“Is the Cosmopolis giving free board and lodging these days?”
“Rather! That’ll be all right. Well, this is the spot. We’ll start by trickling up to the old boy’s suite and looking over his reach- me-downs. I know the waiter on his floor. A very sound chappie. He’ll let us in with his pass-key.”
And so it came about that Mr. Daniel Brewster, returning to his suite in the middle of lunch in order to find a paper dealing with the subject he was discussing with his guest, the architect of his new hotel, was aware of a murmur of voices behind the closed door of his bedroom. Recognising the accents of his son-in-law, he breathed an oath and charged in. He objected to Archie wandering at large about his suite.
The sight that met his eyes when he opened the door did nothing to soothe him. The floor was a sea of clothes. There were coats on the chairs, trousers on the bed, shirts on the bookshelf. And in the middle of his welter stood Archie, with a man who, to Mr. Brewster’s heated eye, looked like a tramp comedian out of a burlesque show.
“Great Godfrey!” ejaculated Mr. Brewster.
Archie looked up with a friendly smile.
“Oh, halloa-halloa!” he said, affably, “We were just glancing through your spare scenery to see if we couldn’t find something for my pal here. This is Mr. Brewster, my father-in-law, old man.”
Archie scanned his relative’s twisted features. Something in his expression seemed not altogether encouraging. He decided that the negotiations had better be conducted 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 friendly business chat. You stay here.”
In the other room Mr. Brewster turned on Archie like a wounded lion of the desert.
“What the–!”
Archie secured one of his coat-buttons and began to massage it affectionately.
“Ought to have explained!” said Archie, “only didn’t want to interrupt your lunch. The sportsman on the horizon is a dear old pal of mine–”
Mr. Brewster wrenched himself free.
“What the devil do you mean, you worm, by bringing tramps into my bedroom and messing 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 during the war. He gave me a bit of sausage outside St. Mihiel–”
“Damn you and him and the sausage!”
“Absolutely. But listen. He can’t remember who he is or where he was born or what his name is, and he’s broke; so, dash it, I must look after him. You see, he gave me a bit of sausage.”
Mr. Brewster’s frenzy gave way to an ominous calm.
“I’ll give him two seconds to clear out of here. If he isn’t gone by then I’ll have him thrown out”
Archie was shocked.
“You don’t mean that?”
“I do mean that.”
“But where is he to go?”
“Outside.”
“But you don’t understand. This chappie has lost his memory because he was wounded in the war. Keep that fact firmly fixed in the old bean. He fought for you. Fought and bled 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 sling a chappie out into the cold hard world who bled in gallons to make the world safe for the Hotel Cosmopolis.”
Mr. Brewster looked ostentatiously 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 get the wind up. I know where he can go. It’s just occurred to me I’ll put him up at my little shop.”
The purple ebbed from Mr. Brewster’s face. Such was his emotion that he had forgotten that infernal shop. He sat down. There was more silence.
“Oh, gosh!” said Mr. Brewster.
“I knew you would be reasonable about it,” said Archie, approvingly. “Now, honestly, as man to man, how do we go?”
“What do you want me to do?” growled Mr. Brewster.
“I thought you might put the chappie up for a while, and give him a chance to look round and nose about a bit”