ARCHIE ACCEPTS A SITUATION
Lucille moved her slowly round, the to the new bracelet.
“You are an angel, angel!” she murmured.
“Like it?” said Archie complacently.
“Like it! Why, it’s gorgeous! It must have cost a fortune.”
“Oh, nothing to speak of. Just a hard-earned pieces of eight. Just a from the old chest.”
“But I didn’t know there were any in the old chest.”
“Well, as a of fact,” Archie, “at one point in the there weren’t. But an aunt of mine in England—peace be on her head!—happened to send me a of the necessary at what you might call the moment.”
“And you it all on a birthday present for me! Archie!” Lucille at her husband adoringly. “Archie, do you know what I think?”
“What?”
“You’re the perfect man!”
“No, really! What ho!”
“Yes,” said Lucille firmly. “I’ve long it, and now I know. I don’t think there’s like you in the world.”
Archie her hand.
“It’s a thing,” he observed, “but your father said almost that to me only yesterday. Only I don’t he meant the same as you. To be frank, his exact was that he thanked God there was only one of me.”
A look came into Lucille’s eyes.
“It’s a about father. I do wish he you. But you mustn’t be too hard on him.”
“Me?” said Archie. “Hard on your father? Well, it all, I don’t think I him with what you might call brutality, what! I to say, my whole idea is to keep out of the old lad’s way and up in a if I can’t him. I’d just as soon be hard on a elephant! I wouldn’t for the world say anything derogatory, as it were, to your old pater, but there is no away from the that he’s by way of being one of our leading man-eating fishes. It would be to that he that you let the proud old name of Brewster a when you me in and me on the mat.”
“Anyone would be lucky to you for a son-in-law, precious.”
“I me, light of my life, the doesn’t see to with you on that point. No, every time I of a daisy, I give him another chance, but it always out at ‘He loves me not!’”
“You must make for him, darling.”
“Right-o! But I that he doesn’t catch me at it. I’ve a of idea that if the old that I was making for him, he would have from ten to fifteen fits.”
“He’s just now, you know.”
“I didn’t know. He doesn’t in me much.”
“He’s about that waiter.”
“What waiter, queen of my soul?”
“A man called Salvatore. Father him some time ago.”
“Salvatore!”
“Probably you don’t him. He used to wait on this table.”
“Why—”
“And father him, apparently, and now there’s all of trouble. You see, father wants to this new hotel of his, and he he’d got the site and and start right away: and now he that this man Salvatore’s mother a little newspaper and tobacco shop right in the middle of the site, and there’s no way of him out without the shop, and he won’t sell. At least, he’s his mother promise that she won’t sell.”
“A boy’s best friend is his mother,” said Archie approvingly. “I had a of idea all along—”
“So father’s in despair.”
Archie at his cigarette meditatively.
“I a chappie—a he was, as a of fact, and a blighter—remarking to me some time ago that you on the man’s but you mustn’t be if he you in the leg while you were doing it. Apparently this is what has to the old dad. I had a of idea all along that old friend Salvatore would come out in the end if you only gave him time. Brainy of feller! Great of mine.”—Lucille’s small lightened. She at Archie with proud affection. She that she ought to have that he was the one to solve this difficulty.
“You’re wonderful, darling! Is he a friend of yours?”
“Absolutely. Many’s the time he and I have in this very grill-room.”
“Then it’s all right. If you to him and with him, he would agree to sell the shop, and father would be happy. Think how father would be to you! It would make all the difference.”
Archie this over in his mind.
“Something in that,” he agreed.
“It would make him see what a you are!”
“Well,” said Archie, “I’m to say that any which what you might call in your father me as a ought to one’s best attention. How much did he offer Salvatore for his shop?”
“I don’t know. There is father.—Call him over and ask him.”
Archie over to where Mr. Brewster had into a chair at a table. It was plain at that that Daniel Brewster had his and was them with an grace. He was at the table-cloth.
“You call him,” said Archie, having his relative. “You know him better.”
“Let’s go over to him.”
They the room. Lucille sat opposite her father. Archie himself over a chair in the background.
“Father, dear,” said Lucille. “Archie has got an idea.”
“Archie?” said Mr. Brewster incredulously.
“This is me,” said Archie, himself with a spoon. “The tall, distinguished-looking bird.”
“What new fool-thing is he up to now?”
“It’s a idea, father. He wants to help you over your new hotel.”
“Wants to it for me, I suppose?”
“By Jove!” said Archie, reflectively. “That’s not a scheme! I of an hotel. I shouldn’t mind taking a at it.”
“He has of a way of of Salvatore and his shop.”
For the time Mr. Brewster’s in the to stir. He looked at his son-in-law.
“He has, has he?” he said.
Archie a roll on a and a plate underneath. The roll away into a corner.
“Sorry!” said Archie. “My fault, absolutely! I you a roll. I’ll a bill for it. Oh, about this sportsman Salvatore, Well, it’s like this, you know. He and I are great pals. I’ve him for years and years. At least, it like years and years. Lu was that I him out in his and him with my manner and brain power and what not.”
“It was your idea, precious,” said Lucille.
Mr. Brewster was silent.—Much as it against the to have to admit it, there to be something in this.
“What do you to do?”
“Become a old ambassador. How much did you offer the chappie?”
“Three thousand dollars. Twice as much as the place is worth. He’s out on me for revenge.”
“Ah, but how did you offer it to him, what? I to say, I you got your lawyer to him a full of whereases, peradventures, and parties of the part, and so forth. No good, old companion!”
“Don’t call me old companion!”
“All wrong, laddie! Nothing like it, dear heart! No good at all, friend of my youth! Take it from your Uncle Archibald! I’m a student of nature, and I know a thing or two.”
“That’s not much,” Mr. Brewster, who was his son-in-law’s manner a little trying.
“Now, don’t interrupt, father,” said Lucille, severely. “Can’t you see that Archie is going to be in a minute?”
“He’s got to me!”
“What you ought to do,” said Archie, “is to let me go and see him, taking the in bills. I’ll roll them about on the table in of him. That’ll him!” He Mr. Brewster with a roll. “I’ll tell you what to do. Give me three thousand of the best and crispest, and I’ll to that shop. It can’t fail, laddie!”
“Don’t call me laddie!” Mr. Brewster pondered. “Very well,” he said at last. “I didn’t know you had so much sense,” he added grudgingly.
“Oh, positively!” said Archie. “Beneath a I a brain like a buzz-saw. Sense? I it, laddie; I with it.”
There were moments the days when Mr. Brewster permitted himself to hope; but more were the moments when he told himself that a like his son-in-law not fail somehow to make a of the negotiations. His relief, therefore, when Archie into his private room and that he had succeeded was great.
“You managed to make that sell out?”
Archie some papers off the with a careless gesture, and seated himself on the spot.
“Absolutely! I spoke to him as one old friend to another, the all over the place; and he sang a from ‘Rigoletto,’ and on the line.”
“You’re not such a as you look,” owned Mr. Brewster.
Archie a match on the and a cigarette.
“It’s a little shop,” he said. “I took a to it. Full of newspapers, don’t you know, and novels, and some weird-looking of chocolates, and with the most labels. I think I’ll make a success of it. It’s in the middle of a good neighbourhood. One of these days somebody will be a big hotel about there, and that’ll help a lot. I look to my days on the other of the with a full set of white and a skull-cap, by everybody. Everybody’ll say, ‘Oh, you must that quaint, old blighter! He’s a character.’”
Mr. Brewster’s air of had way to a look of discomfort, almost of alarm. He his son-in-law was in badinage; but so, his were not soothing.
“Well, I’m much obliged,” he said. “That shop was up everything. Now I can start right away.”
Archie his eyebrows.
“But, my dear old top, I’m sorry to your and stop you rainbows, and all that, but aren’t you that the shop to me? I don’t at all know that I want to sell, either!”
“I gave you the money to that shop!”
“And of you it was, too!” Archie, unreservedly. “It was the money you gave me, and I shall always tell that it was you who my fortunes. Some day, when I’m the Newspaper-and-Tobacco-Shop King, I’ll tell the world all about it in my autobiography.”
Mr. Brewster rose from his seat.
“Do you think you can me up, you—you worm?”
“Well,” said Archie, “the way I look at it is this. Ever since we met, you’ve been after me to one of the world’s workers, and earn a for myself, and what not; and now I see a way to you for your and encouragement. You’ll look me up sometimes at the good old shop, won’t you?” He off the table and moved the door. “There won’t be any where you are concerned. You can for any amount any time you want a cigar or a of chocolate. Well, toodle-oo!”
“Stop!”
“Now what?”
“How much do you want for that shop?”
“I don’t want money.-I want a job.-If you are going to take my life-work away from me, you ought to give me something else to do.”
“What job?”
“You it the other day. I want to manage your new hotel.”
“Don’t be a fool! What do you know about an hotel?”
“Nothing. It will be your to teach me the while the is being up.”
There was a pause, while Mr. Brewster three off a pen-holder.
“Very well,” he said at last.
“Topping!” said Archie. “I you’d see it. I’ll study your methods, what! Adding some of my own, of course. You know, I’ve of one on the Cosmopolis already.”
“Improvement on the Cosmopolis!” Mr. Brewster, in his feelings.
“Yes. There’s one point where the old Cosmop up badly, and I’m going to see that it’s at my little shack. Customers will be to their their doors at night, and they’ll them in the morning. Well, pip, pip! I must be popping. Time is money, you know, with us men.”
