"Here comes Reggie van Tuyl. I don't want him to hear us talking about the darned thing."
Archie looked over his shoulder and perceived that it was indeed so. Reggie was threading his way among the tables.
"Well, he looks pleased with things, anyway," said Bill, enviously. "Glad somebody's happy."
He was right. Reggie van Tuyl's usual mode of progress through a restaurant was a somnolent slouch. Now he was positively bounding along. Furthermore, the usual expression on Reggie's face was a sleepy sadness. Now he smiled brightly and with animation. He curveted towards their table, beaming and erect, his head up, his gaze level, and his chest expanded, for all the world as if he had been reading the hints in The Personality That Wins.
Archie was puzzled. Something had plainly happened to Reggie. But what? It was idle to suppose that somebody had left him money, for he had been left practically all the money there was a matter of ten years before.
"Hallo, old bean," he said, as the new-comer, radiating good will and bonhomie, arrived at the table and hung over it like a noon-day sun. "We've finished. But rally round and we'll watch you eat. Dashed interesting, watching old Reggie eat. Why go to the Zoo?"
Reggie shook his head.
"Sorry, old man. Can't. Just on my way to the Ritz. Stepped in because I thought you might be here. I wanted you to be the first to hear the news."
"News?"
"I'm the happiest man alive!"
