. "It may cost you a
+lot of money. I suppose you know that."
+
+"I told you I don't care what it costs."
+
+"It's nice to be a millionaire," sighed Professor Binstead.
+
+"Luncheon is served, sir," said Parker.
+
+He had stationed himself in a statutesque pose behind Mr. Brewster's
+chair, when there was a knock at the door. He went to the door, and
+returned with a telegram.
+
+"Telegram for you, sir."
+
+Mr. Brewster nodded carelessly. The contents of the chafing-dish had
+justified the advance advertising of their odour, and he was too
+busy to be interrupted.
+
+"Put it down. And you needn't wait, Parker."
+
+"Very good, sir."
+
+The valet withdrew, and Mr. Brewster resumed his lunch.
+
+"Aren't you going to open it?" asked Professor Binstead, to whom a
+telegram was a telegram.
+
+"It can wait. I get them all day long. I expect it's from Lucille,
+saying what train she's making."
+
+"She returns to-day?"
+
+"Yes, Been at Miami." Mr. Brewster, having dwelt at adequate length
+on the contents of the chafing-dish, adjusted his glasses and took
+up the envelope. "I shall be glad--Great Godfrey!"
+
+He sat staring at the telegram, his mouth open. His friend eyed him
+solicitously.
+
+"No bad news, I hope?"
+
+Mr. Brewster gurgled in a strangled way.
+
+"Bad news? Bad--? Here, read it for yourself."
+
+Professor Binstead, one of the three most inquisitive men in New
+York, took the slip of paper with gratitude.
+
+"'Returning New York to-day with darling Archie,'" he read. "'Lots
+of love from us both. Lucille.'" He gaped at his host. "Who is
+Archie?" he enquired.
+
+"Who is Archie?" echoed Mr. Brewster helplessly. "Who is--? That's
+just what I would like to know."
+
+"'Darling Archie,'" murmured the professor, musing over the
+telegram. "'Returning to-day with darling Archie.' Strange!"
+
+Mr. Brewster continued to stare before him. When you send your only
+daughter on a visit to Miami minus any entanglements and she
+mentions in a telegram that she has acquired a darling Archie, you
+are naturally startled. He rose from the table with a bound. It had
+occurred to him that by neglecting a careful study of his mail
+during the past week, as was his bad habit when busy, he had lost an
+opportunity of keeping abreast with current happenings. He
+recollected now that a letter had arrived from Lucille some time
+ago, and that he had put it away unopened till he should have
+leisure to read it. Lucille was a dear girl, he had felt, but her
+letters when on a vacation seldom contained anything that couldn't
+wait a few days for a reading. He sprang for his desk, rummaged
+among his papers, and found what he was seeking.
+
+It was a long letter, and there was silence in the room for some
+moments while he mastered its contents. Then he turned to the
+professor, breathing heavily.
+
+"Good heavens!"
+
+"Yes?" said Professor Binstead eagerly. "Yes?"
+
+"Good Lord!"
+
+"Well?"
+
+"Good gracious!"
+
+"What is it?" demanded the professor in an agony.
+
+Mr. Brewster sat down again with a thud.
+
+"She's married!"
+
+"Married!"
+
+"Married! To an Englishman!"
+
+"Bless my soul!"
+
+"She says," proceeded Mr. Brewster, referring to the letter again,
+"that they were both so much in love that they simply had to slip
+off and get married, and she hopes I won't be cross. Cross!" gasped
+Mr. Brewster, gazing wildly at his friend.
+
+"Very disturbing!"
+
+"Disturbing! You bet it's disturbing! I don't know anything about
+the fellow. Never heard of him in my life. She says he wanted a
+quiet wedding because he thought a fellow looked such a chump
+getting married! And I must love him, because he's all set to love
+me very much!"
+
+"Extraordinary!"
+
+Mr. Brewster put the letter down.
+
+"An Englishman!"
+
+"I have met some very agreeable Englishmen," said Professor
+Binstead.
+
+"I don't like Englishmen," growled Mr. Brewster. "Parker's an
+Englishman."
+
+"Your valet?"
+
+"Yes. I believe he wears my shirts on the sly,'" said Mr. Brewster
+broodingly, "If I catch him--! What would you do about this,
+Binstead?"
+
+"Do?" The professor considered the point judiciary. "Well, really,
+Brewster, I do not see that there is anything you can do. You must
+simply wait and meet the man. Perhaps he will turn out an admirable
+son-in-law."
+
+"H'm!" Mr. Brewster declined to take an optimistic view. "But an
+Englishman, Binstead!" he said with pathos. "Why," he went on,
+memory suddenly stirring, "there was an Englishman at this hotel
+only a week or two ago who went about knocking it in a way that
+would have amazed you! Said it was a rotten place! MY hotel!"
+
+Professor Binstead clicked his tongue sympathetically. He understood
+his friend's warmth.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER III
+
+MR. BREWSTER DELIVERS SENTENCE
+
+
+At about the same moment that Professor Binstead was clicking his
+tongue in Mr. Brewster's sitting-room, Archie Moffam sat
+contemplating his bride in a drawing-room on the express from Miami.
+He was thinking that this was too good to be true. His brain had
+been in something of a whirl these last few days, but this was one
+thought that never failed to emerge clearly from the welter.
+
+Mrs. Archie Moffam, nee Lucille Brewster, was small and slender. She
+had a little animated face, set in a cloud of dark hair. She was so
+altogether perfect that Archie had frequently found himself
+compelled to take the marriage-certificate out of his inside pocket
+and study it furtively, to make himself realise that this miracle of
+good fortune had actually happened to him.
+
+"Honestly, old bean--I mean, dear old thing,--I mean, darling," said
+Archie, "I can't believe it!"
+
+"What?"
+
+"What I mean is, I can't understand why you should have married a
+blighter like me."
+
+Lucille's eyes opened. She squeezed his hand.
+
+"Why, you're the most wonderful thing in the world, precious!--
+Surely you know that?"
+
+"Absolutely escaped my notice. Are you sure?"
+
+"Of course I'm sure! You wonder-child! Nobody could see you without
+loving you!"
+
+Archie heaved an ecstatic sigh. Then a thought crossed his mind. It
+was a thought which frequently came to mar his bliss.
+
+"I say, I wonder if your father will think that!"
+
+"Of course he will!"
+
+"We rather sprung this, as it were, on the old lad," said Archie
+dubiously. "What sort of a man IS your father?"
+
+"Father's a darling, too."
+
+"Rummy thing he should own that hotel," said Archie. "I had a
+frightful row with a blighter of a manager there just before I left
+for Miami. Your father ought to sack that chap. He was a blot on the
+landscape!"
+
+It had been settled by Lucille during the journey that Archie should
+be broken gently to his father-in-law. That is to say, instead of
+bounding blithely into Mr. Brewster's presence hand in hand, the
+happy pair should separate for half an hour or so, Archie hanging
+around in the offing while Lucille saw her father and told him the
+whole story, or those chapters of it which she had omitted from her
+letter for want of space. Then, having impressed Mr. Brewster
+sufficiently with his luck in having acquired Archie for a son-in-
+law, she would lead him to where his bit of good fortune awaited
+him.
+
+The programme worked out admirably in its earlier stages. When the
+two emerged from Mr. Brewster's room to meet Archie, Mr. Brewster's
+general idea was that fortune had smiled upon him in an almost
+unbelievable fashion and had presented him with a son-in-law who
+combined in almost equal parts the more admirable characteristics of
+Apollo, Sir Galahad, and Marcus Aurelius. True, he had gathered in
+the course of the conversation that dear Archie had no occupation
+and no private means; but Mr. Brewster felt that a great-souled man
+like Archie didn't need them. You can't have everything, and Archie,
+according to Lucille's account, was practically a hundred per cent
+man in soul, looks, manners, amiability, and breeding. These are the
+things that count. Mr. Brewster proceeded to the lobby in a glow of
+optimism and geniality.
+
+Consequently, when he perceived Archie, he got a bit of a shock.
+
+"Hullo--ullo--ullo!" said Archie, advancing happily.
+
+"Archie, darling, this is father," said Lucille.
+
+"Good Lord!" said Archie.
+
+There was one of those silences. Mr. Brewster looked at Archie.
+Archie gazed at Mr. Brewster. Lucille, perceiving without
+understanding why that the big introduction scene had stubbed its
+toe on some unlooked-for obstacle, waited anxiously for
+enlightenment. Meanwhile, Archie continued to inspect Mr. Brewster,
+and Mr. Brewster continued to drink in Archie.
+
+After an awkward pause of about three and a quarter minutes, Mr.
+Brewster swallowed once or twice, and finally spoke.
+
+"Lu!"
+
+"Yes, father?"
+
+"Is this true?"
+
+Lucille's grey eyes clouded over with perplexity and apprehension.
+
+"True?"
+
+"Have you really inflicted this--THIS on me for a son-in-law?"
+Mr. Brewster swallowed a few more times, Archie the while watching
+with a frozen fascination the rapid shimmying of his new relative's
+Adam's-apple. "Go away! I want to have a few words alone with this--
+This--WASSYOURDAMNAME?" he demanded, in an overwrought manner,
+addressing Archie for the first time.
+
+"I told you, father. It's Moom."
+
+"Moom?"
+
+"It's spelt M-o-f-f-a-m, but pronounced Moom."
+
+"To rhyme," said Archie, helpfully, "with Bluffinghame."
+
+"Lu," said Mr. Brewster, "run away! I want to speak to-to-to--"
+
+"You called me THIS before," said Archie.
+
+"You aren't angry, father, dear?" said Lucilla
+
+"Oh no! Oh no! I'm tickled to death!"
+
+When his daughter had withdrawn, Mr. Brewster drew a long breath.
+
+"Now then!" he said.
+
+"Bit embarrassing, all this, what!" said Archie, chattily. "I mean
+to say, having met before in less happy circs. and what not. Rum
+coincidence and so forth! How would it be to bury the jolly old
+hatchet--start a new life--forgive and forget--learn to love each
+other--and all that sort of rot? I'm game if you are. How do we go?
+Is it a bet?"
+
+Mr. Brewster remained entirely unsoftened by this manly appeal to
+his better feelings.
+
+"What the devil do you mean by marrying my daughter?"
+
+Archie reflected.
+
+"Well, it sort of happened, don't you know! You know how these
+things ARE! Young yourself once, and all that. I was most
+frightfully in love, and Lu seemed to think it wouldn't be a bad
+scheme, and one thing led to another, and--well, there you are,
+don't you know!"
+
+"And I suppose you think you've done pretty well for yourself?"
+
+"Oh, absolutely! As far as I'm concerned, everything's topping! I've
+never felt so braced in my life!"
+
+"Yes!" said Mr. Brewster, with bitterness, "I suppose, from your
+view-point, everything IS 'topping.' You haven't a cent to your
+name, and you've managed to fool a rich man's daughter into marrying
+you. I suppose you looked me up in Bradstreet before committing
+yourself?"
+
+This aspect of the matter had not struck Archie until this moment.
+
+"I say!" he observed, with dismay. "I never looked at it like that
+before! I can see that, from your point of view, this must look like
+a bit of a wash-out!"
+
+"How do you propose to support Lucille, anyway?"
+
+Archie ran a finger round the inside of his collar. He felt
+embarrassed, His father-in-law was opening up all kinds of new lines
+of thought.
+
+"Well, there, old bean," he admitted, frankly, "you rather have me!"
+He turned the matter over for a moment. "I had a sort of idea of, as
+it were, working, if you know what I mean."
+
+"Working at what?"
+
+"Now, there again you stump me somewhat! The general scheme was that
+I should kind of look round, you know, and nose about and buzz to
+and fro till something turned up. That was, broadly speaking, the
+notion!"
+
+"And how did you suppose my daughter was to live while you were
+doing all this?"
+
+"Well, I think," said Archie, "I THINK we rather expected YOU to
+rally round a bit for the nonce!"
+
+"I see! You expected to live on me?"
+
+"Well, you put it a bit crudely, but--as far as I had mapped
+anything out--that WAS what you might call the general scheme of
+procedure. You don't think much of it, what? Yes? No?"
+
+Mr. Brewster exploded.
+
+"No! I do not think much of it! Good God! You go out of my hotel--MY
+hotel--calling it all the names you could think of--roasting it to
+beat the band--"
+
+"Trifle hasty!" murmured Archie, apologetically. "Spoke without
+thinking. Dashed tap had gone DRIP-DRIP-DRIP all night--kept me
+awake--hadn't had breakfast--bygones be bygones--!"
+
+"Don't interrupt! I say, you go out of my hotel, knocking it as no
+one has ever knocked it since it was built, and you sneak straight
+off and marry my daughter without my knowledge."
+
+"Did think of wiring for blessing. Slipped the old bean, somehow.
+You know how one forgets things!"
+
+"And now you come back and calmly expect me to fling my arms round
+you and kiss you, and support you for the rest of your life!"
+
+"Only while I'm nosing about and buzzing to and fro."
+
+"Well, I suppose I've got to support you. There seems no way out of
+it. I'll tell you exactly what I propose to do. You think my hotel
+is a pretty poor hotel, eh? Well, you'll have plenty of opportunity
+of judging, because you're coming to live here. I'll let you have a
+suite and I'll let you have your meals, but outside of that--nothing
+doing! Nothing doing! Do you understand what I mean?"
+
+"Absolutely! You mean, 'Napoo!'"
+
+"You can sign bills for a reasonable amount in my restaurant, and
+the hotel will look after your laundry. But not a cent do you get
+out me. And, if you want your shoes shined, you can pay for it
+yourself in the basement. If you leave them outside your door, I'll
+instruct the floor-waiter to throw them down the air-shaft. Do you
+understand? Good! Now, is there anything more you want to ask?"
+
+Archie smiled a propitiatory smile.
+
+"Well, as a matter of fact, I was going to ask if you would stagger
+along and have a bite with us in the grill-room?"
+
+"I will not!"
+
+"I'll sign the bill," said Archie, ingratiatingly. "You don't think
+much of it? Oh, right-o!"
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER IV
+
+WORK WANTED
+
+
+It seemed to Archie, as he surveyed his position at the end of the
+first month of his married life, that all was for the best in the
+best of all possible worlds. In their attitude towards America,
+visiting Englishmen almost invariably incline to extremes, either
+detesting all that therein is or else becoming enthusiasts on the
+subject of the country, its climate, and its institutions. Archie
+belonged to the second class. He liked America and got on splendidly
+with Americans from the start. He was a friendly soul, a mixer; and
+in New York, that city of mixers, he found himself at home. The
+atmosphere of good-fellowship and the open-hearted hospitality of
+everybody he met appealed to him. There were moments when it seemed
+to him as though New York had simply been waiting for him to arrive
+before giving the word to let the revels commence.
+
+Nothing, of course, in this world is perfect; and, rosy as were the
+glasses through which Archie looked on his new surroundings, he had
+to admit that there was one flaw, one fly in the ointment, one
+individual caterpillar in the salad. Mr. Daniel Brewster, his
+father-in-law, remained consistently unfriendly. Indeed, his manner
+towards his new relative became daily more and more a manner which
+would have caused gossip on the plantation if Simon Legree had
+exhibited it in his relations with Uncle Tom. And this in spite of
+the fact that Archie, as early as the third morning of his stay, had
+gone to him and in the most frank and manly way had withdrawn his
+criticism of the Hotel Cosmopolis, giving it as his considered
+opinion that the Hotel Cosmopolis on closer inspection appeared to
+be a good egg, one of the best and brightest, and a bit of all
+right.
+
+"A credit to you, old thing," said Archie cordially.
+
+"Don't call me old thing!" growled Mr. Brewster.
+
+"Eight-o, old companion!" said Archie amiably.
+
+Archie, a true philosopher, bore this hostility with fortitude, but
+it worried Lucille.
+
+"I do wish father understood you better," was her wistful comment
+when Archie had related the conversation.
+
+"Well, you know," said Archie, "I'm open for being understood any
+time he cares to take a stab at it."
+
+"You must try and make him fond of you."
+
+"But how? I smile winsomely at him and what not, but he doesn't
+respond."
+
+"Well, we shall have to think of something. I want him to realise
+what an angel you are. You ARE an angel, you know."
+
+"No, really?"
+
+"Of course you are."
+
+"It's a rummy thing," said Archie, pursuing a train of thought which
+was constantly with him, "the more I see of you, the more I wonder
+how you can have a father like--I mean to say, what I mean to say
+is, I wish I had known your mother; she must have been frightfully
+attractive."
+
+"What would really please him, I know," said Lucille, "would be if
+you got some work to do. He loves people who work."
+
+"Yes?" said Archie doubtfully. "Well, you know, I heard him
+interviewing that chappie behind the desk this morning, who works
+like the dickens from early morn to dewy eve, on the subject of a
+mistake in his figures; and, if he loved him, he dissembled it all
+right. Of course, I admit that so far I haven't been one of the
+toilers, but the dashed difficult thing is to know how to start. I'm
+nosing round, but the openings for a bright young man seem so
+scarce."
+
+"Well, keep on trying. I feel sure that, if you could only find
+something to do, it doesn't matter what, father would be quite
+different."
+
+It was possibly the dazzling prospect of making Mr. Brewster quite
+different that stimulated Archie. He was strongly of the opinion
+that any change in his father-in-law must inevitably be for the
+better. A chance meeting with James B. Wheeler, the artist, at the
+Pen-and-Ink Club seemed to open the way.
+
+To a visitor to New York who has the ability to make himself liked
+it almost appears as though the leading industry in that city was
+the issuing of two-weeks' invitation-cards to clubs. Archie since
+his arrival had been showered with these pleasant evidences of his
+popularity; and he was now an honorary member of so many clubs of
+various kinds that he had not time to go to them all. There were the
+fashionable clubs along Fifth Avenue to which his friend Reggie van
+Tuyl, son of his Florida hostess, had introduced him. There were the
+businessmen's clubs of which he was made free by more solid
+citizens. And, best of all, there were the Lambs', the Players', the
+Friars', the Coffee-House, the Pen-and-Ink,--and the other resorts
+of the artist, the author, the actor, and the Bohemian. It was in
+these that Archie spent most of his time, and it was here that he
+made the acquaintance of J. B. Wheeler, the popular illustrator.
+
+To Mr. Wheeler, over a friendly lunch, Archie had been confiding
+some of his ambitions to qualify as the hero of one of the Get-on-
+or-get-out-young-man-step-lively-books.
+
+"You want a job?" said Mr. Wheeler.
+
+"I want a job," said Archie.
+
+Mr. Wheeler consumed eight fried potatoes in quick succession. He
+was an able trencherman.
+
+"I always looked on you as one of our leading lilies of the field,"
+he said. "Why this anxiety to toil and spin?"
+
+"Well, my wife, you know, seems to think it might put me one-up with
+the jolly old dad if I did something."
+
+"And you're not particular what you do, so long as it has the outer
+aspect of work?"
+
+"Anything in the world, laddie, anything in the world."
+
+"Then come and pose for a picture I'm doing," said J. B. Wheeler.
+"It's for a magazine cover. You're just the model I want, and I'll
+pay you at the usual rates. Is it a go?"
+
+"Pose?"
+
+"You've only got to stand still and look like a chunk of wood. You
+can do that, surely?"
+
+"I can do that," said Archie.
+
+"Then come along down to my studio to-morrow."
+
+"Eight-o!" said Archie.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER V
+
+STRANGE EXPERIENCES OF AN ARTIST'S MODEL
+
+
+"I say, old thing!"
+
+Archie spoke plaintively. Already he was looking back ruefully to
+the time when he had supposed that an artist's model had a soft job.
+In the first five minutes muscles which he had not been aware that
+he possessed had started to ache like neglected teeth. His respect
+for the toughness and durability of artists' models was now solid.
+How they acquired the stamina to go through this sort of thing all
+day and then bound off to Bohemian revels at night was more than he
+could understand.
+
+"Don't wobble, confound you!" snorted Mr. Wheeler.
+
+"Yes, but, my dear old artist," said Archie, "what you don't seem to
+grasp--what you appear not to realise--is that I'm getting a crick
+in the back."
+
+"You weakling! You miserable, invertebrate worm. Move an inch and
+I'll murder you, and come and dance on your grave every Wednesday
+and Saturday. I'm just getting it."
+
+"It's in the spine that it seems to catch me principally."
+
+"Be a man, you faint-hearted string-bean!" urged J. B. Wheeler. "You
+ought to be ashamed of yourself. Why, a girl who was posing for me
+last week stood for a solid hour on one leg, holding a tennis racket
+over her head and smiling brightly withal."
+
+"The female of the species is more india-rubbery than the male,"
+argued Archie.
+
+"Well, I'll be through in a few minutes. Don't weaken. Think how
+proud you'll be when you see yourself on all the bookstalls."
+
+Archie sighed, and braced himself to the task once more. He wished
+he had never taken on this binge. In addition to his physical
+discomfort, he was feeling a most awful chump. The cover on which
+Mr. Wheeler was engaged was for the August number of the magazine,
+and it had been necessary for Archie to drape his reluctant form in
+a two-piece bathing suit of a vivid lemon colour; for he was
+supposed to be representing one of those jolly dogs belonging to the
+best families who dive off floats at exclusive seashore resorts. J.
+B. Wheeler, a stickler for accuracy, had wanted him to remove his
+socks and shoes; but there Archie had stood firm. He was willing to
+make an ass of himself, but not a silly ass.
+
+"All right," said J. B. Wheeler, laying down his brush. "That will
+do for to-day. Though, speaking without prejudice and with no wish
+to be offensive, if I had had a model who wasn't a weak-kneed,
+jelly-backboned son of Belial, I could have got the darned thing
+finished without having to have another sitting."
+
+"I wonder why you chappies call this sort of thing 'sitting,'" said
+Archie, pensively, as he conducted tentative experiments in
+osteopathy on his aching back. "I say, old thing, I could do with a
+restorative, if you have one handy. But, of course, you haven't, I
+suppose," he added, resignedly. Abstemious as a rule, there were
+moments when Archie found the Eighteenth Amendment somewhat trying.
+
+J. B. Wheeler shook his head.
+
+"You're a little previous," he said. "But come round in another day
+or so, and I may be able to do something for you." He moved with a
+certain conspirator-like caution to a corner of the room, and,
+lifting to one side a pile of canvases, revealed a stout barrel,
+which, he regarded with a fatherly and benignant eye. "I don't mind
+telling you that, in the fullness of time, I believe this is going
+to spread a good deal of sweetness and light."
+
+"Oh, ah," said Archie, interested. "Home-brew, what?"
+
+"Made with these hands. I added a few more raisins yesterday, to
+speed things up a bit. There is much virtue in your raisin. And,
+talking of speeding things up, for goodness' sake try to be a bit
+more punctual to-morrow. We lost an hour of good daylight to-day."
+
+"I like that! I was here on the absolute minute. I had to hang about
+on the landing waiting for you."
+
+"Well, well, that doesn't matter," said J. B. Wheeler, impatiently,
+for the artist soul is always annoyed by petty details. "The point
+is that we were an hour late in getting to work. Mind you're here
+to-morrow at eleven sharp."
+
+It was, therefore, with a feeling of guilt and trepidation that
+Archie mounted the stairs on the following morning; for in spite of
+his good resolutions he was half an hour behind time. He was
+relieved to find that his friend had also lagged by the wayside. The
+door of the studio was ajar, and he went in, to discover the place
+occupied by a lady of mature years, who was scrubbing the floor with
+a mop. He went into the bedroom and donned his bathing suit. When he
+emerged, ten minutes later, the charwoman had gone, but J. B.
+Wheeler was still absent. Rather glad of the respite, he sat down to
+kill time by reading the morning paper, whose sporting page alone he
+had managed to master at the breakfast table.
+
+There was not a great deal in the paper to interest him. The usual
+bond-robbery had taken place on the previous day, and the police
+were reported hot on the trail of the Master-Mind who was alleged to
+be at the back of these financial operations. A messenger named
+Henry Babcock had been arrested and was expected to become
+confidential. To one who, like Archie, had never owned a bond, the
+story made little appeal. He turned with more interest to a cheery
+half-column on the activities of a gentleman in Minnesota who, with
+what seemed to Archie, as he thought of Mr. Daniel Brewster, a good
+deal of resource and public spirit, had recently beaned his father-
+in-law with the family meat-axe. It was only after he had read this
+through twice in a spirit of gentle approval that it occurred to him
+that J. B. Wheeler was uncommonly late at the tryst. He looked at
+his watch, and found that he had been in the studio three-quarters
+of an hour.
+
+Archie became restless. Long-suffering old bean though he was, he
+considered this a bit thick. He got up and went out on to the
+landing, to see if there were any signs of the blighter. There were
+none. He began to understand now what had happened. For some reason
+or other the bally artist was not coming to the studio at all that
+day. Probably he had called up the hotel and left a message to this
+effect, and Archie had just missed it. Another man might have waited
+to make certain that his message had reached its destination, but
+not woollen-headed Wheeler, the most casual individual in New York.
+
+Thoroughly aggrieved, Archie turned back to the studio to dress and
+go away.
+
+His progress was stayed by a solid, forbidding slab of oak. Somehow
+or other, since he had left the room, the door had managed to get
+itself shut.
+
+"Oh, dash it!" said Archie.
+
+The mildness of the expletive was proof that the full horror of the
+situation had not immediately come home to him. His mind in the
+first few moments was occupied with the problem of how the door had
+got that way. He could not remember shutting it. Probably he had
+done it unconsciously. As a child, he had been taught by sedulous
+elders that the little gentleman always closed doors behind him, and
+presumably his subconscious self was still under the influence. And
+then, suddenly, he realised that this infernal, officious ass of a
+subconscious self had deposited him right in the gumbo. Behind that
+closed door, unattainable as youthful ambition, lay his gent's
+heather-mixture with the green twill, and here he was, out in the
+world, alone, in a lemon-coloured bathing suit.
+
+In all crises of human affairs there are two broad courses open to a
+man. He can stay where he is or he can go elsewhere. Archie, leaning
+on the banisters, examined these alternatives narrowly. If he stayed
+where he was he would have to spend the night on this dashed
+landing. If he legged it, in this kit, he would be gathered up by
+the constabulary before he had gone a hundred yards. He was no
+pessimist, but he was reluctantly forced to the conclusion that he
+was up against it.
+
+It was while he was musing with a certain tenseness on these things
+that the sound of footsteps came to him from below. But almost in
+the first instant the hope that this might be J. B. Wheeler, the
+curse of the human race, died away. Whoever was coming up the stairs
+was running, and J. B. Wheeler never ran upstairs. He was not one of
+your lean, haggard, spiritual-looking geniuses. He made a large
+income with his brush and pencil, and spent most of it in creature
+comforts. This couldn't be J. B. Wheeler.
+
+It was not. It was a tall, thin man whom he had never seen before.
+He appeared to be in a considerable hurry. He let himself into the
+studio on the floor below, and vanished without even waiting to shut
+the door.
+
+He had come and disappeared in almost record time, but, brief though
+his passing had been, it had been long enough to bring consolation
+to Archie. A sudden bright light had been vouchsafed to Archie, and
+he now saw an admirably ripe and fruity scheme for ending his
+troubles. What could be simpler than to toddle down one flight of
+stairs and in an easy and debonair manner ask the chappie's
+permission to use his telephone? And what could be simpler, once he
+was at the 'phone, than to get in touch with somebody at the
+Cosmopolis who would send down a few trousers and what not in a kit
+bag. It was a priceless solution, thought Archie, as he made his way
+downstairs. Not even embarrassing, he meant to say. This chappie,
+living in a place like this, wouldn't bat an eyelid at the spectacle
+of a fellow trickling about the place in a bathing suit. They would
+have a good laugh about the whole thing.
+
+"I say, I hate to bother you--dare say you're busy and all that sort
+of thing--but would you mind if I popped in for half a second and
+used your 'phone?"
+
+That was the speech, the extremely gentlemanly and well-phrased
+speech. Which Archie had prepared to deliver the moment the man
+appeared. The reason he did not deliver it was that the man did not
+appear. He knocked, but nothing stirred.
+
+"I say!"
+
+Archie now perceived that the door was ajar, and that on an envelope
+attached with a tack to one of the panels was the name "Elmer M.
+Moon" He pushed the door a little farther open and tried again.
+
+"Oh, Mr. Moon! Mr. Moon!" He waited a moment. "Oh, Mr. Moon! Mr.
+Moon! Are you there, Mr. Moon?"
+
+He blushed hotly. To his sensitive ear the words had sounded exactly
+like the opening line of the refrain of a vaudeville song-hit. He
+decided to waste no further speech on a man with such an unfortunate
+surname until he could see him face to face and get a chance of
+lowering his voice a bit. Absolutely absurd to stand outside a
+chappie's door singing song-hits in a lemon-coloured bathing suit.
+He pushed the door open and walked in; and his subconscious self,
+always the gentleman, closed it gently behind him.
+
+"Up!" said a low, sinister, harsh, unfriendly, and unpleasant voice.
+
+"Eh?" said Archie, revolving sharply on his axis.
+
+He found himself confronting the hurried gentleman who had run
+upstairs. This sprinter had produced an automatic pistol, and was
+pointing it in a truculent manner at his head. Archie stared at his
+host, and his host stared at him.
+
+"Put your hands up," he said.
+
+"Oh, right-o! Absolutely!" said Archie. "But I mean to say--"
+
+The other was drinking him in with considerable astonishment.
+Archie's costume seemed to have made a powerful impression upon him.
+
+"Who the devil are you?" he enquired.
+
+"Me? Oh, my name's--"
+
+"Never mind your name. What are you doing here?"
+
+"Well, as a matter of fact, I popped in to ask if I might use your
+'phone. You see--"
+
+A certain relief seemed to temper the austerity of the other's gaze.
+As a visitor, Archie, though surprising, seemed to be better than he
+had expected.
+
+"I don't know what to do with you," he said, meditatively.
+
+"If you'd just let me toddle to the 'phone--"
+
+"Likely!" said the man. He appeared to reach a decision. "Here, go
+into that room."
+
+He indicated with a jerk of his head the open door of what was
+apparently a bedroom at the farther end of the studio.
+
+"I take it," said Archie, chattily, "that all this may seem to you
+not a little rummy."
+
+"Get on!"
+
+"I was only saying--"
+
+"Well, I haven't time to listen. Get a move on!"
+
+The bedroom was in a state of untidiness which eclipsed anything
+which Archie had ever witnessed. The other appeared to be moving
+house. Bed, furniture, and floor were covered with articles of
+clothing. A silk shirt wreathed itself about Archie's ankles as he
+stood gaping, and, as he moved farther into the room, his path was
+paved with ties and collars.
+
+"Sit down!" said Elmer M. Moon, abruptly.
+
+"Right-o! Thanks," said Archie, "I suppose you wouldn't like me to
+explain, and what not, what?"
+
+"No!" said Mr. Moon. "I haven't got your spare time. Put your hands
+behind that chair."
+
+Archie did so, and found them immediately secured by what felt like
+a silk tie. His assiduous host then proceeded to fasten his ankles
+in a like manner. This done, he seemed to feel that he had done all
+that was required of him, and he returned to the packing of a large
+suitcase which stood by the window.
+
+"I say!" said Archie.
+
+Mr. Moon, with the air of a man who has remembered something which
+he had overlooked, shoved a sock in his guest's mouth and resumed
+his packing. He was what might be called an impressionist packer.
+His aim appeared to be speed rather than neatness. He bundled his
+belongings in, closed the bag with some difficulty, and, stepping to
+the window, opened it. Then he climbed out on to the fire-escape,
+dragged the suit-case after him, and was gone.
+
+Archie, left alone, addressed himself to the task of freeing his
+prisoned limbs. The job proved much easier than he had expected. Mr.
+Moon, that hustler, had wrought for the moment, not for all time. A
+practical man, he had been content to keep his visitor shackled
+merely for such a period as would permit him to make his escape
+unhindered. In less than ten minutes Archie, after a good deal of
+snake-like writhing, was pleased to discover that the thingummy
+attached to his wrists had loosened sufficiently to enable him to
+use his hands. He untied himself and got up.
+
+He now began to tell himself that out of evil cometh good. His
+encounter with the elusive Mr. Moon had not been an agreeable one,
+but it had had this solid advantage, that it had left him right in
+the middle of a great many clothes. And Mr. Moon, whatever his moral
+defects, had the one excellent quality of taking about the same size
+as himself. Archie, casting a covetous eye upon a tweed suit which
+lay on the bed, was on the point of climbing into the trousers when
+on the outer door of the studio there sounded a forceful knocking.
+
+"Open up here!"
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VI
+
+THE BOMB
+
+
+Archie bounded silently out into the other room and stood listening
+tensely. He was not a naturally querulous man, but he did feel at
+this point that Fate was picking on him with a somewhat undue
+severity.
+
+"In th' name av th' Law!"
+
+There are times when the best of us lose our heads. At this juncture
+Archie should undoubtedly have gone to the door, opened it,
+explained his presence in a few well-chosen words, and generally
+have passed the whole thing off with ready tact. But the thought of
+confronting a posse of police in his present costume caused him to
+look earnestly about him for a hiding-place.
+
+Up against the farther wall was a settee with a high, arching back,
+which might have been put there for that special purpose. He
+inserted himself behind this, just as a splintering crash announced
+that the Law, having gone through the formality of knocking with its
+knuckles, was now getting busy with an axe. A moment later the door
+had given way, and the room was full of trampling feet. Archie
+wedged himself against the wall with the quiet concentration of a
+clam nestling in its shell, and hoped for the best.
+
+It seemed to him that his immediate future depended for better or
+for worse entirely on the native intelligence of the Force. If they
+were the bright, alert men he hoped they were, they would see all
+that junk in the bedroom and, deducing from it that their quarry had
+stood not upon the order of his going but had hopped it, would not
+waste time in searching a presumably empty apartment. If, on the
+other hand, they were the obtuse, flat-footed persons who
+occasionally find their way into the ranks of even the most
+enlightened constabularies, they would undoubtedly shift the settee
+and drag him into a publicity from which his modest soul shrank. He
+was enchanted, therefore, a few moments later, to hear a gruff voice
+state that th' mutt had beaten it down th' fire-escape. His opinion
+of the detective abilities of the New York police force rose with a
+bound.
+
+There followed a brief council of war, which, as it took place in
+the bedroom, was inaudible to Archie except as a distant growling
+noise. He could distinguish no words, but, as it was succeeded by a
+general trampling of large boots in the direction of the door and
+then by silence, he gathered that the pack, having drawn the studio
+and found it empty, had decided to return to other and more
+profitable duties. He gave them a reasonable interval for removing
+themselves, and then poked his head cautiously over the settee.
+
+All was peace. The place was empty. No sound disturbed the
+stillness.
+
+Archie emerged. For the first time in this morning of disturbing
+occurrences he began to feel that God was in his heaven and all
+right with the world. At last things were beginning to brighten up a
+bit, and life might be said to have taken on some of the aspects of
+a good egg. He stretched himself, for it is cramping work lying
+under settees, and, proceeding to the bedroom, picked up the tweed
+trousers again.
+
+Clothes had a fascination for Archie. Another man, in similar
+circumstances, might have hurried over his toilet; but Archie, faced
+by a difficult choice of ties, rather strung the thing out. He
+selected a specimen which did great credit to the taste of Mr. Moon,
+evidently one of our snappiest dressers, found that it did not
+harmonise with the deeper meaning of the tweed suit, removed it,
+chose another, and was adjusting the bow and admiring the effect,
+when his attention was diverted by a slight sound which was half a
+cough and half a sniff; and, turning, found himself gazing into the
+clear blue eyes of a large man in uniform, who had stepped into the
+room from the fire-escape. He was swinging a substantial club in a
+negligent sort of way, and he looked at Archie with a total absence
+of bonhomie.
+
+"Ah!" he observed.
+
+"Oh, THERE you are!" said Archie, subsiding weakly against the chest
+of drawers. He gulped. "Of course, I can see you're thinking all
+this pretty tolerably weird and all that," he proceeded, in a
+propitiatory voice.
+
+The policeman attempted no analysis of his emotions, He opened a
+mouth which a moment before had looked incapable of being opened
+except with the assistance of powerful machinery, and shouted a
+single word.
+
+"Cassidy!"
+
+A distant voice gave tongue in answer. It was like alligators
+roaring to their mates across lonely swamps.
+
+There was a rumble of footsteps in the region of the stairs, and
+presently there entered an even larger guardian of the Law than the
+first exhibit. He, too, swung a massive club, and, like his
+colleague, he gazed frostily at Archie.
+
+"God save Ireland!" he remarked.
+
+The words appeared to be more in the nature of an expletive than a
+practical comment on the situation. Having uttered them, he draped
+himself in the doorway like a colossus, and chewed gum.
+
+"Where ja get him?" he enquired, after a pause.
+
+"Found him in here attimpting to disguise himself."
+
+"I told Cap. he was hiding somewheres, but he would have it that
+he'd beat it down th' escape," said the gum-chewer, with the sombre
+triumph of the underling whose sound advice has been overruled by
+those above him. He shifted his wholesome (or, as some say,
+unwholesome) morsel to the other side of his mouth, and for the
+first time addressed Archie directly. "Ye're pinched!" he observed.
+
+Archie started violently. The bleak directness of the speech roused
+him with a jerk from the dream-like state into which he had fallen.
+He had not anticipated this. He had assumed that there would be a
+period of tedious explanations to be gone through before he was at
+liberty to depart to the cosy little lunch for which his interior
+had been sighing wistfully this long time past; but that he should
+be arrested had been outside his calculations. Of course, he could
+put everything right eventually; he could call witnesses to his
+character and the purity of his intentions; but in the meantime the
+whole dashed business would be in all the papers, embellished with
+all those unpleasant flippancies to which your newspaper reporter is
+so prone to stoop when he sees half a chance. He would feel a
+frightful chump. Chappies would rot him about it to the most fearful
+extent. Old Brewster's name would come into it, and he could not
+disguise it from himself that his father-in-law, who liked his name
+in the papers as little as possible, would be sorer than a sunburned
+neck.
+
+"No, I say, you know! I mean, I mean to say!"
+
+"Pinched!" repeated the rather larger policeman.
+
+"And annything ye say," added his slightly smaller colleague, "will
+be used agenst ya 't the trial."
+
+"And if ya try t'escape," said the first speaker, twiddling his
+club, "ya'll getja block knocked off."
+
+And, having sketched out this admirably clear and neatly-constructed
+scenario, the two relapsed into silence. Officer Cassidy restored
+his gum to circulation. Officer Donahue frowned sternly at his
+boots.
+
+"But, I say," said Archie, "it's all a mistake, you know. Absolutely
+a frightful error, my dear old constables. I'm not the lad you're
+after at all. The chappie you want is a different sort of fellow
+altogether. Another blighter entirely."
+
+New York policemen never laugh when on duty. There is probably
+something in the regulations against it. But Officer Donahue
+permitted the left corner of his mouth to twitch slightly, and a
+momentary muscular spasm disturbed the calm of Officer Cassidy's
+granite features, as a passing breeze ruffles the surface of some
+bottomless lake.
+
+"That's what they all say!" observed Officer Donahue.
+
+"It's no use tryin' that line of talk," said Officer Cassidy.
+"Babcock's squealed."
+
+"Sure. Squealed 's morning," said Officer Donahue.
+
+Archie's memory stirred vaguely.
+
+"Babcock?" he said. "Do you know, that name seems familiar to me,
+somehow. I'm almost sure I've read it in the paper or something."
+
+"Ah, cut it out!" said Officer Cassidy, disgustedly. The two
+constables exchanged a glance of austere disapproval. This hypocrisy
+pained them. "Read it in th' paper or something!"
+
+"By Jove! I remember now. He's the chappie who was arrested in that
+bond business. For goodness' sake, my dear, merry old constables,"
+said Archie, astounded, "you surely aren't labouring under the
+impression that I'm the Master-Mind they were talking about in the
+paper? Why, what an absolutely priceless notion! I mean to say, I
+ask you, what! Frankly, laddies, do I look like a Master-Mind?"
+
+Officer Cassidy heaved a deep sigh, which rumbled up from his
+interior like the first muttering of a cyclone.
+
+"If I'd known," he said, regretfully, "that this guy was going to
+turn out a ruddy Englishman, I'd have taken a slap at him with m'
+stick and chanced it!"
+
+Officer Donahue considered the point well taken.
+
+"Ah!" he said, understandingly. He regarded Archie with an
+unfriendly eye. "I know th' sort well! Trampling on th' face av th'
+poor!"
+
+"Ya c'n trample on the poor man's face," said Officer Cassidy,
+severely; "but don't be surprised if one day he bites you in the
+leg!"
+
+"But, my dear old sir," protested Archie, "I've never trampled--"
+
+"One of these days," said Officer Donahue, moodily, "the Shannon
+will flow in blood to the sea!"
+
+"Absolutely! But--"
+
+Officer Cassidy uttered a glad cry.
+
+"Why couldn't we hit him a lick," he suggested, brightly, "an' tell
+th' Cap. he resisted us in th' exercise of our jooty?"
+
+An instant gleam of approval and enthusiasm came into Officer
+Donahue's eyes. Officer Donahue was not a man who got these luminous
+inspirations himself, but that did not prevent him appreciating them
+in others and bestowing commendation in the right quarter. There was
+nothing petty or grudging about Officer Donahue.
+
+"Ye're the lad with the head, Tim!" he exclaimed admiringly.
+
+"It just sorta came to me," said Mr. Cassidy, modestly.
+
+"It's a great idea, Timmy!"
+
+"Just happened to think of it," said Mr. Cassidy, with a coy gesture
+of self-effacement.
+
+Archie had listened to the dialogue with growing uneasiness. Not for
+the first time since he had made their acquaintance, he became
+vividly aware of the exceptional physical gifts of these two men.
+The New York police force demands from those who would join its
+ranks an extremely high standard of stature and sinew, but it was
+obvious that jolly old Donahue and Cassidy must have passed in first
+shot without any difficulty whatever.
+
+"I say, you know," he observed, apprehensively.
+
+And then a sharp and commanding voice spoke from the outer room.
+
+"Donahue! Cassidy! What the devil does this mean?"
+
+Archie had a momentary impression that an angel had fluttered down
+to his rescue. If this was the case, the angel had assumed an
+effective disguise--that of a police captain. The new arrival was a
+far smaller man than his subordinates--so much smaller that it did
+Archie good to look at him. For a long time he had been wishing that
+it were possible to rest his eyes with the spectacle of something of
+a slightly less out-size nature than his two companions.
+
+"Why have you left your posts?"
+
+The effect of the interruption on the Messrs. Cassidy and Donahue
+was pleasingly instantaneous. They seemed to shrink to almost normal
+proportions, and their manner took on an attractive deference.
+
+Officer Donahue saluted.
+
+"If ye plaze, sorr--"
+
+Officer Cassidy also saluted, simultaneously.
+
+"'Twas like this, sorr--"
+
+The captain froze Officer Cassidy with a glance and, leaving him
+congealed, turned to Officer Donahue.
+
+"Oi wuz standing on th' fire-escape, sorr," said Officer Donahue, in
+a tone of obsequious respect which not only delighted, but astounded
+Archie, who hadn't known he could talk like that, "accordin' to
+instructions, when I heard a suspicious noise. I crope in, sorr, and
+found this duck--found the accused, sorr--in front of the mirror,
+examinin' himself. I then called to Officer Cassidy for assistance.
+We pinched--arrested um, sorr."
+
+The captain looked at Archie. It seemed to Archie that he looked at
+him coldly and with contempt.
+
+"Who is he?"
+
+"The Master-Mind, sorr."
+
+"The what?"
+
+"The accused, sorr. The man that's wanted."
+
+"You may want him. I don't," said the captain. Archie, though
+relieved, thought he might have put it more nicely. "This isn't
+Moon. It's not a bit like him."
+
+"Absolutely not!" agreed Archie, cordially. "It's all a mistake, old
+companion, as I was trying to--"
+
+"Cut it out!"
+
+"Ob, right-o!"
+
+"You've seen the photographs at the station. Do you mean to tell me
+you see any resemblance?"
+
+"If ye plaze, sorr," said Officer Cassidy, coming to life.
+
+"Well?"
+
+"We thought he'd bin disguising himself, the way he wouldn't be
+recognised."
+
+"You're a fool!" said the captain.
+
+"Yes, sorr," said Officer Cassidy, meekly.
+
+"So are you, Donahue."
+
+"Yes, sorr."
+
+Archie's respect for this chappie was going up all the time. He
+seemed to be able to take years off the lives of these massive
+blighters with a word. It was like the stories you read about lion-
+tamers. Archie did not despair of seeing Officer Donahue and his old
+college chum Cassidy eventually jumping through hoops.
+
+"Who are you?" demanded the captain, turning to Archie.
+
+"Well, my name is--"
+
+"What are you doing here?"
+
+"Well, it's rather a longish story, you know. Don't want to bore
+you, and all that."
+
+"I'm here to listen. You can't bore ME."
+
+"Dashed nice of you to put it like that," said Archie, gratefully.
+"I mean to say, makes it easier and so forth. What I mean is, you
+know how rotten you feel telling the deuce of a long yarn and
+wondering if the party of the second part is wishing you would turn
+off the tap and go home. I mean--"
+
+"If," said the captain, "you're reciting something, stop. If you're
+trying to tell me what you're doing here, make it shorter and
+easier."
+
+Archie saw his point. Of course, time was money--the modern spirit
+of hustle--all that sort of thing.
+
+"Well, it was this bathing suit, you know," he said.
+
+"What bathing suit?"
+
+"Mine, don't you know, A lemon-coloured contrivance. Rather bright
+and so forth, but in its proper place not altogether a bad egg.
+Well, the whole thing started, you know, with my standing on a bally
+pedestal sort of arrangement in a diving attitude--for the cover,
+you know. I don't know if you have ever done anything of that kind
+yourself, but it gives you a most fearful crick in the spine.
+However, that's rather beside the point, I suppose--don't know why I
+mentioned it. Well, this morning he was dashed late, so I went out--"
+
+"What the devil are you talking about?"
+
+Archie looked at him, surprised.
+
+"Aren't I making it clear?"
+
+"No."
+
+"Well, you understand about the bathing suit, don't you? The jolly
+old bathing suit, you've grasped that, what?"
+
+"No."
+
+"Oh, I say," said Archie. "That's rather a nuisance. I mean to say,
+the bathing suit's what you might call the good old pivot of the
+whole dashed affair, you see. Well, you understand about the cover,
+what? You're pretty clear on the subject of the cover?"
+
+"What cover?"
+
+"Why, for the magazine."
+
+"What magazine?"
+
+"Now there you rather have me. One of these bright little
+periodicals, you know, that you see popping to and fro on the
+bookstalls."
+
+"I don't know what you're talking about," said the captain. He
+looked at Archie with an expression of distrust and hostility. "And
+I'll tell you straight out I don't like the looks of you. I believe
+you're a pal of his."
+
+"No longer," said Archie, firmly. "I mean to say, a chappie who
+makes you stand on a bally pedestal sort of arrangement and get a
+crick in the spine, and then doesn't turn up and leaves you biffing
+all over the countryside in a bathing suit--"
+
+The reintroduction of the bathing suit motive seemed to have the
+worst effect on the captain. He flushed darkly.
+
+"Are you trying to josh me? I've a mind to soak you!"
+
+"If ye plaze, sorr," cried Officer Donahue and Officer Cassidy in
+chorous. In the course of their professional career they did not
+often hear their superior make many suggestions with which they saw
+eye to eye, but he had certainly, in their opinion, spoken a
+mouthful now.
+
+"No, honestly, my dear old thing, nothing was farther from my
+thoughts--"
+
+He would have spoken further, but at this moment the world came to
+an end. At least, that was how it sounded. Somewhere in the
+immediate neighbourhood something went off with a vast explosion,
+shattering the glass in the window, peeling the plaster from the
+ceiling, and sending him staggering into the inhospitable arms of
+Officer Donahue.
+
+The three guardians of the Law stared at one another.
+
+"If ye plaze, sorr," said. Officer Cassidy, saluting.
+
+"Well?"
+
+"May I spake, sorr?"
+
+"Well?"
+
+"Something's exploded, sorr!"
+
+The information, kindly meant though it was, seemed to annoy the
+captain.
+
+"What the devil did you think I thought had happened?" he demanded,
+with not a little irritation, "It was a bomb!"
+
+Archie could have corrected this diagnosis, for already a faint but
+appealing aroma of an alcoholic nature was creeping into the room
+through a hole in the ceiling, and there had risen before his eyes
+the picture of J. B. Wheeler affectionately regarding that barrel of
+his on the previous morning in the studio upstairs. J. B. Wheeler
+had wanted quick results, and he had got them. Archie had long since
+ceased to regard J. B. Wheeler as anything but a tumour on the
+social system, but he was bound to admit that he had certainly done
+him a good turn now. Already these honest men, diverted by the
+superior attraction of this latest happening, appeared to have
+forgotten his existence.
+
+"Sorr!" said Officer Donahue.
+
+"Well?"
+
+"It came from upstairs, sorr."
+
+"Of course it came from upstairs. Cassidy!"
+
+"Sorr?"
+
+"Get down into the street, call up the reserves, and stand at the
+front entrance to keep the crowd back. We'll have the whole city
+here in five minutes."
+
+"Right, sorr."
+
+"Don't let anyone in."
+
+"No, sorr."
+
+"Well, see that you don't. Come along, Donahue, now. Look slippy."
+
+"On the spot, sorr!" said Officer Donahue.
+
+A moment later Archie had the studio to himself. Two minutes later
+he was picking his way cautiously down the fire-escape after the
+manner of the recent Mr. Moon. Archie had not seen much of Mr. Moon,
+but he had seen enough to know that in certain crises his methods
+were sound and should be followed. Elmer Moon was not a good man;
+his ethics were poor and his moral code shaky; but in the matter of
+legging it away from a situation of peril and discomfort he had no
+superior.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VII
+
+MR. ROSCOE SHERRIFF HAS AN IDEA
+
+
+Archie inserted a fresh cigarette in his long holder and began to
+smoke a little moodily. It was about a week after his disturbing
+adventures in J. B. Wheeler's studio, and life had ceased for the
+moment to be a thing of careless enjoyment. Mr. Wheeler, mourning
+over his lost home-brew and refusing, like Niobe, to be comforted,
+has suspended the sittings for the magazine cover, thus robbing
+Archie of his life-work. Mr. Brewster had not been in genial mood of
+late. And, in addition to all this, Lucille was away on a visit to a
+school-friend. And when Lucille went away, she took with her the
+sunshine. Archie was not surprised at her being popular and in
+demand among her friends, but that did not help him to become
+reconciled to her absence.
+
+He gazed rather wistfully across the table at his friend, Roscoe
+Sherriff, the Press-agent, another of his Pen-and-Ink Club
+acquaintances. They had just finished lunch, and during the meal
+Sherriff, who, like most men of action, was fond of hearing the
+sound of his own voice and liked exercising it on the subject of
+himself, had been telling Archie a few anecdotes about his
+professional past. From these the latter had conceived a picture of
+Roscoe Sherriff's life as a prismatic thing of energy and adventure
+and well-paid withal--just the sort of life, in fact, which he would
+have enjoyed leading himself. He wished that he, too, like the
+Press-agent, could go about the place "slipping things over" and
+"putting things across." Daniel Brewster, he felt, would have beamed
+upon a son-in-law like Roscoe Sherriff.
+
+"The more I see of America," sighed Archie, "the more it amazes me.
+All you birds seem to have been doing things from the cradle
+upwards. I wish I could do things!"
+
+"Well, why don't you?"
+
+Archie flicked the ash from his cigarette into the finger-bowl.
+
+"Oh, I don't know, you know," he said, "Somehow, none of our family
+ever have. I don't know why it is, but whenever a Moffam starts out
+to do things he infallibly makes a bloomer. There was a Moffam in
+the Middle Ages who had a sudden spasm of energy and set out to make
+a pilgrimage to Jerusalem, dressed as a wandering friar. Rum ideas
+they had in those days."
+
+"Did he get there?"
+
+"Absolutely not! Just as he was leaving the front door his favourite
+hound mistook him for a tramp--or a varlet, or a scurvy knave, or
+whatever they used to call them at that time--and bit him in the
+fleshy part of the leg."
+
+"Well, at least he started."
+
+"Enough to make a chappie start, what?"
+
+Roscoe Sherriff sipped his coffee thoughtfully. He was an apostle of
+Energy, and it seemed to him that he could make a convert of Archie
+and incidentally do himself a bit of good. For several days he had
+been, looking for someone like Archie to help him in a small matter
+which he had in mind.
+
+"If you're really keen on doing things," he said, "there's something
+you can do for me right away."
+
+Archie beamed. Action was what his soul demanded.
+
+"Anything, dear boy, anything! State your case!"
+
+"Would you have any objection to putting up a snake for me?"
+
+"Putting up a snake?"
+
+"Just for a day or two."
+
+"But how do you mean, old soul? Put him up where?"
+
+"Wherever you live. Where do you live? The Cosmopolis, isn't it? Of
+course! You married old Brewster's daughter. I remember reading
+about it."
+
+"But, I say, laddie, I don't want to spoil your day and disappoint
+you and so forth, but my jolly old father-in-law would never let me
+keep a snake. Why, it's as much as I can do to make him let me stop
+on in the place."
+
+"He wouldn't know."
+
+"There's not much that goes on in the hotel that he doesn't know,"
+said Archie, doubtfully.
+
+"He mustn't know. The whole point of the thing is that it must be a
+dead secret."
+
+Archie flicked some more ash into the finger-bowl.
+
+"I don't seem absolutely to have grasped the affair in all its
+aspects, if you know what I mean," he said. "I mean to say--in the
+first place--why would it brighten your young existence if I
+entertained this snake of yours?"
+
+"It's not mine. It belongs to Mme. Brudowska. You've heard of her,
+of course?"
+
+"Oh yes. She's some sort of performing snake female in vaudeville or
+something, isn't she, or something of that species or order?"
+
+"You're near it, but not quite right. She is the leading exponent of
+high-brow tragedy on any stage in the civilized world."
+
+"Absolutely! I remember now. My wife lugged me to see her perform
+one night. It all comes back to me. She had me wedged in an
+orchestra-stall before I knew what I was up against, and then it was
+too late. I remember reading in some journal or other that she had a
+pet snake, given her by some Russian prince or other, what?"
+
+"That," said Sherriff, "was the impression I intended to convey when
+I sent the story to the papers. I'm her Press-agent. As a matter of
+fact, I bought Peter-its name's Peter-myself down on the East Side.
+I always believe in animals for Press-agent stunts. I've nearly
+always had good results. But with Her Nibs I'm handicapped.
+Shackled, so to speak. You might almost say my genius is stifled. Or
+strangled, if you prefer it,"
+
+"Anything you say," agreed Archie, courteously, "But how? Why is
+your what-d'you-call-it what's-its-named?"
+
+"She keeps me on a leash. She won't let me do anything with a kick
+in it. If I've suggested one rip-snorting stunt, I've suggested
+twenty, and every time she turns them down on the ground that that
+sort of thing is beneath the dignity of an artist in her position.
+It doesn't give a fellow a chance. So now I've made up my mind to do
+her good by stealth. I'm going to steal her snake."
+
+"Steal it? Pinch it, as it were?"
+
+"Yes. Big story for the papers, you see. She's grown very much
+attached to Peter. He's her mascot. I believe she's practically
+kidded herself into believing that Russian prince story. If I can
+sneak it away and keep it away for a day or two, she'll do the rest.
+She'll make such a fuss that the papers will be full of it."
+
+"I see."
+
+"Wow, any ordinary woman would work in with me. But not Her Nibs.
+She would call it cheap and degrading and a lot of other things.
+It's got to be a genuine steal, and, if I'm caught at it, I lose my
+job. So that's where you come in."
+
+"But where am I to keep the jolly old reptile?"
+
+"Oh, anywhere. Punch a few holes in a hat-box, and make it up a
+shakedown inside. It'll be company for you."
+
+"Something in that. My wife's away just now and it's a bit lonely in
+the evenings."
+
+"You'll never be lonely with Peter around. He's a great scout.
+Always merry and bright"
+
+"He doesn't bite, I suppose, or sting or what-not?"
+
+"He may what-not occasionally. It depends on the weather. But,
+outside of that, he's as harmless as a canary."
+
+"Dashed dangerous things, canaries," said Archie, thoughtfully.
+"They peck at you."
+
+"Don't weaken!" pleaded the Press-agent
+
+"Oh, all right. I'll take him. By the way, touching the matter of
+browsing and sluicing. What do I feed him on?"
+
+"Oh, anything. Bread-and-milk or fruit or soft-boiled egg or dog-
+biscuit or ants'-eggs. You know--anything you have yourself. Well,
+I'm much obliged for your hospitality. I'll do the same for you
+another time. Now I must be getting along to see to the practical
+end of the thing. By the way, Her Nibs lives at the Cosmopolis, too.
+Very convenient. Well, so long. See you later."
+
+Archie, left alone, began for the first time to have serious doubts.
+He had allowed himself to be swayed by Mr. Sherriff's magnetic
+personality, but now that the other had removed himself he began to
+wonder if he had been entirely wise to lend his sympathy and co-
+operation to the scheme. He had never had intimate dealings with a
+snake before, but he had kept silkworms as a child, and there had
+been the deuce of a lot of fuss and unpleasantness over them.
+Getting into the salad and what-not. Something seemed to tell him
+that he was asking for trouble with a loud voice, but he had given
+his word and he supposed he would have to go through with it.
+
+He lit another cigarette and wandered out into Fifth Avenue. His
+usually smooth brow was ruffled with care. Despite the eulogies
+which Sherriff had uttered concerning Peter, he found his doubts
+increasing. Peter might, as the Press-agent had stated, be a great
+scout, but was his little Garden of Eden on the fifth floor of the
+Cosmopolis Hotel likely to be improved by the advent of even the
+most amiable and winsome of serpents? However--
+
+"Moffam! My dear fellow!"
+
+The voice, speaking suddenly in his ear from behind, roused Archie
+from his reflections. Indeed, it roused him so effectually that he
+jumped a clear inch off the ground and bit his tongue. Revolving on
+his axis, he found himself confronting a middle-aged man with a face
+like a horse. The man was dressed in something of an old-world
+style. His clothes had an English cut. He had a drooping grey
+moustache. He also wore a grey bowler hat flattened at the crown--
+but who are we to judge him?
+
+"Archie Moffam! I have been trying to find you all the morning."
+
+Archie had placed him now. He had not seen General Mannister for
+several years--not, indeed, since the days when he used to meet him
+at the home of young Lord Seacliff, his nephew. Archie had been at
+Eton and Oxford with Seacliff, and had often visited him in the Long
+Vacation.
+
+"Halloa, General! What ho, what ho! What on earth are you doing over
+here?"
+
+"Let's get out of this crush, my boy." General Mannister steered
+Archie into a side-street, "That's better." He cleared his throat
+once or twice, as if embarrassed. "I've brought Seacliff over," he
+said, finally.
+
+"Dear old Squiffy here? Oh, I say! Great work!"
+
+General Mannister did not seem to share his enthusiasm. He looked
+like a horse with a secret sorrow. He coughed three times, like a
+horse who, in addition to a secret sorrow, had contracted asthma.
+
+"You will find Seacliff changed," he said. "Let me see, how long is
+it since you and he met?"
+
+Archie reflected.
+
+"I was demobbed just about a year ago. I saw him in Paris about a
+year before that. The old egg got a bit of shrapnel in his foot or
+something, didn't he? Anyhow, I remember he was sent home."
+
+"His foot is perfectly well again now. But, unfortunately, the
+enforced inaction led to disastrous results. You recollect, no
+doubt, that Seacliff always had a--a tendency;--a--a weakness--it
+was a family failing--"
+
+"Mopping it up, do you mean? Shifting it? Looking on the jolly old
+stuff when it was red and what not, what?"
+
+"Exactly."
+
+Archie nodded.
+
+"Dear old Squiffy was always rather-a lad for the wassail-bowl. When
+I met him in Paris, I remember, he was quite tolerably blotto."
+
+"Precisely. And the failing has, I regret to say, grown on him since
+he returned from the war. My poor sister was extremely worried. In
+fact, to cut a long story short, I induced him to accompany me to
+America. I am attached to the British Legation in Washington now,
+you know."
+
+"Oh, really?"
+
+"I wished Seacliff to come with me to Washington, but he insists on
+remaining in New York. He stated specifically that the thought of
+living in Washington gave him the--what was the expression he used?"
+
+"The pip?"
+
+"The pip. Precisely."
+
+"But what was the idea of bringing him to America?"
+
+"This admirable Prohibition enactment has rendered America--to my
+mind--the ideal place for a young man of his views." The General
+looked at his watch. "It is most fortunate that I happened to run
+into you, my dear fellow. My train for Washington leaves in another
+hour, and I have packing to do. I want to leave poor Seacliff in
+your charge while I am gone."
+
+"Oh, I say! What!"
+
+"You can look after him. I am credibly informed that even now there
+are places in New York where a determined young man may obtain the--
+er--stuff, and I should be infinitely obliged--and my poor sister
+would be infinitely grateful--if you would keep an eye on him." He
+hailed a taxi-cab. "I am sending Seacliff round to the Cosmopolis
+to-night. I am sure you, will do everything you can. Good-bye, my
+boy, good-bye."
+
+Archie continued his walk. This, he felt, was beginning to be a bit
+thick. He smiled a bitter, mirthless smile as he recalled the fact
+that less than half an hour had elapsed since he had expressed a
+regret that he did not belong to the ranks of those who do things.
+Fate since then had certainly supplied him with jobs with a lavish
+hand. By bed-time he would be an active accomplice to a theft, valet
+and companion to a snake he had never met, and--as far as could
+gather the scope of his duties--a combination of nursemaid and
+private detective to dear old Squiffy.
+
+It was past four o'clock when he returned to the Cosmopolis. Roscoe
+Sherriff was pacing the lobby of the hotel nervously, carrying a
+small hand-bag.
+
+"Here you are at last! Good heavens, man, I've been waiting two
+hours."
+
+"Sorry, old bean. I was musing a bit and lost track of the time."
+
+The Press-agent looked cautiously round. There was nobody within
+earshot.
+
+"Here he is!" he said.
+
+"Who?"
+
+"Peter."
+
+"Where?" said Archie, staring blankly.
+
+"In this bag. Did you expect to find him strolling arm-in-arm with
+me round the lobby? Here you are! Take him!"
+
+He was gone. And Archie, holding the bag, made his way to the lift.
+The bag squirmed gently in his grip.
+
+The only other occupant of the lift was a striking-looking woman of
+foreign appearance, dressed in a way that made Archie feel that she
+must be somebody or she couldn't look like that. Her face, too,
+seemed vaguely familiar. She entered the lift at the second floor
+where the tea-room is, and she had the contented expression of one
+who had tea'd to her satisfaction. She got off at the same floor as
+Archie, and walked swiftly, in a lithe, pantherist way, round the
+bend in the corridor. Archie followed more slowly. When he reached
+the door of his room, the passage was empty. He inserted the key in
+his door, turned it, pushed the door open, and pocketed the key. He
+was about to enter when the bag again squirmed gently in his grip.
+
+From the days of Pandora, through the epoch of Bluebeard's wife,
+down to the present time, one of the chief failings of humanity has
+been the disposition to open things that were better closed. It
+would have been simple for Archie to have taken another step and put
+a door between himself and the world, but there came to him the
+irresistible desire to peep into the bag now--not three seconds
+later, but now. All the way up in the lift he had been battling with
+the temptation, and now he succumbed.
+
+The bag was one of those simple bags with a thingummy which you
+press. Archie pressed it. And, as it opened, out popped the head of
+Peter. His eyes met Archie's. Over his head there seemed to be an
+invisible mark of interrogation. His gaze was curious, but kindly.
+He appeared to be saying to himself, "Have I found a friend?"
+
+Serpents, or Snakes, says the Encyclopaedia, are reptiles of the
+saurian class Ophidia, characterised by an elongated, cylindrical,
+limbless, scaly form, and distinguished from lizards by the fact
+that the halves (RAMI) of the lower jaw are not solidly united at
+the chin, but movably connected by an elastic ligament. The vertebra
+are very numerous, gastrocentrous, and procoelous. And, of course,
+when they put it like that, you can see at once that a man might
+spend hours with combined entertainment and profit just looking at a
+snake.
+
+Archie would no doubt have done this; but long before he had time
+really to inspect the halves (RAMI) of his new friend's lower jaw
+and to admire its elastic fittings, and long before the
+gastrocentrous and procoelous character of the other's vertebrae
+had made any real impression on him, a piercing scream almost at his
+elbow--startled him out of his scientific reverie. A door opposite
+had opened, and the woman of the elevator was standing staring at
+him with an expression of horror and fury that went through, him
+like a knife. It was the expression which, more than anything else,
+had made Mme. Brudowska what she was professionally. Combined with a
+deep voice and a sinuous walk, it enabled her to draw down a matter
+of a thousand dollars per week.
+
+Indeed, though the fact gave him little pleasure, Archie, as a
+matter of fact, was at this moment getting about--including war-tax
+--two dollars and seventy-five cents worth of the great emotional
+star for nothing. For, having treated him gratis to the look of
+horror and fury, she now moved towards him with the sinuous walk and
+spoke in the tone which she seldom permitted herself to use before
+the curtain of act two, unless there was a whale of a situation that
+called for it in act one.
+
+"Thief!"
+
+It was the way she said it.
+
+Archie staggered backwards as though he had been hit between the
+eyes, fell through the open door of his room, kicked it to with a
+flying foot, and collapsed on the bed. Peter, the snake, who had
+fallen on the floor with a squashy sound, looked surprised and
+pained for a moment; then, being a philosopher at heart, cheered up
+and began hunting for flies under the bureau.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VIII
+
+A DISTURBED NIGHT FOR DEAR OLD SQUIFFY
+
+
+Peril sharpens the intellect. Archie's mind as a rule worked in
+rather a languid and restful sort of way, but now it got going with
+a rush and a whir. He glared round the room. He had never seen a
+room so devoid of satisfactory cover. And then there came to him a
+scheme, a ruse. It offered a chance of escape. It was, indeed, a bit
+of all right.
+
+Peter, the snake, loafing contentedly about the carpet, found
+himself seized by what the Encyclopaedia calls the "distensible
+gullet" and looked up reproachfully. The next moment he was in his
+bag again; and Archie, bounding silently into the bathroom, was
+tearing the cord off his dressing-gown.
+
+There came a banging at the door. A voice spoke sternly. A masculine
+voice this time.
+
+"Say! Open this door!"
+
+Archie rapidly attached the dressing-gown cord to the handle of the
+bag, leaped to the window, opened it, tied the cord to a projecting
+piece of iron on the sill, lowered Peter and the bag into the
+depths, and closed the window again. The whole affair took but a few
+seconds. Generals have received the thanks of their nations for
+displaying less resource on the field of battle.
+
+He opened the-door. Outside stood the bereaved woman, and beside her
+a bullet-headed gentleman with a bowler hat on the back of his head,
+in whom Archie recognised the hotel detective.
+
+The hotel detective also recognised Archie, and the stern cast of
+his features relaxed. He even smiled a rusty but propitiatory smile.
+He imagined--erroneously--that Archie, being the son-in-law of the
+owner of the hotel, had a pull with that gentleman; and he resolved
+to proceed warily lest he jeopardise his job.
+
+"Why, Mr. Moffam!" he said, apologetically. "I didn't know it was
+you I was disturbing."
+
+"Always glad to have a chat," said Archie, cordially. "What seems to
+be the trouble?"
+
+"My snake!" cried the queen of tragedy. "Where is my snake?"
+
+Archie, looked at the detective. The detective looked at Archie.
+
+"This lady," said the detective, with a dry little cough, "thinks
+her snake is in your room, Mr. Moffam,"
+
+"Snake?"
+
+"Snake's what the lady said,"
+
+"My snake! My Peter!" Mme. Brudowska's voice shook with emotion. "He
+is here--here in this room,"
+
+Archie shook his head.
+
+"No snakes here! Absolutely not! I remember noticing when I came
+in."
+
+"The snake is here--here in this room. This man had it in a bag! I
+saw him! He is a thief!"
+
+"Easy, ma'am!" protested the detective. "Go easy! This gentleman is
+the boss's son-in-law."
+
+"I care not who he is! He has my snake! Here--' here in this room!"
+
+"Mr. Moffam wouldn't go round stealing snakes."
+
+"Rather not," said Archie. "Never stole a snake in my life. None of
+the Moffams have ever gone about stealing snakes. Regular family
+tradition! Though I once had an uncle who kept gold-fish."
+
+"Here he is! Here! My Peter!"
+
+Archie looked at the detective. The detective looked at Archie. "We
+must humour her!" their glances said.
+
+"Of course," said Archie, "if you'd like to search the room, what?
+What I mean to say is, this is Liberty Hall. Everybody welcome!
+Bring the kiddies!"
+
+"I will search the room!" said Mme. Brudowska.
+
+The detective glanced apologetically at Archie.
+
+"Don't blame me for this, Mr. Moffam," he urged.
+
+"Rather not! Only too glad you've dropped in!"
+
+He took up an easy attitude against the window, and watched the
+empress of the emotional drama explore. Presently she desisted,
+baffled. For an instant she paused, as though about to speak, then
+swept from the room. A moment later a door banged across the
+passage.
+
+"How do they get that way?" queried the detective, "Well, g'bye, Mr.
+Moffam. Sorry to have butted in."
+
+The door closed. Archie waited a few moments, then went to the
+window and hauled in the slack. Presently the bag appeared over the
+edge of the window-sill.
+
+"Good God!" said Archie.
+
+In the rush and swirl of recent events he must have omitted to see
+that the clasp that fastened the bag was properly closed; for the
+bag, as it jumped on to the window-sill, gaped at him like a yawning
+face. And inside it there was nothing.
+
+Archie leaned as far out of the window as he could manage without
+committing suicide. Far below him, the traffic took its usual course
+and the pedestrians moved to and fro upon the pavements. There was
+no crowding, no excitement. Yet only a few moments before a long
+green snake with three hundred ribs, a distensible gullet, and
+gastrocentrous vertebras must have descended on that street like the
+gentle rain from Heaven upon the place beneath. And nobody seemed
+even interested. Not for the first time since he had arrived in
+America, Archie marvelled at the cynical detachment of the New
+Yorker, who permits himself to be surprised at nothing.
+
+He shut the window and moved away with a heavy Heart. He had not had
+the pleasure of an extended acquaintanceship with Peter, but he had
+seen enough of him to realise his sterling qualities. Somewhere
+beneath Peter's three hundred ribs there had lain a heart of gold,
+and Archie mourned for his loss.
+
+Archie had a dinner and theatre engagement that night, and it was
+late when he returned to the hotel. He found his father-in-law
+prowling restlessly about the lobby. There seemed to be something on
+Mr. Brewster's mind. He came up to Archie with a brooding frown on
+his square face.
+
+"Who's this man Seacliff?" he demanded, without preamble. "I hear
+he's a friend of yours."
+
+"Oh, you've met him, what?" said Archie. "Had a nice little chat
+together, yes? Talked of this and that, no!"
+
+"We have not said a word to each other."
+
+"Really? Oh, well, dear old Squiffy is one of those strong, silent
+fellers you know. You mustn't mind if he's a bit dumb. He never says
+much, but it's whispered round the clubs that he thinks a lot. It
+was rumoured in the spring of nineteen-thirteen that Squiffy was on
+the point of making a bright remark, but it never came to anything."
+
+Mr. Brewster struggled with his feelings.
+
+"Who is he? You seem to know him."
+
+"Oh yes. Great pal of mine, Squiffy. We went through Eton, Oxford,
+and the Bankruptcy Court together. And here's a rummy coincidence.
+When they examined ME, I had no assets. And, when they examined
+Squiffy, HE had no assets! Rather extraordinary, what?"
+
+Mr. Brewster seemed to be in no mood for discussing coincidences.
+
+"I might have known he was a friend of yours!" he said, bitterly.
+"Well, if you want to see him, you'll have to do it outside my
+hotel."
+
+"Why, I thought he was stopping here."
+
+"He is--to-night. To-morrow he can look for some other hotel to
+break up."
+
+"Great Scot! Has dear old Squiffy been breaking the place up?"
+
+Mr. Brewster snorted.
+
+"I am informed that this precious friend of yours entered my grill-
+room at eight o'clock. He must have been completely intoxicated,
+though the head waiter tells me he noticed nothing at the time."
+
+Archie nodded approvingly.
+
+"Dear old Squiffy was always like that. It's a gift. However woozled
+he might be, it was impossible to detect it with the naked eye. I've
+seen the dear old chap many a time whiffled to the eyebrows, and
+looking as sober as a bishop. Soberer! When did it begin to dawn on
+the lads in the grill-room that the old egg had been pushing the
+boat out?"
+
+"The head waiter," said Mr. Brewster, with cold fury, "tells me that
+he got a hint of the man's condition when he suddenly got up from
+his table and went the round of the room, pulling off all the table-
+cloths, and breaking everything that was on them. He then threw a
+number of rolls at the diners, and left. He seems to have gone
+straight to bed."
+
+"Dashed sensible of him, what? Sound, practical chap, Squiffy. But
+where on earth did he get the--er--materials?"
+
+"From his room. I made enquiries. He has six large cases in his
+room."
+
+"Squiffy always was a chap of infinite resource! Well, I'm dashed
+sorry this should have happened, don't you know."
+
+"If it hadn't been for you, the man would never have come here." Mr.
+Brewster brooded coldly. "I don't know why it is, but ever since you
+came to this hotel I've had nothing but trouble."
+
+"Dashed sorry!" said Archie, sympathetically.
+
+"Grrh!" said Mr. Brewster.
+
+Archie made his way meditatively to the lift. The injustice of his
+father-in-law's attitude pained him. It was absolutely rotten and
+all that to be blamed for everything that went wrong in the Hotel
+Cosmopolis.
+
+While this conversation was in progress, Lord Seacliff was enjoying
+a refreshing sleep in his room on the fourth floor. Two hours
+passed. The noise of the traffic in the street below faded away.
+Only the rattle of an occasional belated cab broke the silence. In
+the hotel all was still. Mr. Brewster had gone to bed. Archie, in
+his room, smoked meditatively. Peace may have been said to reign.
+
+At half-past two Lord Seacliff awoke. His hours of slumber were
+always irregular. He sat up in bed and switched the light on. He was
+a shock-headed young man with a red face and a hot brown eye. He
+yawned and stretched himself. His head was aching a little. The room
+seemed to him a trifle close. He got out of bed and threw open the
+window. Then, returning to bed, he picked up a book and began to
+read. He was conscious of feeling a little jumpy, and reading
+generally sent him to sleep.
+
+Much has been written on the subject of bed-books. The general
+consensus of opinion is that a gentle, slow-moving story makes the
+best opiate. If this be so, dear old Squiffy's choice of literature
+had been rather injudicious. His book was The Adventures of Sherlock
+Holmes, and the particular story, which he selected for perusal was
+the one entitled, "The Speckled Band." He was not a great reader,
+but, when he read, he liked something with a bit of zip to it.
+
+Squiffy became absorbed. He had read the story before, but a long
+time back, and its complications were fresh to him. The tale, it may
+be remembered, deals with the activities of an ingenious gentleman
+who kept a snake, and used to loose it into people's bedrooms as a
+preliminary to collecting on their insurance. It gave Squiffy
+pleasant thrills, for he had always had a particular horror of
+snakes. As a child, he had shrunk from visiting the serpent house at
+the Zoo; and, later, when he had come to man's estate and had put
+off childish things, and settled down in real earnest to his self-
+appointed mission of drinking up all the alcoholic fluid in England,
+the distaste for Ophidia had lingered. To a dislike for real snakes
+had been added a maturer shrinking from those which existed only in
+his imagination. He could still recall his emotions on the occasion,
+scarcely three months before, when he had seen a long, green serpent
+which a majority of his contemporaries had assured him wasn't there.
+
+Squiffy read on:--
+
+"Suddenly another sound became audible--a very gentle, soothing
+sound, like that of a small jet of steam escaping continuously from
+a kettle."
+
+Lord Seacliff looked up from his book with a start Imagination was
+beginning to play him tricks. He could have sworn that he had
+actually heard that identical sound. It had seemed to come from the
+window. He listened again. No! All was still. He returned to his
+book and went on reading.
+
+"It was a singular sight that met our eyes. Beside the table, on a
+wooden chair, sat Doctor Grimesby Rylott, clad in a long dressing-
+gown. His chin was cocked upward and his eyes were fixed in a
+dreadful, rigid stare at the corner of the ceiling. Round his brow
+he had a peculiar yellow band, with brownish speckles, which seemed
+to be bound tightly round his head."
+
+"I took a step forward. In an instant his strange head-gear began to
+move, and there reared itself from among his hair the squat,
+diamond-shaped head and puffed neck of a loathsome serpent..."
+
+"Ugh!" said Squiffy.
+
+He closed the book and put it down. His head was aching worse than
+ever. He wished now that he had read something else. No fellow could
+read himself to sleep with this sort of thing. People ought not to
+write this sort of thing.
+
+His heart gave a bound. There it was again, that hissing sound. And
+this time he was sure it came from the window.
+
+He looked at the window, and remained staring, frozen. Over the
+sill, with a graceful, leisurely movement, a green snake was
+crawling. As it crawled, it raised its head and peered from side to
+side, like a shortsighted man looking for his spectacles. It
+hesitated a moment on the edge of the sill, then wriggled to the
+floor and began to cross the room. Squiffy stared on.
+
+It would have pained Peter deeply, for he was a snake of great
+sensibility, if he had known how much his entrance had disturbed the
+occupant of the room. He himself had no feeling but gratitude for
+the man who had opened the window and so enabled him to get in out
+of the rather nippy night air. Ever since the bag had swung open and
+shot him out onto the sill of the window below Archie's, he had been
+waiting patiently for something of the kind to happen. He was a
+snake who took things as they came, and was prepared to rough it a
+bit if necessary; but for the last hour or two he had been hoping
+that somebody would do something practical in the way of getting him
+in out of the cold. When at home, he had an eiderdown quilt to sleep
+on, and the stone of the window-sill was a little trying to a snake
+of regular habits. He crawled thankfully across the floor under
+Squiffy's bed. There was a pair of trousers there, for his host had
+undressed when not in a frame of mind to fold his clothes neatly and
+place them upon a chair. Peter looked the trousers over. They were
+not an eiderdown quilt, but they would serve. He curled up in them
+and went to sleep. He had had an exciting day, and was glad to turn
+in.
+
+After about ten minutes, the tension of Squiffy's attitude relaxed.
+His heart, which had seemed to suspend its operations, began beating
+again. Reason reasserted itself. He peeped cautiously under the bed.
+He could see nothing.
+
+Squiffy was convinced. He told himself that he had never really
+believed in Peter as a living thing. It stood to reason that there
+couldn't really be a snake in his room. The window looked out on
+emptiness. His room was several stories above the ground. There was
+a stern, set expression on Squiffy's face as he climbed out of bed.
+It was the expression of a man who is turning over a new leaf,
+starting a new life. He looked about the room for some implement
+which would carry out the deed he had to do, and finally pulled out
+one of the curtain-rods. Using this as a lever, he broke open the
+topmost of the six cases which stood in the corner. The soft wood
+cracked and split. Squiffy drew out a straw-covered bottle. For a
+moment he stood looking at it, as a man might gaze at a friend on
+the point of death. Then, with a sudden determination, he went into
+the bathroom. There was a crash of glass and a gurgling sound.
+
+Half an hour later the telephone in Archie's room rang. "I say,
+Archie, old top," said the voice of Squiffy.
+
+"Halloa, old bean! Is that you?"
+
+"I say, could you pop down here for a second? I'm rather upset."
+
+"Absolutely! Which room?"
+
+"Four-forty-one."
+
+"I'll be with you eftsoons or right speedily."
+
+"Thanks, old man."
+
+"What appears to be the difficulty?"
+
+"Well, as a matter of fact, I thought I saw a snake!"
+
+"A snake!"
+
+"I'll tell you all about it when you come down."
+
+Archie found Lord Seacliff seated on his bed. An arresting aroma of
+mixed drinks pervaded the atmosphere.
+
+"I say! What?" said Archie, inhaling.
+
+"That's all right. I've been pouring my stock away. Just finished
+the last bottle."
+
+"But why?"
+
+"I told you. I thought I saw a snake!"
+
+"Green?"
+
+Squiffy shivered slightly.
+
+"Frightfully green!"
+
+Archie hesitated. He perceived that there are moments when silence
+is the best policy. He had been worrying himself over the
+unfortunate case of his friend, and now that Fate seemed to have
+provided a solution, it would be rash to interfere merely to ease
+the old bean's mind. If Squiffy was going to reform because he
+thought he had seen an imaginary snake, better not to let him know
+that the snake was a real one.
+
+"Dashed serious!" he said.
+
+"Bally dashed serious!" agreed Squiffy. "I'm going to cut it out!"
+
+"Great scheme!"
+
+"You don't think," asked Squiffy, with a touch of hopefulness, "that
+it could have been a real snake?"
+
+"Never heard of the management supplying them."
+
+"I thought it went under the bed."
+
+"Well, take a look."
+
+Squiffy shuddered.
+
+"Not me! I say, old top, you know, I simply can't sleep in this room
+now. I was wondering if you could give me a doss somewhere in
+yours."
+
+"Rather! I'm in five-forty-one. Just above. Trot along up. Here's
+the key. I'll tidy up a bit here, and join you in a minute."
+
+Squiffy put on a dressing-gown and disappeared. Archie looked under
+the bed. From the trousers the head of Peter popped up with its
+usual expression of amiable enquiry. Archie nodded pleasantly, and
+sat down on the bed. The problem of his little friend's immediate
+future wanted thinking over.
+
+He lit a cigarette and remained for a while in thought. Then he
+rose. An admirable solution had presented itself. He picked Peter up
+and placed him in the pocket of his dressing-gown. Then, leaving the
+room, he mounted the stairs till he reached the seventh floor.
+Outside a room half-way down the corridor he paused.
+
+From within, through the open transom, came the rhythmical snoring
+of a good man taking his rest after the labours of the day. Mr.
+Brewster was always a heavy sleeper.
+
+"There's always a way," thought Archie, philosophically, "if a
+chappie only thinks of it."
+
+His father-in-law's snoring took on a deeper note. Archie extracted
+Peter from his pocket and dropped him gently through the transom.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER IX
+
+A LETTER FROM PARKER
+
+
+As the days went by and he settled down at the Hotel Cosmopolis,
+Archie, looking about him and revising earlier judgments, was
+inclined to think that of all his immediate circle he most admired
+Parker, the lean, grave valet of Mr. Daniel Brewster. Here was a man
+who, living in the closest contact with one of the most difficult
+persons in New York, contrived all the while to maintain an unbowed
+head, and, as far as one could gather from appearances, a tolerably
+cheerful disposition. A great man, judge him by what standard you
+pleased. Anxious as he was to earn an honest living, Archie would
+not have changed places with Parker for the salary of a movie-star.
+
+It was Parker who first directed Archie's attention to the hidden
+merits of Pongo. Archie had drifted into his father-in-law's suite
+one morning, as he sometimes did in the effort to establish more
+amicable relations, and had found it occupied only by the valet, who
+was dusting the furniture and bric-a-brac with a feather broom
+rather in the style of a man-servant at the rise of the curtain of
+an old-fashioned farce. After a courteous exchange of greetings,
+Archie sat down and lit a cigarette. Parker went on dusting.
+
+"The guv'nor," said Parker, breaking the silence, "has some nice
+little objay dar, sir."
+
+"Little what?"
+
+"Objay dar, sir."
+
+Light dawned upon Archie.
+
+"Of course, yes. French for junk. I see what you mean now. Dare say
+you're right, old friend. Don't know much about these things
+myself."
+
+Parker gave an appreciative flick at a vase on the mantelpiece.
+
+"Very valuable, some of the guv'nor's things." He had picked up the
+small china figure of the warrior with the spear, and was grooming
+it with the ostentatious care of one brushing flies off a sleeping
+Venus. He regarded this figure with a look of affectionate esteem
+which seemed to Archie absolutely uncalled-for. Archie's taste in
+Art was not precious. To his untutored eye the thing was only one
+degree less foul than his father-in-law's Japanese prints, which he
+had always observed with silent loathing. "This one, now," continued
+Parker. "Worth a lot of money. Oh, a lot of money."
+
+"What, Pongo?" said Archie incredulously.
+
+"Sir?"
+
+"I always call that rummy-looking what-not Pongo. Don't know what
+else you could call him, what!"
+
+The valet seemed to disapprove of this levity. He shook his head and
+replaced the figure on the mantelpiece.
+
+"Worth a lot of money," he repeated. "Not by itself, no."
+
+"Oh, not by itself?"
+
+"No, sir. Things like this come in pairs. Somewhere or other there's
+the companion-piece to this here, and if the guv'nor could get hold
+of it, he'd have something worth having. Something that connoozers
+would give a lot of money for. But one's no good without the other.
+You have to have both, if you understand my meaning, sir."
+
+"I see. Like filling a straight flush, what?"
+
+"Precisely, sir."
+
+Archie gazed at Pongo again, with the dim hope of discovering
+virtues not immediately apparent to the casual observer. But without
+success. Pongo left him cold--even chilly. He would not have taken
+Pongo as a gift, to oblige a dying friend.
+
+"How much would the pair be worth?" he asked. "Ten dollars?"
+
+Parker smiled a gravely superior smile. "A leetle more than that,
+sir. Several thousand dollars, more like it."
+
+"Do you mean to say," said Archie, with honest amazement, "that
+there are chumps going about loose--absolutely loose--who would pay
+that for a weird little object like Pongo?"
+
+"Undoubtedly, sir. These antique china figures are in great demand
+among collectors."
+
+Archie looked at Pongo once more, and shook his head.
+
+"Well, well, well! It takes all sorts to make a world, what!"
+
+What might be called the revival of Pongo, the restoration of Pongo
+to the ranks of the things that matter, took place several weeks
+later, when Archie was making holiday at the house which his father-
+in-law had taken for the summer at Brookport. The curtain of the
+second act may be said to rise on Archie strolling back from the
+golf-links in the cool of an August evening. From time to time he
+sang slightly, and wondered idly if Lucille would put the finishing
+touch upon the all-rightness of everything by coming to meet him and
+sharing his homeward walk.
+
+She came in view at this moment, a trim little figure in a white
+skirt and a pale blue sweater. She waved to Archie; and Archie, as
+always at the sight of her, was conscious of that jumpy, fluttering
+sensation about the heart, which, translated into words, would have
+formed the question, "What on earth could have made a girl like that
+fall in love with a chump like me?" It was a question which he was
+continually asking himself, and one which was perpetually in the
+mind also of Mr. Brewster, his father-in-law. The matter of Archie's
+unworthiness to be the husband of Lucille was practically the only
+one on which the two men saw eye to eye.
+
+"Hallo--allo--allo!" said Archie. "Here we are, what! I was just
+hoping you would drift over the horizon,"
+
+Lucille kissed him.
+
+"You're a darling," she said. "And you look like a Greek god in that
+suit."
+
+"Glad you like it." Archie squinted with some complacency down his
+chest. "I always say it doesn't matter what you pay for a suit, so
+long as it's right. I hope your jolly old father will feel that way
+when he settles up for it."
+
+"Where is father? Why didn't he come back with you?"
+
+"Well, as a matter of fact, he didn't seem any too keen on my
+company. I left him in the locker-room chewing a cigar. Gave me the
+impression of having something on his mind,"
+
+"Oh, Archie! You didn't beat him AGAIN?"
+
+Archie looked uncomfortable. He gazed out to sea with something of
+embarrassment.
+
+"Well, as a matter of fact, old thing, to be absolutely frank, I, as
+it were, did!"
+
+"Not badly?"
+
+"Well, yes! I rather fancy I put it across him with some vim and not
+a little emphasis. To be perfectly accurate, I licked him by ten and
+eight."
+
+"But you promised me you would let him beat you to-day. You know how
+pleased it would have made him."
+
+"I know. But, light of my soul, have you any idea how dashed
+difficult it is to get beaten by your festive parent at golf?"
+
+"Oh, well!" Lucille sighed. "It can't be helped, I suppose." She
+felt in the pocket of her sweater. "Oh, there's a letter for you.
+I've just been to fetch the mail. I don't know who it can be from.
+The handwriting looks like a vampire's. Kind of scrawly."
+
+Archie inspected the envelope. It provided no solution.
+
+"That's rummy! Who could be writing to me?"
+
+"Open it and see."
+
+"Dashed bright scheme! I will, Herbert Parker. Who the deuce is
+Herbert Parker?"
+
+"Parker? Father's valet's name was Parker. The one he dismissed when
+he found he was wearing his shirts."
+
+"Do you mean to say any reasonable chappie would willingly wear the
+sort of shirts your father--? I mean to say, there must have been
+some mistake."
+
+"Do read the letter. I expect he wants to use your influence with
+father to have him taken back."
+
+"MY influence? With your FATHER? Well, I'm dashed. Sanguine sort of
+Johnny, if he does. Well, here's what he says. Of course, I remember
+jolly old Parker now--great pal of mine."
+
+     Dear Sir,--It is some time since the undersigned had the
+     honour of conversing with you, but I am respectfully trusting
+     that you may recall me to mind when I mention that until
+     recently I served Mr. Brewster, your father-in-law, in the
+     capacity of valet. Owing to an unfortunate misunderstanding,
+     I was dismissed from that position and am now temporarily out
+     of a job. "How art thou fallen from Heaven, O Lucifer, son of
+     the morning!" (Isaiah xiv. 12.)
+
+"You know," said Archie, admiringly, "this bird is hot stuff! I mean
+to say he writes dashed well."
+
+     It is not, however, with my own affairs that I desire to
+     trouble you, dear sir. I have little doubt that all will be
+     well with me and that I shall not fall like a sparrow to the
+     ground. "I have been young and now am old; yet have I not
+     seen the righteous forsaken, nor his seed begging bread"
+     (Psalms xzxvii. 25). My object in writing to you is as
+     follows. You may recall that I had the pleasure of meeting
+     you one morning in Mr. Brewster's suite, when we had an
+     interesting talk on the subject of Mr. B.'s objets d'art.
+     You may recall being particularly interested in a small
+     china figure. To assist your memory, the figure to which I
+     allude is the one which you whimsically referred to as Pongo.
+     I informed you, if you remember, that, could the accompanying
+     figure be secured, the pair would be extremely valuable.
+
+     I am glad to say, dear sir? that this has now transpired, and
+     is on view at Beale's Art Galleries on West Forty-Fifty Street,
+     where it will be sold to-morrow at auction, the sale commencing
+     at two-thirty sharp. If Mr. Brewster cares to attend, he will,
+     I fancy, have little trouble in securing it at a reasonable price.
+     I confess that I had thought of refraining from apprising my late
+     employer of this matter, but more Christian feelings have
+     prevailed. "If thine enemy hunger, feed him; if he thirst, give
+     him drink; for in so doing thou shalt heap coals of fire on his
+     head" (Romans xii. 20). Nor, I must confess, am I altogether
+     uninfluenced by the thought that my action in this matter may
+     conceivably lead to Mr. B. consenting to forget the past and to
+     reinstate me in my former position. However, I am confident that
+     I can leave this to his good feeling.
+
+                             I remain, respectfully yours,
+                             Herbert Parker.
+
+Lucille clapped her hands.
+
+"How splendid! Father will be pleased!"
+
+"Yes. Friend Parker has certainly found a way to make the old dad
+fond of him. Wish I could!"
+
+"But you can, silly! He'll be delighted when you show him that
+letter."
+
+"Yes, with Parker. Old Herb. Parker's is the neck he'll fall on--not
+mine."
+
+Lucille reflected.
+
+"I wish--" she began. She stopped. Her eyes lit up. "Oh, Archie,
+darling, I've got an idea!"
+
+"Decant it."
+
+"Why don't you slip up to New York to-morrow and buy the thing, and
+give it to father as a surprise?"
+
+Archie patted her hand kindly. He hated to spoil her girlish day-
+dreams.
+
+"Yes," he said. "But reflect, queen of my heart! I have at the
+moment of going to press just two dollars fifty in specie, which I
+took off your father this after-noon. We were playing twenty-five
+cents a Hole. He coughed it up without enthusiasm--in fact, with a
+nasty hacking sound--but I've got it. But that's all I have got."
+
+"That's all right. You can pawn that ring and that bracelet of
+mine."
+
+"Oh, I say, what! Pop the family jewels?"
+
+"Only for a day or two. Of course, once you've got the thing, father
+will pay us back. He would give you all the money we asked him for,
+if he knew what it was for. But I want to surprise him. And if you
+were to go to him and ask him for a thousand dollars without telling
+him what it was for, he might refuse."
+
+"He might!" said Archie. "He might!"
+
+"It all works out splendidly. To-morrow's the Invitation Handicap,
+and father's been looking forward to it for weeks. He'd hate to have
+to go up to town himself and not play in it. But you can slip up and
+slip back without his knowing anything about it."
+
+Archie pondered.
+
+"It sounds a ripe scheme. Yes, it has all the ear-marks of a
+somewhat fruity wheeze! By Jove, it IS a fruity wheeze! It's an
+egg!"
+
+"An egg?"
+
+"Good egg, you know. Halloa, here's a postscript. I didn't see it."
+
+     P.S.--I should be glad if you would convey my most
+     cordial respects to Mrs. Moffam. Will you also inform
+     her that I chanced to meet Mr. William this morning on
+     Broadway, just off the boat. He desired me to send his
+     regards and to say that he would be joining you at
+     Brookport in the course of a day or so. Mr. B. will be
+     pleased to have him back. "A wise son maketh a glad
+     father" (Proverbs x. 1).
+
+"Who's Mr. William?" asked Archie.
+
+"My brother Bill, of course. I've told you all about him."
+
+"Oh yes, of course. Your brother Bill. Rummy to think I've got a
+brother-in-law I've never seen."
+
+"You see, we married so suddenly. When we married, Bill was in
+Yale."
+
+"Good God! What for?"
+
+"Not jail, silly. Yale. The university."
+
+"Oh, ah, yes."
+
+"Then he went over to Europe for a trip to broaden his mind. You
+must look him up to-morrow when you get back to New York. He's sure
+to be at his club."
+
+"I'll make a point of it. Well, vote of thanks to good old Parker!
+This really does begin to look like the point in my career where I
+start to have your forbidding old parent eating out of my hand."
+
+"Yes, it's an egg, isn't it!"
+
+"Queen of my soul," said Archie enthusiastically, "it's an
+omelette!"
+
+The business negotiations in connection with the bracelet and the
+ring occupied Archie on his arrival in New York to an extent which
+made it impossible for him to call on Brother Bill before lunch. He
+decided to postpone the affecting meeting of brothers-in-law to a
+more convenient season, and made his way to his favourite table at
+the Cosmopolis grill-room for a bite of lunch preliminary to the
+fatigues of the sale. He found Salvatore hovering about as usual,
+and instructed him to come to the rescue with a minute steak.
+
+Salvatore was the dark, sinister-looking waiter who attended, among
+other tables, to the one at the far end of the grill-room at which
+Archie usually sat. For several weeks Archie's conversations with
+the other had dealt exclusively with the bill of fare and its
+contents; but gradually he had found himself becoming more personal.
+Even before the war and its democratising influences, Archie had
+always lacked that reserve which characterises many Britons; and
+since the war he had looked on nearly everyone he met as a brother.
+Long since, through the medium of a series of friendly chats, he had
+heard all about Salvatore's home in Italy, the little newspaper and
+tobacco shop which his mother owned down on Seventh Avenue, and a
+hundred other personal details. Archie had an insatiable curiosity
+about his fellow-man.
+
+"Well done," said Archie.
+
+"Sare?"
+
+"The steak. Not too rare, you know."
+
+"Very good, sare."
+
+Archie looked at the waiter closely. His tone had been subdued and
+sad. Of course, you don't expect a waiter to beam all over his face
+and give three rousing cheers simply because you have asked him to
+bring you a minute steak, but still there was something about
+Salvatore's manner that disturbed Archie. The man appeared to have
+the pip. Whether he was merely homesick and brooding on the lost
+delights of his sunny native land, or whether his trouble was more
+definite, could only be ascertained by enquiry. So Archie enquired.
+
+"What's the matter, laddie?" he said sympathetically. "Something on
+your mind?"
+
+"Sare?"
+
+"I say, there seems to be something on your mind. What's the
+trouble?"
+
+The waiter shrugged his shoulders, as if indicating an unwillingness
+to inflict his grievances on one of the tipping classes.
+
+"Come on!" persisted Archie encouragingly. "All pals here. Barge
+alone, old thing, and let's have it."
+
+Salvatore, thus admonished, proceeded in a hurried undertone--with
+one eye on the headwaiter--to lay bare his soul. What he said was
+not very coherent, but Archie could make out enough of it to gather
+that it was a sad story of excessive hours and insufficient pay. He
+mused awhile. The waiter's hard case touched him.
+
+"I'll tell you what," he said at last. "When jolly old Brewster
+conies back to town--he's away just now--I'll take you along to him
+and we'll beard the old boy in his den. I'll introduce you, and you
+get that extract from Italian opera-off your chest which you've just
+been singing to me, and you'll find it'll be all right. He isn't
+what you might call one of my greatest admirers, but everybody says
+he's a square sort of cove and he'll see you aren't snootered. And
+now, laddie, touching the matter of that steak."
+
+The waiter disappeared, greatly cheered, and Archie, turning,
+perceived that his friend Reggie van Tuyl was entering the room. He
+waved to him to join his table. He liked Reggie, and it also
+occurred to him that a man of the world like the heir of the van
+Tuyls, who had been popping about New York for years, might be able
+to give him some much-needed information on the procedure at an
+auction sale, a matter on which he himself was profoundly ignorant.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER X
+
+DOING FATHER A BIT OF GOOD
+
+
+Reggie Van Tuyl approached the table languidly, and sank down into a
+chair. He was a long youth with a rather subdued and deflated look,
+as though the burden of the van Tuyl millions was more than his
+frail strength could support. Most things tired him.
+
+"I say, Reggie, old top," said Archie, "you're just the lad I wanted
+to see. I require the assistance of a blighter of ripe intellect.
+Tell me, laddie, do you know anything about sales?"
+
+Reggie eyed him sleepily.
+
+"Sales?"
+
+"Auction sales."
+
+Reggie considered.
+
+"Well, they're sales, you know." He checked a yawn. "Auction sales,
+you understand."
+
+"Yes," said Archie encouragingly. "Something--the name or something
+--seemed to tell me that."
+
+"Fellows put things up for sale you know, and other fellows--other
+fellows go in and--and buy 'em, if you follow me."
+
+"Yes, but what's the procedure? I mean, what do I do? That's what
+I'm after. I've got to buy something at Beale's this afternoon. How
+do I set about it?"
+
+"Well," said Reggie, drowsily, "there are several ways of bidding,
+you know. You can shout, or you can nod, or you can twiddle your
+fingers--" The effort of concentration was too much for him. He
+leaned back limply in his chair. "I'll tell you what. I've nothing
+to do this afternoon. I'll come with you and show you."
+
+When he entered the Art Galleries a few minutes later, Archie was
+glad of the moral support of even such a wobbly reed as Reggie van
+Tuyl. There is something about an auction room which weighs heavily
+upon the novice. The hushed interior was bathed in a dim, religious
+light; and the congregation, seated on small wooden chairs, gazed in
+reverent silence at the pulpit, where a gentleman of commanding
+presence and sparkling pince-nez was delivering a species of chant.
+Behind a gold curtain at the end of the room mysterious forms
+flitted to and fro. Archie, who had been expecting something on the
+lines of the New York Stock Exchange, which he had once been
+privileged to visit when it was in a more than usually feverish
+mood, found the atmosphere oppressively ecclesiastical. He sat down
+and looked about him. The presiding priest went on with his chant.
+
+"Sixteen-sixteen-sixteen-sixteen-sixteen--worth three hundred--
+sixteen-sixteen-sixteen-sixteen-sixteen--ought to bring five
+hundred--sixteen-sixteen-seventeen-seventeen-eighteen-eighteen-
+nineteen-nineteen-nineteen." He stopped and eyed the worshippers
+with a glittering and reproachful eye. They had, it seemed,
+disappointed him. His lips curled, and he waved a hand towards a
+grimly uncomfortable-looking chair with insecure legs and a good
+deal of gold paint about it. "Gentlemen! Ladies and gentlemen! You
+are not here to waste my time; I am not here to waste yours. Am I
+seriously offered nineteen dollars for this eighteenth-century
+chair, acknowledged to be the finest piece sold in New York for
+months and months? Am I--twenty? I thank you. Twenty-twenty-twenty-
+twenty. YOUR opportunity! Priceless. Very few extant. Twenty-five-
+five-five-five-thirty-thirty. Just what you are looking for. The
+only one in the City of New York. Thirty-five-five-five-five. Forty-
+forty-forty-forty-forty. Look at those legs! Back it into the light,
+Willie. Let the light fall on those legs!"
+
+Willie, a sort of acolyte, manoeuvred the chair as directed. Reggie
+van Tuyl, who had been yawning in a hopeless sort of way, showed his
+first flicker of interest.
+
+"Willie," he observed, eyeing that youth more with pity than
+reproach, "has a face like Jo-Jo the dog-faced boy, don't you think
+so?"
+
+Archie nodded briefly. Precisely the same criticism had occurred to
+him.
+
+"Forty-five-five-five-five-five," chanted the high-priest. "Once
+forty-five. Twice forty-five. Third and last call, forty-five. Sold
+at forty-five. Gentleman in the fifth row."
+
+Archie looked up and down the row with a keen eye. He was anxious to
+see who had been chump enough to give forty-five dollars for such a
+frightful object. He became aware of the dog-faced Willie leaning
+towards him.
+
+"Name, please?" said the canine one.
+
+"Eh, what?" said Archie. "Oh, my name's Moffam, don't you know." The
+eyes of the multitude made him feel a little nervous "Er--glad to
+meet you and all that sort of rot."
+
+"Ten dollars deposit, please," said Willie.
+
+"I don't absolutely follow you, old bean. What is the big thought at
+the back of all this?"
+
+"Ten dollars deposit on the chair."
+
+"What chair?"
+
+"You bid forty-five dollars for the chair."
+
+"Me?"
+
+"You nodded," said Willie, accusingly. "If," he went on, reasoning
+closely, "you didn't want to bid, why did you nod?"
+
+Archie was embarrassed. He could, of course, have pointed out that
+he had merely nodded in adhesion to the statement that the other had
+a face like Jo-Jo the dog-faced boy; but something seemed to tell
+him that a purist might consider the excuse deficient in tact. He
+hesitated a moment, then handed over a ten-dollar bill, the price of
+Willie's feelings. Willie withdrew like a tiger slinking from the
+body of its victim.
+
+"I say, old thing," said Archie to Reggie, "this is a bit thick, you
+know. No purse will stand this drain."
+
+Reggie considered the matter. His face seemed drawn under the mental
+strain.
+
+"Don't nod again," he advised. "If you aren't careful, you get into
+the habit of it. When you want to bid, just twiddle your fingers.
+Yes, that's the thing. Twiddle!"
+
+He sighed drowsily. The atmosphere of the auction room was close;
+you weren't allowed to smoke; and altogether he was beginning to
+regret that he had come. The service continued. Objects of varying
+unattractiveness came and went, eulogised by the officiating priest,
+but coldly received by the congregation. Relations between the
+former and the latter were growing more and more distant. The
+congregation seemed to suspect the priest of having an ulterior
+motive in his eulogies, and the priest seemed to suspect the
+congregation of a frivolous desire to waste his time. He had begun
+to speculate openly as to why they were there at all. Once, when a
+particularly repellent statuette of a nude female with an
+unwholesome green skin had been offered at two dollars and had found
+no bidders--the congregation appearing silently grateful for his
+statement that it was the only specimen of its kind on the
+continent--he had specifically accused them of having come into the
+auction room merely with the purpose of sitting down and taking the
+weight off their feet.
+
+"If your thing--your whatever-it-is, doesn't come up soon, Archie,"
+said Reggie, fighting off with an effort the mists of sleep, "I
+rather think I shall be toddling along. What was it you came to
+get?"
+
+"It's rather difficult to describe. It's a rummy-looking sort of
+what-not, made of china or something. I call it Pongo. At least,
+this one isn't Pongo, don't you know--it's his little brother, but
+presumably equally foul in every respect. It's all rather
+complicated, I know, but--hallo!" He pointed excitedly. "By Jove!
+We're off! There it is! Look! Willie's unleasing it now!"
+
+Willie, who had disappeared through the gold curtain, had now
+returned, and was placing on a pedestal a small china figure of
+delicate workmanship. It was the figure of a warrior in a suit of
+armour advancing with raised spear upon an adversary. A thrill
+permeated Archie's frame. Parker had not been mistaken. This was
+undoubtedly the companion-figure to the redoubtable Pongo. The two
+were identical. Even from where he sat Archie could detect on the
+features of the figure on the pedestal the same expression of
+insufferable complacency which had alienated his sympathies from the
+original Pongo.
+
+The high-priest, undaunted by previous rebuffs, regarded the figure
+with a gloating enthusiasm wholly unshared by the congregation, who
+were plainly looking upon Pongo's little brother as just another of
+those things.
+
+"This," he said, with a shake in his voice, "is something very
+special. China figure, said to date back to the Ming Dynasty.
+Unique. Nothing like it on either side of the Atlantic. If I were
+selling this at Christie's in London, where people," he said,
+nastily, "have an educated appreciation of the beautiful, the rare,
+and the exquisite, I should start the bidding at a thousand dollars.
+This afternoon's experience has taught me that that might possibly
+be too high." His pince-nez sparkled militantly, as he gazed upon
+the stolid throng. "Will anyone offer me a dollar for this unique
+figure?"
+
+"Leap at it, old top," said Reggie van Tuyl. "Twiddle, dear boy,
+twiddle! A dollar's reasonable."
+
+Archie twiddled.
+
+"One dollar I am offered," said the high-priest, bitterly. "One
+gentleman here is not afraid to take a chance. One gentleman here
+knows a good thing when he sees one." He abandoned the gently
+sarcastic manner for one of crisp and direct reproach. "Come, come,
+gentlemen, we are not here to waste time. Will anyone offer me one
+hundred dollars for this superb piece of--" He broke off, and seemed
+for a moment almost unnerved. He stared at someone in one of the
+seats in front of Archie. "Thank you," he said, with a sort of gulp.
+"One hundred dollars I am offered! One hundred--one hundred--one
+hundred--"
+
+Archie was startled. This sudden, tremendous jump, this wholly
+unforeseen boom in Pongos, if one might so describe it, was more
+than a little disturbing. He could not see who his rival was, but it
+was evident that at least one among those present did not intend to
+allow Pongo's brother to slip by without a fight. He looked
+helplessly at Reggie for counsel, but Reggie had now definitely
+given up the struggle. Exhausted nature had done its utmost, and now
+he was leaning back with closed eyes, breathing softly through his
+nose. Thrown on his own resources, Archie could think of no better
+course than to twiddle his fingers again. He did so, and the high-
+priest's chant took on a note of positive exuberance.
+
+"Two hundred I am offered. Much better! Turn the pedestal round,
+Willie, and let them look at it. Slowly! Slowly! You aren't spinning
+a roulette-wheel. Two hundred. Two-two-two-two-two." He became
+suddenly lyrical. "Two-two-two--There was a young lady named Lou,
+who was catching a train at two-two. Said the porter, 'Don't worry
+or hurry or scurry. It's a minute or two to two-two!' Two-two-two-
+two-two!"
+
+Archie's concern increased. He seemed to be twiddling at this
+voluble man across seas of misunderstanding. Nothing is harder to
+interpret to a nicety than a twiddle, and Archie's idea of the
+language of twiddles and the high-priest's idea did not coincide by
+a mile. The high-priest appeared to consider that, when Archie
+twiddled, it was his intention to bid in hundreds, whereas in fact
+Archie had meant to signify that he raised the previous bid by just
+one dollar. Archie felt that, if given time, he could make this
+clear to the high-priest, but the latter gave him no time. He had
+got his audience, so to speak, on the run, and he proposed to hustle
+them before they could rally.
+
+"Two hundred--two hundred--two--three--thank you, sir--three-three-
+three-four-four-five-five-six-six-seven-seven-seven--"
+
+Archie sat limply in his wooden chair. He was conscious of a feeling
+which he had only experienced twice in his life--once when he had
+taken his first lesson in driving a motor and had trodden on the
+accelerator instead of the brake; the second time more recently,
+when he had made his first down-trip on an express lift. He had now
+precisely the same sensation of being run away with by an
+uncontrollable machine, and of having left most of his internal
+organs at some little distance from the rest of his body. Emerging
+from this welter of emotion, stood out the one clear fact that, be
+the opposition bidding what it might, he must nevertheless secure
+the prize. Lucille had sent him to New York expressly to do so. She
+had sacrificed her jewellery for the cause. She relied on him. The
+enterprise had become for Archie something almost sacred. He felt
+dimly like a knight of old hot on the track of the Holy Grail.
+
+He twiddled again. The ring and the bracelet had fetched nearly
+twelve hundred dollars. Up to that figure his hat was in the ring.
+
+"Eight hundred I am offered. Eight hundred. Eight-eight-eight-eight--"
+
+A voice spoke from somewhere at the back of the room. A quiet, cold,
+nasty, determined voice.
+
+"Nine!"
+
+Archie rose from his seat and spun round. This mean attack from the
+rear stung his fighting spirit. As he rose, a young man sitting
+immediately in front of him rose too and stared likewise. He was a
+square-built resolute-looking young man, who reminded Archie vaguely
+of somebody he had seen before. But Archie was too busy trying to
+locate the man at the back to pay much attention to him. He detected
+him at last, owing to the fact that the eyes of everybody in that
+part of the room were fixed upon him. He was a small man of middle
+age, with tortoise-shell-rimmed spectacles. He might have been a
+professor or something of the kind. Whatever he was, he was
+obviously a man to be reckoned with. He had a rich sort of look, and
+his demeanour was the demeanour of a man who is prepared to fight it
+out on these lines if it takes all the summer.
+
+"Nine hundred I am offered. Nine-nine-nine-nine--"
+
+Archie glared defiantly at the spectacled man.
+
+"A thousand!" he cried.
+
+The irruption of high finance into the placid course of the
+afternoon's proceedings had stirred the congregation out of its
+lethargy. There were excited murmurs. Necks were craned, feet
+shuffled. As for the high-priest, his cheerfulness was now more than
+restored, and his faith in his fellow-man had soared from the depths
+to a very lofty altitude. He beamed with approval. Despite the
+warmth of his praise he would have been quite satisfied to see
+Pongo's little brother go at twenty dollars, and the reflection that
+the bidding had already reached one thousand and that his commission
+was twenty per cent, had engendered a mood of sunny happiness.
+
+"One thousand is bid!" he carolled. "Now, gentlemen, I don't want to
+hurry you over this. You are all connoisseurs here, and you don't
+want to see a priceless china figure of the Ming Dynasty get away
+from you at a sacrifice price. Perhaps you can't all see the figure
+where it is. Willie, take it round and show it to 'em. We'll take a
+little intermission while you look carefully at this wonderful
+figure. Get a move on, Willie! Pick up your feet!"
+
+Archie, sitting dazedly, was aware that Reggie van Tuyl had finished
+his beauty sleep and was addressing the young man in the seat in
+front.
+
+"Why, hallo," said Reggie. "I didn't know you were back. You
+remember me, don't you? Reggie van Tuyl. I know your sister very
+well. Archie, old man, I want you to meet my friend, Bill Brewster.
+Why, dash it!" He chuckled sleepily. "I was forgetting. Of course!
+He's your--"
+
+"How are you?" said the young man. "Talking of my sister," he said
+to Reggie, "I suppose you haven't met her husband by any chance? I
+suppose you know she married some awful chump?"
+
+"Me," said Archie.
+
+"How's that?"
+
+"I married your sister. My name's Moffam."
+
+The young man seemed a trifle taken aback.
+
+"Sorry," he said.
+
+"Not at all," said Archie.
+
+"I was only going by what my father said in his letters," he
+explained, in extenuation.
+
+Archie nodded.
+
+"I'm afraid your jolly old father doesn't appreciate me. But I'm
+hoping for the best. If I can rope in that rummy-looking little
+china thing that Jo-Jo the dog-faced boy is showing the customers,
+he will be all over me. I mean to say, you know, he's got another
+like it, and, if he can get a full house, as it were, I'm given to
+understand he'll be bucked, cheered, and even braced."
+
+The young man stared.
+
+"Are YOU the fellow who's been bidding against me?"
+
+"Eh, what? Were you bidding against ME?"
+
+"I wanted to buy the thing for my father. I've a special reason for
+wanting to get in right with him just now. Are you buying it for
+him, too?"
+
+"Absolutely. As a surprise. It was Lucille's idea. His valet, a
+chappie named Parker, tipped us off that the thing was to be sold."
+
+"Parker? Great Scot! It was Parker who tipped ME off. I met him on
+Broadway, and he told me about it."
+
+"Rummy he never mentioned it in his letter to me. Why, dash it, we
+could have got the thing for about two dollars if we had pooled our
+bids."
+
+"Well, we'd better pool them now, and extinguish that pill at the
+back there. I can't go above eleven hundred. That's all I've got."
+
+"I can't go above eleven hundred myself."
+
+"There's just one thing. I wish you'd let me be the one to hand the
+thing over to Father. I've a special reason for wanting to make a
+hit with him."
+
+"Absolutely!" said Archie, magnanimously. "It's all the same to me.
+I only wanted to get him generally braced, as it were, if you know
+what I mean."
+
+"That's awfully good of you."
+
+"Not a bit, laddie, no, no, and far from it. Only too glad."
+
+Willie had returned from his rambles among the connoisseurs, and
+Pongo's brother was back on his pedestal. The high-priest cleared
+his throat and resumed his discourse.
+
+"Now that you have all seen this superb figure we will--I was
+offered one thousand--one thousand-one-one-one-one--eleven hundred.
+Thank you, sir. Eleven hundred I am offered."
+
+The high-priest was now exuberant. You could see him doing figures
+in his head.
+
+"You do the bidding," said Brother Bill.
+
+"Right-o!" said Archie.
+
+He waved a defiant hand.
+
+"Thirteen," said the man at the back.
+
+"Fourteen, dash it!"
+
+"Fifteen!"
+
+"Sixteen!"
+
+"Seventeen!"
+
+"Eighteen!"
+
+"Nineteen!"
+
+"Two thousand!"
+
+The high-priest did everything but sing. He radiated good will and
+bonhomie.
+
+"Two thousand I am offered. Is there any advance on two thousand?
+Come, gentlemen, I don't want to give this superb figure away.
+Twenty-one hundred. Twenty-one-one-one-one. This is more the sort of
+thing I have been accustomed to. When I was at Sotheby's Rooms in
+London, this kind of bidding was a common-place. Twenty-two-two-two-
+two-two. One hardly noticed it. Three-three-three. Twenty-three-
+three-three. Twenty-three hundred dollars I am offered."
+
+He gazed expectantly at Archie, as a man gazes at some favourite dog
+whom he calls upon to perform a trick. But Archie had reached the
+end of his tether. The hand that had twiddled so often and so
+bravely lay inert beside his trouser-leg, twitching feebly. Archie
+was through.
+
+"Twenty-three hundred," said the high-priest, ingratiatingly.
+
+Archie made no movement. There was a tense pause. The high-priest
+gave a little sigh, like one waking from a beautiful dream.
+
+"Twenty-three hundred," he said. "Once twenty-three. Twice twenty-
+three. Third, last, and final call, twenty-three. Sold at twenty-
+three hundred. I congratulate you, sir, on a genuine bargain!"
+
+Reggie van Tuyl had dozed off again. Archie tapped his brother-in-
+law on the shoulder.
+
+"May as well be popping, what?"
+
+They threaded their way sadly together through the crowd, and made
+for the street. They passed into Fifth Avenue without breaking the
+silence.
+
+"Bally nuisance," said Archie, at last.
+
+"Rotten!"
+
+"Wonder who that chappie was?"
+
+"Some collector, probably."
+
+"Well, it can't be helped," said Archie.
+
+Brother Bill attached himself to Archie's arm, and became
+communicative.
+
+"I didn't want to mention it in front of van Tuyl," he said,
+"because he's such a talking-machine, and it would have been all
+over New York before dinner-time. But you're one of the family, and
+you can keep a secret."
+
+"Absolutely! Silent tomb and what not."
+
+"The reason I wanted that darned thing was because I've just got
+engaged to a girl over in England, and I thought that, if I could
+hand my father that china figure-thing with one hand and break the
+news with the other, it might help a bit. She's the most wonderful
+girl!"
+
+"I'll bet she is," said Archie, cordially.
+
+"The trouble is she's in the chorus of one of the revues over there,
+and Father is apt to kick. So I thought--oh, well, it's no good
+worrying now. Come along where it's quiet, and I'll tell you all
+about her."
+
+"That'll be jolly," said Archie.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XI
+
+SALVATORE CHOOSES THE WRONG MOMENT
+
+
+Archie reclaimed the family jewellery from its temporary home next
+morning; and, having done so, sauntered back to the Cosmopolis. He
+was surprised, on entering the lobby, to meet his father-in-law.
+More surprising still, Mr. Brewster was manifestly in a mood of
+extraordinary geniality. Archie could hardly believe his eyes when
+the other waved cheerily to him--nor his ears a moment later when
+Mr. Brewster, addressing him as "my boy," asked him how he was and
+mentioned that the day was a warm one.
+
+Obviously this jovial frame of mind must be taken advantage of; and
+Archie's first thought was of the downtrodden Salvatore, to the tale
+of whose wrongs he had listened so sympathetically on the previous
+day. Now was plainly the moment for the waiter to submit his
+grievance, before some ebb-tide caused the milk of human kindness to
+flow out of Daniel Brewster. With a swift "Cheerio!" in his father-
+in-law's direction, Archie bounded into the grill-room. Salvatore,
+the hour for luncheon being imminent but not yet having arrived, was
+standing against the far wall in an attitude of thought.
+
+"Laddie!" cried Archie.
+
+"Sare?"
+
+"A most extraordinary thing has happened. Good old Brewster has
+suddenly popped up through a trap and is out in the lobby now. And
+what's still more weird, he's apparently bucked."
+
+"Sare?"
+
+"Braced, you know. In the pink. Pleased about something. If you go
+to him now with that yarn of yours, you can't fail. He'll kiss you
+on both cheeks and give you his bank-roll and collar-stud. Charge
+along and ask the head-waiter if you can have ten minutes off."
+
+Salvatore vanished in search of the potentate named, and Archie
+returned to the lobby to bask in the unwonted sunshine.
+
+"Well, well, well, what!" he said. "I thought you were at
+Brookport."
+
+"I came up this morning to meet a friend of mine," replied Mr.
+Brewster genially. "Professor Binstead."
+
+"Don't think I know him."
+
+"Very interesting man," said Mr. Brewster, still with the same
+uncanny amiability. "He's a dabbler in a good many things--science,
+phrenology, antiques. I asked him to bid for me at a sale yesterday.
+There was a little china figure--"
+
+Archie's jaw fell.
+
+"China figure?" he stammered feebly.
+
+"Yes. The companion to one you may have noticed on my mantelpiece
+upstairs. I have been trying to get the pair of them for years. I
+should never have heard of this one if it had not been for that
+valet of mine, Parker. Very good of him to let me know of it,
+considering I had fired him. Ah, here is Binstead."-He moved to
+greet the small, middle-aged man with the tortoiseshell-rimmed
+spectacles who was bustling across the lobby. "Well, Binstead, so
+you got it?"
+
+"Yes."
+
+"I suppose the price wasn't particularly stiff?"
+
+"Twenty-three hundred."
+
+"Twenty-three hundred!" Mr. Brewster seemed to reel in his tracks.
+"Twenty-three HUNDRED!"
+
+"You gave me carte blanche."
+
+"Yes, but twenty-three hundred!"
+
+"I could have got it for a few dollars, but unfortunately I was a
+little late, and, when I arrived, some young fool had bid it up to a
+thousand, and he stuck to me till I finally shook him off at twenty-
+three hundred. Why, this is the very man! Is he a friend of yours?"
+
+Archie coughed.
+
+"More a relation than a friend, what? Son-in-law, don't you know!"
+
+Mr. Brewster's amiability had vanished.
+
+"What damned foolery have you been up to NOW?" he demanded. "Can't I
+move a step without stubbing my toe on you? Why the devil did you
+bid?"
+
+"We thought it would be rather a fruity scheme. We talked it over
+and came to the conclusion that it was an egg. Wanted to get hold of
+the rummy little object, don't you know, and surprise you."
+
+"Who's we?"
+
+"Lucille and I."
+
+"But how did you hear of it at all?"
+
+"Parker, the valet-chappie, you know, wrote me a letter about it."
+
+"Parker! Didn't he tell you that he had told me the figure was to be
+sold?"
+
+"Absolutely not!" A sudden suspicion came to Archie. He was normally
+a guileless young man, but even to him the extreme fishiness of the
+part played by Herbert Parker had become apparent. "I say, you know,
+it looks to me as if friend Parker had been having us all on a bit,
+what? I mean to say it was jolly old Herb, who tipped your son off--
+Bill, you know--to go and bid for the thing."
+
+"Bill! Was Bill there?"
+
+"Absolutely in person! We were bidding against each other like the
+dickens till we managed to get together and get acquainted. And then
+this bird--this gentleman--sailed in and started to slip it across
+us."
+
+Professor Binstead chuckled--the care-free chuckle of a man who sees
+all those around him smitten in the pocket, while he himself remains
+untouched.
+
+"A very ingenious rogue, this Parker of yours, Brewster. His method
+seems to have been simple but masterly. I have no doubt that either
+he or a confederate obtained the figure and placed it with the
+auctioneer, and then he ensured a good price for it by getting us
+all to bid against each other. Very ingenious!"
+
+Mr. Brewster struggled with his feelings. Then he seemed to overcome
+them and to force himself to look on the bright side.
+
+"Well, anyway," he said. "I've got the pair of figures, and that's
+what I wanted. Is that it in that parcel?"
+
+"This is it. I wouldn't trust an express company to deliver it.
+Suppose we go up to your room and see how the two look side by
+side."
+
+They crossed the lobby to the lift.-The cloud was still on Mr.
+Brewster's brow as they stepped out and made their way to his suite.
+Like most men who have risen from poverty to wealth by their own
+exertions, Mr. Brewster objected to parting with his money
+unnecessarily, and it was plain that that twenty-three hundred
+dollars still rankled.
+
+Mr. Brewster unlocked the door and crossed the room. Then, suddenly,
+he halted, stared, and stared again. He sprang to the bell and
+pressed it, then stood gurgling wordlessly.
+
+"Anything wrong, old bean?" queried Archie, solicitously.
+
+"Wrong! Wrong! It's gone!"
+
+"Gone?"
+
+"The figure!"
+
+The floor-waiter had manifested himself silently in answer to the
+bell, and was standing in the doorway.
+
+"Simmons!" Mr. Brewster turned to him wildly. "Has anyone been in
+this suite since I went away?"
+
+"No, sir."
+
+"Nobody?"
+
+"Nobody except your valet, sir--Parker. He said he had come to fetch
+some things away. I supposed he had come from you, sir, with
+instructions."
+
+"Get out!"
+
+Professor Binstead had unwrapped his parcel, and had placed the
+Pongo on the table. There was a weighty silence. Archie picked up
+the little china figure and balanced it on the palm of his hand. It
+was a small thing, he reflected philosophically, but it had made
+quite a stir in the world.
+
+Mr. Brewster fermented for a while without speaking.
+
+"So," he said, at last, in a voice trembling with self-pity, "I have
+been to all this trouble--"
+
+"And expense," put in Professor Binstead, gently.
+
+"Merely to buy back something which had been stolen from me! And,
+owing to your damned officiousness," he cried, turning on Archie, "I
+have had to pay twenty-three hundred dollars for it! I don't know
+why they make such a fuss about Job. Job never had anything like you
+around!"
+
+"Of course," argued Archie, "he had one or two boils."
+
+"Boils! What are boils?"
+
+"Dashed sorry," murmured Archie. "Acted for the best. Meant well.
+And all that sort of rot!"
+
+Professor Binstead's mind seemed occupied to the exclusion of all
+other aspects of the affair, with the ingenuity of the absent
+Parker.
+
+"A cunning scheme!" he said. "A very cunning scheme! This man Parker
+must have a brain of no low order. I should like to feel his bumps!"
+
+"I should like to give him some!" said the stricken Mr. Brewster. He
+breathed a deep breath. "Oh, well," he said, "situated as I am, with
+a crook valet and an imbecile son-in-law, I suppose I ought to be
+thankful that I've still got my own property, even if I have had to
+pay twenty-three hundred dollars for the privilege of keeping it."
+He rounded on Archie, who was in a reverie. The thought of the
+unfortunate Bill had just crossed Archie's mind. It would be many
+moons, many weary moons, before Mr. Brewster would be in a suitable
+mood to listen sympathetically to the story of love's young dream.
+"Give me that figure!"
+
+Archie continued to toy absently with Pongo. He was wondering now
+how best to break this sad occurrence to Lucille. It would be a
+disappointment for the poor girl.
+
+"GIVE ME THAT FIGURE!"
+
+Archie started violently. There was an instant in which Pongo seemed
+to hang suspended, like Mohammed's coffin, between heaven and earth,
+then the force of gravity asserted itself. Pongo fell with a sharp
+crack and disintegrated. And as it did so there was a knock at the
+door, and in walked a dark, furtive person, who to the inflamed
+vision of Mr. Daniel Brewster looked like something connected with
+the executive staff of the Black Hand. With all time at his
+disposal, the unfortunate Salvatore had selected this moment for
+stating his case.
+
+"Get out!" bellowed Mr. Brewster. "I didn't ring for a waiter."
+
+Archie, his mind reeling beneath the catastrophe, recovered himself
+sufficiently to do the honours. It was at his instigation that
+Salvatore was there, and, greatly as he wished that he could have
+seen fit to choose a more auspicious moment for his business chat,
+he felt compelled to do his best to see him through.
+
+"Oh, I say, half a second," he said. "You don't quite understand. As
+a matter of fact, this chappie is by way of being downtrodden and
+oppressed and what not, and I suggested that he should get hold of
+you and speak a few well-chosen words. Of course, if you'd rather--
+some other time--"
+
+But Mr. Brewster was not permitted to postpone the interview. Before
+he could get his breath, Salvatore had begun to talk. He was a
+strong, ambidextrous talker, whom it was hard to interrupt; and it
+was not for some moments that Mr. Brewster succeeded in getting a
+word in. When he did, he spoke to the point. Though not a linguist,
+he had been able to follow the discourse closely enough to realise
+that the waiter was dissatisfied with conditions in his hotel; and
+Mr. Brewster, as has been indicated, had a short way with people who
+criticised the Cosmopolis.
+
+"You're fired!" said Mr. Brewster.
+
+"Oh, I say!" protested Archie.
+
+Salvatore muttered what sounded like a passage from Dante.
+
+"Fired!" repeated Mr. Brewster resolutely. "And I wish to heaven,"
+he added, eyeing his son-in-law malignantly, "I could fire you!"
+
+"Well," said Professor Binstead cheerfully, breaking the grim
+silence which followed this outburst, "if you will give me your
+cheque, Brewster, I think I will be going. Two thousand three
+hundred dollars. Make it open, if you will, and then I can run round
+the corner and cash it before lunch. That will be capital!"
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XII
+
+BRIGHT EYES--AND A FLY
+
+
+The Hermitage (unrivalled scenery, superb cuisine, Daniel Brewster,
+proprietor) was a picturesque summer hotel in the green heart of the
+mountains, built by Archie's father-in-law shortly after he assumed
+control of the Cosmopolis. Mr. Brewster himself seldom went there,
+preferring to concentrate his attention on his New York
+establishment; and Archie and Lucille, breakfasting in the airy
+dining-room some ten days after the incidents recorded in the last
+chapter, had consequently to be content with two out of the three
+advertised attractions of the place. Through the window at their
+side quite a slab of the unrivalled scenery was visible; some of the
+superb cuisine was already on the table; and the fact that the eye
+searched in vain for Daniel Brewster, proprietor, filled Archie, at
+any rate, with no sense of aching loss. He bore it with equanimity
+and even with positive enthusiasm. In Archie's opinion, practically
+all a place needed to make it an earthly Paradise was for Mr. Daniel
+Brewster to be about forty-seven miles away from it.
+
+It was at Lucille's suggestion that they had come to the Hermitage.
+Never a human sunbeam, Mr. Brewster had shown such a bleak front to
+the world, and particularly to his son-in-law, in the days following
+the Pongo incident, that Lucille had thought that he and Archie
+would for a time at least be better apart--a view with which her
+husband cordially agreed. He had enjoyed his stay at the Hermitage,
+and now he regarded the eternal hills with the comfortable affection
+of a healthy man who is breakfasting well.
+
+"It's going to be another perfectly topping day," he observed,
+eyeing the shimmering landscape, from which the morning mists were
+swiftly shredding away like faint puffs of smoke. "Just the day you
+ought to have been here."
+
+"Yes, it's too bad I've got to go. New York will be like an oven."
+
+"Put it off."
+
+"I can't, I'm afraid. I've a fitting."
+
+Archie argued no further. He was a married man of old enough
+standing to know the importance of fittings.
+
+"Besides," said Lucille, "I want to see father." Archie repressed an
+exclamation of astonishment. "I'll be back to-morrow evening. You
+will be perfectly happy."
+
+"Queen of my soul, you know I can't be happy with you away. You
+know--"
+
+"Yes?" murmured Lucille, appreciately. She never tired of hearing
+Archie say this sort of thing.
+
+Archie's voice had trailed off. He was looking across the room.
+
+"By Jove!" he exclaimed. "What an awfully pretty woman!"
+
+"Where?"
+
+"Over there. Just coming in, I say, what wonderful eyes! I don't
+think I ever saw such eyes. Did you notice her eyes? Sort of
+flashing! Awfully pretty woman!"
+
+Warm though the morning was, a suspicion of chill descended upon the
+breakfast-table. A certain coldness seemed to come into Lucille's
+face. She could not always share Archie's fresh young enthusiasms.
+
+"Do you think so?"
+
+"Wonderful figure, too!"
+
+"Yes?"
+
+"Well, what I mean to say, fair to medium," said Archie, recovering
+a certain amount of that intelligence which raises man above the
+level of the beasts of the field. "Not the sort of type I admire
+myself, of course."
+
+"You know her, don't you?"
+
+"Absolutely not and far from it," said Archie, hastily. "Never met
+her in my life."
+
+"You've seen her on the stage. Her name's Vera Silverton. We saw her
+in--"
+
+"Of course, yes. So we did. I say, I wonder what she's doing here?
+She ought to be in New York, rehearsing. I remember meeting what's-
+his-name--you know--chappie who writes plays and what not--George
+Benham--I remember meeting George Benham, and he told me she was
+rehearsing in a piece of his called--I forget the name, but I know
+it was called something or other. Well, why isn't she?"
+
+"She probably lost her temper and broke her contract and came away.
+She's always doing that sort of thing. She's known for it. She must
+be a horrid woman."
+
+"Yes."
+
+"I don't want to talk about her. She used to be married to someone,
+and she divorced him. And then she was married to someone else, and
+he divorced her. And I'm certain her hair wasn't that colour two
+years ago, and I don't think a woman ought to make up like that, and
+her dress is all wrong for the country, and those pearls can't be
+genuine, and I hate the way she rolls her eyes about, and pink
+doesn't suit her a bit. I think she's an awful woman, and I wish you
+wouldn't keep on talking about her."
+
+"Right-o!" said Archie, dutifully.
+
+They finished breakfast, and Lucille went up to pack her bag. Archie
+strolled out on to the terrace outside the hotel, where he smoked,
+communed with nature, and thought of Lucille. He always thought of
+Lucille when he was alone, especially when he chanced to find
+himself in poetic surroundings like those provided by the unrivalled
+scenery encircling the Hotel Hermitage. The longer he was married to
+her the more did the sacred institution seem to him a good egg. Mr.
+Brewster might regard their marriage as one of the world's most
+unfortunate incidents, but to Archie it was, and always had been, a
+bit of all right. The more he thought of it the more did he marvel
+that a girl like Lucille should have been content to link her lot
+with that of a Class C specimen like himself. His meditations were,
+in fact, precisely what a happily-married man's meditations ought to
+be.
+
+He was roused from them by a species of exclamation or cry almost at
+his elbow, and turned to find that the spectacular Miss Silverton
+was standing beside him. Her dubious hair gleamed in the sunlight,
+and one of the criticised eyes was screwed up. The other gazed at
+Archie with an expression of appeal.
+
+"There's something in my eye," she said.
+
+"No, really!"
+
+"I wonder if you would mind? It would be so kind of you!"
+
+Archie would have preferred to remove himself, but no man worthy of
+the name can decline to come to the rescue of womanhood in distress.
+To twist the lady's upper lid back and peer into it and jab at it
+with the corner of his handkerchief was the only course open to him.
+His conduct may be classed as not merely blameless but definitely
+praiseworthy. King Arthur's knights used to do this sort of thing
+all the time, and look what people think of them. Lucille,
+therefore, coming out of the hotel just as the operation was
+concluded, ought not to have felt the annoyance she did. But, of
+course, there is a certain superficial intimacy about the attitude
+of a man who is taking a fly out of a woman's eye which may
+excusably jar upon the sensibilities of his wife. It is an attitude
+which suggests a sort of rapprochement or camaraderie or, as Archie
+would have put it, what not.
+
+"Thanks so much!" said Miss Silverton.
+
+"Oh no, rather not," said Archie.
+
+"Such a nuisance getting things in your eye."
+
+"Absolutely!"
+
+"I'm always doing it!"
+
+"Rotten luck!"
+
+"But I don't often find anyone as clever as you to help me."
+
+Lucille felt called upon to break in on this feast of reason and
+flow of soul.
+
+"Archie," she said, "if you go and get your clubs now, I shall just
+have time to walk round with you before my train goes."
+
+"Oh, ah!" said Archie, perceiving her for the first time. "Oh, ah,
+yes, right-o, yes, yes, yes!"
+
+On the way to the first tee it seemed to Archie that Lucille was
+distrait and abstracted in her manner; and it occurred to him, not
+for the first time in his life, what a poor support a clear
+conscience is in moments of crisis. Dash it all, he didn't see what
+else he could have done. Couldn't leave the poor female staggering
+about the place with squads of flies wedged in her eyeball.
+Nevertheless--
+
+"Rotten thing getting a fly in your eye," he hazarded at length.
+"Dashed awkward, I mean."
+
+"Or convenient."
+
+"Eh?"
+
+"Well, it's a very good way of dispensing with an introduction."
+
+"Oh, I say! You don't mean you think--"
+
+"She's a horrid woman!"
+
+"Absolutely! Can't think what people see in her."
+
+"Well, you seemed to enjoy fussing over her!"
+
+"No, no! Nothing of the kind! She inspired me with absolute what-
+d'you-call-it--the sort of thing chappies do get inspired with, you
+know."
+
+"You were beaming all over your face."
+
+"I wasn't. I was just screwing up my face because the sun was in my
+eye."
+
+"All sorts of things seem to be in people's eyes this morning!"
+
+ Archie was saddened. That this sort of misunderstanding should have
+occurred on such a topping day and at a moment when they were to be
+torn asunder for about thirty-six hours made him feel--well, it gave
+him the pip. He had an idea that there were words which would have
+straightened everything out, but he was not an eloquent young man
+and could not find them. He felt aggrieved. Lucille, he considered,
+ought to have known that he was immune as regarded females with
+flashing eyes and experimentally-coloured hair. Why, dash it, he
+could have extracted flies from the eyes of Cleopatra with one hand
+and Helen of Troy with the other, simultaneously, without giving
+them a second thought. It was in depressed mood that he played a
+listless nine holes; nor had life brightened for him when he came
+back to the hotel two hours later, after seeing Lucille off in the
+train to New York. Never till now had they had anything remotely
+resembling a quarrel. Life, Archie felt, was a bit of a wash-out. He
+was disturbed and jumpy, and the sight of Miss Silverton, talking to
+somebody on a settee in the corner of the hotel lobby, sent him
+shooting off at right angles and brought him up with a bump against
+the desk behind which the room-clerk sat.
+
+The room-clerk, always of a chatty disposition, was saying something
+to him, but Archie did not listen. He nodded mechanically. It was
+something about his room. He caught the word "satisfactory."
+
+"Oh, rather, quite!" said Archie.
+
+A fussy devil, the room-clerk! He knew perfectly well that Archie
+found his room satisfactory. These chappies gassed on like this so
+as to try to make you feel that the management took a personal
+interest in you. It was part of their job. Archie beamed absently
+and went in to lunch. Lucille's empty seat stared at him mournfully,
+increasing his sense of desolation.
+
+He was half-way through his lunch, when the chair opposite ceased to
+be vacant. Archie, transferring his gaze from the scenery outside
+the window, perceived that his friend, George Benham, the
+playwright, had materialised from nowhere and was now in his midst.
+
+"Hallo!" he said.
+
+George Benham was a grave young man whose spectacles gave him the
+look of a mournful owl. He seemed to have something on his mind
+besides the artistically straggling mop of black hair which swept
+down over his brow. He sighed wearily, and ordered fish-pie.
+
+"I thought I saw you come through the lobby just now," he said.
+
+"Oh, was that you on the settee, talking to Miss Silverton?"
+
+"She was talking to ME," said the playwright, moodily.
+
+"What are you doing here?" asked Archie. He could have wished Mr.
+Benham elsewhere, for he intruded on his gloom, but, the chappie
+being amongst those present, it was only civil to talk to him. "I
+thought you were in New York, watching the rehearsals of your jolly
+old drama."
+
+"The rehearsals are hung up. And it looks as though there wasn't
+going to be any drama. Good Lord!" cried George Benham, with honest
+warmth, "with opportunities opening out before one on every side--
+with life extending prizes to one with both hands--when you see
+coal-heavers making fifty dollars a week and the fellows who clean
+out the sewers going happy and singing about their work--why does a
+man deliberately choose a job like writing plays? Job was the only
+man that ever lived who was really qualified to write a play, and he
+would have found it pretty tough going if his leading woman had been
+anyone like Vera Silverton!"
+
+Archie--and it was this fact, no doubt, which accounted for his
+possession of such a large and varied circle of friends--was always
+able to shelve his own troubles in order to listen to other people's
+hard-luck stories.
+
+"Tell me all, laddie," he said. "Release the film! Has she walked
+out on you?"
+
+"Left us flat! How did you hear about it? Oh, she told you, of
+course?"
+
+Archie hastened to try to dispel the idea that he was on any such
+terms of intimacy with Miss Silverton.
+
+"No, no! My wife said she thought it must be something of that
+nature or order when we saw her come in to breakfast. I mean to
+say," said Archie, reasoning closely, "woman can't come into
+breakfast here and be rehearsing in New York at the same time. Why
+did she administer the raspberry, old friend?"
+
+Mr. Benham helped himself to fish-pie, and spoke dully through the
+steam.
+
+"Well, what happened was this. Knowing her as intimately as you do--"
+
+"I DON'T know her!"
+
+"Well, anyway, it was like this. As you know, she has a dog--"
+
+"I didn't know she had a dog," protested Archie. It seemed to him
+that the world was in conspiracy to link him with this woman.
+
+"Well, she has a dog. A beastly great whacking brute of a bulldog.
+And she brings it to rehearsal." Mr. Benham's eyes filled with
+tears, as in his emotion he swallowed a mouthful of fish-pie some
+eighty-three degrees Fahrenheit hotter than it looked. In the
+intermission caused by this disaster his agile mind skipped a few
+chapters of the story, and, when he was able to speak again, he
+said, "So then there was a lot of trouble. Everything broke loose!"
+
+"Why?" Archie was puzzled. "Did the management object to her
+bringing the dog to rehearsal?"
+
+"A lot of good that would have done! She does what she likes in the
+theatre."
+
+"Then why was there trouble?"
+
+"You weren't listening," said Mr. Benham, reproachfully. "I told
+you. This dog came snuffling up to where I was sitting--it was quite
+dark in the body of the theatre, you know--and I got up to say
+something about something that was happening on the stage, and
+somehow I must have given it a push with my foot."
+
+"I see," said Archie, beginning to get the run of the plot. "You
+kicked her dog."
+
+"Pushed it. Accidentally. With my foot."
+
+"I understand. And when you brought off this kick--"
+
+"Push," said Mr. Benham, austerely.
+
+"This kick or push. When you administered this kick or push--"
+
+"It was more a sort of light shove."
+
+"Well, when you did whatever you did, the trouble started?"
+
+Mr. Benham gave a slight shiver.
+
+"She talked for a while, and then walked out, taking the dog with
+her. You see, this wasn't the first time it had happened."
+
+"Good Lord! Do you spend your whole time doing that sort of thing?"
+
+"It wasn't me the first time. It was the stage-manager. He didn't
+know whose dog it was, and it came waddling on to the stage, and he
+gave it a sort of pat, a kind of flick--"
+
+"A slosh?"
+
+"NOT a slosh," corrected Mr. Benham, firmly. "You might call it a
+tap--with the promptscript. Well, we had a lot of difficulty
+smoothing her over that time. Still, we managed to do it, but she
+said that if anything of the sort occurred again she would chuck up
+her part."
+
+"She must be fond of the dog," said Archie, for the first time
+feeling a touch of goodwill and sympathy towards the lady.
+
+"She's crazy about, it. That's what made it so awkward when I
+happened--quite inadvertently--to give it this sort of accidental
+shove. Well, we spent the rest of the day trying to get her on the
+'phone at her apartment, and finally we heard that she had come
+here. So I took the next train, and tried to persuade her to come
+back. She wouldn't listen. And that's how matters stand."
+
+"Pretty rotten!" said Archie, sympathetically.
+
+"You can bet it's pretty rotten--for me. There's nobody else who can
+play the part. Like a chump, I wrote the thing specially for her. It
+means the play won't be produced at all, if she doesn't do it. So
+you're my last hope!"
+
+Archie, who was lighting a cigarette, nearly swallowed it.
+
+"_I_ am?"
+
+"I thought you might persuade her. Point out to her what a lot hangs
+on her coming back. Jolly her along, YOU know the sort of thing!"
+
+"But, my dear old friend, I tell you I don't know her!"
+
+Mr. Benham's eyes opened behind their zareba of glass.
+
+"Well, she knows YOU. When you came through the lobby just now she
+said that you were the only real human being she had ever met."
+
+"Well, as a matter of fact, I did take a fly out of her eye. But--"
+
+"You did? Well, then, the whole thing's simple. All you have to do
+is to ask her how her eye is, and tell her she has the most
+beautiful eyes you ever saw, and coo a bit."
+
+"But, my dear old son!" The frightful programme which his friend had
+mapped out stunned Archie. "I simply can't! Anything to oblige and
+all that sort of thing, but when it comes to cooing, distinctly
+Napoo!"
+
+"Nonsense! It isn't hard to coo."
+
+"You don't understand, laddie. You're not a married man. I mean to
+say, whatever you say for or against marriage--personally I'm all
+for it and consider it a ripe egg--the fact remains that it
+practically makes a chappie a spent force as a cooer. I don't want
+to dish you in any way, old bean, but I must firmly and resolutely
+decline to coo."
+
+Mr. Benham rose and looked at his watch.
+
+"I'll have to be moving," he said. "I've got to get back to New York
+and report. I'll tell them that I haven't been able to do anything
+myself, but that I've left the matter in good hands. I know you will
+do your best."
+
+"But, laddie!"
+
+"Think," said Mr. Benham, solemnly, "of all that depends on it! The
+other actors! The small-part people thrown out of a job! Myself--but
+no! Perhaps you had better touch very lightly or not at all on my
+connection with the thing. Well, you know how to handle it. I feel I
+can leave it to you. Pitch it strong! Good-bye, my dear old man, and
+a thousand thanks. I'll do the same for you another time." He moved
+towards the door, leaving Archie transfixed. Half-way there he
+turned and came back. "Oh, by the way," he said, "my lunch. Have it
+put on your bill, will you? I haven't time to stay and settle. Good-
+bye! Good-bye!"
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XIII
+
+RALLYING ROUND PERCY
+
+
+It amazed Archie through the whole of a long afternoon to reflect
+how swiftly and unexpectedly the blue and brilliant sky of life can
+cloud over and with what abruptness a man who fancies that his feet
+are on solid ground can find himself immersed in Fate's gumbo. He
+recalled, with the bitterness with which one does recall such
+things, that that morning he had risen from his bed without a care
+in the world, his happiness unruffled even by the thought that
+Lucille would be leaving him for a short space. He had sung in his
+bath. Yes, he had chirruped like a bally linnet. And now--
+
+Some men would have dismissed the unfortunate affairs of Mr. George
+Benham from their mind as having nothing to do with themselves, but
+Archie had never been made of this stern stuff. The fact that Mr.
+Benham, apart from being an agreeable companion with whom he had
+lunched occasionally in New York, had no claims upon him affected
+him little. He hated to see his fellowman in trouble. On the other
+hand, what could he do? To seek Miss Silverton out and plead with
+her--even if he did it without cooing--would undoubtedly establish
+an intimacy between them which, instinct told him, might tinge her
+manner after Lucille's return with just that suggestion of Auld Lang
+Syne which makes things so awkward.
+
+His whole being shrank from extending to Miss Silverton that inch
+which the female artistic temperament is so apt to turn into an ell;
+and when, just as he was about to go in to dinner, he met her in the
+lobby and she smiled brightly at him and informed him that her eye
+was now completely recovered, he shied away like a startled mustang
+of the prairie, and, abandoning his intention of worrying the table
+d'hote in the same room with the amiable creature, tottered off to
+the smoking-room, where he did the best he could with sandwiches and
+coffee.
+
+Having got through the time as best he could till eleven o'clock, he
+went up to bed.
+
+The room to which he and Lucille had been assigned by the management
+was on the second floor, pleasantly sunny by day and at night filled
+with cool and heartening fragrance of the pines. Hitherto Archie had
+always enjoyed taking a final smoke on the balcony overlooking the
+woods, but, to-night such was his mental stress that he prepared to
+go to bed directly he had closed the door. He turned to the cupboard
+to get his pyjamas.
+
+His first thought, when even after a second scrutiny no pyjamas were
+visible, was that this was merely another of those things which
+happen on days when life goes wrong. He raked the cupboard for a
+third time with an annoyed eye. From every hook hung various
+garments of Lucille's, but no pyjamas. He was breathing a soft
+malediction preparatory to embarking on a point-to-point hunt for
+his missing property, when something in the cupboard caught his eye
+and held him for a moment puzzled.
+
+He could have sworn that Lucille did not possess a mauve neglige.
+Why, she had told him a dozen times that mauve was a colour which
+she did not like. He frowned perplexedly; and as he did so, from
+near the window came a soft cough.
+
+Archie spun round and subjected the room to as close a scrutiny as
+that which he had bestowed upon the cupboard. Nothing was visible.
+The window opening on to the balcony gaped wide. The balcony was
+manifestly empty.
+
+"URRF!"
+
+This time there was no possibility of error. The cough had come from
+the immediate neighbourhood of the window.
+
+Archie was conscious of a pringly sensation about the roots of his
+closely-cropped back-hair, as he moved cautiously across the room.
+The affair was becoming uncanny; and, as he tip-toed towards the
+window, old ghost stories, read in lighter moments before cheerful
+fires with plenty of light in the room, flitted through his mind. He
+had the feeling--precisely as every chappie in those stories had
+had--that he was not alone.
+
+Nor was he. In a basket behind an arm-chair, curled up, with his
+massive chin resting on the edge of the wicker-work, lay a fine
+bulldog.
+
+"Urrf!" said the bulldog.
+
+"Good God!" said Archie.
+
+There was a lengthy pause in which the bulldog looked earnestly at
+Archie and Archie looked earnestly at the bulldog.
+
+Normally, Archie was a dog-lover. His hurry was never so great as to
+prevent him stopping, when in the street, and introducing himself to
+any dog he met. In a strange house, his first act was to assemble
+the canine population, roll it on its back or backs, and punch it in
+the ribs. As a boy, his earliest ambition had been to become a
+veterinary surgeon; and, though the years had cheated him of his
+career, he knew all about dogs, their points, their manners, their
+customs, and their treatment in sickness and in health. In short, he
+loved dogs, and, had they met under happier conditions, he would
+undoubtedly have been on excellent terms with this one within the
+space of a minute. But, as things were, he abstained from
+fraternising and continued to goggle dumbly.
+
+And then his eye, wandering aside, collided with the following
+objects: a fluffy pink dressing-gown, hung over the back of a chair,
+an entirely strange suit-case, and, on the bureau, a photograph in a
+silver frame of a stout gentleman in evening-dress whom he had never
+seen before in his life.
+
+Much has been written of the emotions of the wanderer who, returning
+to his childhood home, finds it altered out of all recognition; but
+poets have neglected the theme--far more poignant--of the man who
+goes up to his room in an hotel and finds it full of somebody else's
+dressing-gowns and bulldogs.
+
+Bulldogs! Archie's heart jumped sideways and upwards with a wiggling
+movement, turning two somersaults, and stopped beating. The hideous
+truth, working its way slowly through the concrete, had at last
+penetrated to his brain. He was not only in somebody else's room,
+and a woman's at that. He was in the room belonging to Miss Vera
+Silverton.
+
+He could not understand it. He would have been prepared to stake the
+last cent he could borrow from his father-in-law on the fact that he
+had made no error in the number over the door. Yet, nevertheless,
+such was the case, and, below par though his faculties were at the
+moment, he was sufficiently alert to perceive that it behoved him to
+withdraw.
+
+He leaped to the door, and, as he did so, the handle began to turn.
+
+The cloud which had settled on Archie's mind lifted abruptly. For an
+instant he was enabled to think about a hundred times more quickly
+than was his leisurely wont. Good fortune had brought him to within
+easy reach of the electric-light switch. He snapped it back, and was
+in darkness. Then, diving silently and swiftly to the floor, he
+wriggled under the bed. The thud of his head against what appeared
+to be some sort of joist or support, unless it had been placed there
+by the maker as a practical joke, on the chance of this kind of
+thing happening some day, coincided with the creak of the opening
+door. Then the light was switched on again, and the bulldog in the
+corner gave a welcoming woofle.
+
+"And how is mamma's precious angel?"
+
+Rightly concluding that the remark had not been addressed to himself
+and that no social obligation demanded that he reply, Archie pressed
+his cheek against the boards and said nothing. The question was not
+repeated, but from the other side of the room came the sound of a
+patted dog.
+
+"Did he think his muzzer had fallen down dead and was never coming
+up?"
+
+The beautiful picture which these words conjured up filled Archie
+with that yearning for the might-have-been which is always so
+painful. He was finding his position physically as well as mentally
+distressing. It was cramped under the bed, and the boards were
+harder than anything he had ever encountered. Also, it appeared to
+be the practice of the housemaids at the Hotel Hermitage to use the
+space below the beds as a depository for all the dust which they
+swept off the carpet, and much of this was insinuating itself into
+his nose and mouth. The two things which Archie would have liked
+most to do at that moment were first to kill Miss Silverton--if
+possible, painfully--and then to spend the remainder of his life
+sneezing.
+
+After a prolonged period he heard a drawer open, and noted the fact
+as promising. As the old married man, he presumed that it signified
+the putting away of hair-pins. About now the dashed woman would be
+looking at herself in the glass with her hair down. Then she would
+brush it. Then she would twiddle it up into thingummies. Say, ten
+minutes for this. And after that she would go to bed and turn out
+the light, and he would be able, after giving her a bit of time to
+go to sleep, to creep out and leg it. Allowing at a conservative
+estimate three-quarters of--
+
+"Come out!"
+
+Archie stiffened. For an instant a feeble hope came to him that this
+remark, like the others, might be addressed to the dog.
+
+"Come out from under that bed!" said a stern voice. "And mind how
+you come! I've got a pistol!"
+
+"Well, I mean to say, you know," said Archie, in a propitiatory
+voice, emerging from his lair like a tortoise and smiling as
+winningly as a man can who has just bumped his head against the leg
+of a bed, "I suppose all this seems fairly rummy, but--"
+
+"For the love of Mike!" said Miss Silverton.
+
+The point seemed to Archie well taken and the comment on the
+situation neatly expressed.
+
+"What are you doing in my room?"
+
+"Well, if it comes to that, you know--shouldn't have mentioned it if
+you hadn't brought the subject up in the course of general chit-
+chat--what are you doing in mine?"
+
+"Yours?"
+
+"Well, apparently there's been a bloomer of some species somewhere,
+but this was the room I had last night," said Archie.
+
+"But the desk-clerk said that he had asked you if it would be quite
+satisfactory to you giving it up to me, and you said yes. I come
+here every summer, when I'm not working, and I always have this
+room."
+
+"By Jove! I remember now. The chappie did say something to me about
+the room, but I was thinking of something else and it rather went
+over the top. So that's what he was talking about, was it?"
+
+Miss Silverton was frowning. A moving-picture director, scanning her
+face, would have perceived that she was registering disappointment.
+
+"Nothing breaks right for me in this darned world," she said,
+regretfully. "When I caught sight of your leg sticking out from
+under the bed, I did think that everything was all lined up for a
+real find ad. at last. I could close my eyes and see the thing in
+the papers. On the front page, with photographs: 'Plucky Actress
+Captures Burglar.' Darn it!"
+
+"Fearfully sorry, you know!"
+
+"I just needed something like that. I've got a Press-agent, and I
+will say for him that he eats well and sleeps well and has just
+enough intelligence to cash his monthly cheque without forgetting
+what he went into the bank for, but outside of that you can take it
+from me he's not one of the world's workers! He's about as much
+solid use to a girl with aspirations as a pain in the lower ribs.
+It's three weeks since he got me into print at all, and then the
+brightest thing he could thing up was that my favourite breakfast-
+fruit was an apple. Well, I ask you!"
+
+"Rotten!" said Archie.
+
+"I did think that for once my guardian angel had gone back to work
+and was doing something for me. 'Stage Star and Midnight Marauder,'
+" murmured Miss Silverton, wistfully. "'Footlight Favourite Foils
+Felon.'"
+
+"Bit thick!" agreed Archie, sympathetically. "Well, you'll probably
+be wanting to get to bed and all that sort of rot, so I may as well
+be popping, what! Cheerio!"
+
+A sudden gleam came into Miss Silverton's compelling eyes.
+
+"Wait!"
+
+"Eh?"
+
+"Wait! I've got an idea!" The wistful sadness had gone from her
+manner. She was bright and alert. "Sit down!"
+
+"Sit down?"
+
+"Sure. Sit down and take the chill off the arm-chair. I've thought
+of something."
+
+Archie sat down as directed. At his elbow the bulldog eyed him
+gravely from the basket.
+
+"Do they know you in this hotel?"
+
+"Know me? Well, I've been here about a week."
+
+"I mean, do they know who you are? Do they know you're a good
+citizen?"
+
+"Well, if it comes to that, I suppose they don't. But--"
+
+"Fine!" said Miss Silverton, appreciatively. "Then it's all right.
+We can carry on!"
+
+"Carry on!"
+
+"Why, sure! All I want is to get the thing into the papers. It
+doesn't matter to me if it turns out later that there was a mistake
+and that you weren't a burglar trying for my jewels after all. It
+makes just as good a story either way. I can't think why that never
+struck me before. Here have I been kicking because you weren't a
+real burglar, when it doesn't amount to a hill of beans whether you
+are or not. All I've got to do is to rush out and yell and rouse the
+hotel, and they come in and pinch you, and I give the story to the
+papers, and everything's fine!"
+
+Archie leaped from his chair.
+
+"I say! What!"
+
+"What's on your mind?" enquired Miss Silverton, considerately.
+"Don't you think it's a nifty scheme?"
+
+"Nifty! My dear old soul! It's frightful!"
+
+"Can't see what's wrong with it," grumbled Miss Silverton. "After
+I've had someone get New York on the long-distance 'phone and give
+the story to the papers you can explain, and they'll let you out.
+Surely to goodness you don't object, as a personal favour to me, to
+spending an hour or two in a cell? Why, probably they haven't got a
+prison at all out in these parts, and you'll simply be locked in a
+room. A child of ten could do it on his head," said Miss Silverton.
+"A child of six," she emended.
+
+"But, dash it--I mean--what I mean to say--I'm married!"
+
+"Yes?" said Miss Silverton, with the politeness of faint interest.
+"I've been married myself. I wouldn't say it's altogether a bad
+thing, mind you, for those that like it, but a little of it goes a
+long way. My first husband," she proceeded, reminiscently, "was a
+travelling man. I gave him a two-weeks' try-out, and then I told him
+to go on travelling. My second husband--now, HE wasn't a gentleman
+in any sense of the word. I remember once--"
+
+"You don't grasp the point. The jolly old point! You fail to grasp
+it. If this bally thing comes out, my wife will be most frightfully
+sick!"
+
+Miss Silverton regarded him with pained surprise.
+
+"Do you mean to say you would let a little thing like that stand in
+the way of my getting on the front page of all the papers--WITH
+photographs? Where's your chivalry?"
+
+"Never mind my dashed chivalry!"
+
+"Besides, what does it matter if she does get a little sore? She'll
+soon get over it. You can put that right. Buy her a box of candy.
+Not that I'm strong for candy myself. What I always say is, it may
+taste good, but look what it does to your hips! I give you my honest
+word that, when I gave up eating candy, I lost eleven ounces the
+first week. My second husband--no, I'm a liar, it was my third--my
+third husband said--Say, what's the big idea? Where are you going?"
+
+"Out!" said Archie, firmly. "Bally out!"
+
+A dangerous light flickered in Miss Silverton's eyes.
+
+"That'll be all of that!" she said, raising the pistol. "You stay
+right where you are, or I'll fire!"
+
+"Right-o!"
+
+"I mean it!"
+
+"My dear old soul," said Archie, "in the recent unpleasantness in
+France I had chappies popping off things like that at me all day and
+every day for close on five years, and here I am, what! I mean to
+say, if I've got to choose between staying here and being pinched in
+your room by the local constabulary and having the dashed thing get
+into the papers and all sorts of trouble happening, and my wife
+getting the wind up and--I say, if I've got to choose--"
+
+"Suck a lozenge and start again!" said Miss Silverton.
+
+"Well, what I mean to say is, I'd much rather take a chance of
+getting a bullet in the old bean than that. So loose it off and the
+best o' luck!"
+
+Miss Silverton lowered the pistol, sank into a chair, and burst into
+tears.
+
+"I think you're the meanest man I ever met!" she sobbed. "You know
+perfectly well the bang would send me into a fit!"
+
+"In that case," said Archie, relieved, "cheerio, good luck, pip-pip,
+toodle-oo, and good-bye-ee! I'll be shifting!"
+
+"Yes, you will!" cried Miss Silverton, energetically, recovering
+with amazing swiftness from her collapse. "Yes, you will, I by no
+means suppose! You think, just because I'm no champion with a
+pistol, I'm helpless. You wait! Percy!"
+
+"My name is not Percy."
+
+"I never said it was. Percy! Percy, come to muzzer!"
+
+There was a creaking rustle from behind the arm-chair. A heavy body
+flopped on the carpet. Out into the room, heaving himself along as
+though sleep had stiffened his joints, and breathing stertorously
+through his tilted nose, moved the fine bulldog. Seen in the open,
+he looked even more formidable than he had done in his basket.
+
+"Guard him, Percy! Good dog, guard him! Oh, heavens! What's the
+matter with him?"
+
+And with these words the emotional woman, uttering a wail of
+anguish, flung herself on the floor beside the animal.
+
+Percy was, indeed, in manifestly bad shape. He seemed quite unable
+to drag his limbs across the room. There was a curious arch in his
+back, and, as his mistress touched him, he cried out plaintively,
+
+"Percy! Oh, what IS the matter with him? His nose is burning!"
+
+Now was the time, with both sections of the enemy's forces occupied,
+for Archie to have departed softly from the room. But never, since
+the day when at the age of eleven he had carried a large, damp, and
+muddy terrier with a sore foot three miles and deposited him on the
+best sofa in his mother's drawing-room, had he been able to ignore
+the spectacle of a dog in trouble.
+
+"He does look bad, what!"
+
+"He's dying! Oh, he's dying! Is it distemper? He's never had
+distemper."
+
+Archie regarded the sufferer with the grave eye of the expert. He
+shook his head.
+
+"It's not that," he said. "Dogs with distemper make a sort of
+snifting noise."
+
+"But he IS making a snifting noise!"
+
+"No, he's making a snuffling noise. Great difference between
+snuffling and snifting. Not the same thing at all. I mean to say,
+when they snift they snift, and when they snuffle they--as it were--
+snuffle. That's how you can tell. If you ask ME"--he passed his hand
+over the dog's back. Percy uttered another cry. "I know what's the
+matter with him."
+
+"A brute of a man kicked him at rehearsal. Do you think he's injured
+internally?"
+
+"It's rheumatism," said Archie. "Jolly old rheumatism. That's all
+that's the trouble."
+
+"Are you sure?"
+
+"Absolutely!"
+
+"But what can I do?"
+
+"Give him a good hot bath, and mind and dry him well. He'll have a
+good sleep then, and won't have any pain. Then, first thing to-
+morrow, you want to give him salicylate of soda."
+
+"I'll never remember that."-"I'll write it down for you. You ought
+to give him from ten to twenty grains three times a day in an ounce
+of water. And rub him with any good embrocation."
+
+"And he won't die?"
+
+"Die! He'll live to be as old as you are!-I mean to say--"
+
+"I could kiss you!" said Miss Silverton, emotionally.
+
+Archie backed hastily.
+
+"No, no, absolutely not! Nothing like that required, really!"
+
+"You're a darling!"
+
+"Yes. I mean no. No, no, really!"
+
+"I don't know what to say. What can I say?"
+
+"Good night," said Archie.
+
+"I wish there was something I could do! If you hadn't been here, I
+should have gone off my head!"
+
+A great idea flashed across Archie's brain.
+
+"Do you really want to do something?"
+
+"Anything!"
+
+"Then I do wish, like a dear sweet soul, you would pop straight back
+to New York to-morrow and go on with those rehearsals."
+
+Miss Silverton shook her head.
+
+"I can't do that!"
+
+"Oh, right-o! But it isn't much to ask, what!"
+
+"Not much to ask! I'll never forgive that man for kicking Percy!"
+
+"Now listen, dear old soul. You've got the story all wrong. As a
+matter of fact, jolly old Benham told me himself that he has the
+greatest esteem and respect for Percy, and wouldn't have kicked him
+for the world. And, you know it was more a sort of push than a kick.
+You might almost call it a light shove. The fact is, it was beastly
+dark in the theatre, and he was legging it sideways for some reason
+or other, no doubt with the best motives, and unfortunately he
+happened to stub his toe on the poor old bean."
+
+"Then why didn't he say so?"
+
+"As far as I could make out, you didn't give him a chance."
+
+Miss Silverton wavered.
+
+"I always hate going back after I've walked out on a show," she
+said. "It seems so weak!"
+
+"Not a bit of it! They'll give three hearty cheers and think you a
+topper. Besides, you've got to go to New York in any case. To take
+Percy to a vet., you know, what!"
+
+"Of course. How right you always are!" Miss Silverton hesitated
+again. "Would you really be glad if I went back to the show?"
+
+"I'd go singing about the hotel! Great pal of mine, Benham. A
+thoroughly cheery old bean, and very cut up about the whole affair.
+Besides, think of all the coves thrown out of work--the
+thingummabobs and the poor what-d'you-call-'ems!"
+
+"Very well."
+
+"You'll do it?"
+
+"Yes."
+
+"I say, you really are one of the best! Absolutely like mother made!
+That's fine! Well, I think I'll be saying good night."
+
+"Good night. And thank you so much!"
+
+"Oh, no, rather not!"
+
+Archie moved to the door.
+
+"Oh, by the way."
+
+"Yes?"
+
+"If I were you, I think I should catch the very first train you can
+get to New York. You see--er--you ought to take Percy to the vet. as
+soon as ever you can."
+
+"You really do think of everything," said Miss Silverton.
+
+"Yes," said Archie, meditatively.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XIV
+
+THE SAD CASE OF LOONEY BIDDLE
+
+
+Archie was a simple soul, and, as is the case with most simple
+souls, gratitude came easily to him. He appreciated kind treatment.
+And when, on the following day, Lucille returned to the Hermitage,
+all smiles and affection, and made no further reference to Beauty's
+Eyes and the flies that got into them, he was conscious of a keen
+desire to show some solid recognition of this magnanimity. Few
+wives, he was aware, could have had the nobility and what not to
+refrain from occasionally turning the conversation in the direction
+of the above-mentioned topics. It had not needed this behaviour on
+her part to convince him that Lucille was a topper and a corker and
+one of the very best, for he had been cognisant of these facts since
+the first moment he had met her: but what he did feel was that she
+deserved to be rewarded in no uncertain manner. And it seemed a
+happy coincidence to him that her birthday should be coming along in
+the next week or so. Surely, felt Archie, he could whack up some
+sort of a not unjuicy gift for that occasion--something pretty ripe
+that would make a substantial hit with the dear girl. Surely
+something would come along to relieve his chronic impecuniosity for
+just sufficient length of time to enable him to spread himself on
+this great occasion.
+
+And, as if in direct answer to prayer, an almost forgotten aunt in
+England suddenly, out of an absolutely blue sky, shot no less a sum
+than five hundred dollars across the ocean. The present was so
+lavish and unexpected that Archie had the awed feeling of one who
+participates in a miracle. He felt, like Herbert Parker, that the
+righteous was not forsaken. It was the sort of thing that restored a
+fellow's faith in human nature. For nearly a week he went about in a
+happy trance: and when, by thrift and enterprise--that is to say, by
+betting Reggie van Tuyl that the New York Giants would win the
+opening game of the series against the Pittsburg baseball team--he
+contrived to double his capital, what it amounted to was simply that
+life had nothing more to offer. He was actually in a position to go
+to a thousand dollars for Lucille's birthday present. He gathered in
+Mr. van Tuyl, of whose taste in these matters he had a high opinion,
+and dragged him off to a jeweller's on Broadway.
+
+The jeweller, a stout, comfortable man, leaned on the counter and
+fingered lovingly the bracelet which he had lifted out of its nest
+of blue plush. Archie, leaning on the other side of the counter,
+inspected the bracelet searchingly, wishing that he knew more about
+these things; for he had rather a sort of idea that the merchant was
+scheming to do him in the eyeball. In a chair by his side, Reggie
+van Tuyl, half asleep as usual, yawned despondently. He had
+permitted Archie to lug him into this shop; and he wanted to buy
+something and go. Any form of sustained concentration fatigued
+Reggie.
+
+"Now this," said the jeweller, "I could do at eight hundred and
+fifty dollars."
+
+"Grab it!" murmured Mr. van Tuyl.
+
+The jeweller eyed him approvingly, a man after his own heart; but
+Archie looked doubtful. It was all very well for Reggie to tell him
+to grab it in that careless way. Reggie was a dashed millionaire,
+and no doubt bought bracelets by the pound or the gross or what not;
+but he himself was in an entirely different position.
+
+"Eight hundred and fifty dollars!" he said, hesitating.
+
+"Worth it," mumbled Reggie van Tuyl.
+
+"More than worth it," amended the jeweller. "I can assure you that
+it is better value than you could get anywhere on Fifth Avenue."
+
+"Yes?" said Archie. He took the bracelet and twiddled it
+thoughtfully. "Well, my dear old jeweller, one can't say fairer than
+that, can one--or two, as the case may be!" He frowned. "Oh, well,
+all right! But it's rummy that women are so fearfully keen on these
+little thingummies, isn't it? I mean to say, can't see what they see
+in them. Stones, and all that. Still, there, it is, of course!"
+
+"There," said the jeweller, "as you say, it is, sir."
+
+"Yes, there it is!"
+
+"Yes, there it is," said the jeweller, "fortunately for people in my
+line of business. Will you take it with you, sir?"
+
+Archie reflected.
+
+"No. No, not take it with me. The fact is, you know, my wife's
+coming back from the country to-night, and it's her birthday to-
+morrow, and the thing's for her, and, if it was popping about the
+place to-night, she might see it, and it would sort of spoil the
+surprise. I mean to say, she doesn't know I'm giving it her, and all
+that!"
+
+"Besides," said Reggie, achieving a certain animation now that the
+tedious business interview was concluded, "going to the ball-game
+this afternoon--might get pocket picked--yes, better have it sent."
+
+"Where shall I send it, sir?"
+
+"Eh? Oh, shoot it along to Mrs. Archibald Moffam, at the Cosmopolis.
+Not to-day, you know. Buzz it in first thing to-morrow."
+
+Having completed the satisfactory deal, the jeweller threw off the
+business manner and became chatty.
+
+"So you are going to the ball-game? It should be an interesting
+contest."
+
+Reggie van Tuyl, now--by his own standards--completely awake, took
+exception to this remark.
+
+"Not a bit of it!" he said, decidedly. "No contest! Can't call it a
+contest! Walkover for the Pirates!"
+
+Archie was stung to the quick. There is that about baseball which
+arouses enthusiasm and the partisan spirit in the unlikeliest
+bosoms. It is almost impossible for a man to live in America and not
+become gripped by the game; and Archie had long been one of its
+warmest adherents. He was a whole-hearted supporter of the Giants,
+and his only grievance against Reggie, in other respects an
+estimable young man, was that the latter, whose money had been
+inherited from steel-mills in that city, had an absurd regard for
+the Pirates of Pittsburg.
+
+"What absolute bally rot!" he exclaimed. "Look what the Giants did
+to them yesterday!"
+
+"Yesterday isn't to-day," said Reggie.
+
+"No, it'll be a jolly sight worse," said Archie. "Looney Biddle'll
+be pitching for the Giants to-day."
+
+"That's just what I mean. The Pirates have got him rattled. Look
+what happened last time."
+
+Archie understood, and his generous nature chafed at the innuendo.
+Looney Biddle--so-called by an affectionately admiring public as the
+result of certain marked eccentricities--was beyond dispute the
+greatest left-handed pitcher New York had possessed in the last
+decade. But there was one blot on Mr. Biddle's otherwise stainless
+scutcheon. Five weeks before, on the occasion of the Giants'
+invasion of Pittsburg, he had gone mysteriously to pieces. Few
+native-born partisans, brought up to baseball from the cradle, had
+been plunged into a profounder gloom on that occasion than Archie;
+but his soul revolted at the thought that that sort of thing could
+ever happen again.
+
+"I'm not saying," continued Reggie, "that Biddle isn't a very fair
+pitcher, but it's cruel to send him against the Pirates, and
+somebody ought to stop it. His best friends should interfere. Once a
+team gets a pitcher rattled, he's never any good against them again.
+He loses his nerve."
+
+The jeweller nodded approval of this sentiment.
+
+"They never come back," he said, sententiously.
+
+The fighting blood of the Moffams was now thoroughly stirred. Archie
+eyed his friend sternly. Reggie was a good chap--in many respects an
+extremely sound egg--but he must not be allowed to talk rot of this
+description about the greatest left-handed pitcher of the age.
+
+"It seems to me, old companion," he said, "that a small bet is
+indicated at this juncture. How about it?"
+
+"Don't want to take your money."
+
+"You won't have to! In the cool twilight of the merry old summer
+evening I, friend of my youth and companion of my riper years, shall
+be trousering yours."
+
+Reggie yawned. The day was very hot, and this argument was making
+him feel sleepy again.
+
+"Well, just as you like, of course. Double or quits on yesterday's
+bet, if that suits you."
+
+For a moment Archie hesitated. Firm as his faith was in Mr. Biddle's
+stout left arm, he had not intended to do the thing on quite this
+scale. That thousand dollars of his was earmarked for Lucille's
+birthday present, and he doubted whether he ought to risk it. Then
+the thought that the honour of New York was in his hands decided
+him. Besides, the risk was negligible. Betting on Looney Biddle was
+like betting on the probable rise of the sun in the east. The thing
+began to seem to Archie a rather unusually sound and conservative
+investment. He remembered that the jeweller, until he drew him
+firmly but kindly to earth and urged him to curb his exuberance and
+talk business on a reasonable plane, had started brandishing
+bracelets that cost about two thousand. There would be time to pop
+in at the shop this evening after the game and change the one he had
+selected for one of those. Nothing was too good for Lucille on her
+birthday.
+
+"Right-o!" he said. "Make it so, old friend!"
+
+Archie walked back to the Cosmopolis. No misgivings came to mar his
+perfect contentment. He felt no qualms about separating Reggie from
+another thousand dollars. Except for a little small change in the
+possession of the Messrs. Rockefeller and Vincent Astor, Reggie had
+all the money in the world and could afford to lose. He hummed a gay
+air as he entered the lobby and crossed to the cigar-stand to buy a
+few cigarettes to see him through the afternoon.
+
+The girl behind the cigar counter welcomed him with a bright smile.
+Archie was popular with all the employes of the Cosmopolis.
+
+"'S a great day, Mr. Moffam!"
+
+"One of the brightest and best," Agreed Archie. "Could you dig me
+out two, or possibly three, cigarettes of the usual description? I
+shall want something to smoke at the ball-game."
+
+"You going to the ball-game?"
+
+"Rather! Wouldn't miss it for a fortune."
+
+"No?"
+
+"Absolutely no! Not with jolly old Biddle pitching."
+
+The cigar-stand girl laughed amusedly.
+
+"Is he pitching this afternoon? Say, that feller's a nut? D'you know
+him?"
+
+"Know him? Well, I've seen him pitch and so forth."
+
+"I've got a girl friend who's engaged to him!"
+
+Archie looked at her with positive respect. It would have been more
+dramatic, of course, if she had been engaged to the great man
+herself, but still the mere fact that she had a girl friend in that
+astounding position gave her a sort of halo.
+
+"No, really!" he said. "I say, by Jove, really! Fancy that!"
+
+"Yes, she's engaged to him all right. Been engaged close on a coupla
+months now."
+
+"I say! That's frightfully interesting! Fearfully interesting,
+really!"
+
+"It's funny about that guy," said the cigar-stand girl. "He's a nut!
+The fellow who said there's plenty of room at the top must have been
+thinking of Gus Biddle's head! He's crazy about m' girl friend, y'
+know, and, whenever they have a fuss, it seems like he sort of flies
+right off the handle."
+
+"Goes in off the deep end, eh?"
+
+"Yes, SIR! Loses what little sense he's got. Why, the last time him
+and m' girl friend got to scrapping was when he was going on to
+Pittsburg to play, about a month ago. He'd been out with her the day
+he left for there, and he had a grouch or something, and he started
+making low, sneaky cracks about her Uncle Sigsbee. Well, m' girl
+friend's got a nice disposition, but she c'n get mad, and she just
+left him flat and told him all was over. And he went off to
+Pittsburg, and, when he started in to pitch the opening game, he
+just couldn't keep his mind on his job, and look what them assassins
+done to him! Five runs in the first innings! Yessir, he's a nut all
+right!"
+
+Archie was deeply concerned. So this was the explanation of that
+mysterious disaster, that weird tragedy which had puzzled the
+sporting press from coast to coast.
+
+"Good God! Is he often taken like that?"
+
+"Oh, he's all right when he hasn't had a fuss with m' girl friend,"
+said the cigar-stand girl, indifferently. Her interest in baseball
+was tepid. Women are too often like this--mere butterflies, with no
+concern for the deeper side of life.
+
+"Yes, but I say! What I mean to say, you know! Are they pretty pally
+now? The good old Dove of Peace flapping its little wings fairly
+briskly and all that?"
+
+"Oh, I guess everything's nice and smooth just now. I seen m' girl
+friend yesterday, and Gus was taking her to the movies last night,
+so I guess everything's nice and smooth."
+
+Archie breathed a sigh of relief.
+
+"Took her to the movies, did he? Stout fellow!"
+
+"I was at the funniest picture last week," said the cigar-stand
+girl. "Honest, it was a scream! It was like this--"
+
+Archie listened politely; then went in to get a bite of lunch. His
+equanimity, shaken by the discovery of the rift in the peerless
+one's armour, was restored. Good old Biddle had taken the girl to
+the movies last night. Probably he had squeezed her hand a goodish
+bit in the dark. With what result? Why, the fellow would be feeling
+like one of those chappies who used to joust for the smiles of
+females in the Middle Ages. What he meant to say, presumably the
+girl would be at the game this afternoon, whooping him on, and good
+old Biddle would be so full of beans and buck that there would be no
+holding him.
+
+Encouraged by these thoughts, Archie lunched with an untroubled
+mind. Luncheon concluded, he proceeded to the lobby to buy back his
+hat and stick from the boy brigand with whom he had left them. It
+was while he was conducting this financial operation that he
+observed that at the cigar-stand, which adjoined the coat-and-hat
+alcove, his friend behind the counter had become engaged in
+conversation with another girl.
+
+This was a determined looking young woman in a blue dress and a
+large hat of a bold and flowery species, Archie happening to attract
+her attention, she gave him a glance out of a pair of fine brown
+eyes, then, as if she did not think much of him, turned to her
+companion and resumed their conversation--which, being of an
+essentially private and intimate nature, she conducted, after the
+manner of her kind, in a ringing soprano which penetrated into every
+corner of the lobby. Archie, waiting while the brigand reluctantly
+made change for a dollar bill, was privileged to hear every word.
+
+"Right from the start I seen he was in a ugly mood. YOU know how he
+gets, dearie! Chewing his upper lip and looking at you as if you
+were so much dirt beneath his feet! How was _I_ to know he'd lost
+fifteen dollars fifty-five playing poker, and anyway, I don't see
+where he gets a licence to work off his grouches on me. And I told
+him so. I said to him, 'Gus,' I said, 'if you can't be bright and
+smiling and cheerful when you take me out, why do you come round at
+all? Was I wrong or right, dearie?"
+
+The girl behind the counter heartily endorsed her conduct. "Once you
+let a man think he could use you as a door-mat, where were you?"
+
+"What happened then, honey?"
+
+"Well, after that we went to the movies."
+
+Archie started convulsively. The change from his dollar-bill leaped
+in his hand. Some of it sprang overboard and tinkled across the
+floor, with the brigand in pursuit. A monstrous suspicion had begun,
+to take root in his mind.
+
+"Well, we got good seats, but--well, you know how it is, once things
+start going wrong. You know that hat of mine, the one with the
+daisies and cherries and the feather--I'd taken it off and given it
+him to hold when we went in, and what do you think that fell'r'd
+done? Put it on the floor and crammed it under the seat, just to
+save himself the trouble of holding it on his lap! And, when I
+showed him I was upset, all he said was that he was a pitcher and
+not a hatstand!"
+
+Archie was paralysed. He paid no attention to the hat-check boy, who
+was trying to induce him to accept treasure-trove to the amount of
+forty-five cents. His whole being was concentrated on this frightful
+tragedy which had burst upon him like a tidal wave. No possible room
+for doubt remained. "Gus" was the only Gus in New York that
+mattered, and this resolute and injured female before him was the
+Girl Friend, in whose slim hands rested the happiness of New York's
+baseball followers, the destiny of the unconscious Giants, and the
+fate of his thousand dollars. A strangled croak proceeded from his
+parched lips.
+
+"Well, I didn't say anything at the moment. It just shows how them
+movies can work on a girl's feelings. It was a Bryant Washburn film,
+and somehow, whenever I see him on the screen, nothing else seems to
+matter. I just get that goo-ey feeling, and couldn't start a fight
+if you asked me to. So we go off to have a soda, and I said to him,
+'That sure was a lovely film, Gus!' and would you believe me, he
+says straight out that he didn't think it was such a much, and he
+thought Bryant Washburn was a pill! A pill!" The Girl Friend's
+penetrating voice shook with emotion.
+
+"He never!" exclaimed the shocked cigar-stand girl.
+
+"He did, if I die the next moment! I wasn't more than half-way
+through my vanilla and maple, but I got up without a word and left
+him. And I ain't seen a sight of him since. So there you are,
+dearie! Was I right or wrong?"
+
+The cigar-stand girl gave unqualified approval. What men like Gus
+Biddle needed for the salvation of their souls was an occasional
+good jolt right where it would do most good.
+
+"I'm glad you think I acted right, dearie," said the Girl Friend. "I
+guess I've been too weak with Gus, and he's took advantage of it. I
+s'pose I'll have to forgive him one of these old days, but, believe
+me, it won't be for a week."
+
+The cigar-stand girl was in favour of a fortnight.
+
+"No," said the Girl Friend, regretfully. "I don't believe I could
+hold out that long. But, if I speak to him inside a week, well--!
+Well, I gotta be going. Goodbye, honey."
+
+The cigar-stand girl turned to attend to an impatient customer, and
+the Girl Friend, walking with the firm and decisive steps which
+indicate character, made for the swing-door leading to the street.
+And as she went, the paralysis which had pipped Archie relased its
+hold. Still ignoring the forty-five cents which the boy continued to
+proffer, he leaped in her wake like a panther and came upon her just
+as she was stepping into a car. The car was full, but not too full
+for Archie. He dropped his five cents into the box and reached for a
+vacant strap. He looked down upon the flowered hat. There she was.
+And there he was. Archie rested his left ear against the forearm of
+a long, strongly-built young man in a grey suit who had followed him
+into the car and was sharing his strap, and pondered.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XV
+
+SUMMER STORMS
+
+
+Of course, in a way, the thing was simple. The wheeze was, in a
+sense, straightforward and uncomplicated. What he wanted to do was
+to point out to the injured girl all that hung on her. He wished to
+touch her heart, to plead with her, to desire her to restate her
+war-aims, and to persuade her--before three o'clock when that
+stricken gentleman would be stepping into the pitcher's box to loose
+off the first ball against the Pittsburg Pirates--to let bygones be
+bygones and forgive Augustus Biddle. But the blighted problem was,
+how the deuce to find the opportunity to start. He couldn't yell at
+the girl in a crowded street-car; and, if he let go of his strap and
+bent over her, somebody would step on his neck.
+
+The Girl Friend, who for the first five minutes had remained
+entirely concealed beneath her hat, now sought diversion by looking
+up and examining the faces of the upper strata of passengers. Her
+eye caught Archie's in a glance of recognition, and he smiled
+feebly, endeavouring to register bonhomie and good-will. He was
+surprised to see a startled expression come into her brown eyes. Her
+face turned pink. At least, it was pink already, but it turned
+pinker. The next moment, the car having stopped to pick up more
+passengers, she jumped off and started to hurry across the street.
+
+Archie was momentarily taken aback. When embarking on this business
+he had never intended it to become a blend of otter-hunting and a
+moving-picture chase. He followed her off the car with a sense that
+his grip on the affair was slipping. Preoccupied with these
+thoughts, he did not perceive that the long young man who had shared
+his strap had alighted too. His eyes were fixed on the vanishing
+figure of the Girl Friend, who, having buzzed at a smart pace into
+Sixth Avenue, was now legging it in the direction of the staircase
+leading to one of the stations of the Elevated Railroad. Dashing up
+the stairs after her, he shortly afterwards found himself suspended
+as before from a strap, gazing upon the now familiar flowers on top
+of her hat. From another strap farther down the carriage swayed the
+long young man in the grey suit.
+
+The train rattled on. Once or twice, when it stopped, the girl
+seemed undecided whether to leave or remain. She half rose, then
+sank back again. Finally she walked resolutely out of the car, and
+Archie, following, found himself in a part of New York strange to
+him. The inhabitants of this district appeared to eke out a
+precarious existence, not by taking in one another's washing, but by
+selling one another second-hand clothes.
+
+Archie glanced at his watch. He had lunched early, but so crowded
+with emotions had been the period following lunch that he was
+surprised to find that the hour was only just two. The discovery was
+a pleasant one. With a full hour before the scheduled start of the
+game, much might be achieved. He hurried after the girl, and came us
+with her just as she turned the comer into one of those forlorn New
+York side-streets which are populated chiefly by children, cats,
+desultory loafers, and empty meat-tins.
+
+The girl stopped and turned. Archie smiled a winning smile.
+
+"I say, my dear sweet creature!" he said. "I say, my dear old thing,
+one moment!"
+
+"Is that so?" said the Girl Friend.
+
+"I beg your pardon?"
+
+"Is that so?"
+
+Archie began to feel certain tremors. Her eyes were gleaming, and
+her determined mouth had become a perfectly straight line of
+scarlet. It was going to be difficult to be chatty to this girl. She
+was going to be a hard audience. Would mere words be able to touch
+her heart? The thought suggested itself that, properly speaking, one
+would need to use a pick-axe.
+
+"If you could spare me a couples of minutes of your valuable time--"
+
+"Say!" The lady drew herself up menacingly. "You tie a can to
+yourself and disappear! Fade away, or I'll call a cop!"
+
+Archie was horrified at this misinterpretation of his motives. One
+or two children, playing close at hand, and a loafer who was trying
+to keep the wall from falling down, seemed pleased. Theirs was a
+colourless existence and to the rare purple moments which had
+enlivened it in the past the calling of a cop had been the unfailing
+preliminary. The loafer nudged a fellow-loafer, sunning himself
+against the same wall. The children, abandoning the meat-tin round
+which their game had centred, drew closer.
+
+"My dear old soul!" said Archie. "You don't understand!"
+
+"Don't I! I know your sort, you trailing arbutus!"
+
+"No, no! My dear old thing, believe me! I wouldn't dream!"
+
+"Are you going or aren't you?"
+
+Eleven more children joined the ring of spectators. The loafers
+stared silently, like awakened crocodiles.
+
+"But, I say, listen! I only wanted--"
+
+At this point another voice spoke.
+
+"Say!"
+
+The word "Say!" more almost than any word in the American language,
+is capable of a variety of shades of expression. It can be genial,
+it can be jovial, it can be appealing. It can also be truculent The
+"Say!" which at this juncture smote upon Archie's ear-drum with a
+suddenness which made him leap in the air was truculent; and the two
+loafers and twenty-seven children who now formed the audience were
+well satisfied with the dramatic development of the performance. To
+their experienced ears the word had the right ring.
+
+Archie spun round. At his elbow stood a long, strongly-built young
+man in a grey suit.
+
+"Well!" said the young man, nastily. And he extended a large,
+freckled face toward Archie's. It seemed to the latter, as he backed
+against the wall, that the young man's neck must be composed of
+india-rubber. It appeared to be growing longer every moment. His
+face, besides being freckled, was a dull brick-red in colour; his
+lips curled back in an unpleasant snarl, showing a gold tooth; and
+beside him, swaying in an ominous sort of way, hung two clenched red
+hands about the size of two young legs of mutton. Archie eyed him
+with a growing apprehension. There are moments in life when, passing
+idly on our way, we see a strange face, look into strange eyes, and
+with a sudden glow of human warmth say to ourselves, "We have found
+a friend!" This was not one of those moments. The only person Archie
+had ever seen in his life who looked less friendly was the sergeant-
+major who had trained him in the early days of the war, before he
+had got his commission.
+
+"I've had my eye on you!" said the young man.
+
+He still had his eye on him. It was a hot, gimlet-like eye, and it
+pierced the recesses of Archie's soul. He backed a little farther
+against the wall.
+
+Archie was frankly disturbed. He was no poltroon, and had proved the
+fact on many occasions during the days when the entire German army
+seemed to be picking on him personally, but he hated and shrank from
+anything in the nature of a bally public scene.
+
+"What," enquired the young man, still bearing the burden of the
+conversation, and shifting his left hand a little farther behind his
+back, "do you mean by following this young lady?"
+
+Archie was glad he had asked him. This was precisely what he wanted
+to explain.
+
+"My dear old lad--" he began.
+
+In spite of the fact that he had asked a question and presumably
+desired a reply, the sound of Archie's voice seemed to be more than
+the young man could endure. It deprived him of the last vestige of
+restraint. With a rasping snarl he brought his left fist round in a
+sweeping semicircle in the direction of Archie's head.
+
+Archie was no novice in the art of self-defence. Since his early
+days at school he had learned much from leather-faced professors of
+the science. He had been watching this unpleasant young man's eyes
+with close attention, and the latter could not have indicated his
+scheme of action more clearly if he had sent him a formal note.
+Archie saw the swing all the way. He stepped nimbly aside, and the
+fist crashed against the wall. The young man fell back with a yelp
+of anguish.
+
+"Gus!" screamed the Girl Friend, bounding forward.
+
+She flung her arms round the injured man, who was ruefully examining
+a hand which, always of an out-size, was now swelling to still
+further dimensions.
+
+"Gus, darling!"
+
+A sudden chill gripped Archie. So engrossed had he been with, his
+mission that it had never occurred to him that the love-lorn pitcher
+might have taken it into his head to follow the girl as well in the
+hope of putting in a word for himself. Yet such apparently had been
+the case. Well, this had definitely torn it. Two loving hearts were
+united again in complete reconciliation, but a fat lot of good that
+was. It would be days before the misguided Looney Biddle would be
+able to pitch with a hand like that. It looked like a ham already,
+and was still swelling. Probably the wrist was sprained. For at
+least a week the greatest left-handed pitcher of his time would be
+about as much use to the Giants in any professional capacity as a
+cold in the head. And on that crippled hand depended the fate of all
+the money Archie had in the world. He wished now that he had not
+thwarted the fellow's simple enthusiasm. To have had his head
+knocked forcibly through a brick wall would not have been pleasant,
+but the ultimate outcome would not have been as unpleasant as this.
+With a heavy heart Archie prepared to withdraw, to be alone with his
+sorrow.
+
+At this moment, however, the Girl Friend, releasing her wounded
+lover, made a sudden dash for him, with the plainest intention of
+blotting him from the earth.
+
+"No, I say! Really!" said Archie, bounding backwards. "I mean to
+say!"
+
+In a series of events, all of which had been a bit thick, this, in
+his opinion, achieved the maximum of thickness. It was the extreme
+ragged, outside edge of the limit. To brawl with a fellow-man in a
+public street had been bad, but to be brawled with by a girl--the
+shot was not on the board. Absolutely not on the board. There was
+only one thing to be done. It was dashed undignified, no doubt, for
+a fellow to pick up the old waukeesis and leg it in the face of the
+enemy, but there was no other course. Archie started to run; and, as
+he did so, one of the loafers made the mistake of gripping him by
+the collar of his coat.
+
+"I got him!" observed the loafer.-There is a time for all things.
+This was essentially not the time for anyone of the male sex to grip
+the collar of Archie's coat. If a syndicate of Dempsey, Carpentier,
+and one of the Zoo gorillas had endeavoured to stay his progress at
+that moment, they would have had reason to consider it a rash move.
+Archie wanted to be elsewhere, and the blood of generations of
+Moffams, many of whom had swung a wicked axe in the free-for-all
+mix-ups of the Middle Ages, boiled within him at any attempt to
+revise his plans. There was a good deal of the loafer, but it was
+all soft. Releasing his hold when Archie's heel took him shrewdly on
+the shin, he received a nasty punch in what would have been the
+middle of his waistcoat if he had worn one, uttered a gurgling bleat
+like a wounded sheep, and collapsed against the wall. Archie, with a
+torn coat, rounded the corner, and sprinted down Ninth Avenue.
+
+The suddenness of the move gave him an initial advantage. He was
+halfway down the first block before the vanguard of the pursuit
+poured out of the side street. Continuing to travel well, he skimmed
+past a large dray which had pulled up across the road, and moved on.
+The noise of those who pursued was loud and clamorous in the rear,
+but the dray hid him momentarily from their sight, and it was this
+fact which led Archie, the old campaigner, to take his next step.
+
+It was perfectly obvious--he was aware of this even in the novel
+excitement of the chase--that a chappie couldn't hoof it at twenty-
+five miles an hour indefinitely along a main thoroughfare of a great
+city without exciting remark. He must take cover. Cover! That was
+the wheeze. He looked about him for cover.
+
+"You want a nice suit?"
+
+It takes a great deal to startle your commercial New Yorker. The
+small tailor, standing in his doorway, seemed in no way surprised at
+the spectacle of Archie, whom he had seen pass at a conventional
+walk some five minutes before, returning like this at top speed. He
+assumed that Archie had suddenly remembered that he wanted to buy
+something.
+
+This was exactly what Archie had done. More than anything else in
+the world, what he wanted to do now was to get into that shop and
+have a long talk about gents' clothing. Pulling himself up abruptly,
+he shot past the small tailor into the dim interior. A confused
+aroma of cheap clothing greeted him. Except for a small oasis behind
+a grubby counter, practically all the available space was occupied
+by suits. Stiff suits, looking like the body when discovered by the
+police, hung from hooks. Limp suits, with the appearance of having
+swooned from exhaustion, lay about on chairs and boxes. The place
+was a cloth morgue, a Sargasso Sea of serge.
+
+Archie would not have had it otherwise. In these quiet groves of
+clothing a regiment could have lain hid.
+
+"Something nifty in tweeds?" enquired the business-like proprietor
+of this haven, following him amiably into the shop, "Or, maybe, yes,
+a nice serge? Say, mister, I got a sweet thing in blue serge that'll
+fit you like the paper on the wall!"
+
+Archie wanted to talk about clothes, but not yet.
+
+"I say, laddie," he said, hurriedly. "Lend me, your ear for half a
+jiffy!" Outside the baying of the pack had become imminent. "Stow me
+away for a moment in the undergrowth, and I'll buy anything you
+want."
+
+He withdrew into the jungle. The noise outside grew in volume. The
+pursuit had been delayed for a priceless few instants by the arrival
+of another dray, moving northwards, which had drawn level with the
+first dray and dexterously bottled up the fairway. This obstacle had
+now been overcome, and the original searchers, their ranks swelled
+by a few dozen more of the leisured classes, were hot on the trail
+again.
+
+"You done a murder?" enquired the voice of the proprietor, mildly
+interested, filtering through a wall of cloth. "Well, boys will be
+boys!" he said, philosophically. "See anything there that you like?
+There some sweet things there!"
+
+"I'm inspecting them narrowly," replied Archie. "If you don't let
+those chappies find me, I shouldn't be surprised if I bought one."
+
+"One?" said the proprietor, with a touch of austerity.
+
+"Two," said Archie, quickly. "Or possibly three or six."
+
+The proprietor's cordiality returned.
+
+"You can't have too many nice suits," he said, approvingly, "not a
+young feller like you that wants to look nice. All the nice girls
+like a young feller that dresses nice. When you go out of here in a
+suit I got hanging up there at the back, the girls 'll be all over
+you like flies round a honey-pot."
+
+"Would you mind," said Archie, "would you mind, as a personal favour
+to me, old companion, not mentioning that word 'girls'?"
+
+He broke off. A heavy foot had crossed the threshold of the shop.
+
+"Say, uncle," said a deep voice, one of those beastly voices that
+only the most poisonous blighters have, "you seen a young feller run
+past here?"
+
+"Young feller?" The proprietor appeared to reflect. "Do you mean a
+young feller in blue, with a Homburg hat?"
+
+"That's the duck! We lost him. Where did he go?"
+
+"Him! Why, he come running past, quick as he could go. I wondered
+what he was running for, a hot day like this. He went round the
+corner at the bottom of the block."
+
+There was a silence.
+
+"Well, I guess he's got away," said the voice, regretfully.
+
+"The way he was travelling," agreed the proprietor, "I wouldn't be
+surprised if he was in Europe by this. You want a nice suit?"
+
+The other, curtly expressing a wish that the proprietor would go to
+eternal perdition and take his entire stock with him, stumped out.
+
+"This," said the proprietor, tranquilly, burrowing his way to where
+Archie stood and exhibiting a saffron-coloured outrage, which
+appeared to be a poor relation of the flannel family, "would put you
+back fifty dollars. And cheap!"
+
+"Fifty dollars!"
+
+"Sixty, I said. I don't speak always distinct."
+
+Archie regarded the distressing garment with a shuddering horror. A
+young man with an educated taste in clothes, it got right in among
+his nerve centres.
+
+"But, honestly, old soul, I don't want to hurt your feelings, but
+that isn't a suit, it's just a regrettable incident!"
+
+The proprietor turned to the door in a listening attitude.
+
+"I believe I hear that feller coming back," he said.
+
+Archie gulped.
+
+"How about trying it on?" he said. "I'm not sure, after all, it
+isn't fairly ripe."
+
+"That's the way to talk," said the proprietor, cordially. "You try
+it on. You can't judge a suit, not a real nice suit like this, by
+looking at it. You want to put it on. There!" He led the way to a
+dusty mirror at the back of the shop. "Isn't that a bargain at
+seventy dollars? ... Why, say, your mother would be proud if she
+could see her boy now!"
+
+A quarter of an hour later, the proprietor, lovingly kneading a
+little sheaf of currency bills, eyed with a fond look the heap of
+clothes which lay on the counter.
+
+"As nice a little lot as I've ever had in my shop!" Archie did not
+deny this. It was, he thought, probably only too true.
+
+"I only wish I could see you walking up Fifth Avenue in them!"
+rhapsodised the proprietor. "You'll give 'em a treat! What you going
+to do with 'em? Carry 'em under your arm?" Archie shuddered
+strongly. "Well, then, I can send 'em for you anywhere you like.
+It's all the same to me. Where'll I send 'em?"
+
+Archie meditated. The future was black enough as it was. He shrank
+from the prospect of being confronted next day, at the height of his
+misery, with these appalling reach-me-downs.
+
+An idea struck him.
+
+"Yes, send 'em," he said.
+
+"What's the name and address?"
+
+"Daniel Brewster," said Archie, "Hotel Cosmopolis."
+
+It was a long time since he had given his father-in-law a present.
+
+Archie went out into the street, and began to walk pensively down a
+now peaceful Ninth Avenue. Out of the depths that covered him, black
+as the pit from pole to pole, no single ray of hope came to cheer
+him. He could not, like the poet, thank whatever gods there be for
+his unconquerable soul, for his soul was licked to a splinter. He
+felt alone and friendless in a rotten world. With the best
+intentions, he had succeeded only in landing himself squarely
+amongst the ribstons. Why had he not been content with his wealth,
+instead of risking it on that blighted bet with Reggie? Why had he
+trailed the Girl Friend, dash her! He might have known that he would
+only make an ass of himself, And, because he had done so, Looney
+Biddle's left hand, that priceless left hand before which opposing
+batters quailed and wilted, was out of action, resting in a sling,
+careened like a damaged battleship; and any chance the Giants might
+have had of beating the Pirates was gone--gone--as surely as that
+thousand dollars which should have bought a birthday present for
+Lucille.
+
+A birthday present for Lucille! He groaned in bitterness of spirit.
+She would be coming back to-night, dear girl, all smiles and
+happiness, wondering what he was going to give her tomorrow. And
+when to-morrow dawned, all he would be able to give her would be a
+kind smile. A nice state of things! A jolly situation! A thoroughly
+good egg, he did NOT think!
+
+It seemed to Archie that Nature, contrary to her usual custom of
+indifference to human suffering, was mourning with him. The sky was
+overcast, and the sun had ceased to shine. There was a sort of
+sombreness in the afternoon, which fitted in with his mood. And then
+something splashed on his face.
+
+It says much for Archie's pre-occupation that his first thought, as,
+after a few scattered drops, as though the clouds were submitting
+samples for approval, the whole sky suddenly began to stream like a
+shower-bath, was that this was simply an additional infliction which
+he was called upon to bear, On top of all his other troubles he
+would get soaked to the skin or have to hang about in some doorway.
+He cursed richly, and sped for shelter.
+
+The rain was setting about its work in earnest. The world was full
+of that rending, swishing sound which accompanies the more violent
+summer storms. Thunder crashed, and lightning flicked out of the
+grey heavens. Out in the street the raindrops bounded up off the
+stones like fairy fountains. Archie surveyed them morosely from his
+refuge in the entrance of a shop.
+
+And then, suddenly, like one of those flashes which were lighting up
+the gloomy sky, a thought lit up his mind.
+
+"By Jove! If this keeps up, there won't be a ball-game to-day!"
+
+With trembling fingers he pulled out his watch. The hands pointed to
+five minutes to three. A blessed vision came to him of a moist and
+disappointed crowd receiving rain-checks up at the Polo Grounds.
+
+"Switch it on, you blighters!" he cried, addressing the leaden
+clouds. "Switch it on more and more!"
+
+It was shortly before five o'clock that a young man bounded into a
+jeweller's shop near the Hotel Cosmopolis--a young man who, in spite
+of the fact that his coat was torn near the collar and that he oozed
+water from every inch of his drenched clothes, appeared in the
+highest spirits.. It was only when he spoke that the jeweller
+recognised in the human sponge the immaculate youth who had looked
+in that morning to order a bracelet.
+
+"I say, old lad," said this young man, "you remember that jolly
+little what-not you showed me before lunch?"
+
+"The bracelet, sir?"
+
+"As you observe with a manly candour which does you credit, my dear
+old jeweller, the bracelet. Well, produce, exhibit, and bring it
+forth, would you mind? Trot it out! Slip it across on a lordly
+dish!"
+
+"You wished me, surely, to put it aside and send it to the
+Cosmopolis to-morrow?"
+
+The young man tapped the jeweller earnestly on his substantial
+chest.
+
+"What I wished and what I wish now are two bally separate and dashed
+distinct things, friend of my college days! Never put off till to-
+morrow what you can do to-day, and all that! I'm not taking any more
+chances. Not for me! For others, yes, but not for Archibald! Here
+are the doubloons, produce the jolly bracelet Thanks!"
+
+The jeweller counted the notes with the same unction which Archie
+had observed earlier in the day in the proprietor of the second-hand
+clothes-shop. The process made him genial.
+
+"A nasty, wet day, sir, it's been," he observed, chattily.
+
+Archie shook his head.
+
+"Old friend," he said, "you're all wrong. Far otherwise, and not a
+bit like it, my dear old trafficker in gems! You've put your finger
+on the one aspect of this blighted p.m. that really deserves credit
+and respect. Rarely in the experience of a lifetime have I
+encountered a day so absolutely bally in nearly every shape and
+form, but there was one thing that saved it, and that was its merry
+old wetness! Toodle-oo, laddie!"
+
+"Good evening, sir," said the jeweller.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XVI
+
+ARCHIE ACCEPTS A SITUATION
+
+
+Lucille moved her wrist slowly round, the better to examine the new
+bracelet.
+
+"You really are an angel, angel!" she murmured.
+
+"Like it?" said Archie complacently.
+
+"LIKE it! Why, it's gorgeous! It must have cost a fortune."
+
+"Oh, nothing to speak of. Just a few hard-earned pieces of eight.
+Just a few doubloons from the old oak chest."
+
+"But I didn't know there were any doubloons in the old oak chest."
+
+"Well, as a matter of fact," admitted Archie, "at one point in the
+proceedings there weren't. But an aunt of mine in England--peace be
+on her head!--happened to send me a chunk of the necessary at what
+you might call the psychological moment."
+
+"And you spent it all on a birthday present for me! Archie!" Lucille
+gazed at her husband adoringly. "Archie, do you know what I think?"
+
+"What?"
+
+"You're the perfect man!"
+
+"No, really! What ho!"
+
+"Yes," said Lucille firmly. "I've long suspected it, and now I know.
+I don't think there's anybody like you in the world."
+
+Archie patted her hand.
+
+"It's a rummy thing," he observed, "but your father said almost
+exactly that to me only yesterday. Only I don't fancy he meant the
+same as you. To be absolutely frank, his exact expression was that
+he thanked God there was only one of me."
+
+A troubled look came into Lucille's grey eyes.
+
+"It's a shame about father. I do wish he appreciated you. But you
+mustn't be too hard on him."
+
+"Me?" said Archie. "Hard on your father? Well, dash it all, I don't
+think I treat him with what you might call actual brutality, what! I
+mean to say, my whole idea is rather to keep out of the old lad's
+way and curl up in a ball if I can't dodge him. I'd just as soon be
+hard on a stampeding elephant! I wouldn't for the world say anything
+derogatory, as it were, to your jolly old pater, but there is no
+getting away from the fact that he's by way of being one of our
+leading man-eating fishes. It would be idle to deny that he
+considers that you let down the proud old name of Brewster a bit
+when you brought me in and laid me on the mat."
+
+"Anyone would be lucky to get you for a son-in-law, precious."
+
+"I fear me, light of my life, the dad doesn't see eye to eye with
+you on that point. No, every time I get hold of a daisy, I give him
+another chance, but it always works out at 'He loves me not!'"
+
+"You must make allowances for him, darling."
+
+"Right-o! But I hope devoutly that he doesn't catch me at it. I've a
+sort of idea that if the old dad discovered that I was making
+allowances for him, he would have from ten to fifteen fits."
+
+"He's worried just now, you know."
+
+"I didn't know. He doesn't confide in me much."
+
+"He's worried about that waiter."
+
+"What waiter, queen of my soul?"
+
+"A man called Salvatore. Father dismissed him some time ago."
+
+"Salvatore!"
+
+"Probably you don't remember him. He used to wait on this table."
+
+"Why--"
+
+"And father dismissed him, apparently, and now there's all sorts of
+trouble. You see, father wants to build this new hotel of his, and
+he thought he'd got the site and everything and could start building
+right away: and now he finds that this man Salvatore's mother owns a
+little newspaper and tobacco shop right in the middle of the site,
+and there's no way of getting him out without buying the shop, and
+he won't sell. At least, he's made his mother promise that she won't
+sell."
+
+"A boy's best friend is his mother," said Archie approvingly. "I had
+a sort of idea all along--"
+
+"So father's in despair."
+
+Archie drew at his cigarette meditatively.
+
+"I remember a chappie--a policeman he was, as a matter of fact, and
+incidentally a fairly pronounced blighter--remarking to me some time
+ago that you could trample on the poor man's face but you mustn't be
+surprised if he bit you in the leg while you were doing it.
+Apparently this is what has happened to the old dad. I had a sort of
+idea all along that old friend Salvatore would come out strong in
+the end if you only gave him time. Brainy sort of feller! Great pal
+of mine."-Lucille's small face lightened. She gazed at Archie with
+proud affection. She felt that she ought to have known that he was
+the one to solve this difficulty.
+
+"You're wonderful, darling! Is he really a friend of yours?"
+
+"Absolutely. Many's the time he and I have chatted in this very
+grill-room."
+
+"Then it's all right. If you went to him and argued with him, he
+would agree to sell the shop, and father would be happy. Think how
+grateful father would be to you! It would make all the difference."
+
+Archie turned this over in his mind.
+
+"Something in that," he agreed.
+
+"It would make him see what a pet lambkin you really are!"
+
+"Well," said Archie, "I'm bound to say that any scheme which what
+you might call culminates in your father regarding me as a pet
+lambkin ought to receive one's best attention. How much did he offer
+Salvatore for his shop?"
+
+"I don't know. There is father.--Call him over and ask him."
+
+Archie glanced over to where Mr. Brewster had sunk moodily into a
+chair at a neighbouring table. It was plain even at that distance
+that Daniel Brewster had his troubles and was bearing them with an
+ill grace. He was scowling absently at the table-cloth.
+
+"YOU call him," said Archie, having inspected his formidable
+relative. "You know him better."
+
+"Let's go over to him."
+
+They crossed the room. Lucille sat down opposite her father.-Archie
+draped himself over a chair in the background.
+
+"Father, dear," said Lucille. "Archie has got an idea."
+
+"Archie?" said Mr. Brewster incredulously.
+
+"This is me," said Archie, indicating himself with a spoon. "The
+tall, distinguished-looking bird."
+
+"What new fool-thing is he up to now?"
+
+"It's a splendid idea, father. He wants to help you over your new
+hotel."
+
+"Wants to run it for me, I suppose?"
+
+"By Jove!" said Archie, reflectively. "That's not a bad scheme! I
+never thought of running an hotel. I shouldn't mind taking a stab at
+it."
+
+"He has thought of a way of getting rid of Salvatore and his shop."
+
+For the first time Mr. Brewster's interest in the conversation
+seemed to stir. He looked sharply at his son-in-law.
+
+"He has, has he?" he said.
+
+Archie balanced a roll on a fork and inserted a plate underneath.
+The roll bounded away into a corner.
+
+"Sorry!" said Archie. "My fault, absolutely! I owe you a roll. I'll
+sign a bill for it. Oh, about this sportsman Salvatore, Well, it's
+like this, you know. He and I are great pals. I've known him for
+years and years. At least, it seems like years and years. Lu was
+suggesting that I seek him out in his lair and ensnare him with my
+diplomatic manner and superior brain power and what not."
+
+"It was your idea, precious," said Lucille.
+
+Mr. Brewster was silent.--Much as it went against the grain to have
+to admit it, there seemed to be something in this.
+
+"What do you propose to do?"
+
+"Become a jolly old ambassador. How much did you offer the chappie?"
+
+"Three thousand dollars. Twice as much as the place is worth. He's
+holding out on me for revenge."
+
+"Ah, but how did you offer it to him, what? I mean to say, I bet you
+got your lawyer to write him a letter full of whereases,
+peradventures, and parties of the first part, and so forth. No good,
+old companion!"
+
+"Don't call me old companion!"
+
+"All wrong, laddie! Nothing like it, dear heart! No good at all,
+friend of my youth! Take it from your Uncle Archibald! I'm a student
+of human nature, and I know a thing or two."
+
+"That's not much," growled Mr. Brewster, who was finding his son-in-
+law's superior manner a little trying.
+
+"Now, don't interrupt, father," said Lucille, severely. "Can't you
+see that Archie is going to be tremendously clever in a minute?"
+
+"He's got to show me!"
+
+"What you ought to do," said Archie, "is to let me go and see him,
+taking the stuff in crackling bills. I'll roll them about on the
+table in front of him. That'll fetch him!" He prodded Mr. Brewster
+encouragingly with a roll. "I'll tell you what to do. Give me three
+thousand of the best and crispest, and I'll undertake to buy that
+shop. It can't fail, laddie!"
+
+"Don't call me laddie!" Mr. Brewster pondered. "Very well," he said
+at last. "I didn't know you had so much sense," he added grudgingly.
+
+"Oh, positively!" said Archie. "Beneath a rugged exterior I hide a
+brain like a buzz-saw. Sense? I exude it, laddie; I drip with it."
+
+There were moments during the ensuing days when Mr. Brewster
+permitted himself to hope; but more frequent were the moments when
+he told himself that a pronounced chump like his son-in-law could
+not fail somehow to make a mess of the negotiations. His relief,
+therefore, when Archie curveted into his private room and announced
+that he had succeeded was great.
+
+"You really managed to make that wop sell out?"
+
+Archie brushed some papers off the desk with a careless gesture, and
+seated himself on the vacant spot.
+
+"Absolutely! I spoke to him as one old friend to another, sprayed
+the bills all over the place; and he sang a few bars from
+'Rigoletto,' and signed on the dotted line."
+
+"You're not such a fool as you look," owned Mr. Brewster.
+
+Archie scratched a match on the desk and lit a cigarette.
+
+"It's a jolly little shop," he said. "I took quite a fancy to it.
+Full of newspapers, don't you know, and cheap novels, and some
+weird-looking sort of chocolates, and cigars with the most fearfully
+attractive labels. I think I'll make a success of it. It's bang in
+the middle of a dashed good neighbourhood. One of these days
+somebody will be building a big hotel round about there, and that'll
+help trade a lot. I look forward to ending my days on the other side
+of the counter with a full set of white whiskers and a skull-cap,
+beloved by everybody. Everybody'll say, 'Oh, you MUST patronise that
+quaint, delightful old blighter! He's quite a character.'"
+
+Mr. Brewster's air of grim satisfaction had given way to a look of
+discomfort, almost of alarm. He presumed his son-in-law was merely
+indulging in badinage; but even so, his words were not soothing.
+
+"Well, I'm much obliged," he said. "That infernal shop was holding
+up everything. Now I can start building right away."
+
+Archie raised his eyebrows.
+
+"But, my dear old top, I'm sorry to spoil your daydreams and stop
+you chasing rainbows, and all that, but aren't you forgetting that
+the shop belongs to me? I don't at all know that I want to sell,
+either!"
+
+"I gave you the money to buy that shop!"
+
+"And dashed generous of you it was, too!" admitted Archie,
+unreservedly. "It was the first money you ever gave me, and I shall
+always, tell interviewers that it was you who founded my fortunes.
+Some day, when I'm the Newspaper-and-Tobacco-Shop King, I'll tell
+the world all about it in my autobiography."
+
+Mr. Brewster rose dangerously from his seat.
+
+"Do you think you can hold me up, you--you worm?"
+
+"Well," said Archie, "the way I look at it is this. Ever since we
+met, you've been after me to become one of the world's workers, and
+earn a living for myself, and what not; and now I see a way to repay
+you for your confidence and encouragement. You'll look me up
+sometimes at the good old shop, won't you?" He slid off the table
+and moved towards the door. "There won't be any formalities where
+you are concerned. You can sign bills for any reasonable amount any
+time you want a cigar or a stick of chocolate. Well, toodle-oo!"
+
+"Stop!"
+
+"Now what?"
+
+"How much do you want for that damned shop?"
+
+"I don't want money.-I want a job.-If you are going to take my life-
+work away from me, you ought to give me something else to do."
+
+"What job?"
+
+"You suggested it yourself the other day. I want to manage your new
+hotel."
+
+"Don't be a fool! What do you know about managing an hotel?"
+
+"Nothing. It will be your pleasing task to teach me the business
+while the shanty is being run up."
+
+There was a pause, while Mr. Brewster chewed three inches off a pen-
+holder.
+
+"Very well," he said at last.
+
+"Topping!" said Archie. "I knew you'd, see it. I'll study your
+methods, what! Adding some of my own, of course. You know, I've
+thought of one improvement on the Cosmopolis already."
+
+"Improvement on the Cosmopolis!" cried Mr. Brewster, gashed in his
+finest feelings.
+
+"Yes. There's one point where the old Cosmop slips up badly, and I'm
+going to see that it's corrected at my little shack. Customers will
+be entreated to leave their boots outside their doors at night, and
+they'll find them cleaned in the morning. Well, pip, pip! I must be
+popping. Time is money, you know, with us business men."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XVII
+
+BROTHER BILL'S ROMANCE
+
+
+"Her eyes," said Bill Brewster, "are like--like--what's the word I
+want?"
+
+He looked across at Lucille and Archie. Lucille was leaning forward
+with an eager and interested face; Archie was leaning back with his
+finger-tips together and his eyes closed. This was not the first
+time since their meeting in Beale's Auction Rooms that his brother-
+in-law had touched on the subject of the girl he had become engaged
+to marry during his trip to England. Indeed, Brother Bill had
+touched on very little else: and Archie, though of a sympathetic
+nature and fond of his young relative, was beginning to feel that he
+had heard all he wished to hear about Mabel Winchester. Lucille, on
+the other hand, was absorbed. Her brother's recital had thrilled
+her.
+
+"Like--" said Bill. "Like--"
+
+"Stars?" suggested Lucille.
+
+"Stars," said Bill gratefully. "Exactly the word. Twin stars shining
+in a clear sky on a summer night. Her teeth are like--what shall I
+say?"
+
+"Pearls?"
+
+"Pearls. And her hair is a lovely brown, like leaves in autumn. In
+fact," concluded Bill, slipping down from the heights with something
+of a jerk, "she's a corker. Isn't she, Archie?"
+
+Archie opened his eyes.
+
+"Quite right, old top!" he said. "It was the only thing to do."
+
+"What the devil are you talking about?" demanded Bill coldly. He had
+been suspicious all along of Archie's statement that he could listen
+better with his eyes shut.
+
+"Eh? Oh, sorry! Thinking of something else."
+
+"You were asleep."
+
+"No, no, positively and distinctly not. Frightfully interested and
+rapt and all that, only I didn't quite get what you said."
+
+"I said that Mabel was a corker."
+
+"Oh, absolutely in every respect."
+
+"There!" Bill turned to Lucille triumphantly. "You hear that? And
+Archie has only seen her photograph. Wait till he sees her in the
+flesh."
+
+"My dear old chap!" said Archie, shocked. "Ladies present! I mean to
+say, what!"
+
+"I'm afraid that father will be the one you'll find it hard to
+convince."
+
+"Yes," admitted her brother gloomily.
+
+"Your Mabel sounds perfectly charming, but--well, you know what
+father is. It IS a pity she sings in the chorus."
+
+"She-hasn't much of a voice,"-argued Bill-in extenuation.
+
+"All the same--"
+
+Archie, the conversation having reached a topic on which he
+considered himself one of the greatest living authorities--to wit,
+the unlovable disposition of his father-in-law--addressed the
+meeting as one who has a right to be heard.
+
+"Lucille's absolutely right, old thing.--Absolutely correct-o! Your
+esteemed progenitor is a pretty tough nut, and it's no good trying
+to get away from it.-And I'm sorry to have to say it, old bird, but,
+if you come bounding in with part of the personnel of the ensemble
+on your arm and try to dig a father's blessing out of him, he's
+extremely apt to stab you in the gizzard."
+
+"I wish," said Bill, annoyed, "you wouldn't talk as though Mabel
+were the ordinary kind of chorus-girl. She's only on the stage
+because her mother's hard-up and she wants to educate her little
+brother."
+
+"I say," said Archie, concerned. "Take my tip, old top. In chatting
+the matter over with the pater, don't dwell too much on that aspect
+of the affair.--I've been watching him closely, and it's about all
+he can stick, having to support ME. If you ring in a mother and a
+little brother on him, he'll crack under the strain."
+
+"Well, I've got to do something about it. Mabel will be over here in
+a week."
+
+"Great Scot! You never told us that."
+
+"Yes. She's going to be in the new Billington show. And, naturally,
+she will expect to meet my family. I've told her all about you."
+
+"Did you explain father to her?" asked Lucille.
+
+"Well, I just said she mustn't mind him, as his bark was worse than
+his bite."
+
+"Well," said Archie, thoughtfully, "he hasn't bitten me yet, so you
+may be right. But you've got to admit that he's a bit of a barker."
+
+Lucille considered.
+
+"Really, Bill, I think your best plan would be to go straight to
+father and tell him the whole thing.--You don't want him to hear
+about it in a roundabout way."
+
+"The trouble is that, whenever I'm with father, I can't think of
+anything to say."
+
+Archie found himself envying his father-in-law this merciful
+dispensation of Providence; for, where he himself was concerned,
+there had been no lack of eloquence on Bill's part. In the brief
+period in which he had known him, Bill had talked all the time and
+always on the one topic. As unpromising a subject as the tariff laws
+was easily diverted by him into a discussion of the absent Mabel.
+
+"When I'm with father," said Bill, "I sort of lose my nerve, and
+yammer."
+
+"Dashed awkward," said Archie, politely. He sat up suddenly. "I say!
+By Jove! I know what you want, old friend! Just thought of it!"
+
+"That busy brain is never still," explained Lucille.
+
+"Saw it in the paper this morning. An advertisement of a book, don't
+you know."
+
+"I've no time for reading."
+
+"You've time for reading this one, laddie, for you can't afford to
+miss it. It's a what-d'you-call-it book. What I mean to say is, if
+you read it and take its tips to heart, it guarantees to make you a
+convincing talker. The advertisement says so. The advertisement's
+all about a chappie I whose name I forget, whom everybody loved
+because he talked so well. And, mark you, before he got hold of this
+book--The Personality That Wins was the name of it, if I remember
+rightly--he was known to all the lads in the office as Silent Samuel
+or something. Or it may have been Tongue-Tied Thomas. Well, one day
+he happened by good luck to blow in the necessary for the good old
+P. that W.'s, and now, whenever they want someone to go and talk
+Rockefeller or someone into lending them a million or so, they send
+for Samuel. Only now they call him Sammy the Spell-Binder and fawn
+upon him pretty copiously and all that. How about it, old son? How
+do we go?"
+
+"What perfect nonsense," said Lucille.
+
+"I don't know," said Bill, plainly impressed. "There might be
+something in it."
+
+"Absolutely!" said Archie. "I remember it said, 'Talk convincingly,
+and no man will ever treat you with cold, unresponsive
+indifference.' Well, cold, unresponsive indifference is just what
+you don't want the pater to treat you with, isn't it, or is it, or
+isn't it, what? I mean, what?"
+
+"It sounds all right," said Bill.
+
+"It IS all right," said Archie. "It's a scheme! I'll go farther.
+It's an egg!"
+
+"The idea I had," said Bill, "was to see if I couldn't get Mabel a
+job in some straight comedy. That would take the curse off the thing
+a bit. Then I wouldn't have to dwell on the chorus end of the
+business, you see."
+
+"Much more sensible," said Lucille.
+
+"But what a-deuce of a sweat"--argued Archie. "I mean to say, having
+to pop round and nose about and all that."
+
+"Aren't you willing to take a little trouble for your stricken
+brother-in-law, worm?" said Lucille severely.
+
+"Oh, absolutely! My idea was to get this book and coach the dear old
+chap. Rehearse him, don't you know. He could bone up the early
+chapters a bit and then drift round and try his convincing talk on
+me."
+
+"It might be a good idea," said Bill reflectively.
+
+"Well, I'll tell you what _I'm_ going to do," said Lucille. "I'm
+going to get Bill to introduce me to his Mabel, and, if she's as
+nice as he says she is, _I'll_ go to father and talk convincingly to
+him."
+
+"You're an ace!" said Bill.
+
+"Absolutely!" agreed Archie cordially. "MY partner, what! All the
+same, we ought to keep the book as a second string, you know. I mean
+to say, you are a young and delicately nurtured girl--full of
+sensibility and shrinking what's-its-name and all that--and you know
+what the jolly old pater is. He might bark at you and put you out of
+action in the first round. Well, then, if anything like that
+happened, don't you see, we could unleash old Bill, the trained
+silver-tongued expert, and let him have a shot. Personally, I'm all
+for the P. that W.'s."-"Me, too," said Bill.
+
+Lucille looked at her watch.
+
+"Good gracious! It's nearly one o'clock!"
+
+"No!" Archie heaved himself up from his chair. "Well, it's a shame
+to break up this feast of reason and flow of soul and all that, but,
+if we don't leg it with some speed, we shall be late."
+
+"We're lunching at the Nicholson's!" explained Lucille to her
+brother. "I wish you were coming too."
+
+"Lunch!" Bill shook his head with a kind of tolerant scorn. "Lunch
+means nothing to me these days. I've other things to think of
+besides food." He looked as spiritual as his rugged features would
+permit. "I haven't written to Her yet to-day."
+
+"But, dash it, old scream, if she's going to be over here in a week,
+what's the good of writing? The letter would cross her."
+
+"I'm not mailing my letters to England." said Bill. "I'm keeping
+them for her to read when she arrives."
+
+"My sainted aunt!" said Archie.
+
+Devotion like this was something beyond his outlook.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XVIII
+
+THE SAUSAGE CHAPPIE
+
+
+The personality that wins cost Archie two dollars in cash and a lot
+of embarrassment when he asked for it at the store. To buy a
+treatise of that name would automatically seem to argue that you
+haven't a winning personality already, and Archie was at some pains
+to explain to the girl behind the counter that he wanted it for a
+friend. The girl seemed more interested in his English accent than
+in his explanation, and Archie was uncomfortably aware, as he
+receded, that she was practising it in an undertone for the benefit
+of her colleagues and fellow-workers. However, what is a little
+discomfort, if endured in friendship's name?
+
+He was proceeding up Broadway after leaving the store when he
+encountered Reggie van Tuyl, who was drifting along in
+somnambulistic fashion near Thirty-Ninth Street.
+
+"Hullo, Reggie old thing!" said Archie.
+
+"Hullo!" said Reggie, a man of few words.
+
+"I've just been buying a book for Bill Brewster," went on Archie.
+"It appears that old Bill--What's the matter?"
+
+He broke off his recital abruptly. A sort of spasm had passed across
+his companion's features. The hand holding Archie's arm had
+tightened convulsively. One would have said that Reginald had
+received a shock.
+
+"It's nothing," said Reggie. "I'm all right now. I caught sight of
+that fellow's clothes rather suddenly. They shook me a bit. I'm all
+right now," he said, bravely.
+
+Archie, following his friend's gaze, understood. Reggie van Tuyl was
+never at his strongest in the morning, and he had a sensitive eye
+for clothes. He had been known to resign from clubs because members
+exceeded the bounds in the matter of soft shirts with dinner-
+jackets. And the short, thick-set man who was standing just in front
+of them in attitude of restful immobility was certainly no dandy.
+His best friend could not have called him dapper. Take him for all
+in all and on the hoof, he might have been posing as a model for a
+sketch of What the Well-Dressed Man Should Not Wear.
+
+In costume, as in most other things, it is best to take a definite
+line and stick to it. This man had obviously vacillated. His neck
+was swathed in a green scarf; he wore an evening-dress coat; and his
+lower limbs were draped in a pair of tweed trousers built for a
+larger man. To the north he was bounded by a straw hat, to the south
+by brown shoes.
+
+Archie surveyed the man's back carefully.
+
+"Bit thick!" he said, sympathetically. "But of course Broadway isn't
+Fifth Avenue. What I mean to say is, Bohemian licence and what not.
+Broadway's crammed with deuced brainy devils who don't care how they
+look. Probably this bird is a master-mind of some species."
+
+"All the same, man's no right to wear evening-dress coat with tweed
+trousers."
+
+"Absolutely not! I see what you mean."
+
+At this point the sartorial offender turned. Seen from the front, he
+was even more unnerving. He appeared to possess no shirt, though
+this defect was offset by the fact that the tweed trousers fitted
+snugly under the arms. He was not a handsome man. At his best he
+could never have been that, and in the recent past he had managed to
+acquire a scar that ran from the corner of his mouth half-way across
+his cheek. Even when his face was in repose he had an odd
+expression; and when, as he chanced to do now, he smiled, odd became
+a mild adjective, quite inadequate for purposes of description. It
+was not an unpleasant face, however. Unquestionably genial, indeed.
+There was something in it that had a quality of humorous appeal.
+
+Archie started. He stared at the man, Memory stirred.
+
+"Great Scot!" he cried. "It's the Sausage Chappie!"
+
+Reginald van Tuyl gave a little moan. He was not used to this sort
+of thing. A sensitive young man as regarded scenes, Archie's
+behaviour unmanned him. For Archie, releasing his arm, had bounded
+forward and was shaking the other's hand warmly.
+
+"Well, well, well! My dear old chap! You must remember me, what? No?
+Yes?"
+
+The man with the scar seemed puzzled. He shuffled the brown shoes,
+patted the straw hat, and eyed Archie questioningly.
+
+"I don't seem to place you," he said.
+
+Archie slapped the back of the evening-dress coat. He linked his arm
+affectionately with that of the dress-reformer.
+
+"We met outside St Mihiel in the war. You gave me a bit of sausage.
+One of the most sporting events in history. Nobody but a real
+sportsman would have parted with a bit of sausage at that moment to
+a stranger. Never forgotten it, by Jove. Saved my life, absolutely.
+Hadn't chewed a morse for eight hours. Well, have you got anything
+on? I mean to say, you aren't booked for lunch or any rot of that
+species, are you? Fine! Then I move we all toddle off and get a bite
+somewhere." He squeezed the other's arm fondly. "Fancy meeting you
+again like this! I've often wondered what became of you. But, by
+Jove, I was forgetting. Dashed rude of me. My friend, Mr. van Tuyl."
+
+Reggie gulped. The longer he looked at it, the harder this man's
+costume was to bear. His eye passed shudderingly from the brown
+shoes to the tweed trousers, to the green scarf, from the green
+scarf to the straw hat.
+
+"Sorry," he mumbled. "Just remembered. Important date. Late already.
+Er--see you some time--"
+
+He melted away, a broken man. Archie was not sorry to see him go.
+Reggie was a good chap, but he would undoubtedly have been de trop
+at this reunion.
+
+"I vote we go to the Cosmopolis," he said, steering his newly-found
+friend through the crowd. "The browsing and sluicing isn't bad
+there, and I can sign the bill which is no small consideration
+nowadays."
+
+The Sausage Chappie chuckled amusedly.
+
+"I can't go to a place like the Cosmopolis looking like this."
+
+Archie, was a little embarrassed.
+
+"Oh, I don't know, you know, don't you know!" he said. "Still, since
+you have brought the topic up, you DID get the good old wardrobe a
+bit mixed this morning what? I mean to say, you seem absent-
+mindedly, as it were, to have got hold of samples from a good number
+of your various suitings."
+
+"Suitings? How do you mean, suitings? I haven't any suitings! Who do
+you think I am? Vincent Astor? All I have is what I stand up in."
+
+Archie was shocked. This tragedy touched him. He himself had never
+had any money in his life, but somehow he had always seemed to
+manage to have plenty of clothes. How this was he could not say. He
+had always had a vague sort of idea that tailors were kindly birds
+who never failed to have a pair of trousers or something up their
+sleeve to present to the deserving. There was the drawback, of
+course, that once they had given you things they were apt to write
+you rather a lot of letters about it; but you soon managed to
+recognise their handwriting, and then it was a simple task to
+extract their communications from your morning mail and drop them in
+the waste-paper basket. This was the first case he had encountered
+of a man who was really short of clothes.
+
+"My dear old lad," he said, briskly, "this must be remedied! Oh,
+positively! This must be remedied at once! I suppose my things
+wouldn't fit you? No. Well, I tell you what. We'll wangle something
+from my father-in-law. Old Brewster, you know, the fellow who runs
+the Cosmopolis. His'll fit you like the paper on the wall, because
+he's a tubby little blighter, too. What I mean to say is, he's also
+one of those sturdy, square, fine-looking chappies of about the
+middle height. By the way, where are you stopping these days?"
+
+"Nowhere just at present. I thought of taking one of those self-
+contained Park benches."
+
+"Are you broke?"
+
+"Am I!"
+
+Archie was concerned.
+
+"You ought to get a job."
+
+"I ought. But somehow I don't seem able to."
+
+"What did you do before the war?"
+
+"I've forgotten."
+
+"Forgotten!"
+
+"Forgotten."
+
+"How do you mean--forgotten? You can't mean--FORGOTTEN?"
+
+"Yes. It's quite gone."
+
+"But I mean to say. You can't have forgotten a thing like that."
+
+"Can't I! I've forgotten all sorts of things. Where I was born. How
+old I am. Whether I'm married or single. What my name is--"
+
+"Well, I'm dashed!" said Archie, staggered. "But you remembered
+about giving me a bit of sausage outside St. Mihiel?"
+
+"No, I didn't. I'm taking your word for it. For all I know you may
+be luring me into some den to rob me of my straw hat. I don't know
+you from Adam. But I like your conversation--especially the part
+about eating--and I'm taking a chance."
+
+Archie was concerned.
+
+"Listen, old bean. Make an effort. You must remember that sausage
+episode? It was just outside St. Mihiel, about five in the evening.
+Your little lot were lying next to my little lot, and we happened to
+meet, and I said 'What ho!' and you said 'Halloa!' and I said 'What
+ho! What ho!' and you said 'Have a bit of sausage?' and I said 'What
+ho! What ho! What HO!'"
+
+"The dialogue seems to have been darned sparkling but I don't
+remember it. It must have been after that that I stopped one. I
+don't seem quite to have caught up with myself since I got hit."
+
+"Oh! That's how you got that scar?"
+
+"No. I got that jumping through a plate-glass window in London on
+Armistice night."
+
+"What on earth did you do that for?"
+
+"Oh, I don't know. It seemed a good idea at the time."
+
+"But if you can remember a thing like that, why can't you remember
+your name?"
+
+"I remember everything that happened after I came out of hospital.
+It's the part before that's gone."
+
+Archie patted him on the shoulder.
+
+"I know just what you want. You need a bit of quiet and repose, to
+think things over and so forth. You mustn't go sleeping on Park
+benches. Won't do at all. Not a bit like it. You must shift to the
+Cosmopolis. It isn't half a bad spot, the old Cosmop. I didn't like
+it much the first night I was there, because there was a dashed tap
+that went drip-drip-drip all night and kept me awake, but the place
+has its points."
+
+"Is the Cosmopolis giving free board and lodging these days?"
+
+"Rather! That'll be all right. Well, this is the spot. We'll start
+by trickling up to the old boy's suite and looking over his reach-
+me-downs. I know the waiter on his floor. A very sound chappie.
+He'll let us in with his pass-key."
+
+And so it came about that Mr. Daniel Brewster, returning to his
+suite in the middle of lunch in order to find a paper dealing with
+the subject he was discussing with his guest, the architect of his
+new hotel, was aware of a murmur of voices behind the closed door of
+his bedroom. Recognising the accents of his son-in-law, he breathed
+an oath and charged in. He objected to Archie wandering at large
+about his suite.
+
+The sight that met his eyes when he opened the door did nothing to
+soothe him. The floor was a sea of clothes. There were coats on the
+chairs, trousers on the bed, shirts on the bookshelf. And in the
+middle of his welter stood Archie, with a man who, to Mr. Brewster's
+heated eye, looked like a tramp comedian out of a burlesque show.
+
+"Great Godfrey!" ejaculated Mr. Brewster.
+
+Archie looked up with a friendly smile.
+
+"Oh, halloa-halloa!" he said, affably, "We were just glancing
+through your spare scenery to see if we couldn't find something for
+my pal here. This is Mr. Brewster, my father-in-law, old man."
+
+Archie scanned his relative's twisted features. Something in his
+expression seemed not altogether encouraging. He decided that the
+negotiations had better be conducted in private. "One moment, old
+lad," he said to his new friend. "I just want to have a little talk
+with my father-in-law in the other room. Just a little friendly
+business chat. You stay here."
+
+In the other room Mr. Brewster turned on Archie like a wounded lion
+of the desert.
+
+"What the--!"
+
+Archie secured one of his coat-buttons and began to massage it
+affectionately.
+
+"Ought to have explained!" said Archie, "only didn't want to
+interrupt your lunch. The sportsman on the horizon is a dear old pal
+of mine--"
+
+Mr. Brewster wrenched himself free.
+
+"What the devil do you mean, you worm, by bringing tramps into my
+bedroom and messing about with my clothes?"
+
+"That's just what I'm trying to explain, if you'll only listen. This
+bird is a bird I met in France during the war. He gave me a bit of
+sausage outside St. Mihiel--"
+
+"Damn you and him and the sausage!"
+
+"Absolutely. But listen. He can't remember who he is or where he was
+born or what his name is, and he's broke; so, dash it, I must look
+after him. You see, he gave me a bit of sausage."
+
+Mr. Brewster's frenzy gave way to an ominous calm.
+
+"I'll give him two seconds to clear out of here. If he isn't gone by
+then I'll have him thrown out"
+
+Archie was shocked.
+
+"You don't mean that?"
+
+"I do mean that."
+
+"But where is he to go?"
+
+"Outside."
+
+"But you don't understand. This chappie has lost his memory because
+he was wounded in the war. Keep that fact firmly fixed in the old
+bean. He fought for you. Fought and bled for you. Bled profusely, by
+Jove. AND he saved my life!"
+
+"If I'd got nothing else against him, that would be enough."
+
+"But you can't sling a chappie out into the cold hard world who bled
+in gallons to make the world safe for the Hotel Cosmopolis."
+
+Mr. Brewster looked ostentatiously at his watch.
+
+"Two seconds!" he said.
+
+There was a silence. Archie appeared to be thinking. "Right-o!" he
+said at last. "No need to get the wind up. I know where he can go.
+It's just occurred to me I'll put him up at my little shop."
+
+The purple ebbed from Mr. Brewster's face. Such was his emotion that
+he had forgotten that infernal shop. He sat down. There was more
+silence.
+
+"Oh, gosh!" said Mr. Brewster.
+
+"I knew you would be reasonable about it," said Archie, approvingly.
+"Now, honestly, as man to man, how do we go?"
+
+"What do you want me to do?" growled Mr. Brewster.
+
+"I thought you might put the chappie up for a while, and give him a
+chance to look round and nose about a bit"
+
+"I absolutely refuse to give any more loafers free board and
+lodging."
+
+"Any MORE?"
+
+"Well, he would be the second, wouldn't he?"
+
+Archie looked pained.
+
+"It's true," he said, "that when I first came here I was temporarily
+resting, so to speak; but didn't I go right out and grab the
+managership of your new hotel? Positively!"
+
+"I will NOT adopt this tramp."
+
+"Well, find him a job, then."
+
+"What sort of a job?"
+
+"Oh, any old sort"
+
+"He can be a waiter if he likes."
+
+"All right; I'll put the matter before him."
+
+He returned to the bedroom. The Sausage Chappie was gazing fondly
+into the mirror with a spotted tie draped round his neck.
+
+"I say, old top," said Archie, apologetically, "the Emperor of the
+Blighters out yonder says you can have a job here as waiter, and he
+won't do another dashed thing for you. How about it?"
+
+"Do waiters eat?"
+
+"I suppose so. Though, by Jove, come to think of it, I've never seen
+one at it."
+
+"That's good enough for me!" said the Sausage Chappie. "When do I
+begin?"
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XIX
+
+REGGIE COMES TO LIFE
+
+
+The advantage of having plenty of time on one's hands is that one
+has leisure to attend to the affairs of all one's circle of friends;
+and Archie, assiduously as he watched over the destinies of the
+Sausage Chappie, did not neglect the romantic needs of his brother-
+in-law Bill. A few days later, Lucille, returning one morning to
+their mutual suite, found her husband seated in an upright chair at
+the table, an unusually stern expression on his amiable face. A
+large cigar was in the corner of his mouth. The fingers of one hand
+rested in the armhole of his waistcoat: with the other hand he
+tapped menacingly on the table.
+
+As she gazed upon him, wondering what could be the matter with him,
+Lucille was suddenly aware of Bill's presence. He had emerged
+sharply from the bedroom and was walking briskly across the floor.
+He came to a halt in front of the table.
+
+"Father!" said Bill.
+
+Archie looked up sharply, frowning heavily over his cigar.
+
+"Well, my boy," he said in a strange, rasping voice. "What is it?
+Speak up, my boy, speak up! Why the devil can't you speak up? This
+is my busy day!"
+
+"What on earth are you doing?" asked Lucille.
+
+Archie waved her away with the large gesture of a man of blood and
+iron interrupted while concentrating.
+
+"Leave us, woman! We would be alone! Retire into the jolly old
+background and amuse yourself for a bit. Read a book. Do acrostics.
+Charge ahead, laddie."
+
+"Father!" said Bill, again.
+
+"Yes, my boy, yes? What is it?"
+
+"Father!"
+
+Archie picked up the red-covered volume that lay on the table.
+
+"Half a mo', old son. Sorry to stop you, but I knew there was
+something. I've just remembered. Your walk. All wrong!"
+
+"All wrong?"
+
+"All wrong! Where's the chapter on the Art. of Walking? Here we are.
+Listen, dear old soul. Drink this in. 'In walking, one should strive
+to acquire that swinging, easy movement from the hips. The
+correctly-poised walker seems to float along, as it were.' Now, old
+bean, you didn't float a dam' bit. You just galloped in like a
+chappie charging into a railway restaurant for a bowl of soup when
+his train leaves in two minutes. Dashed important, this walking
+business, you know. Get started wrong, and where are you? Try it
+again. . . . Much better." He turned to Lucille. "Notice him float
+along that time? Absolutely skimmed, what?"
+
+Lucille had taken a seat,-and was waiting for enlightenment.
+
+"Are you and Bill going into vaudeville?" she asked.
+
+Archie, scrutinising-his-brother-in-law closely, had further
+criticism to make.
+
+"'The man of self-respect and self-confidence,'" he read, "'stands
+erect in an easy, natural, graceful attitude. Heels not too far
+apart, head erect, eyes to the front with a level gaze'--get your
+gaze level, old thing!--'shoulders thrown back, arms hanging
+naturally at the sides when not otherwise employed'--that means
+that, if he tries to hit you, it's all right to guard--'chest
+expanded naturally, and abdomen'--this is no place for you, Lucille.
+Leg it out of earshot--'ab--what I said before--drawn in somewhat
+and above all not protruded.' Now, have you got all that? Yes, you
+look all right. Carry on, laddie, carry on. Let's have two-penn'orth
+of the Dynamic Voice and the Tone of Authority--some of the full,
+rich, round stuff we hear so much about!"
+
+Bill fastened a gimlet eye upon his brother-in-law and drew a deep
+breath.
+
+"Father!" he said. "Father!"
+
+"You'll have to brighten up Bill's dialogue a lot," said Lucille,
+critically, "or you will never get bookings."
+
+"Father!"
+
+"I mean, it's all right as far as it goes, but it's sort of
+monotonous. Besides, one of you ought to be asking questions and the
+other answering. Mill ought to be saying, 'Who was that lady I saw
+you coming down the street with?' so that you would be able to say,
+'That wasn't a lady. That was my wife.' I KNOW! I've been to lots of
+vaudeville shows."
+
+Bill relaxed his attitude. He deflated his chest, spread his heels,
+and ceased to draw in his abdomen.
+
+"We'd better try this another time, when we're alone," he said,
+frigidly. "I can't do myself justice."
+
+"Why do you want to do yourself justice?" asked Lucille.
+
+"Right-o!" said Archie, affably, casting off his forbidding
+expression like a garment. "Rehearsal postponed. I was just putting
+old Bill through it," he explained, "with a view to getting him into
+mid-season form for the jolly old pater."
+
+"Oh!" Lucille's voice was the voice of one who sees light in
+darkness. "When Bill walked in like a cat on hot bricks and stood
+there looking stuffed, that was just the Personality That Wins!"
+
+"That was it."
+
+"Well, you couldn't blame me for not recognising it, could you?"
+
+Archie patted her head paternally.
+
+"A little less of the caustic critic stuff," he said. "Bill will be
+all right on the night. If you hadn't come in then and put him off
+his stroke, he'd have shot out some amazing stuff, full of authority
+and dynamic accents and what not. I tell you, light of my soul, old
+Bill is all right! He's got the winning personality up a tree, ready
+whenever he wants to go and get it. Speaking as his backer and
+trainer, I think he'll twist your father round his little finger.
+Absolutely! It wouldn't surprise me if at the end of five minutes
+the good old dad started pumping through hoops and sitting up for
+lumps of sugar."
+
+"It would surprise ME."
+
+"Ah, that's because you haven't seen old Bill in action. You crabbed
+his act before he had begun to spread himself."
+
+"It isn't that at all. The reason why I think that Bill, however
+winning his, personality may be, won't persuade father to let him
+marry a girl in the chorus is something that happened last night."
+
+"Last night?"
+
+"Well, at three o'clock this morning. It's on the front page of the
+early editions of the evening papers. I brought one in for you to
+see, only you were so busy. Look! There it is!"
+
+Archie seized the paper.
+
+"Oh, Great Scot!"
+
+"What is it?" asked Bill, irritably. "Don't stand goggling there!
+What the devil is it?"
+
+"Listen to this, old thing!"
+
+                       REVELRY BY NIGHT.
+                SPIRITED BATTLE ROYAL AT HOTEL
+                         COSMOPOLIS.
+             THE HOTEL DETECTIVE HAD A GOOD HEART
+                 BUT PAULINE PACKED THE PUNCH.
+
+The logical contender for Jack Dempsey's championship honours has
+been discovered; and, in an age where women are stealing men's jobs
+all the time, it will not come as a surprise to our readers to learn
+that she belongs to the sex that is more deadly than the male. Her
+name is Miss Pauline Preston, and her wallop is vouched for under
+oath--under many oaths--by Mr. Timothy O'Neill, known to his
+intimates as Pie-Face, who holds down the arduous job of detective
+at the Hotel Cosmopolis.
+
+At three o'clock this morning, Mr. O'Neill was advised by the night-
+clerk that the occupants of every room within earshot of number 618
+had 'phoned the desk to complain of a disturbance, a noise, a vocal
+uproar proceeding from the room mentioned. Thither, therefore,
+marched Mr. O'Neill, his face full of cheese-sandwich, (for he had
+been indulging in an early breakfast or a late supper) and his heart
+of devotion to duty. He found there the Misses Pauline Preston and
+"Bobbie" St. Clair, of the personnel of the chorus of the
+Frivolities, entertaining a few friends of either sex. A pleasant
+time was being had by all, and at the moment of Mr. O'Neill's entry
+the entire strength of the company was rendering with considerable
+emphasis that touching ballad, "There's a Place For Me In Heaven,
+For My Baby-Boy Is There."
+
+The able and efficient officer at once suggested that there was a
+place for them in the street and the patrol-wagon was there; and,
+being a man of action as well as words, proceeded to gather up an
+armful of assorted guests as a preliminary to a personally-conducted
+tour onto the cold night. It was at this point that Miss Preston
+stepped into the limelight. Mr. O'Neill contends that she hit him
+with a brick, an iron casing, and the Singer Building. Be that as it
+may, her efforts were sufficiently able to induce him to retire for
+reinforcements, which, arriving, arrested the supper-party
+regardless of age or sex.
+
+At the police-court this morning Miss Preston maintained that she
+and her friends were merely having a quiet home-evening and that Mr.
+O'Neill was no gentleman. The male guests gave their names
+respectively as Woodrow Wilson, David Lloyd-George, and William J.
+Bryan. These, however, are believed to be incorrect. But the moral
+is, if you want excitement rather than sleep, stay at the Hotel
+Cosmopolis.
+
+Bill may have quaked inwardly as he listened to this epic but
+outwardly he was unmoved.
+
+"Well," he said, "what about it?"
+
+"What about it!" said Lucille.
+
+"What about it!" said Archie. "Why, my dear old friend, it simply
+means that all the time we've been putting in making your
+personality winning has been chucked away. Absolutely a dead loss!
+We might just as well have read a manual on how to knit sweaters."
+
+"I don't see it," maintained Bill, stoutly.
+
+Lucille turned apologetically to her husband.
+
+"You mustn't judge me by him, Archie, darling. This sort of thing
+doesn't run in the family.-We are supposed to be rather bright on
+the whole. But poor Bill was dropped by his nurse when he was a
+baby, and fell on his head."
+
+"I suppose what you're driving at," said the goaded Bill, "is that
+what has happened will make father pretty sore against girls who
+happen to be in the chorus?"
+
+"That's absolutely it, old thing, I'm sorry to say. The next person
+who mentions the word chorus-girl in the jolly old governor's
+presence is going to take his life in his hands. I tell you, as one
+man to another, that I'd much rather be back in France hopping over
+the top than do it myself."
+
+"What darned nonsense! Mabel may be in the chorus, but she isn't
+like those girls."
+
+"Poor old Bill!" said Lucille. "I'm awfully sorry, but it's no use
+not facing facts. You know perfectly well that the reputation of the
+hotel is the thing father cares more about than anything else in the
+world, and that this is going to make him furious with all the
+chorus-girls in creation. It's no good trying to explain to him that
+your Mabel is in the chorus but not of the chorus, so to speak."
+
+"Deuced well put!" said Archie, approvingly. "You're absolutely
+right. A chorus-girl by the river's brim, so to speak, a simple
+chorus-girl is to him, as it were, and she is nothing more, if you
+know what I mean."
+
+"So now," said Lucille, "having shown you that the imbecile scheme
+which you concocted with my poor well-meaning husband is no good at
+all, I will bring you words of cheer. Your own original plan--of
+getting your Mabel a part in a comedy--was always the best one. And
+you can do it. I wouldn't have broken the bad news so abruptly if I
+hadn't had some consolation to give you afterwards. I met Reggie van
+Tuyl just now, wandering about as if the cares of world were on his
+shoulders, and he told me that he was putting up most of the money
+for a new play that's going into rehearsal right away. Reggie's an
+old friend of yours. All you have to do is to go to him and ask him
+to use his influence to get your Mabel a small part. There's sure to
+be a maid or something with only a line or two that won't matter."
+
+"A ripe scheme!" said Archie. "Very sound and fruity!"
+
+The cloud did not lift from Bill's corrugated brow.
+
+"That's all very well," he said. "But you know what a talker Reggie
+is. He's an obliging sort of chump, but his tongue's fastened on at
+the middle and waggles at both ends. I don't want the whole of New
+York to know about my engagement, and have somebody spilling the
+news to father, before I'm ready."
+
+"That's all right," said Lucille. "Archie can speak to him. There's
+no need for him to mention your name at all. He can just say there's
+a girl he wants to get a part for. You would do it, wouldn't you,
+angel-face?"
+
+"Like a bird, queen of my soul."
+
+"Then that's splendid. You'd better give Archie that photograph of
+Mabel to give to Reggie, Bill."
+
+"Photograph?" said Bill. "Which photograph? I have twenty-four!"
+
+Archie found Reggie van Tuyl brooding in a window of his club that
+looked over Fifth Avenue. Reggie was a rather melancholy young man
+who suffered from elephantiasis of the bank-roll and the other evils
+that arise from that complaint. Gentle and sentimental by nature,
+his sensibilities had been much wounded by contact with a sordid
+world; and the thing that had first endeared Archie to him was the
+fact that the latter, though chronically hard-up, had never made any
+attempt to borrow money from him. Reggie would have parted with it
+on demand, but it had delighted him to find that Archie seemed to
+take a pleasure in his society without having any ulterior motives.
+He was fond of Archie, and also of Lucille; and their happy marriage
+was a constant source of gratification to him.
+
+For Reggie was a sentimentalist. He would have liked to live in a
+world of ideally united couples, himself ideally united to some
+charming and affectionate girl. But, as a matter of cold fact, he
+was a bachelor, and most of the couples he knew were veterans of
+several divorces. In Reggie's circle, therefore, the home-life of
+Archie and Lucille shone like a good deed in a naughty world. It
+inspired him. In moments of depression it restored his waning faith
+in human nature.
+
+Consequently, when Archie, having greeted him and slipped into a
+chair at his side, suddenly produced from his inside pocket the
+photograph of an extremely pretty girl and asked him to get her a
+small part in the play which he was financing, he was shocked and
+disappointed. He was in a more than usually sentimental mood that
+afternoon, and had, indeed, at the moment of Archie's arrival, been
+dreaming wistfully of soft arms clasped snugly about his collar and
+the patter of little feet and all that sort of thing.-He gazed
+reproachfully at Archie.
+
+"Archie!" his voice quivered with emotion. "Is it worth it?, is it
+worth it, old man?-Think of the poor little woman at home!"
+
+Archie was puzzled.
+
+"Eh, old top? Which poor little woman?"
+
+"Think of her trust in you, her faith--".
+
+"I don't absolutely get you, old bean."
+
+"What would Lucille say if she knew about this?"
+
+"Oh, she does. She knows all about it."
+
+"Good heavens!" cried Reggie.-He was shocked to the core of his
+being.-One of the articles of his faith was, that the union of
+Lucille and Archie was different from those loose partnerships which
+were the custom in his world.-He had not been conscious of such a
+poignant feeling that the foundations of the universe were cracked
+and tottering and that there was no light and sweetness in life
+since the morning, eighteen months back, when a negligent valet had
+sent him out into Fifth Avenue with only one spat on.
+
+"It was Lucille's idea," explained Archie. He was about to mention
+his brother-in-law's connection with the matter, but checked himself
+in time, remembering Bill's specific objection to having his secret
+revealed to Reggie. "It's like this, old thing, I've never met this
+female, but she's a pal of Lucille's"-he comforted his conscience by
+the reflection that, if she wasn't now, she would be in a few days-
+"and Lucille wants to do her a bit of good. She's been on the stage
+in England, you know, supporting a jolly old widowed mother and
+educating a little brother and all that kind and species of rot, you
+understand, and now she's coming over to America, and Lucille wants
+you to rally round and shove her into your show and generally keep
+the home fires burning and so forth. How do we go?"
+
+Reggie beamed with relief. He felt just as he had felt on that other
+occasion at the moment when a taxi-cab had rolled up and enabled him
+to hide his spatless leg from the public gaze.
+
+"Oh, I see!" he said. "Why, delighted, old man, quite delighted!"
+
+"Any small part would do. Isn't there a maid or something in your
+bob's-worth of refined entertainment who drifts about saying, 'Yes,
+madam,' and all that sort of thing? Well, then that's just the
+thing. Topping! I knew I could rely on you, old bird. I'll get
+Lucille to ship her round to your address when she arrives. I fancy
+she's due to totter in somewhere in the next few days. Well, I must
+be popping. Toodle-oo!"
+
+"Pip-pip!" said Reggie.
+
+ It was about a week later that Lucille came into the suite at the
+Hotel Cosmopolis that was her home, and found Archie lying on the
+couch, smoking a refreshing pipe after the labours of the day. It
+seemed to Archie that his wife was not in her usual cheerful frame
+of mind. He kissed her, and, having relieved her of her parasol,
+endeavoured without success to balance it on his chin. Having picked
+it up from the floor and placed it on the table, he became aware
+that Lucille was looking at him in a despondent sort of way. Her
+grey eyes were clouded.
+
+"Halloa, old thing," said Archie. "What's up?"
+
+Lucille sighed wearily.
+
+"Archie, darling, do you know any really good swear-words?"
+
+"Well," said Archie, reflectively, "let me see. I did pick up a few
+tolerably ripe and breezy expressions out in France. All through my
+military career there was something about me--some subtle magnetism,
+don't you know, and that sort of thing--that seemed to make colonels
+and blighters of that order rather inventive. I sort of inspired
+them, don't you know. I remember one brass-hat addressing me for
+quite ten minutes, saying something new all the time. And even then
+he seemed to think he had only touched the fringe of the subject. As
+a matter of fact, he said straight out in the most frank and
+confiding way that mere words couldn't do justice to me. But why?"
+
+"Because I want to relieve my feelings."
+
+"Anything wrong?"
+
+"Everything's wrong. I've just been having tea with Bill and his
+Mabel."
+
+"Oh, ah!" said Archie, interested. "And what's the verdict?"
+
+"Guilty!" said Lucille. "And the sentence, if I had anything to do
+with it, would be transportation for life." She peeled off her
+gloves irritably. "What fools men are! Not you, precious! You're the
+only man in the world that isn't, it seems to me. You did marry a
+nice girl, didn't you? YOU didn't go running round after females
+with crimson hair, goggling at them with your eyes popping out of
+your head like a bulldog waiting for a bone."
+
+"Oh, I say! Does old Bill look like that?"
+
+"Worse!"
+
+Archie rose to a point of order.
+
+"But one moment, old lady. You speak of crimson hair. Surely old
+Bill--in the extremely jolly monologues he used to deliver whenever
+I didn't see him coming and he got me alone--used to allude to her
+hair as brown."
+
+"It isn't brown now. It's bright scarlet. Good gracious, I ought to
+know. I've been looking at it all the afternoon. It dazzled me. If
+I've got to meet her again, I mean to go to the oculist's and get a
+pair of those smoked glasses you wear at Palm Beach." Lucille
+brooded silently for a while over the tragedy. "I don't want to say
+anything against her, of course."
+
+"No, no, of course not."
+
+"But of all the awful, second-rate girls I ever met, she's the
+worst! She has vermilion hair and an imitation Oxford manner. She's
+so horribly refined that it's dreadful to listen to her. She's a
+sly, creepy, slinky, made-up, insincere vampire! She's common! She's
+awful! She's a cat!"
+
+"You're quite right not to say anything against her," said Archie,
+approvingly. "It begins to look," he went on, "as if the good old
+pater was about due for another shock. He has a hard life!"
+
+"If Bill DARES to introduce that girl to Father, he's taking his
+life in his hands."
+
+"But surely that was the idea--the scheme--the wheeze, wasn't it? Or
+do you think there's any chance of his weakening?"
+
+"Weakening! You should have seen him looking at her! It was like a
+small boy flattening his nose against the window of a candy-store."
+
+"Bit thick!"
+
+Lucille kicked the leg of the table.
+
+"And to think," she said, "that, when I was a little girl, I used to
+look up to Bill as a monument of wisdom. I used to hug his knees and
+gaze into his face and wonder how anyone could be so magnificent."
+She gave the unoffending table another kick. "If I could have looked
+into the future," she said, with feeling, "I'd have bitten him in
+the ankle!"
+
+ In the days which followed, Archie found himself a little out of
+touch with Bill and his romance. Lucille referred to the matter only
+when he brought the subject up, and made it plain that the topic of
+her future sister-in-law was not one which she enjoyed discussing.
+Mr. Brewster, senior, when Archie, by way of delicately preparing
+his mind for what was about to befall, asked him if he liked red
+hair, called him a fool, and told him to go away and bother someone
+else when they were busy. The only person who could have kept him
+thoroughly abreast of the trend of affairs was Bill himself; and
+experience had made Archie wary in the matter of meeting Bill. The
+position of confidant to a young man in the early stages of love is
+no sinecure, and it made Archie sleepy even to think of having to
+talk to his brother-in-law. He sedulously avoided his love-lorn
+relative, and it was with a sinking feeling one day that, looking
+over his shoulder as he sat in the Cosmopolis grill-room preparatory
+to ordering lunch, he perceived Bill bearing down upon him,
+obviously resolved upon joining his meal.
+
+To his surprise, however, Bill did not instantly embark upon his
+usual monologue. Indeed, he hardly spoke at all. He champed a chop,
+and seemed to Archie to avoid his eye. It was not till lunch was
+over and they were smoking that he unburdened himself.
+
+"Archie!" he said.
+
+"Hallo, old thing!" said Archie. "Still there? I thought you'd died
+or something. Talk about our old pals, Tongue-tied Thomas and Silent
+Sammy! You could beat 'em both on the same evening."
+
+"It's enough to make me silent."
+
+"What is?"
+
+Bill had relapsed into a sort of waking dream. He sat frowning
+sombrely, lost to the world. Archie, having waited what seemed to
+him a sufficient length of time for an answer to his question, bent
+forward and touched his brother-in-law's hand gently with the
+lighted end of his cigar. Bill came to himself with a howl.
+
+"What is?" said Archie.
+
+"What is what?" said Bill.
+
+"Now listen, old thing," protested Archie. "Life is short and time
+is flying. Suppose we cut out the cross-talk. You hinted there was
+something on your mind--something worrying the old bean--and I'm
+waiting to hear what it is."
+
+Bill fiddled a moment with his coffee-spoon.
+
+"I'm in an awful hole," he said at last.
+
+"What's the trouble?"
+
+"It's about that darned girl!"
+
+Archie blinked.
+
+"What!"
+
+"That darned girl!"
+
+Archie could scarcely credit his senses. He had been prepared--
+indeed, he had steeled himself--to hear Bill allude to his affinity
+in a number of ways. But "that darned girl" was not one of them.
+
+"Companion of my riper years," he said, "let's get this thing
+straight. When you say 'that darned girl,' do you by any possibility
+allude to--?"
+
+"Of course I do!"
+
+"But, William, old bird--"
+
+"Oh, I know, I know, I know!" said Bill, irritably. "You're
+surprised to hear me talk like that about her?"
+
+"A trifle, yes. Possibly a trifle. When last heard from, laddie, you
+must recollect, you were speaking of the lady as your soul-mate, and
+at least once--if I remember rightly--you alluded to her as your
+little dusky-haired lamb."
+
+A sharp howl escaped Bill.
+
+"Don't!" A strong shudder convulsed his frame. "Don't remind me of
+it!"
+
+"There's been a species of slump, then, in dusky-haired lambs?"
+
+"How," demanded Bill, savagely, "can-a girl be a dusky-haired lamb
+when her hair's bright scarlet?"
+
+"Dashed difficult!" admitted Archie.
+
+"I suppose Lucille told you about that?"
+
+"She did touch on it. Lightly, as it were. With a sort of gossamer
+touch, so to speak."
+
+Bill threw off the last fragments of reserve.
+
+"Archie, I'm in the devil of a fix. I don't know why it was, but
+directly I saw her--things seemed so different over in England--I
+mean." He swallowed ice-water in gulps. "I suppose it was seeing her
+with Lucille. Old Lu is such a thoroughbred. Seemed to kind of show
+her up. Like seeing imitation pearls by the side of real pearls. And
+that crimson hair! It sort of put the lid on it." Bill brooded
+morosely. "It ought to be a criminal offence for women to dye their
+hair. Especially red. What the devil do women do that sort of thing
+for?"
+
+"Don't blame me, old thing. It's not my fault."
+
+Bill looked furtive and harassed.
+
+"It makes me feel such a cad. Here am I, feeling that I would give
+all I've got in the world to get out of the darned thing, and all
+the time the poor girl seems to be getting fonder of me than ever."
+
+"How do you know?" Archie surveyed his brother-in-law critically.
+"Perhaps her feelings have changed too. Very possibly she may not
+like the colour of YOUR hair. I don't myself. Now if you were to dye
+yourself crimson--"
+
+"Oh, shut up! Of course a man knows when a girl's fond of him."
+
+"By no means, laddie. When you're my age--"
+
+"I AM your age."
+
+"So you are! I forgot that. Well, now, approaching the matter from
+another angle, let us suppose, old son, that Miss What's-Her-Name--
+the party of the second part--"
+
+"Stop it!" said Bill suddenly. "Here comes Reggie!"
+
+"Eh?"
+
+"Here comes Reggie van Tuyl. I don't want him to hear us talking
+about the darned thing."
+
+Archie looked over his shoulder and perceived that it was indeed so.
+Reggie was threading his way among the tables.
+
+"Well, HE looks pleased with things, anyway," said Bill, enviously.
+"Glad somebody's happy."
+
+He was right. Reggie van Tuyl's usual mode of progress through a
+restaurant was a somnolent slouch. Now he was positively bounding
+along. Furthermore, the usual expression on Reggie's face was a
+sleepy sadness. Now he smiled brightly and with animation. He
+curveted towards their table, beaming and erect, his head up, his
+gaze level, and his chest expanded, for all the world as if he had
+been reading the hints in "The Personality That Wins."
+
+Archie was puzzled. Something had plainly happened to Reggie. But
+what? It was idle to suppose that somebody had left him money, for
+he had been left practically all the money there was a matter of ten
+years before.
+
+"Hallo, old bean," he said, as the new-comer, radiating good will
+and bonhomie, arrived at the table and hung over it like a noon-day
+sun. "We've finished. But rally round and we'll watch you eat.
+Dashed interesting, watching old Reggie eat. Why go to the Zoo?"
+
+Reggie shook his head.
+
+"Sorry, old man. Can't. Just on my way to the Ritz. Stepped in
+because I thought you might be here. I wanted you to be the first to
+hear the news."
+
+"News?"
+
+"I'm the happiest man alive!"
+
+"You look it, darn you!" growled Bill, on whose mood of grey gloom
+this human sunbeam was jarring heavily.
+
+"I'm engaged to be married!"
+
+"Congratulations, old egg!" Archie shook his hand cordially. "Dash
+it, don't you know, as an old married man I like to see you young
+fellows settling down."
+
+"I don't know how to thank you enough, Archie, old man," said
+Reggie, fervently.
+
+"Thank me?"
+
+"It was through you that I met her. Don't you remember the girl you
+sent to me? You wanted me to get her a small part--"
+
+He stopped, puzzled. Archie had uttered a sound that was half gasp
+and half gurgle, but it was swallowed up in the extraordinary noise
+from the other side of the table. Bill Brewster was leaning forward
+with bulging eyes and soaring eyebrows.
+
+"Are you engaged to Mabel Winchester?"
+
+"Why, by George!" said Reggie. "Do you know her?"
+
+Archie recovered himself.
+
+"Slightly," he said. "Slightly. Old Bill knows her slightly, as it
+were. Not very well, don't you know, but--how shall I put it?"
+
+"Slightly," suggested Bill.
+
+"Just the word. Slightly."
+
+"Splendid!" said Reggie van Tuyl. "Why don't you come along to the
+Ritz and meet her now?"
+
+Bill stammered. Archie came to the rescue again.
+
+"Bill can't come now. He's got a date."
+
+"A date?" said Bill.
+
+"A date," said Archie. "An appointment, don't you know. A--a--in
+fact, a date."
+
+"But--er--wish her happiness from me," said Bill, cordially.
+
+"Thanks very much, old man," said Reggie.
+
+"And say I'm delighted, will you?"
+
+"Certainly."
+
+"You won't forget the word, will you? Delighted."
+
+"Delighted."
+
+"That's right. Delighted."
+
+Reggie looked at his watch.
+
+"Halloa! I must rush!"
+
+Bill and Archie watched him as he bounded out of the restaurant.
+
+"Poor old Reggie!" said Bill, with a fleeting compunction.
+
+"Not necessarily," said Archie. "What I mean to say is, tastes
+differ, don't you know. One man's peach is another man's poison, and
+vice versa."
+
+"There's something in that."
+
+"Absolutely! Well," said Archie, judicially, "this would appear to
+be, as it were, the maddest, merriest day in all the glad New Year,
+yes, no?"
+
+Bill drew a deep breath.
+
+"You bet your sorrowful existence it is!" he said. "I'd like to do
+something to celebrate it."
+
+"The right spirit!" said Archie. "Absolutely the right spirit! Begin
+by paying for my lunch!"
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XX
+
+THE-SAUSAGE-CHAPPIE-CLICKS
+
+
+Rendered restless by relief, Bill Brewster did not linger long at
+the luncheon-table. Shortly after Reggie van Tuyl had retired, he
+got up and announced his intention of going for a bit of a walk to
+calm his excited mind. Archie dismissed him with a courteous wave of
+the hand; and, beckoning to the Sausage Chappie, who in his role of
+waiter was hovering near, requested him to bring the best cigar the
+hotel could supply. The padded seat in which he sat was comfortable;
+he had no engagements; and it seemed to him that a pleasant half-
+hour could be passed in smoking dreamily and watching his fellow-men
+eat.
+
+The grill-room had filled up. The Sausage Chappie, having brought
+Archie his cigar, was attending to a table close by, at which a
+woman with a small boy in a sailor suit had seated themselves. The
+woman was engrossed with the bill of fare, but the child's attention
+seemed riveted upon the Sausage Chappie. He was drinking him in with
+wide eyes. He seemed to be brooding on him.
+
+Archie, too, was brooding on the Sausage Chappie, The latter made an
+excellent waiter: he was brisk and attentive, and did the work as if
+he liked it; but Archie was not satisfied. Something seemed to tell
+him that the man was fitted for higher things. Archie was a grateful
+soul. That sausage, coming at the end of a five-hour hike, had made
+a deep impression on his plastic nature. Reason told him that only
+an exceptional man could have parted with half a sausage at such a
+moment; and he could not feel that a job as waiter at a New York
+hotel was an adequate job for an exceptional man. Of course, the
+root of the trouble lay in the fact that the fellow could not
+remember what his real life-work had been before the war. It was
+exasperating to reflect, as the other moved away to take his order
+to the kitchen, that there, for all one knew, went the dickens of a
+lawyer or doctor or architect or what not.
+
+His meditations were broken by the voice of the child.
+
+"Mummie," asked the child interestedly, following the Sausage
+Chappie with his eyes as the latter disappeared towards the kitchen,
+"why has that man got such a funny face?"
+
+"Hush, darling."
+
+"Yes, but why HAS he?"
+
+"I don't know, darling."
+
+The child's faith in the maternal omniscience seemed to have
+received a shock. He had the air of a seeker after truth who has
+been baffled. His eyes roamed the room discontentedly.
+
+"He's got a funnier face than that man there," he said, pointing to
+Archie.
+
+"Hush, darling!"
+
+"But he has. Much funnier."
+
+In a way it was a sort of compliment, but Archie felt embarrassed.
+He withdrew coyly into the cushioned recess. Presently the Sausage
+Chappie returned, attended to the needs of the woman and the child,
+and came over to Archie. His homely face was beaming.
+
+"Say, I had a big night last night," he said, leaning on the table.
+
+"Yes?" said Archie. "Party or something?"
+
+"No, I mean I suddenly began to remember things. Something seems to
+have happened to the works."
+
+Archie sat up excitedly. This was great news.
+
+"No, really? My dear old lad, this is absolutely topping. This is
+priceless."
+
+"Yessir! First thing I remembered was that I was born at
+Springfield, Ohio. It was like a mist starting to life. Springfield,
+Ohio. That was it. It suddenly came back to me."
+
+"Splendid! Anything else?"
+
+"Yessir! Just before I went to sleep I remembered my name as well."
+
+Archie was stirred to his depths.
+
+"Why, the thing's a walk-over!" he exclaimed. "Now you've once got
+started, nothing can stop you. What is your name?"
+
+"Why, it's--That's funny! It's gone again. I have an idea it began
+with an S. What was it? Skeffington? Skillington?"
+
+"Sanderson?"
+
+"No; I'll get it in a moment. Cunningham? Carrington? Wilberforce?
+Debenham?"
+
+"Dennison?" suggested Archie, helpfully.--"No, no, no. It's on the
+tip of my tongue. Barrington? Montgomery? Hepplethwaite? I've got
+it! Smith!"
+
+"By Jove! Really?"
+
+"Certain of it."
+
+"What's the first name?"
+
+An anxious expression came into the man's eyes. He hesitated. He
+lowered his voice.
+
+"I have a horrible feeling that it's Lancelot!"
+
+"Good God!" said Archie.
+
+"It couldn't really be that, could it?"
+
+Archie looked grave. He hated to give pain, but he felt he must be
+honest.
+
+"It might," he said. "People give their children all sorts of rummy
+names. My second name's Tracy. And I have a pal in England who was
+christened Cuthbert de la Hay Horace. Fortunately everyone calls him
+Stinker."
+
+The head-waiter began to drift up like a bank of fog, and the
+Sausage Chappie returned to his professional duties. When he came
+back, he was beaming again.
+
+"Something else I remembered," he said, removing the cover. "I'm
+married!"
+
+"Good Lord!"
+
+"At least I was before the war. She had blue eyes and brown hair and
+a Pekingese dog."
+
+"What was her name?"
+
+"I don't know."
+
+"Well, you're coming on," said Archie. "I'll admit that. You've
+still got a bit of a way to go before you become like one of those
+blighters who take the Memory Training Courses in the magazine
+advertisements--I mean to say, you know, the lads who meet a fellow
+once for five minutes, and then come across him again ten years
+later and grasp him by the hand and say, 'Surely this is Mr. Watkins
+of Seattle?' Still, you're doing fine. You only need patience.
+Everything comes to him who waits." Archie sat up, electrified. "I
+say, by Jove, that's rather good, what! Everything comes to him who
+waits, and you're a waiter, what, what. I mean to say, what!"
+
+"Mummie," said the child at the other table, still speculative, "do
+you think something trod on his face?"
+
+"Hush, darling."
+
+"Perhaps it was bitten by something?"
+
+"Eat your nice fish, darling," said the mother, who seemed to be one
+of those dull-witted persons whom it is impossible to interest in a
+discussion on first causes.
+
+Archie felt stimulated. Not even the advent of his father-in-law,
+who came in a few moments later and sat down at the other end of the
+room, could depress his spirits.
+
+The Sausage Chappie came to his table again.
+
+"It's a funny thing," he said. "Like waking up after you've been
+asleep. Everything seems to be getting clearer. The dog's name was
+Marie. My wife's dog, you know. And she had a mole on her chin."
+
+"The dog?"
+
+"No. My wife. Little beast! She bit me in the leg once."
+
+"Your wife?"
+
+"No. The dog. Good Lord!" said the Sausage Chappie.
+
+Archie looked up and followed his gaze.
+
+A couple of tables away, next to a sideboard on which the management
+exposed for view the cold meats and puddings and pies mentioned in
+volume two of the bill of fare ("Buffet Froid"), a man and a girl
+had just seated themselves. The man was stout and middle-aged. He
+bulged in practically every place in which a man can bulge, and his
+head was almost entirely free from hair. The girl was young and
+pretty. Her eyes were blue. Her hair was brown. She had a rather
+attractive little mole on the left side of her chin.
+
+"Good Lord!" said the Sausage Chappie.
+
+"Now what?" said Archie.
+
+"Who's that? Over at the table there?"
+
+Archie, through long attendance at the Cosmopolis Grill, knew most
+of the habitues by sight.
+
+"That's a man named Gossett. James J. Gossett. He's a motion-picture
+man. You must have seen his name around."
+
+"I don't mean him. Who's the girl?"
+
+"I've never seen her before."
+
+"It's my wife!" said the Sausage Chappie.
+
+"Your wife!"
+
+"Yes!"
+
+"Are you sure?"
+
+"Of course I'm sure!"
+
+"Well, well, well!" said Archie. "Many happy returns of the day!"
+
+At the other table, the girl, unconscious of the drama which was
+about to enter her life, was engrossed in conversation with the
+stout man. And at this moment the stout man leaned forward and
+patted her on the cheek.
+
+It was a paternal pat, the pat which a genial uncle might bestow on
+a favourite niece, but it did not strike the Sausage Chappie in that
+light. He had been advancing on the table at a fairly rapid pace,
+and now, stirred to his depths, he bounded forward with a hoarse
+cry.
+
+Archie was at some pains to explain to his father-in-law later that,
+if the management left cold pies and things about all over the
+place, this sort of thing was bound to happen sooner or later. He
+urged that it was putting temptation in people's way, and that Mr.
+Brewster had only himself to blame. Whatever the rights of the case,
+the Buffet Froid undoubtedly came in remarkably handy at this crisis
+in the Sausage Chappie's life. He had almost reached the sideboard
+when the stout man patted the girl's cheek, and to seize a
+huckleberry pie was with him the work of a moment. The next instant
+the pie had whizzed past the other's head and burst like a shell
+against the wall.
+
+There are, no doubt, restaurants where this sort of thing would have
+excited little comment, but the Cosmopolis was not one of them.
+Everybody had something to say, but the only one among those present
+who had anything sensible to say was the child in the sailor suit.
+
+"Do it again!" said the child, cordially.
+
+The Sausage Chappie did it again. He took up a fruit salad, poised
+it for a moment, then decanted it over Mr. Gossett's bald head. The
+child's happy laughter rang over the restaurant. Whatever anybody
+else might think of the affair, this child liked it and was prepared
+to go on record to that effect.
+
+Epic events have a stunning quality. They paralyse the faculties.
+For a moment there was a pause. The world stood still. Mr. Brewster
+bubbled inarticulately. Mr. Gossett dried himself sketchily with a
+napkin. The Sausage Chappie snorted.
+
+The girl had risen to her feet and was staring wildly.
+
+"John!" she cried.
+
+Even at this moment of crisis the Sausage Chappie was able to look
+relieved.
+
+"So it is!" he said. "And I thought it was Lancelot!"
+
+"I thought you were dead!"
+
+"I'm not!" said the Sausage Chappie.
+
+Mr. Gossett, speaking thickly through the fruit-salad, was
+understood to say that he regretted this. And then confusion broke
+loose again. Everybody began to talk at once.
+
+"I say!" said Archie. "I say! One moment!"
+
+Of the first stages of this interesting episode Archie had been a
+paralysed spectator. The thing had numbed him. And then--
+
+     Sudden a thought came, like a full-blown rose.
+     Flushing his brow.
+
+When he reached the gesticulating group, he was calm and business-
+like. He had a constructive policy to suggest.
+
+"I say," he said. "I've got an idea!"
+
+"Go away!" said Mr. Brewster. "This is bad enough without you
+butting in."
+
+Archie quelled him with a gesture.
+
+"Leave us," he said. "We would be alone. I want to have a little
+business-talk with Mr. Gossett." He turned to the movie-magnate, who
+was gradually emerging from the fruit-salad rather after the manner
+of a stout Venus rising from the sea. "Can you spare me a moment of
+your valuable time?"
+
+"I'll have him arrested!"
+
+"Don't you do it, laddie. Listen!"
+
+"The man's mad. Throwing pies!"
+
+Archie attached himself to his coat-button.
+
+"Be calm, laddie. Calm and reasonable!"
+
+For the first time Mr. Gossett seemed to become aware that what he
+had been looking on as a vague annoyance was really an individual.
+
+"Who the devil are you?"
+
+Archie drew himself up with dignity.
+
+"I am this gentleman's representative," he replied, indicating the
+Sausage Chappie with a motion of the hand. "His jolly old personal
+representative. I act for him. And on his behalf I have a pretty
+ripe proposition to lay before you. Reflect, dear old bean," he
+proceeded earnestly. "Are you going to let this chance slip? The
+opportunity of a lifetime which will not occur again. By Jove, you
+ought to rise up and embrace this bird. You ought to clasp the
+chappie to your bosom! He has thrown pies at you, hasn't he? Very
+well. You are a movie-magnate. Your whole fortune is founded on
+chappies who throw pies. You probably scour the world for chappies
+who throw pies. Yet, when one comes right to you without any fuss or
+trouble and demonstrates before your very eyes the fact that he is
+without a peer as a pie-propeller, you get the wind up and talk
+about having him arrested. Consider! (There's a bit of cherry just
+behind your left ear.) Be sensible. Why let your personal feeling
+stand in the way of doing yourself a bit of good? Give this chappie
+a job and give it him quick, or we go elsewhere. Did you ever see
+Fatty Arbuckle handle pastry with a surer touch? Has Charlie Chaplin
+got this fellow's speed and control. Absolutely not. I tell you, old
+friend, you're in danger of throwing away a good thing!"
+
+He paused. The Sausage Chappie beamed.
+
+"I've aways wanted to go into the movies," he said. "I was an actor
+before the war. Just remembered."
+
+Mr. Brewster attempted to speak. Archie waved him down.
+
+"How many times have I got to tell you not to butt in?" he said,
+severely.
+
+Mr. Gossett's militant demeanour had become a trifle modified during
+Archie's harangue. First and foremost a man of business, Mr. Gossett
+was not insensible to the arguments which had been put forward. He
+brushed a slice of orange from the back of his neck, and mused
+awhile.
+
+"How do I know this fellow would screen well?" he said, at length.
+
+"Screen well!" cried Archie. "Of course he'll screen well. Look at
+his face. I ask you! The map! I call your attention to it." He
+turned apologetically to the Sausage Chappie. "Awfully sorry, old
+lad, for dwelling on this, but it's business, you know." He turned
+to Mr. Gossett. "Did you ever see a face like that? Of course not.
+Why should I, as this gentleman's personal representative, let a
+face like that go to waste? There's a fortune in it. By Jove, I'll
+give you two minutes to think the thing over, and, if you don't talk
+business then, I'll jolly well take my man straight round to Mack
+Sennett or someone. We don't have to ask for jobs. We consider
+offers."
+
+There was a silence. And then the clear voice of the child in the
+sailor suit made itself heard again.
+
+"Mummie!"
+
+"Yes, darling?"
+
+"Is the man with the funny face going to throw any more pies?"
+
+"No, darling."
+
+The child uttered a scream of disappointed fury.
+
+"I want the funny man to throw some more pies! I want the funny man
+to throw some more pies!"
+
+A look almost of awe came into Mr. Gossett's face. He had heard the
+voice of the Public. He had felt the beating of the Public's pulse.
+
+"Out of the mouths of babes and sucklings," he said, picking a piece
+of banana off his right eyebrow, "Out of the mouths of babes and
+sucklings. Come round to my office!"
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXI
+
+THE GROWING BOY
+
+
+The lobby of the Cosmopolis Hotel was a favourite stamping-ground of
+Mr. Daniel Brewster, its proprietor. He liked to wander about there,
+keeping a paternal eye on things, rather in the manner of the Jolly
+Innkeeper (hereinafter to be referred to as Mine Host) of the old-
+fashioned novel. Customers who, hurrying in to dinner, tripped over
+Mr. Brewster, were apt to mistake him for the hotel detective--for
+his eye was keen and his aspect a trifle austere--but, nevertheless,
+he was being as jolly an innkeeper as he knew how. His presence in
+the lobby supplied a personal touch to the Cosmopolis which other
+New York hotels lacked, and it undeniably made the girl at the book-
+stall extraordinarily civil to her clients, which was all to the
+good.
+
+Most of the time Mr. Brewster stood in one spot and just looked
+thoughtful; but now and again he would wander to the marble slab
+behind which he kept the desk-clerk and run his eye over the
+register, to see who had booked rooms--like a child examining the
+stocking on Christmas morning to ascertain what Santa Claus had
+brought him.
+
+As a rule, Mr. Brewster concluded this performance by shoving the
+book back across the marble slab and resuming his meditations. But
+one night a week or two after the Sausage Chappie's sudden
+restoration to the normal, he varied this procedure by starting
+rather violently, turning purple, and uttering an exclamation which
+was manifestly an exclamation of chagrin. He turned abruptly and
+cannoned into Archie, who, in company with Lucille, happened to be
+crossing the lobby at the moment on his way to dine in their suite.
+
+Mr. Brewster apologised gruffly; then, recognising his victim,
+seemed to regret having done so.
+
+"Oh, it's you! Why can't you look where you're going?" he demanded.
+He had suffered much from his son-in-law.
+
+"Frightfully sorry," said Archie, amiably. "Never thought you were
+going to fox-trot backwards all over the fairway."
+
+"You mustn't bully Archie," said Lucille, severely, attaching
+herself to her father's back hair and giving it a punitive tug,
+"because he's an angel, and I love him, and you must learn to love
+him, too."
+
+"Give you lessons at a reasonable rate," murmured Archie.
+
+Mr. Brewster regarded his young relative with a lowering eye.
+
+"What's the matter, father darling?" asked Lucille. "You seem upset"
+
+"I am upset!" Mr. Brewster snorted. "Some people have got a nerve!"
+He glowered forbiddingly at an inoffensive young man in a light
+overcoat who had just entered, and the young man, though his
+conscience was quite clear and Mr. Brewster an entire stranger to
+him, stopped dead, blushed, and went out again--to dine elsewhere.
+"Some people have got the nerve of an army mule!"
+
+"Why, what's happened?"
+
+"Those darned McCalls have registered here!"
+
+"No!"
+
+"Bit beyond me, this," said Archie, insinuating himself into the
+conversation. "Deep waters and what not! Who are the McCalls?"
+
+"Some people father dislikes," said Lucille. "And they've chosen his
+hotel to stop at. But, father dear, you mustn't mind. It's really a
+compliment. They've come because they know it's the best hotel in
+New York."
+
+"Absolutely!" said Archie. "Good accommodation for man and beast!
+All the comforts of home! Look on the bright side, old bean. No good
+getting the wind up. Cherrio, old companion!"
+
+"Don't call me old companion!"
+
+"Eh, what? Oh, right-o!"
+
+Lucille steered her husband out of the danger zone, and they entered
+the lift.
+
+"Poor father!" she said, as they went to their suite, "it's a shame.
+They must have done it to annoy him. This man McCall has a place
+next to some property father bought in Westchester, and he's
+bringing a law-suit against father about a bit of land which he
+claims belongs to him. He might have had the tact to go to another
+hotel. But, after all, I don't suppose it was the poor little
+fellow's fault. He does whatever his wife tells him to."
+
+"We all do that," said Archie the married man.
+
+Lucille eyed him fondly.
+
+"Isn't it a shame, precious, that all husbands haven't nice wives
+like me?"
+
+"When I think of you, by Jove," said Archie, fervently, "I want to
+babble, absolutely babble!"
+
+"Oh, I was telling you about the McCalls. Mr. McCall is one of those
+little, meek men, and his wife's one of those big, bullying women.
+It was she who started all the trouble with father. Father and Mr.
+McCall were very fond of each other till she made him begin the
+suit. I feel sure she made him come to this hotel just to annoy
+father. Still, they've probably taken the most expensive suite in
+the place, which is something."
+
+Archie was at the telephone. His mood was now one of quiet peace. Of
+all the happenings which went to make up existence in New York, he
+liked best the cosy tete-a-tete dinners with Lucille in their suite,
+which, owing to their engagements--for Lucille was a popular girl,
+with many friends--occurred all too seldom.
+
+"Touching now the question of browsing and sluicing," he said.
+"I'll be getting them to send along a waiter."
+
+"Oh, good gracious!"
+
+"What's the matter?"
+
+"I've just remembered. I promised faithfully I would go and see Jane
+Murchison to-day. And I clean forgot. I must rush."
+
+"But light of my soul, we are about to eat. Pop around and see her
+after dinner."
+
+"I can't. She's going to a theatre to-night."
+
+"Give her the jolly old miss-in-baulk, then, for the nonce, and
+spring round to-morrow."
+
+"She's sailing for England to-morrow morning, early. No, I must go
+and see her now. What a shame! She's sure to make me stop to dinner,
+I tell you what. Order something for me, and, if I'm not back in
+half an hour, start."
+
+"Jane Murchison," said Archie, "is a bally nuisance."
+
+"Yes. But I've known her since she was eight."
+
+"If her parents had had any proper feeling," said Archie, "they
+would have drowned her long before that."
+
+He unhooked the receiver, and asked despondently to be connected
+with Room Service. He thought bitterly of the exigent Jane, whom he
+recollected dimly as a tall female with teeth. He half thought of
+going down to the grill-room on the chance of finding a friend
+there, but the waiter was on his way to the room. He decided that he
+might as well stay where he was.
+
+The waiter arrived, booked the order, and departed. Archie had just
+completed his toilet after a shower-bath when a musical clinking
+without announced the advent of the meal. He opened the door. The
+waiter was there with a table congested with things under covers,
+from which escaped a savoury and appetising odour. In spite of his
+depression, Archie's soul perked up a trifle.
+
+Suddenly he became aware that he was not the only person present who
+was deriving enjoyment from the scent of the meal. Standing beside
+the waiter and gazing wistfully at the foodstuffs was a long, thin
+boy of about sixteen. He was one of those boys who seem all legs and
+knuckles. He had pale red hair, sandy eyelashes, and a long neck;
+and his eyes, as he removed them from the-table and raised them to
+Archie's, had a hungry look. He reminded Archie of a half-grown,
+half-starved hound.
+
+"That smells good!" said the long boy. He inhaled deeply. "Yes,
+sir," he continued, as one whose mind is definitely made up, "that
+smells good!"
+
+Before Archie could reply, the telephone bell rang. It was Lucille,
+confirming her prophecy that the pest Jane would insist on her
+staying to dine.
+
+"Jane," said Archie, into the telephone, "is a pot of poison. The
+waiter is here now, setting out a rich banquet, and I shall have to
+eat two of everything by myself."
+
+He hung up the receiver, and, turning, met the pale eye of the long
+boy, who had propped himself up in the doorway.
+
+"Were you expecting somebody to dinner?" asked the boy.
+
+"Why, yes, old friend, I was."
+
+"I wish--"
+
+"Yes?"
+
+"Oh, nothing."
+
+The waiter left. The long boy hitched his back more firmly against
+the doorpost, and returned to his original theme.
+
+"That surely does smell good!" He basked a moment in the aroma.
+"Yes, sir! I'll tell the world it does!"
+
+Archie was not an abnormally rapid thinker, but he began at this
+point to get a clearly defined impression that this lad, if invited,
+would waive the formalities and consent to join his meal. Indeed,
+the idea Archie got was that, if he were not invited pretty soon, he
+would invite himself.
+
+"Yes," he agreed. "It doesn't smell bad, what!"
+
+"It smells GOOD!" said the boy. "Oh, doesn't it! Wake me up in the
+night and ask me if it doesn't!"
+
+"Poulet en casserole," said Archie.
+
+"Golly!" said the boy, reverently.
+
+There was a pause. The situation began to seem to Archie a trifle
+difficult. He wanted to start his meal, but it began to appear that
+he must either do so under the penetrating gaze of his new friend or
+else eject the latter forcibly. The boy showed no signs of ever
+wanting to leave the doorway.
+
+"You've dined, I suppose, what?" said Archie.
+
+"I never dine."
+
+"What!"
+
+"Not really dine, I mean. I only get vegetables and nuts and
+things."
+
+"Dieting?"
+
+"Mother is."
+
+"I don't absolutely catch the drift, old bean," said Archie. The boy
+sniffed with half-closed eyes as a wave of perfume from the poulet
+en casserole floated past him. He seemed to be anxious to intercept
+as much of it as possible before it got through the door.
+
+"Mother's a food-reformer," he vouchsafed. "She lectures on it. She
+makes Pop and me live on vegetables and nuts and things."
+
+Archie was shocked. It was like listening to a tale from the abyss.
+
+"My dear old chap, you must suffer agonies--absolute shooting
+pains!" He had no hesitation now. Common humanity pointed out his
+course. "Would you care to join me in a bite now?"
+
+"Would I!" The boy smiled a wan smile. "Would I! Just stop me on the
+street and ask me!"
+
+"Come on in, then," said Archie, rightly taking this peculiar phrase
+for a formal acceptance. "And close the door. The fatted calf is
+getting cold."
+
+Archie was not a man with a wide visiting-list among people with
+families, and it was so long since he had seen a growing boy in
+action at the table that he had forgotten what sixteen is capable of
+doing with a knife and fork, when it really squares its elbows,
+takes a deep breath, and gets going. The spectacle which he
+witnessed was consequently at first a little unnerving. The long
+boy's idea of trifling with a meal appeared to be to swallow it
+whole and reach out for more. He ate like a starving Eskimo. Archie,
+in the time he had spent in the trenches making the world safe for
+the working-man to strike in, had occasionally been quite peckish,
+but he sat dazed before this majestic hunger. This was real eating.
+
+There was little conversation. The growing boy evidently did not
+believe in table-talk when he could use his mouth for more practical
+purposes. It was not until the final roll had been devoured to its
+last crumb that the guest found leisure to address his host. Then he
+leaned back with a contented sigh.
+
+"Mother," said the human python, "says you ought to chew every
+mouthful thirty-three times...."
+
+"Yes, sir! Thirty-three times!" He sighed again, "I haven't ever had
+meal like that."
+
+"All right, was it, what?"
+
+"Was it! Was it! Call me up on the 'phone and ask me!-Yes, sir!-
+Mother's tipped off these darned waiters not to serve-me anything
+but vegetables and nuts and things, darn it!"
+
+"The mater seems to have drastic ideas about the good old feed-bag,
+what!"
+
+"I'll say she has! Pop hates it as much as me, but he's scared to
+kick. Mother says vegetables contain all the proteins you want.
+Mother says, if you eat meat, your blood-pressure goes all blooey.
+Do you think it does?"
+
+"Mine seems pretty well in the pink."
+
+"She's great on talking," conceded the boy. "She's out to-night
+somewhere, giving a lecture on Rational Eating to some ginks. I'll
+have to be slipping up to our suite before she gets back." He rose,
+sluggishly. "That isn't a bit of roll under that napkin, is it?" he
+asked, anxiously.
+
+Archie raised the napkin.
+
+"No. Nothing of that species."
+
+"Oh, well!" said the boy, resignedly. "Then I believe I'll be going.
+Thanks very much for the dinner."
+
+"Not a bit, old top. Come again if you're ever trickling round in
+this direction."
+
+The long boy removed himself slowly, loath to leave. At the door he
+cast an affectionate glance back at the table.
+
+"Some meal!" he said, devoutly. "Considerable meal!"
+
+Archie lit a cigarette. He felt like a Boy Scout who has done his
+day's Act of Kindness.
+
+On the following morning it chanced that Archie needed a fresh
+supply of tobacco. It was his custom, when this happened, to repair
+to a small shop on Sixth Avenue which he had discovered accidentally
+in the course of his rambles about the great city. His relations
+with Jno. Blake, the proprietor, were friendly and intimate. The
+discovery that Mr. Blake was English and had, indeed, until a few
+years back maintained an establishment only a dozen doors or so from
+Archie's London club, had served as a bond.
+
+To-day he found Mr. Blake in a depressed mood. The tobacconist was a
+hearty, red-faced man, who looked like an English sporting publican
+--the kind of man who wears a fawn-coloured top-coat and drives to
+the Derby in a dog-cart; and usually there seemed to be nothing on
+his mind except the vagaries of the weather, concerning which he was
+a great conversationalist. But now moodiness had claimed him for its
+own. After a short and melancholy "Good morning," he turned to the
+task of measuring out the tobacco in silence.
+
+Archie's sympathetic nature was perturbed.--"What's the matter,
+laddie?" he enquired. "You would seem to be feeling a bit of an
+onion this bright morning, what, yes, no? I can see it with the
+naked eye."
+
+Mr. Blake grunted sorrowfully.
+
+"I've had a knock, Mr. Moffam."
+
+"Tell me all, friend of my youth."
+
+Mr. Blake, with a jerk of his thumb, indicated a poster which hung
+on the wall behind the counter. Archie had noticed it as he came in,
+for it was designed to attract the eye. It was printed in black
+letters on a yellow ground, and ran as follows:
+
+               CLOVER-LEAF SOCIAL AND OUTING CLUB
+
+                         GRAND CONTEST
+
+            PIE-EATING CHAMPIONSHIP OF THE WEST SIDE
+
+                         SPIKE O'DOWD
+                          (Champion)
+
+                              v.
+
+                       BLAKE'S UNKNOWN
+
+                  FOR A PURSE OF $50 AND SIDE-BET
+
+Archie examined this document gravely. It conveyed nothing to him
+except--what he had long suspected--that his sporting-looking friend
+had sporting blood as well as that kind of exterior. He expressed a
+kindly hope that the other's Unknown would bring home the bacon.
+
+Mr. Blake laughed one of those hollow, mirthless laughs.
+
+"There ain't any blooming Unknown," he said, bitterly. This man had
+plainly suffered. "Yesterday, yes, but not now."
+
+Archie sighed.
+
+"In the midst of life--Dead?" he enquired, delicately.
+
+"As good as," replied the stricken tobacconist. He cast aside his
+artificial restraint and became voluble. Archie was one of those
+sympathetic souls in whom even strangers readily confided their most
+intimate troubles. He was to those in travail of spirit very much
+what catnip is to a cat. "It's 'ard, sir, it's blooming 'ard! I'd
+got the event all sewed up in a parcel, and now this young feller-
+me-lad 'as to give me the knock. This lad of mine--sort of cousin 'e
+is; comes from London, like you and me--'as always 'ad, ever since
+he landed in this country, a most amazing knack of stowing away
+grub. 'E'd been a bit underfed these last two or three years over in
+the old country, what with food restrictions and all, and 'e took to
+the food over 'ere amazing. I'd 'ave backed 'im against a ruddy
+orstridge! Orstridge! I'd 'ave backed 'im against 'arff a dozen
+orstridges--take 'em on one after the other in the same ring on the
+same evening--and given 'em a handicap, too! 'E was a jewel, that
+boy. I've seen him polish off four pounds of steak and mealy
+potatoes and then look round kind of wolfish, as much as to ask when
+dinner was going to begin! That's the kind of a lad 'e was till this
+very morning. 'E would have out-swallowed this 'ere O'Dowd without
+turning a hair, as a relish before 'is tea! I'd got a couple of
+'undred dollars on 'im, and thought myself lucky to get the odds.
+And now--"
+
+Mr. Blake relapsed into a tortured silence.
+
+"But what's the matter with the blighter? Why can't he go over the
+top? Has he got indigestion?"
+
+"Indigestion?" Mr. Blaife laughed another of his hollow laughs. "You
+couldn't give that boy indigestion if you fed 'im in on safety-razor
+blades. Religion's more like what 'e's got."
+
+"Religion?"
+
+"Well, you can call it that. Seems last night, instead of goin' and
+resting 'is mind at a picture-palace like I told him to, 'e sneaked
+off to some sort of a lecture down on Eighth Avenue. 'E said 'e'd
+seen a piece about it in the papers, and it was about Rational
+Eating, and that kind of attracted 'im. 'E sort of thought 'e might
+pick up a few hints, like. 'E didn't know what rational eating was,
+but it sounded to 'im as if it must be something to do with food,
+and 'e didn't want to miss it. 'E came in here just now," said Mr.
+Blake, dully, "and 'e was a changed lad! Scared to death 'e was!
+Said the way 'e'd been goin' on in the past, it was a wonder 'e'd
+got any stummick left! It was a lady that give the lecture, and this
+boy said it was amazing what she told 'em about blood-pressure and
+things 'e didn't even know 'e 'ad. She showed 'em pictures, coloured
+pictures, of what 'appens inside the injudicious eater's stummick
+who doesn't chew his food, and it was like a battlefield! 'E said 'e
+would no more think of eatin' a lot of pie than 'e would of shootin'
+'imself, and anyhow eating pie would be a quicker death. I reasoned
+with 'im, Mr. Moffam, with tears in my eyes. I asked 'im was he
+goin' to chuck away fame and wealth just because a woman who didn't
+know what she was talking about had shown him a lot of faked
+pictures. But there wasn't any doin' anything with him. 'E give me
+the knock and 'opped it down the street to buy nuts." Mr. Blake
+moaned. "Two 'undred dollars and more gone pop, not to talk of the
+fifty dollars 'e would have won and me to get twenty-five of!"
+
+Archie took his tobacco and walked pensively back to the hotel. He
+was fond of Jno. Blake, and grieved for the trouble that had come
+upon him. It was odd, he felt, how things seemed to link themselves
+up together. The woman who had delivered the fateful lecture to
+injudicious eaters could not be other than the mother of his young
+guest of last night. An uncomfortable woman! Not content with
+starving her own family--Archie stopped in his tracks. A pedestrian,
+walking behind him, charged into his back, but Archie paid no
+attention. He had had one of those sudden, luminous ideas, which
+help a man who does not do much thinking as a rule to restore his
+average. He stood there for a moment, almost dizzy at the brilliance
+of his thoughts; then hurried on. Napoleon, he mused as he walked,
+must have felt rather like this after thinking up a hot one to
+spring on the enemy.
+
+As if Destiny were suiting her plans to his, one of the first
+persons he saw as he entered the lobby of the Cosmopolis was the
+long boy. He was standing at the bookstall, reading as much of a
+morning paper as could be read free under the vigilant eyes of the
+presiding girl. Both he and she were observing the unwritten rules
+which govern these affairs--to wit, that you may read without
+interference as much as can be read without touching the paper. If
+you touch the paper, you lose, and have to buy.
+
+"Well, well, well!" said Archie. "Here we are again, what!" He
+prodded the boy amiably in the lower ribs. "You're just the chap I
+was looking for. Got anything on for the time being?"
+
+The boy said he had no engagements.
+
+"Then I want you to stagger round with me to a chappie I know on
+Sixth Avenue. It's only a couple of blocks away. I think I can do
+you a bit of good. Put you on to something tolerably ripe, if you
+know what I mean. Trickle along, laddie. You don't need a hat."
+
+They found Mr. Blake brooding over his troubles in an empty shop.
+
+"Cheer up, old thing!" said Archie. "The relief expedition has
+arrived." He directed his companion's gaze to the poster. "Cast your
+eye over that. How does that strike you?"
+
+The long boy scanned the poster. A gleam appeared in his rather dull
+eye.
+
+"Well?"
+
+"Some people have all the luck!" said the long boy, feelingly.
+
+"Would you like to compete, what?"
+
+The boy smiled a sad smile.
+
+"Would I! Would I! Say!..."
+
+"I know," interrupted Archie. "Wake you up in the night and ask you!
+I knew I could rely on you, old thing." He turned to Mr. Blake.
+"Here's the fellow you've been wanting to meet. The finest left-and-
+right-hand eater east of the Rockies! He'll fight the good fight for
+you."
+
+Mr. Blake's English training had not been wholly overcome by
+residence in New York. He still retained a nice eye for the
+distinctions of class.
+
+"But this is young gentleman's a young gentleman," he urged,
+doubtfully, yet with hope shining in his eye. "He wouldn't do it."
+
+"Of course, he would. Don't be ridic, old thing."
+
+"Wouldn't do what?" asked the boy.
+
+"Why save the old homestead by taking on the champion. Dashed sad
+case, between ourselves! This poor egg's nominee has given him the
+raspberry at the eleventh hour, and only you can save him. And you
+owe it to him to do something you know, because it was your jolly
+old mater's lecture last night that made the nominee quit. You must
+charge in and take his place. Sort of poetic justice, don't you
+know, and what not!" He turned to Mr. Blake. "When is the conflict
+supposed to start? Two-thirty? You haven't any important engagement
+for two-thirty, have you?"
+
+"No. Mother's lunching at some ladies' club, and giving a lecture
+afterwards. I can slip away."
+
+Archie patted his head.
+
+"Then leg it where glory waits you, old bean!"
+
+The long boy was gazing earnestly at the poster. It seemed to
+fascinate him.
+
+"Pie!" he said in a hushed voice.
+
+The word was like a battle-cry.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXII
+
+WASHY STEPS INTO THE HALL OF FAME
+
+
+At about nine o'clock next morning, in a suite at the Hotel
+Cosmopolis, Mrs. Cora Bates McCall, the eminent lecturer on Rational
+Eating, was seated at breakfast with her family. Before her sat Mr.
+McCall, a little hunted-looking man, the natural peculiarities of
+whose face were accentuated by a pair of glasses of semicircular
+shape, like half-moons with the horns turned up. Behind these, Mr.
+McCall's eyes played a perpetual game of peekaboo, now peering over
+them, anon ducking down and hiding behind them. He was sipping a cup
+of anti-caffeine. On his right, toying listlessly with a plateful of
+cereal, sat his son, Washington. Mrs. McCall herself was eating a
+slice of Health Bread and nut butter. For she practised as well as
+preached the doctrines which she had striven for so many years to
+inculcate in an unthinking populace. Her day always began with a
+light but nutritious breakfast, at which a peculiarly uninviting
+cereal, which looked and tasted like an old straw hat that had been
+run through a meat chopper, competed for first place in the dislike
+of her husband and son with a more than usually offensive brand of
+imitation coffee. Mr. McCall was inclined to think that he loathed
+the imitation coffee rather more than the cereal, but Washington
+held strong views on the latter's superior ghastliness. Both
+Washington and his father, however, would have been fair-minded
+enough to admit that it was a close thing.
+
+Mrs. McCall regarded her offspring with grave approval.
+
+"I am glad to see, Lindsay," she said to her husband, whose eyes
+sprang dutifully over the glass fence as he heard his name, "that
+Washy has recovered his appetite. When he refused his dinner last
+night, I was afraid that he might be sickening for something.
+Especially as he had quite a flushed look. You noticed his flushed
+look?"
+
+"He did look flushed."
+
+"Very flushed. And his breathing was almost stertorous. And, when he
+said that he had no appetite, I am bound to say that I was anxious.
+But he is evidently perfectly well this morning. You do feel
+perfectly well this morning, Washy?"
+
+The heir of the McCall's looked up from his cereal. He was a long,
+thin boy of about sixteen, with pale red hair, sandy eyelashes, and
+a long neck.
+
+"Uh-huh," he said.
+
+Mrs. McCall nodded.
+
+"Surely now you will agree, Lindsay, that a careful and rational
+diet is what a boy needs? Washy's constitution is superb. He has a
+remarkable stamina, and I attribute it entirely to my careful
+supervision of his food. I shudder when I think of the growing boys
+who are permitted by irresponsible people to devour meat, candy,
+pie--" She broke off. "What is the matter, Washy?"
+
+It seemed that the habit of shuddering at the thought of pie ran in
+the McCall family, for at the mention of the word a kind of internal
+shimmy had convulsed Washington's lean frame, and over his face
+there had come an expression that was almost one of pain. He had
+been reaching out his hand for a slice of Health Bread, but now he
+withdrew it rather hurriedly and sat back breathing hard.
+
+"I'm all right," he said, huskily.
+
+"Pie," proceeded Mrs. McCall, in her platform voice. She stopped
+again abruptly. "Whatever is the matter, Washington? You are making
+me feel nervous."
+
+"I'm all right."
+
+Mrs. McCall had lost the thread of her remarks. Moreover, having now
+finished her breakfast, she was inclined for a little light reading.
+One of the subjects allied to the matter of dietary on which she
+felt deeply was the question of reading at meals. She was of the
+opinion that the strain on the eye, coinciding with the strain on
+the digestion, could not fail to give the latter the short end of
+the contest; and it was a rule at her table that the morning paper
+should not even be glanced at till the conclusion of the meal. She
+said that it was upsetting to begin the day by reading the paper,
+and events were to prove that she was occasionally right.
+
+All through breakfast the New York Chronicle had been lying neatly
+folded beside her plate. She now opened it, and, with a remark about
+looking for the report of her yesterday's lecture at the Butterfly
+Club, directed her gaze at the front page, on which she hoped that
+an editor with the best interests of the public at heart had decided
+to place her.
+
+Mr. McCall, jumping up and down behind his glasses, scrutinised her
+face closely as she began to read. He always did this on these
+occasions, for none knew better than he that his comfort for the day
+depended largely on some unknown reporter whom he had never met. If
+this unseen individual had done his work properly and as befitted
+the importance of his subject, Mrs. McCall's mood for the next
+twelve hours would be as uniformly sunny as it was possible for it
+to be. But sometimes the fellows scamped their job disgracefully;
+and once, on a day which lived in Mr. McCall's memory, they had
+failed to make a report at all.
+
+To-day, he noted with relief, all seemed to be well. The report
+actually was on the front page, an honour rarely accorded to his
+wife's utterances. Moreover, judging from the time it took her to
+read the thing, she had evidently been reported at length.
+
+"Good, my dear?" he ventured. "Satisfactory?"
+
+"Eh?" Mrs. McCall smiled meditatively. "Oh, yes, excellent. They
+have used my photograph, too. Not at all badly reproduced."
+
+"Splendid!" said Mr. McCall.
+
+Mrs. McCall gave a sharp shriek, and the paper fluttered from her
+hand.
+
+"My dear!" said Mr. McCall, with concern.
+
+His wife had recovered the paper, and was reading with burning eyes.
+A bright wave of colour had flowed over her masterful features. She
+was breathing as stertorously as ever her son Washington had done on
+the previous night.
+
+"Washington!"
+
+A basilisk glare shot across the table and turned the long boy to
+stone--all except his mouth, which opened feebly.
+
+"Washington! Is this true?"
+
+Washy closed his mouth, then let it slowly open again.
+
+"My dear!" Mr. McCall's voice was alarmed. "What is it?" His eyes
+had climbed up over his glasses and remained there. "What is the
+matter? Is anything wrong?"
+
+"Wrong! Read for yourself!"
+
+Mr. McCall was completely mystified. He could not even formulate a
+guess at the cause of the trouble. That it appeared to concern his
+son Washington seemed to be the one solid fact at his disposal, and
+that only made the matter still more puzzling. Where, Mr. McCall
+asked himself, did Washington come in?
+
+He looked at the paper, and received immediate enlightenment.
+Headlines met his eyes:
+
+                  GOOD STUFF IN THIS BOY.
+                    ABOUT A TON OF IT.
+                 SON OF CORA BATES McCALL
+               FAMOUS FOOD-REFORM LECTURER
+             WINS PIE-EATING CHAMPIONSHIP OF
+                       WEST SIDE.
+
+There followed a lyrical outburst. So uplifted had the reporter
+evidently felt by the importance of his news that he had been unable
+to confine himself to prose:--
+
+
+
+     My children, if you fail to shine or triumph in your
+     special line; if, let us say, your hopes are bent on
+     some day being President, and folks ignore your proper
+     worth, and say you've not a chance on earth--Cheer up!
+     for in these stirring days Fame may be won in many ways.
+     Consider, when your spirits fall, the case of Washington
+     McCall.
+
+     Yes, cast your eye on Washy, please! He looks just like
+     a piece of cheese: he's not a brilliant sort of chap: he
+     has a dull and vacant map: his eyes are blank, his face
+     is red, his ears stick out beside his head. In fact, to
+     end these compliments, he would be dear at thirty cents.
+     Yet Fame has welcomed to her Hall this self-same
+     Washington McCall.
+
+     His mother (nee Miss Cora Bates) is one who frequently
+     orates upon the proper kind of food which every menu
+     should include. With eloquence the world she weans from
+     chops and steaks and pork and beans. Such horrid things
+     she'd like to crush, and make us live on milk and mush.
+     But oh! the thing that makes her sigh is when she sees
+     us eating pie. (We heard her lecture last July upon "The
+     Nation's Menace--Pie.") Alas, the hit it made was small
+     with Master Washington McCall.
+
+     For yesterday we took a trip to see the great Pie
+     Championship, where men with bulging cheeks and eyes
+     consume vast quantities of pies. A fashionable West Side
+     crowd beheld the champion, Spike O'Dowd, endeavour to
+     defend his throne against an upstart, Blake's Unknown.
+     He wasn't an Unknown at all. He was young Washington
+     McCall.
+
+     We freely own we'd give a leg if we could borrow, steal,
+     or beg the skill old Homer used to show. (He wrote the
+     Iliad, you know.) Old Homer swung a wicked pen, but we
+     are ordinary men, and cannot even start to dream of
+     doing justice to our theme. The subject of that great
+     repast is too magnificent and vast. We can't describe
+     (or even try) the way those rivals wolfed their pie.
+     Enough to say that, when for hours each had extended all
+     his pow'rs, toward the quiet evenfall O'Dowd succumbed
+     to young McCall.
+
+     The champion was a willing lad. He gave the public all
+     he had. His was a genuine fighting soul. He'd lots of
+     speed and much control. No yellow streak did he evince.
+     He tackled apple-pie and mince. This was the motto on
+     his shield--"O'Dowds may burst. They never yield." His
+     eyes began to start and roll. He eased his belt another
+     hole. Poor fellow! With a single glance one saw that he
+     had not a chance. A python would have had to crawl and
+     own defeat from young McCall.
+
+     At last, long last, the finish came. His features
+     overcast with shame, O'Dowd, who'd faltered once or
+     twice, declined to eat another slice. He tottered off,
+     and kindly men rallied around with oxygen. But Washy,
+     Cora Bates's son, seemed disappointed it was done. He
+     somehow made those present feel he'd barely started on
+     his meal. We ask him, "Aren't you feeling bad?" "Me!"
+     said the lion-hearted lad. "Lead me"--he started for the
+     street--"where I can get a bite to eat!" Oh, what a
+     lesson does it teach to all of us, that splendid speech!
+     How better can the curtain fall on Master Washington
+     McCall!
+
+
+Mr. McCall read this epic through, then he looked at his son. He
+first looked at him over his glasses, then through his glasses, then
+over his glasses again, then through his glasses once more. A
+curious expression was in his eyes. If such a thing had not been so
+impossible, one would have said that his gaze had in it something of
+respect, of admiration, even of reverence.
+
+"But how did they find out your name?" he asked, at length.
+
+Mrs. McCall exclaimed impatiently.
+
+"Is THAT all you have to say?"
+
+"No, no, my dear, of course not, quite so. But the point struck me
+as curious."
+
+"Wretched boy," cried Mrs. McCall, "were you insane enough to reveal
+your name?"
+
+Washington wriggled uneasily. Unable to endure the piercing stare of
+his mother, he had withdrawn to the window, and was looking out with
+his back turned. But even there he could feel her eyes on the back
+of his neck.
+
+"I didn't think it 'ud matter," he mumbled. "A fellow with
+tortoiseshell-rimmed specs asked me, so I told him. How was I to
+know--"
+
+His stumbling defence was cut short by the opening of the door.
+
+"Hallo-allo-allo! What ho! What ho!"
+
+Archie was standing in the doorway, beaming ingratiatingly on the
+family.
+
+The apparition of an entire stranger served to divert the lightning
+of Mrs. McCall's gaze from the unfortunate Washy. Archie, catching
+it between the eyes, blinked and held on to the wall. He had begun
+to regret that he had yielded so weakly to Lucille's entreaty that
+he should look in on the McCalls and use the magnetism of his
+personality upon them in the hope of inducing them to settle the
+lawsuit. He wished, too, if the visit had to be paid that he had
+postponed it till after lunch, for he was never at his strongest in
+the morning. But Lucille had urged him to go now and get it over,
+and here he was.
+
+"I think," said Mrs. McCall, icily, "that you must have mistaken
+your room."
+
+Archie rallied his shaken forces.
+
+"Oh, no. Rather not. Better introduce myself, what? My name's
+Moffam, you know. I'm old Brewster's son-in-law, and all that sort
+of rot, if you know what I mean." He gulped and continued. "I've
+come about this jolly old lawsuit, don't you know."
+
+Mr. McCall seemed about to speak, but his wife anticipated him.
+
+"Mr. Brewster's attorneys are in communication with ours. We do not
+wish to discuss the matter."
+
+Archie took an uninvited seat, eyed the Health Bread on the
+breakfast table for a moment with frank curiosity, and resumed his
+discourse.
+
+"No, but I say, you know! I'll tell you what happened. I hate to
+totter in where I'm not wanted and all that, but my wife made such a
+point of it. Rightly or wrongly she regards me as a bit of a hound
+in the diplomacy line, and she begged me to look you up and see
+whether we couldn't do something about settling the jolly old thing.
+I mean to say, you know, the old bird--old Brewster, you know--is
+considerably perturbed about the affair--hates the thought of being
+in a posish where he has either got to bite his old pal McCall in
+the neck or be bitten by him--and--well, and so forth, don't you
+know! How about it?" He broke off. "Great Scot! I say, what!"
+
+So engrossed had he been in his appeal that he had not observed the
+presence of the pie-eating champion, between whom and himself a
+large potted plant intervened. But now Washington, hearing the
+familiar voice, had moved from the window and was confronting him
+with an accusing stare.
+
+"HE made me do it!" said Washy, with the stern joy a sixteen-year-
+old boy feels when he sees somebody on to whose shoulders he can
+shift trouble from his own. "That's the fellow who took me to the
+place!"
+
+"What are you talking about, Washington?"
+
+"I'm telling you! He got me into the thing."
+
+"Do you mean this--this--" Mrs. McCall shuddered. "Are you referring
+to this pie-eating contest?"
+
+"You bet I am!"
+
+"Is this true?" Mrs. McCall glared stonily at Archie, "Was it you
+who lured my poor boy into that--that--"
+
+"Oh, absolutely. The fact is, don't you know, a dear old pal of mine
+who runs a tobacco shop on Sixth Avenue was rather in the soup. He
+had backed a chappie against the champion, and the chappie was
+converted by one of your lectures and swore off pie at the eleventh
+hour. Dashed hard luck on the poor chap, don't you know! And then I
+got the idea that our little friend here was the one to step in and
+save the situash, so I broached the matter to him. And I'll tell you
+one thing," said Archie, handsomely, "I don't know what sort of a
+capacity the original chappie had, but I'll bet he wasn't in your
+son's class. Your son has to be seen to be believed! Absolutely! You
+ought to be proud of him!" He turned in friendly fashion to Washy.
+"Rummy we should meet again like this! Never dreamed I should find
+you here. And, by Jove, it's absolutely marvellous how fit you look
+after yesterday. I had a sort of idea you would be groaning on a bed
+of sickness and all that."
+
+There was a strange gurgling sound in the background. It resembled
+something getting up steam. And this, curiously enough, is precisely
+what it was. The thing that was getting up steam was Mr. Lindsay
+McCall.
+
+The first effect of the Washy revelations on Mr. McCall had been
+merely to stun him. It was not until the arrival of Archie that he
+had had leisure to think; but since Archie's entrance he had been
+thinking rapidly and deeply.
+
+For many years Mr. McCall had been in a state of suppressed
+revolution. He had smouldered, but had not dared to blaze. But this
+startling upheaval of his fellow-sufferer, Washy, had acted upon him
+like a high explosive. There was a strange gleam in his eye, a gleam
+of determination. He was breathing hard.
+
+"Washy!"
+
+His voice had lost its deprecating mildness. It rang strong and
+clear.
+
+"Yes, pop?"
+
+"How many pies did you eat yesterday?"
+
+Washy considered.
+
+"A good few."
+
+"How many? Twenty?"
+
+"More than that. I lost count. A good few."
+
+"And you feel as well as ever?"
+
+"I feel fine."
+
+Mr. McCall dropped his glasses. He glowered for a moment at the
+breakfast table. His eye took in the Health Bread, the imitation
+coffee-pot, the cereal, the nut-butter. Then with a swift movement
+he seized the cloth, jerked it forcibly, and brought the entire
+contents rattling and crashing to the floor.
+
+"Lindsay!"
+
+Mr. McCall met his wife's eye with quiet determination. It was plain
+that something had happened in the hinterland of Mr. McCall's soul.
+
+"Cora," he said, resolutely, "I have come to a decision. I've been
+letting you run things your own way a little too long in this
+family. I'm going to assert myself. For one thing, I've had all I
+want of this food-reform foolery. Look at Washy! Yesterday that boy
+seems to have consumed anything from a couple of hundredweight to a
+ton of pie, and he has thriven on it! Thriven! I don't want to hurt
+your feelings, Cora, but Washington and I have drunk our last cup of
+anti-caffeine! If you care to go on with the stuff, that's your
+look-out. But Washy and I are through."
+
+He silenced his wife with a masterful gesture and turned to Archie.
+"And there's another thing. I never liked the idea of that lawsuit,
+but I let you talk me into it. Now I'm going to do things my way.
+Mr. Moffam, I'm glad you looked in this morning. I'll do just what
+you want. Take me to Dan Brewster now, and let's call the thing off,
+and shake hands on it."
+
+"Are you mad, Lindsay?"
+
+It was Cora Bates McCall's last shot. Mr. McCall paid no attention
+to it. He was shaking hands with Archie.
+
+"I consider you, Mr. Moffam," he said, "the most sensible young man
+I have ever met!"
+
+Archie blushed modestly.
+
+"Awfully good of you, old bean," he said. "I wonder if you'd mind
+telling my jolly old father-in-law that? It'll be a bit of news for
+him!"
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXIII
+
+MOTHER'S KNEE
+
+
+Archie Moffam's connection with that devastatingly popular ballad,
+"Mother's Knee," was one to which he always looked back later with a
+certain pride. "Mother's Knee," it will be remembered, went through
+the world like a pestilence. Scots elders hummed it on their way to
+kirk; cannibals crooned it to their offspring in the jungles of
+Borneo; it was a best-seller among the Bolshevists. In the United
+States alone three million copies were disposed of. For a man who
+has not accomplished anything outstandingly great in his life, it is
+something to have been in a sense responsible for a song like that;
+and, though there were moments when Archie experienced some of the
+emotions of a man who has punched a hole in the dam of one of the
+larger reservoirs, he never really regretted his share in the
+launching of the thing.
+
+It seems almost bizarre now to think that there was a time when even
+one person in the world had not heard "Mother's Knee"; but it came
+fresh to Archie one afternoon some weeks after the episode of Washy,
+in his suite at the Hotel Cosmopolis, where he was cementing with
+cigarettes and pleasant conversation his renewed friendship with
+Wilson Hymack, whom he had first met in the neighbourhood of
+Armentieres during the war.
+
+"What are you doing these days?" enquired Wilson Hymack.
+
+"Me?" said Archie. "Well, as a matter of fact, there is what you
+might call a sort of species of lull in my activities at the moment.
+But my jolly old father-in-law is bustling about, running up a new
+hotel a bit farther down-town, and the scheme is for me to be
+manager when it's finished. From what I have seen in this place,
+it's a simple sort of job, and I fancy I shall be somewhat hot
+stuff. How are you filling in the long hours?"
+
+"I'm in my uncle's office, darn it!"
+
+"Starting at the bottom and learning the business and all that? A
+noble pursuit, no doubt, but I'm bound to say it would give me the
+pip in no uncertain manner."
+
+"It gives me," said Wilson Hymack, "a pain in the thorax. I want to
+be a composer."
+
+"A composer, eh?"
+
+Archie felt that he should have guessed this. The chappie had a
+distinctly artistic look. He wore a bow-tie and all that sort of
+thing. His trousers bagged at the knees, and his hair, which during
+the martial epoch of his career had been pruned to the roots, fell
+about his ears in luxuriant disarray.
+
+"Say! Do you want to hear the best thing I've ever done?"
+
+"Indubitably," said Archie, politely. "Carry on, old bird!"
+
+"I wrote the lyric as well as the melody," said Wilson Hymack, who
+had already seated himself at the piano. "It's got the greatest
+title you ever heard. It's a lallapaloosa! It's called 'It's a Long
+Way Back to Mother's Knee.' How's that? Poor, eh?"
+
+Archie expelled a smoke-ring doubtfully.
+
+"Isn't it a little stale?"
+
+"Stale? What do you mean, stale? There's always room for another
+song boosting Mother."
+
+"Oh, is it boosting Mother?" Archie's face cleared. "I thought it
+was a hit at the short skirts. Why, of course, that makes all the
+difference. In that case, I see no reason why it should not be ripe,
+fruity, and pretty well all to the mustard. Let's have it."
+
+Wilson Hymack pushed as much of his hair out of his eyes as he could
+reach with one hand, cleared his throat, looked dreamily over the
+top of the piano at a photograph of Archie's father-in-law, Mr.
+Daniel Brewster, played a prelude, and began to sing in a weak,
+high, composer's voice. All composers sing exactly alike, and they
+have to be heard to be believed.
+
+"One night a young man wandered through the glitter of Broadway: His
+money he had squandered. For a meal he couldn't pay."
+
+"Tough luck!" murmured Archie, sympathetically.
+
+    "He thought about the village where his boyhood he had
+     spent, And yearned for all the simple joys with which
+     he'd been content."
+
+"The right spirit!" said Archie, with approval. "I'm beginning to
+like this chappie!"
+
+"Don't interrupt!"
+
+"Oh, right-o! Carried away and all that!"
+
+    "He looked upon the city, so frivolous and gay; And,
+     as he heaved a weary sigh, these words he then did say:
+          It's a long way back to Mother's knee,
+                                  Mother's knee,
+                                  Mother's knee:
+          It's a long way back to Mother's knee,
+               Where I used to stand and prattle
+               With my teddy-bear and rattle:
+          Oh, those childhood days in Tennessee,
+          They sure look good to me!
+     It's a long, long way, but I'm gonna start to-day!
+          I'm going back,
+          Believe me, oh!
+     I'm going back
+          (I want to go!)
+     I'm going back--back--on the seven-three
+     To the dear old shack where I used to be!
+     I'm going back to Mother's knee!"
+
+Wilson Hymack's voice cracked on the final high note, which was of
+an altitude beyond his powers. He turned with a modest cough.
+
+"That'll give you an idea of it!"
+
+"It has, old thing, it has!"
+
+"Is it or is it not a ball of fire?"
+
+"It has many of the earmarks of a sound egg," admitted Archie. "Of
+course--"
+
+"Of course, it wants singing."
+
+"Just what I was going to suggest."
+
+"It wants a woman to sing it. A woman who could reach out for that
+last high note and teach it to take a joke. The whole refrain is
+working up to that. You need Tetrazzini or someone who would just
+pick that note off the roof and hold it till the janitor came round
+to lock up the building for the night."
+
+"I must buy a copy for my wife. Where can I get it?"
+
+"You can't get it! It isn't published. Writing music's the darndest
+job!" Wilson Hymack snorted fiercely. It was plain that the man was
+pouring out the pent-up emotion of many days. "You write the biggest
+thing in years and you go round trying to get someone to sing it,
+and they say you're a genius and then shove the song away in a
+drawer and forget about it."
+
+Archie lit another cigarette.
+
+"I'm a jolly old child in these matters, old lad," he said, "but why
+don't you take it direct to a publisher? As a matter of fact, if it
+would be any use to you, I was foregathering with a music-publisher
+only the other day. A bird of the name of Blumenthal. He was
+lunching in here with a pal of mine, and we got tolerably matey. Why
+not let me tool you round to the office to-morrow and play it to
+him?"
+
+"No, thanks. Much obliged, but I'm not going to play that melody in
+any publisher's office with his hired gang of Tin-Pan Alley
+composers listening at the keyhole and taking notes. I'll have to
+wait till I can find somebody to sing it. Well, I must be going
+along. Glad to have seen you again. Sooner or later I'll take you to
+hear that high note sung by someone in a way that'll make your spine
+tie itself in knots round the back of your neck."
+
+"I'll count the days," said Archie, courteously. "Pip-pip!"
+
+Hardly had the door closed behind the composer when it opened again
+to admit Lucille.
+
+"Hallo, light of my soul!" said Archie, rising and embracing his
+wife. "Where have you been all the afternoon? I was expecting you
+this many an hour past. I wanted you to meet--"
+
+"I've been having tea with a girl down in Greenwich Village. I
+couldn't get away before. Who was that who went out just as I came
+along the passage?"
+
+"Chappie of the name of Hymack. I met him in France. A composer and
+what not."
+
+"We seem to have been moving in artistic circles this afternoon. The
+girl I went to see is a singer. At least, she wants to sing, but
+gets no encouragement."
+
+"Precisely the same with my bird. He wants to get his music sung but
+nobody'll sing it. But I didn't know you knew any Greenwich Village
+warblers, sunshine of my home. How did you meet this female?"
+
+Lucille sat down and gazed forlornly at him with her big grey eyes.
+She was registering something, but Archie could not gather what it
+was.
+
+"Archie, darling, when you married me you undertook to share my
+sorrows, didn't you?"
+
+"Absolutely! It's all in the book of words. For better or for worse,
+in sickness and in health, all-down-set-'em-up-in-the-other-alley.
+Regular iron-clad contract!"
+
+"Then share 'em!" said Lucille. "Bill's in love again!"
+
+Archie blinked.
+
+"Bill? When you say Bill, do you mean Bill? Your brother Bill? My
+brother-in-law Bill? Jolly old William, the son and heir of the
+Brewsters?"
+
+"I do."
+
+"You say he's in love? Cupid's dart?"
+
+"Even so!"
+
+"But, I say! Isn't this rather--What I mean to say is, the lad's an
+absolute scourge! The Great Lover, what! Also ran, Brigham Young,
+and all that sort of thing! Why, it's only a few weeks ago that he
+was moaning brokenly about that vermilion-haired female who
+subsequently hooked on to old Reggie van Tuyl!"
+
+"She's a little better than that girl, thank goodness. All the same,
+I don't think Father will approve."
+
+"Of what calibre is the latest exhibit?"
+
+"Well, she comes from the Middle West, and seems to be trying to be
+twice as Bohemian as the rest of the girls down in Greenwich
+Village. She wears her hair bobbed and goes about in a kimono. She's
+probably read magazine stories about Greenwich Village, and has
+modelled herself on them. It's so silly, when you can see Hicks
+Corners sticking out of her all the time."
+
+"That one got past me before I could grab it. What did you say she
+had sticking out of her?"
+
+"I meant that anybody could see that she came from somewhere out in
+the wilds. As a matter of fact, Bill tells me that she was brought
+up in Snake Bite, Michigan."
+
+"Snake Bite? What rummy names you have in America! Still, I'll admit
+there's a village in England called Nether Wallop, so who am I to
+cast the first stone? How is old Bill? Pretty feverish?"
+
+"He says this time it is the real thing."
+
+"That's what they all say! I wish I had a dollar for every time--
+Forgotten what I was going to say!" broke off Archie, prudently. "So
+you think," he went on, after a pause, "that William's latest is
+going to be one more shock for the old dad?"
+
+"I can't imagine Father approving of her."
+
+"I've studied your merry old progenitor pretty closely," said
+Archie, "and, between you and me, I can't imagine him approving of
+anybody!"
+
+"I can't understand why it is that Bill goes out of his way to pick
+these horrors. I know at least twenty delightful girls, all pretty
+and with lots of money, who would be just the thing for him; but he
+sneaks away and goes falling in love with someone impossible. And
+the worst of it is that one always feels one's got to do one's best
+to see him through."
+
+"Absolutely! One doesn't want to throw a spanner into the works of
+Love's young dream. It behoves us to rally round. Have you heard
+this girl sing?"
+
+"Yes. She sang this afternoon."
+
+"What sort of a voice has she got?"
+
+"Well, it's--loud!"
+
+"Could she pick a high note off the roof and hold it till the
+janitor came round to lock up the building for the night?"
+
+"What on earth do you mean?"
+
+"Answer me this, woman, frankly. How is her high note? Pretty
+lofty?"
+
+"Why, yes."
+
+"Then say no more," said Archie. "Leave this to me, my dear old
+better four-fifths! Hand the whole thing over to Archibald, the man
+who never lets you down. I have a scheme!"
+
+ As Archie approached his suite on the following afternoon he heard
+through the closed door the drone of a gruff male voice; and, going
+in, discovered Lucille in the company of his brother-in-law.
+Lucille, Archie thought, was looking a trifle fatigued. Bill, on the
+other hand, was in great shape. His eyes were shining, and his face
+looked so like that of a stuffed frog that Archie had no difficulty
+in gathering that he had been lecturing on the subject of his latest
+enslaver.
+
+"Hallo, Bill, old crumpet!" he said.
+
+"Hallo, Archie!"
+
+"I'm so glad you've come," said Lucille. "Bill is telling me all
+about Spectatia."
+
+"Who?"
+
+"Spectatia. The girl, you know. Her name is Spectatia Huskisson."
+
+"It can't be!" said Archie, incredulously.
+
+"Why not?" growled Bill.
+
+"Well, how could it?" said Archie, appealing to him as a reasonable
+man. "I mean to say! Spectatia Huskisson! I gravely doubt whether
+there is such a name."
+
+"What's wrong with it?" demanded the incensed Bill. "It's a darned
+sight better name than Archibald Moffam."
+
+"Don't fight, you two children!" intervened Lucille, firmly. "It's a
+good old Middle West name. Everybody knows the Huskissons of Snake
+Bite, Michigan. Besides, Bill calls her Tootles."
+
+"Pootles," corrected Bill, austerely.
+
+"Oh, yes, Pootles. He calls her Pootles."
+
+"Young blood! Young blood!" sighed Archie.
+
+"I wish you wouldn't talk as if you were my grandfather."
+
+"I look on you as a son, laddie, a favourite son!"
+
+"If I had a father like you--!"-"Ah, but you haven't, young-feller-
+me-lad, and that's the trouble. If you had, everything would be
+simple. But as your actual father, if you'll allow me to say so, is
+one of the finest specimens of the human vampire-bat in captivity,
+something has got to be done about it, and you're dashed lucky to
+have me in your corner, a guide, philosopher, and friend, full of
+the fruitiest ideas. Now, if you'll kindly listen to me for a
+moment--"
+
+"I've been listening to you ever since you came in."
+
+"You wouldn't speak in that harsh tone of voice if you knew all!
+William, I have a scheme!"
+
+"Well?"
+
+"The scheme to which I allude is what Maeterlinck would call a
+lallapaloosa!"
+
+"What a little marvel he is!" said Lucille, regarding her husband
+affectionately. "He eats a lot of fish, Bill. That's what makes him
+so clever!"
+
+"Shrimps!" diagnosed Bill, churlishly.
+
+"Do you know the leader of the orchestra in the restaurant
+downstairs?" asked Archie, ignoring the slur.
+
+"I know there IS a leader of the orchestra. What about him?"
+
+"A sound fellow. Great pal of mine. I've forgotten his name--"
+
+"Call him Pootles!" suggested Lucille.
+
+"Desist!" said Archie, as a wordless growl proceeded from his
+stricken brother-in-law. "Temper your hilarity with a modicum of
+reserve. This girlish frivolity is unseemly. Well, I'm going to have
+a chat with this chappie and fix it all up."
+
+"Fix what up?"
+
+"The whole jolly business. I'm going to kill two birds with one
+stone. I've a composer chappie popping about in the background whose
+one ambish. is to have his pet song sung before a discriminating
+audience. You have a singer straining at the leash. I'm going to
+arrange with this egg who leads the orchestra that your female shall
+sing my chappie's song downstairs one night during dinner. How about
+it? Is it or is it not a ball of fire?"
+
+"It's not a bad idea," admitted Bill, brightening visibly. "I
+wouldn't have thought you had it in you."
+
+"Why not?"
+
+"Well--"
+
+"It's a capital idea," said Lucille. "Quite out of the question, of
+course."
+
+"How do you mean?"
+
+"Don't you know that the one thing Father hates more than anything
+else in the world is anything like a cabaret? People are always
+coming to him, suggesting that it would brighten up the dinner hour
+if he had singers and things, and he crushes them into little bits.
+He thinks there's nothing that lowers the tone of a place more.
+He'll bite you in three places when you suggest it to him!"
+
+"Ah! But has it escaped your notice, lighting system of my soul,
+that the dear old dad is not at present in residence? He went off to
+fish at Lake What's-its-name this morning."
+
+"You aren't dreaming of doing this without asking him?"
+
+"That was the general idea."
+
+"But he'll be furious when he finds out."
+
+"But will he find out? I ask you, will he?"
+
+"Of course he will."
+
+"I don't see why he should," said Bill, on whose plastic mind the
+plan had made a deep impression.
+
+"He won't," said Archie, confidently. "This wheeze is for one night
+only. By the time the jolly old guv'nor returns, bitten to the bone
+by mosquitoes, with one small stuffed trout in his suit-case,
+everything will be over and all quiet once more along the Potomac.
+The scheme is this. My chappie wants his song heard by a
+publisher. Your girl wants her voice heard by one of the blighters
+who get up concerts and all that sort of thing. No doubt you know
+such a bird, whom you could invite to the hotel for a bit of
+dinner?"
+
+"I know Carl Steinburg. As a matter of fact, I was thinking of
+writing to him about Spectatia."
+
+"You're absolutely sure that IS her name?" said Archie, his voice
+still tinged with incredulity. "Oh, well, I suppose she told you so
+herself, and no doubt she knows best. That will be topping. Rope in
+your pal and hold him down at the table till the finish. Lucille,
+the beautiful vision on the sky-line yonder, and I will be at
+another table entertaining Maxie Blumenthal"
+
+"Who on earth is Maxie Blumenthal?" asked Lucille.
+
+"One of my boyhood chums. A music-publisher. I'll get him to come
+along, and then we'll all be set. At the conclusion of the
+performance Miss--" Archie winced--"Miss Spectatia Huskisson will
+be signed up for a forty weeks' tour, and jovial old Blumenthal
+will be making all arrangements for publishing the song. Two birds,
+as I indicated before, with one stone! How about it?"
+
+"It's a winner," said Bill.
+
+"Of course," said Archie, "I'm not urging you. I merely make the
+suggestion. If you know a better 'ole go to it!"
+
+"It's terrific!" said Bill.
+
+"It's absurd!" said Lucille.
+
+"My dear old partner of joys and sorrows," said Archie, wounded,
+"we court criticism, but this is mere abuse. What seems to be the
+difficulty?"
+
+"The leader of the orchestra would be afraid to do it."
+
+"Ten dollars--supplied by William here--push it over, Bill, old
+man--will remove his tremors."
+
+"And Father's certain to find out."
+
+"Am I afraid of Father?" cried Archie, manfully. "Well, yes, I am!"
+he added, after a moment's reflection. "But I don't see how he can
+possibly get to know."
+
+"Of course he can't," said Bill, decidedly. "Fix it up as soon as
+you can, Archie. This is what the doctor ordered."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXIV
+
+THE MELTING OF MR. CONNOLLY
+
+
+The main dining-room of the Hotel Cosmopolis is a decorous place.
+The lighting is artistically dim, and the genuine old tapestries on
+the walls seem, with their mediaeval calm, to discourage any essay
+in the riotous. Soft-footed waiters shimmer to and fro over thick,
+expensive carpets to the music of an orchestra which abstains wholly
+from the noisy modernity of jazz. To Archie, who during the past few
+days had been privileged to hear Miss Huskisson rehearsing, the
+place had a sort of brooding quiet, like the ocean just before the
+arrival of a cyclone. As Lucille had said, Miss Huskisson's voice
+was loud. It was a powerful organ, and there was no doubt that it
+would take the cloistered stillness of the Cosmopolis dining-room
+and stand it on one ear. Almost unconsciously, Archie found himself
+bracing his muscles and holding his breath as he had done in France
+at the approach of the zero hour, when awaiting the first roar of a
+barrage. He listened mechanically to the conversation of Mr.
+Blumenthal.
+
+The music-publisher was talking with some vehemence on the subject
+of Labour. A recent printers' strike had bitten deeply into Mr.
+Blumenthal's soul. The working man, he considered, was rapidly
+landing God's Country in the soup, and he had twice upset his glass
+with the vehemence of his gesticulation. He was an energetic right-
+and-left-hand talker.
+
+"The more you give 'em the more they want!" he complained. "There's
+no pleasing 'em! It isn't only in my business. There's your father,
+Mrs. Moffam!"
+
+"Good God! Where?" said Archie, starting.
+
+"I say, take your father's case. He's doing all he knows to get this
+new hotel of his finished, and what happens? A man gets fired for
+loafing on his job, and Connolly calls a strike. And the building
+operations are held up till the thing's settled! It isn't right!"
+
+"It's a great shame," agreed Lucille. "I was reading about it in the
+paper this morning."
+
+"That man Connolly's a tough guy. You'd think, being a personal
+friend of your father, he would--"
+
+"I didn't know they were friends."
+
+"Been friends for years. But a lot of difference that makes. Out
+come the men just the same. It isn't right! I was saying it wasn't
+right!" repeated Mr. Blumenthal to Archie, for he was a man who
+liked the attention of every member of his audience.
+
+Archie did not reply. He was staring glassily across the room at two
+men who had just come in. One was a large, stout, square-faced man
+of commanding personality. The other was Mr. Daniel Brewster.
+
+Mr. Blumenthal followed his gaze.
+
+"Why, there is Connolly coming in now!"
+
+"Father!" gasped Lucille.
+
+Her eyes met Archie's. Archie took a hasty drink of ice-water.
+
+"This," he murmured, "has torn it!"
+
+"Archie, you must do something!"
+
+"I know! But what?"
+
+"What's the trouble?" enquired Mr. Blumenthal, mystified.
+
+"Go over to their table and talk to them," said Lucille.
+
+"Me!" Archie quivered. "No, I say, old thing, really!"
+
+"Get them away!"
+
+"How do you mean?"
+
+"I know!" cried Lucille, inspired, "Father promised that you should
+be manager of the new hotel when it was built. Well, then, this
+strike affects you just as much as anybody else. You have a perfect
+right to talk it over with them. Go and ask them to have dinner up
+in our suite where you can discuss it quietly. Say that up there
+they won't be disturbed by the--the music."
+
+At this moment, while Archie wavered, hesitating like a diver on the
+edge of a spring-board who is trying to summon up the necessary
+nerve to project himself into the deep, a bell-boy approached the
+table where the Messrs. Brewster and Connolly had seated themselves.
+He murmured something in Mr. Brewster's ear, and the proprietor of
+the Cosmopolis rose and followed him out of the room.
+
+"Quick! Now's your chance!" said Lucille, eagerly. "Father's been
+called to the telephone. Hurry!"
+
+Archie took another drink of ice-water to steady his shaking nerve-
+centers, pulled down his waistcoat, straightened his tie, and then,
+with something of the air of a Roman gladiator entering the arena,
+tottered across the room. Lucille turned to entertain the perplexed
+music-publisher.
+
+The nearer Archie got to Mr. Aloysius Connolly the less did he like
+the looks of him. Even at a distance the Labour leader had had a
+formidable aspect. Seen close to, he looked even more uninviting.
+His face had the appearance of having been carved out of granite,
+and the eye which collided with Archie's as the latter, with an
+attempt at an ingratiating smile, pulled up a chair and sat down at
+the table was hard and frosty. Mr. Connolly gave the impression that
+he would be a good man to have on your side during a rough-and-
+tumble fight down on the water-front or in some lumber-camp, but he
+did not look chummy.
+
+"Hallo-allo-allo!" said Archie.
+
+"Who the devil," inquired Mr. Connolly, "are you?"
+
+"My name's Archibald Moffam."
+
+"That's not my fault."
+
+"I'm jolly old Brewster's son-in-law."
+
+"Glad to meet you."
+
+"Glad to meet YOU," said Archie, handsomely.
+
+"Well, good-bye!" said Mr. Connolly.
+
+"Eh?"
+
+"Run along and sell your papers. Your father-in-law and I have
+business to discuss."
+
+"Yes, I know."
+
+"Private," added Mr. Connolly.
+
+"Oh, but I'm in on this binge, you know. I'm going to be the manager
+of the new hotel."
+
+"You!"
+
+"Absolutely!"
+
+"Well, well!" said Mr. Connolly, noncommittally.
+
+Archie, pleased with the smoothness with which matters had opened,
+bent forward winsomely.
+
+"I say, you know! It won't do, you know! Absolutely no! Not a bit
+like it! No, no, far from it! Well, how about it? How do we go?
+What? Yes? No?"
+
+"What on earth are you talking about?"
+
+"Call it off, old thing!"
+
+"Call what off?"
+
+"This festive old strike."
+
+"Not on your--hallo, Dan! Back again?"
+
+Mr. Brewster, looming over the table like a thundercloud, regarded
+Archie with more than his customary hostility. Life was no pleasant
+thing for the proprietor of the Cosmopolis just now. Once a man
+starts building hotels, the thing becomes like dram-drinking. Any
+hitch, any sudden cutting-off of the daily dose, has the worst
+effects; and the strike which was holding up the construction of his
+latest effort had plunged Mr. Brewster into a restless gloom. In
+addition to having this strike on his hands, he had had to abandon
+his annual fishing-trip just when he had begun to enjoy it; and, as
+if all this were not enough, here was his son-in-law sitting at his
+table. Mr. Brewster had a feeling that this was more than man was
+meant to bear.
+
+"What do you want?" he demanded.
+
+"Hallo, old thing!" said Archie. "Come and join the party!"
+
+"Don't call me old thing!"
+
+"Right-o, old companion, just as you say. I say, I was just going to
+suggest to Mr. Connolly that we should all go up to my suite and
+talk this business over quietly."
+
+"He says he's the manager of your new hotel," said Mr. Connolly. "Is
+that right?"
+
+"I suppose so," said Mr. Brewster, gloomily.
+
+"Then I'm doing you a kindness," said Mr. Connolly, "in not letting
+it be built."
+
+Archie dabbed at his forehead with his handkerchief. The moments
+were flying, and it began to seem impossible to shift these two men.
+Mr. Connolly was as firmly settled in his chair as some primeval
+rock. As for Mr. Brewster, he, too, had seated himself, and was
+gazing at Archie with a weary repulsion. Mr. Brewster's glance
+always made Archie feel as though there were soup on his shirt-
+front.
+
+And suddenly from the orchestra at the other end of the room there
+came a familiar sound, the prelude of "Mother's Knee."
+
+"So you've started a cabaret, Dan?" said Mr. Connolly, in a
+satisfied voice. "I always told you you were behind the times here!"
+
+Mr. Brewster jumped.
+
+"Cabaret!"
+
+He stared unbelievingly at the white-robed figure which had just
+mounted the orchestra dais, and then concentrated his gaze on
+Archie.
+
+Archie would not have looked at his father-in-law at this juncture
+if he had had a free and untrammelled choice; but Mr. Brewster's eye
+drew his with something of the fascination which a snake's has for a
+rabbit. Mr. Brewster's eye was fiery and intimidating. A basilisk
+might have gone to him with advantage for a course of lessons. His
+gaze went right through Archie till the latter seemed to feel his
+back-hair curling crisply in the flames.
+
+"Is this one of your fool-tricks?"
+
+Even in this tense moment Archie found time almost unconsciously to
+admire his father-in-law's penetration and intuition. He seemed to
+have a sort of sixth sense. No doubt this was how great fortunes
+were made.
+
+"Well, as a matter of fact--to be absolutely accurate--it was like
+this--"
+
+"Say, cut it out!" said Mr. Connolly. "Can the chatter! I want to
+listen."
+
+Archie was only too ready to oblige him. Conversation at the moment
+was the last thing he himself desired. He managed with a strong
+effort to disengage himself from Mr. Brewster's eye, and turned to
+the orchestra dais, where Miss Spectatia Huskisson was now beginning
+the first verse of Wilson Hymack's masterpiece.
+
+Miss Huskisson, like so many of the female denizens of the Middle
+West, was tall and blonde and constructed on substantial lines. She
+was a girl whose appearance suggested the old homestead and fried
+pancakes and pop coming home to dinner after the morning's
+ploughing. Even her bobbed hair did not altogether destroy this
+impression. She looked big and strong and healthy, and her lungs
+were obviously good. She attacked the verse of the song with
+something of the vigour and breadth of treatment with which in other
+days she had reasoned with refractory mules. Her diction was the
+diction of one trained to call the cattle home in the teeth of
+Western hurricanes. Whether you wanted to or not, you heard every
+word.
+
+The subdued clatter of knives and forks had ceased. The diners,
+unused to this sort of thing at the Cosmopolis, were trying to
+adjust their faculties to cope with the outburst. Waiters stood
+transfixed, frozen, in attitudes of service. In the momentary lull
+between verse and refrain Archie could hear the deep breathing of
+Mr. Brewster. Involuntarily he turned to gaze at him once more, as
+refugees from Pompeii may have turned to gaze upon Vesuvius; and, as
+he did so, he caught sight of Mr. Connolly, and paused in
+astonishment.
+
+Mr. Connolly was an altered man. His whole personality had undergone
+a subtle change. His face still looked as though hewn from the
+living rock, but into his eyes had crept an expression which in
+another man might almost have been called sentimental. Incredible as
+it seemed to Archie, Mr. Connolly's eyes were dreamy. There was even
+in them a suggestion of unshed tears. And when with a vast
+culmination of sound Miss Huskisson reached the high note at the end
+of the refrain and, after holding it as some storming-party, spent
+but victorious, holds the summit of a hard-won redoubt, broke off
+suddenly, in the stillness which followed there proceeded from Mr.
+Connolly a deep sigh.
+
+Miss Huskisson began the second verse. And Mr. Brewster, seeming to
+recover from some kind of a trance, leaped to his feet.
+
+"Great Godfrey!"
+
+"Sit down!" said Mr. Connolly, in a broken voice. "Sit down, Dan!"
+
+    "He went back to his mother on the train that very day:
+     He knew there was no other who could make him bright and
+        gay:
+     He kissed her on the forehead and he whispered, 'I've come
+        home!'
+     He told her he was never going any more to roam.
+     And onward through the happy years, till he grew old and
+        grey,
+     He never once regretted those brave words he once did say:
+     It's a long way back to mother's knee--"
+
+The last high note screeched across the room like a shell, and the
+applause that followed was like a shell's bursting. One could hardly
+have recognised the refined interior of the Cosmopolis dining-room.
+Fair women were waving napkins; brave men were hammering on the
+tables with the butt-end of knives, for all the world as if they
+imagined themselves to be in one of those distressing midnight-revue
+places. Miss Huskisson bowed, retired, returned, bowed, and retired
+again, the tears streaming down her ample face. Over in a corner
+Archie could see his brother-in-law clapping strenuously. A waiter,
+with a display of manly emotion that did him credit, dropped an
+order of new peas.
+
+"Thirty years ago last October," said Mr. Connolly, in a shaking
+voice, "I--"
+
+Mr. Brewster interrupted him violently.
+
+"I'll fire that orchestra-leader! He goes to-morrow! I'll fire--" He
+turned on Archie. "What the devil do you mean by it, you--you--"
+
+"Thirty years ago," said Mr. Connolly, wiping away a tear with his
+napkin, "I left me dear old home in the old country--"
+
+"MY hotel a bear-garden!"
+
+"Frightfully sorry and all that, old companion--"
+
+"Thirty years ago last October! 'Twas a fine autumn evening the
+finest ye'd ever wish to see. Me old mother, she came to the station
+to see me off."
+
+Mr. Brewster, who was not deeply interested in Mr. Connolly's old
+mother, continued to splutter inarticulately, like a firework trying
+to go off.
+
+"'Ye'll always be a good boy, Aloysius?' she said to me," said Mr.
+Connolly, proceeding with, his autobiography. "And I said: 'Yes,
+Mother, I will!'" Mr. Connolly sighed and applied the napkin again.
+"'Twas a liar I was!" he observed, remorsefully. "Many's the dirty
+I've played since then. 'It's a long way back to Mother's knee.'
+'Tis a true word!" He turned impulsively to Mr. Brewster. "Dan,
+there's a deal of trouble in this world without me going out of me
+way to make more. The strike is over! I'll send the men back
+tomorrow! There's me hand on it!"
+
+Mr. Brewster, who had just managed to co-ordinate his views on the
+situation and was about to express them with the generous strength
+which was ever his custom when dealing with his son-in-law, checked
+himself abruptly. He stared at his old friend and business enemy,
+wondering if he could have heard aright. Hope began to creep back
+into Mr. Brewster's heart, like a shamefaced dog that has been away
+from home hunting for a day or two.
+
+"You'll what!"
+
+"I'll send the men back to-morrow! That song was sent to guide me,
+Dan! It was meant! Thirty years ago last October me dear old mother--"
+
+Mr. Brewster bent forward attentively. His views on Mr. Connolly's
+dear old mother had changed. He wanted to hear all about her.
+
+"'Twas that last note that girl sang brought it all back to me as if
+'twas yesterday. As we waited on the platform, me old mother and I,
+out comes the train from the tunnel, and the engine lets off a
+screech the way ye'd hear it ten miles away. 'Twas thirty years ago--"
+
+Archie stole softly from the table. He felt that his presence, if it
+had ever been required, was required no longer. Looking back, he
+could see his father-in-law patting Mr. Connolly affectionately on
+the shoulder.
+
+Archie and Lucille lingered over their coffee. Mr. Blumenthal was
+out in the telephone-box settling the business end with Wilson
+Hymack. The music-publisher had been unstinted in his praise of
+"Mother's Knee." It was sure-fire, he said. The words, stated Mr.
+Blumenthal, were gooey enough to hurt, and the tune reminded him of
+every other song-hit he had ever heard. There was, in Mr.
+Blumenthal's opinion, nothing to stop this thing selling a million
+copies.
+
+Archie smoked contentedly.
+
+"Not a bad evening's work, old thing," he said. "Talk about birds
+with one stone!" He looked at Lucille reproachfully. "You don't seem
+bubbling over with joy."
+
+"Oh, I am, precious!" Lucille sighed. "I was only thinking about
+Bill."
+
+"What about Bill?"
+
+"Well, it's rather awful to think of him tied for life to that-that
+steam-siren."
+
+"Oh, we mustn't look on the jolly old dark side. Perhaps--Hallo,
+Bill, old top! We were just talking about you."
+
+"Were you?" said Bill Brewster, in a dispirited voice.
+
+"I take it that you want congratulations, what?"
+
+"I want sympathy!"
+
+"Sympathy?"
+
+"Sympathy! And lots of it! She's gone!"
+
+"Gone! Who?"
+
+"Spectatia!"
+
+"How do you mean, gone?"
+
+Bill glowered at the tablecloth.
+
+"Gone home. I've just seen her off in a cab. She's gone back to
+Washington Square to pack. She's catching the ten o'clock train back
+to Snake Bite. It was that damned song!" muttered Bill, in a
+stricken voice. "She says she never realised before she sang it to-
+night how hollow New York was. She said it suddenly came over her.
+She says she's going to give up her career and go back to her
+mother. What the deuce are you twiddling your fingers for?" he broke
+off, irritably.
+
+"Sorry, old man. I was just counting."
+
+"Counting? Counting what?"
+
+"Birds, old thing. Only birds!" said Archie.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXV
+
+THE WIGMORE VENUS
+
+
+The morning was so brilliantly fine; the populace popped to and fro
+in so active and cheery a manner; and everybody appeared to be so
+absolutely in the pink, that a casual observer of the city of New
+York would have said that it was one of those happy days. Yet Archie
+Moffam, as he turned out of the sun-bathed street into the
+ramshackle building on the third floor of which was the studio
+belonging to his artist friend, James B. Wheeler, was faintly
+oppressed with a sort of a kind of feeling that something was wrong.
+He would not have gone so far as to say that he had the pip--it was
+more a vague sense of discomfort. And, searching for first causes as
+he made his way upstairs, he came to the conclusion that the person
+responsible for this nebulous depression was his wife, Lucille. It
+seemed to Archie that at breakfast that morning Lucille's manner had
+been subtly rummy. Nothing you could put your finger on, still--
+rummy.
+
+Musing thus, he reached the studio, and found the door open and the
+room empty. It had the air of a room whose owner has dashed in to
+fetch his golf-clubs and biffed off, after the casual fashion of the
+artist temperament, without bothering to close up behind him. And
+such, indeed, was the case. The studio had seen the last of J. B.
+Wheeler for that day: but Archie, not realising this and feeling
+that a chat with Mr. Wheeler, who was a light-hearted bird, was what
+he needed this morning, sat down to wait. After a few moments, his
+gaze, straying over the room, encountered a handsomely framed
+picture, and he went across to take a look at it.
+
+J. B. Wheeler was an artist who made a large annual income as an
+illustrator for the magazines, and it was a surprise to Archie to
+find that he also went in for this kind of thing. For the picture,
+dashingly painted in oils, represented a comfortably plump young
+woman who, from her rather weak-minded simper and the fact that she
+wore absolutely nothing except a small dove on her left shoulder,
+was plainly intended to be the goddess Venus. Archie was not much of
+a lad around the picture-galleries, but he knew enough about Art to
+recognise Venus when he saw her; though once or twice, it is true,
+artists had double-crossed him by ringing in some such title as "Day
+Dreams," or "When the Heart is Young."
+
+He inspected this picture for awhile, then, returning to his seat,
+lit a cigarette and began to meditate on Lucille once more. "Yes,
+the dear girl had been rummy at breakfast. She had not exactly said
+anything or done anything out of the ordinary; but--well, you know
+how it is. We husbands, we lads of the for-better-or-for-worse
+brigade, we learn to pierce the mask. There had been in Lucille's
+manner that curious, strained sweetness which comes to women whose
+husbands have failed to match the piece of silk or forgotten to post
+an important letter. If his conscience had not been as clear as
+crystal, Archie would have said that that was what must have been
+the matter. But, when Lucille wrote letters, she just stepped out of
+the suite and dropped them in the mail-chute attached to the
+elevator. It couldn't be that. And he couldn't have forgotten
+anything else, because--"
+
+"Oh my sainted aunt!"
+
+Archie's cigarette smouldered, neglected, between his fingers. His
+jaw had fallen and his eyes were staring glassily before him. He was
+appalled. His memory was weak, he knew; but never before had it let
+him down, so scurvily as this. This was a record. It stood in a
+class by itself, printed in red ink and marked with a star, as the
+bloomer of a lifetime. For a man may forget many things: he may
+forget his name, his umbrella, his nationality, his spats, and the
+friends of his youth: but there is one thing which your married man,
+your in-sickness-and-in-health lizard must not forget: and that is
+the anniversary of his wedding-day.
+
+Remorse swept over Archie like a wave. His heart bled for Lucille.
+No wonder the poor girl had been rummy at breakfast. What girl
+wouldn't be rummy at breakfast, tied for life to a ghastly outsider
+like himself? He groaned hollowly, and sagged forlornly in his
+chair: and, as he did so, the Venus caught his eye. For it was an
+eye-catching picture. You might like it or dislike it, but you could
+not ignore it.
+
+As a strong swimmer shoots to the surface after a high dive,
+Archie's soul rose suddenly from the depths to which it had
+descended. He did not often get inspirations, but he got one now.
+Hope dawned with a jerk. The one way out had presented itself to
+him. A rich present! That was the wheeze. If he returned to her
+bearing a rich present, he might, with the help of Heaven and a face
+of brass, succeed in making her believe that he had merely pretended
+to forget the vital date in order to enhance the surprise.
+
+It was a scheme. Like some great general forming his plan of
+campaign on the eve of battle, Archie had the whole binge neatly
+worked out inside a minute. He scribbled a note to Mr. Wheeler,
+explaining the situation and promising reasonable payment on the
+instalment system; then, placing the note in a conspicuous position
+on the easel, he leaped to the telephone: and presently found
+himself connected with Lucille's room at the Cosmopolis.
+
+"Hullo, darling," he cooed.
+
+There was a slight pause at the other end of the wire.
+
+"Oh, hullo, Archie!"
+
+Lucille's voice was dull and listless, and Archie's experienced ear
+could detect that she had been crying. He raised his right foot, and
+kicked himself indignantly on the left ankle.
+
+"Many happy returns of the day, old thing!"
+
+A muffled sob floated over the wire.
+
+"Have you only just remembered?" said Lucille in a small voice.
+
+Archie, bracing himself up, cackled gleefully into the receiver.
+
+"Did I take you in, light of my home? Do you mean to say you really
+thought I had forgotten? For Heaven's sake!"
+
+"You didn't say a word at breakfast."
+
+"Ah, but that was all part of the devilish cunning. I hadn't got a
+present for you then. At least, I didn't know whether it was ready."
+
+"Oh, Archie, you darling!" Lucille's voice had lost its crushed
+melancholy. She trilled like a thrush, or a linnet, or any bird that
+goes in largely for trilling. "Have you really got me a present?"
+
+"It's here now. The dickens of a fruity picture. One of J. B.
+Wheeler's things. You'll like it."
+
+"Oh, I know I shall. I love his work. You are an angel. We'll hang
+it over the piano."
+
+"I'll be round with it in something under three ticks, star of my
+soul. I'll take a taxi."
+
+"Yes, do hurry! I want to hug you!"
+
+"Right-o!" said Archie. "I'll take two taxis."
+
+It is not far from Washington Square to the Hotel Cosmopolis, and
+Archie made the journey without mishap. There was a little
+unpleasantness with the cabman before starting--he, on the prudish
+plea that he was a married man with a local reputation to keep up,
+declining at first to be seen in company with the masterpiece. But,
+on Archie giving a promise to keep the front of the picture away
+from the public gaze, he consented to take the job on; and, some ten
+minutes later, having made his way blushfully through the hotel
+lobby and endured the frank curiosity of the boy who worked the
+elevator, Archie entered his suite, the picture under his arm.
+
+He placed it carefully against the wall in order to leave himself
+more scope for embracing Lucille, and when the joyful reunion--or
+the sacred scene, if you prefer so to call it, was concluded, he
+stepped forward to turn it round and exhibit it.
+
+"Why, it's enormous," said Lucille. "I didn't know Mr. Wheeler ever
+painted pictures that size. When you said it was one of his, I
+thought it must be the original of a magazine drawing or something
+like--Oh!"
+
+Archie had moved back and given her an uninterrupted view of the
+work of art, and she had started as if some unkindly disposed person
+had driven a bradawl into her.
+
+"Pretty ripe, what?" said Archie enthusiastically.
+
+Lucille did not speak for a moment. It may have been sudden joy that
+kept her silent. Or, on the other hand, it may not. She stood
+looking at the picture with wide eyes and parted lips.
+
+"A bird, eh?" said Archie.
+
+"Y--yes," said Lucille.
+
+"I knew you'd like it," proceeded Archie with animation, "You see?
+you're by way of being a picture-hound--know all about the things,
+and what not--inherit it from the dear old dad, I shouldn't wonder.
+Personally, I can't tell one picture from another as a rule, but I'm
+bound to say, the moment I set eyes on this, I said to myself 'What
+ho!' or words to that effect, I rather think this will add a touch
+of distinction to the home, yes, no? I'll hang it up, shall I?
+'Phone down to the office, light of my soul, and tell them to send
+up a nail, a bit of string,, and the hotel hammer."
+
+"One moment, darling. I'm not quite sure."
+
+"Eh?"
+
+"Where it ought to hang, I mean. You see--"
+
+"Over the piano, you said. The jolly old piano."
+
+"Yes, but I hadn't seen it then."
+
+A monstrous suspicion flitted for an instant into Archie's mind.
+
+"I say, you do like it, don't you?" he said anxiously.
+
+"Oh, Archie, darling! Of course I do!-And it was so sweet of you to
+give it to me. But, what I was trying to say was that this picture
+is so--so striking that I feel that we ought to wait a little while
+and decide where it would have the best effect. The light over the
+piano is rather strong."
+
+"You thing it ought to hang in a dimmish light, what?"
+
+"Yes, yes. The dimmer the--I mean, yes, in a dim light. Suppose we
+leave it in the corner for the moment--over there--behind the sofa,
+and--and I'll think it over. It wants a lot of thought, you know."
+
+"Right-o! Here?"
+
+"Yes, that will do splendidly. Oh, and, Archie."
+
+"Hullo?"
+
+"I think perhaps... Just turn its face to the wall, will you?"
+Lucille gave a little gulp. "It will prevent it getting dusty."
+
+It perplexed Archie a little during the next few days to notice in
+Lucille, whom he had always looked on as pre-eminently a girl who
+knew her own mind, a curious streak of vacillation. Quite half a
+dozen times he suggested various spots on the wall as suitable for
+the Venus, but Lucille seemed unable to decide. Archie wished that
+she would settle on something definite, for he wanted to invite J.
+B. Wheeler to the suite to see the thing. He had heard nothing from
+the artist since the day he had removed the picture, and one
+morning, encountering him on Broadway, he expressed his appreciation
+of the very decent manner in which the other had taken the whole
+affair.
+
+"Oh, that!" said J. B. Wheeler. "My dear fellow, you're welcome." He
+paused for a moment. "More than welcome," he added. "You aren't much
+of an expert on pictures, are you?"
+
+"Well," said Archie, "I don't know that you'd call me an absolute
+nib, don't you know, but of course I know enough to see that this
+particular exhibit is not a little fruity. Absolutely one of the
+best things you've ever done, laddie."
+
+A slight purple tinge manifested itself in Mr. Wheeler's round and
+rosy face. His eyes bulged.
+
+"What are you talking about, you Tishbite? You misguided son of
+Belial, are you under the impression that _I_ painted that thing?"
+
+"Didn't you?"
+
+Mr. Wheeler swallowed a little convulsively.
+
+"My fiancee painted it," he said shortly.
+
+"Your fiancee? My dear old lad, I didn't know you were engaged. Who
+is she? Do I know her?"
+
+"Her name is Alice Wigmore. You don't know her."
+
+"And she painted that picture?" Archie was perturbed. "But, I say!
+Won't she be apt to wonder where the thing has got to?"
+
+"I told her it had been stolen. She thought it a great compliment,
+and was tickled to death. So that's all right."
+
+"And, of course, she'll paint you another."
+
+"Not while I have my strength she won't," said J. B. Wheeler firmly.
+"She's given up painting since I taught her golf, thank goodness,
+and my best efforts shall be employed in seeing that she doesn't
+have a relapse."
+
+"But, laddie," said Archie, puzzled, "you talk as though there were
+something wrong with the picture. I thought it dashed hot stuff."
+
+"God bless you!" said J. B. Wheeler.
+
+Archie proceeded on his way, still mystified. Then he reflected that
+artists as a class were all pretty weird and rummy and talked more
+or less consistently through their hats. You couldn't ever take an
+artist's opinion on a picture. Nine out of ten of them had views on
+Art which would have admitted them to any looney-bin, and no
+questions asked. He had met several of the species who absolutely
+raved over things which any reasonable chappie would decline to be
+found dead in a ditch with. His admiration for the Wigmore Venus,
+which had faltered for a moment during his conversation with J. B.
+Wheeler, returned in all its pristine vigour. Absolute rot, he meant
+to say, to try to make out that it wasn't one of the ones and just
+like mother used to make. Look how Lucille had liked it!
+
+At breakfast next morning, Archie once more brought up the question
+of the hanging of the picture. It was absurd to let a thing like
+that go on wasting its sweetness behind a sofa with its face to the
+wall.
+
+"Touching the jolly old masterpiece," he said, "how about it? I
+think it's time we hoisted it up somewhere."
+
+Lucille fiddled pensively with her coffee-spoon.
+
+"Archie, dear," she said, "I've been thinking."
+
+"And a very good thing to do," said Archie. "I've often meant to do
+it myself when I got a bit of time."
+
+"About that picture, I mean. Did you know it was father's birthday
+to-morrow?"
+
+"Why no, old thing, I didn't, to be absolutely honest. Your revered
+parent doesn't confide in me much these days, as a matter of fact."
+
+"Well, it is. And I think we ought to give him a present."
+
+"Absolutely. But how? I'm all for spreading sweetness and light, and
+cheering up the jolly old pater's sorrowful existence, but I haven't
+a bean. And, what is more, things have come to such a pass that I
+scan the horizon without seeing a single soul I can touch. I suppose
+I could get into Reggie van Tuyl's ribs for a bit, but--I don't
+know--touching poor old Reggie always seems to me rather like
+potting a pitting bird."
+
+"Of course, I don't want you to do anything like that. I was
+thinking--Archie, darling, would you be very hurt if I gave father
+the picture?"
+
+"Oh, I say!"
+
+"Well, I can't think of anything else."
+
+"But wouldn't you miss it most frightfully?"
+
+"Oh, of course I should. But you see--father's birthday--"
+
+Archie had always thought Lucille the dearest and most unselfish
+angel in the world, but never had the fact come home to him so
+forcibly as now. He kissed her fondly.
+
+"By Jove!" he exclaimed. "You really are, you know! This is the
+biggest thing since jolly old Sir Philip What's-his-name gave the
+drink of water to the poor blighter whose need was greater than his,
+if you recall the incident. I had to sweat it up at school, I
+remember. Sir Philip, poor old bean, had a most ghastly thirst on,
+and he was just going to have one on the house, so to speak, when...
+but it's all in the history-books. This is the sort of thing Boy
+Scouts do! Well, of course, it's up to you, queen of my soul. If you
+feel like making the sacrifice, right-o! Shall I bring the pater up
+here and show him the picture?"
+
+"No, I shouldn't do that. Do you think you could get into his suite
+to-morrow morning and hang it up somewhere? You see, if he had the
+chance of--what I mean is, if--yes, I think it would be best to hang
+it up and let him discover it there."
+
+"It would give him a surprise, you mean, what?"
+
+"Yes."
+
+Lucille sighed inaudibly. She was a girl with a conscience, and that
+conscience was troubling her a little. She agreed with Archie that
+the discovery of the Wigmore Venus in his artistically furnished
+suite would give Mr. Brewster a surprise. Surprise, indeed, was
+perhaps an inadequate word. She was sorry for her father, but the
+instinct of self-preservation is stronger than any other emotion.
+
+Archie whistled merrily on the following morning as, having driven a
+nail into his father-in-law's wallpaper, he adjusted the cord from
+which the Wigmore Venus was suspended. He was a kind-hearted young
+man, and, though Mr. Daniel Brewster had on many occasions treated
+him with a good deal of austerity, his simple soul was pleased at
+the thought of doing him a good turn, He had just completed his work
+and was stepping cautiously down, when a voice behind him nearly
+caused him to overbalance.
+
+"What the devil?"
+
+Archie turned beamingly.
+
+"Hullo, old thing! Many happy returns of the day!"
+
+Mr. Brewster was standing in a frozen attitude. His strong face was
+slightly flushed.
+
+"What--what--?" he gurgled.
+
+Mr. Brewster was not in one of his sunniest moods that morning. The
+proprietor of a large hotel has many things to disturb him, and to-
+day things had been going wrong. He had come up to his suite with
+the idea of restoring his shaken nerve system with a quiet cigar,
+and the sight of his son-in-law had, as so frequently happened, made
+him feel worse than ever. But, when Archie had descended from the
+chair and moved aside to allow him an uninterrupted view of the
+picture, Mr. Brewster realised that a worse thing had befallen him
+than a mere visit from one who always made him feel that the world
+was a bleak place.
+
+He stared at the Venus dumbly. Unlike most hotel-proprietors, Daniel
+Brewster was a connoisseur of Art. Connoisseuring was, in fact, his
+hobby. Even the public rooms of the Cosmopolis were decorated with
+taste, and his own private suite was a shrine of all that was best
+and most artistic. His tastes were quiet and restrained, and it is
+not too much to say that the Wigmore Venus hit him behind the ear
+like a stuffed eel-skin.
+
+So great was the shock that for some moments it kept him silent, and
+before he could recover speech Archie had explained.
+
+"It's a birthday present from Lucille, don't you know,"
+
+Mr. Brewster crushed down the breezy speech he had intended to
+utter.
+
+"Lucille gave me--that?" he muttered.
+
+He swallowed pathetically. He was suffering, but the iron courage of
+the Brewsters stood him in good stead. This man was no weakling.
+Presently the rigidity of his face relaxed. He was himself again. Of
+all things in the world he loved his daughter most, and if, in
+whoever mood of temporary insanity, she had brought herself to
+suppose that this beastly daub was the sort of thing he would like
+for a birthday present, he must accept the situation like a man. He
+would on the whole have preferred death to a life lived in the
+society of the Wigmore Venus, but even that torment must be endured
+if the alternative was the hurting of Lucille's feelings.
+
+"I think I've chosen a pretty likely spot to hang the thing, what?"
+said Archie cheerfully. "It looks well alongside those Japanese
+prints, don't you think? Sort of stands out."
+
+Mr. Brewster licked his dry lips and grinned a ghastly grin.
+
+"It does stand out!" he agreed.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXVI
+
+A TALE OF A GRANDFATHER
+
+
+Archie was not a man who readily allowed himself to become worried,
+especially about people who were not in his own immediate circle of
+friends, but in the course of the next week he was bound to admit
+that he was not altogether easy in his mind about his father-in-
+law's mental condition. He had read all sorts of things in the
+Sunday papers and elsewhere about the constant strain to which
+captains of industry are subjected, a strain which sooner or later
+is only too apt to make the victim go all blooey, and it seemed to
+him that Mr. Brewster was beginning to find the going a trifle too
+tough for his stamina. Undeniably he was behaving in an odd manner,
+and Archie, though no physician, was aware that, when the American
+business-man, that restless, ever-active human machine, starts
+behaving in an odd manner, the next thing yon know is that two
+strong men, one attached to each arm, are hurrying him into the cab
+bound for Bloomingdale.
+
+He did not confide his misgivings to Lucille, not wishing to cause
+her anxiety. He hunted up Reggie van Tuyl at the club, and sought
+advice from him.
+
+"I say, Reggie, old thing--present company excepted--have there been
+any loonies in your family?"
+
+Reggie stirred in the slumber which always gripped him in the early
+afternoon.
+
+"Loonies?" he mumbled, sleepily. "Rather! My uncle Edgar thought he
+was twins."
+
+"Twins, eh?"
+
+"Yes. Silly idea! I mean, you'd have thought one of my uncle Edgar
+would have been enough for any man."
+
+"How did the thing start?" asked Archie.
+
+"Start? Well, the first thing we noticed was when he began wanting
+two of everything. Had to set two places for him at dinner and so
+on. Always wanted two seats at the theatre. Ran into money, I can
+tell you."
+
+"He didn't behave rummily up till then? I mean to say, wasn't sort
+of jumpy and all that?"
+
+"Not that I remember. Why?"
+
+Archie's tone became grave.
+
+"Well, I'll tell you, old man, though I don't want it to go any
+farther, that I'm a bit worried about my jolly old father-in-law. I
+believe he's about to go in off the deep-end. I think he's cracking
+under the strain. Dashed weird his behaviour has been the last few
+days."
+
+"Such as?" murmured Mr. van Tuyl.
+
+"Well, the other morning I happened to be in his suite--incidentally
+he wouldn't go above ten dollars, and I wanted twenty-five-and he
+suddenly picked up a whacking big paper-weight and bunged it for all
+he was worth."
+
+"At you?"
+
+"Not at me. That was the rummy part of it. At a mosquito on the
+wall, he said. Well, I mean to say, do chappies bung paper-weights
+at mosquitoes? I mean, is it done?"
+
+"Smash anything?"
+
+"Curiously enough, no. But he only just missed a rather decent
+picture which Lucille had given him for his birthday. Another foot
+to the left and it would have been a goner."
+
+"Sounds queer."
+
+"And, talking of that picture, I looked in on him about a couple of
+afternoons later, and he'd taken it down from the wall and laid it
+on the floor and was staring at it in a dashed marked sort of
+manner. That was peculiar, what?"
+
+"On the floor?"
+
+"On the jolly old carpet. When I came in, he was goggling at it in a
+sort of glassy way. Absolutely rapt, don't you know. My coming in
+gave him a start--seemed to rouse him from a kind of trance, you
+know--and he jumped like an antelope; and, if I hadn't happened to
+grab him, he would have trampled bang on the thing. It was deuced
+unpleasant, you know. His manner was rummy. He seemed to be brooding
+on something. What ought I to do about it, do you think? It's not my
+affair, of course, but it seams to me that, if he goes on like this,
+one of these days he'll be stabbing, someone with a pickle-fork."
+
+To Archie's relief, his father-in-law's symptoms showed no signs of
+development. In fact, his manner reverted to the normal once more,
+and a few days later, meeting Archie in the lobby of the hotel, he
+seemed quite cheerful. It was not often that he wasted his time
+talking to his son-in-law, but on this occasion he chatted with him
+for several minutes about the big picture-robbery which had formed
+the chief item of news on the front pages of the morning papers that
+day. It was Mr. Brewster's opinion that the outrage had been the
+work of a gang and that nobody was safe.
+
+Daniel Brewster had spoken of this matter with strange earnestness,
+but his words had slipped from Archie's mind when he made his way
+that night to his father-in-law's suite. Archie was in an exalted
+mood. In the course of dinner he had had a bit of good news which
+was occupying his thoughts to the exclusion of all other matters. It
+had left him in a comfortable, if rather dizzy, condition of
+benevolence to all created things. He had smiled at the room-clerk
+as he crossed the lobby, and if he had had a dollar, he would have
+given it to the boy who took him up in the elevator.
+
+He found the door of the Brewster suite unlocked which at any other
+time would have struck him as unusual; but to-night he was in no
+frame of mind to notice these trivialities. He went in, and, finding
+the room dark and no one at home, sat down, too absorbed in his
+thoughts to switch on the lights, and gave himself up to dreamy
+meditation.
+
+There are certain moods in which one loses count of time, and Archie
+could not have said how long he had been sitting in the deep arm-
+chair near the window when he first became aware that he was not
+alone in the room. He had closed his eyes, the better to meditate,
+so had not seen anyone enter. Nor had he heard the door open. The
+first intimation he had that somebody had come in was when some hard
+substance knocked against some other hard object, producing a sharp
+sound which brought him back to earth with a jerk.
+
+He sat up silently. The fact that the room was still in darkness
+made it obvious that something nefarious was afoot. Plainly there
+was dirty work in preparation at the cross-roads. He stared into the
+blackness, and, as his eyes grew accustomed to it, was presently
+able to see an indistinct form bending over something on the floor.
+The sound of rather stertorous breathing came to him.
+
+Archie had many defects which prevented him being the perfect man,
+but lack of courage was not one of them. His somewhat rudimentary
+intelligence had occasionally led his superior officers during the
+war to thank God that Great Britain had a Navy, but even these stern
+critics had found nothing to complain of in the manner in which he
+bounded over the top. Some of us are thinkers, others men of action.
+Archie was a man of action, and he was out of his chair and sailing
+in the direction of the back of the intruder's neck before a wiser
+man would have completed his plan of campaign. The miscreant
+collapsed under him with a squashy sound, like the wind going out of
+a pair of bellows, and Archie, taking a firm seat on his spine,
+rubbed the other's face in the carpet and awaited the progress of
+events.
+
+At the end of half a minute it became apparent that there was going
+to be no counter-attack. The dashing swiftness of the assault had
+apparently had the effect of depriving the marauder of his entire
+stock of breath. He was gurgling to himself in a pained sort of way
+and making no effort to rise. Archie, feeling that it would be safe
+to get up and switch on the light, did so, and, turning after
+completing this manoeuvre, was greeted by the spectacle of his
+father-in-law, seated on the floor in a breathless and dishevelled
+condition, blinking at the sudden illumination. On the carpet beside
+Mr. Brewster lay a long knife, and beside the knife lay the
+handsomely framed masterpiece of J. B. Wheeler's fiancee, Miss Alice
+Wigmore. Archie stared at this collection dumbly.
+
+"Oh, what-ho!" he observed at length, feebly.
+
+A distinct chill manifested itself in the region of Archie's spine.
+This could mean only one thing. His fears had been realised. The
+strain of modern life, with all its hustle and excitement, had at
+last proved too much for Mr. Brewster. Crushed by the thousand and
+one anxieties and worries of a millionaire's existence, Daniel
+Brewster had gone off his onion.
+
+Archie was nonplussed. This was his first experience of this kind of
+thing. What, he asked himself, was the proper procedure in a
+situation of this sort? What was the local rule? Where, in a word,
+did he go from here? He was still musing in an embarrassed and
+baffled way, having taken the precaution of kicking the knife under
+the sofa, when Mr. Brewster spoke. And there was in, both the words
+and the method of their delivery so much of his old familiar self
+that Archie felt quite relieved.
+
+"So it's you, is it, you wretched blight, you miserable weed!" said
+Mr. Brewster, having recovered enough breath to be going on with. He
+glowered at his son-in-law despondently. "I might have, expected it!
+If I was at the North Pole, I could count on you butting in!"
+
+"Shall I get you a drink of water?" said Archie.
+
+"What the devil," demanded Mr. Brewster, "do you imagine I want with
+a drink of water?"
+
+"Well--" Archie hesitated delicately. "I had a sort of idea that you
+had been feeling the strain a bit. I mean to say, rush of modern
+life and all that sort of thing--"
+
+"What are you doing in my room?" said Mr. Brewster, changing the
+subject.
+
+"Well, I came to tell you something, and I came in here and was
+waiting for you, and I saw some chappie biffing about in the dark,
+and I thought it was a burglar or something after some of your
+things, so, thinking it over, I got the idea that it would be a
+fairly juicy scheme to land on him with both feet. No idea it was
+you, old thing! Frightfully sorry and all that. Meant well!"
+
+Mr. Brewster sighed deeply. He was a just man, and he could not but
+realise that, in the circumstances, Archie had behaved not
+unnaturally.
+
+"Oh, well!" he said. "I might have known something would go wrong."
+
+"Awfully sorry!"
+
+"It can't be helped. What was it you wanted to tell me?" He eyed his
+son-in-law piercingly. "Not a cent over twenty dollars!" he said
+coldly.
+
+Archie hastened to dispel the pardonable error.
+
+"Oh, it wasn't anything like that," he said. "As a matter of fact, I
+think it's a good egg. It has bucked me up to no inconsiderable
+degree. I was dining with Lucille just now, and, as we dallied with
+the food-stuffs, she told me something which--well, I'm bound to
+say, it made me feel considerably braced. She told me to trot along
+and ask you if you would mind--"
+
+"I gave Lucille a hundred dollars only last Tuesday."
+
+Archie was pained.
+
+"Adjust this sordid outlook, old thing!" he urged. "You simply
+aren't anywhere near it. Right off the target, absolutely! What
+Lucille told me to ask you was if you would mind--at some tolerably
+near date--being a grandfather! Rotten thing to be, of course,"
+proceeded Archie commiseratingly, "for a chappie of your age, but
+there it is!"
+
+Mr. Brewster gulped.
+
+"Do you mean to say--?"
+
+"I mean, apt to make a fellow feel a bit of a patriarch. Snowy hair
+and what not. And, of course, for a chappie in the prime of life
+like you--"
+
+"Do you mean to tell me--? Is this true?"
+
+"Absolutely! Of course, speaking for myself, I'm all for it. I don't
+know when I've felt more bucked. I sang as I came up here--
+absolutely warbled in the elevator. But you--"
+
+A curious change had come over Mr. Brewster. He was one of those men
+who have the appearance of having been hewn out of the solid rock,
+but now in some indescribable way he seemed to have melted. For a
+moment he gazed at Archie, then, moving quickly forward, he grasped
+his hand in an iron grip.
+
+"This is the best news I've ever had!" he mumbled.
+
+"Awfully good of you to take it like this," said Archie cordially.
+"I mean, being a grandfather--"
+
+Mr. Brewster smiled. Of a man of his appearance one could hardly say
+that he smiled playfully; but there was something in his expression
+that remotely suggested playfulness.
+
+"My dear old bean," he said.
+
+Archie started.
+
+"My dear old bean," repeated Mr. Brewster firmly, "I'm the happiest
+man in America!" His eye fell on the picture which lay on the floor.
+He gave a slight shudder, but recovered himself immediately. "After
+this," he said, "I can reconcile myself to living with that thing
+for the rest of my life. I feel it doesn't matter."
+
+"I say," said Archie, "how about that? Wouldn't have brought the
+thing up if you hadn't introduced the topic, but, speaking as man to
+man, what the dickens WERE you up to when I landed on your spine
+just now?"
+
+"I suppose you thought I had gone off my head?"
+
+"Well, I'm bound to say--"
+
+Mr. Brewster cast an unfriendly glance at the picture.
+
+"Well, I had every excuse, after living with that infernal thing for
+a week!"
+
+Archie looked at him, astonished.
+
+"I say, old thing, I don't know if I have got your meaning exactly,
+but you somehow give me the impression that you don't like that
+jolly old work of Art."
+
+"Like it!" cried Mr. Brewster. "It's nearly driven me mad! Every
+time it caught my eye, it gave me a pain in the neck. To-night I
+felt as if I couldn't stand it any longer. I didn't want to hurt
+Lucille's feelings, by telling her, so I made up my mind I would cut
+the damned thing out of its frame and tell her it had been stolen."
+
+"What an extraordinary thing! Why, that's exactly what old Wheeler
+did."
+
+"Who is old Wheeler?"
+
+"Artist chappie. Pal of mine. His fiancee painted the thing, and,
+when I lifted it off him, he told her it had been stolen. HE didn't
+seem frightfully keen on it, either."
+
+"Your friend Wheeler has evidently good taste."
+
+Archie was thinking.
+
+"Well, all this rather gets past me," he said. "Personally, I've
+always admired the thing. Dashed ripe bit of work, I've always
+considered. Still, of course, if you feel that way--"
+
+"You may take it from me that I do!"
+
+"Well, then, in that case--You know what a clumsy devil I am--You
+can tell Lucille it was all my fault--"
+
+The Wigmore Venus smiled up at Archie--it seemed to Archie with a
+pathetic, pleading smile. For a moment he was conscious of a feeling
+of guilt; then, closing his eyes and hardening his heart, he sprang
+lightly in the air and descended with both feet on the picture.
+There was a sound of rending canvas, and the Venus ceased to smile.
+
+"Golly!" said Archie, regarding the wreckage remorsefully.
+
+Mr. Brewster did not share his remorse. For the second time that
+night he gripped him by the hand.
+
+"My boy!" he quavered. He stared at Archie as if he were seeing him
+with new eyes. "My dear boy, you were through the war, were you
+not?"
+
+"Eh? Oh yes! Right through the jolly old war."
+
+"What was your rank?"
+
+"Oh, second lieutenant."
+
+"You ought to have been a general!" Mr. Brewster clasped his hand
+once more in a vigorous embrace. "I only hope," he added "that your
+son will be like you!"
+
+There are certain compliments, or compliments coming from certain
+sources, before which modesty reels, stunned. Archie's did.
+
+He swallowed convulsively. He had never thought to hear these words
+from Daniel Brewster.
+
+"How would it be, old thing," he said almost brokenly, "if you and I
+trickled down to the bar and had a spot of sherbet?"
+
+THE END
+
+
+End of The Project Gutenberg Etext of Indiscretions of Archie
+by P. G. Wodehouse
+
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