“That was it.”
“Well, you couldn’t blame me for not recognising it, could you?”
Archie patted her head paternally.
“A little less of the caustic critic stuff,” he said. “Bill will be all right on the night. If you hadn’t come in then and put him off his stroke, he’d have shot out some amazing stuff, full of authority and dynamic accents and what not. I tell you, light of my soul, old Bill is all right! He’s got the winning personality up a tree, ready whenever he wants to go and get it. Speaking as his backer and trainer, I think he’ll twist your father round his little finger. Absolutely! It wouldn’t surprise me if at the end of five minutes the good old dad started jumping through hoops and sitting up for lumps of sugar.”
“It would surprise me.”
“Ah, that’s because you haven’t seen old Bill in action. You crabbed his act before he had begun to spread himself.”
“It isn’t that at all. The reason why I think that Bill, however winning his personality may be, won’t persuade father to let him marry a girl in the chorus is something that happened last night.”
“Last night?”
“Well, at three o’clock this morning. It’s on the front page of the early editions of the evening papers. I brought one in for you to see, only you were so busy. Look! There it is!”
Archie seized the paper.