Mrs. Archie came right back at him, as game as you please.
"I am sorry for Mr. Brackett's domestic troubles, but my husband can
prove without difficulty that he did buy the picture. Can't you, dear?"
Archie, extremely white about the gills, looked at the ceiling and at
the floor and at me and Renshaw Liggett.
"No," he said finally. "I can't. Because he didn't."
"Exactly," said Renshaw, "and I must ask you to publish that statement
in tomorrow's papers without fail." He rose, and made for the door. "My
client has no objection to young artists advertising themselves,
realizing that this is an age of strenuous competition, but he firmly
refuses to permit them to do it at his expense. Good afternoon."
And he legged it, leaving behind him one of the most chunky silences I
have ever been mixed up in. For the life of me, I couldn't see who was
to make the next remark. I was jolly certain that it wasn't going to be
me.
Eventually Mrs. Archie opened the proceedings.
"What does it mean?"
Archie turned to me with a sort of frozen calm.
"Reggie, would you mind stepping into the kitchen and asking Julia for
this week's _Funny Slices_? I know she has it."
He was right. She unearthed it from a cupboard.
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