Next day we lunched together, and fixed the thing up. I have never seen
anyone so supremely braced. We examined the scheme from every angle and
there wasn't a flaw in it. The only difficulty was to hit on a
plausible purchaser. Archie suggested me, but I couldn't see it. I said
it would sound fishy. Eventually I had a brain wave, and suggested J.
Bellingwood Brackett, the American millionaire. He lives in London, and
you see his name in the papers everyday as having bought some painting
or statue or something, so why shouldn't he buy Archie's "Coming of
Summer?" And Archie said, "Exactly--why shouldn't he? And if he had had
any sense in his fat head, he would have done it long ago, dash him!"
Which shows you that dear old Archie was bracing up, for I've heard him
use much the same language in happier days about a referee.

He went off, crammed to the eyebrows with good food and happiness, to
tell Mrs. Archie that all was well, and that the old home was saved,
and that Canterbury mutton might now be definitely considered as off
the bill of fare.

He told me on the phone that night that he had made the price two
thousand pounds, because he needed the money, and what was two thousand
to a man who had been fleecing the widow and the orphan for forty odd
years without a break? I thought the price was a bit high, but I agreed
that J. Bellingwood could afford it. And happiness, you might say,
reigned supreme.

I don't know when I've had such a nasty jar as I got when Wilberforce
brought me the paper in bed, and I languidly opened it and this jumped
out and bit at me: