I've
never felt so braced in my life!"

"Yes!" said Mr. Brewster, with bitterness, "I suppose, from your
view-point, everything IS 'topping.' You haven't a cent to your name,
and you've managed to fool a rich man's daughter into marrying you. I
suppose you looked me up in Bradstreet before committing yourself?"

This aspect of the matter had not struck Archie until this moment.

"I say!" he observed, with dismay. "I never looked at it like that
before! I can see that, from your point of view, this must look like a
bit of a wash-out!"

"How do you propose to support Lucille, anyway?"

Archie ran a finger round the inside of his collar. He felt embarrassed,
His father-in-law was opening up all kinds of new lines of thought.

"Well, there, old bean," he admitted, frankly, "you rather have me!"
He turned the matter over for a moment. "I had a sort of idea of, as it
were, working, if you know what I mean."

"Working at what?"

"Now, there again you stump me somewhat! The general scheme was that I
should kind of look round, you know, and nose about and buzz to and fro
till something turned up. That was, broadly speaking, the notion!"

"And how did you suppose my daughter was to live while you were doing
all this?"

"Well, I think," said Archie, "I THINK we rather expected YOU to rally
round a bit for the nonce!"

"I see! You expected to live on me?"

"Well, you put it a bit crudely, but--as far as I had mapped anything
out--that WAS what you might call the general scheme of procedure. You
don't think much of it, what? Yes? No?"

Mr. Brewster exploded.

"No! I do not think much of it! Good God! You go out of my hotel--MY
hotel--calling it all the names you could think of--roasting it to beat
the band--"

"Trifle hasty!" murmured Archie, apologetically. "Spoke without
thinking. Dashed tap had gone DRIP-DRIP-DRIP all night--kept me
awake--hadn't had breakfast--bygones be bygones--!"

"Don't interrupt! I say, you go out of my hotel, knocking it as no one
has ever knocked it since it was built, and you sneak straight off and
marry my daughter without my knowledge."

"Did think of wiring for blessing. Slipped the old bean, somehow. You
know how one forgets things!"

"And now you come back and calmly expect me to fling my arms round you
and kiss you, and support you for the rest of your life!"

"Only while I'm nosing about and buzzing to and fro."

"Well, I suppose I've got to support you. There seems no wa