“Yes, father?”

“Is this true?”

Lucille’s grey eyes clouded over with perplexity and apprehension.

“True?”

“Have you really inflicted this—­this on me for a son-in-law?” Mr. Brewster swallowed a few more times, Archie the while watching with a frozen fascination the rapid shimmying of his new relative’s Adam’s-apple.  “Go away!  I want to have a few words alone with this—­ This—­WASSYOURDAMNAME?” he demanded, in an overwrought manner, addressing Archie for the first time.

“I told you, father.  It’s Moom.”

“Moom?”

“It’s spelt M-o-f-f-a-m, but pronounced Moom.”

“To rhyme,” said Archie, helpfully, “with Bluffinghame.”

“Lu,” said Mr. Brewster, “run away!  I want to speak to-to-to—­”

“You called me this before,” said Archie.

“You aren’t angry, father, dear?” said Lucilla

“Oh no!  Oh no!  I’m tickled to death!”

When his daughter had withdrawn, Mr. Brewster drew a long breath.

“Now then!” he said.

“Bit embarrassing, all this, what!” said Archie, chattily.  “I mean to say, having met before in less happy circs. and what not.  Rum coincidence and so forth!  How would it be to bury the jolly old hatchet—­start a new life—­forgive and forget—­learn to love each other—­and all that sort of rot?  I’m game if you are.  How do we go?  Is it a bet?”

Mr. Brewster remained entirely unsoftened by this manly appeal to his better feelings.

“What the devil do you mean by marrying my daughter?”

Archie reflected.

“Well, it sort of happened, don’t you know!  You know how these things are!  Young yourself once, and all that.  I was most frightfully in love, and Lu seemed to think it wouldn’t be a bad scheme, and one thing led to another, and—­well, there you are, don’t you know!”

“And I suppose you think you’ve done pretty well for yourself?”

“Oh, absolutely!  As far as I’m concerned, everything’s topping!  I’ve never felt so braced in my life!”

“Yes!” said Mr. Brewster, with bitterness, “I suppose, from your view-point, everything is ‘topping.’  You haven’t a cent to your name, and you’ve managed to fool a rich man’s daughter into marrying you.  I suppose you looked me up in Bradstreet before committing yourself?”

This aspect of the matter had not struck Archie until this moment.

“I say!” he observed, with dismay.  “I never looked at it like that before!  I can see that, from your point of view, this must look like a bit of a wash-out!”

“How do you propose to support Lucille, anyway?”

Archie ran a finger round the inside of his collar.  He felt embarrassed, His father-in-law was opening up all kinds of new lines of thought.

“Well, there, old bean,” he admitted, frankly, “you rather have me!” He turned the matter over for a moment.  “I had a sort of idea of, as it were, working, if you know what I mean.”