ought to take Percy to the vet. as soon as
ever you can."

"You really do think of everything," said Miss Silverton.

"Yes," said Archie, meditatively.

CHAPTER XIV. THE SAD CASE OF LOONEY BIDDLE

Archie was a simple soul, and, as is the case with most simple souls,
gratitude came easily to him. He appreciated kind treatment. And when,
on the following day, Lucille returned to the Hermitage, all smiles and
affection, and made no further reference to Beauty's Eyes and the flies
that got into them, he was conscious of a keen desire to show some solid
recognition of this magnanimity. Few wives, he was aware, could have
had the nobility and what not to refrain from occasionally turning the
conversation in the direction of the above-mentioned topics. It had not
needed this behaviour on her part to convince him that Lucille was a
topper and a corker and one of the very best, for he had been cognisant
of these facts since the first moment he had met her: but what he did
feel was that she deserved to be rewarded in no uncertain manner. And
it seemed a happy coincidence to him that her birthday should be coming
along in the next week or so. Surely, felt Archie, he could whack up
some sort of a not unjuicy gift for that occasion--something pretty ripe
that would make a substantial hit with the dear girl. Surely something
would come along to relieve his chronic impecuniosity for just
sufficient length of time to enable him to spread himself on this great
occasion.

And, as if in direct answer to prayer, an almost forgotten aunt in
England suddenly, out of an absolutely blue sky, shot no less a sum than
five hundred dollars across the ocean. The present was so lavish and
unexpected that Archie had the awed feeling of one who participates in
a miracle. He felt, like Herbert Parker, that the righteous was not
forsaken. It was the sort of thing that restored a fellow's faith in
human nature. For nearly a week he went about in a happy trance: and
when, by thrift and enterprise--that is to say, by betting Reggie van
Tuyl that the New York Giants would win the opening game of the series
against the Pittsburg baseball team--he contrived to double his capital,
what it amounted to was simply that life had nothing more to offer. He
was actually in a position to go to a thousand dollars for Lucille's
birthday present. He gathered in Mr. van Tuyl, of whose taste in these
matters he had a high opinion, and dragged him off to a jew