Indiscretions of Archie, P. G. Wodehouse [best english books to read for beginners TXT] 📗

the telegram, his mouth open. His friend eyed him solicitously.

“No bad news, I hope?”

Mr. Brewster gurgled in a strangled way.

“Bad news? Bad⁠—? Here, read it for yourself.”

Professor Binstead, one of the three most inquisitive men in New York, took the slip of paper with gratitude.

“ ‘Returning New York today with darling Archie,’ ” he read. “ ‘Lots of love from us both. Lucille.’ ” He gaped at his host. “Who is Archie?” he enquired.

“Who is Archie?” echoed Mr. Brewster helplessly. “Who is⁠—? That’s just what I would like to know.”

“ ‘Darling Archie,’ ” murmured the professor, musing over the telegram. “ ‘Returning today with darling Archie.’ Strange!”

Mr. Brewster continued to stare before him. When you send your only daughter on a visit to Miami minus any entanglements and she mentions in a telegram that she has acquired a darling Archie, you are naturally startled. He rose from the table with a bound. It had occurred to him that by neglecting a careful study of his mail during the past week, as was his bad habit when busy, he had lost an opportunity of keeping abreast with current happenings. He recollected now that a letter had arrived from Lucille some time ago, and that he had put it away unopened till he should have leisure to read it. Lucille was a dear girl, he had felt, but her letters when on a vacation seldom contained anything that couldn’t wait a few days for a reading. He sprang for his desk, rummaged among his papers, and found what he was seeking.

It was a long letter, and there was silence in the room for some moments while he mastered its contents. Then he turned to the professor, breathing heavily.

“Good heavens!”

“Yes?” said Professor Binstead eagerly. “Yes?”

“Good Lord!”

“Well?”

“Good gracious!”

“What is it?” demanded the professor in an agony.

Mr. Brewster sat down again with a thud.

“She’s married!”

“Married!”

“Married! To an Englishman!”

“Bless my soul!”

“She says,” proceeded Mr. Brewster, referring to the letter again, “that they were both so much in love that they simply had to slip off and get married, and she hopes I won’t be cross. Cross!” gasped Mr. Brewster, gazing wildly at his friend.

“Very disturbing!”

“Disturbing! You bet it’s disturbing! I don’t know anything about the fellow. Never heard of him in my life. She says he wanted a quiet wedding because he thought a fellow looked such a chump getting married! And I must love him, because he’s all set to love me very much!”

“Extraordinary!”

Mr. Brewster put the letter down.

“An Englishman!”

“I have met some very agreeable Englishmen,” said Professor Binstead.

“I don’t like Englishmen,” growled Mr. Brewster. “Parker’s an Englishman.”

“Your valet?”

“Yes. I believe he wears my shirts on the sly,’ ” said Mr. Brewster broodingly, “If I catch him⁠—! What would you do about this, Binstead?”

“Do?” The professor considered the point judicially. “Well, really, Brewster, I do not see that there is anything you can do. You must simply wait and meet the man. Perhaps he will turn out an admirable son-in-law.”

“H’m!” Mr. Brewster declined to take an optimistic view. “But an Englishman, Binstead!” he said with pathos. “Why,” he went on, memory suddenly stirring, “there was an Englishman at this hotel only a week or two ago who went about knocking it in a way that would have amazed you! Said it was a rotten place! My hotel!”

Professor Binstead clicked his tongue sympathetically. He understood his friend’s warmth.

III Mr. Brewster Delivers Sentence

At about the same moment that Professor Binstead was clicking his tongue in Mr. Brewster’s sitting-room, Archie Moffam sat contemplating his bride in a drawing-room on the express from Miami. He was thinking that this was too good to be true. His brain had been in something of a whirl these last few days, but this was one thought that never failed to emerge clearly from the welter.

Mrs. Archie Moffam, née Lucille Brewster, was small and slender. She had a little animated face, set in a cloud of dark hair. She was so altogether perfect that Archie had frequently found himself compelled to take the marriage certificate out of his inside pocket and study it furtively, to make himself realise that this miracle of good fortune had actually happened to him.

“Honestly, old bean⁠—I mean, dear old thing⁠—I mean, darling,” said Archie, “I can’t believe it!”

“What?”

“What I mean is, I can’t understand why you should have married a blighter like me.”

Lucille’s eyes opened. She squeezed his hand.

“Why, you’re the most wonderful thing in the world, precious!⁠—Surely you know that?”

“Absolutely escaped my notice. Are you sure?”

“Of course I’m sure! You wonder-child! Nobody could see you without loving you!”

Archie heaved an ecstatic sigh. Then a thought crossed his mind. It was a thought which frequently came to mar his bliss.

“I say, I wonder if your father will think that!”

“Of course he will!”

“We rather sprung this, as it were, on the old lad,” said Archie dubiously. “What sort of a man is your father?”

“Father’s a darling, too.”

“Rummy thing he should own that hotel,” said Archie. “I had a frightful row with a blighter of a manager there just before I left for Miami. Your father ought to sack that chap. He was a blot on the landscape!”

It had been settled by Lucille during the journey that Archie should be broken gently to his father-in-law. That is to say, instead of bounding blithely into Mr. Brewster’s presence hand in hand, the happy pair should separate for half an hour or so, Archie hanging around in the offing while Lucille saw her father and told him the whole story, or those chapters of it which she had omitted from her letter for want of space. Then, having impressed Mr. Brewster sufficiently with his luck in having acquired Archie for a son-in-law, she would lead him to where his bit of good fortune awaited him.

The programme worked out admirably in its earlier stages. When the two emerged from Mr. Brewster’s room to meet Archie, Mr. Brewster’s general idea was that fortune had smiled upon him in an almost unbelievable fashion and had presented him with a son-in-law who combined in almost equal parts the more admirable characteristics of Apollo, Sir Galahad,