“It was your idea, precious,” said Lucille.
Mr. Brewster was silent.–Much as it went against the grain to have to admit it, there seemed to be something in this.
“What do you propose to do?”
“Become a jolly old ambassador. How much did you offer the chappie?”
“Three thousand dollars. Twice as much as the place is worth. He’s holding out on me for revenge.”
“Ah, but how did you offer it to him, what? I mean to say, I bet you got your lawyer to write him a letter full of whereases, peradventures, and parties of the first 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 human nature, and I know a thing or two.”
“That’s not much,” growled Mr. Brewster, who was finding his son-in- law’s superior manner a little trying.
“Now, don’t interrupt, father,” said Lucille, severely. “Can’t you see that Archie is going to be tremendously clever in a minute?”
“He’s got to show me!”
“What you ought to do,” said Archie, “is to let me go and see him, taking the stuff in crackling bills. I’ll roll them about on the table in front of him. That’ll fetch him!” He prodded Mr. Brewster encouragingly with a roll. “I’ll tell you what to do. Give me three thousand of the best and crispest, and I’ll undertake to buy 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 rugged exterior I hide a brain like a buzz-saw. Sense? I exude it, laddie; I drip with it.”
There were moments during the ensuing days when Mr. Brewster permitted himself to hope; but more frequent were the moments when he told himself that a pronounced chump like his son-in-law could not fail somehow to make a mess of the negotiations. His relief, therefore, when Archie curveted into his private room and announced that he had succeeded was great.
“You really managed to make that wop sell out?”
Archie brushed some papers off the desk with a careless gesture, and seated himself on the vacant spot.
“Absolutely! I spoke to him as one old friend to another, sprayed the bills all over the place; and he sang a few bars from ‘Rigoletto,’ and signed on the dotted line.”
“You’re not such a fool as you look,” owned Mr. Brewster.
Archie scratched a match on the desk and lit a cigarette.
“It’s a jolly little shop,” he said. “I took quite a fancy to it. Full of newspapers, don’t you know, and cheap novels, and some weird-looking sort of chocolates, and cigars with the most fearfully attractive labels. I think I’ll make a success of it. It’s bang in the middle of a dashed good neighbourhood. One of these days somebody will be building a big hotel round about there, and that’ll help trade a lot. I look forward to ending my days on the other side of the counter with a full set of white whiskers and a skull-cap, beloved by everybody. Everybody’ll say, ‘Oh, you MUST patronise that quaint, delightful old blighter! He’s quite a character.'”
Mr. Brewster’s air of grim satisfaction had given way to a look of discomfort, almost of alarm. He presumed his son-in-law was merely indulging in badinage; but even so, his words were not soothing.
“Well, I’m much obliged,” he said. “That infernal shop was holding up everything. Now I can start building right away.”
Archie raised his eyebrows.
“But, my dear old top, I’m sorry to spoil your daydreams and stop you chasing rainbows, and all that, but aren’t you forgetting that the shop belongs to me? I don’t at all know that I want to sell, either!”
“I gave you the money to buy that shop!”
“And dashed generous of you it was, too!” admitted Archie, unreservedly. “It was the first money you ever gave me, and I shall always, tell interviewers that it was you who founded my fortunes. Some day, when I’m the Newspaper-and-Tobacco-Shop King, I’ll tell the world all about it in my autobiography.”