Indiscretions of Archie

by P. G. Wodehouse

  CHAPTER XV. SUMMER STORMS

  Of course, in a way, the thing was simple. The wheeze was, in a sense,straightforward and uncomplicated. What he wanted to do was to point outto the injured girl all that hung on her. He wished to touch herheart, to plead with her, to desire her to restate her war-aims, and topersuade her--before three o'clock when that stricken gentleman would bestepping into the pitcher's box to loose off the first ball againstthe Pittsburg Pirates--to let bygones be bygones and forgive AugustusBiddle. But the blighted problem was, how the deuce to find theopportunity to start. He couldn't yell at the girl in a crowdedstreet-car; and, if he let go of his strap and bent over her, somebodywould step on his neck.

  The Girl Friend, who for the first five minutes had remained entirelyconcealed beneath her hat, now sought diversion by looking up andexamining the faces of the upper strata of passengers. Her eye caughtArchie's in a glance of recognition, and he smiled feebly, endeavouringto register bonhomie and good-will. He was surprised to see a startledexpression come into her brown eyes. Her face turned pink. At least, itwas pink already, but it turned pinker. The next moment, the car havingstopped to pick up more passengers, she jumped off and started to hurryacross the street.

  Archie was momentarily taken aback. When embarking on this businesshe had never intended it to become a blend of otter-hunting and amoving-picture chase. He followed her off the car with a sense that hisgrip on the affair was slipping. Preoccupied with these thoughts, hedid not perceive that the long young man who had shared his strap hadalighted too. His eyes were fixed on the vanishing figure of the GirlFriend, who, having buzzed at a smart pace into Sixth Avenue, was nowlegging it in the direction of the staircase leading to one of thestations of the Elevated Railroad. Dashing up the stairs after her,he shortly afterwards found himself suspended as before from a strap,gazing upon the now familiar flowers on top of her hat. From anotherstrap farther down the carriage swayed the long young man in the greysuit.

  The train rattled on. Once or twice, when it stopped, the girl seemedundecided whether to leave or remain. She half rose, then sank backagain. Finally she walked resolutely out of the car, and Archie,following, found himself in a part of New York strange to him. Theinhabitants of this district appeared to eke out a precarious existence,not by taking in one another's washing, but by selling one anothersecond-hand clothes.

  Archie glanced at his watch. He had lunched early, but so crowded withemotions had been the period following lunch that he was surprised tofind that the hour was only just two. The discovery was a pleasant one.With a full hour before the scheduled start of the game, much might beachieved. He hurried after the girl, and came up with her just as sheturned the corner into one of those forlorn New York side-streets whichare populated chiefly by children, cats, desultory loafers, and emptymeat-tins.

  The girl stopped and turned. Archie smiled a winning smile.

  "I say, my dear sweet creature!" he said. "I say, my dear old thing, onemoment!"

  "Is that so?" said the Girl Friend.

  "I beg your pardon?"

  "Is that so?"

  Archie began to feel certain tremors. Her eyes were gleaming, and herdetermined mouth had become a perfectly straight line of scarlet. It wasgoing to be difficult to be chatty to this girl. She was going to be ahard audience. Would mere words be able to touch her heart? The thoughtsuggested itself that, properly speaking, one would need to use apick-axe.

  "If you could spare me a couples of minutes of your valuable time--"

  "Say!" The lady drew herself up menacingly. "You tie a can to yourselfand disappear! Fade away, or I'll call a cop!"

  Archie was horrified at this misinterpretation of his motives. One ortwo children, playing close at hand, and a loafer who was trying tokeep the wall from falling down, seemed pleased. Theirs was a colourlessexistence and to the rare purple moments which had enlivened it in thepast the calling of a cop had been the unfailing preliminary. The loafernudged a fellow-loafer, sunning himself against the same wall. Thechildren, abandoning the meat-tin round which their game had centred,drew closer.

  "My dear old soul!" said Archie. "You don't understand!"

  "Don't I! I know your sort, you trailing arbutus!"

  "No, no! My dear old thing, believe me! I wouldn't dream!"

  "Are you going or aren't you?"

  Eleven more children joined the ring of spectators. The loafers staredsilently, like awakened crocodiles.

  "But, I say, listen! I only wanted--"

  At this point another voice spoke.

  "Say!"

  The word "Say!" more almost than any word in the American language, iscapable of a variety of shades of expression. It can be genial, it canbe jovial, it can be appealing. It can also be truculent The "Say!"which at this juncture smote upon Archie's ear-drum with a suddennesswhich made him leap in the air was truculent; and the two loafers andtwenty-seven children who now formed the audience were well satisfiedwith the dramatic development of the performance. To their experiencedears the word had the right ring.

  Archie spun round. At his elbow stood a long, strongly-built young manin a grey suit.

  "Well!" said the young man, nastily. And he extended a large, freckledface toward Archie's. It seemed to the latter, as he backed against thewall, that the young man's neck must be composed of india-rubber. Itappeared to be growing longer every moment. His face, besides beingfreckled, was a dull brick-red in colour; his lips curled back in anunpleasant snarl, showing a gold tooth; and beside him, swaying in anominous sort of way, hung two clenched red hands about the size of twoyoung legs of mutton. Archie eyed him with a growing apprehension. Thereare moments in life when, passing idly on our way, we see a strangeface, look into strange eyes, and with a sudden glow of human warmthsay to ourselves, "We have found a friend!" This was not one of thosemoments. The only person Archie had ever seen in his life who lookedless friendly was the sergeant-major who had trained him in the earlydays of the war, before he had got his commission.

  "I've had my eye on you!" said the young man.

  He still had his eye on him. It was a hot, gimlet-like eye, and itpierced the recesses of Archie's soul. He backed a little fartheragainst the wall.

  Archie was frankly disturbed. He was no poltroon, and had proved thefact on many occasions during the days when the entire German armyseemed to be picking on him personally, but he hated and shrank fromanything in the nature of a bally public scene.

  "What," enquired the young man, still bearing the burden of theconversation, and shifting his left hand a little farther behind hisback, "do you mean by following this young lady?"

  Archie was glad he had asked him. This was precisely what he wanted toexplain.

  "My dear old lad--" he began.

  In spite of the fact that he had asked a question and presumably desireda reply, the sound of Archie's voice seemed to be more than the youngman could endure. It deprived him of the last vestige of restraint. Witha rasping snarl he brought his left fist round in a sweeping semicirclein the direction of Archie's head.

  Archie was no novice in the art of self-defence. Since his early days atschool he had learned much from leather-faced professors of the science.He had been watching this unpleasant young man's eyes with closeattention, and the latter could not have indicated his scheme of actionmore clearly if he had sent him a formal note. Archie saw the swing allthe way. He stepped nimbly aside, and the fist crashed against the wall.The young man fell back with a yelp of anguish.

  "Gus!" screamed the Girl Friend, bounding forward.

  She flung her arms round the injured man, who was ruefully examininga hand which, always of an out-size, was now swelling to still furtherdimensions.

  "Gus, darling!"

  A sudden chill gripped Archie. So engrossed had he been with his missionthat it had never occurred to him that the love-lorn pitcher might havetaken it into his head to follow the girl as well in the hope of puttingin a word for himself. Yet such apparently had been the case. Well, thishad de
finitely torn it. Two loving hearts were united again in completereconciliation, but a fat lot of good that was. It would be days beforethe misguided Looney Biddle would be able to pitch with a hand likethat. It looked like a ham already, and was still swelling. Probably thewrist was sprained. For at least a week the greatest left-handed pitcherof his time would be about as much use to the Giants in any professionalcapacity as a cold in the head. And on that crippled hand depended thefate of all the money Archie had in the world. He wished now that hehad not thwarted the fellow's simple enthusiasm. To have had his headknocked forcibly through a brick wall would not have been pleasant, butthe ultimate outcome would not have been as unpleasant as this. With aheavy heart Archie prepared to withdraw, to be alone with his sorrow.

  At this moment, however, the Girl Friend, releasing her wounded lover,made a sudden dash for him, with the plainest intention of blotting himfrom the earth.

  "No, I say! Really!" said Archie, bounding backwards. "I mean to say!"

  In a series of events, all of which had been a bit thick, this, in hisopinion, achieved the maximum of thickness. It was the extreme ragged,outside edge of the limit. To brawl with a fellow-man in a public streethad been bad, but to be brawled with by a girl--the shot was not on theboard. Absolutely not on the board. There was only one thing to be done.It was dashed undignified, no doubt, for a fellow to pick up the oldwaukeesis and leg it in the face of the enemy, but there was no othercourse. Archie started to run; and, as he did so, one of the loafersmade the mistake of gripping him by the collar of his coat.

  "I got him!" observed the loafer.-There is a time for all things. Thiswas essentially not the time for anyone of the male sex to grip thecollar of Archie's coat. If a syndicate of Dempsey, Carpentier, and oneof the Zoo gorillas had endeavoured to stay his progress at that moment,they would have had reason to consider it a rash move. Archie wanted tobe elsewhere, and the blood of generations of Moffams, many of whomhad swung a wicked axe in the free-for-all mix-ups of the Middle Ages,boiled within him at any attempt to revise his plans. There was agood deal of the loafer, but it was all soft. Releasing his hold whenArchie's heel took him shrewdly on the shin, he received a nasty punchin what would have been the middle of his waistcoat if he had worn one,uttered a gurgling bleat like a wounded sheep, and collapsed against thewall. Archie, with a torn coat, rounded the corner, and sprinted downNinth Avenue.

  The suddenness of the move gave him an initial advantage. He was halfwaydown the first block before the vanguard of the pursuit poured out ofthe side street. Continuing to travel well, he skimmed past a large draywhich had pulled up across the road, and moved on. The noise of thosewho pursued was loud and clamorous in the rear, but the dray hid himmomentarily from their sight, and it was this fact which led Archie, theold campaigner, to take his next step.

  It was perfectly obvious--he was aware of this even in the novelexcitement of the chase--that a chappie couldn't hoof it at twenty-fivemiles an hour indefinitely along a main thoroughfare of a great citywithout exciting remark. He must take cover. Cover! That was the wheeze.He looked about him for cover.

  "You want a nice suit?"

  It takes a great deal to startle your commercial New Yorker. The smalltailor, standing in his doorway, seemed in no way surprised at thespectacle of Archie, whom he had seen pass at a conventional walk somefive minutes before, returning like this at top speed. He assumed thatArchie had suddenly remembered that he wanted to buy something.

  This was exactly what Archie had done. More than anything else in theworld, what he wanted to do now was to get into that shop and have along talk about gents' clothing. Pulling himself up abruptly, he shotpast the small tailor into the dim interior. A confused aroma of cheapclothing greeted him. Except for a small oasis behind a grubby counter,practically all the available space was occupied by suits. Stiff suits,looking like the body when discovered by the police, hung from hooks.Limp suits, with the appearance of having swooned from exhaustion, layabout on chairs and boxes. The place was a cloth morgue, a Sargasso Seaof serge.

  Archie would not have had it otherwise. In these quiet groves ofclothing a regiment could have lain hid.

  "Something nifty in tweeds?" enquired the business-like proprietor ofthis haven, following him amiably into the shop, "Or, maybe, yes, a niceserge? Say, mister, I got a sweet thing in blue serge that'll fit youlike the paper on the wall!"

  Archie wanted to talk about clothes, but not yet.

  "I say, laddie," he said, hurriedly. "Lend me, your ear for half ajiffy!" Outside the baying of the pack had become imminent. "Stow meaway for a moment in the undergrowth, and I'll buy anything you want."

  He withdrew into the jungle. The noise outside grew in volume. Thepursuit had been delayed for a priceless few instants by the arrival ofanother dray, moving northwards, which had drawn level with the firstdray and dexterously bottled up the fairway. This obstacle had now beenovercome, and the original searchers, their ranks swelled by a few dozenmore of the leisured classes, were hot on the trail again.

  "You done a murder?" enquired the voice of the proprietor, mildlyinterested, filtering through a wall of cloth. "Well, boys will beboys!" he said, philosophically. "See anything there that you like?There some sweet things there!"

  "I'm inspecting them narrowly," replied Archie. "If you don't let thosechappies find me, I shouldn't be surprised if I bought one."

  "One?" said the proprietor, with a touch of austerity.

  "Two," said Archie, quickly. "Or possibly three or six."

  The proprietor's cordiality returned.

  "You can't have too many nice suits," he said, approvingly, "not a youngfeller like you that wants to look nice. All the nice girls like ayoung feller that dresses nice. When you go out of here in a suit I gothanging up there at the back, the girls 'll be all over you like fliesround a honey-pot."

  "Would you mind," said Archie, "would you mind, as a personal favour tome, old companion, not mentioning that word 'girls'?"

  He broke off. A heavy foot had crossed the threshold of the shop.

  "Say, uncle," said a deep voice, one of those beastly voices that onlythe most poisonous blighters have, "you seen a young feller run pasthere?"

  "Young feller?" The proprietor appeared to reflect. "Do you mean a youngfeller in blue, with a Homburg hat?"

  "That's the duck! We lost him. Where did he go?"

  "Him! Why, he come running past, quick as he could go. I wondered whathe was running for, a hot day like this. He went round the corner at thebottom of the block."

  There was a silence.

  "Well, I guess he's got away," said the voice, regretfully.

  "The way he was travelling," agreed the proprietor, "I wouldn't besurprised if he was in Europe by this. You want a nice suit?"

  The other, curtly expressing a wish that the proprietor would go toeternal perdition and take his entire stock with him, stumped out.

  "This," said the proprietor, tranquilly, burrowing his way to whereArchie stood and exhibiting a saffron-coloured outrage, which appearedto be a poor relation of the flannel family, "would put you back fiftydollars. And cheap!"

  "Fifty dollars!"

  "Sixty, I said. I don't speak always distinct."

  Archie regarded the distressing garment with a shuddering horror. Ayoung man with an educated taste in clothes, it got right in among hisnerve centres.

  "But, honestly, old soul, I don't want to hurt your feelings, but thatisn't a suit, it's just a regrettable incident!"

  The proprietor turned to the door in a listening attitude.

  "I believe I hear that feller coming back," he said.

  Archie gulped.

  "How about trying it on?" he said. "I'm not sure, after all, it isn'tfairly ripe."

  "That's the way to talk," said the proprietor, cordially. "You try iton. You can't judge a suit, not a real nice suit like this, by lookingat it. You want to put it on. There!" He led the way to a dustymirror at the back of the shop. "Isn't that a bargain at seventydollars?.
..Why, say, your mother would be proud if she could see her boynow!"

  A quarter of an hour later, the proprietor, lovingly kneading a littlesheaf of currency bills, eyed with a fond look the heap of clothes whichlay on the counter.

  "As nice a little lot as I've ever had in my shop!" Archie did not denythis. It was, he thought, probably only too true.

  "I only wish I could see you walking up Fifth Avenue in them!"rhapsodised the proprietor. "You'll give 'em a treat! What you goingto do with 'em? Carry 'em under your arm?" Archie shuddered strongly."Well, then, I can send 'em for you anywhere you like. It's all the sameto me. Where'll I send 'em?"

  Archie meditated. The future was black enough as it was. He shrank fromthe prospect of being confronted next day, at the height of his misery,with these appalling reach-me-downs.

  An idea struck him.

  "Yes, send 'em," he said.

  "What's the name and address?"

  "Daniel Brewster," said Archie, "Hotel Cosmopolis."

  It was a long time since he had given his father-in-law a present.

  Archie went out into the street, and began to walk pensively down a nowpeaceful Ninth Avenue. Out of the depths that covered him, black as thepit from pole to pole, no single ray of hope came to cheer him. He couldnot, like the poet, thank whatever gods there be for his unconquerablesoul, for his soul was licked to a splinter. He felt alone andfriendless in a rotten world. With the best intentions, he had succeededonly in landing himself squarely amongst the ribstons. Why had he notbeen content with his wealth, instead of risking it on that blighted betwith Reggie? Why had he trailed the Girl Friend, dash her! He might haveknown that he would only make an ass of himself, And, because he haddone so, Looney Biddle's left hand, that priceless left hand beforewhich opposing batters quailed and wilted, was out of action, resting ina sling, careened like a damaged battleship; and any chance the Giantsmight have had of beating the Pirates was gone--gone--as surely asthat thousand dollars which should have bought a birthday present forLucille.

  A birthday present for Lucille! He groaned in bitterness of spirit.She would be coming back to-night, dear girl, all smiles and happiness,wondering what he was going to give her tomorrow. And when to-morrowdawned, all he would be able to give her would be a kind smile. A nicestate of things! A jolly situation! A thoroughly good egg, he did NOTthink!

  It seemed to Archie that Nature, contrary to her usual custom ofindifference to human suffering, was mourning with him. The skywas overcast, and the sun had ceased to shine. There was a sort ofsombreness in the afternoon, which fitted in with his mood. And thensomething splashed on his face.

  It says much for Archie's pre-occupation that his first thought, as,after a few scattered drops, as though the clouds were submittingsamples for approval, the whole sky suddenly began to stream like ashower-bath, was that this was simply an additional infliction which hewas called upon to bear, On top of all his other troubles he would getsoaked to the skin or have to hang about in some doorway. He cursedrichly, and sped for shelter.

  The rain was setting about its work in earnest. The world was full ofthat rending, swishing sound which accompanies the more violent summerstorms. Thunder crashed, and lightning flicked out of the grey heavens.Out in the street the raindrops bounded up off the stones like fairyfountains. Archie surveyed them morosely from his refuge in the entranceof a shop.

  And then, suddenly, like one of those flashes which were lighting up thegloomy sky, a thought lit up his mind.

  "By Jove! If this keeps up, there won't be a ball-game to-day!"

  With trembling fingers he pulled out his watch. The hands pointed tofive minutes to three. A blessed vision came to him of a moist anddisappointed crowd receiving rain-checks up at the Polo Grounds.

  "Switch it on, you blighters!" he cried, addressing the leaden clouds."Switch it on more and more!"

  It was shortly before five o'clock that a young man bounded into ajeweller's shop near the Hotel Cosmopolis--a young man who, in spite ofthe fact that his coat was torn near the collar and that he oozedwater from every inch of his drenched clothes, appeared in the highestspirits.. It was only when he spoke that the jeweller recognised inthe human sponge the immaculate youth who had looked in that morning toorder a bracelet.

  "I say, old lad," said this young man, "you remember that jolly littlewhat-not you showed me before lunch?"

  "The bracelet, sir?"

  "As you observe with a manly candour which does you credit, my dearold jeweller, the bracelet. Well, produce, exhibit, and bring it forth,would you mind? Trot it out! Slip it across on a lordly dish!"

  "You wished me, surely, to put it aside and send it to the Cosmopolisto-morrow?"

  The young man tapped the jeweller earnestly on his substantial chest.

  "What I wished and what I wish now are two bally separate and dasheddistinct things, friend of my college days! Never put off till to-morrowwhat you can do to-day, and all that! I'm not taking any more chances.Not for me! For others, yes, but not for Archibald! Here are thedoubloons, produce the jolly bracelet Thanks!"

  The jeweller counted the notes with the same unction which Archiehad observed earlier in the day in the proprietor of the second-handclothes-shop. The process made him genial.

  "A nasty, wet day, sir, it's been," he observed, chattily.

  Archie shook his head.

  "Old friend," he said, "you're all wrong. Far otherwise, and not a bitlike it, my dear old trafficker in gems! You've put your finger onthe one aspect of this blighted p.m. that really deserves credit andrespect. Rarely in the experience of a lifetime have I encountered a dayso absolutely bally in nearly every shape and form, but there was onething that saved it, and that was its merry old wetness! Toodle-oo,laddie!"

  "Good evening, sir," said the jeweller.