Indiscretions of Archie

by P. G. Wodehouse

Contents

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.”