SALVATORE CHOOSES THE WRONG MOMENT
Archie the family from its temporary home next morning; and, having done so, to the Cosmopolis. He was surprised, on entering the lobby, to meet his father-in-law. More still, Mr. Brewster was in a mood of geniality. Archie his when the other to him—nor his ears a moment later when Mr. Brewster, him as “my boy,” asked him how he was and mentioned that the day was a warm one.
Obviously this of mind must be taken of; and Archie’s was of the Salvatore, to the of he had so on the previous day. Now was the moment for the waiter to submit his grievance, some ebb-tide the milk of to out of Daniel Brewster. With a “Cheerio!” in his father-in-law’s direction, Archie into the grill-room. Salvatore, the hour for being but not yet having arrived, was against the in an of thought.
“Laddie!” Archie.
“Sare?”
“A most thing has happened. Good old Brewster has up through a and is out in the now. And what’s still more weird, he’s 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 you on and give you his bank-roll and collar-stud. Charge along and ask the head-waiter if you can have ten minutes off.”
Salvatore in search of the named, and Archie returned to the to in the sunshine.
“Well, well, well, what!” he said. “I you were at Brookport.”
“I came up this to meet a friend of mine,” Mr. Brewster genially. “Professor Binstead.”
“Don’t think I know him.”
“Very man,” said Mr. Brewster, still with the same amiability. “He’s a in a good many things—science, phrenology, antiques. I asked him to for me at a sale yesterday. There was a little figure—”
Archie’s fell.
“China figure?” he feebly.
“Yes. The to one you may have noticed on my upstairs. I have been trying to the pair of them for years. I should have of this one if it had not been for that of mine, Parker. Very good of him to let me know of it, I had him. Ah, here is Binstead.”—He moved to the small, middle-aged man with the tortoiseshell-rimmed who was across the lobby.—“Well, Binstead, so you got it?”
“Yes.”
“I the price wasn’t particularly stiff?”
“Twenty-three hundred.”
“Twenty-three hundred!” Mr. Brewster to in his tracks. “Twenty-three hundred!”
“You gave me blanche.”
“Yes, but twenty-three hundred!”
“I have got it for a dollars, but I was a little late, and, when I arrived, some had it up to a thousand, and he to me till I 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 had vanished.
“What have you been up to now?” he demanded. “Can’t I move a step without my toe on you? Why the did you bid?”
“We it would be a scheme. We talked it over and came to the that it was an egg. Wanted to of the little object, don’t you know, and you.”
“Who’s we?”
“Lucille and I.”
“But how did you of it at all?”
“Parker, the valet-chappie, you know, me a about it.”
“Parker! Didn’t he tell you that he had told me the was to be sold?”
“Absolutely not!” A came to Archie. He was a man, but to him the of the part played by Herbert Parker had apparent. “I say, you know, it looks to me as if friend Parker had been having us all on a bit, what? I to say it was old Herb, who your son off—Bill, you know—to go and for the thing.”
“Bill! Was Bill there?”
“Absolutely in person! We were against each other like the till we managed to together and acquainted. And then this bird—this gentleman—sailed in and started to it across us.”
Professor Binstead chuckled—the care-free of a man who sees all those around him in the pocket, while he himself untouched.
“A very rogue, this Parker of yours, Brewster. His method to have been but masterly. I have no that either he or a the and it with the auctioneer, and then he a good price for it by us all to against each other. Very ingenious!”
Mr. Brewster with his feelings. Then he to overcome them and to himself to look on the 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 company to deliver it. Suppose we go up to your room and see how the two look by side.”
They the to the lift.-The cloud was still on Mr. Brewster’s as they out and their way to his suite. Like most men who have from to by their own exertions, Mr. Brewster to with his money unnecessarily, and it was plain that that twenty-three hundred still rankled.
Mr. Brewster the door and the room. Then, suddenly, he halted, stared, and again. He to the and pressed it, then wordlessly.
“Anything wrong, old bean?” Archie, solicitously.
“Wrong! Wrong! It’s gone!”
“Gone?”
“The figure!”
The floor-waiter had himself in answer to the bell, and was in the doorway.
“Simmons!” Mr. Brewster to him wildly. “Has anyone been in this since I away?”
“No, sir.”
“Nobody?”
“Nobody your valet, sir—Parker. He said he had come to some away. I he had come from you, sir, with instructions.”
“Get out!”
Professor Binstead had his parcel, and had the Pongo on the table. There was a silence. Archie up the little and it on the of his hand. It was a small thing, he philosophically, but it had a in the world.
Mr. Brewster for a while without speaking.
“So,” he said, at last, in a voice with self-pity, “I have been to all this trouble—”
“And expense,” put in Professor Binstead, gently.
“Merely to something which had been from me! And, to your officiousness,” he cried, on Archie, “I have had to pay twenty-three hundred for it! I don’t know why they make such a about Job. Job had anything like you around!”
“Of course,” Archie, “he had one or two boils.”
“Boils! What are boils?”
“Dashed sorry,” Archie. “Acted for the best. Meant well. And all that of rot!”
Professor Binstead’s mind to the of all other of the affair, with the of the Parker.
“A scheme!” he said. “A very scheme! This man Parker must have a brain of no low order. I should like to his bumps!”
“I should like to give him some!” said the Mr. Brewster. He a breath. “Oh, well,” he said, “situated as I am, with a and an son-in-law, I I ought to be that I’ve still got my own property, if I have had to pay twenty-three hundred for the of it.” He on Archie, who was in a reverie. The of the Bill had just Archie’s mind. It would be many moons, many moons, Mr. Brewster would be in a mood to to the of love’s dream. “Give me that figure!”
Archie to toy with Pongo. He was now how best to this sad to Lucille. It would be a for the girl.
“Give me that figure!”
Archie started violently. There was an in which Pongo to suspended, like Mohammed’s coffin, and earth, then the of itself. Pongo with a and disintegrated. And as it did so there was a at the door, and in walked a dark, person, who to the of Mr. Daniel Brewster looked like something with the executive staff of the Black Hand. With all time at his disposal, the Salvatore had this moment for his case.
“Get out!” Mr. Brewster. “I didn’t ring for a waiter.”
Archie, his mind the catastrophe, himself to do the honours. It was at his that Salvatore was there, and, as he that he have fit to choose a more moment for his chat, he to do his best to see him through.
“Oh, I say, a second,” he said. “You don’t understand. As a of fact, this is by way of being and and what not, and I that he should of you and speak a well-chosen words. Of course, if you’d rather—some other time—”
But Mr. Brewster was not permitted to the interview. Before he his breath, Salvatore had to talk. He was a strong, talker, it was hard to interrupt; and it was not for some moments that Mr. Brewster succeeded in a word in. When he did, he spoke to the point. Though not a linguist, he had been able to the closely to that the waiter was with in his hotel; and Mr. Brewster, as has been indicated, had a way with people who the Cosmopolis.
“You’re fired!” said Mr. Brewster.
“Oh, I say!” Archie.
Salvatore what like a passage from Dante.
“Fired!” Mr. Brewster resolutely. “And I wish to heaven,” he added, his son-in-law malignantly, “I fire you!”
“Well,” said Professor Binstead cheerfully, the which 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 the and cash it lunch. That will be capital!”
