'Indiscretions of Archie' Summary

Archie Moffam is an Englishman in New York. Like Bertie Wooster he's kind hearted but mentally limited, if not negligible. Unlike Bertie he has no private income. He's a veteran of the First World War.

During a stay in New York he bitterly criticises the service at the Cosmopolis Hotel, thus making an enemy of its owner, Daniel Brewster. On a subsequent trip to Miami he meets, falls in love with and marries Brewster's daughter Lucille. Brewster is not delighted. Archie's attempts to make amends by finding employment and by purchasing a valuable objet d’art for Brewster end in disaster. Further indiscretions follow for Archie: he upsets Lucille by apparently paying too much attention to an actress; he bets $1000 on the Giants (then a New York baseball team), but gets into a fight with their star pitcher and injures his arm. He advises Lucille's brother, Bill, who has a habit of getting into relationships with girls of whom his father disapproves, and lends a hand to an old comrade from the war, “The Sausage Chappie”, who's lost his memory and forgotten his own name. He upsets Mrs Cora Bates McCall, a vegetarian and healthy food campaigner, by persuading her son to take part in a pie-eating contest. Then there's an incident with a painting which further upsets Brewster. Eventually he pacifies the old curmudgeon by telling him he's about to become a grandfather.