THE SAUSAGE CHAPPIE
The Personality That Wins cost Archie two in cash and a of when he asked for it at the store. To a of that name would to argue that you haven’t a already, and Archie was at some pains to to the girl the that he wanted it for a friend. The girl more in his English than in his explanation, and Archie was aware, as he receded, that she was it in an for the of her and fellow-workers. However, what is a little discomfort, if in friendship’s name?
He was up Broadway after the store when he Reggie Tuyl, who was along in fashion near Thirty-Ninth Street.
“Hullo, Reggie old thing!” said Archie.
“Hullo!” said Reggie, a man of words.
“I’ve just been a book for Bill Brewster,” on Archie. “It that old Bill—What’s the matter?”
He off his abruptly. A of had passed across his companion’s features. The hand Archie’s arm had convulsively. One would have said that Reginald had a shock.
“It’s nothing,” said Reggie. “I’m all right now. I of that fellow’s suddenly. They me a bit. I’m all right now,” he said, bravely.
Archie, his friend’s gaze, understood. Reggie Tuyl was at his in the morning, and he had a for clothes. He had been to from members the in the of soft with dinner-jackets. And the short, thick-set man who was just in of them in of was no dandy. His best friend not have called him dapper. Take him for all in all and on the hoof, he might have been as a model for a sketch of What the Well-Dressed Man Should Not Wear.
In costume, as in most other things, it is best to take a line and to it. This man had vacillated. His was in a green scarf; he an evening-dress coat; and his were in a pair of for a larger man. To the north he was by a hat, to the south by shoes.
Archie the man’s carefully.
“Bit thick!” he said, sympathetically. “But of Broadway isn’t Fifth Avenue. What I to say is, Bohemian and what not. Broadway’s with who don’t how they look. Probably this bird is a master-mind of some species.”
“All the same, man’s no right to wear evening-dress with trousers.”
“Absolutely not! I see what you mean.”
At this point the turned. Seen from the front, he was more unnerving. He appeared to no shirt, though this was by the that the under the arms. He was not a man. At his best he have been that, and in the past he had managed to a that ran from the of his mouth half-way across his cheek. Even when his was in he had an odd expression; and when, as he to do now, he smiled, odd a mild adjective, for purposes of description. It was not an face, however. Unquestionably genial, indeed. There was something in it that had a quality of appeal.
Archie started. He at the man, Memory stirred.
“Great Scot!” he cried. “It’s the Sausage Chappie!”
Reginald Tuyl gave a little moan. He was not used to this of thing. A man as scenes, Archie’s him. For Archie, his arm, had and was the other’s hand warmly.
“Well, well, well! My dear old chap! You must me, what? No? Yes?”
The man with the puzzled. He the shoes, the hat, and Archie questioningly.
“I don’t to place you,” he said.
Archie the of the evening-dress coat. He his arm with that of the dress-reformer.
“We met St Mihiel in the war. You gave me a of sausage. One of the most events in history. Nobody but a sportsman would have with a of at that moment to a stranger. Never it, by Jove. Saved my life, absolutely. Hadn’t a for eight hours. Well, have you got anything on? I to say, you aren’t for or any of that species, are you? Fine! Then I move we all off and a bite somewhere.” He the other’s arm fondly. “Fancy meeting you again like this! I’ve often what of you. But, by Jove, I was forgetting. Dashed of me. My friend, Mr. Tuyl.”
Reggie gulped. The longer he looked at it, the this man’s was to bear. His passed from the shoes to the trousers, to the green scarf, from the green to the hat.
“Sorry,” he mumbled. “Just remembered. Important date. Late already. Er—see you some time—”
He melted away, a man. Archie was not sorry to see him go. Reggie was a good chap, but he would have been de at this reunion.
“I vote we go to the Cosmopolis,” he said, his newly-found friend through the crowd. “The and isn’t there, and I can the bill which is no small nowadays.”
The Sausage Chappie amusedly.
“I can’t go to a place like the Cosmopolis looking like this.”
Archie, was a little embarrassed.
“Oh, I don’t know, you know, don’t you know!” he said. “Still, since you have the up, you did the good old a mixed this what? I to say, you absent-mindedly, as it were, to have got of from a good number of your suitings.”
“Suitings? How do you mean, suitings? I haven’t any suitings! Who do you think I am? Vincent Astor? All I have is what I up in.”
Archie was shocked. This touched him. He himself had had any money in his life, but somehow he had always to manage to have of clothes. How this was he not say. He had always had a of idea that tailors were who failed to have a pair of or something up their to present to the deserving. There was the drawback, of course, that once they had you they were to you a of about it; but you soon managed to their handwriting, and then it was a to their from your and them in the waste-paper basket. This was the case he had of a man who was of clothes.
“My dear old lad,” he said, briskly, “this must be remedied! Oh, positively! This must be at once! I my wouldn’t fit you? No. Well, I tell you what. We’ll something from my father-in-law. Old Brewster, you know, the who the Cosmopolis. His’ll fit you like the paper on the wall, he’s a little blighter, too. What I to say is, he’s also one of those sturdy, square, fine-looking of about the middle height. By the way, where are you stopping these days?”
“Nowhere just at present. I of taking one of those self-contained Park benches.”
“Are you broke?”
“Am I!”
Archie was concerned.
“You ought to a job.”
“I ought. But somehow I don’t able to.”
“What did you do the war?”
“I’ve forgotten.”
“Forgotten!”
“Forgotten.”
“How do you mean—forgotten? You can’t mean—forgotten?”
“Yes. It’s gone.”
“But I to say. You can’t have a thing like that.”
“Can’t I! I’ve all of things. Where I was born. How old I am. Whether I’m married or single. What my name is—”
“Well, I’m dashed!” said Archie, staggered. “But you about me a of St. Mihiel?”
“No, I didn’t. I’m taking your word for it. For all I know you may be me into some to me of my hat. I don’t know you from Adam. But I like your conversation—especially the part about eating—and I’m taking a chance.”
Archie was concerned.
“Listen, old bean. Make an effort. You must that episode? It was just St. Mihiel, about five in the evening. Your little were next to my little lot, and we to meet, and I said ‘What ho!’ and you said ‘Halloa!’ and I said ‘What ho! What ho!’ and you said ‘Have a of sausage?’ and I said ‘What ho! What ho! What ho!’”
“The to have been but I don’t it. It must have been after that that I stopped one. I don’t to have up with myself since I got hit.”
“Oh! That’s how you got that scar?”
“No. I got that jumping through a plate-glass window in London on Armistice night.”
“What on earth did you do that for?”
“Oh, I don’t know. It a good idea at the time.”
“But if you can a thing like that, why can’t you your name?”
“I that after I came out of hospital. It’s the part that’s gone.”
Archie him on the shoulder.
“I know just what you want. You need a of and repose, to think over and so forth. You mustn’t go sleeping on Park benches. Won’t do at all. Not a like it. You must shift to the Cosmopolis. It isn’t a spot, the old Cosmop. I didn’t like it much the night I was there, there was a that drip-drip-drip all night and me awake, but the place has its points.”
“Is the Cosmopolis free and these days?”
“Rather! That’ll be all right. Well, this is the spot. We’ll start by up to the old boy’s and looking over his reach-me-downs. I know the waiter on his floor. A very chappie. He’ll let us in with his pass-key.”
And so it came about that Mr. Daniel Brewster, returning to his in the middle of in order to a paper with the he was with his guest, the of his new hotel, was aware of a of voices the closed door of his bedroom. Recognising the of his son-in-law, he an and in. He to Archie at large about his suite.
The that met his when he opened the door did nothing to him. The was a sea of clothes. There were on the chairs, on the bed, on the bookshelf. And in the middle of his Archie, with a man who, to Mr. Brewster’s eye, looked like a out of a show.
“Great Godfrey!” Mr. Brewster.
Archie looked up with a smile.
“Oh, halloa-halloa!” he said, affably, “We were just through your to see if we couldn’t something for my here. This is Mr. Brewster, my father-in-law, old man.”
Archie his relative’s features. Something in his not encouraging. He that the had be in private. “One moment, old lad,” he said to his new friend. “I just want to have a little talk with my father-in-law in the other room. Just a little chat. You here.”
In the other room Mr. Brewster on Archie like a lion of the desert.
“What the—!”
Archie one of his coat-buttons and to it affectionately.
“Ought to have explained!” said Archie, “only didn’t want to your lunch. The sportsman on the is a dear old of mine—”
Mr. Brewster himself free.
“What the do you mean, you worm, by into my and about with my clothes?”
“That’s just what I’m trying to explain, if you’ll only listen. This bird is a bird I met in France the war. He gave me a of St. Mihiel—”
“Damn you and him and the sausage!”
“Absolutely. But listen. He can’t who he is or where he was or what his name is, and he’s broke; so, it, I must look after him. You see, he gave me a of sausage.”
Mr. Brewster’s gave way to an calm.
“I’ll give him two to clear out of here. If he isn’t gone by then I’ll have him out.”
Archie was shocked.
“You don’t that?”
“I do that.”
“But where is he to go?”
“Outside.”
“But you don’t understand. This has his memory he was in the war. Keep that in the old bean. He for you. Fought and for you. Bled profusely, by Jove. And he saved my life!”
“If I’d got nothing else against him, that would be enough.”
“But you can’t a out into the cold hard world who in to make the world safe for the Hotel Cosmopolis.”
Mr. Brewster looked at his watch.
“Two seconds!” he said.
There was a silence. Archie appeared to be thinking. “Right-o!” he said at last. “No need to the wind up. I know where he can go. It’s just to me I’ll put him up at my little shop.”
The from Mr. Brewster’s face. Such was his that he had that shop. He sat down. There was more silence.
“Oh, gosh!” said Mr. Brewster.
“I you would be about it,” said Archie, approvingly. “Now, honestly, as man to man, how do we go?”
“What do you want me to do?” Mr. Brewster.
“I you might put the up for a while, and give him a to look and nose about a bit.”
“I to give any more free and lodging.”
“Any more?”
“Well, he would be the second, wouldn’t he?”
Archie looked pained.
“It’s true,” he said, “that when I came here I was resting, so to speak; but didn’t I go right out and the of your new hotel? Positively!”
“I will not this tramp.”
“Well, him a job, then.”
“What of a job?”
“Oh, any old sort.”
“He can be a waiter if he likes.”
“All right; I’ll put the him.”
He returned to the bedroom. The Sausage Chappie was into the with a tie his neck.
“I say, old top,” said Archie, apologetically, “the Emperor of the Blighters out says you can have a job here as waiter, and he won’t do another thing for you. How about it?”
“Do waiters eat?”
“I so. Though, by Jove, come to think of it, I’ve one at it.”
“That’s good for me!” said the Sausage Chappie. “When do I begin?”
