He sat up silently.  The fact that the room was still in darkness made it obvious that something nefarious was afoot.  Plainly there was dirty work in preparation at the cross-roads.  He stared into the blackness, and, as his eyes grew accustomed to it, was presently able to see an indistinct form bending over something on the floor.  The sound of rather stertorous breathing came to him.

Archie had many defects which prevented him being the perfect man, but lack of courage was not one of them.  His somewhat rudimentary intelligence had occasionally led his superior officers during the war to thank God that Great Britain had a Navy, but even these stern critics had found nothing to complain of in the manner in which he bounded over the top.  Some of us are thinkers, others men of action.  Archie was a man of action, and he was out of his chair and sailing in the direction of the back of the intruder’s neck before a wiser man would have completed his plan of campaign.  The miscreant collapsed under him with a squashy sound, like the wind going out of a pair of bellows, and Archie, taking a firm seat on his spine, rubbed the other’s face in the carpet and awaited the progress of events.

At the end of half a minute it became apparent that there was going to be no counter-attack.  The dashing swiftness of the assault had apparently had the effect of depriving the marauder of his entire stock of breath.  He was gurgling to himself in a pained sort of way and making no effort to rise.  Archie, feeling that it would be safe to get up and switch on the light, did so, and, turning after completing this manoeuvre, was greeted by the spectacle of his father-in-law, seated on the floor in a breathless and dishevelled condition, blinking at the sudden illumination.  On the carpet beside Mr. Brewster lay a long knife, and beside the knife lay the handsomely framed masterpiece of J. B. Wheeler’s fiancee, Miss Alice Wigmore.  Archie stared at this collection dumbly.

“Oh, what-ho!” he observed at length, feebly.

A distinct chill manifested itself in the region of Archie’s spine.  This could mean only one thing.  His fears had been realised.  The strain of modern life, with all its hustle and excitement, had at last proved too much for Mr. Brewster.  Crushed by the thousand and one anxieties and worries of a millionaire’s existence, Daniel Brewster had gone off his onion.

Archie was nonplussed.  This was his first experience of this kind of thing.  What, he asked himself, was the proper procedure in a situation of this sort?  What was the local rule?  Where, in a word, did he go from here?  He was still musing in an embarrassed and baffled way, having taken the precaution of kicking the knife under the sofa, when Mr. Brewster spoke.  And there was in, both the words and the method of their delivery so much of his old familiar self that Archie felt quite relieved.

“So it’s you, is it, you wretched blight, you miserable weed!” said Mr. Brewster, having recovered enough breath to be going on with.  He glowered at his son-in-law despondently.  “I might have, expected it!  If I was at the North Pole, I could count on you butting in!”