# Dear old Archie — Short Fiction character guide

> Dear old Archie in Short Fiction by P. G. Wodehouse.

**Role:** supporting

**Also known as:** old Archie, Archie, poor old Archie, Mrs. Archie

**First appearance:** 0000-when-papa-swore-in-hindustani

## Snapshot

The dreamy, sentimental widower whose nightly seven o'clock meditations before his first wife's portrait are slowly crushing his second wife, Hilda, and alarming every woman who hears of it.

## Who they are

Harold is the well-meaning chump whose devotion to a dead first wife turns his second marriage into a daily ordeal: anecdotes, anniversaries, and a locked room at seven each evening where he lays flowers before a portrait while Hilda is expected to smile. His case becomes the cautionary tale Ann uses against Reggie, proof that a man of large means and no discipline can wreck a home purely by being a chump. Reggie, fond of the old lad, broods on Harold until the two problems click together and a scheme is born.

## In the story

### [Concealed Art](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/short_fiction_42_se/chapters/concealed-art)

A struggling futurist artist who secretly draws the Doughnut family comic strip and agrees to the deception to please his wife.

## Links

- HTML: https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/short_fiction_42_se/characters/dear_old_archie
- Book: https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/short_fiction_42_se
- All characters: https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/short_fiction_42_se/characters