A TALE OF A GRANDFATHER
Archie was not a man who allowed himself to worried, about people who were not in his own circle of friends, but in the of the next week he was to admit that he was not easy in his mind about his father-in-law’s condition. He had read all of in the Sunday papers and about the to which captains of are subjected, a which sooner or later is only too to make the go all blooey, and it to him that Mr. Brewster was to the going a too for his stamina. Undeniably he was in an odd manner, and Archie, though no physician, was aware that, when the American business-man, that restless, ever-active machine, in an odd manner, the next thing you know is that two men, one to each arm, are him into the for Bloomingdale.
He did not his to Lucille, not to her anxiety. He up Reggie Tuyl at the club, and from him.
“I say, Reggie, old thing—present company excepted—have there been any in your family?”
Reggie in the which always him in the early afternoon.
“Loonies?” he mumbled, sleepily. “Rather! My uncle Edgar he was twins.”
“Twins, eh?”
“Yes. Silly idea! I mean, you’d have one of my uncle Edgar would have been for any man.”
“How did the thing start?” asked Archie.
“Start? Well, the thing we noticed was when he wanting two of everything. Had to set two places for him at dinner and so on. Always wanted two seats at the theatre. Ran into money, I can tell you.”
“He didn’t up till then? I to say, wasn’t of and all that?”
“Not that I remember. Why?”
Archie’s grave.
“Well, I’ll tell you, old man, though I don’t want it to go any farther, that I’m a about my old father-in-law. I he’s about to go in off the deep-end. I think he’s under the strain. Dashed his has been the last days.”
“Such as?” Mr. Tuyl.
“Well, the other I to be in his suite—incidentally he wouldn’t go above ten dollars, and I wanted twenty-five-and he up a big paper-weight and it for all he was worth.”
“At you?”
“Not at me. That was the part of it. At a on the wall, he said. Well, I to say, do paper-weights at mosquitoes? I mean, is it done?”
“Smash anything?”
“Curiously enough, no. But he only just missed a picture which Lucille had him for his birthday. Another to the left and it would have been a goner.”
“Sounds queer.”
“And, talking of that picture, I looked in on him about a of afternoons later, and he’d taken it from the and it on the and was at it in a marked of manner. That was peculiar, what?”
“On the floor?”
“On the old carpet. When I came in, he was at it in a of way. Absolutely rapt, don’t you know. My in gave him a start—seemed to him from a of trance, you know—and he jumped like an antelope; and, if I hadn’t to him, he would have on the thing. It was unpleasant, you know. His manner was rummy. He to be on something. What ought I to do about it, do you think? It’s not my affair, of course, but it to me that, if he goes on like this, one of these days he’ll be someone with a pickle-fork.”
To Archie’s relief, his father-in-law’s no of development. In fact, his manner to the normal once more, and a days later, meeting Archie in the of the hotel, he cheerful. It was not often that he his time talking to his son-in-law, but on this occasion he with him for minutes about the big picture-robbery which had the item of news on the pages of the papers that day. It was Mr. Brewster’s opinion that the had been the work of a and that nobody was safe.
Daniel Brewster had spoken of this with earnestness, but his had from Archie’s mind when he his way that night to his father-in-law’s suite. Archie was in an mood. In the of dinner he had had a of good news which was his to the of all other matters. It had left him in a comfortable, if dizzy, condition of to all things. He had at the room-clerk as he the lobby, and if he had had a dollar, he would have it to the boy who took him up in the elevator.
He the door of the Brewster unlocked, which at any other time would have him as unusual; but to-night he was in no of mind to notice these trivialities. He in, and, the room dark and no one at home, sat down, too in his to on the lights, and gave himself up to meditation.
There are moods in which one count of time, and Archie not have said how long he had been in the arm-chair near the window when he aware that he was not alone in the room. He had closed his eyes, the to meditate, so had not anyone enter. Nor had he the door open. The he had that somebody had come in was when some hard against some other hard object, producing a which him to earth with a jerk.
He sat up silently. The that the room was still in it that something was afoot. Plainly there was dirty work in at the cross-roads. He into the blackness, and, as his to it, was presently able to see an over something on the floor. The of came to him.
Archie had many which him being the perfect man, but of was not one of them. His had occasionally his officers the to thank God that Great Britain had a Navy, but these had nothing to complain of in the manner in which he over the top. Some of us are thinkers, others men of action. Archie was a man of action, and he was out of his chair and in the direction of the of the intruder’s a man would have his plan of campaign. The under him with a sound, like the wind going out of a pair of bellows, and Archie, taking a seat on his spine, the other’s in the and the progress of events.
At the end of a minute it that there was going to be no counter-attack. The of the had had the of the of his entire stock of breath. He was to himself in a of way and making no to rise. Archie, that it would be safe to up and on the light, did so, and, after this manoeuvre, was by the of his father-in-law, seated on the in a and condition, at the illumination. On the Mr. Brewster a long knife, and the knife the of J. B. Wheeler’s fiancée, Miss Alice Wigmore. Archie at this dumbly.
“Oh, what-ho!” he at length, feebly.
A itself in the region of Archie’s spine. This only one thing. His had been realised. The of modern life, with all its and excitement, had at last proved too much for Mr. Brewster. Crushed by the thousand and one and of a millionaire’s existence, Daniel Brewster had gone off his onion.
Archie was nonplussed. This was his of this of thing. What, he asked himself, was the proper in a of this sort? What was the local rule? Where, in a word, did he go from here? He was still in an embarrassed and way, having taken the of kicking the knife under the sofa, when Mr. Brewster spoke. And there was in, the and the method of their so much of his old familiar self that Archie relieved.
“So it’s you, is it, you blight, you weed!” said Mr. Brewster, having to be going on with. He at his son-in-law despondently. “I might have it! If I was at the North Pole, I count on you in!”
“Shall I you a drink of water?” said Archie.
“What the devil,” Mr. Brewster, “do you I want with a drink of water?”
“Well—” Archie delicately. “I had a of idea that you had been the a bit. I to say, of modern life and all that of thing—”
“What are you doing in my room?” said Mr. Brewster, the subject.
“Well, I came to tell you something, and I came in here and was waiting for you, and I saw some about in the dark, and I it was a or something after some of your things, so, it over, I got the idea that it would be a juicy to land on him with feet. No idea it was you, old thing! Frightfully sorry and all that. Meant well!”
Mr. Brewster deeply. He was a just man, and he not but that, in the circumstances, Archie had not unnaturally.
“Oh, well!” he said. “I might have something would go wrong.”
“Awfully sorry!”
“It can’t be helped. What was it you wanted to tell me?” He his son-in-law piercingly. “Not a over twenty dollars!” he said coldly.
Archie to the error.
“Oh, it wasn’t anything like that,” he said. “As a of fact, I think it’s a good egg. It has me up to no degree. I was with Lucille just now, and, as we with the food-stuffs, she told me something which—well, I’m to say, it me braced. She told me to along and ask you if you would mind—”
“I gave Lucille a hundred only last Tuesday.”
Archie was pained.
“Adjust this outlook, old thing!” he urged. “You aren’t near it. Right off the target, absolutely! What Lucille told me to ask you was if you would mind—at some near date—being a grandfather! Rotten thing to be, of course,” Archie commiseratingly, “for a of your age, but there it is!”
Mr. Brewster gulped.
“Do you to say—?”
“I mean, to make a a of a patriarch. Snowy and what not. And, of course, for a in the of life like you—”
“Do you to tell me—? Is this true?”
“Absolutely! Of course, speaking for myself, I’m all for it. I don’t know when I’ve more bucked. I sang as I came up here—absolutely in the elevator. But you—”
A had come over Mr. Brewster. He was one of those men who have the of having been out of the solid rock, but now in some way he to have melted. For a moment he at Archie, then, moving forward, he his hand in an iron grip.
“This is the best news I’ve had!” he mumbled.
“Awfully good of you to take it like this,” said Archie cordially. “I mean, being a grandfather—”
Mr. Brewster smiled. Of a man of his one say that he playfully; but there was something in his that playfulness.
“My dear old bean,” he said.
Archie started.
“My dear old bean,” Mr. Brewster firmly, “I’m the man in America!” His on the picture which on the floor. He gave a shudder, but himself immediately. “After this,” he said, “I can myself to with that thing for the of my life. I it doesn’t matter.”
“I say,” said Archie, “how about that? Wouldn’t have the thing up if you hadn’t the topic, but, speaking as man to man, what the WERE you up to when I on your just now?”
“I you I had gone off my head?”
“Well, I’m to say—”
Mr. Brewster an at the picture.
“Well, I had every excuse, after with that thing for a week!”
Archie looked at him, astonished.
“I say, old thing, I don’t know if I have got your meaning exactly, but you somehow give me the that you don’t like that old work of Art.”
“Like it!” Mr. Brewster. “It’s nearly me mad! Every time it my eye, it gave me a pain in the neck. To-night I as if I couldn’t it any longer. I didn’t want to Lucille’s feelings, by telling her, so I up my mind I would cut the thing out of its and tell her it had been stolen.”
“What an thing! Why, that’s what old Wheeler did.”
“Who is old Wheeler?”
“Artist chappie. Pal of mine. His fiancée painted the thing, and, when I it off him, he told her it had been stolen. He didn’t on it, either.”
“Your friend Wheeler has good taste.”
Archie was thinking.
“Well, all this past me,” he said. “Personally, I’ve always the thing. Dashed of work, I’ve always considered. Still, of course, if you that way—”
“You may take it from me that I do!”
“Well, then, in that case—You know what a I am—You can tell Lucille it was all my fault—”
The Wigmore Venus up at Archie—it to Archie with a pathetic, smile. For a moment he was of a of guilt; then, his and his heart, he in the air and with on the picture. There was a of canvas, and the Venus to smile.
“Golly!” said Archie, the remorsefully.
Mr. Brewster did not his remorse. For the second time that night he him by the hand.
“My boy!” he quavered. He at Archie as if he were him with new eyes. “My dear boy, you were through the war, were you not?”
“Eh? Oh yes! Right through the old war.”
“What was your rank?”
“Oh, second lieutenant.”
“You ought to have been a general!” Mr. Brewster his hand once more in a embrace. “I only hope,” he added “that your son will be like you!”
There are compliments, or from sources, which reels, stunned. Archie’s did.
He convulsively. He had to these from Daniel Brewster.
“How would it be, old thing,” he said almost brokenly, “if you and I to the and had a spot of sherbet?”
THE END
