Indiscretions of Archie - P. G. Wodehouse (essential books to read txt) 📗

a sharp sound which brought him back to earth with a jerk.

He sat up silently. The fact that the room was still in darkness made it obvious that something nefarious was afoot. Plainly there was dirty work in preparation at the crossroads. He stared into the blackness, and, as his eyes grew accustomed to it, was presently able to see an indistinct form bending over something on the floor. The sound of rather stertorous breathing came to him.

Archie had many defects which prevented him being the perfect man, but lack of courage was not one of them. His somewhat rudimentary intelligence had occasionally led his superior officers during the war to thank God that Great Britain had a Navy, but even these stern critics had found nothing to complain of in the manner in which he bounded 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 sailing in the direction of the back of the intruder’s neck before a wiser man would have completed his plan of campaign. The miscreant collapsed under him with a squashy sound, like the wind going out of a pair of bellows, and Archie, taking a firm seat on his spine, rubbed the other’s face in the carpet and awaited the progress of events.

At the end of half a minute it became apparent that there was going to be no counterattack. The dashing swiftness of the assault had apparently had the effect of depriving the marauder of his entire stock of breath. He was gurgling to himself in a pained sort of way and making no effort to rise. Archie, feeling that it would be safe to get up and switch on the light, did so, and, turning after completing this manoeuvre, was greeted by the spectacle of his father-in-law, seated on the floor in a breathless and dishevelled condition, blinking at the sudden illumination. On the carpet beside Mr. Brewster lay a long knife, and beside the knife lay the handsomely framed masterpiece of J. B. Wheeler’s fiancée, Miss Alice Wigmore. Archie stared at this collection dumbly.

“Oh, what-ho!” he observed at length, feebly.

A distinct chill manifested itself in the region of Archie’s spine. This could mean only one thing. His fears had been realised. The strain of modern life, with all its hustle and excitement, had at last proved too much for Mr. Brewster. Crushed by the thousand and one anxieties and worries of a millionaire’s existence, Daniel Brewster had gone off his onion.

Archie was nonplussed. This was his first experience of this kind of thing. What, he asked himself, was the proper procedure in a situation of this sort? What was the local rule? Where, in a word, did he go from here? He was still musing in an embarrassed and baffled way, having taken the precaution of kicking the knife under the sofa, when Mr. Brewster spoke. And there was in, both the words and the method of their delivery so much of his old familiar self that Archie felt quite relieved.

“So it’s you, is it, you wretched blight, you miserable weed!” said Mr. Brewster, having recovered enough breath to be going on with. He glowered at his son-in-law despondently. “I might have expected it! If I was at the North Pole, I could count on you butting in!”

“Shall I get you a drink of water?” said Archie.

“What the devil,” demanded Mr. Brewster, “do you imagine I want with a drink of water?”

“Well⁠—” Archie hesitated delicately. “I had a sort of idea that you had been feeling the strain a bit. I mean to say, rush of modern life and all that sort of thing⁠—”

“What are you doing in my room?” said Mr. Brewster, changing the subject.

“Well, I came to tell you something, and I came in here and was waiting for you, and I saw some chappie biffing about in the dark, and I thought it was a burglar or something after some of your things, so, thinking it over, I got the idea that it would be a fairly juicy scheme to land on him with both feet. No idea it was you, old thing! Frightfully sorry and all that. Meant well!”

Mr. Brewster sighed deeply. He was a just man, and he could not but realise that, in the circumstances, Archie had behaved not unnaturally.

“Oh, well!” he said. “I might have known something would go wrong.”

“Awfully sorry!”

“It can’t be helped. What was it you wanted to tell me?” He eyed his son-in-law piercingly. “Not a cent over twenty dollars!” he said coldly.

Archie hastened to dispel the pardonable error.

“Oh, it wasn’t anything like that,” he said. “As a matter of fact, I think it’s a good egg. It has bucked me up to no inconsiderable degree. I was dining with Lucille just now, and, as we dallied with the foodstuffs, she told me something which⁠—well, I’m bound to say, it made me feel considerably braced. She told me to trot along and ask you if you would mind⁠—”

“I gave Lucille a hundred dollars only last Tuesday.”

Archie was pained.

“Adjust this sordid outlook, old thing!” he urged. “You simply aren’t anywhere near it. Right off the target, absolutely! What Lucille told me to ask you was if you would mind⁠—at some tolerably near date⁠—being a grandfather! Rotten thing to be, of course,” proceeded Archie commiseratingly, “for a chappie of your age, but there it is!”

Mr. Brewster gulped.

“Do you mean to say⁠—?”

“I mean, apt to make a fellow feel a bit of a patriarch. Snowy hair and whatnot. And, of course, for a chappie in the prime of life like you⁠—”

“Do you mean to tell me⁠—? Is this true?”

“Absolutely! Of course, speaking for myself, I’m all for it. I don’t know when I’ve felt more bucked. I sang as I came up here⁠—absolutely warbled in the elevator. But you⁠—”

A curious change had come over Mr. Brewster. He was one of those men who have the appearance of having been hewn out of the solid rock,