om the back of his neck, and mused awhile.

"How do I know this fellow would screen well?" he said, at length.

"Screen well!" cried Archie. "Of course he'll screen well. Look at
his face. I ask you! The map! I call your attention to it." He turned
apologetically to the Sausage Chappie. "Awfully sorry, old lad, for
dwelling on this, but it's business, you know." He turned to Mr.
Gossett. "Did you ever see a face like that? Of course not. Why should
I, as this gentleman's personal representative, let a face like that go
to waste? There's a fortune in it. By Jove, I'll give you two minutes to
think the thing over, and, if you don't talk business then, I'll jolly
well take my man straight round to Mack Sennett or someone. We don't
have to ask for jobs. We consider offers."

There was a silence. And then the clear voice of the child in the sailor
suit made itself heard again.

"Mummie!"

"Yes, darling?"

"Is the man with the funny face going to throw any more pies?"

"No, darling."

The child uttered a scream of disappointed fury.

"I want the funny man to throw some more pies! I want the funny man to
throw some more pies!"

A look almost of awe came into Mr. Gossett's face. He had heard the
voice of the Public. He had felt the beating of the Public's pulse.

"Out of the mouths of babes and sucklings," he said, picking a piece of
banana off his right eyebrow, "Out of the mouths of babes and sucklings.
Come round to my office!"

CHAPTER XXI. THE GROWING BOY

The lobby of the Cosmopolis Hotel was a favourite stamping-ground of Mr.
Daniel Brewster, its proprietor. He liked to wander about there, keeping
a paternal eye on things, rather in the manner of the Jolly Innkeeper
(hereinafter to be referred to as Mine Host) of the old-fashioned novel.
Customers who, hurrying in to dinner, tripped over Mr. Brewster, were
apt to mistake him for the hotel detective--for his eye was keen and
his aspect a trifle austere--but, nevertheless, he was being as jolly an
innkeeper as he knew how. His presence in the lobby supplied a personal
touch to the Cosmopolis which other New York hotels lacked, and it
undeniably made the girl at the book-stall extraordinarily civil to her
clients, which was all to the good.

Most of the time Mr. Brewster stood in one spot and just looked
thoughtful; but now and again he would wander to the marble slab behind
which he kept the desk-clerk and run his eye over the register, to see
who