“I wish—­” she began.  She stopped.  Her eyes lit up.  “Oh, Archie, darling, I’ve got an idea!”

“Decant it.”

“Why don’t you slip up to New York to-morrow and buy the thing, and give it to father as a surprise?”

Archie patted her hand kindly.  He hated to spoil her girlish day-dreams.

“Yes,” he said.  “But reflect, queen of my heart!  I have at the moment of going to press just two dollars fifty in specie, which I took off your father this after-noon.  We were playing twenty-five cents a Hole.  He coughed it up without enthusiasm—­in fact, with a nasty hacking sound—­but I’ve got it.  But that’s all I have got.”

“That’s all right.  You can pawn that ring and that bracelet of mine.”

“Oh, I say, what!  Pop the family jewels?”

“Only for a day or two.  Of course, once you’ve got the thing, father will pay us back.  He would give you all the money we asked him for, if he knew what it was for.  But I want to surprise him.  And if you were to go to him and ask him for a thousand dollars without telling him what it was for, he might refuse.”

“He might!” said Archie.  “He might!”

“It all works out splendidly.  To-morrow’s the Invitation Handicap, and father’s been looking forward to it for weeks.  He’d hate to have to go up to town himself and not play in it.  But you can slip up and slip back without his knowing anything about it.”

Archie pondered.

“It sounds a ripe scheme.  Yes, it has all the ear-marks of a somewhat fruity wheeze!  By Jove, it is a fruity wheeze!  It’s an egg!”

“An egg?”

“Good egg, you know.  Halloa, here’s a postscript.  I didn’t see it.”

P.S.—­I should be glad if you would convey my most cordial respects to Mrs. Moffam.  Will you also inform her that I chanced to meet Mr. William this morning on Broadway, just off the boat.  He desired me to send his regards and to say that he would be joining you at Brookport in the course of a day or so.  Mr. B. will be pleased to have him back.  “A wise son maketh a glad father” (Proverbs x. 1).

“Who’s Mr. William?” asked Archie.

“My brother Bill, of course.  I’ve told you all about him.”

“Oh yes, of course.  Your brother Bill.  Rummy to think I’ve got a brother-in-law I’ve never seen.”

“You see, we married so suddenly.  When we married, Bill was in Yale.”

“Good God!  What for?”

“Not jail, silly.  Yale.  The university.”

“Oh, ah, yes.”

“Then he went over to Europe for a trip to broaden his mind.  You must look him up to-morrow when you get back to New York.  He’s sure to be at his club.”

“I’ll make a point of it.  Well, vote of thanks to good old Parker!  This really does begin to look like the point in my career where I start to have your forbidding old parent eating out of my hand.”

“Yes, it’s an egg, isn’t it!”