'Pearls?'
'Pearls. And her hair is a lovely brown, like leaves in autumn. In fact,' concluded Bill, slipping down from the heights with something of a jerk, 'she's a corker. Isn't she, Archie?'
Archie opened his eyes.
'Quite right, old top!' he said. 'It was the only thing to do.'
'What the devil are you talking about?' demanded Bill coldly. He had been suspicious all along of Archie's statement that he could listen better with his eyes shut.
'Eh? Oh, sorry! Thinking of something else.'
'You were asleep.'
'No, no, positively and distinctly not. Frightfully interested and rapt and all that, only I didn't quite get what you said.'
'I said that Mabel was a corker.'
'Oh, absolutely in every respect.'
'There!' Bill turned to Lucille triumphantly. 'You hear that? And Archie has only seen her photograph. Wait till he sees her in the flesh.'
'My dear old chap!' said Archie, shocked. 'Ladies present! I mean to say, what!'
'I'm afraid that father will be the one you'll find it hard to convince.'
'Yes,' admitted her brother gloomily.
'Your Mabel sounds perfectly charming, but--well, you know what father is. It IS a pity she sings in the chorus.'
'She-hasn't much of a voice,'-argued Bill-in extenuation.
'All the same--'
Archie, the conversation having reached a topic on which he considered himself one of the greatest living authorities--to wit, the unlovable disposition of his father-in-law--addressed the meeting as one who has a right to be heard.
'Lucille's absolutely right, old thing.--Absolutely correct-o! Your esteemed progenitor is a pretty tough nut, and it's no good trying to get away from it.-And I'm sorry to have to say it, old bird, but, if you come bounding in with part of the personnel of the ensemble on your arm and try to dig a father's blessing out of him, he's extremely apt to stab you in the gizzard.'
'I wish,' said Bill, annoyed, 'you wouldn't talk as though Mabel were the ordinary kind of chorus-girl. She's only on the stage because her mother's hard-up and she wants to educate her little brother.'
'I say,' said Archie, concerned. 'Take my tip, old top. In chatting the matter over with the pater, don't dwell too much on that aspect of the affair.--I've been watching him closely, and it's about all he can stick, having to support ME. If you ring in a mother and a little brother on him, he'll crack under the strain.'
'Well, I've got to do something about it. Mabel will be over here in a week.'
'Great Scot! You never told us that.'
'Yes. She's going to be in the new Billington show. And, naturally, she will expect to meet my family. I've told her all about you.'
'Did you explain father to her?' asked Lucille.
'Well, I just said she mustn't mind him, as his bark was worse than his bite.'
'Well,' said Archie, thoughtfully, 'he hasn't bitten me yet, so you may be right. But you've got to admit that he's a bit of a barker.'
Lucille considered.
'Really, Bill, I think your best plan would be to go straight to father and tell him the whole thing.--You don't want him to hear about it in a roundabout way.'
'The trouble is that, whenever I'm with father, I can't think of anything to say.'
Archie found himself envying his father-in-law this merciful dispensation of Providence; for, where he himself was concerned, there had been no lack of eloquence on Bill's part. In the brief period in which he had known him, Bill had talked all the time and always on the one topic. As unpromising a subject as the tariff laws was easily diverted by him into a discussion of the absent Mabel.
'When I'm with father,' said Bill, 'I sort of lose my nerve, and yammer.'
'Dashed awkward,' said Archie, politely. He sat up suddenly. 'I say! By Jove! I know what you want, old friend! Just thought of it!'
'That busy brain is never still,' explained Lucille.
'Saw it in the paper this morning. An advertisement of a book, don't you know.'
'I've no time for reading.'
'You've time for reading this one, laddie, for you can't afford to miss it. It's a what-d'you-call-it book. What I mean to say is, if you read it and take its tips to heart, it guarantees to make you a convincing talker. The advertisement says so. The advertisement's all about a chappie I whose name I forget, whom everybody loved because he talked so well. And, mark you, before he got hold of this book--The Personality That Wins was the name of it, if I remember rightly--he was known to all the lads in the office as Silent Samuel or something. Or it may have been Tongue-Tied Thomas. Well, one day he happened by good luck to blow in the necessary for the good old P.
