As she gazed upon him, wondering what could be the matter with him, Lucille was suddenly aware of Bill’s presence.  He had emerged sharply from the bedroom and was walking briskly across the floor.  He came to a halt in front of the table.

“Father!” said Bill.

Archie looked up sharply, frowning heavily over his cigar.

“Well, my boy,” he said in a strange, rasping voice.  “What is it?  Speak up, my boy, speak up!  Why the devil can’t you speak up?  This is my busy day!”

“What on earth are you doing?” asked Lucille.

Archie waved her away with the large gesture of a man of blood and iron interrupted while concentrating.

“Leave us, woman!  We would be alone!  Retire into the jolly old background and amuse yourself for a bit.  Read a book.  Do acrostics.  Charge ahead, laddie.”

“Father!” said Bill, again.

“Yes, my boy, yes?  What is it?”

“Father!”

Archie picked up the red-covered volume that lay on the table.

“Half a mo’, old son.  Sorry to stop you, but I knew there was something.  I’ve just remembered.  Your walk.  All wrong!”

“All wrong?”

“All wrong!  Where’s the chapter on the Art. of Walking?  Here we are.  Listen, dear old soul.  Drink this in.  ’In walking, one should strive to acquire that swinging, easy movement from the hips.  The correctly-poised walker seems to float along, as it were.’  Now, old bean, you didn’t float a dam’ bit.  You just galloped in like a chappie charging into a railway restaurant for a bowl of soup when his train leaves in two minutes.  Dashed important, this walking business, you know.  Get started wrong, and where are you?  Try it again. . . .  Much better.”  He turned to Lucille.  “Notice him float along that time?  Absolutely skimmed, what?”

Lucille had taken a seat,-and was waiting for enlightenment.

“Are you and Bill going into vaudeville?” she asked.

Archie, scrutinising-his-brother-in-law closely, had further criticism to make.

“‘The man of self-respect and self-confidence,’” he read, “’stands erect in an easy, natural, graceful attitude.  Heels not too far apart, head erect, eyes to the front with a level gaze’—­get your gaze level, old thing!—­’shoulders thrown back, arms hanging naturally at the sides when not otherwise employed’—­that means that, if he tries to hit you, it’s all right to guard—­’chest expanded naturally, and abdomen’—­this is no place for you, Lucille.  Leg it out of earshot—­’ab—­what I said before—­drawn in somewhat and above all not protruded.’  Now, have you got all that?  Yes, you look all right.  Carry on, laddie, carry on.  Let’s have two-penn’orth of the Dynamic Voice and the Tone of Authority—­some of the full, rich, round stuff we hear so much about!”

Bill fastened a gimlet eye upon his brother-in-law and drew a deep breath.

“Father!” he said.  “Father!”