“This is the best news I’ve ever had!” he mumbled.
“Awfully good of you to take it like this,” said Archie cordially. “I mean, being a grandfather—”
Mr. Brewster smiled. Of a man of his appearance one could hardly say that he smiled playfully; but there was something in his expression that remotely suggested playfulness.
“My dear old bean,” he said.
Archie started.
“My dear old bean,” repeated Mr. Brewster firmly, “I’m the happiest man in America!” His eye fell on the picture which lay on the floor. He gave a slight shudder, but recovered himself immediately. “After this,” he said, “I can reconcile myself to living with that thing for the rest of my life. I feel it doesn’t matter.”
“I say,” said Archie, “how about that? Wouldn’t have brought the thing up if you hadn’t introduced the topic, but, speaking as man to man, what the dickens WERE you up to when I landed on your spine just now?”
“I suppose you thought I had gone off my head?”
“Well, I’m bound to say—”
Mr. Brewster cast an unfriendly glance at the picture.