“I’ll tell you what,” he said at last.  “When jolly old Brewster conies back to town—­he’s away just now—­I’ll take you along to him and we’ll beard the old boy in his den.  I’ll introduce you, and you get that extract from Italian opera-off your chest which you’ve just been singing to me, and you’ll find it’ll be all right.  He isn’t what you might call one of my greatest admirers, but everybody says he’s a square sort of cove and he’ll see you aren’t snootered.  And now, laddie, touching the matter of that steak.”

The waiter disappeared, greatly cheered, and Archie, turning, perceived that his friend Reggie van Tuyl was entering the room.  He waved to him to join his table.  He liked Reggie, and it also occurred to him that a man of the world like the heir of the van Tuyls, who had been popping about New York for years, might be able to give him some much-needed information on the procedure at an auction sale, a matter on which he himself was profoundly ignorant.

CHAPTER X

DOING FATHER A BIT OF GOOD

Reggie Van Tuyl approached the table languidly, and sank down into a chair.  He was a long youth with a rather subdued and deflated look, as though the burden of the van Tuyl millions was more than his frail strength could support.  Most things tired him.

“I say, Reggie, old top,” said Archie, “you’re just the lad I wanted to see.  I require the assistance of a blighter of ripe intellect.  Tell me, laddie, do you know anything about sales?”

Reggie eyed him sleepily.

“Sales?”

“Auction sales.”

Reggie considered.

“Well, they’re sales, you know.”  He checked a yawn.  “Auction sales, you understand.”

“Yes,” said Archie encouragingly.  “Something—­the name or something —­seemed to tell me that.”

“Fellows put things up for sale you know, and other fellows—­other fellows go in and—­and buy ’em, if you follow me.”

“Yes, but what’s the procedure?  I mean, what do I do?  That’s what I’m after.  I’ve got to buy something at Beale’s this afternoon.  How do I set about it?”

“Well,” said Reggie, drowsily, “there are several ways of bidding, you know.  You can shout, or you can nod, or you can twiddle your fingers—­” The effort of concentration was too much for him.  He leaned back limply in his chair.  “I’ll tell you what.  I’ve nothing to do this afternoon.  I’ll come with you and show you.”

When he entered the Art Galleries a few minutes later, Archie was glad of the moral support of even such a wobbly reed as Reggie van Tuyl.  There is something about an auction room which weighs heavily upon the novice.  The hushed interior was bathed in a dim, religious light; and the congregation, seated on small wooden chairs, gazed in reverent silence at the pulpit, where a gentleman of commanding presence and sparkling pince-nez was delivering a species of chant.  Behind a gold curtain at the end of the room mysterious forms flitted to and fro.  Archie, who had been expecting something on the lines of the New York Stock Exchange, which he had once been privileged to visit when it was in a more than usually feverish mood, found the atmosphere oppressively ecclesiastical.  He sat down and looked about him.  The presiding priest went on with his chant.