Indiscretions of Archie | Page 9

let you have a suite and I'll let
you have your meals, but outside of that--nothing doing! Nothing doing!
Do you understand what I mean?"
"Absolutely! You mean, 'Napoo!'"
"You can sign bills for a reasonable amount in my restaurant, and the
hotel will look after your laundry. But not a cent do you get out me.
And, if you want your shoes shined, you can pay for it yourself in the
basement. If you leave them outside your door, I'll instruct the
floor-waiter to throw them down the air-shaft. Do you understand?

Good! Now, is there anything more you want to ask?"
Archie smiled a propitiatory smile.
"Well, as a matter of fact, I was going to ask if you would stagger along
and have a bite with us in the grill-room?"
"I will not!"
"I'll sign the bill," said Archie, ingratiatingly. "You don't think much of
it? Oh, right-o!"
CHAPTER IV
WORK WANTED
It seemed to Archie, as he surveyed his position at the end of the first
month of his married life, that all was for the best in the best of all
possible worlds. In their attitude towards America, visiting Englishmen
almost invariably incline to extremes, either detesting all that therein is
or else becoming enthusiasts on the subject of the country, its climate,
and its institutions. Archie belonged to the second class. He liked
America and got on splendidly with Americans from the start. He was a
friendly soul, a mixer; and in New York, that city of mixers, he found
himself at home. The atmosphere of good-fellowship and the
open-hearted hospitality of everybody he met appealed to him. There
were moments when it seemed to him as though New York had simply
been waiting for him to arrive before giving the word to let the revels
commence.
Nothing, of course, in this world is perfect; and, rosy as were the
glasses through which Archie looked on his new surroundings, he had
to admit that there was one flaw, one fly in the ointment, one individual
caterpillar in the salad. Mr. Daniel Brewster, his father-in-law,
remained consistently unfriendly. Indeed, his manner towards his new
relative became daily more and more a manner which would have
caused gossip on the plantation if Simon Legree had exhibited it in his
relations with Uncle Tom. And this in spite of the fact that Archie, as

early as the third morning of his stay, had gone to him and in the most
frank and manly way had withdrawn his criticism of the Hotel
Cosmopolis, giving it as his considered opinion that the Hotel
Cosmopolis on closer inspection appeared to be a good egg, one of the
best and brightest, and a bit of all right.
"A credit to you, old thing," said Archie cordially.
"Don't call me old thing!" growled Mr. Brewster.
"Eight-o, old companion!" said Archie amiably.
Archie, a true philosopher, bore this hostility with fortitude, but it
worried Lucille.
"I do wish father understood you better," was her wistful comment
when Archie had related the conversation.
"Well, you know," said Archie, "I'm open for being understood any
time he cares to take a stab at it."
"You must try and make him fond of you."
"But how? I smile winsomely at him and what not, but he doesn't
respond."
"Well, we shall have to think of something. I want him to realise what
an angel you are. You ARE an angel, you know."
"No, really?"
"Of course you are."
"It's a rummy thing," said Archie, pursuing a train of thought which
was constantly with him, "the more I see of you, the more I wonder
how you can have a father like--I mean to say, what I mean to say is, I
wish I had known your mother; she must have been frightfully
attractive."

"What would really please him, I know," said Lucille, "would be if you
got some work to do. He loves people who work."
"Yes?" said Archie doubtfully. "Well, you know, I heard him
interviewing that chappie behind the desk this morning, who works like
the dickens from early morn to dewy eve, on the subject of a mistake in
his figures; and, if he loved him, he dissembled it all right. Of course, I
admit that so far I haven't been one of the toilers, but the dashed
difficult thing is to know how to start. I'm nosing round, but the
openings for a bright young man seem so scarce."
"Well, keep on trying. I feel sure that, if you could only find something
to do, it doesn't matter what, father would be quite different."
It was possibly the dazzling prospect of making Mr. Brewster quite
different that stimulated Archie. He was strongly of the opinion that
any change in his father-in-law must inevitably be for