t Archie, as
early as the third morning of his stay, had gone to him and in the
most frank and manly way, had withdrawn his criticism of the Hotel
Cosmopolis, giving it as his considered opinion that the Hotel
Cosmopolis on closer inspection appeared to be a good egg, one of the
best and brightest, and a bit of all right.

"A credit to you, old thing," said Archie cordially.

"Don't call me old thing!" growled Mr. Brewster.

"Eight-o, old companion!" said Archie amiably.

Archie, a true philosopher, bore this hostility with fortitude, but it
worried Lucille.

"I do wish father understood you better," was her wistful comment when
Archie had related the conversation.

"Well, you know," said Archie, "I'm open for being understood any time
he cares to take a stab at it."

"You must try and make him fond of you."

"But how? I smile winsomely at him and what not, but he doesn't
respond."

"Well, we shall have to think of something. I want him to realise what
an angel you are. You ARE an angel, you know."

"No, really?"

"Of course you are."

"It's a rummy thing," said Archie, pursuing a train of thought which was
constantly with him, "the more I see of you, the more I wonder how you
can have a father like--I mean to say, what I mean to say is, I wish I
had known your mother; she must have been frightfully attractive."

"What would really please him, I know," said Lucille, "would be if you
got some work to do. He loves people who work."

"Yes?" said Archie doubtfully. "Well, you know, I heard him interviewing
that chappie behind the desk this morning, who works like the dickens
from early morn to dewy eve, on the subject of a mistake in his figures;
and, if he loved him, he dissembled it all right. Of course, I admit
that so far I haven't been one of the toilers, but the dashed difficult
thing is to know how to start. I'm nosing round, but the openings for a
bright young man seem so scarce."

"Well, keep on trying. I feel sure that, if you could only find
something to do, it doesn't matter what, father would be quite
different."

It was possibly the dazzling prospect of making Mr. Brewster quite
different that stimulated Archie. He was strongly of the opinion that
any change in his father-in-law must inevitably be for the better. A
chance meeting with James B. Wheeler, the artist, at the Pen-and-Ink
Club seemed to open the way.

To a visitor to New York who has the ability to make himself liked
it almos