Sfe MAKING qf BOBBY BURNIT . : . : ^ c : . - :: 0H ESTER THE LIBRARY OF THE UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA LOS ANGELES GIFT OF ]jr3, P p n P Linc'sey THE MAKING OF BOBBY BURNIT Will you if I get my father's business back? THE MAKING OF BOBBY BURNIT Being a Record of the Adventures of a Live American Young Man By GEORGE RANDOLPH CHESTER With Illustrations by JAMES MONTGOMKKY FLAGG AND F. R. GHUOEK INDIANAPOLIS THE BOBBS-MERRILL COMPANY PUBLISHERS COPYRIGHT 1909 THE BOBBS-MEHHIIX COMPANY JUNE PRESS OF BRAUNWORTH & CO. BOOKBINDERS AND PRINTERS BROOKLYN, N. Y. PS DEDICATION To the Handicapped Sons of Able Fathers, and the Handicapped Fathers of Able Sons, with Sympathy for each, and a Smile for both 11CS1S5 THE MAKING OF BOBBY BURNIT THE MAKING OF BOBBY BURNIT CHAPTER I BOBBY MAKES SOME IMPORTANT PEEPAEATIONS FOE A COMMEECIAL LIFE s "W" AM profoundly convinced that my son is a fool," read the will of old John Burnit. "I am, how- M. ever, also convinced that I allowed him to be- come so by too much absorption in my own affairs and too little in his, and, therefore, his being a fool is hereditary ; consequently, I feel it my duty, first, to give him a fair trial at making his own way, and second, to place the balance of my fortune in such trust that he can not starve. The trusteeship is al- ready created and the details are nobody's present business. My son Robert will take over the John Burnit Store and personally conduct it, as his only re- source, without further question as to what else I may have left behind me. This is my last will and tes- tament." That is how cheerful Bobby Burnit, with no 1 2 THE MAKING OF BOBBY BURNIT thought heretofore above healthy amusements and Agnes Elliston, suddenly became a business man, after having been raised to become the idle heir to about three million. Of course, having no kith nor kin in all this wide world, he went immediately to consult Agnes. It is quite likely that if he had been supplied with dozens of uncles and aunts he would have gone first to Agnes anyhow, having a mighty regard for her keen judgment, even though her clear gaze rested now and then all too critically upon himself. Just as he came whirling up the avenue he saw Nick Allstyne's white car, several blocks ahead of him, stop at her door, and a figure which he knew must be Nick jump out and trip up the steps. Almost immediately the figure came down again, much more slowly, and climbed into the car, which whizzed away. "Not at home," grumbled Bobby. It was h'ke him, however, that he should continue straight to the quaint old house of the Ellistons and proffer his own card, for, though his aims could sel- dom be called really worth while, he invariably fin- ished the thing he set out to do. It seemed to be a sort of disease. He could not help it. To his surprise, the Cerberus who guarded the Elliston door received him with a smile and a bow, and observed : "Miss Elliston says you are to walk right on up to the Turkish alcove, sir." A COMMERCIAL LIFE 3 While Wilkins took his hat and coat Bobby paused for a moment figuratively to hug himself. At home to no one else ! Expecting him ! "I'll ask her again," said Bobby to himself with determination, and stalked on up to the second floor hall, upon which opened a delightful cozy corner where Aunt Constance Elliston permitted the more "family- like" male callers to smoke and loll and be at mannish ease. As he reached the landing the door of the library below opened, and in it appeared Agnes and an un- usually well-set-up young man a new one, who wore a silky mustache and most fastidious tailoring. The two were talking and laughing gaily as the door opened, but as Agnes glanced up and saw Bobby she suddenly stopped laughing, and he almost thought that he overheard her say something in an aside to her companion. The impression was but fleeting, how- ever, for she immediately nodded brightly. Bobby bowed rather stiffly in return, and continued his ascent of the stairs with a less sprightly footstep. Crest- fallen, and conscious that Agnes had again closed the door of the library without either herself or the' strange visitor having emerged into the hall, he strode into the Turkish alcove and let himself drop upon a divan with a thump. He extracted a cigar from his cigar-case, carefully cut off the tip and as carefully 4 THE MAKING OF BOBBY BURNIT restored the cigar to its place. Then he clasped his interlocked fingers around his knee, and for the next ten minutes strove, like a gentleman, not to listen. When Agnes came up presently she made no men- tion whatever of her caller, and, of course, Bobby had no excuse upon which to hang impertinent ques- tions, though the sharp barbs of them were darting through and through him. Such fuming as he felt, however, was instantly allayed by the warm and thoroughly honest clasp she gave him when she shook hands with him. It was one of the twenty-two million things he liked about her that she did not shake hands like two ounces of cold fish, as did some of the girls he knew. She was dressed in a half-formal house-gown, and the one curl of her waving brown hair that would persistently straggle down upon her forehead was in its accustomed place. He had always been obsessed with a nearly irresistible impulse to put his finger through that curl. "I have come around to consult you about a little business matter, Agnes," he found himself beginning with sudden breathlessness, his perturbation forgotten in the overwhelming charm of her. "The governor's will has just been read to me, and he's plunged me into a ripping mess. His whole fortune is in the hands of a trusteeship, whatever that is, and I'm not even to know the trustees. 'All I get is just the business, and A COMMERCIAL LIFE 5 I'm to carry the John Burnit Store on from its pres- ent blue-ribbon standing to still more dazzling heights, I suppose. Well, I'd like to do it. The governor de- serves it. But, you see, I'm so beastly thick-headed. Now, Agnes, you have perfectly stunning judgment and all that, so if you would just " and he came to an abrupt and painful pause. "Have you brought along the contract ?" she asked demurely. "Honestly, Bobby, you're the most orig- inal person in the world. The first time, I was to marry you because you were so awkward, and the next time because your father thought so much of me, and another time because you wanted us to tour Norway and not have a whole bothersome crowd along; then you were tired living in a big, lonely house with just you and your father and the servants ; now, it's an advantageous business arrangement. What share of the profits am I to receive?" Bobby's face had turned red, but he stuck manfully to his guns. "All of them," he blurted. "You know that none of those is the real reason," he as suddenly protested. "It is only that when I come to tell you the actual reason I rather choke up and can't." "You're a mighty nice boy, Bobby," she confessed. "Now sit down and behave, and tell me just what you have decided to do." 6 THE MAKING OF BOBBY BURNIT "Well," said he, accepting his defeat with great philosophy, since he had no reason to regard it as final, "of course, my decision is made for me. I'm to take hold of the business. I don't know anything about it, but I don't see why it shouldn't go straight on as it always has." "Possibly," she admitted thoughtfully ; "but I im- agine your father expected you to have rather a diffi- cult time of it. Perhaps he wants you to, so that a defeat or two will sting you into having a little more serious purpose in life than you have at present. I'd like, myself, to see you handle, with credit to him and to you, the splendid establishment he built up." "If I do," Bobby wanted to know, "will you marry me?" "That makes eleven times. I'm not saying, Bobby, but you never can tell." "That settles it. I'm going to be a business man. Let me use your 'phone a minute." It was one of the many advantages of the delightfully informal Turk- ish alcove that it contained a telephone, and in two minutes Bobby had his tailors. "Make me two or three business suits," he ordered. "Regular business suits, I mean, for real business wear you know the sort of thing and get them done as quickly as you can, please. There!" said he as he hung up the re- ceiver. "I shall begin to-morrow morning. I'll go A COMMERCIAL LIFE 7 down early and take hold of the John Burnit Store in earnest." "You've made a splendid start," commented Agnes, smiling. "Now tell me about the polo tournament," and she sat back to enjoy his enthusiasm over some- thing about which he was entirely posted. i He was good to look at, was Bobby, with his clean- cut figure and his clean-cut face and his clean, blue eyes and clean complexion, and she delighted in noth- ing more than just to sit and watch him when he was at ease; he was so restful, so certain to be always telling the truth, to be always taking a charitably good-humored view of life, to turn on wholesome top- ics and wholesome points of view; but after he had gone she smiled and sighed and shook her head. "Poor Bobby," she mused. "There won't be a shred left of his tender little fleece by the time he gets through." One more monitor Bobby went to see that afternoon, and this was Biff Bates. It required no sending in of cards to enter the presence of this celebrity. One simply stepped out of the elevator and used one's latch-key. It was so much more convenient. Entering a big, barnlike room he found Mr. Bates, clad only in trunks and canvas shoes, wreaking dire punishment upon a punching-bag merely by way of amusement; and Mr. Bates, with every symptom of joy illumi- 8 THE MAKING OF BOBBY BURNIT nating his rather horizontal features wide brows, wide cheek-bone, wide nose, wide mouth, wide chin, wide jaw stopped to shake hands most enthusiastic- ally with his caller without removing his padded glove. "What's the good news, old pal?" he asked huskily. He was half a head shorter than Bobby and four inches broader across the shoulders, and his neck spread out over all the top of his torso; but there was something in the clear gaze of the eyes which made the two gentlemen look quite alike as they shook hands, vastly different as they were. "Bad news for you, I'm afraid," announced Bobby. "That little partnership idea of the big gymnasium will have to be called off for a while." Mr. Bates took a contemplative punch or two at the still quivering bag. "It was a fake, anyway," he commented, putting his arm around the top of the punching-bag and leaning against it comfortably; "just like this place. You went into partnership with me on this joint that is, you put up the coin and run in a lot of your friends on me to be trained up squarest lot of sports I ever saw, too. You fill the place with business and allow me a weekly envelope that makes me tilt my chin till I have to wear my lid down over my eyes to keep it from falling off the back of my head, and A COMMERCIAL LIFE 9 when there's profits to split up you shoves mine into my mitt and puts yours into improvements. You put in the new shower baths and new bars and traps, and the last thing, that swimming-tank back there. I'm glad the big game's off. I'm so contented now I'm getting over-weight, and you'd bilk me again. But what's the matter? Did the bookies get you?" "No ; I'll tell you all about it," and Bobby care- fully explained the terms of his father's will and what they meant. Mr. Bates listened carefully, and when the explana- tion was finished he thought for a long time. "Well, Bobby," said he, "here's where you get it. They'll shred you clean. You're too square for that game. Your old man was a fine old sport and he played it on the level, but, say, he could see a marked card clear across a room. They'll double-cross you, though, to a fare-ye-well." The opinion seemed to be unanimous. CHAPTER H PINK CARNATIONS APPEAR IN THE OFFICE OF THE JOHN BURNIT STORE BOBBY gave his man orders to wake him up early next morning, say not later than eight, and prided himself very much upon his en- ergy when, at ten-thirty, he descended from his machine in front of the old and honored establish- ment of John Burnit, and, leaving instructions for his chauffeur to call for him at twelve, made his way down the long aisles of white-piled counters and into the dusty little office where old Johnson, thin as a rail and with a face like whittled chalk, humped over his desk exactly as he had sat for the past thirty-five years. "Good-morning, Johnson," observed Bobby with an affable nod. "I've come to take over the business." He said it in the same untroubled tone he had al- ways used in asking for his weekly check, and Johnson looked up with a wry smile. Applerod, on the con- trary, was beaming with hearty admiration. He was as florid as Johnson was colorless, and the two had 10 ' PINK CARNATIONS 11 rubbed elbows and dispositions in that same room almost since the house of Burnit had been founded. "Very well, sir," grudged Johnson, and immedi- ately laid upon the time-blackened desk which had been old John Burnit's, a closely typewritten state- ment of some twenty pages. On top of this he placed a plain gray envelope addressed: To My Son Robert, Upon the Occasion of His Taking Over the Business Upon this envelope Bobby kept his eyes in mild speculation, while he leisurely laid aside his cane and removed his gloves and coat and hat; next he sat down in his father's jerky old swivel chair and lit a cigarette ; then he opened the letter. He read : "Every business needs a pessimist and an optimist, with ample opportunities to quarrel. Johnson is a jackass, but honest. He is a pessimist and has a pea-^ green liver. Listen to him and the business will die painlessly, by inches. Applerod is also a jackass, and I presume him to be honest ; but I never tested it. He suffers from too much health, and the surplus goes into optimism. Listen to him and the business will die in horrible agony, quickly. But keep both of them. Let them fight things out until they come almost to an understanding, then take the middle course." 12 THE MAKING OF BOBBY BURNIT That was all. Bobby turned squarely to survey the frowning Johnson and the still beaming Apple- rod, and with a flash of clarity he saw his father's wisdom. He had always admired John Burnit, aside from the fact that the sturdy pioneer had been his father, had admired him much as one admires the work of a master magician without any hope of emulation. As he read the note he could seem to see the old gentlemaa standing there with his hands behind him, ready to stretch on tiptoe and drop to his heels with a thump as he reached a climax, his spectacles shoved up on his forehead, his strong, wrinkled face stern from the cheek-bones down, but twinkling from that line upward, the twinkle, which had its seat about the shrewd eyes, suddenly termi- nating in a sharp, whimsical, little up-pointed curl in the very middle of his forehead. To corroborate his warm memory Bobby opened the front of his watch-case, where the same face looked him squarely in the eyes. Naturally, then, he opened the other lid, where Agnes Elliston's face smiled up at him. Sud- denly he shut both lids with a snap and turned, with much distaste but with a great show of energy, to the heavy statement which had all this time con- fronted him. The first page he read over laboriously, the second one he skimmed through, the third and fourth he leafed over; and then he skipped to the PINK CARNATIONS 13 last sheet, where was set down a concise statement of the net assets and liabilities. "According to this," observed Bobby with great show of wisdom, "I take over the business in a very flourishing condition." "Well," grudgingly admitted Mr. Johnson, "it might be worse." "It could hardly be better," interposed Applerod "that is, without the extensions and improvements that I think your father would have come in time to make. Of course, at his age he was naturally a bit conservative." "Mr. Applerod and myself have never agreed upon that point," wheezed Johnson sharply. "For my part I considered your father well, scarcely reck- less, but, say, sufficiently daring! Daring is about the word." Bobby grinned cheerfully. "He let the business go rather by its own weight, didn't he?" Both gentlemen shook their heads, instantly and most emphatically. "He certainly must have," insisted Bobby. "As I recollect it, he only worked up here, of late years, from about eleven fifty-five to twelve every other Thursday." "Oftener than that," solemnly corrected the literal 14 THE MAKING OF BOBBY BURNIT Mr. Johnson. "He was here from eleven until twelve- thirty every day." "What did he do?" It was Applerod who, with keen appreciation, hastened to advise him upon this point. "Said 'yes' twice and 'no' twelve times. Then, at the very last minute, when we thought that he was through, he usually landed on a proposition that hadn't been put up to him at all, and put it clear out of the business." "Looks like good finessing to me," said Bobby complacently. "I think I shall play it that way." "It wouldn't do, sir," Mr. Johnson replied in a tone of keen pain. "You must understand that when your father started this business it was originally a little fourteen-foot-front place, one story high. He got down here at six o'clock every morning and swept out. As he got along a little further he found that he could trust somebody else with that job but he always knew how to sweep. It took him a life- time to simmer down his business to just 'yes' and 'no.' " "I see," mused Bobby; "and I'm expected to take that man's place ! How would you go about it ?" "I would suggest, without meaning any imperti- nence whatever, sir," insinuated Mr. Johnson, "that if you were to start clerking " PINK CARNATIONS 15 "Or sweeping out at six o'clock in the morning?" calmly interrupted Bobby. "I don't like to stay up so late. No, Johnson, about the only thing I'm going to do to show my respect for the traditions of the house is to leave this desk just as it is, and hang an oil portrait of my father over it. And, by the way, isn't there some little side room where I can have my office? I'm going into this thing very earnestly." Mr. Johnson and Mr. Applerod exchanged glances. "The door just to the right there," said Mr. John- son, "leads to a room which is at present filled with old files of the credit department. No doubt those could be moved somewhere else." Bobby walked into that room and gaged its possi- bilities. It was a little small, to be sure, but it would do for the present. "Just have that cleared out and a 'phone put in. I'll get right down to business this afternoon and see about the fittings for it." Then he looked at his watch once more. "By George !" he exclaimed, "I almost forgot that I was to see Nick Allstyne at the Idlers' Club about that polo match. Just have one of your boys stand out at the curb along about twelve, will you, and tell my chauffeur to report at the club." Johnson eyed the closed door over his spectacles. "He'll be having blue suits and brass buttons on us two next," he snorted. 16 THE MAKING OF BOBBY BURNIT "He don't mean it at all that way," protested Applerod. "For my part, I think he's a fine young fellow." "I'll give you to understand, sir," retorted John- son, violently resenting this imputed defection, "that he is the son of his father, and for that, if for noth- ing else, would have my entire allegiance." Bobby, meanwhile, feeling very democratic and very much a man of affairs, took a street-car to the Idlers', and strode through the classic portals of that club with gravity upon his brow. Flaxen-haired Nick Allstyne, standing by the registry desk, turned to dark Payne Winthrop with a nod. "You win," he admitted. "I'll have to charge it up to you, Bobby. I just lost a quart of the special to Payne that since you'd become immersed in the cares of business you'd not be here." Bobby was almost austere in his reception of this slight. "Don't you know," he demanded, "that there is nobody who keeps even his social engagements like a business man?" "That's what I gambled on," returned Payne con- fidentially, "but I wasn't sure just how much of a business man you'd become. Nick, don't you already seem to see a crease in Bobby's brow?" "No, that's his regular polo crease," objected lanky PINK CARNATIONS 17 Stanley Rogers, joining them, and the four of them fell upon polo as one man. Their especially anxious part in the tournament was to be a grinding match against WiUie Ashler's crack team, and the point of worry was that so many of their fellows were out of town. They badly needed one more good player. "I have it," declared Bobby finally. It was he who usually decided things in this easy-going, athletic crowd. "We'll make Jack Starlett play, but the only way to get him is to go over to Washington after him. Payne, you're to go along. You always keep a full set of regalia here at the club, I know. Here, boy !" he called to a passing page. "Find out for us the next two trains to Washington." "Yes, sir," said the boy with a grin, and was off like a shot. They had a strict rule against tipping in the Idlers', but if he happened to meet Bobby out- side, say at the edge of the curb where his car was standing, there was no rule against his receiving something there. Besides, he liked Bobby, anyhow. They all did. He was back in a moment. "One at two-ten and one at four-twenty, sir." "The two-ten sounds about right," announced Bobby. "Now, Billy, telephone to my apartments to have my Gladstone and my dress-suit togs brought down to that train. Then, by the way, telephone Leatherby and Pluscher to send up to my place of 18 THE MAKING OF BOBBY BURXIT business and have Mr. Johnson show their man my new office. Have him take measurements of it and fit it up at once, complete. They know the kind of things I like. Really, fellows," he continued, turning to the others, after he had patiently repeated and explained his instructions to the foggy but willing Billy, "I'm in serious earnest about this thing. Up to me, you know, to do credit to the governor, if I can." "Bobby, the Boy Bargain Baron," observed Nick. "Well, I guess you can do it. All you need to do is to take hold, and I'll back you at any odds." "We'll all put a bet on you," encouraged Stanley Rogers. "More, we'll help. We'll all get married and send our wives around to open accounts with you." In spite of the serious business intentions, the luncheon which followed was the last the city saw of Bobby Burnit for three days. Be it said to his credit that he had accomplished his purpose when he returned. He had brought reluctant Jack Starlett back with him, and together they walked into the John Burnit Store. "New office fitted up yet, Johnson?" asked Bobby pleasantly. "Yes, sir," replied Johnson sourly. "Just a mo- ment, Mr. Burnit," and from an index cabinet back PINK CARNATIONS 19 of him lie procured an oblong gray envelope which he handed to Bobby. It was inscribed : To My Son, Upon the Fitting-Out of New Offices With a half-embarrassed smile, Bobby regarded that letter thoughtfully and carried it into the luxuri- ous new office. He opened it and read it, and, still with that queer smile, passed it over to Starlett. This was old John Burnit's message: "I have seen a business work up to success, and afterward add velvet rugs and dainty flowers on the desk, but I never saw a successful business start that way." Bobby looked around him with a grin. There was a velvet rug on the floor. There were no flowers upon the mahogany desk, but there was a vase to receive them. For just one moment he was nonplussed; then he opened the door leading to the dingy apartment occupied by Messrs. Johnson and Applerod. "Mr. Johnson," said he, "will you kindly send out and get two dozen pink carnations for my room?" Quiet, big Jack Starlett, having loaded and lit and taken the first long puff, removed his pipe from his lips. "Bully !" said he. CHAPTER III OLD JOHN BURNIT'S ANCIENT ENEMY POINTS OUT THE WAY TO GRANDEUR MR. JOHNSON had no hair in the very cen- ter of his head, but, when he was more than usually vexed, he ran his fingers through what was left upon both sides of the center and impatiently pushed it up toward a common point. His hair was in that identical condition when he knocked at the door of Bobby's office and poked in his head to announce Mr. Silas Trimmer. "Trimmer," mused Bobby. "Oh, yes; he is the John Burnit Store's chief competitor; concern backs up against ours, fronting on Market Street. Show him in, Johnson." Jack Starlett, who had dropped in to loaf a bit, rose to go. "Sit down," insisted Bobby. "I'm conducting this thing all open and aboveboard. You know, I think I shall like business." "They tell me it's the greatest game out," com- mented Starlett, and just then Mr. Trimmer entered. 20 THE WAY TO GRANDEUR 21 He was a little, wiry man as to legs and arms, but fearfully rotund as to paunch, and he had a yellow leather face and black eyes which, though gleaming like beads, seemed to have a muddy cast. Bobby rose to greet him with a cordiality in no degree abashed by this appearance. "And what can we do for you, Mr. Trimmer?" he asked after the usual inanities of greeting had been exchanged. "Take lunch with me," invited Mr. Trimmer, en- deavoring to beam, his heavy, down-drooping gray mustache remaining immovable in front of the deeply- chiseled smile that started far above the corners of his nose and curved around a display of yellow teeth. "I have just learned that you have taken over the busi- ness, and I wish as quickly as possible to form with the son the same cordial relations which for years I enjoyed with the father." Bobby looked him contemplatively in the eye, but had no experience upon which to base a picture of his father and Mr. Trimmer enjoying perpetually cordial relations with a knife down each boot leg. "Very sorry, Mr. Trimmer, but I am engaged for lunch." "Dinner, then at the Traders' Club," insisted Mr. Trimmer, who never for any one moment had re- mained entirely still, either his foot or his hand 22 THE MAKING OF BOBBY BURNIT, moving, or some portion of his body twitching almost incessantly. Inwardly Bobby frowned, for, so far, he had found ilno points about his caller to arouse his personal en- thusiasm; and yet it suddenly occurred to him that here was doubtless business, and that it ought to have attention. His father, under similar circumstances, would find out what the man was after. He cast a hesitating glance at his friend. "Don't mind me, Bobby," said Starlett briskly. "You know I shall be compelled to take dinner with the folks to-night." "At about what time, Mr. Trimmer?" Bobby asked. "Oh, suit yourself. Any time," responded that gentleman eagerly. "Say half -past six." "The Traders'," mused Bobby. "I think the gov- ernor put me up there four or five years ago." "I seconded you," the other informed him; "and I had the pleasure of voting for you just the other day, on the vacancy made by your father. You're a full-fledged member now." "Fine !" said Bobby. "Business suit or " "Anything you like." With again that circular smile behind his immovable mustache, Mr. Trimmer backed out of the room, and Bobby, dropping into a chair, turned perplexed eyes upon his friend. "What do you suppose he wants ?" he inquired. THE WAY TO GRANDEUR 23 "Your eye-teeth," returned Jack bluntly. "He looks like a mucker to me." "Oh, I don't know," returned Bobby, a trifle un- easily. "You see, Jack, he isn't exactly our sort, and maybe we can't get just the right angle in judg- ing him. He's been nailed down to business all his life, you know, and a fellow in that line don't have a chance, as I take it, to cultivate all the little well, say artificial graces." "Your father wasn't like him. He was as near a thoroughbred as I ever saw, Bobby, and he was nailed down, as you put it, all his life." "Oh, you couldn't expect them all to be like the governor," responded Bobby instantly, shocked at the idea. "But this chap may be no end of a good sort in his style. No doubt at all he merely came over in a friendly way to bid me a sort of welcome into the fraternity of business men," and Bobby felt quite a little thrill of pride in that novel idea. "By George! Wait a minute," he exclaimed as still an- other brilliant thought struck him, and going into the other room he said to Johnson: "Please give me the letter addressed: 'To My Son Robert, Upon the Occasion of Mr. Trimmer's First Call.' " For the first time in days a grin irradiated John- son's face. "Nothing here, sir," he replied. 24 THE MAKING OF BOBBY BURNIT "Let me go through that file." "Strictly against orders, sir," said Johnson. "Indeed," responded Bobby quizzically ; "I don't like to press the bet, Johnson, but really I'd like to know who has the say here." "You have, sir, over everything except my private affairs ; and that letter file is my private property and its contents my private trusteeship." "I can still take my castor oil like a little man, if I have to," Bobby resignedly observed. "I remember that when I was a kiddy the governor once undertook to teach me mathematics, and he never would let me see the answers. More than ever it looks like it was up to Bbbby," and whistling cheerfully he walked back into his private office. Johnson turned to Applerod with a snarl. "Mr. Applerod," said he, "you know that I almost never swear. I am now about to do so. Darn it ! It's a shame that Trimmer calls here again on that old scheme about which he deviled this house for years, and we forbidden to give Mr. Robert a word of ad- vice unless he asks for it." "Why is it a shame?" demanded Applerod. "I always have thought that Trimmer's plan was a great one." So, all unprepared, Bobby went forth that even- ing, to become acquainted with the great plan. THE WAY TO GRANDEUR 25 At the restless Traders' Club, where the precise corridors and columns and walls and ceilings of white marble were indicative of great formality, men with creases in their brows wore their derbies on the backs of their heads and ceaselessly talked shop. Mr. Trimmer, more creased of brow than any of them, was drifting from group to group with his eyes turned anxiously toward the door until Bobby came in. Mr. Trimmer was most effusively glad to see the son of his old friend once again, and lost no time in seating him at a most secluded table, where, by the time the oysters came on, he was deep in a catalogue of the virtues of John Burnit; and Bobby, with a very real and a very deep affection for his father which seldom found expression in words, grew restive. One thing held him, aside from his obligations as a guest. He was convinced now that his host's kindness was in truth a mere graceful act of welcome, due largely to his father's standing, and the idea flattered him very much. He strove to look as businesslike as possible, and thought again and again upon his father; of how he had sat day after day in this stately dining- hall, honored and venerated among these men wht were striving still for the ideal that he had attained. It was a good thought, and made for pride of the right sort. With the entree Mr. Trimmer ordered his favorite vintage champagne, and, as it boiled up 26 THE MAKING OF BOBBY BURNIT like molten amber in the glasses, so sturdily that the center of the surface kept constantly a full quarter of an inch above the sides, he waited anxiously for Bobby to sample it. Even Bobby, long since disillu- sioned of such things and grown abstemious from healthy choice, after a critical taste sipped slowly again and again. "That's ripping good wine," he acknowledged. "There's only a little over two hundred bottles of it left in the world," Mr. Trimmer assured him, and then he waited for that first glass to exert its warm- ing glow. He was a good waiter, was Silas Trimmer, and keenly sensitive to personal influences. He knew that Bobby had not been in entire harmony with him at any period of the evening, but after the roast came on a most careful roast, indeed, prepared under a certain formula upon which Mr. Trimmer had painstakingly insisted he saw that he had really found his way for a moment to Bobby's heart through the channel provided by Nature for attacks upon masculine sympathy, and at that moment he leaned forward with his circular smile, and observed: "By the way, Mr. Burnit, I suppose your father often discussed with you the great plan we evolved for the Burnet-Trimmer Arcade?" Bobby almost blushed at the confession he must make. THE WAY TO GRANDEUR 27 "I'm sorry to say that he didn't," he owned. "I never took the interest in such things that I ought, and so I missed a lot of confidences I'd like to have had now." "Too bad," sympathized Mr. Trimmer, now quite sure of his ground, since he had found that Bobby was not posted. "It was a splendid plan we had. You know, your building and mine are precisely the same width and precisely in a line with each other, back to back, with only the alley separating us, the Trimmer establishment fronting on Market Street and the Burnit building on Grand. The alley is fully five feet below our two floor lines, and we could, I am quite sure, get permission to bridge it at a clearance of not to exceed twelve feet. By raising the rear departments of your store and of mine a foot or so, and then building a flight of broad, easy steps up and down, we could almost conceal the pres- ence of this bridge from the inside, and make one immense establishment running straight through from Grand to Market Streets. The floors above the first, of course, would bridge over absolutely level, and the combined stores would comprise by far the largest establishment in the city. Of course, the advantage of it from an advertising standpoint alone would be well worth while." Bobby could instantly see the almost interminable 28 THE MAKING OF BOBBY BURNIT length of store area thus presented, and it appealed to his sense of big things at once. "What did father say about this?" he asked. "Thought it a brilliant idea," glibly returned Mr. Trimmer. "In fact, I think it was he who first sug- gested such a possibility, seeing very clearly the in- creased trade and the increased profits that would accrue from such an extension, which would, in fact, be simply the doubling of our already big stores without additional capitalization. We worked out two or three plans for the consolidation, but in the later years your father was very slow about making actual extensions or alterations in his merchandising business, preferring to expend his energies on his successful outside enterprises. I feel sure, however, that he would have come to it in time, for the develop- ment is so logical, so much in keeping with the busi- ness methods of the times." Here again was insidious flattery, the insinuation that Bobby must be thoroughly aware of "the busi- ness methods of the times." "Of course, the idea is new to me," said Bobby, assuming as best he could the air of business reserve which setemed appropriate to the occasion; "but I should say, in a general way, that I should not care to give up the identity of the John Burnit Store." "That is a fine and a proper spirit," agreed Mr. THE WAY TO GRANDEUR 29 Trimmer, with great enthusiasm. "I like to see it in a young man, but I've no doubt that we can arrange that little matter. Of course, we would have to in- corporate, say, as the Burnit-Trimmer Mercantile Corporation, but while having that name on the front of both buildings, it might not be a bad idea, for business as well as sentimental reasons, to keep the old signs at the tops of both, just as they now are. Those are little details to discuss later; but as the stock of the new company, based upon the present invoice values of our respective concerns, would be practically all in your hands and mine, this would be a very amicable and easily arranged matter. I tell you, Mr. Burnit, this is a tremendous plan, attractive to the public and immensely profitable to us, and I do not know of anything you could do that would so well as this show you to be a worthy successor to John Burnit ; for, of course, it would scarcely be a credit to you to carry on your father's business without change or advance." It was the best and the most crafty argument Mr. Trimmer had used, and Bobby carried away from the Traders' Club a glowing impression of this point. His father had built up this big business by his own unaided efforts. Should Bobby leave that legacy just where he had found it, or should he carry it on to still greater heights? The answer was obvious. CHAPTER IV AGNES EMPHATICALLY DECIDES THAT SHE DOES NOT LIKE A CERTAIN PERSON AT the theater that evening, Bobby, to his vexation, found Agnes Elliston walking in the promenade foyer with the well-set-up stranger. He passed her with a nod and slipped moodily into the rear of the Elliston box, where Aunt Constance, perennially young, was entertaining Nick Allstyne and Jack Starlett, and keeping them at a keen wit's edge, too. Bobby gave them the most per- functory of greetings, and, sitting back by himself, sullenly moped. He grumbled to himself that he had a headache; the play was a humdrum affair; Trimmer was a bore; the proposed consolidation had suddenly lost its prismatic coloring; the Traders' Club was crude ; Starlett and Allstyne were utterly frivolous. All this because Agnes was out in the foyer with a very likely-looking young man. She did not return until the end of that act, and found Bobby ready to go, pleading early morning business. 30 AGNES DECIDES 81 "Is it important?" she asked. "Who's the chap with the silky mustache?" he suddenly demanded, unable to forbear any longer. "He's a new one." The eyes of Agnes gleamed mischievously. "Bobby, I'm astonished at your manners," she chided him. "Now tell me what you've been doing with yourself." "Trying to grow up into John Burnit's truly son," he told her with some trace of pompous pride, being ready in advance to accept his rebuke meekly, as he always had to do, and being quite ready to cover up his grievous error with a change of topic. "I had no idea that business could so grip a fellow. But what I'd like to find out just now is who is my trustee? It must have been somebody with horse sense, or the governor would not have appointed whoever it was. I'm not going to ask anything I'm forbidden to know, but I want some advice. Now, how shall I learn who it is?" "Well," replied Agnes thoughtfully, "about the only plan I can suggest is that you ask your father's legal and business advisers." He positively beamed down at her. "You're the dandy girl, all right," he said ad- miringly. "Now, if you would only " "Bobby," she interrupted him, "do you know that 32 THE MAKING OF BOBBY BURNIT we are standing up here in a box, with something like a thousand people, possibly, turned in our direction?" He suddenly realized that they were alone, the others having filed out into the promenade, and, plac- ing a chair for her in the extreme rear corner of the box, where he could fence her off, sat down beside her. He began to describe to her the plan of Silas Trim- mer, and as he went on his enthusiasm mounted. The thing had caught his fancy. If he could only in- crease the profits of the John Burnit Store in the very first year, it would be a big feather in his cap. It would be precisely what his father would have de- sired! Agnes listened attentively all through the fourth act to his glowing conception of what the reorganized John Burnit Company would be like. He was perfectly contented now. His headache was gone; such occasional glimpses as he caught of the play were delightful; Mr. Trimmer was a genius; the Traders' Club a fascinating introduction to a new life; Starlett and Allstyne a joyous relief to him after the sordid cares of business. In a word, Agnes was with him. "Do you think your father would accept this prop- osition ?" she asked him after he was all through. "I think he would at my age," decided Bobby promptly. "That is, if he had been brought up as you have," AGNES DECIDES S3 she laughed. "I think I should study a long time over it, Bobby, before I made any such important and sweeping change as this must necessarily be." "Oh, yes," he agreed with an assumption of deep conservatism ; "of course I'll think it over well, and I'll take good, sound advice on it." "I have never seen Mr. Trimmer," mused Agnes. "I seldom go into his store, for there always seems to me something shoddy about the whole place; but to- morrow I think I shall make it a point to secure a glimpse of him." Bobby was delighted. Agnes had always been interested in whatever interested him, but never so absorbedly so as now, it seemed. He almost forgot the stranger in his pleasure. He forgot him still more when, dismissing his chauffeur, he seated Agnes in the front of the car beside him, with Starlett and Allstyne and Aunt Constance in the tonneau, and went whirling through the streets and up the avenue. It was but a brief trip, not over a half-hour, and they had scarcely a chance to exchange a word; but just to be up front there alone with her meant a whole lot to Bobby. Afterward he took the other fellows down to the gymnasium, where Biff Bates drew him to one side. "Look here, old pal !" said Bates. "I saw you real chummy with T. W. Tight-Wad Trimmer to-night." 34 THE MAKING OF BOBBY BURNIT "Yes?" admitted Bobby interrogatively. "Well, you know I don't go around with my ham- mer out, but I want to put you wise to this mut. He's in with a lot of political graft, for one thing, and he's a sure thing guy for another. He likes to take a flyer at the bangtails a few times a season, and last summer he welshed on Joe Poog's book; claimed Joe misunderstood his fingers for two thousand in place of two hundred." "Well, maybe there was a mistake," said Bobby, loath to believe such a monstrous charge against any one whom he knew. "Mistake nawthin'," insisted Biff. "Joe Poog don't take finger bets for hundreds, and Trimmer never did bet that way. He's a born welsher, anyhow. He looks the part, and I just want to tell you, Bobby, that if you go to the mat with this crab you'll get up with the marks of his pinchers on your windpipe; that's all." Early the next morning that is, at about ten o'clock Bobby bounced energetically into the office of Barrister and Coke, where old Mr. Barrister, who had been his father's lawyer for a great many years, received him with all the unbending grace of an ebony cane. "I have come to find out who were the trustees ap- pointed by my father, Mr. Barrister," began Bobby, AGNES DECIDES 35 with a cheerful air of expecting to be informed at once, "not that I wish to inquire about the estate, but that I need some advice on entirely different matters." "I shall be glad to serve you with any legal advice that you may need," offered Mr. Barrister, patting his finger-tips gently together. "Are you the trustee ?" "No, sir" this with a dusty smile. "Who is, then?" "The only information which I am at liberty to give you upon that point," said Mr. Barrister drily, "is that contained in your father's will. Would you care to examine a copy of that document again ?" "No, thanks," declined Bobby politely. "It's too truthful for comfort." From there he went straight to his own place of business, where he asked the same question of John- son. In reply, Mr. Johnson produced, from his own personal and private index-file, an oblong gray en- velope addressed: To My Son Robert, Upon His Inquiring About the Trusteeship of My Estate Opening this in the privacy of his own office, Bobby read: 36 THE MAKING OF BOBBY BURNIT "As stated in my will, it is none of your present business." "Up to Bobby again," the son commented aloud. "Well, Governor," and his shoulders straightened while his eyes snapped, "if you can stand it, I can. Hereafter I shall take my own advice, and if I lose I shall know how to find the chap who's to blame." He had an opportunity to "go it alone" that very morning, when Johnson and Applerod came in to him together with a problem. Was or was not that Chi- cago branch to be opened? The elder Mr. Burnit had considered it most gravely, but had left the matter undecided. Mr. Applerod was very keenly in favor of it, Mr. Johnson as earnestly against it, and in his office they argued the matter with such heat that Bobby, accepting a typed statement of the figures in the case, virtually turned them out. "When must you have a decision?" he demanded. "To-morrow. We must wire either our acceptance or rejection of the lease." "Very well," said Bobby, quite elated that he was carrying the thing off with an air and a tone so crisp ; "just leave it to me, will you?" He waded through the statement uncomprehend- ingly. Here was a problem which was covered and still not covered by his father's observations anent AGNES DECIDES 37 Johnson and Applerod. It was a matter for wrang- ling, obviously enough, but there was no difference to split. It was a case of deciding either yes or no. For the balance of the time until Jack Starlett called for him at twelve-thirty, he puzzled earnestly and soberly over the thing, and next morning the problem still weighed upon him when he turned in at the office. He could see as he passed through the outer room that both Johnson and Applerod were furtively eying him, but he walked past them whistling. When he had closed his own door behind him he drew again that mass of data toward him and struggled against the chin-high tide. Suddenly he shoved the papers aside, and, taking a half-dollar from his pocket, flipped it on the floor. Eagerly he leaned over to look at it. Tails ! With a sigh of relief he put the coin back in his pocket and lit a cigarette. About half an hour later the committee of two came solemnly in to see him. "Have you decided to open the Chicago branch, sir?" asked Johnson. "Not this year," said Bobby coolly, and handed back the data. "I wish, Mr. Johnson, you would appoint a page to be in constant attendance upon this room." Back at their own desks Johnson gloated in calm triumph. 38 THE MAKING OF BOBBY BURNIT "It may be quite possible that Mr. Robert may turn out to be a duplicate of his father," he opined. "I don't know," confessed Applerod, crestfallen. "I had thought that he would be more willing to take a sporting chance." Mr. Johnson snorted. Mr. Applerod, who had never bet two dollars on any proposition in his life, considered himself very much of a sporting dis- position. Savagely in love with his new assertiveness Bbbby called on Agnes that evening. "I saw Mr. Trimmer to-day," she told him. "I don't like him." "I didn't want you to," he replied with a grin. "You like too many people now." "But I'm serious, Bobby," she protested, uncon- sciously clinging to his hand as they sat down upon the divan. "I wouldn't enter into any business ar- rangements with him. I don't know just what there is about him that repels me, but well, I don't like him!" "Can't say I've fallen in love with him myself," he replied. "But, Agnes, if a fellow only did busi- ness with the men his nearest women-folks liked, there wouldn't be much business done." "There wouldn't be so many losses," she retorted. "Bound to have the last word, of course," he an- AGNES DECIDES 39 swered, taking refuge in that old and quite false slur against women in general; for a man suffers from his spleen if he can not put the quietus on every argu- ment. "But, honestly, I don't fear Mr. Trimmer. I've been inquiring into this stock company business. We are each to have stock in the new company, if we form one, in exact proportion to the invoices of our respective establishments. Well, the Trimmer con- cern can't possibly invoice as much as we shall, and I'll have the majority of stock, which is the same as holding all the trumps. I had Mr. Barrister explain all that to me. With the majority of stock you can have everything your own way, and the other chap can't even protest. Seems sort of a shame, too." "I don't like him," declared Agnes. The ensuing week Bobby spent mostly on the polo match, though he called religiously at the office every morning, coming down a few minutes earlier each day. It was an uneasy week, too, as well as a busy one, for twice during its progress he saw Agnes driving with the unknown ; and the fact that in bothi instances a handsome young lady was with them did not seem to mend matters much. He was aston- ished to find that losing the great polo match did not distress him at all. A year before it would have broken his heart, but the multiplicity of new interests had changed him entirely. As a matter of fact, he 40 THE MAKING OF BOBBY BURNIT had been long ripe for the change, though he had not known it. As he had matured, the blood of his hered- ity had begun to clamor for its expression ; that was all. At the beginning of the next week Mr. Trimmer came in to see him again, with a roll of drawings under his arm. The drawings displayed the proposed new bridge in elevation and in cross section. They showed the total stretch of altered store-rooms from street to street, and cleverly-drawn perspectives made graphically real that splendid length. They were accompanied by an estimate of the cost, and also by a permit from the city to build the bridge. With these were the preliminary papers for the organiza- tion of the new company, and Bobby, by this time in- tensely interested and convinced that his interest was business acumen, went over each detail with contracted brow and with kindling enthusiasm. It was ten o'clock of that morning when Silas Trim- mer had found Bobby at his desk ; by eleven Mr. Johnson and Mr. Applerod, in the outer office, were quite unable to work; by twelve they were snarling at each other; at twelve-thirty Johnson ventured to poke his head in at the door, framing some trivial excuse as he did so, but found the two merchants with their heads bent closely over the advantages of the great combined stores. At a quarter-past one, return- AGNES DECIDES 41 ing from a hasty lunch, Johnson tiptoed to the door again. He still heard an insistent, high-pitched voice inside. Mr. Trimmer was doing all the talking. He had explained and explained until his tongue was dry, and Bobby, with a full sense of the importance of his decision, was trying to clear away the fog that' had grown up in his brain. Mr. Trimmer was press- ing him for a decision. Bobby suddenly slipped his hand in his pocket, and, unseen, secured a half-dollar, which he shook in his hand under the table. Opening his palm he furtively looked at the coin. Heads ! "Get your papers ready, Mr. Trimmer," he an- nounced, as one finally satisfied by good and sufficient argument, "we'll form the organization as soon as you like." No sooner had he come to this decision than he felt a strange sense of elation. He had actually consum- mated a big business deal! He had made a positive step in the direction of carrying the John Burnit Store beyond the fame it had possessed at the time his father had turned it over to him! Since he had stiffened his back, he did not condescend to take John- son and Applerod into his confidence, though those two gentlemen were quivering to receive it, but he did order Johnson to allow Mr. Trimmer's representa- tives to go over the John Burnit books and to verify their latest invoice, together with the purchases and 42 THE MAKING OF BOBBY BURNIT sales since the date of that stock-taking. To Mr. Ap- plerod he assigned the task of making a like exam- ination of the Trimmer establishment, and each day felt more like a really-truly business man. He affected the Traders' Club now, formed an entirely new set of acquaintances, and learned to go about the stately rooms of that magnificent business annex with his hat on the back of his head and creases in his brow. Even before the final papers were completed, a huge gang of workmen, consisting of as many arti- sans as could be crowded on the job without standing on one another's feet, began to construct the elaborate bridge which was to connect the two stores, and Mr. Trimmer's publicity department was already secur- ing column after column of space in the local papers, some of it paid matter and some gratis, wherein it appeared that the son of old John Burnit had proved himself to be a live, progressive young man a worthy heir of so enterprising a father. CHAPTER V WHEREIN BOBBY ATTENDS A STOCK-HOLDERS* MEETING AND CUTS A WISDOM-TOOTH WITHIN a very few days was completed the complicated legal machinery which threw the John Burnit Store and Trimmer and Company into the hands of "The Bur- nit-Trimmer Merchandise Corporation" as a holding and operating concern. The John Burnit Store went into that consolidation at an invoice value of two hundred and sixty thousand dollars, Trimmer and Company at two hundred and forty thousand; and Bobby was duly pleased. He had the majority of stock! On the later suggestion of Mr. Trimmer, however, sixty thousand dollars of additional capital was taken into the concern. "The alterations, expansions, new departments and publicity will compel the command of about that much money," Mr. Trimmer patiently explained; "and while we could appropriate that amount from our respective concerns, we ought not to weaken our capital, particularly as financial affairs throughout 43 44 THE MAKING OF BOBBY BURNIT the country are so unsettled. This is not a brisk commercial year, nor can it be." "Yes," admitted Bobby, "I've heard something of all this hard-times talk. I know Nick Allstyne sold his French racer, and Nick's supposed to be worth no end of money." "Exactly," agreed Mr. Trimmer dryly. "This sixty thousand dollars' worth of stock, Mr. Burnit, I am quite sure that I can place with immediate pur- chasers, and if you will leave the matter to me I can have it all represented in our next meeting without any bother at all to you." "Very kind of you, I am sure," agreed Bobby, thankful that this trifling detail was not to bore him. And so it was that the Burnit-Trimmer Merchan- dise Corporation was incorporated at five hundred and sixty thousand dollars. It was considerably later when Bobby realized the significance of the fact that the subscribers to the additional capitalization con- sisted of Mr. Trimmer's son, his son-in-law, his head bookkeeper, his confidential secretary and his cousin, all of whom had also been minor stock-holders in the concern of Trimmer and Company. It was upon the day preceding the first stock-hold- ers' meeting of the reorganized company that Bobby, quite proud of the fact that he had acted independ- ently of them, made the formal announcement to A STOCK-HOLDERS' MEETING 45 Johnson and Applerod that the great consolidation had been effected. "Beginning with to-morrow morning, Mr. John- son," said he to that worthy, "the John Burnit Store will be merged into the Burnit-Trimmer Merchan- dise Corporation, and Mr. Trimmer will doubtless send his secretary to confer with you about an ad- justment of the clerical work." "Yes, sir," said Mr. Johnson dismally, and rose to open the filing case behind him. With his hand in the case he paused and turned a most woebegone countenance to the junior Burnit. "We shall be very regretful, Mr. Applerod and myself, to lose our posi- tions, sir," he stated. "We have grown up with the business from boyhood." "Nonsense!" exploded Applerod. "We would be regretful if that were to occur, but there is nothing of the sort possible. Why, Mr. Burnit, I think this consolidation is the greatest thing that ever happened. I've been in favor of it for years ; and as for its los- ing me my position Pooh!" and he snapped his fingers. "Applerod is quite right, Mr. Johnson," said Bobby severely. "Nothing of the sort is contem- plated. Yourself and Mr. Applerod are to remain with me as long as fair treatment and liberal pay and personal attachment can induce you to do so." 46 THE MAKING OF BOBBY BURNIT "Thank you, sir," said Mr. Johnson dryly, but he shook his head, and from the file produced one of the familiar gray envelopes. Bobby eyed it askance as it came toward him, and winced as he saw the inscription. He was beginning to dread these missives. They seemed to follow him about, to menace him, to give him a constant feeling of guilt. Nevertheless, he took this one quite calmly and walked into his own room. It was addressed : To My Son, Upon the Occasion of His Completing a Consolidation with Silas Trimmer and it read : "When a man devils you for years to enter a busi- ness deal with him, you may rest assured that man has more to gain by it than you have. Aside from his wormwood business jealousy of me, Silas Trimmer has wanted this Grand Street entrance to his store for more than the third of a century; now he has it. He'll have your store next." "Look here, Governor," protested Bobby aloud, to his lively remembrance of his father as he might have stood in that very room, "I call this rather rubbing it in. It's a bit unsportsmanlike. It's almost like laying a trap for a chap who doesn't know the game," A STOCK-HOLDERS' MEETING 47 and, rankling with a sense of injustice, he went out to Johnson. "I say, Johnson," he complained, "it's rather my fault for being too stubborn to ask about it, but if you knew that Mr. Trimmer was trying to work a game on me that was dangerous to the business, why didn't you volunteer to explain it to me ; to forewarn me and give me a chance for judgment with all the pros and cons in front of me ?" "From the bottom of my heart, Mr. Burnit," said Johnson with feeling, "I should like to have done it; but it was forbidden." He already had lying before him another of the gray envelopes, and this he solemnly handed over. It was addressed: To My Son, Upon His Complaining that Johnson Gave Him No Warning Concerning Silas Trimmer The message it contained was : "It takes hard chiseling to make a man, but if the material is the right grain the tool-marks won't show. If I had wanted you merely to make money, I would have left the business entirely in the hands of John- son and Applerod. But there is no use to put off pulling a tooth. It only hurts worse in the end." 48 THE MAKING OF BOBBY BURNIT When Bobby left the office he felt like walking in the middle of the street to avoid alley corners, since he was unable to divine from what direction the next brick might come. He had taken the business to heart more than he had imagined that he would, and the very fact of his father's having foreseen that he would succumb to this consolidation made him give grave heed to the implied suggestion that he would be a heavy loser by it. He had an engagement with Allstyne and Starlett at the Idlers' that afternoon, but they found him most preoccupied, and openly voted him a bore. He called on Agnes Elliston, but learned that she was out driving, and he savagely assured himself that he knew who was handling the reins. He dined at the Traders', and, for the first time since he had begun to frequent that place, the creases in his brow were real. Later in the evening he dropped around to see Biff Bates. In the very center of the gymnasium he found that gentleman engaged in giving a preliminary box- ing lesson to a spider-like new pupil, who was none other than Silas Trimmer. Responding to Biff's cheerful grin and Mr. Trimmer's sheepish one with what politeness he could muster, Bobby glumly went home. On the next morning occurred the first stock-hold- ers' meeting of the Burnit-Trimmer Merchandise Cor- A STOCK-HOLDERS' MEETING 49 poration, which Bobby attended with some feeling of importance, for, with his twenty-six hundred shares, he was the largest individual stock-holder present. That was what had reassured him overnight: the magic "majority of stock!" Mr. Trimmer only had twenty-four hundred, and Bobby could swing things as he pleased. His father, omniscient as he was, must certainly have failed to foresee this fact. In his sim- plicity of such matters and his general unsuspicious- ness, Bobby had not calculated that if the additional six hundred shares were to vote solidly with Mr. Trimmer against him, his twenty-six hundred shares would be confronted by three thousand, and so ren- dered paltry. Mr. Trimmer was delighted to see young Mr. Burnit. This was a great occasion indeed, both for the John Burnit Store and for Trimmer and Com- pany, and, in the opinion of Mr. Trimmer, his circu- lar smile very much in evidence, John Burnit himself would have been proud to see this day ! Mr. Smythe, Mr. Trimmer's son-in-law, also thought it a great day; Mr. Weldon, Mr. Trimmer's head bookkeeper, thought it a great day ; Mr. Harvey, Mr. Trimmer's confidential secretary, and Mr. U. G. Trimmer, Mr. Silas Trimmer's cousin, shared this pleasant impres- sion. In the beginning the organization was without form 50 THE MAKING OF BOBBY BURNIT or void, as all such organizations are, but Mr. Trim- mer, having an extremely clear idea of what was to be accomplished, proposed that Mr. Burnit accept the chair pro tern. where he would be out of the way. The unanimous support which this motion received was quite gratifying to the feelings of Mr. Burnit, proving at once that his fears had been not only groundless but ungenerous, and, in accepting the chair, he made them what he considered a very neat little speech indeed, striving the while to escape that circular smile with its diameter of yellow teeth and its intersecting crescent of stiff mustache ; for he dis- liked meanly to imagine that smile to have a sar- castic turn to-day. At the suggestion of Mr. Trim- mer, Mr. Weldon accepted the post of secretary pro tern. Mr. Trimmer then, with a nicely bound black book in his hand, rose to propose the adoption of the stock constitution and by-laws which were neatly printed in the opening pages of this minute-book, and in the articles of which he had made some trifling ^amendments. Mr. Weldon, by request, read these most carefully and conscientiously, making quite plain that the entire working management of the consolidated stores was to be under the direct charge of a general manager and an assistant general man- ager, who were to be appointed and have their sal- aries fixed by the board of directors, as was meet and A STOCK-HOLDERS' MEETING 51 proper. Gravely the stock-holders voted upon the adoption of the constitution and by-laws, and, with a feeling of pride, as the secretary called his name, Bobby cast his first vote in the following conven- tional form: "Aye twenty-six hundred shares." Mr. Trimmer followed, voting twenty-four hun- dred shares ; then Mr. Smythe, three hundred ; Mr. Weldon, fifty; Mr. Harvey, fifty; Mr. U. G. Trim- mer, fifty ; Mr. Thomas Trimmer, whose proxy was held by his father, one hundred and fifty; mak- ing in all a total of fifty-six hundred shares unanim- ously cast in favor of the motion; and Bobby, after having roundly announced the result, felt that he was conducting himself with vast parliamentary credit and lit a cigarette with much satisfaction. Mr. Trimmer, twirling his thumbs, displayed no surprise, nor even gratification, when Mr. Smythe almost immediately put him in nomination for presi- dent. Mr. Weldon promptly seconded that nomina- tion. Mr. Harvey moved that the nominations for the presidency be closed. Mr. U. G. Trimmer seconded that motion, which was carried unanimously; and with no ado whatever Mr. Silas Trimmer was made president of the Burnit-Trimmer Merchandise Cor- poration, Mr. Burnit having most courteously cast twenty-six hundred votes for him; for was not Mr. 52 THE MAKING OF BOBBY BURNIT Trimmer entitled to this honor by right of seniority? In similar manner Mr. Burnit, quite pleased, and not realizing that the vice-president of a corporation has a much less active and influential position than the night watchman, was elected to the second highest office, while Mr. Weldon was made secretary and Mr. Smythe treasurer. Mr. Harvey, Mr. U. G. Trimmer and Mr. Thomas Trimmer were, as a matter of course, elected members of the board of directors, the four officers already elected constituting the re- maining members of the board. There seemed but very little business remaining for the stock -holders to do, so they adjourned; then, the members of the board being all present and having waived in writing all formal notification, the directors went into immediate session, with Mr. Trimmer in the chair and Mr. Weldon in charge of the bright and shining new book of minutes. The first move of that body, after opening the meeting in due form, was made by Mr. Harvey, who proposed that Mr. Silas Trimmer be constituted gen- eral manager of the consolidated stores at a salary of fifty thousand dollars per year, a motion which was immediately seconded by Mr. U. G. Trimmer. Bobby was instantly upon his feet. Even with his total lack of experience in such matters there was something about this that struck him as overdrawn, A STOCK-HOLDERS' MEETING 53 and he protested that fancy salaries should have no place in the reorganized business until experience had proved that the business would stand it. He was very much in earnest about it, and wanted the subject discussed thoroughly before any such rash step was taken. The balance of the discussion con- sisted in one word from Mr. Smythe, echoed by all his fellow-members. "Question!" said that gentleman. "You have all heard the question," said Mr. Trim- mer calmly. "Those in favor will please signify by saying 'Aye.' " "Aye!" voted four members of the board as with one scarcely interested voice. "No !" cried Bobby angrily, and sprang to his feet, his anger confused, moreover, by the shock of find- ing unsuspected wolves tearing at his vitals. "Gen- tlemen, I protest against this action ! I " Mr. Trimmer pounded on the table with his pencil in lieu of a gavel. "The motion is carried. !Any other business?" It seemed that there was. Mr. Harvey proposed that Mr. Smythe be made assistant general manager at a salary of twenty-five thousand dollars per year. Again the farce of a ballot and the farce of a pro- test was enacted. Where now was the voting power of Bobby's twenty-six hundred shares? In the di- 54 THE MAKING OF BOBBY BURNIT rectors' meeting they voted as individuals, and they were six against one. Rather indifferently, as if the thing did not amount to much, Mr. Smythe pro- posed that the selection of a firm name for advertising and publicity purposes be left to the manager, and though Bobby voted no as to this proposition on gen- eral principles, it seemed of minor importance, in his then bewildered state of mind. After all, the thing which grieved him most just then was to find that people could do these things! CHAPTER VI CONSISTING ENTIRELY OF A RAPID SUCCESSION OF MOST PAINFUL SHOCKS HE was still dazed with what had happened, when, the next morning, he turned into ^^1^ the office and found Johnson and Apple- rod packing up their personal effects. Workmen were removing letter-files and taking desks out of the door. "What's the matter?" he asked, surveying the un- wonted confusion in perplexity. "The entire office force of the now defunct John Burnit Store has been dismissed, that's all!" blurted Applerod, now the aggrieved one. "You sold us out, lock, stock and barrel!" "Impossible 1" gasped Bobby. Mr. Johnson glumly showed him curt letters of dismissal from Trimmer. "Where's mine, I wonder?" inquired Bobby, try- ing to take his terrific defeat with sportsmanlike nonchalance. 55 56 THE MAKING OF BOBBY BURNIT "I don't suppose there is any for you, sir, inas- much as you never had a recognized position to lose," replied Johnson, not unkindly. "Did the board of directors elect you to any salaried office?" "Why, so they didn't!" exclaimed Bobby, and for the first time realized that no place had been made for him. He had taken it as a matter of course that he was to be a part of the consolidation, and the omis- sion of any definite provision for him had passed unnoticed. The door leading to his own private office banged open, and two men appeared, shoving through it the big mahogany desk turned edgewise. "What are they doing?" Bobby asked sharply. "Moving out all the furniture," snapped Apple- rod with bitter relish. "All the office work, I under- stand, is to be done in the other building, and this space is to be thrown into a special cut-glass depart- ment. I suppose the new desk is for Mr. Trimmer." Furious, choking, Bobby left the office and strode back through the store. The first floor passageway was already completed between the two buildings, and a steady stream of customers was going over the bridge from the old Burnit store into the old Trim- mer store. There were very few coming in the other direction. He had never been in Mr. Trimmer's offices, but he found his way there with no difficulty, A SUCCESSION OF SHOCKS 57 and Mr. Trimmer came out of his private room to receive him with all the suavity possible. In fact, he had been saving up suavity all morning for this very encounter. "Well, what can we do for you this morning, Mr. Burnit?" he wanted to know, and Bobby, though ac- customed to repression as he was, had a sudden im- pulse to drive his fist straight through that false circular smile. "I want to know what provision has been made for me in this new adjustment," he demanded. "Why, Mr. Burnit," expostulated Mr. Trimmer in much apparent surprise, "you have two hundred and sixty thousand dollars' worth of stock in what should be the best paying mercantile venture in this city; you are vice-president, and a member of the board of directors !" "I have no part, then, in the active management?" Bobby wanted to know. "It would be superfluous, Mr. Burnit. One of the chief advantages of such a consolidation is the econ- omy that comes from condensing the office and man- aging forces. I regretted very much indeed to dis- miss Mr. Johnson and Mr. Applerod, but they are very valuable men and should have no difficulty in placing themselves advantageously. In fact, I shall be glad to aid them in securing new positions." 58 THE MAKING OF BOBBY BURNIT, "The thing is an outrage !" exclaimed Bobby with passion. "My dear Mr. Burnit, it is business," said Mr. Trimmer coldly, and, turning, went deliberately into his own room, leaving Bobby standing in the middle of the floor. Bobby sprang to that door and threw it open, and Trimmer, who had been secretly trembling all through the interview, turned to him with a quick pallor over- spreading his face, a pallor which Bobby saw and despised and ignored, and which turned his first mad impulse. "I'd like to ask one favor of you, Mr. Trimmer," said he. "In moving the furniture out of the John Burnit offices I should be very glad, indeed, if you would order my father's desk removed to my house. It is an old desk and can not possibly be of much use. You may charge its value to my account, please." "Nonsense!" said Mr. Trimmer. "I'll have it sent out with pleasure. Is there anything else?" "Nothing whatever at present," said Bobby, trembling with the task of holding himself steady, and walked out, unable to analyze the bitter emotions that surged within him. On the sidewalk, standing beside his automobile, he found Johnson and Applerod waiting for him, and the moment he saw Johnson, cumbered with the A SUCCESSION OF SHOCKS 59 big index-file that he carried beneath his arm, he knew why. "Give me the letter, Johnson," he said with a wry smile, and Johnson, answering it with another equally as grim, handed him a gray envelope. Applerod, who had been the first to upbraid him, was now the first to recover his spirits. "Never mind, Mr. Burnit," said he; "businesses and even fortunes have been lost before and have been regained. There are still ways to make money." Bobby did not answer him. He was opening the letter, preparing to stand its contents in much the same spirit that he had often gone to his father to accept a reprimand which he knew he could not in dignity evade. But there was no reprimand. He read: "There's no use in telling a young man what to do when he has been gouged. If he's made of the right stuff he'll know, and if he isn't, no amount of telling will put the right stuff in him. I have faith in you. Bobby, or I'd never have let you in for this goring. "In the meantime, as there will be no dividends on your stock for ten years to come, what with 'improve- ments, expenses and salaries,' and as you will need to continue your education by embarking in some other line of business before being ripe enough to accom- plish what I am sure you will want to do, you may 60 THE MAKING OF BOBBY BURNIT now see your trustee, the only thoroughly sensible person I know who is sincerely devoted to your in- terests. Her name is Agnes EUiston." "What is the matter?" asked Johnson in sudden concern, and Applerod grabbed him by the arm. "Oh, nothing much," said Bobby ; "a little groggy, that's all. The governor just handed me one under the belt. By the way, boys" and they scarcely noted that he no longer said "gentlemen" "if you have nothing better in view I want you to consider yourselves still in my employ. I'm going into busi- ness again at once. If you will call at my house to- morrow forenoon I'll talk with you about it," and anxious to be rid of them he told his driver "Idlers'," and jumped into his automobile. Agnes! That surely was giving him a solar- plexus blow! Why, what did the governor mean? It was putting him very much in a kindergarten position with the girl before whom he wanted to make a better impression than before anybody else in all the world. It took him a long time to readjust himself to this cataclysm. After all, though, was not his father right in this, as he had been in everything else? Humbly Bobby was ready to confess that Agnes had more brains A SUCCESSION OF SHOCKS 61 and good common sense than anybody, and was alto- gether about the most loyal and dependable person in all the world, with the single and sole exception of allowing that splendid looking and unknown chap to hang around her so. They were in the congested down-town district now, and as they came to a dead stop at a crossing, Bobby, though immersed in thought, became aware of a short, thick-set man, who, standing at the very edge of the car, was ap- parently trying to stare him out of countenance. "Why, hello, Biff!" exclaimed Bobby. "Which way?" "Just waiting for a South Side trolley," explained Biff. "Going over to see Kid Mills about that light- weight go we're planning." "Jump in," said Bobby, glad of any change in his altogether indefinite program. "I'll take you over." On the way he detailed to his athletic friend what had been done to him in the way of business. "I know'd it," said BSff excitedly. "I know'd it 'from the start. That's why I got old Trimmer to join my class. Made him a special price of next to nothing, and got Doc Willets to go around and tell him he was in Dutch for want of training. Just wait." "For what?" asked Bobby, smiling. 62 THE MAKING OF BOBBY BURNIT "Till the next time he comes up," declared Biff vengefully. "Say, do you know I put that shrimp's hour a-purpose just when there wouldn't be a soul up there; and the next time I get him in front of me I'm going to let a few slip that'll jar him from the cellar to the attic; and the next time anybody sees him he'll be nothing but splints and court-plaster." "Biff," said Bobby severely, "you'll do nothing of the kind. You'll leave one Silas Trimmer to me. Merely bruising his body won't get back my father's business. Let him alone." "But look here, Bobby " "No; I say let him alone," insisted Bobby. "All right," said Biff sullenly ; "but if you think there's a trick you can turn to double cross this Trimmer you've got another think coming. He's sunk his fangs in the business he's been after all his life, and now you couldn't pry it away from him with a jimmy. You know what I told you about him." "I know," said Bobby wearily. "But honestly, Biff, did you ever see me go into a game where I was a loser in the end?" "Not till this one," confessed Biff. "And this isn't the end," retorted Bobby. He knew that when he made such a confident asser- tion that he had nothing upon which to base it ; that A SUCCESSION OF SHOCKS 63 he was talking vaguely and at random; but he also knew the intense desire that had arisen in him to re- verse conditions upon the man who had waited until the father died to wrest that father's pride from the son; and in some way he felt coming strength. In Biff's present frame of conviction Bobby was pleased enough to drop him in front of Kid Mills' obscure abode, and turn with a sudden hungry impulse in the direction of Agnes. At the Ellistons', when the chauffeur was about to slow up, Bobby in a panic told him to drive straight on. In the course of half an hour he came back again, and this time pride alone fear of what his chauffeur might think de- termined him to stop. With much trepidation he went up to the door. Agnes was just preparing to go out, and she came down to him in the front parlor. "This is only a business call," he confessed with as much appearance of gaiety as he could summon under the circumstance. "I've come around to see my trustee." "So soon?" she said, with quick sympathy in her voice. "I'm so sorry, Bobby! But I suppose, after all, the sooner it happened the better. Tell me all about it. What was the cause of it?" "You wouldn't marry me," charged Bobby. "If you had this never would have happened." 64 THE MAKING OF BOBBY BURNIT She shook her head and smiled, but she laid her hand upon his arm and drew closer to him. "I'm afraid it would, Bobby. You might have asked my advice, but I expect you wouldn't have taken it." "I guess you're right about that," admitted Bobby ; "but if you'd only married me Honest, Agnes, when are you going to?" "I shall not commit myself," she replied, smiling up at him rather wistfully. "There's somebody else," declared Bobby, in- stantly assured by this evasiveness that the unknown had something to do with the matter. "If there were, it would be my affair entirely, wouldn't it?" she wanted to know, still smiling. "No!" he declared emphatically. "It would be my affair. But really I want to know. Will you, if I get my father's business back?" "I'll not promise," she said. "Why, Bobby, the way you put it, you would be binding me not to marry you in case you didn't get it back!" and she laughed at him. "But let's talk business now. I was just starting out upon your affairs, the secur- ing of some bonds for which the lawyer I have em- ployed has been negotiating, so you may take me up there and he will arrange to get you the two hundred and fifty thousand dollars you are to have. They'll double-cross you, though, to a fare-ye-well A SUCCESSION OF SHOCKS 65 It's for a new start, without restrictions except that you are to engage in business with it. That's all the instructions I have." "Thanks," said Bobby, with a gulp. "Honestly, Agnes, it's a shame. It's a low-down trick the gov- ernor played to put me in this helplessly belittled position with you." "Why, how strange," she replied quietly. "I look upon it as a most graceful and agreeable position for myself." "Oh!" he exclaimed blankly, as it occurred to him just how uncomfortable the situation must be to her, and he reproached himself with selfishness in not having thought of this phase of the matter before. "That's a fact," he admitted. "I say, Agnes, I'll say no more about that end of it if you don't; and, after all, I'm glad, too. It gives me a legitimate excuse to see you much oftener." "Gracious, no !" she protested. "You fill up every spare moment that I have now; but so long as you are here on business this time, let's attend to business. You may take me up to see Mr. Chalmers. By the way, I want you to meet him, anyhow. You have seen him, I believe, once or twice. He was here one day when you called, and he was walking with me in the lobby of the theater when you came in to join us one evening." 66 THE MAKING OF BOBBY BURNIT "Y-e-s," drawled Bobby, as if he were placing the man with difficulty. "The Chalmers' are charming people," she went on. "His wife is perfectly fascinating. We used to go to school together. They have only been married three months, and when they came here to go into business I was very glad to throw such of your father's estate as I am to handle into his hands. Whenever they are ready I want to engineer them into our set, but they live very quietly now. I know you'll like them." "Oh, I'm sure I will," agreed Bobby heartily, and his face was positively radiant, as, for some unac- countable reason, he clutched her hand. She lifted it up beneath his arm, around which, for one ecstatic moment, she clasped her other hand, and together they went out into the hall, Bobby, simply driveling in his supreme happiness, allowing her to lead him wheresoever she listed. Still in the joy of knowing that his one dreaded rival was removed in so pleas- ant a fashion, he handed her into the automobile and they started out to see Mr. Chalmers. Their way led down Grand Street, past the John Burnit Store, and with all that had happened still rankling sorely in his mind, Bobby looked up and gave a gasp. Workmen were taking down the plain, dignified old sign of the John Burnit Store from the top of the building, and in its place they were raising up a A SUCCESSION OF SHOCKS 67 glittering new one, ordered by Silas Trimmer on the very day Bobby had agreed to go into the consolida- tion ; and it read : "TRIMMER AND COMPANY" CHAPTER VII PINK-CHEEKED APPLEROD RUSHES TO" THE EESCUE WITH A GOLDEN SCHEME AGNES had been surprised into an exclam- ation of dismay by that new sign, but she checked it abruptly as she saw Bobby's face. She could divine, but she could not fully know, how that had hurt him ; how the pain of it had sunk into his soul; how the humiliation of it had tingled in every fiber of him. For an instant his breath had! stopped, his heart had swelled as if it would burst, a great lump had come in his throat, a sob almost tore its way through his clenched teeth. He caught his breath sharply, his jaws set and his nostrils dilated, then the color came slowly back to his cheeks. Agnes, though longing to do so, had feared to lay her hand even upon his sleeve in sympathy lest she might un- man him, but now she saw that she need not have feared. It had not weakened him, this blow; it had strengthened him. "That's brutal," he said steadily, though the steadiness was purely a matter of will. "We must change that sign before we do anything else." 68 APPLEROD TO THE RESCUE 69 "Of course," she answered simply. Involuntarily she stretched out her small gloved Hand, and with it touched his own. Looking back once more for a fleeting glimpse at the ascending symbol of his defeat, he gripped her hand so hard that she almost cried out with the pain of it; but she did not wince. When he suddenly remembered, with a fright- ened apology, and laid her hand upon her lap and patted it, her fingers seemed as if they had been com- pressed into a numb mass, and she separated them slowly and with difficulty. Afterward she remem- bered that as a dear hurt, after all, for in it she shared his pain. While they were still stunned and silent under Silas Trimmer's parting blow, the machine drew up at the curb in front of the building in which Chalmers had his office. Chalmers, Bobby found, was a most agree- able fellow, to whom he took an instant liking. It was strange what different qualities the man seemed to possess than when Bobby had first seen him in the company of Agnes. Their business there was very brief. Chalmers held for Bobby, subject to Agnes' order as trustee, the sum of two hundred and fifty thousand dollars in instantly convertible securities, and when they left, Bobby had a check for that amount comfortably tucked in his pocket. There was another brief visit to the office of old 70 THE MAKING OF BOBBY BURNIT Mr. Barrister, where Agnes, again as Bobby's trustee, exhibited the papers Chalmers had made out for her, showing that the funds previously left in her charge had been duly paid over to Bobby as per the pro- visions of the will, and thereupon filed her order for a similar amount. Bjarrister received them with an "I told you so" air which amounted almost to satis- faction. He was quite used to seeing the sons of rich men hastening to become poor men, and he had so evidently classed Bobby as one of the regular sort, that Bobby took quite justifiable umbrage and de- cided that if he had any legal business whatever he would put it into the hands of Chalmers. He spent the rest of the day with Agnes and took dinner at the Ellistons', where jolly Aunt Constance and shrewd Uncle Dan, in genuine sympathy, de- sisted so palpably from their usual joking about his "business career," that Bobby was more ill at ease than if they had said all the grimly humorous things which popped into their minds. For that reason he went home rather early, and tumbled into bed resolv- ing upon the new future he was to face to-morrow. * At least, he consoled himself with a sigh, he was now a man of experience. He had learned something of the world. He was not further to be hoodwinked. His last confused vision was of Silas Trimmer on his knees begging for mercy, and the next thing he knew APPLEROD TO THE RESCUE 71 was th'at some one was reminding him, with' annoying insistency, of the early call he had left. The world looked brighter that morning, and he was quite hopeful when, in the dim old study, seated at his father's desk and with the portrait of stern old John Burnit frowning and yet shrewdly twin- kling down upon him, he received Johnson, dry and sour looking as if he expected ill news, and Applerod, bright and radiant as if Fortune's purse were just about to open to him. "Well, boys," said Bobby cheerily, "we're going to stick right together. We're going to start into a new business as soon as we can find one that suits us, and your employment begins from this minute. We're be- ginning with a capital of two hundred and fifty thou- sand dollars," and rather pompously he spread the check upon the desk. His pompousness faded in some- thing under fifteen seconds, for it was in about that length of time that he caught sight of a plain gray envelope then in the process of emerging from John- son's pocket. He accepted it with something of re- luctance, but opened it nevertheless ; and this was the message of the late John Burnit : To my Son Upon the Occasion of his Being Intrusted With Real Money "In most cases the difference between spending 72 THE MAKING OF BOBBY BURNIT money and investing it is wholly a matter of speed. Not one man in ten knows when and where and how to put a dollar properly to work ; so the only financial education I expect you to get out of an attempt to go into business is a painful lesson in subtraction." "This letter, Johnson, is only a delicate intimation from the governor that I'll make another blooming ass of myself with this," commented Bobby, tapping his finger on the check, and placing the letter face downward beside it, where he eyed it askance. "A quarter of a million !" observed Applerod, roll- ing out the amount with relish. "A great deal can be done with two hundred and fifty thousand dollars, you know." "That's just the point," observed Bobby with a frown of perplexity, directed alternately to the faith- ful gentlemen who for upward of thirty years had been his father's right and left bowers. "What am I to do with it? Johnson, what would you do with two hundred and fifty thousand dollars ?" "Lose it," confessed stooped and bloodless John- son. "I never made a dollar out of a dollar in my life." "What would you do with it, r Applerod?" Mr. Applerod, scarcely able to contain himself, had been eagerly awaiting that question. "Purchase, improve and market the Westmarsh Ad- APPLEROD TO THE RESCUE 73 dition," he said promptly, expanding fully two inches across his already rotund chest. "What?" snorted Johnson, and cast upon his work- mate a look of withering scorn. "Are you still dream- ing about the possibilities of that old swamp ?" "To be sure it is a swamp," admitted Mr. Apple- rod with some heat. "Do you suppose you could buy one hundred and twenty acres of directly accessible land, almost at the very edge of the crowded city limits, at two hundred dollars an acre if it wasn't swamp land?" he demanded. "Why, Mr. Burnit, it is the opportunity of a lifetime !" "How much capital would be needed?" asked Bobby, gravely assuming the callous, inquisitorial manner of the ideal business man. "Well, I've managed to buy up twenty acres out of my savings, and there are still one hundred acres to be purchased, which will take twenty thousand dol- lars. But this is the small part of it. Drainage, fill- ing and grading is to be done, streets and sidewalks ought to be put down, a gift club-house, which would serve at first as an office, would be a good thing to build, and the thing would have to be most thoroughly advertised. I've figured on it for years, and it would require, all told, about a two-hundred-thousand invest- ment." "And what would be the return?" asked Bobby 74 THE MAKING OF BOBBY BURNIT without blinking at these big figures, and proud of his attitude, which, while conservative, was still one of openness to conviction. "Figure it out for yourself," Mr. Applerod in- vited him with much enthusiasm. "We get ten build- ing lots to the acre, turning one hundred and twenty acres into one thousand two hundred lots. Improved sites at any point surrounding this tract can not be bought for less than twenty-five dollars per front foot. Corner lots and those in the best locations would bring much more, but taking the average price at only six hundred dollars per lot, we would have, as a total return for the investment, seven hundred and twenty thousand dollars !" "In how long?" Bobby inquired, not allowing him- self to become in the slightest degree excited. "One year," announced the optimistic Mr. Apple- rod with conviction. Mr. Johnson, his lips glued tightly together in one firm, thin, straight line across his face, was glaring steadfastly at the corner of the ceiling, permitting no expression whatever to flicker in his eyes ; noting which, Bobby turned to him with a point-blank ques- tion: "What do you think of this opportunity, Mr. John- son?" he asked. Mr. Johnson glared quickly at Mr. Applerod. APPLEROD TO THE RESCUE 75 "Tell him," defied that gentleman. "I think nothing whatever of it!" snapped Mr. Johnson. "What is your chief ground of objection?" Bobby wanted to know. Again Mr. Johnson glared quickly at Mr. Apple- rod. "Tell him," insisted that gentleman with an out- ward wave of both hands, expressive of his intense desire to have every secret of his own soul and of everybody's else laid bare. "I will," said Johnson. "Your father, a dozen times in my own hearing, refused to have anything to do with the scheme." Bobby turned accusing eyes upon Applerod, who, though red of face, was still strong of assertion. "Mr. Burnit never declined on any other grounds than that he already had too many irons in the fire," he declared. "Tell him that, too, Johnson !" "It was only his polite way of putting it," retorted Mr. Johnson. "John Burnit was noted for his polite way of put- ting his business conclusions," snapped Applerod in return, whereat Bobby smiled with gleeful reminis- cence, and Mr. Johnson smiled grimly, albeit reluc- tantly, and Mr. Applerod smiled triumphantly. "I can see the governor doing it," laughed Bobby, 76 THE MAKING OF BOBBY BURNIT and dismissed the matter. "Mr. Johnson, as a start in business we may as well turn this study into a tem- porary office. Take this check down to the Commer- cial Bank, please, and open an account. You already have power of attorney for my signature. Procure a small set of books and open them. Make out for me against this account at the Commercial a check for ten thousand, Mr. Applerod, kindly reduce your swamp proposition to paper and let me have it by to- morrow. I'll not promise that I will do anything with it, but it would be only fair to examine it." With these crisp remarks, upon the decisiveness of which Bobby prided himself very much, he left the two to open business for him under the supervision of the portrait of stern but humor-given old John Burnit. "Applerod," said Johnson indignantly, his lean frame almost quivering, "it is a wonder to me that you can look up at that picture and reflect that you are trying to drag John Burnit's son into this fool scheme." "Johnson," said Mr. Applerod, puffing out his cheeks indignantly, "you were given the first chance to advise Mr. Robert what he should do with his money, and you failed to do so. This is a magnificent business opportunity, and I should consider myself very remiss in my duty to John Burnit's son if I failed to urge it upon him." APPLEROD TO THE RESCUE 77 Mr. Johnson picked up the letter that Bobby, evi- dently not caring whether they read it or not, had left behind him. He ran through it with a grim smile and handed it over to Applerod as his best retort. At the home of Agnes Elliston Bobby's car stopped almost as a matter of habit, and though the hour was a most informal one he walked up the steps as con- fidently as if he intended opening the door with a latch-key; for since Agnes was become his trustee, Bobby had awakened, overnight, to the fact that he had a proprietary interest in her which could not be denied. Agnes came down to meet him in a most ravishing morning robe of pale green, a confection so stunning in conjunction with her gold-brown eyes and waving brown hair and round white throat that Bobby was forced to audible comment upon it. "Cracking!" said he. "I suppose that if I hadn't had nerve enough to pop in here unexpectedly before noon I wouldn't have seen that gown for ages." It was Aunt Constance, the irrepressible, who, lean- ing over the stair railing, sank the iron deep into his soul. "It was bought at Trimmer and Company's, Grand Street side, Bobby," she informed him, and with this Parthian shot she went back through the up-stairs hall, laughing. 78 THE MAKING OF BOBBY BURNIT "Ouch!" said Bobby. "That was snowballing a cripple," and he was really most woebegone about it. "Never mind, Bobby, you have still plenty of chance to win," comforted Agnes, who, though laugh- ing, had sympathetic inkling of that sore spot which had been touched. He seemed so forlorn, in spite of his big, good-natured self, that she moved closer to him and unconsciously put her hand upon his arm. It was too much for him in view of the way she looked, and, suddenly emboldened, he did a thing the mere thought of which, under premeditation, would have scared him into a frapped perspiration. He placed his hands upon her shoulders, and, drawing her toward him, bent swiftly down to kiss her. For a fleet- ing instant she drew back, and then Bobby had the surprise of his life, for her warm lips met his quite willingly, and with a frank pressure almost equal to his own. She sprang back from him at once with sparkling eyes, but he had no mind to follow up his advantage, for he was dazed. It had left him breath- less, amazed, incredulous. He stood for a full minute, his face gone white with the overwhelming wonder of this thing that had happened to him, and then the blunt directness which was part of his inheritance from his father returned to him. "Well, anyhow, we're to be engaged at last," he said. APPLEROD TO THE RESCUE 79 "No," she rebuked him, with a sudden flash of mis- chief ; "that was perfectly wicked, and you mustn't do it again." "But I will," he said, advancing with heightened color. "You mustn't," she said firmly, and although she did not recede farther from him he stopped. "You mustn't make it hard for us, Bobby," she warned him. "I'm under promise, too ; and that's all I can tell you now." "The governor again," groaned Bobby. "I sup- pose that I'm not to talk to you about marrying, nor you to listen, until I have proved my right and ability to take care of you and your fortune and mine. Is that it?" She smiled inscrutably. "What brings you at this unearthly hour?" she asked by way of evasion. "Some business pretext, I'll be bound." "Of course it is," he assured her. "This morning you are strictly in the role of my trustee. I want you to look at some property." "But I have an appointment with my dressmaker." "The dressmaker must wait." "What a warning!" she laughed. "If you would order a mere a mere acquaintance around so per- emptorily, what would you do if you were married?" 80 THE MAKING OF BOBBY BURNIT "I'd be the boss," announced Bjobby with calm con- fidence. "Indeed?" she mocked, and started into the library. "You'd ask permission first, wouldn't you ?" "Where are you going?" he queried in return, and grinned. "To telephone my dressmaker," she admitted, smil- ing, and realizing, too, that it was not all banter. "I told you to, remember," asserted Bobby, with a strange new sense of masterfulness which would not down. When she came down again, dressed for the trip, he was still in that dazed elation, and it lasted through their brisk ride to the far outskirts of the city, where, at the side of a watery marsh that extended for nearly a mile along the roadway, he halted. "This is it," waving his hand across the dismal waste. "It!" she repeated. "What?" "The property that it was suggested I buy." "No wonder your father thought it necessary to appoint a trustee," was her first comment. "Why, Bobby, what on earth could you do with it? It's too large for a frog farm and too small for a summer re- sort," and once more she turned incredulous eyes upon the "property." Dark, oily water covered the entire expanse, and APPLEROD TO THE RESCUE 81 through it emerged, here and there, clumps of dank vegetation, from the nature and dispersement of which one could judge that the water varied from one to three feet in depth. Higher ground surrounded it on all sides, and the urgent needs of suburban growth had scattered a few small, cheap cottages, here and there, upon the hills. "It doesn't seem very attractive until you consider those houses," Bobby confessed. "You must remem- ber that the city hasn't room to grow, and must take note that it is trying to spread in this direction. Wouldn't a fellow be doing a rather public-spirited thing, and one in which he might take quite a bit of satisfaction, if he drained that swamp, filled it, laid out streets and turned the whole stretch into a cluster of homes in place of a breeding-place for fevers?" "You talk just like a civic improvement society," she said, laughing. "We did have a chap lecturing on that down at the club a few nights ago," he admitted, "and maybe I have picked up a bit of the talk. But wouldn't it be a good thing, anyhow?" "Oh, I quite approve of it, now that I see your plan," she agreed; "but could it be made to pay?" "Well," he returned with a grave assumption of that businesslike air he had recently been trying to copy down at the Traders' Club, "there are one hun- 82 THE MAKING OF BOBBY BURNIT dred and twenty acres in the tract. I can buy it for two hundred dollars an acre, and sell each acre, in building lots, for full six thousand. It seems to me that this is enough margin to carry out the needed improvements and make the marketing of it worth while. What do you think of it?" They both gazed out over that desolate expanse and tried to picture it dotted with comfortable cottages, set down in grassy lawns that bordered on white, clean streets, and the idea of the transformation was an at- tractive one. "It looks to me like a perfectly splendid idea," Agnes admitted. "I wonder what your father would have thought of it." "Well," confessed Bobby a trifle reluctantly, "this very proposition was presented to him several times, I believe, but he always declined to go into it." "Then," decided Agnes, so quickly and emphatic- ally that it startled him, "don't touch it!" "Oh, but you see," he reminded her, "the governor couldn't go Into everything that was offered him, and to this plan he never urged any objection but that he had too many irons in the fire." "I wouldn't touch it," declared Agnes, and that was her final word in the matter, despite all his arguments. If John Burnit had declined to go into it, no matter for what reason, the plan was not worth considering. CHAPTER VIII BOBBY SUCCEEDS IN SNAPPING A BARGAIN FROM UNDER SILAS TRIMMER'S NOSE STILL undecided, but carrying seriously the thought that he must overlook no opportunity if he was to prove himself the successful man that his father had so ardently wished him to become, Bobby dropped into the Idlers' Club for lunch, where Nick Allstyne and Payne Winthrop hailed him as one returned from the dead. "Just the chap," declared Nick. "Stan Rogers has written me that I'm to scrape the regular crowd to- gether and come up to his new Canadian lodge for a hunt. Stag affair, you know. Real sport and no pink-coat pretense." "Sorry, Nick," said Bobby, pluming himself a trifle upon his steadfastness to duty, "but I know what Stan's stag affairs are like. It would mean two weeks at least, and I could not spare that much time from the city." "Business again !" groaned Payne in mock dismay. 83 84 THE MAKING OF BOBBY BURNIT "T!his grasping greed for gain is blighting the most promising young men of our avaricious country. Why, it's positively shameful, Bobby, when your fa- ther must have left you over three million." "Two hundred and fifty thousand, so far as I'm al- lowed to inquire just now," corrected Bobby; "and I'm ordered to go into business with that and prove that I'm not such a blithering idiot that I can't be trusted with the rest of it, whatever there is." "But I thought you'd had your trial by fire and pulled out of it," interposed Nick. "I heard that you had sold your interests or something, and when I saw a new sign over the store I knew that it was true. Sensible thing, I call it." "Sensible !" winced Bobby. "You're allowing me a mighty pleasant way out of it, but the fact of the matter is that I lost in such a stinging way I'm bound to get back into the game and do nothing else until I win," and he explained how Silas Trimmer had per- formed upon him a neat and delicate operation in com- mercial surgery. They were properly sympathetic; not that they cared much about business, but if Bobby had entered any game whatsoever in which he had been soundly beaten, they could quite understand his desire to stay in that game until he could show points on the right side. BOBBY SNAPS A BARGAIN 85 "Nevertheless," Nick urged, "you ought to take a little breathing spell in between." All through lunch, and through the game of bil- liards which followed, they strove to make him see the error of his ways, but Bobby was obdurate, and at last they gave him up as a bad job, with the grave prediction that later he would find himself nothing more nor less than a beast of burden. When he left them Bobby was surprised at himself. For a time he had feared that in his declaration of such close atten- tion to business he might be posing; but he found that to miss a stag hunting party, which heretofore had been one of his keenest delights, weighed upon him not at all; found actually that he would far rather stay in the city to engage in the game of finance which was unfolding before him! He came upon this surprising discovery while he was on his way across to a side street, where, on the fourth floor of a store and warehouse building, he let himself in at a wide door with a latch-key and entered the gymna- sium of Biff Bates. That gentleman, in trunks, sweater and sandals, was padding all alone around and around the edge of the hall at a steady jog, which, after twenty solid minutes, had left no effect whatever upon his respiration. "Getting fat as a butcher again," he announced as he trotted steadily around to Bobby, suddenly stop- 86 THE MAKING OF BOBBY BURNIT ping short with an expansive grin across his wide face and a handshake that it took an athlete to withstand. "Got to cut it down or it'll put me on the blink. What's the best thing you know, chum?" "How does this hit you?" asked Bobby, taking from his pocket the check Johnson had given him that morning. Mr. Bates looked at it with his hands behind him. "Pleased to make your acquaintance," he said to the slip of paper, nodding profoundly. "Oh, everybody's friendly to these," said Bobby, indorsing the check. "It is for the new gymnasium," he explained. "Now, partner, turn loose and monopo- lize the physical training business of this city." "Partner!" scorned Mr. Bates. "Look here, old pal, there's only one way I'll take this big ticket, and that is that you'll drag down your split of the profits." "But don't I on this place?" protested Bobby. "Nit!" retorted Mr. Bates with infinite scorn. "You put them right back into the business, but that don't go any more. If we start this big joint it's got to be partners right, see? Or else take back this wealthy handwriting. I don't guess I want it, anyhow. From past performances you need all the money in the world, and ten thousand simoleons will put a crimp in any wad." BOBBY SNAPS A BARGAIN 87 "No," laughed Bobby; "you're saving it for me "when you take it. I've just read a very nice note, left for me by the governor, that I'll be a fool and lose anyhow." Mr. Bates grinned. "You will, all right, all right, if you're going into business," he admitted, and stuffed the check in the upturned cuff of his sweater. "After these profit- and-loss artists get your goat on all the starts your old man left you, maybe I'll have to put up the eats and sleeps for you anyhow; huh?" and Mr. Bates laughed with keen enjoyment of this delicately ex- pressed idea. "How are you going to divorce your- self from the rest of it, Bobby?" "I'm not quite sure," said Bobby. "You know that big stretch of swamp land, out on the Millberg Road?" "Where Paddy Dolan fell in and died from drinkin' too much water? Sure I do." "Well, it has been suggested to me that I buy it, drain it, fill it, put in paved streets, cut it up into building lots and sell it." "And build it full of these pale yellow shacks that the honest working slob buys with seventeen years of his wages, and then loses the shack?" Biff incredu- lously wanted to know. "You guessed wrong, Biff," laughed Bobby. "Just 88 THE MAKING OF BOBBY BURNIT selling the lots will be enough for me. What do you think of it?" "I don't know," said Mr. Bates thoughtfully. "I know they frame up such stunts and boost 'em strong in the papers, and if any of these real-estate sharps is working just for their healths they've been stung from all I've seen of 'em. But the main point is, who's the guy that's tryin' to lead you to it?" "Oh, that part's all right," replied Bobby with per- fect assurance. "The man who wants me to finance this, and who has already bought some of the land, was one of my father's right-hand men for nearly thirty years." "Then that's all right," agreed Mr. Bates. "But say !" he suddenly exclaimed as a new thought struck him ; "it's a wonder this right-mitt mut of your fa- ther's didn't make the old man fall for it long ago, if it's such a hot muffin." "He did try it," confessed Bobby with hesitation for the second time that day; "but the governor al- ways complained that he had too many other irons in the fire." "He did, did he?" Mr. Bates wanted to know, fix- ing accusing eyes on Bobby. "Then don't be the fall guy for any other touting. Your old man knew this business dope from Sheepshead Bay to Oakland. You take it from me that this tip ain't the one best bet." BOBBY SNAPS A BARGAIN 89 Bobby left the gymnasium with a certain degree of dissatisfaction, not only with Mr. Applerod's scheme but with the fact that wherever he went his father's business wisdom was thrown into his teeth. That even- ing, drawn to the atmosphere into which events had plunged him, he dined at the Traders' Club. As he passed one of the tables Silas Trimmer leered up at him with the circular smile, which, bisected by a row of yellow teeth and hooded with a bristle of stubby mustache, had now come to aggravate him almost past endurance. To-night it made him approach his din- ner with vexation, and, failing to find the man he had sought, he finished hastily. As he went out, Silas Trimmer, though looking straight in his direction, did not seem to be at all aware of Bobby's approach. He was deep in a business discussion with his prig- gish son-in-law. "It's a great opportunity," he was loudly insisting. "If I can secure that land I'll drain and improve it and cut it up into building lots. This city is ripe for a suburban boom." That settled it with Bobby. No matter what argu- ments there might be to the contrary, if Silas Trim- mer had his eye on that piece of property, Bobby wanted it. Applerod, though eagerness brought him early, had no sooner entered the study next morning than 90 THE MAKING OF BOBBY BURNIT, j Bobby, who was already dressed for business and who had his machine standing outside the door, met him briskly. "Keep your hat on, Applerod," he ordered. "We'll go right around and buy the rest of that property at once." "I thought those figures I left last night would convince you," beamed Mr. Applerod. There is no describing the delight and pride with which that highly-gratified gentleman followed the energetic young Mr. Burnit to the curb, nor the dig- nity with which, a few minutes later, he led the way into the office of one Thorne, real-estate dealer. "Mr. Thorne, Mr. Robert Burnit," said Mr. Ap- plerod, hastening straight to business. "Mr. Burnit has come around to close the deal for that Westmarsh property." Mr. Thorne was suavity itself as he shook hands with Mr. Burnit, but the most aching regret was in his tone as he spoke. "I'm very sorry indeed, Mr. Burnit," he stated; "but that property, which, by the way, seems very much in demand, passed out of my hands yesterday afternoon." "To whom?" Mr. Applerod excitedly wanted to know. "I think you might have let us have time to turn around, Thorne. I spoke about it to you yester- BOBBY SNAPS A BARGAIN 91 day morning, you know, and said that I felt quite hopeful Mr. Burnit would buy it." "I know," said Mr. Thome, politely but coldly; "and I told you at the time we talked about it that I never hold anything in the face of a bona fide offer." "But who has it?" Bobby insisted, more eager now to get it, since it had slipped away from him, than ever before. "The larger portion of it, the ninety-two acres ad- joining Mr. Applerod's twenty," Mr. Thorne advised him, "was taken up by Miles, Eddy and Company. The north eight acres are owned by Mr. Silas Trim- mer, and I am quite positive, from what Mr. Trim- mer told me, not two hours later, that this parcel is not for sale." Bobby's heart sank. Eight acres of that land had already been gobbled up by Silas Trimmer, and, no doubt, that astute and energetic business gentleman was now after the balance. "Where is the office of Miles, Eddy and Company?" Bobby asked, with a crispness that pleased him tre- mendously as he used it. "Twenty-six Plum Street," Mr. Thorne advised him. "Thanks," said Bobby, and whirled out of the door, followed by the disconsolate Applerod. 92 THE MAKING OF BOBBY BURNIT 'At the office of Miles, Eddy and Company better luck awaited them. Yes, that firm had secured possession of the West- marsh ninety-two acres. Yes, the property was listed for sale, having been bought strictly for speculative purposes. And its figure? The price was now three hundred dollars per acre. 'Til take it," said Bobby. There was positive triumph in his voice as he an- nounced this decision. He would show Silas Trimmer that he was awake at last, that he was not to be beaten in every deal. "Twenty-seven thousand six hundred dollars," said Bobby, figuring the amount on a pad he picked up from Mr. Eddy's desk. "Very well. Allow me to use your telephone a moment. Mr. Chalmers," directed Bobby when he had his new lawyer on the wire, "kindly get into communication with Miles, Eddy and Company and look up the title on ninety-two acres of Westmarsh property which they have for sale. If the title is clear the price is to be three hun- dred dollars per acre, for which amount you will have a check, payable to your order, within half an hour." Then to Johnson biting his pen-handle in Bobby's study and wondering where his principal and Apple- rod could be at this hour he telephoned to deliver a check in the amount of twenty-seven thousand six BOBBY SNAPS A BARGAIN 93 hundred dollars to Mr. Chalmers. Never, since he had been plunged into "business," had Bobby been so elated with himself as when he walked from the office of Miles, Eddy and Company; and, to keep up the good work, as soon as he reached the hall he turned to Applerod with a crisp, ringing voice, which was the product of that elation. "Now for an engineer," he said. "Already as good as secured," Mr. Applerod an- nounced, triumphant that every necessity had been anticipated. "Jimmy Platt, son of an old neighbor of mine. Fine, smart boy, and knows all about the West- marsh proposition. Bless you, I figured on this with him every vacation during his schooling !" An hour later, Bobby, Mr. Applerod and the se- cretly jubilant Jimmy Platt had sped out Westmarsh way, and were inspecting the hundred and twelve acres of swamp which the new firm of Burnit and Applerod held between them. "It's a fine job," said the young engineer, coveting anew the tremendous task as he bent upon it an ad- miring professional eye. "This time next year you won't recognize the place. It's a noble thing, Mr. Burnit, to turn an utterly useless stretch of swamp like this into habitable land. Have you secured the entire tract?" "Unfortunately, no," Bobby confessed with a 94 THE MAKING OF BOBBY BURNIT frown. "The extreme north eight acres are owned by another party." "And when you drain your property," mused Jimmy, smiling, "you will drain his." "Not if I can help it," declared Bobby emphati- cally. "You must come to some arrangement before you begin," warned the engineer with the severe profes- sional authority common to the quite young. Already, however, he was trying to grow regulation engineer's whiskers ; also he immediately planned to get mar- ried upon the proceeds of this big job, which, after years of chimerical dreaming, had become too real, almost, to be believed. "Perhaps you could get the owner to stand his proportionate share of the expense of drainage." Bobby smiled at the suggestion but made no other answer. He knew Silas Trimmer, or thought that he did, and the idea of Silas bearing a portion of a huge expense like this, when he could not be forced to shoulder it, struck him as distinctly humorous. CHAPTER IX AGNES DELIVERS BOBBY A NOTE FROM OLD JOHN BURNIT IN A GRAY ENVELOPE THAT night, at the Traders' Club, Bobby was surprised when Mr. Trimmer walked over to his table and dropped his pudgy trunk and his lean limbs into a chair beside him. His yellow countenance was creased with ingratiating wrinkles, and the smile behind his immovable mustache became of perfectly flawless circumference as his muddy black eyes peered at Bobby through thick spectacles. It seemed to Bobby that there was malice in the wrinkles about those eyes, but the address of Mr. Trimmer was most conciliatory. "I have a fuss to pick with you, young man," he said with clumsy joviality. "You beat me upon the purchase of that Westmarsh property. Very shrewd, indeed, Mr. Burnit ; very like your father. I suppose that now, if I wanted to buy it from you, I'd have to pay you a pretty advance." And he rubbed his hands as if to invite the opening of negotiations. "It is not for sale," said Bobby, stiffening ; "but I 95 96 THE MAKING OF BOBBY BURNIT might consider a proposition to buy your eight acres." He offered this suggestion with reluctance, for he had no mind to enter transactions of any sort with Silas Trimmer. Still, he recalled to himself with a sudden yielding to duty, business is business, and his father would probably have waved all personal considerations aside at such a point. "Mine is for sale," offered Silas, a trifle too eagerly, Bobby thought. "How much?" he asked. "A thousand dollars an acre." "I won't pay it," declared Bobby. "Well," replied Mr. Trimmer with a deepening of that circular smile which Bobby now felt sure was maliciously sarcastic, "by the time it is drained it will be worth that to any purchaser." "Suppose we drain it," suggested Bobby, holding both his temper and his business object remarkably well in hand. "Will you stand your share of the cost?" "It strikes me as an entirely unnecessary expense at present," said Silas and smiled again. "Then it won't be drained," snapped Bobby. Later in the evening he caught Silas laughing at him, his shoulders heaving and every yellow fang protruding. The next morning, keeping earlier hours than ever before in his life, Bobby was waiting out- r AGNES DELIVERS A NOTE 97 side Jimmy Platt's door when that gentleman started to work. "The first thing you do," he directed, still with a memory of that aggravating laugh, "I want you to build a cement wall straight across the north end of my Westmarsh property." Mr. Platt smiled and shook his head. "Evidently you can not buy that north eight acres, and don't intend to drain it," he commented, stroking sagely the sparse beginning of those slow professional whiskers. "It's your affair, of course, Mr. Burnit, but I am quite sure that spite work in engineering can not be made to pay." "Nevertheless," insisted Bobby, "we'll build that wall." The previous afternoon Jimmy Platt had made a scale drawing of the property from city surveys, and now the two went over it carefully, discussing it in various phases for fully an hour, proving estimates of cost and general feasibility. At the conclusion of that time Bobby, well pleased with his own practical manner of looking into things, telephoned to Johnson and asked for Applerod. Mr. Applerod had not yet arrived. "Very well," said Bobby, "when he comes have him step out and secure suitable offices for us," and this detail despatched he went out with his engineer to 98 THE MAKING OF BOBBY BURNIT make a circuit of the property and study its drainage possibilities. From profiles that Platt had made they found the swamp at its upper point to be much lower than the level of the river, which ran beyond low hills nearly a mile away ; but the river made a detour, including a considerable fall, coming back again to within a scant half-mile of the southern end of the tract, where it was much lower than the marsh. Between marsh and river at the south was an immense hill, too steep and rugged for any practical purpose, and this they scaled. The west end of the city lay before them crowd- ing close to the river bank, and already its ten- tacles had crept around and over the hills and on past Westmarsh tract. Young Platt looked from river to swamp, his eyes glowing over the possibilities that lay before them. "Mr. Burnit," he announced, after a gravity of thought which he strove his best to make take the place of experience, "you ought to be able to buy this hill very cheaply. Just through here we'll construct our drainage channel, and with the excavation fill your marsh. It is one of the neatest opportunities I have ever seen, and I want to congratulate you upon your shrewdness in having picked out such a splendid in- vestment." AGNES DELIVERS A NOTE 99 This, Bobby felt, was praise from Caesar, and he was correspondingly elated. He did not return to the study until in the after- noon. He found Johnson livid with abhorrence of Applerod's gaudy metamorphosis. That gentleman wore a black frock-coat, a flowered gray waistcoat, pin-striped light trousers, shining new shoes, sported a gold-headed cane, and on the table was the glisten- ing new silk hat which had reposed upon his snow- white curls. His pink face was beaming as he rose to greet his partner. "Mr. Burnit," said he, shaking hands with al- most trembling gravity and importance, "this day is the apex of my life, and I'm happy to have the son of my old and revered employer as my part- ner." "I hope that it may prove fortunate for both of us," replied Bobby, repressing his smile at the acqui- sition of the "make-up" which Applerod had for years aspired to wear legitimately. Johnson, humped over the desk that had once been Bobby's father's, snorted and looked up at the stern portrait of old John Burnit; then he drew from the index-file which he had already plaeed upon the back of that desk a gray-tinted envelope which he handed to Bobby with a silence that was more eloquent than words. It was inscribed: 100 THE MAKING OF BOBBY BURNIT To my Son if he is Fool EnougJi to Take up With 'Applerod's Swamp Scheme Rather impatiently Bobby tore it open, and on the inside he found: "When shrewd men persist in passing up an ap- parently cinch proposition, don't even try to find out what's the matter with it. In this six-cylinder age no really good opportunity runs loose for twenty-four hours." "If the governor had only arranged to leave me his advice beforehand instead of afterward," Bobby complained to Agnes Elliston that evening, "it might have a chance at me." "The blow has fallen," said Agnes with mock seri- ousness ; "but you must remember that you brought it on yourself. You have complained to me of your father's carefully-laid plans for your course in pro- gressive bankruptcy, and he left in my keeping a let- ter for you covering that very point." "Not in a gray envelope, I hope," groaned Bobby. "In a gray envelope," she replied firmly, going across to her own desk in the library. "I had feared," said Bobby dismally, "that sooner or later I should find he had left letters for me in your charge as well as in Johnson's, but I had hoped, AGNES DELIVERS A NOTE 101 if that were the case, that at least they would be in pink envelopes." She brought to him one of the familiar-looking mis- sives, and Bobby, as he took it, looked speculatively at the big fireplace, in which, as it was early fall, com- fortable-looking real logs were crackling. "Don't do it, Bobby," she warned him smiling. "Let's have the fun together," and she sat beside him on the couch, snuggling close. The envelope was addressed: To My Son Upon his Complaining 1 that His Father's Advice Comes too Late! He opened it, and together they read : "No boy will believe green apples hurt him until he gets the stomach-ache. Knowing you to be truly my son, I am sure that if I gave you advice beforehand you would not believe it. This way you will." Bobby smiled grimly. "I remember one painful incident of about the time I put on knickerbockers," he mused. "Father told me to keep away from a rat-trap that he had bought. Of course I caught my hand in it three minutes after- ward. It hurt and I howled, but he only looked at me coldly until at last I asked him to help. He let the 102 THE MAKING OF BOBBY BURNIT thing squeeze while he asked if a rat-trap hurt. I admitted that it did. Would I believe him next time? I acknowledged that I would, and he opened the trap. That was all there was to it except the raw place on my hand; but that night he came to my room after I had gone to bed, and lay beside me and cuddled me in his arms until I went to sleep." "Bobby," said Agnes seriously, "not one of these letters but proves his aching love for you." "I know it," admitted Bobby with again that grim smile. "Which only goes to prove another thing, that I'm in for some of the severest drubbings of my life. I wonder where the clubs are hidden." He found one of them late that same night at the Idlers'. Clarence Smythe, Silas Trimmer's son-in- law, drifted in toward the wee small hours in an un- usual condition of hilarity. He had a Vandyke, had Mr. Smythe, and was one who cherished a mad pas- sion for clothes; also, as an utterly impossible "climber," he was as cordially hated as Bobby was liked at the Idlers', where he had crept in "while the window was open," as Nick Allstyne expressed it. Ordinarily he was most prim and pretty of manner, but to-night he was on vinously familiar terms with all the world, and, crowding himself upon Bobby's quiet whist crowd, slapped Bobby joyously on the shoulder. "Generous lad, Bobby!" he thickly informed All- I'm in for some of the severest drubbings of my life AGNES DELIVERS A NOTE 103 styne and Winthrop and Starlett. "If you chaps have any property you've wanted to unload for half a life- time, here's the free-handed plunger to buy it." "How's that?" Bobby wanted to know, guessing in- stantly at the humiliating truth. "That Westmarsh swamp belonged to Trimmer," laughed Mr. Smythe, so bubbling with the hugeness of the joke that he could not keep his secret; "and when Thorne, after pumping your puffy man, told my clever father-in-law you wanted it, he promptly bought it from himself in the name of Miles, Eddy and Company and put up the price to three hundred an acre. Besides taking the property off his shoulders you've given him nearly a ten-thousand-dollar ad- vance for it. Fine business!" "Great!" agreed blunt Jack Starlett. "Almost as good a joke as refusing to pay a poker debt because it isn't legal." Bobby smiled his thanks for the shot, but inside he was sick. The game they were playing was a parting set-to, for the three others were leaving in the morn- ing for Stanley's hunt, but Bobby was glad when it was over. In the big, lonely house he sat in the study for an hour before he went to bed, looking abstract- edly up at the picture of old John Burnit and worry- ing over this new development. It cut him to the quick, not so much that he had been made a fool of by 104 THE MAKING OF BOBBY BURNIT. "clever" real-estate men, had been led, imbecile-like, to pay an extra hundred dollars per acre for that swamp land, but that the advantage had gone to Silas Trimmer. Moreover, why had Silas put a prohibitive valua- tion upon that north eight acres? Why did he want to keep it? It must be because Silas really expected that his tract would be drained free of charge, and that he would thus have the triumph of selling it for an approximate six thousand dollars an acre in the form of building lots. In the face of such a conclu- sion, the thought of the cement wall that he had or- dered built was a great satisfaction. It was a remarkably open winter that followed, and outdoor operations could thereby go on uninter- rupted. In the office, the pompous Applerod, in his frock-coat and silk hat, ground Johnson's soul to gall dust ; for he had taken to saying "Mr. Johnson" most formally, and issuing directions with maddening politeness and consideration. r An arrangement had been effected with Applerod, whereby that gentleman, for having suggested the golden opportunity, was to reap the entire benefit of the improvement on his own twenty acres, Bobby financing the whole deal and charging Applerod's share of it against his account. Applerod stood thereby to gain about seventy-six thousand dollars over and above the price he had paid AGNES DELIVERS A NOTE 105 for his twenty acres; and, moreover, Bobby had de- cided to call the improved tract the Appier od Addi- tion! When that name began to appear in print, coupled with flaming advertisements of Applerod's devising, there was grave danger of the rosy-cheeked old gentleman's losing every button from every fancy vest in his possession. In the meantime, thoroughly in love with the vast enterprise which he had projected, Bobby spent his time outdoors, fascinated, unable to find any peace elsewhere than upon his Titanic labor. His evenings he spent in such social affairs as he could not avoid; with Agnes Elliston ; with Biff Bates ; in an occa- sional game of billiards at the Idlers' ; but his days, from early morning until the evening whistle, he spent amid the clang of pick and shovel, the rattling of the trams, the creaking of the crane. It was an absorbing thing to see that enormous groove cut down through the big hill, and to watch the growth of the great mounds which grew up out of the marsh. The ditch that should drain off all this murky water was, of course, the first thing to be achieved, and, from the base of the hill through which it was to be cut, the engineer ran a tram bridge straight across the swamp to the new retaining wall ; and from this, with the aid of a huge, long-armed crane which lifted cars bodily from the track, the soil was dumped on either side as 106 THE MAKING OF BOBBY BURNIT it was removed from the cut. By the latter part of December the ditch had been completed and connected with the special sewer which, by permission of the city, had been built to carry the overflow to the river, and, the open weather still holding, the stagnant pool which had been a blot upon the landscape for untold ages began to flow sluggishly away, displaced by the earth from the disappearing hill. The city papers were teeming now with the vast energy and public-spirited enterprise of young Rob- ert Burnit and Oliver P. Applerod, and there were many indications that the enterprise was to be a most successful one. Even before they were ready to re- ceive them, applications were daily made for reserva- tions in the new district, and individual home-seekers began to take Sunday trips out to where the big un- dertaking was in progress. "You sure have got 'em going, Bobby," confessed the finally-convinced Biff Bates after a visit of in- spection. "Here's where you put the hornet on one Silas Tight-Wad Trimmer all right, all right. But the bones don't roll right that the side bet don't go for Johnson instead of Applegoat. He's a shine, for me. I think he's all to the canary color inside, but this man Johnson's some man if he only had a shell to put it in. Me for him !" The unexpressed friendship that had sprung up AGNES DELIVERS A NOTE 107 between the taciturn bookkeeper and the loquacious ex-pugilist was both a puzzle and a delight to Bobby, and it was one of his great joys to see them together, they not knowing why they liked such companionship, not having a single topic of conversation in common, but unconsciously enjoying that vague, sympathetic man-soul they found in each other. CHAPTER X AGNES AND BOBBY DISCERN DIAMOND-STUDDED SPURS FOR THE LATTER ABOUT the first of February the filling and grading were finished and the construction of the streets began, and the middle of March saw the final disappearance of everything, ex- cept that dark, eight-acre spot of Silas Trimmer's, which might remind one of the tract once known as the Westmarsh. In its place lay a broad, yellow checker-board, formed by intersecting streets of as- phalt edged with cement pavements, and in the center, at the crossing of broad Burnit and Applerod Avenues, there arose, over a spot where once frogs had croaked and mosquitoes clustered in crowds, a pretty club-house, which was later to be donated to the suburb; and a great satisfaction fell upon the soul of Bobby Burnit like a benediction. Also one Oliver P. Applerod added two full inches to his strut. He seldom came out to the scene of actual operations, for there was none there except workmen 108 DIAMOND-STUDDED SPURS 109 to see his frock-coat and silk hat; but occasionally, from a sense of duty inextricably mingled with self- assertiveness, he paid a visit of inspection, and upon one of these his eyes were confronted by a huge new board sign, visible for half a mile, that overlooked the 'Applerod [Addition from the hills to the north. It bore but two words : "Trimmer's Addition." 'Ap- plerod, holding his broadcloth tight about him to keep it from yellow contamination as a car rumbled by, looked and wiped his glasses and looked again, then, highly excited, he called Bobby to him. "Why didn't you tell me of this?" He demanded, pointing to the sign. Bobby, happy in sweater and high boots and liH- eral decorations of clay, only laughed. "The sign went up only yesterday," he stated. "But it is competition. Unfair competition ! He is stealing our thunder," protested Applerod. "He has a perfect right to lay out a subdivision if he wants," said Bobby. "But don't worry, Applerod. I've been over there and the thing is a joke. The tract is one-fourth the size of ours, it is uphill and down- hill, only a little grading is being done, streets are cut through but not paved, and a few cheap board sidewalks are being put down. He's had to pay a lot more for his land than we have, and can not sell his lots any cheaper." 110 THE MAKING OF BOBBY BURNIT "There's no telling what Silas Trimmer will do," said Applerod, shaking his head. "Nonsense," said Bobby; "there is no chance that people will pass by our lots and buy one of his." Applerod walked away unconvinced. Had it been any one else than Silas Trimmer who had set up this opposition he would not have minded so much, but Applerod had come to have a mighty fear of John Burnit's ancient enemy, and presently he came back to Bobby more panic-stricken than ever. "I'm going to sell my interest in the Applerod Ad- dition the minute I find a buyer," he declared, "and I'd advise you to do the same." "Don't be foolish," counseled Bobby, frowning. "You carit lose." "But man!" quavered Applerod. "I have four thousand dollars of my own cash, all I've been able to scrape together in a lifetime, tied up in this thing, and I mustn't lose !" Bobby regarded his father's old confidential clerk more in sorrow than in anger. He was not used to dealing with men of any age so utterly lacking in gameness. "Four thousand," he repeated, then he looked across his big checker-board. "I'll give you ten thousand for it right now." "What !" objected Applerod, aghast. "Why, Burn- DIAMOND-STUDDED SPURS 111 it, the work is nearly done and I have already in sight seventy-six thousand dollars of clear profit over my investment." Bobby did not remind Applerod that his four thou- sand dollars represented only a trifling part of the investment required to yield this seventy-six thousand dollars' profit. Yet, after all, there was no flaw in Applerod's commercial reasoning. "I didn't expect you to accept it," replied Bobby. "If you were determined to get out, however, you've had an offer of six thousand profit, with no risk." "I'd be crazy," declared Applerod. "I can get a better price than that." Bobby was thoughtful for an hour after Applerod had left him ; then he hurried into the club-house and telephoned to Chalmers. This was in the forenoon. In the afternoon Applerod was served with an in- junction based upon an indivisibility of interest, re- straining him from disposing of his share ; and in his anger he let it slip out that he had already been try- ing to open negotiations with Trimmer ! "Honestly, it hurts!" said Bobby wearily, telling of the incident to Agnes that night. "I didn't know there were so many unsportsmanlike people." "I think that is precisely what your father wanted you to find out," she observed. "I don't want to know it," protested Bobby. "I'd 112 THE MAKING OF BOBBY BURNIT stay much happier to believe that everybody in the world was of the right sort." She shook her head. "No, Bobby," she said gently; "you have to know that there is the other kind, in order properly to ap- preciate truth and honor and loyalty." "I could almost believe I was in a Sunday-school class," grinned Bobby. "No wonder it's snowing." Agnes looked out of the window with a cry of de- light. Those floating flakes were the very first snow of the season ; but they were by no means the last. The winter, delayed, but apparently all the more vio- lent for that very reason, burst suddenly upon the city, stopping the finishing touches on both suburban additions. Came rain and sleet and snow, and rain and sleet and snow again, then biting cold that sank deep into the ground and sealed it as if with a crust of iron. March, that had come in like a lamb, went out like a lion, and the lion raged through April and into May. Then, as suddenly as it had come, the belated winter passed away and the warm sun beat down upon the snow-clad hills and swept them clean. It penetrated into the valleys and turned them into rivulets, thousands of which poured into the river and swelled its banks brimming full. The streets of the Applerod Addition were quickly washed with their own white covering and dried, and immediately with DIAMOND-STUDDED SPURS 113 this break-up began the great advertising campaign. The papers flamed with full-page and half -page an- nouncements of the wonderful home-making oppor- tunity ; circulars were mailed to possible home-buyers by the hundred thousand ; every street-car told of the bargain on striking cards ; immense electric signs blazoned the project by night; sixteen-sheet posters were spread upon all the bill-boards, and every de- vice known to expert advertising was requisitioned. Not one soul within the city or within a radius of fifty miles but had kept constantly before him the duty he owed to himself to purchase a lot in the marvelous Applerod Addition ; and now indeed Oliver P. Apple- rod, reassured once more, began to reap the fruit of his life's ambitions as prospective buyers thronged to look at his, frock-coat and silk hat. June the first was set for the date of the "grand opening," and though it was not to be a month of roses, still the earth looked bright and gay as the time approached, and Bobby Burnit took Agnes out to view his coming triumph. This was upon a bright day toward the end of May, when those yellow squares' were tempered to a golden green by the tender young grass that had been sown at the completion of the grading. She had made frequent visits with him through the winter, and now she gloried with him. "It looks fine, Bobby," she confessed with glowing 114 THE MAKING OF BOBBY BURNIT eyes. "Fine ! It really seems as if you had won your spurs." "Diamond-studded ones!" he exulted. "Why, Agnes, the office is besieged with requests for allot- ments. In spite of the fact that we have over eleven hundred lots for sale at an average price of six hun- dred dollars, we're not going to have enough to go around. The receipts will be fully seven hundred thou- sand dollars, and our complete disbursements, by the time we have sold out, will not amount to over two hundred and twenty-five thousand. Of course, I don't know I haven't asked, and you wouldn't tell me if I did just by what promises you are bound, but when I close up this deal you're going to marry me ! That's flat!" "You mustn't be too sure of anything in this world, Bobby," she warned him, but she turned upon him a smile that made her words but idle breath. CHAPTER XI BOBBY DISCOVEES AN ENEMY GREATER THAN SILAS TRIMMER ONE circumstance only had occurred to give Bobby any anxiety. With the beginning of the thaw the water in Silas Trimmer's eight acres had begun slowly to rise, and he saw with some dismay that by far the larger part of the great nat- ural basin from which the surface water had been supplied to this swamp sloped from the northern end. Not having that expanse of one hundred and twenty acres to spread over, it might overflow, and in con- siderable trepidation he sought Jimmy Platt. That happy young gentleman only smiled. "I calculated upon that," he informed Bobby, "and built your retaining wall two feet higher than the normal spring level for that very reason. It will carry all the water than can shed down from those hills." Relieved, Bobby went ahead with the preparations for turning the Applerod Addition into money, and though he saw the water creeping up steadily against 115 116 THE MAKING OF BOBBY BURNIT the other side of his wall, he displayed no anxiety until it had reached within three or four inches of the top. Then he took Platt out with him to have a look at it. "Don't you think you ought to get busy?" he in- quired. "Hadn't we better add another foot to this wall?" "Not necessary," said Jimmy, shaking his head positively. "This has been an unusual spring, but the wet weather is all over now, and you can see by the water-mark where the level has gone down a half inch since morning. All the moisture that has been trick- ling down here during the past week has been from the thawing out of the frozen hillsides, but those slopes are almost dust dry now." "Suppose it should rain again?" insisted Bobby, still worried. "It couldn't rain hard enough to fill up these four inches," declared Platt with decision. "Look here, Mr. Burnit, I'd worry myself if there was any cause what- ever. Do you suppose I'd want anything to happen to my biggest and best job so close to my wedding- day?" "So you've set the time," said Bobby, witH eager pleasure. He had met Platt's "best girl" and her mother out at the Addition, and liked her, as he did earnest young Platt. BOBBY DISCOVERS AN ENEMY 117 "June the first," replied Jimmy exultantly. "The date of your opening in the evening." "Don't forget to send me an invitation." v "Will you come ?" said Platt. He had wanted to ask Bobby before, but had not been quite sure that he ought. "Come!" replied Bobby. "Indeed I shall unless I happen to have a wedding of my own on that date." Bobby went away satisfied once more, and quite willing to give up the additional foot of wall. The work would entail considerable cost, and expense now was much more of an item than it had been a few months previously. Already he had spent upon this project over two hundred and ten thousand dollars; ten thousand he had given to Biff Bates ; ten thousand he had used personally, so there was but an insignifi- cant portion left of his two hundred and fifty thou- sand dollars. Their "grand opening" would eat up another tidy little sum, for it was to be an expensive affair. The liberal advertising that had already ap- peared was augmented as the great day approached, a brass band had been engaged, a magnificent lunch, sufficient to feed an army, had been arranged for, and every available 'bus and carry-all and picnic wagon in the city had been secured to transport all comers, free of charge, from the end of the car line to the new Addition. The price of vehicles was high, however, 118 THE MAKING OF BOBBY BURNIT for Silas Trimmer had already engaged quite a num- ber of them to run between the Applerod Addition and his own. During the week preceding June first, there had appeared, in the local papers, advertise- ments of about one-fourth the size that Bobby was using, calling attention to the opening of the Trim- mer Addition, which was to be upon the same date. On the evening of May twenty-ninth, Bobby found Silas pacing the top of the retaining wall which held in his swamp, and waited for the spider- like figure to come across and join him. "Too bad you didn't come in with me, or sell me your property at a reasonable figure," said Bobby affably, willing, in spite of his recent bitter experi- ence, to meet his competitor upon the same friendly grounds that he would a crack polo antagonist on the eve of contest. "It's a shame that this could not all have been improved at one time." "I'd just as lief have my part of it the way it is," said Silas. "It's no good now, but it's as good as yours," and he climbed into his buggy and drove away laughing, leaving Bobby strangely dissatisfied and doubtful over that strange remark. While he was still trying to unravel it, he noted that the water in Silas' pond, which but a day or so previously had been down to fully nine inches from the top, was now climbing rapidly upward again ; and BOBBY DISCOVERS AN ENEMY 119 there had been no rain for more than two weeks ! The thing was inexplicable. He was still puzzling over this as he drove down the road and turned in at broad Burnit Avenue toward the club-house. The asphalt and the pavements were bone dry and as clean as a ball-room floor, and it seemed to him that the young grass was growing greener and higher here than any- where. Suddenly he ordered his chauffeur to stop the ma- chine. He had just passed a lot where, amid the tufts of green, his eye had caught the glint of water. Run- ning back to it he saw that the center of that lot was covered by a small pool scarcely half an inch deep, through which the grass was growing dankly. This, too, was queer, for the hot sun and strong breeze of the past few days should have dried up every vestige of moisture. He walked along the sidewalk, studying each of the lots in turn. Here and there he discovered other small pools, and every lot bore the appearance of having just been freshly and too liberally watered. He stepped from the pavement upon the earth, and to his surprise his foot sank into it to the depth of an inch or more. For a while he was deeply worried, but presently it flashed upon him that all this soil had been dumped into the marsh, displacing the water, and that in this process it had naturally become soaked through and through. Of course it would take 120 THE MAKING OF BOBBY BURNIT a long time to dry out and it would be all the better for its moisture. The rate at which grass was grow- ing was proof enough of that. On the next day, kept busy by the preparations for the big opening, Bobby did not get out to the Apple- rod Addition until evening again. As he neared it he met Silas Trimmer coming back in his buck-board, that false circle around his mouth very much in evi- dence. "You ought to have had your opening yesterday. I'd have been tempted to buy a lot myself then," shouted Silas as he passed, and Bobby was sure that the tone was a mocking one. Consumed with anxiety, he hurried on to see how Silas' swamp stood. Aghast, he found the level of the water a full inch higher than any point that it had ever before reached. Connecting this condition vaguely with that other phenomenon that he had noted, he whirled his runabout and ran back into Burnit Avenue. In twenty-four hours a remarkable change had been wrought. There were pools every- where. The lot where he had first noticed it was now entirely covered with water, with barely the tips of the grass showing through. Frightened, he drove over the entire Addition, up one street and down another. In many places the lots were flooded. One entire block had become no more nor less than a pond. At other BOBBY DISCOVERS AN ENEMY 121 points the water, carrying with it the yellow soil, was flowing over his beautiful clean sidewalks and spread- ing its stain upon his immaculate streets. The dark- ness alone drove him from that inspection, and then it occurred to him to send once more for Jimmy Platt. At the first suburban telephone station he tried for nearly an hour to locate his man, but in vain. Later he tried it from his club, but could not reach him. That night was a sleepless one, and the next morn- ing's daybreak found him speeding out the roadway to the Applerod Addition. Early as he was, however, he found young Platt there ahead of him and in despair. He had good cause. The whole north end of the Applerod Addi- tion had turned black, and over the top of Bobby's now grimy cement wall poured a broad, dark sheet of the murky swamp-water which had stained it. The pond of Silas Trimmer had overflowed in spite of all Platt's confident figuring that it could not, and in spite of the fact that dry weather had prevailed for two solid weeks. That was the inexplicable part. Clear weather, and still the entire suburb was becom- ing practically submerged! With solid, dry soil surrounding it, wherever the eye could reach it had become but a morass of mud ! Mud was smeared upon every path and every roadway, and Bobby's automo- bile slipped and slid in the oily, yellow liquid that lay 122 THE MAKING OF BOBBY BURNIT sluggishly in every gutter and blotched every rod of his clean asphalt. Young Platt's face blanched as he saw Bobby. "I've made a miserable botch of it," he confessed, torn with an agony of regret at his failure; "and I can't see yet what I overlooked. I'd no right to tackle a man's job like this !" "You !" replied Bobby vehemently. "It was Trim- mer who did this; somehow, someway he did it, and he flaunts it in our faces. Look there!" and he pointed to a huge signboard that had been erected overnight just opposite the entrance to Burnit Ave- nue.- In huge, bold letters, surmounted by a giant hand that pointed the way, it told prospective in- vestors to buy property in the high and dry Trimmer Addition, the words "High and Dry" being twice as large as any other lettering upon the board. "It is surely a lot of nerve," admitted Platt, "but it is rank nonsense to say that the man had anything to do with this catastrophe. It would have been im- possible. Let's look this thing over. Drive past the club-house to the extreme west side." Once more they traversed the mud of Burnit Ave- nue, and upon the dry, sloping ground the young engineer, cursing his inexperience, alighted and walked along the edge of the property, seeking a so- lution to the mystery. Still perplexed, he ascended BOBBY DISCOVERS AN ENEMY 123 the rising ground and looked musingly across at the yet swollen and clay-red river. Suddenly an exclama- tion escaped his lips. "There's your enemy," he said to Bobby who had climbed up beside him, and pointed to the river. "The river bank, I am sure, must edge upon a tilted shale formation which dips just below this basin. Prob- ably at all times some of the water from the river seeps down between two sand-separated layers of this formation to find its outlet in the marsh, and it is this water which, through a geological freak, has supplied that swamp for ages. In the spring, however, and in extraordinary flood times, it probably finds a higher and looser stratum, and rushes down here with all the force of a hydraulic stream. This spring it took it a long time to wet thoroughly all our made ground from the bottom upward. The frost, sinking deeper in this loose, wet soil than elsewhere, held it back, too, for a time, but as soon as this was thoroughly out of the ground the river overflow came up like a geyser. "Mr. Burnit, your Applerod Addition is ruined, and it can never be saved, unless by some extra- ordinary means. Nature picked out this spot, cen- turies and centuries ago, for a swamp, and she's going to have one here in spite of all that we can do. In five years this basin won't be a thing but black 124 THE MAKING OF BOBBY BURNIT water and weeds, with only that club-house as a de- caying monument to your enterprise." Bobby controlled himself with an effort. His face was drawn and white ; but part of that was from the anxiety of the past two days, and he took the blow stiff and erect, as a good soldier stands up to be dis- ciplined. His eye roved over the w T ork in which he had taken such pride, and already he could see in fancy the dank weeds growing up, and the croaking frogs diving into the oily surface, and the clouds of mosquitoes hovering over it again. Over the top of his retaining wall still poured the foul water which was to leaven all this, and he gazed upon it with a sharp intake of the breath. "And to think that Silas Trimmer must have known all this, and led me to waste a fortune just so that he could reap the benefit of my advertising for his own vulture advantage!" That, at first, was the part which hurt more than the overthrow of his plans, more than the loss of his money, more than the failure of his fight to carry out his father's wishes for his success : that any one could play the game so unfairly, that there could be in all the world people so detestable, so unprincipled, so unsportsmanlike! Slowly the vanquished pair descended the hill to where the automobile stood upon the solid, level sward, BOBBY DISCOVERS AN ENEMY 125 but before they climbed in Bobby shook hands with his engineer. "Don't blame yourself too much, old man," lie said. "It wasn't a condition that you could foresee, and I'm mighty sorry if it hurts your reputation." "It ought to!" exclaimed Platt with deep self-re- vilement. "I should have investigated. 'I should not have taken anything for granted. I ought to have enough money so that you could sue me for damages and recover all you lost." "It couldn't be done," said Bobby miserably. "I've lost so much more than money." He did not tell Platt of Agnes, but that was the one thought into which all his failure had finally re- solved. Agnes ! How much longer must he wait for her? They had just passed the club-house when a light buggy turned into Burnit Avenue, driven furi- ously by a white-haired man in a white vest and a high silk hat. "I accept your offer!" cried Applerod, as soon as he came within talking distance, his usually ruddy face now livid white. "My offer," repeated Bobby wonderingly. "Yes; your offer of ten thousand dollars for my share in the Applerod Addition." Bobby was forced to laugh. It had needed but this to make the bitter jest of fortune complete. 126 THE MAKING OF BOBBY BURNIT "You refused that offer the day it was made, Apple- rod !" put in Platt indignantly. "I heard you. Any- how, you dragged Mr. Burnit into this thing !" "He's not to blame for that," said Bobby. "But still, I don't think I care to buy any more of this property." And he smiled grimly at the absurdity of it all. "I'll sue you for it!" shrieked Applerod, frantic from thwarted self-interest. "You prevented me from selling out at a profit when I had a chance! You bound me hand and foot when I knew that if Silas Trimmer had anything to gain by it we would lose! He knew all the time that this swamp was fed by underground springs. He bragged about it to me this morning as I passed him on the road. He told me last night I'd better come out here this morning." "I see," said Bobby coldly, and he reached for his lever. "Then you won't hold good to your offer?" gasped the other. Pale before, he had turned ashen now, and Bobby looked at him with quick compunction. Applerod, always so chubbily youthful for a man of his years, was grown suddenly old. He seemed to have shrunk inside his clothes, his face to have turned flabby, his eyes to have dimmed. After all, he was an old man, and the little that he had scraped together represented BOBBY DISCOVERS AN ENEMY 127 all that he could hope to amass in a none too provi- dent lifetime. This day made him a pauper and there was no chance for a fresh start. Bobby himself was young and strong, and, moreover, his resources were by no means exhausted. "I'll tell you what I'll do, Applerod," said he, after a moment of very sober thought. "Your property cost you in the neighborhood of four thousand. In- terest since the time you first began to invest in it would bring it up to a little more than that. I'll give you five thousand." "I won't accept it. Yes, I will! yes, I will!" he cried as Bobby impatiently reached again for his lever. "Very well," said Bobby, "wait a minute." And tearing a leaf from his memorandum-book he wrote a note to Johnson to see to the transfer of the prop- erty and deliver to Applerod a check for five thousand dollars. "That was more than generous; it was foolish," protested Jimmy Platt, as they whirled away. "No doubt," admitted Bobby dryly. "But, if I'm forced to be a fool, I might as well have a well-finished job of it." CHAPTER XII AGNES DECIDES THAT SHE WILL WAIT APPLEROD, his poise nearly recovered, bounded into the office where Johnson sat stolidly working away, his sense of personal contentedness enhanced by the presence of Biff Bates, who sat idly upon the flat-top desk, dangling his legs and waiting for Bobby. Mr. Applerod paid no at- tention whatever to Mr. Bates, that gentleman being quite beneath his notice, but with vast importance he laid down in front of Mr. Johnson the note which Bobby had given him. "Mr. Johnson," he pompously directed, "you will please attend to this little matter as soon as possible." "Applerod," said Johnson, glancing at the note and looking up with sudden fire, "does this mean that 'you are no longer even partially my employer?" "That's it exactly." "Then you, Applerod, don't you dare call me Mr. Johnson again!" And he shook a bony fist at his old-time work-fellow. 128 AGNES DECIDES TO WAIT 129 Biff Bates nearly fell off the desk, but with rare presence of mind restrained his glee. Mr. Applerod, smiling loftily, immediately wielded his bludgeon. "We should not quarrel over trifles," he stated commiseratingly. "We are once more companions in misfortune. There is no Applerod Addition. It is a swamp again." "What do you mean?" asked Johnson incredu- lously, but suspending his indignation for the instant. "This," said Applerod: "that the entire addition is a hundred-acre mud puddle this morning. You couldn't sell a lot in it to a blind man. Every cent that was invested in it is lost. The whole marsh was fed from underground springs that have come up through it and overflowed the place." "Trimmer again," said Biff Bates, and slid off the desk ; then he looked at his watch with a curious specu- lative smile. "But if it is all lost," protested Johnson, looking again at the note and pausing in the making out of the check, "how do you come to get this?" "He owed it to me," asserted Applerod. "I wanted to sell out when I first found that we were competing with Silas Trimmer, and young Burnit kept me from it by an injunction. He offered me ten thousand dollars for my interest once, but this morning when 130 THE MAKING OF BOBBY BURNIT I went to accept that offer he would only give me this five thousand. It's just five thousand dollars that he's robbed 'me of." "Robbed!'' shrilled Johnson, jumping from his chair. "Applerod, you weigh a hundred and eighty pounds and I weigh a hundred and thirty-seven, but I can lick you the best day you ever lived; and by thunder and blazes ! if you let fall another remark like that I'll knock your infernal head off !" Mr. Johnson had on no coat, but he felt the urgent need to remove something, so he tore off one false sleeve, wadded it up in a little ball and slammed it on the floor with great vigor, tore off the other one, wadded it up and slammed that down. Biff Bates, quivering with joy, rang loudly upon a porcelain electric-light shade with his pencil and called: "Time!" There was no employment for a referee, however, for Mr. Applerod, with astonishing agility, sprang to the door and held it half open, ready for a hurried ' exit in case of any other demonstration. It was shock- ing to think that he might be drawn into an undigni- fied altercation and with a mere clerk! Also, it might be dangerous. "Nothing doing, chum," said Biff Bates disgustedly to his friend Johnson. "This bunch of mush-ripe bananas ain't even a quitter. He's a never-beginner. AGNES DECIDES TO WAIT 131 But you'll do fine, old scout. Come along with me. I got a treat for you." Mr. Johnson, breathing scorn that alternately dented and inflated his nostrils, slowly donned his coat and hat without removing his eyes from Applerod, who, as the two approached the door, edged uncer- tainly away from it. "I've got to go out, anyhow," said Johnson, ad- dressing his remarks exclusively to Mr. Bates, but his glare exclusively to Mr. Applerod. "I'm going to put this check into the hands of Mr. Chalmers, so Mr. Robert don't get cheated by any yellow-livered snake in the grass!" And he spit out those last vio- lent words with a sudden vehemence which made Mr. Applerod drop his shiny hat. When Bobby came into the office a few minutes later he found Applerod, his hat upon his lap, waiting in one of the customers' chairs with stiff solemnity. "Why aren't you at your desk, Applerod?" asked Bobby sharply. "You have an immense amount of unopened mail, and some of it may contain checks which will have to be sent back." "Mr. Burnit," said Mr. Applerod, rising withf great dignity and throwing back his shoulders, "I consider myself no longer in your employ. I have resigned." Bobby looked at him thoughtfully and weighed 132 THE MAKING OF. BOBBY BURNIT, rapidly in his mind a great many things. He re- membered that his father had once said of the two men: "Johnson has a pea-green liver and is a pes- simist, but he is honest. Applerod suffers from too much health and is an optimist, and I presume him to be honest, but I never tested it." Yet his father had seen fit to keep Applerod in his intimate employ all these years, recognizing in him material of value. Moreover, he had advised Bobby to keep both men, and Bobby, to-day more than ever, placed great faith in the wisdom of his father. "Mr. Applerod," said he, "I 'dislike to be harsh with you, but if you don't put up your hat and get at that bundle of mail I shall be compelled to consider discharging you. Where's Johnson?" "He went out with Mr. Bates, sir." When Bobby left, Applerod was industriously sorting the mail on his desk, preparing to open it. Bobby let himself into the big new gymnasium and walked back through the deserted hall to the small room that was used for individual training. As he neared the door he could hear the sound of loud voices and the shuffling of feet, and heard the com- manding voice of Biff Bates shout "Break !" The door was locked, but through the slide window at the side a strange tableau met his eyes. Stooped and lean Johnson, as chalk-white of face as ever, had AGNES DECIDES TO WAIT 133 paunchy and thin-legged Silas Trimmer by the collar, and over Biff Bates' intervening body was trying to rain blows into the center of the circular smile, now, flattened to an oval of distress. "Break, Johnson, break !" begged Biff. "Don't put him out till you feed him all he's got coming." There- upon he succeeded in extracting Mr. Trimmer from the grasp of Mr. Johnson and forced the former back upon a chair, where he began to fan him with a towel in most approved fashion. "Let me out of this !" gasped Mr. Trimmer. "Have they got their props and scenery?" "Everything, I understand," said Bobby. "I came around to see you " "Who's running the show?" demanded Spratt. "Their manager decamped with the money with what little there was," explained Bobby, "and they came to me by accident. I understand you have an open date next week." A PATRON OF MUSIC 229 "It's not open now," declared Spratt. "The date is filled with the Neapolitan Grand Opera Company." "There doesn't seem to be much use of my talking, then," said Bobby, smiling. "Not much," said Spratt. "They're a good com- pany, but I've noticed from the reports that they've been badly managed. The Dago that brought them over didn't know the show business in this country and tried to run the circus himself; and, of course, they've gone on the rocks. It's great luck that they landed here. I just heard a bit ago that they were in town. I suppose they're flat broke." "Why, yes," said Bobby. "I just went up to the Hotel Larken and said I'd be responsible for their hotel bill." "Oh," said Spratt. "Then you're backing them for their week here." "Well, I'm not quite sure about that," hesitated Bobby. "If you don't, I will," offered Spratt. "There's a long line of full-dress Willies here that'll draw their week's wages in advance to attend grand opera in cabs. 'At two and a half for the first sixteen rows they'll pack the house for the week, and every dia- mond in the hock-shops will get an airing for the oc- casion. But you saw it first, Burnit, and I won't interfere." 230 THE MAKING OF BOBBY BURNIT "Well, I don't know," Bobby again hesitated. "I haven't fully " "Go ahead," urged Spratt heartily. "It's your pick-up and I'll get mine. Hey, Spencer !" A thin young man, with hair so light that he seemed to have no hair at all and no eyebrows, came in. "We've booked the Neapolitan Grand Opera Com- pany for next week. Have they got Caravaggio and Ricardo with them?" he asked, turning abruptly to Bobby. Bobby, with a smile, nodded his head. "All right, Spence; get busy on some press stuff for the afternoon papers. You can fake notices about them from what you know. Use two-inch streamers clear across the pages, then you can get some fresh stuff and the repertoire to-night for the morning papers. Play it up strong, Spence. Use plenty of space ; and, say, tell Billy to get ready for a three o'clock rehearsal. Now, Burnit, let's go up to the Larken and make arrangements." "We might just as well wait an hour," counseled Bobby. "The only one I found in the crowd who could speak English was Signorina Caravaggio." "I know her," said Spratt. "Her other name's Nora McGinnis. Smart woman, too, and straight as a string; and sing! Why, that big ox can sing a bird off a tree." A PATRON OF MUSIC 231 "She's just gone over to lunch with Biff Bates at the Spender," observed Bobby, "and we'd better wait for her. She seems to be the leading spirit." "Of course she is. Let's go right over to the Spender." Biff Bates did not seem overly pleased when his tete-a-tete luncheon was interrupted by Bobby and Mr. Spratt, but the Signorina Nora very quickly made it apparent that business was business. Ar- rangements were promptly made to attach the car- load of effects for back salaries due the company, and to lease these to Bobby for the week for a nominal sum. Bobby was to pay the regular schedule of sala- ries for that week and make what profit he could. A rehearsal of Carmen was to be called that afternoon at three, and a repertoire was arranged. Feeling very much exhilarated after all this, Bobby drove out in his automobile after lunch to see Agnes Elliston. He found that young lady and Aunt Con- stance about to start for a drive, their carriage being already at the door, but without any ceremony he bundled them into his machine instead. "Purely as my trustee," he explained, "Agnes must inspect my new business venture." Aunt Constance smiled. "The trusteeship of Agnes hasn't done you very much good so far," she observed. "As a matter of 232 THE MAKING OF BOBBY BURNIT fact, if she wanted to build up a reputation as an expert trustee, I don't think she could accomplish much by printing in her circulars the details of her past stewardship." "I don't want her to work up a reputation as a trustee," retorted Bobby. "She suits me just as she is, and I'm inclined to thank the governor for having loaded her down with the job." "I'm becoming reconciled to it myself," admitted Agnes, smiling up at him. "Really, I have great faith that one day you will learn how to take care of money if the money holds out that long. What is the new venture, Bobby ?" He grinned quite cheerfully. "I am about to become an angel," he said quite solemnly. Aunt Constance shook her head. "No, Bobby," she said kindly; "there are spots, you know, where angels fear to tread." But Agnes took the declaration with no levity whatever. "You don't mean in a theatrical sense?" she inquired. "In a theatrical sense," he insisted. "I am about to back the Neapolitan Grand Opera Company." "Why, Bobby!" objected Agnes, aghast. "You surely don't mean it! I never thought you would A PATRON OF MUSIC 233 contemplate anything so preposterous as that. I thought it was to be only a benefit !" "It's only a temporary arrangement," he reassured her, laughing that he had been taken so seriously. "I'm arranging so that they can earn their way out of town ; that's all. I am taking you down now to see their first rehearsal." "I don't care to go," she declared, in a tone so piqued that Bobby turned to her in mute astonish- ment. Aunt Constance laughed at his look of utter per- plexity. "How little you understand, Bobby," she said. ''Don't you see that Agnes is merely jealous?" "Indeed not!" Agnes indignantly denied. "That is an idea more absurd than the fact that Bobby should go into such an enterprise at all. However, since I lay myself open to such a suspicion I shall offer no further objection to going." Bobby looked at her curiously and then he carefully refrained from chuckling, for Aunt Constance, though joking, had told the truth. Instant visions of dazzling sopranos, of mezzos and contraltos, of angelic voices and of vast beauty and exquisite gown- ing, had flashed in appalling procession before her mental vision. The idea, in the face of the appalling actuality, was so rich that Bobby pursued it no 234 THE MAKING OF BOBBY BURNIT further lest he spoil it, and talked about the weather and equally inane topics the rest of the way. It was not until they had turned into the narrow alley at the side of the Orpheum, and from that to the still more narrow alley at its rear, that the zest of adventure began to make amends to Agnes for cer- tain disagreeable moments of the ride. At the stage door a particularly bewildered-looking man with a rolling eye and a weak jaw, rendered limp and help- less by the polyglot aliens who had flocked upon him, strickenly let them in, to grope their way, amid what seemed an inextricable confusion, but was in reality the perfection of orderliness, upon the dim stage, beyond which stretched, in vast emptiness, the big, black auditorium. Upon the stage, chattering in shrill voices, were the forty members of the company, still in their queer clothing, while down in front, where shaded lights seeming dull and discouraged amid all the surrounding darkness streamed upon the music, were the members of the orchestra, chat- tering just as volubly. The general note was quite different in pitch from the one Bobby had heard that morning, for since he had seen them the members of the organization had been fed, and life looked cheerful. Wandering at a loss among these people, and try- ing in the dim twilight to find some face that he knew, A PATRON OF MUSIC 235 the ears of Bobby and his party were suddenly as- sailed by an extremely harsh and penetrating voice which shouted: "Clear!" This was accompanied by a sharp clap from a pair of very broad hands. The chattering suddenly took on a rapid crescendo, ascending a full third in the scale and then dying abruptly in a little high falsetto shriek; and Bobby, with a lady upon either arm, found his little trio immediately alone in the center of the stage, a row of dim footlights cutting off effectually any view into the vast emptiness of the auditorium. "Hey, you; clear!" came the harsh voice again, accompanied by another sharp clap of the hands, and a bundle of intense fighting energy bounced out from the right tormentor wing, in the shape of a gaunt, fiercely-mustached and entirely bald man of about forty-five, who appeared perpetually to be in the last stages of distraction. "Who do you weesh to see?" demanded the gaunt man, in a very decided foreign accent. He had made a very evident attempt to be quite polite indeed, and forgiving of people who did not know enough to spring for the wings at the sound of that magic word, "Clear!" Any explanations that Bobby might have tried to 236 THE MAKING OF BOBBY BURNIT make were happily prevented by a voice from the yawning blackness a quiet voice, a voice of author- ity, the voice of Mr. Spratt. "Come right down in front here, Burnit. Jimmy, show the gentleman how to get down." "Thees way," snapped the gaunt man, with evident relief but no abatement whatever of his briskness, and he very hastily walked over to the right wings, where Jimmy, the house electrician, piloted the trio with equal relief through the clustered mass of sing- ers to the door behind the boxes. As they emerged into the auditorium the raucous voice of the gaunt man was heard to shout: "All ready now. Carmen all ze way through." An apparent repetition of which statement he immediately made with equal raucousness in two or three languages. There was a call to Caravaggio in English, to Ricardo and the Signors Fivizzano and Rivaroli in Italian, to Messrs. Philippi and Schaerbeeken in Spanish and Dutch, to Madam Villenauve in French, to Madam Kadanoff in Russian, and to Mademoiselle Torok in Hungarian, to know if they were ready; then, in rough but effective German, he informed the Herr Professor down in the orchestra that all was prepared, clapped his hands, cried "Overture," and immediately plunged to the right upper entrance, marked by two chairs, where, with shrill objurgations, he began instructing A PATRON OF MUSIC 237 and drilling the Soldiers' Chorus out of certain re- membered awkwardnesses, as Herr Friihlingsvogel's baton fell for the overture. Shorn of all the glamor that scenic environment, light effects and costume could give them, it was a distinct shock to Agnes to gaze in wondering horror from each one of those amazing faces to the other, and when the cigarette girls trooped out, amazement gave way to downright consternation. Nevertheless, she cheered up considerably, and the apex of her cheerfulness was reached when the oversized Sig- norina Caravaggio sang, very musically, however, the role of the petite and piquant Carmen. It was then that, sitting by Bobby in the darkness, Agnes observed with a sigh of content: "Your trustee quite approves, Bobby. I don't mind being absolutely truthful for once in my life. I was a little jealous. But how could I be? Really, their voices are fine." Mr. Spratt, too, was of that opinion, and he came back to Bobby to say so most emphatically. "They'll do," said he. "After the first night they'll have this town crazy. If the seat sale don't go right for Monday we'll pack the house with paper, and the rest of the week will go big. Just hear that Ricardo ! The little bit of a sawed-off toad sings like a canary. If you don't look at 'em, they're great." 238 THE MAKING OF BOBBY BURNIT They were superb. From the throats of that ill- favored chorus there came divine harmony, smooth, evenly-balanced, exhilarating, almost flawless, and as the great musical poem of passion unfolded and the magnificent aria of Don Jose was finished in the sec- ond act, the little group of listeners down in front burst into involuntary applause, to which there was but one dissenting voice. This voice, suddenly evolv- ing out of the darkness at Bobby's side, ejaculated with supreme disgust: "Well, what do you think of that! Why, that fat little fishworm of a Dago is actually gone bug-house over Miss McGinnis," a fact which had been obvious to all of them the minute small Ricardo began to sing his wonderful love song to large Caravaggio. The rest of them had found only amusement in the fact, but to Biff Bates there was nothing funny about this. He sat in speechless disapproval throughout the balance of that much-interrupted performance, wherein Professor Friihlingsvogel, now and then, stopped his music with a crash to shriek an excited direction that it was all wrong, that it was execrable, that it was a misdemeanor, a crime, a murder to sing it in that way ! The passage must be all sung over ; or, at other times, the gaunt stage director, whose name was Monsieur Noire, would rush with a hoarse howl down to Herr Professor, order him to stop the A PATRON OF MUSIC 239 music, and, turning, berate some unfortunate per- former who had defied the conventions of grand opera by acting quite naturally. On the whole, however, it was a very creditable performance, and Bobby's ad- visers gave the project their unqualified approval. "It is really a commendable tiling," Aunt Con- stance complacently announced, "to encourage music of this order, and to furnish such a degree of culti- vation for the masses." It was a worthy project indeed. As for the com- pany itself there could be no question that it was a good one. No one expected acting in grand opera, no one expected that the performers would be phys- ically adaptable to their parts. The voice! The voice was all. Even Agnes admitted that it was a splendid thing to be a patron of the fine arts; but Bobby, in his profound new wisdom and his thorough conversion to strictly commercial standards, said with vast iconoclasm: "You are overlooking the main point. I am not so anxious to become a patron of the fine arts as I am to make money," with which terrible heresy he left them at home, with a thorough understanding that he was quite justified in his new venture; though next morning, when he confided the fact to Johnson, that worthy, with a sigh, presented him with an appropri- ate missive from among those in the gray envelopes 240 THE MAKING OF BOBBY BURNIT left in his care by the late John Burnit. It was in- scribed : To My Son Robert, Upon His Deciding to Back a Theatrical Venture "Sooner or later, every man thinks it would be a fine thing to run a show, and the earlier in life it hap- pens the sooner a man will have it out of his system. I tried it once myself, and I know. So good luck to you, my boy, and here's hoping that you don't get stung too badly." CHAPTER XX STILL WITH THE EELUCTANT CONSENT OF AGNES, BOBBY INVESTS IN THE FINE AETS THAT week's "season of grand opera" was an unqualified success, following closely the lines laid down by the experienced Mr. Spratt. Caravaggio and Ricardo and Philippi and Villenauve became household words, after the Monday night performance of Carmen, and for the balance of the week shining carriages rolled up to the entrance of the Orpheum, disgorging load after load of high- hatted gentlemen and long-plumed ladies. Before the end of the engagement it was definitely known that Bobby's investment would yield a profit, even deduct- ing for the days of idleness during which he had been compelled to support the rehearsing company. The powers of darkness thereupon set vigorously to work upon him to carry the company on through the rest of its season. It was then that the storm broke. Against his going further with the company Agnes Elliston in- terposed an objection so decided and so unflattering 242 THE MAKING OF BOBBY BURNIT, that the entente cordlale at the Elliston home was strained dangerously near to the breaking point, and in this she was aided and abetted by Aunt Constance, who ridiculed him, and by Uncle Dan Elliston, who took him confidentially for a grave and hardheaded remonstrance. Chalmers, Johnson, and even Apple- rod wrestled with him in spirit; his friends at the Idlers' Club "guyed" him unmercifully, and even Biff Bates, though his support was earnestly sought by the Signorina Caravaggio, also counseled him roughly against it, and through it all Bobby was made to feel that he was a small boy who had proposed to eat a peck of green apples and then go in swimming in dog- days. Another note from his father, handed to him by the faithful and worried Johnson, was the deciding straw : To My Son Robert, About That Theatrical Venture "When a man who knows nothing of the business backs a show, there's usually a woman at the bottom of it and that kind of woman is mostly rank poison to a normal man, even if she is a good woman. No butter- fly ever goes back into its chrysalis and becomes a grub again. Let birds of a feather flock together, Bobby." That unfortunate missive, for once shooting so wide the mark, pushed Bobby over the edge. There was A FINE ARTS INVESTMENT 243 a streak of stubbornness in him which, well developed and turned into proper channels, was likely to be very valuable, but until he learned to use that stubborn- ness in the right way it bade fair to plunge him into more difficulties than he could extricate himself from with profit. Even Agnes, reading that note, indig- nantly agreed with Bobby that he was being unjustly misread. "It is absurd," he explained to her. "This is the first dividend-paying investment I have been able to make so far, and I'm going to keep it up just as long as I can make money out of it. I'd be very foolish if I didn't. Besides, this is just a little in-between flyer, while I'm conservatively waiting for a good, legiti- mate opening. It can take, at most, but a very small part of my two hundred and fifty thousand. Agnes, though defending him against his father, was still reluctant about the trip, but suddenly, with a curious smile, she withdrew all objections and even urged him to go ahead. "Bobby," said she, still with that curious smile and strangely shining eyes, and putting both her hands upon his shoulders, "I see that you must go ahead with this. I I guess it will be good for you. Some- how, I think that this is to be your last folly, that you are really learning that the world is not all polo and honor-bets. So go ahead and I'll wait here." 244 THE MAKING OF BOBBY BUBNIT He could not know how much that hurt her. He only knew, after she had talked more lightly of his trip, that he had her full and free consent, and, highly elated with his first successful business ven- ture, he took up the contracts of the Neapolitan Grand Opera Company where Signor Matteo, the de- camped manager and producer, had dropped them. The members of the company having attached the scenery and effects for back salaries, sold them to Bobby for ten thousand dollars, and he immediately found himself confronted by demands for settlements, with the alternative of damage suits, from the two cities in which the company had been booked for the two past weeks. Had Bobby not bound himself irrevocably to con- tracts which made him liable for the salaries of every member of this company for the next twenty weeks, he would have withdrawn instantly at the first hint of these suits ; but, now that he was in for it, he promptly compromised them at a rate which made Spratt furious. "If I'd thought," said Spratt angrily in the priv- acy of the Orpheum office, "that you were sucker enough to get roped in for the full season, I'd have tossed you out of the running for this week. This game is a bigger gamble than the Stock Exchange. The smartest producers in the business never know A FINE ARTS INVESTMENT 245 when they have a winner or a loser. More than that, while all actors are hard to handle, of all the combinations on earth, a grand opera company is the worst. I'll bet a couple of cold bottles that before you're a week on the road you'll have leaks in your dirigible over some crazy dramatic stunts that are not in the book of any opera of the Nea- politan repertoire." The prediction was so true that it was proved that very night, which was Friday, during the repe* 1 tition of Carmen. It seemed that Biff Bates, by means of the supreme dominance of the Caravaggio, had been made free of the stage, a rare privilege, and one that enabled Biff to spend his time, under unusual and romantic circumstances, very much in the company of the Celtic Signorina; all of which was very much to the annoyance, distress and fury of Signor Ricardo, especially on Carmen night. At all other times the great Ricardo thought very well indeed of the Signorina Nora, only being in any degree near to unfaithfulness when, on 'Aida nights, he sang to vivacious little Madam Villenauve ; but on Carmen nights he was devotedly, passionately, madly in love with the divine Car-r-r-r-avaggio ! Else how could he sing the magnificent second act aria? Life without her on those nights would be a hollow mockery, the glance of any possible rival in 246 THE MAKING OF BOBBY BURNIT her direction a desecration. Why, he even had to restrain himself to keep from doing actual damage to Philippi, who, though on the shady side of forty- five, still sang a most dashing Escamillo; nor was his jealousy less poignant because Philippi and Cara- vaggio were sworn enemies. Thus it may be understood by any one, at least, who has ever loved ecstatically and fervidly and even hectically, like the great Ricardo how on Monday and Wednesday nights and the Thursday matinee, all of which were Caravaggio performances, he re- sented Biff's presence. From dark corners he more darkly watched them chatting in frank enjoyment of each other's company ; he made unexpected darts in front of their very eyes to greet them with the most alarming scowls; and because he insolently brushed the shoulder of the peaceably inclined and self -sure Biff upon divers occasions, and Biff made no sign of resentment, he imagined that Biff trem- bled in his boots whenever he noted the approach of the redoubtable Ricardo with his infinitesimal but ferocious mustachios. Great, then, was his wonder, to say nothing of his rage, when Biff, after all the scowls and shoulderings that he had received on Thursday, actually came around for Friday night's Carmen performance! Even before the fierce Ricardo had gone into his A FINE ARTS INVESTMENT 247 dressing-room he was already taking upon himself the deadly character of Don Jose, and his face surged red with fury when he saw Biff Bates, gaily laughing as if no doom impended, come in at the stage door with the equally gay and care-free Cara- vaggio. But after Signor Ricardo had donned the costume and the desperateness of the brigadier Don Jose it was then that the fury sank into his soul! And that fury boiled and seethed as, during the first and second acts, he found in the wings Signorina Car-r-r-r-r-r-avaggio absorbed in pleasant but very significant chat with his deadly enemy, the crude, un- musical, inartistic, soulless Biffo de Bates-s-s-s ! But, ah! There was another act to come, the third act, at the beginning of which the property man handed him the long, sharp, wicked-looking, bloodthirsty knife with which he was to fight Escamillo, and with which in the fourth act he was to kill Carmen. The mere possession of that knife wrought the great tenor's soul to gory tragedy ; so much so that imme- diately after the third act curtain calls he rushed directly to the spot where he knew the contemptible Signor Biffo de Bates-s-s-s to be standing, and with shrill Latin imprecations flourished that keen, glisten- ing blade before the eyes of the very much astounded Biff. For a moment, thoroughly incredulous, Biff re- 248 THE MAKING OF BOBBY BTJRNIT fused to believe it, until a second demonstration com- pelled him to acknowledge that the great Ricardo actually meant threatening things toward himself. When this conviction forced its way upon him, Biff calmly reached out, and, with a grip very much like a bear-trap, seized Signor Ricardo by the forearm of the hand which held the knife. With his unen- gaged hand Biff then smacked the Signor Ricardo right severely on the wrist. "You don't mean it, you know, Sig-nor Garlic," he calmly observed. "If I thought you did I'd smack you on both wrists. Why, you little red balloon, I ain't afraid of any mutt on earth that carries a knife like that, as long as I got my back to the wall." Still holding the putty-like Signor by the forearm, he delicately abstracted from his clasp the huge knife, and, folding it up gravely, handed it back to him; then deliberately he turned his back on the Signor and pushed his way through the delightedly horror- stricken emotionalists who had gathered at the fray, and strolled over to where Signorina Caravaggio had stood an interested and mirth-shaken observer. "You mustn't think all Italians are like that, Biff," she said, her first impulse, as always, to see justice done; "but singers are a different breed. I don't think he's bluffing, altogether. If he got a real good A FINE ARTS INVESTMENT 249 chance some place in the dark, and was sure that he wouldn't be caught, he might use a stiletto on you." "If he ever does Til slap his forehead," said Biff. "But say, he uses that cleaver again in the show?" The Signorina Nora shrugged her shoulders. "He's supposed to stab me with it in this next act." "He is!" exclaimed Biff. "Well, just so he don't make any mistake I'm going over and paste him one." It was not necessary, for Signer Ricardo, after studying the matter over and seeing no other way out of it, proceeded to have a fit. No one, not even the illustrious Signer, could tell just how much of that fit was deliberate and artificial, and just how much was due to an overwrought sensitive organiza- tion, but certain it was that the Signer Ricardo was quite unable to go on with the performance, and Monsieur Noire himself, as agitated as a moment before the great Ricardo had been, frantically rushed up to Biff and grabbed him roughly by the shoul- ders. "Too long," shrieked he, "we have let you be an- noying the artists, by reason of the Caravaggio. But now you shall do the skidooing." With a laugh Biff looked back over his shoulder at the Caravaggio, and permitted Monsieur Noire 250 THE MAKING OF BOBBY BURNIT to eject him bodily from the stage door upon the alley. The next morning, owing to the prompt action and foresightedness of Spratt, all the papers con- tained the very pretty story that the great Ricardo had succumbed to his own intensity of emotions after the third act of Carmen, and had been unable to go on, giving way to the scarcely less great Signor Dulceo. That same morning Bobby was confronted by the first of a long series of similar dilemmas. The Signorina Caravaggio must leave the company or Signor Ricardo would do so. No stage was big enough to hold the two ; moreover, Ricardo meant to have the heart's blood of Signor Biffo de Bates-s-s-s ! With a sigh, Bobby, out of his ignorance and inde- pendence, took the only possible course to preserve peace, and emphatically told Signor Ricardo to pack up and go as quickly as possible, which he went away vowing to do. Naturally the great tenor thought better of it after that, and though he had already been dropped from the cast of II Trovatore on Saturday afternoon, he reported just the same. And he went on with the company. It was not until they went upon the road, how- ever, that Bobby fully realized what a lot of irre- sponsible, fretful, peevish children he had upon his hands. With the exception of serene Nora McGin- A FINE ARTS INVESTMENT 251 nis, every one of the principals was at daggers drawn with all the others, sulking over the least ad- vantage obtained by any one else, and accepting ad- vantage of their own as only a partial payment of their supreme rank. The one most at war with her own world was Madam Villenauve, whose especial bete noire was the MeeGeenees, whom, by no possibility, could she ever under any circumstance be induced to call Caravaggio. On the second day of their next engagement, as Bobby strode through the corridor of the hotel, shortly after luncheon, he was stopped by Madam Villenauve, who had been waiting for him in the door of her room. She was herself apparently just dress- ing to go out, for her coiffure was made and she had on a short underskirt, a kimono-like dressing- jacket and her street shoes. "I wish to speak wiz you on some beezness, Mees- ter Burnit," she told him abruptly, and with an imperatively beckoning hand stepped back with a bow for him to enter. With just a moment of surprised hesitation he stepped into the room, whereupon the Villenauve promptly closed the door. A week before Bobby would have been a trifle astonished by this proceed- ing, but in that week he had seen so many examples of unconscious unconventionalities in and about the 252 THE MAKING OF BOBBY BURNIT dressing-rooms and at the hotel, that he had read- justed his point of view to meet the peculiar way of life of these people, and, as usual with readjustments, had readjusted himself too far. He found the room in a litter, with garments of all sorts cast about in reckless disorder. "I have been seeing you last night," began Ma- dam Villenauve, shaking her finger at him archly as she swept some skirts off a chair for him to sit down, and then took her place before her dressing- table, where she added the last deft touch to her coiffure. "I have been seeing you smiling at ze reedeec'lous Carmen. Oh, la, la ! Carmen !" she shrilled. "It is I, monsieur, I zat am ze Carmen. It was zis Matteo, the scoundrel who run away wiz our money, zat allow le Ricardo to say whom he like to sing to for Carmen. Ricardo ees in loaf wiz la MeeGeenees. Le Ricardo is a fool, so zis Ricardo sing Carmen ever tarn to ze great, grosse monstair MeeGeenees ; an' ever'body zey laugh. Ze chorus laugh, ze principals laugh, le Monsieur Noire he laugh, even zat Friihlingsvogel zat have no humair, he laugh, an' ze audience laugh, an' las' night I am seeing you laugh. Ees eet not so? Mais! It is absurd! It is reedeec'lous. Le Ricardo make fool over la MeeGeenees. 7 sing ze Carmen! I am ze Carmen! You hear me sing Ai'da? Eet ees zat way. A FINE ARTS INVESTMENT 253' I sing Carmen. Now I s'all sing Carmen again! Ees eet not ?" As Madam Villenauve talked, punctuating her re- marks with quick, impatient little gestures, she jerked off her dressing- jacket and threw it on the floor, and Bobby saved himself from panic by reminding him- self that her frank anatomical display was, in the peculiar ethics of these people, no more to be noticed than if she were in an evening gown, which was very reasonable, after all, once you understood the code. Still voicing her indignation at having been dis- placed in the role of Carmen by the utterly impos- sible and preposterous Caravaggio, she caught up her waist and was about to slip it on, while Bobby, with an amused smile, reflected that presently he would no doubt be nonchalantly requested to hook it in the back, when some one tried the door-knob. A knock followed and Madam Villenauve went to the door. | "Who ees it?" she asked with her hand on the knob. "It is I; Monsieur Noire," was the reply. "Oh, la, come in, zen," she invited, and threw open the door. Monsieur Noire entered, but, finding Bobby in the chair by the dresser, stopped uncertainly in the doorway. 254 THE MAKING OF BOBBY BURNIT "Oh, come on een," she gaily invited; "we are all ze good friends ; oui?" It appeared that Monsieur Noire came in all po- liteness, yet with rigid intention, to inquire about a missing piece of music from the score of Les Huguenots, and Madam Villenauve, in all politeness and yet with much indignation, assured him that she did not have it ; whereupon Monsieur Noire, with all politeness but cold insistence, demanded that she look for it; whereupon Madam Villenauve, though once more protesting that she had it not, in all polite- ness and yet with considerable asperity, declared that she would not search for it; whereupon Mon- sieur Noire, observing the piece of music in question peeping out from beneath a conglomerate pile of newspapers, clothing and toilet articles, laid hands upon it and departed. Madam Villenauve, entirely unruffled now that it was all over, but still chatter- ing away with great volubility about the crime of Carmen, finished her dressing and bade Bobby hook the back of her waist, and by sheer calmness and certainty of intention forced him to accompany her over to rehearsal. Whatever annoyance he might have felt over this was lost in his amusement when he reached the the- ater in finding Biff Bates upon the stage waiting for him ; and Biff, while waiting, was quite excusably A FINE ARTS INVESTMENT 255 whiling the time away with the adorable Miss Mc- Ginnis. "You see, Young Fitz lives here," Biff brazenly explained, "and I run up to see him about that ex- hibition night I'm going to have at the gym. I'm going to have him go on with Kid Jeffreys." "Biff," said Bobby warmly, "I want to congratu- late you on your business enterprise. Have you seen Young Fitz yet?" "Well, no," confessed Biff. "I just got here about an hour ago. I didn't know your hotel, but it was a cinch from the bills to tell where the show was, so I came right around to the theater to see you first." "Exactly," admitted Bobby. "Do you expect to see Young Fitz?" "Well, maybe, if I get time," said Biff with a sheepish grin. "Just now I'm going out for a drive with Miss McGinnis." "Caravaggio," corrected that young lady with a laugh. "McGinnis for mine," declared Biff. "By the way, Bobby, I saw a certain party before I left town and she gave me this letter for you. Certain party is as cheerful as a chunk of lead about your trip, Bobby, but she makes the swellest bluff I ever saw that she's tickled to death with it." With this vengeful shot in retaliation for his ex- 256 THE MAKING OF BOBBY BURNIT cuse about Young Fitz having been doubted he sailed away with the Caravaggio, who, though required to report at every rehearsal, was not in the cast for that night and was readily excused from further at- tendance. Since Bobby had received a very pleasant letter from Agnes when he got up that morning he opened this missive with a touch of curiosity added to the thrill with which he always took in his hands any missive, no matter how trivial, from her. It was but a brief note calling attention to the enclosed newspaper clipping, and wishing him success in his new venture. The clipping was a flamboyant article describing the decision of the city council to install a magnificent new ten-million-dollar waterworks sys- tem, and the personally interesting item in it, ringed around with a pencil mark, was that Silas Trimmer had been appointed by Mayor Garland as president of the waterworks commission. It was not news that could alter his fortunes in any way so far as he could see, but it did remind him, with a strange whipping of his conscience, that, after all, his place was back home, and that his proper employment should be the looking after his home interests. For the first time he began to have a dim realization that a man's place was among his enemies, where he could watch them. CHAPTER XXI WHEREIN THE FINE ARTS PRESENT BOBBY WITH A MOST EMBARRASSING DILEMMA IT HAD become by no means strange to Bobby, even before the company "took the road," that some one of the principals should attach them- selves to him in all his possible goings and comings, for each and every one of them had some complaint to make about all the others. They wanted read- justments of cast, better parts to sing, better dress- ing-rooms, better hotel quarters, better everything than the others had, and with the unhappy and ex- cited Monsieur Noire he shared this unending strife. At first he saw it all in a humorous light, but, by and by, he came to a period of ennui and tried to rebel. This period gave him more trouble than the other, so within a short time he lapsed into an apa- thetic complaint-receptacle and dreamed no more of walking or riding to and from the hotel without one of these impulsive children of art, who seethed per- petually in self -prodded artificial emotions, attached to him. If it seemed strange at times that Madam 257 258 THE MAKING OF BOBBY BURNIT, Villenauve was more frequently with him than any of the others he only reflected that the vivacious little Frenchwoman was much more persistent; nor did he note that, presently, the others came rather to give way before her and to let her monopolize him more and more. It was during the third week that Professor Friih- lingsvogel was to endure another birthday, and Bobby, full of generous impulses as always, an- nounced at rehearsal that in honor of the Professor's unwelcome milestone he intended to give a little sup- per that night at the hotel. Madam Villenauve, standing beside him, suddenly threw her arms around his neck and kissed him smack upon the lips, with a quite enthusiastic declaration, in very charmingly warped English, that he was "a dear old sing." Bobby, reverting quickly in mind to the fact of the extreme unconventionally of these people, took the occurrence quite as a matter of course, though it embarrassed him somewhat. He rather counted him- self a prig that he could not sooner get over this habit of embarrassment, and every time Madam Vil- lenauve insisted on calling him into her dressing- room when she was in much more of dishabille than he would have thought permissible in ordinary peo- ple, he felt that same painful lack of sophistication. At the supper that night, Madam Villenauve, with AN EMBARRASSING DILEMMA 259 a great show of playful indignation, routed Madam Kadanoff from her accidental seat next to Bobby, and, in giving up the seat, which she did quite grace- fully enough, Madam Kadanoff dropped some re- mark in choice Russian, which, of course, Bobby did not understand, but which Madam Villenauve did, for she laughed a little shrilly and, with an engaging upward smile at Bobby, observed: "I theenk I shall say it zat zees so chairming Monsieur Burnit is soon to marry wiz me; ees eet not, monsieur?" Whereupon Bobby, with his customary courtesy, replied : "No gentleman would care to deny such a charming and attractive possibility, Madam Villenauve." But the gracious speech was of the lips alone, and spoken with a warning glare against "kidding" at the grinning Biff Bates, who had found business of urgent importance for that night in the city where the company was booked. Bobby, in fact, had be- gun to tire very much of the whole business. To begin with, he found the organization a much more expensive one to keep up than he had imagined. The route, badly laid out, was one of tremendous long jumps; of his singers, like other rare and expensive creatures, extravagant care must be taken, and not every place that they stopped was so eager for grand 260 THE MAKING OF BOBBY BURNIT opera as it might have been. At the end of three weeks he was able to compute that he had lost about a thousand dollars a week, and in the fourth week they struck an engagement so fruitless that even the cheerful Caravaggio became dismal. "It's a sure enough frost," she confided to Bobby ; "but cheer up, for the worst is yet to come. Your route sheet for the next two months looks like a morgue to me, and unless you interpolate a few coon songs in Tannhauser and some song and dance spe- cialties between the acts of Les Huguenots you're gone. You know I used to sing this route in musical comedy, and, on the level, I've got a fine part wait- ing for me right now in The Giddy Queen. I like this highbrow music all right, but the people that come to hear it make me so sad. You're a good sport, though, and as long as you need me I'll stick." "Thanks," said Bobby sincerely. "It's a pleasure to speak to a real human being once in a while, even if you don't offer any encouragement. However, we'll not be buried till we're dead, notwithstanding that we now enter upon the graveyard route." Doleful experience, however, confirmed the Cara- vaggio's gloomy prophecy. They embarked now upon a season of one and two and three night stands that gave Bobby more of the real discomforts of life than he had ever before dreamed possible. To close AN EMBARRASSING DILEMMA 261 a performance at eleven, to pack and hurry for a twelve-thirty train, to ride until five o'clock in the morning a distance too short for sleep and too long to stay awake to tumble into a hotel at six and sleep until noon, this was one program; to close a per- formance at eleven, to wait up for a four-o'clock train, to ride until eight and get into a hotel at nine, with a vitally necessary rehearsal between that and the evening performance, was another program, either one of which wore on health and temper and purse alike. The losses now exceeded two thousand dollars a week. Moreover, the frequent visits of Biff Bates and his constant baiting of Signer Ricardo had driven that great tenor to such a point of dis- traction that one night, being near New York, he drew his pay and departed without notice. There was no use, in spite of Monsieur Noire's frantic insistence, in trying to make the public believe that the lank Dulceo was the fat Ricardo; moreover, im- mediately upon his arrival in New York, Signer Ricardo let it be known that he had left the Neapoli- tan Company, so the prestige of the company fell off at once, for the "country" press pays sharp attention to these things. A letter from Johnson at just this time also had its influence upon Bobby, who now was in an humble, not an antagonistic mood, and quite ripe for 262 THE MAKING OF BOBBY BURNIT advice. Mr. Johnson had just conferred with Mr. Bates upon his return from a visit to the Neapolitan Company, and Mr. Bates had detailed to Mr. John- son much that he had seen with his own eyes, and much that the Caravaggio had told him. Mr. John- son, thereupon, begging pardon for the presump- tion, deemed this a fitting time, from what he had heard, to forward Bobby the inclosed letter, which, in its gray envelope, had been left behind by Bobby's father : To My Son in the Midst of a Losing Fight "Determination is a magnificent quality, but bull- headedness is not. The most foolish kind of pride on earth is that which makes a man refuse to ac- knowledge himself beaten when he is beaten. It takes a pretty brave man, and one with good stuff in him, to let all his friends know that he's been licked. Fig- ure this out." Bobby wrestled with that letter all night. In the morning he received one from Agnes which served to increase and intensify the feeling of homesickness that had been overwhelming him. She, too, had seen Biff Bates. She had asked him out to the house ex- pressly to talk with him, but she had written a pleas- ant, cheerful letter wherein she hoped that the end AN EMBARRASSING DILEMMA 263 of thie season would repay the losses she understood that he was enduring; but she admitted that she was very lonesome without him. She gave him quite a budget of gay gossip concerning all the young peo- ple of his set, and after he had read that letter he was quite prepared to swallow his grit and make the announcement that for a week had been almost upon his tongue. Through Monsieur Noire, at rehearsal that after- noon, he declared his intention of closing the season, and offered them each two weeks' advance pay and their fare to New York. It was Signorina Cara- vaggio who broke the hush that followed this an- nouncement. "You're a good sort, Bobby Burnit," she said, with kindly intent to lead the others, "and I'll take your offer and thank you." It appeared that the majority of them had dreaded some such denouement as this ; some had been pre- pared for even less advantageous terms, and sev- eral, upon direct inquiry, announced their willingness to accept this proposal. A few declared their inten- tion to hold him for the full contract. These were the ones who had made sure of his entire solvency, and these afterward swayed the balance of the com- pany to a stand which won a better compromise. When Monsieur Noire, with a curious smile, asked 264 THE MAKING OF. BOBBY BURNIT Madam Villenauve, however, she laughed very pleas- antly. "Oh, non," said she ; "it does not apply, zis offair, to me. I do not need it, for Monsieur Burnit ees to marry wiz me zis Christmastam." "I am afraid, Madam Villenauve, that we will have to quit joking about that," said Bobby coldly. " Joking!" screamed the shrill voice of madam. "Bet ees not any joke. You can not fool wiz me, Monsieur Burnit. You mean to tell all zese people zat you are not to marry wiz me?" "I certainly have no intention of the kind," said Bobby impatiently, "nor have I ever expressed such an intention." "We s'all see about zat," declared the madam with righteous indignation. "We s'all see how you can amuse yourself. You refuse to keep your word zat you marry me? All right zen, you do! I bring suit to-day for brich promise, and I have here one, two, three, a dozen weetness. I make what you call sub- poena on zem all. We s'all see." "Monsieur Noire," said Bobby, more sick and sore than panic-stricken, "you will please settle matters with all these people and come to me at the hotel for whatever checks you need," and, hurt beyond measure at this one more instance that there were, really, ra- pacious schemers in the world, who sought loathsome AN EMBARRASSING DILEMMA 265 advantage at the expense of decent folk, Bobby crept away, to hide himself and try to understand. They were here for the latter half of the week, and, since business seemed to be fairly good, Bobby had decided to fill this engagement, canceling all others. In the morning it seemed that Madam Villenauve had been in earnest in her absurd intentions, for, in his room, at eleven o'clock, he was served with papers in the breach-of-promise suit of Villenauve versus Burnit, and the amount of damages claimed was the tremendous sum of one hundred and fifty thousand dollars, an amount, of course, only commensurate with Madam Villenauve's standing in the profession and her earning capacity as an artist, her pride and shat- tered feelings and the dashing to earth of her love's young dream being of corresponding value. More- over, he learned that an injunction had been issued completely tying up his bank account. That was the parting blow. Settling up with the performers upon a blood-letting basis, he most ignominiously fled. Be- fore he went away, however, Signorina Nora McGin- nis Caravaggio called him to one side and confided a most delicate message to him. "Your friend, Mr. Bates," she began with an embarrassed hesitation quite unusual in the direct Irish girl; "he's a nice boy, from the ground up, and give him an easy word from me. But, Mr. 266 THE MAKING OF BOBBY BURNIT Burnit, give him a hint not to do any more traveling on my account ; for I've got a husband back in New York that ain't worth the rat poison to put him out of his misery, but I'm not getting any divorces. One mistake is enough. But don't be too hard on me when you tell Biff. Honest, up to just the last, I thought he'd come only to see you; but I enjoyed his visits." And in the eyes of the Caravaggio there stood real tears. A newsboy met Bobby on the train with the morn- ing papers from home, and in them he read delight- fully flavored and spiced accounts of the great Ville- nauve breach-of-promise case, embellished with many details that were entirely new to him. He had not counted on this phase of the matter, and it struck him almost as with an ague. The notoriety, the askance looks he would receive from his more conservative acquaintances, the "ragging" he would get at his clubs, all these he could stand. But Agnes! How could he ever face her? How would she receive him? From the train he took a cab directly home and buried himself there to think it all over. He spent a morn- ing of intense dejection and an afternoon of the ut- most misery. In the evening, not caring to dine in solitary gloom at home nor to appear yet among his fellows, he went out to an obscure restaurant in the neighborhood and ate his dinner, then came back AN EMBARRASSING DILEMMA 267 again to his lonely room, seeing nothing ahead of him but an evening of melancholy alone. His butler, however, met him in the hall on his return. "Miss Elliston called up on the 'phone while you were out, sir." "Did you tell Her I was at home?" asked Bobby with quick apprehension. "Yes, sir; you hadn't told me not to do so, sir; and she left word that you were to come straight out to the house as soon as you came in." "Very well," said Bobby, and went into the library. He sat down before the telephone and rested his hand upon the receiver for perhaps as much as five long minutes of hesitation, then abruptly he turned away from that unsatisfactory means of communica- tion and had his car ordered ; then hurriedly changed to the evening clothes he had not intended to don that night. In most uncertain anticipation, but quite sure of the most vigorous "blowing up" of his career, he whirled out to the home of the Ellistons and ascended the steps. The ring at the bell brought the ever im- perturbable Wilkins, who nodded gravely upon see- ing that it was Bobby and, relieving him of his coat and hat, told him : "Right up to the Turkish room, sir." There seemed a strange quietness about the house, 268 THE MAKING OF BOBBY BURNIT and he felt more and more as if he might be ap- proaching a sentence as he climbed the silent stairs. At the door of the Turkish room, however, Agnes met him with outstretched hands and a smile of wel- come which bore traces of quite too much amuse- ment for his entire comfort. When she had drawn him within the big alcove she laughed aloud, a light laugh in which there was no possible trace of resent- ment, and it lifted from his mind the load that had been oppressing it all day long. "I'm afraid you haven't heard," he began awk- wardly. "Heard !" she repeated, and laughed again. "Why, Bobby, I read all the morning papers and all the evening papers, and I presume there will be excellent reading in every one of them for days and days to come." "And you're not angry?" he said, astounded. "Angry!" she laughed. "Why, you poor Bobby. I remember this Madam Villenauve perfectly, besides seeing her ten-years-ago pictures in the papers, and you don't suppose for a minute that I could be jeal- ous of her, do you? Moreover, I can prove by Aunt Constance and Uncle Dan that I predicted just this very thing when you first insisted upon going on the road." He looked around, dreading the keen satire of AN EMBARRASSING DILEMMA 269 Uncle Dan and the incisive ridicule of Aunt Con- stance, but she relieved his mind of that fear. "We were all invited out to dinner to-night, but I refused to go, for really I wanted to soften the blow for you. There is nobody in the house but myself and the servants. Now, do behave, Bobby! Wait a minute, sir! I've something else to crush you with. Have you seen the evening papers ?" No ; the morning papers had been enough for him. "Well, I'll tell you what they are doing. The Consolidated Illuminating and Power Company has secured an order from the city council compelling the Brightlight Electric Company to remove their poles from Market Street." Bobby caught his breath sharply. Stone and Sharp e and Garland, the political manipulators of the city, and its owners, lock, stock and barrel were responsible for this. They had taken advantage of his absence. "What a fool I have been," he bitterly confessed, "to have taken up with this entirely irregular and idiotic enterprise, a venture of which I knew nothing whatever, and let go the serious fight I had intended to make on Stone and his crowd." "Never mind, Bobby," said Agnes. "I have a suspicion that you have cut a wisdom-tooth. I rather imagined that you needed this one last folly as a sort 270 THE MAKING OF BOBBY BURNIT of relapse before complete convalescence, to settle you down and bring you back to me for a more serious effort. I see that the most of your money is tied up in this embarrassing suit, and when I read that you were on your way home I went to Mr. Chalmers and got him to arrange for the release of some bonds. Following the provisions of your father's will your next two hundred and fifty thousand is waiting for you. Moreover, Bobby, this time I want you to listen to your trustee. I have found a new business for you, one about which you know nothing whatever, but one that you must learn ; I want to put a weapon into your hands with which to fight for everything you have lost." He looked at her in wonder. "I always told you I needed you," he declared. "When are you going to marry me?" "When you have won your fight, Bobby, or when you have proved entirely hopeless," she replied with a smile in which there was a certain amount of wist- fulness. "You're a good sort, Agnes," he said a little hus- kily, and he pondered for some little time in awe over the existence of women like this. "I guess the gov- ernor was mighty right in making you my trustee, after all. But what is this business?" "The Evening Bulletin is for sale, I have learned. AN EMBARRASSING DILEMMA 271 Just now it is an independent paper, but it seems to me you could not have a better weapon, with your following, for fighting your political and business enemies." "I'll think that over very seriously," he said with much soberness. "I have refused everybody's advice so far, and have taken only my own. I have begun to believe that I am not the wisest person in the world ; also I have come to believe that there are more ways to lose money than there are to make money; also I've found out that men are not the only gold-brick salesmen. Agnes, I'm what Biff Bates calls a 'Hick'!" "Look what your father has to say about this last escapade of yours," she said, smiling, and from her desk brought him one of the familiar gray envelopes. This was the letter: To My Daughter 'Agnes, Upon Bobby's Entangle- ment with a Blackmailing Woman "No man can guard against being roped in by a scheming woman the first time; but if it happens twice he deserves it, and he should be turned out to stay an idiot, for the signs are so plain. A man swindler takes a man's money and makes a fool of him ; but a woman swindler takes a man's money and leaves a smirch on him. Only a man's nearest and 272 THE MAKING OF BOBBY BURNIT dearest can help him live down such a smirch; so, Agnes, if my son hias been this particular variety of everlasting blank fool, don't turn against him. He needs you. Moreover, you'll find him improved by it. He'll be so much more humble." "I didn't really need that letter," Agnes shyly confessed; "but maybe it helped some." CHAPTER XXII AGNES FINDS BOBBY A SLING AND BOBBY PUTS A STONE IN IT THE wonderful change in a girl who, through her love, has become all woman, that was the marvel to Bobby ; the breadth of her knowledge, the depth of her sympathy, the bound- lessness of her compassionate forgiveness, her quality of motherliness ; and this last was perhaps the great- est marvel of all. Yet even his marveling did not en- compass all the wonder. In his last exploit, more full of folly than anything Into which he had yet blund- ered, and the one which, of all others, might most have turned her from him, Agnes had had the harder part; to sit at home and wait, to dread she knew not what. The certainty which finally evolved had less of distress in it than not to know while day by day passed by. One thing had made it easier: never for one moment had she lost faith in Bobby, in any way. She was certain, however, that financially his trip would be a losing one, and from ! i^ time he left she kept her mind almost constantly upon the thought 273 274 THE MAKING OF BOBBY BURNIT of his future. She had become almost desperately anxious for him to fulfill the hopes of his father, and day by day she studied the commercial field as she had never thought it possible that she could do. There was no line of industry upon which she did not ponder, and there was scarcely any morning that she did not at the breakfast table ask Dan Elliston the ins and outs of some business. If he was not able to tell her all she wanted to know, she usually commissioned him to find out. He took these requests in good part, and if she accomplished nothing else by all her inquiries she acquired such a commercial education as falls to the lot of but few home-kept young women. One morning her uncle came down a trifle late for breakfast and was in a hurry. "The Elliston School of Commercial Instruction will have a recess for this session," he observed as he popped into his chair. "I have an important engage- ment at the factory this morning and have about seven minutes for breakfast. During that seven minutes I prefer to eat rather than to talk. How- ever, I do not object to listening. This being my last word except to request you to gather things closely about my plate, you may now start." "Very well," said she, dimpling as she usually did at any evidence of bruskness on the part of her AGNES FINDS BOBBY A SLING 275 Uncle Dan, for from long experience she knew the harmlessness of his bark. "Nick Allstyne happened to remark to me last night that the Bulletin is for sale. What do you think of the newspaper business for Bobby?" "The time necessary to answer that question takes my orange from me," objected Uncle Dan as he hastily sipped another bite of the fruit and pushed it away. "The newspaper business for Bobby !" He drew the muffins toward him and took one upon his plate, then he stopped and pondered a moment. "Do you know," said he, "that's about the best sugges- tion you've made. I believe he could make a hummer out of a newspaper. I've noticed this about the boy's failures; they have all of them been due to lack of experience; none of them has been due to any ab- sence of backbone. Nobody has ever bluffed him." Agnes softly clapped her hands. "Exactly!" she cried. "Well, Uncle Dan, this is the last word I'm going to say. For the balance of your seven minutes I'm going to help stuff you with enough food to keep you until luncheon time; but sometime to-day, if you find time, I want you to go over and see the proprietor of the Bulletin and find out how much he wants for his property, and in- vestigate it as a business proposition just the same as if you were going into it yourself." 276 THE MAKING OF BOBBY BURNIT Uncle Dan, dipping voraciously into his soft boiled eggs, grinned and said: "Huh!" Then he looked at his watch. When he came home to dinner, however, he hunted up Agnes at once. "Your Bulletin proposition looks pretty good," he told her. "I saw Greenleaf. He's a physical wreck and has been for two years. He has to get away or die. Moreover, his physical condition has reacted upon his paper. His circulation has run down, but he has a magnificent plant and a good office organiza- tion. He wants two hundred thousand dollars for his plant, good will and franchises. I'm going to investigate this a little further. Do you suppose Bobby will have two hundred thousand left when he gets through with grand opera?" "I hope so," replied Agnes ; "but if he hasn't I'll have him waste the balance of this two hundred and fifty thousand so that he can draw the next one." Uncle Dan laughed in huge enjoyment of this solution. "You surely were cut out for high finance," he told her. She smiled, and was silent a while, hesitating. "You seem to think pretty well of the business as a business proposition," she ventured anxiously, by and by ; "but you haven't told me what you think of it as applicable to Bobby." AGNES FINDS BOBBY A SLING 277 "If he'U take you in the office with him, he'll do all right," he answered her banteringly ; but when he went up-stairs and found his wife he said: "Con- stance, if that girl don't pull Bobby Burnit through his puppyhood in good shape there is something wrong with the scheme of creation. There is some- thing about you women of the Elliston family that every once in a while makes me pause and reverence the Almighty," whereupon Aunt Constance flushed prettily, as became her. With the same earnestness of purpose Agnes han- dled the question of Bobby's breach-of -promise suit in so far as it affected his social reception. The Ellistons went to the theater and sat in a box to exhibit him on the second night after his return, and Agnes took careful count of all the people she knew who attended the theater that night. The next day she went to see all of them, among others Mrs. Hor- ace Wickersham, whose social word was social law. "My dear," said the redoubtable Mrs. Wicker- sham, " it does Bobby Burnit great credit that he did not marry the creature. Of course I shall invite him to our affair next Friday night." After that there could be no further question of Bobby's standing, though without the firm support of Agnes he might possibly have been ostracised, for a time at least. 278 THE MAKING OF BOBBY BURNIT It was with much less certainty that she spread before Bobby the facts and figures which Uncle Dan had secured about the condition and prospects of the Bulletin. She did not urge the project upon him. Instead, though in considerable anxiety, she left the proposition open to his own judgment. He pon- dered the question more soberly and seriously than he had yet considered anything. There were but two chances left to redeem himself now, and he felt much like a gambler who has been reduced to his last desperate stake. He grew almost haggard over the proposition, and he spent two solid weeks in investi- gation. He went to Washington to see Jack Starlett, who knew three or four newspaper proprietors in Philadelphia and elsewhere. He obtained introduc- tions to these people and consulted with them, in- spected their plants and listened to all they would say; as they liked him, they said much. Ripened considerably by what he had found out he came back home and bought the Bulletin. Moreover, he had very definitely made up his mind precisely what to do with it. On the first morning that he walked into the office of that paper as its sole owner and proprietor, he called the managing editor to him and asked: "What, heretofore, has been the politics of this paper?" AGNES FINDS BOBBY A SLING 279 "Pale yellow jelly," snapped Ben Jolter wrath- fully. "Supposed to be anti-Stone, hasn't it been?" Bobby smilingly inquired. "But always perfectly ladylike in what it said about him." "And what are the politics of the employees?" At this Mr. Jolter snorted. "They are good newspaper men, Mr. Burnit," he stated in quick defense ; "and a good newspaper man has no politics." Bobby eyed Mr. Jolter with contemplative favor. He was a stout, stockily-built man, with a square head and sparse gray hair that would persist in tangling and curling at the ends ; and he perpetually kept his sleeves rolled up over his big arms. "I don't know anything about this business," con- fessed Bobby, "but I hope to. First of all, I'd like to find out why the Bulletin has no circulation." "The lack of a spinal column," asserted Jolter. "It has had no policy, stood pat on no proposition, and made no aggressive fight on anything." "If I understand what you mean by the word," said Bobby slowly, "the Bulletin is going to have a policy." It was now Mr. Jolter's turn to gaze contempla- tively at Bobby. 280 THE MAKING OF BOBBY BURNIT "If you were ten years older I would feel more hopeful about it," he decided bluntly. The young man flushed uncomfortably. He was keenly aware that he had made an ass of himself in business four successive times, and that Jolter knew it. By way of facing the music, however, he showed to his managing editor a letter, left behind with old Johnson for Bobby by the late John Burnit: "The mere fact that a man has been foolish four times is no absolute proof that he is a fool ; but it's a mighty significant hint. However, Bobby, I'm still betting on you, for by this time you ought to have your fighting blood at the right temperature; and I've seen you play great polo in spite of a cracked rib. "P. S. If any one else intimates that you are a fool, trounce him one for me." "If there's anything in heredity you're a lucky young man," said Jolter seriously, as he handed back the letter. "I think the governor was worried about it him- self," admitted Bobby with a smile; "and if he was doubtful I can't blame you for being so. Nevertheless, Mr. Jolter, I must insist that we are going to have a policy," and he quietly outlined it. Mr. Jolter had been so long a directing voice in the newspaper business that he could not be startled by AGNES FINDS BOBBY A SLING 281 anything short of a presidential assassination, and that at press time. Nevertheless, at Bobby's announce- ment he immediately sought for his pipe and was compelled to go into his own office after it. He came back lighting it and felt better. "It's suicide !" he declared. "Then we'll commit suicide," said Bobby pleasantly. Mr. Jolter, after long, grinning thought, solemnly shook hands with him. "I'm for it," said he. "Here's hoping that we sur- vive long enough to write our own obituary !" Mr. Jolter, to whom fighting was as the breath of new-mown hay, and who had long been curbed in that delightful occupation, went back into his own office with a more cheerful air than he had worn for many a day, and issued a few forceful orders, winding up with a direction to the press foreman to prepare for ten thousand extra copies that evening. When the three o'clock edition of the Bulletin came on the street, the entire first page was taken up by a life-size half-tone portrait of Sam Stone, and under- neath it was the simple legend : THIS MAN MUST LEAVE TOWN The first citizens to awake to the fact that the Bulletin was born anew were the newsboys. Those live 282 THE MAKING OF BOBBY BURNIT and enterprising merchants, with a very keen judg- ment of comparative values, had long since ceased to call the Bulletin at all ; half of them had even ceased to carry it. Within two minutes after this edition was out they were clamoring for additional copies, and for the first time in years the alley door of the Bulletin was besieged by a seething mob of ragged, diminutive, howling masculinity. Out on the street, however, they were not even now calling the name of the paper. They were holding forth that black first page and screaming just the name of Sam Stone. Sam Stone! It was a magic name, for Stone had been the boss of the town since years without num- ber ; a man who had never held office, but who dictated the filling of all offices ; a man who was not osten- sibly in any business, but who swayed the fortune of every public enterprise ; a self-confessed grafter whom crusade after crusade had failed to dislodge from ab- solute power. The crowds upon the street snapped eagerly at that huge portrait and searched as eagerly through the paper for more about the Boss. They did not find it, except upon the editorial page, where, in the space usually devoted to drivel about "How Kind We Should Be to Dumb Animals," and "Why Fathers Should Confide More in Their Sons," ap- peared in black type a paraphrase of the legend on the outside: "Sam Stone Must Leave Town" Be- AGNES FINDS BOBBY A SLING 283 neath was the additional information: "Further is- sues of the Bulletin will tell why." Above and below this was nothing but startlingly white blank paper, two solid columns of it up and down the page. Down in the deep basement of the Bulletin, the big three-deck presses, two of which had been standing idle since the last presidential election, were pound- ing out copies by the thousand, while grimy pressmen, blackened with ink, perspired most happily. By five o'clock, men and even girls, pouring from their offices, and laborers coming from work, had all heard of it, and on the street the bold defiance created first a gasp and then a smile. Another attempt to dislodge Sam Stone was, in the light of previous ef- forts, a laughable thing to contemplate; and yet it was interesting. In the office of the Bulletin it was a gleeful occasion. Nonchalant reporters sat down with that amazing front page spread out before them, studied the brutal face of Stone and chuckled cynically. Lean Doc Mil- ler, "assistant city editor," or rather head copy reader, lit one cigarette from the stub of another and observed, to nobody in particular but to everybody in general : "I can see where we all contribute for a beautiful Gates Ajar floral piece for one Robert Burnit;" whereupon fat "Bugs" Roach, "handling copy" across the table from him, inquired : 284 THE MAKING OF BOBBY BURNIT "Do you suppose the new boss really has this much nerve, or is he just a damned fool?" "Stone won't do a thing to him!" ingratiatingly observed a "cub" reporter, laying down twelve pages of "copy" about a man who had almost been bur- glarized. "Look here, you Greenleaf Whittier Squiggs," said Doc Miller most savagely, not because he had any par- ticular grudge against the unfortunately named G. W., but because of discipline and the custom with "cubs," "the next time you're sent out on a twenty- minute assignment like this, remember the number of the Bulletin, 427 Grand Street. The telephone is Cen- tral 2051, and don't forget to report the same day. Did you get the man's name? Uh-huh. His address? Uh-huh. Well, we don't want the item." Slow and phlegmatic Jim Brown, who had been city editor on the Bulletin almost since it was the Bulletin under half a dozen changes of ownership and nearly a score of managing editors, sauntered over into Jol- ter's room with a copy of the paper in his hand, and a long black stogie held by some miracle in the corner of his mouth, where it would be quite out of the road of conversation. "Pretty good stuff," he drawled, indicating the re- markable first page. "The greatest circus act that was ever pulled off AGNES FINDS BOBBY A SLING 285 in the newspaper business," asserted Jolter. "It will quadruple the present circulation of the Bulletin in a week." "Make or break," assented the city editor, "with the odds in favor of the break." A slenderly-built young man, whose red face needed a shave and whose clothes, though wrinkled and un- brushed, shrieked of quality, came stumbling up the stairs in such hot haste as was possible in his condi- tion, and without ceremony or announcement burst into the room where Bobby Burnit, with that day's issue of the Bulletin spread out before him, was try- ing earnestly to get a professional idea of the proper contents of a newspaper. "Great goods, old man !" said the stranger. "I want to congratulate you on your lovely nerve," and seizing Bobby's hand he shook it violently. "Thanks," said Bobby, not quite sure whether to be amused or resentful. "Who are you ?" "I'm Dillingham," announced the red-faced young man with a cheerful smile. Bobby was about to insist upon further informa- tion, when Mr. Jolter came in to introduce Brown, who had not yet met Mr. Burnit. "Dill," drawled Brown, with a twinkle in his eye, "how much money have you?" "Money to burn ; money in every pocket," asserted 286 THE MAKING OF BOBBY BURNIT Mr. Dillingham; "money to last for ever," and he jammed both hands in his trousers' pockets. It was an astonishing surprise to Mr. Dillingham, after groping in those pockets, to find that he brought up only a dollar bill in his left hand and forty- five cents in silver in his right. He was still contem- plating in awed silence this perplexing fact when Brown handed him a five-dollar bill. "Now, you run right out and get stewed to the eye- brows again," directed Brown. "Get properly pickled and have it over with, then show up here in the morn- ing with a headache and get to work. We want you to take charge of the Sam Stone expose, and in to-mor- row's Bulletin we want the star introduction of your life." "Do you mean to say you're going to trust the whole field conduct of this campaign to that chap?" asked Bobby, frowning, when Dillingham had gone. "This is his third day, so Dill's safe for to-morrow morning," Brown hastened to assure him. "He'll be up here early, so penitent that he'll be incased in a blue fog and he'll certainly deliver the goods." Bobby sighed and gave it up. This was a new world. Over in his dingy little office, up his dingy flight of stairs, Sam Stone sat at his bare and empty old desk, looking contemplatively out of the window, when AGNES FINDS BOBBY A SLING 281 Frank Sharpe his luxuriant gray mustache in an extraordinary and most violent state of straggling curliness came nervously bustling in with a copy of the Bulletm in his hand. "Have you seen this ?" he shrilled. "Heard about it," grunted Stone. "But what do you think of it?" demanded Sharpe indignantly, and spread the paper out on the desk before the Boss, thumping it violently with his knuckles. Stone studied it well, without the slightest change of expression upon his heavy features. "It's a swell likeness," he quietly conceded, by and by. CHAPTER XXIII BOBBY BEGINS TO GIVE TESTIMONY THAT HE IS OLD JOHN BUBNIT'S SON CLOSETED with Jolter and Brown, and map- ping out with them the dangerous campaign into which they had plunged, Bobby did not leave the office of the Bulletin until six o'clock. At the curb, just as he was about to step into his wait- ing machine, Biff Bates hailed him with vast en- thusiasm. "Go to it, Bobby!" said he. "I'm backing you across the board, win, place and show ; but let me give you a hot tip right from the stables. You want to be afraid to go home in the dark, or Stone's lobbygows will lean on you with a section of plumbing." "I've thought of that, Biff," laughed Bobby; "and I think I'll organize a band of murderers of my own." Johnson, whom Bobby had quite forgotten in the stress of the day, joined them at this moment. Thirty years as head bookkeeper and confidential adviser in old John Burnit's merchandise establishment had not fitted lean Johnson for the less dignified and more 288 OLD JOHN BURNIT'S SON 289 flurried work of a newspaper office, even in the busi- ness department, and he was looking very much fagged. "Well, Johnson, what do you think of my first issue of the Bulletin?" asked Bobby pleasantly. Johnson looked genuinely distressed. "To teU you the truth, Mr. Burnit," said he, "I have not seen it. I never in all my life saw a place where there were so many interruptions to work. If we could only be back in, your father's store, sir." "We'll be back there before we quit," said Bobby confidently ; "or I'll be in the incurable ward." "I hope so, sir," said Johnson dismally, and strode across the street to catch his car ; but he came back hastily to add: "I meant about the store; not about the asylum." Biff Bates laughed as he clambered into the ton- neau with Bobby. "If you'd make a billion dollars, Bobby, but didn't get back your father's business that Silas Trimmer snaked away from you, Johnson would think you'd overlooked the one best bet." "So would I," said Bobby soberly, and he had but very little more to say until the chauffeur stopped at Bobby's own door, where puffy old Applerod, who had been next to Johnson in his usefulness to old John Burnit, stood nervously awaiting him on the steps. 290 THE MAKING OF BOBBY BURNIT "Terrible, sir! Terrible!" spluttered Applerod the moment he caught sight of Bobby. "This open defi- ance of Mr. Stone will put entirely out of existence what little there is left of the Brightlight Electric Company." "Cheer up, Applerod, for death must come to us all," encouraged Bobby. "Such shreds and fragments of the Brightlight as there are left would have been wiped out anyhow ; and frankly, if you must have it, I put you in there as general manager, when I shifted Johnson to the Bulletin this morning, because there was nothing to manage." Applerod threw up his hands in dismay. "And there will be less. Oh, Mr. Burnit, if your father were only here !" Bobby, whose suavity Applerod had never before seen ruffled, turned upon him angrily. "I'm tired hearing about my father, Applerod," he declared. "I revere the governor's memory too much to want to be made angry by the mention of his name. Hereafter, kindly catch the idea, if you can, that I am my own man and must work out my own salvation; and I propose to do it! Biff, you don't mind if I put off seeing you until to-morrow ? I have a dinner engagement this evening and very little time to dress." "His own man," said Applerod sorrowfully when OLD JOHN BURNIT'S SON 291 Bobby had left them. "John Burnit would be half crazy if he could know what a botch his son is making of things. I don't see how a man could let himself be cheated four times in business." "I can tell you," retorted Biff. "All his old man ever did for him was to stuff his pockets with kale, and let him grow up into the sort of clubs where one sport says: 'I'm going to walk down to the corner.' Says the other sport : 'I'll bet you see more red-headed girls on the way down than you do on the way back.' Says the first sport: 'You're on for a hundred.' He goes down to the corner and he comes back. 'How about the red-headed girls ?' asks the second sport. 'I lose,' says the first sport ; 'here's your hundred.' Now, when Bobby is left real money, he starts in to play the same open-face game, and when one of these busi- ness wolves tells him anything Bobby don't stop to figure whether the mut means what he says, or means something else that sounds like the same thing. Now, if Bobby was a simp they'd sting him in so many places that he'd be swelled all over, like an exhibition cream puff; but he ain't a simp. It took him four times to learn that he can't take a man's word in busi- ness. That's all he needed. Bobby's awake now, and more than that he's mad, and if I hear you make an- other crack that he ain't about all the candy I'll sick old Johnson on you," and with this dire threat Biff 292 THE MAKING OF BOBBY BURNIT wheeled, leaving Mr. Applerod speechless with red- faced indignation. It was just a quiet family dinner that Bobby at- tended that night at the Ellistons', with Uncle Dan and Aunt Constance Elliston at the head and foot of the table, and across from him the smiling face of Agnes. He was so good to look at that Agnes was content just to watch him, but Aunt Constance noted his abstraction and chided him upon it. "Really, Bobby," said she, "since you have gone into business you're ruined socially." "Frankly, I don't mind," he replied, smiling. "I'd rather be ruined socially than financially. In spite of certain disagreeable features of it, I have a feeling upon me to-night that I'm going to like the struggle." "You're starting a stiff one now," observed Uncle Dan dryly. "Beginning an open fight against Sam Stone is a good deal like being suspended over Hades by a single hair amidst a shower of Roman candles." "That's putting it about right, I guess," admitted Bobby ; "but I'm relying on the fact that the public at heart is decent." "Do you remember, Bobby, what Commodore Van- derbilt said about the public?" retorted Uncle Dan. "They're decent, all right, but they won't stick to- gether in any aggressive movement short of gun- powder. In the meantime, Stone has more entrench- OLD JOHN BURNIT'S SON 293 ments than even you can dream. For instance, I should not wonder but that within a very short time I shall be forced to try my influence with you in his behalf." "How?" asked Bobby incredulously. "Well, I am trying to get a spur track from the X. Y. Z. Railroad to my factory on Spindle Street. The X. Y. Z. is perfectly willing to put in the track, and I'm trying to have the city council grant us a permit. Now, who is the city council?" "Stone," Bobby was compelled to admit. "Of course. I have already arranged to pay quite a sum of money to the capable and honest city council- man of that ward. The ca-pable and honest councilman will go to Stone and give up about three-fourths of what I pay him. Then Stone will pass the word out to the other councilmen that he's for Alderman Hold- up's spur track permit, and I get it. Very simple ar- rangement, and satisfactory, but, if they do not shove that measure through at their meeting to-morrow night, before Stone finds out any possible connection between you and me, the price of it will not be money. I'll be sent to you." "I see," said Bobby in dismay. "In other words, it will be put flatly up to me ; I'll either have to quit my attacks on Stone, or be directly responsible for your losing your valuable spur track." "Exactly," said Uncle Dan. 294 THE MAKING OF BOBBY BURNIT Bobby drew a long breath. "I'm very much afraid, Mr. Elliston, that you will have to do without your spur." Uncle Dan's eyes twinkled. "I'm willing," said he. "I have a good offer to sell that branch of my plant anyhow, and I think I'll dis- pose of it. I have been very frank with you about this, so that you will know exactly what to expect when other people come at you. You will be beset as you never were before." "I have been looking for an injunction, myself." "You will have no injunction, for Stone scarcely dares go publicly into his own courts," said Uncle Dan, with a pretty thorough knowledge, gained through experience, of the methods of the "Stone gang" ; "though he might even use that as a last re- sort. That will be after intimidation fails, for it is quite seriously probable that they will hire somebody to beat you into insensibility. If that don't teach you the proper lesson, they will probably kill you." Agnes looked up apprehensively, but catching Boti- by's smile took this latter phase of the matter as a joke. Bobby himself was not deeply impressed with it, but before he went away that night Uncle Dan took him aside and urged upon him the seriousness of the matter. "I'll fight them with their own weapons, then," de- OLD JOHN BURNIT'S SON 295 clared Bobby. "I'll organize a counter band of thugs, and I'll block every move they make with one of the same sort. Somehow or other I think I am going to win." "Of course you will win," said Agnes confidently, overhearing this last phrase; and with that most prized of all encouragement, the faith in his prowess of the one woman, Bobby, for that night at least, felt quite contemptuous of the grilling fight to come. His second issue of the Bulletin contained on the front page a three-column picture of Sam Stone, with the same caption, together with a full-page ar- ticle, written by Dillingham from data secured by him- self and the others who were put upon the "story." This set forth the main iniquities of Sam Stone and his crew of municipal grafters. In the third day's issue the picture was reduced to two columns, occupy- ing the left-hand upper corner of the front page, where Bobby ordered it to remain permanently as the slogan of the Bulletin; and now Dillingham began his long series of articles, taking up point by point the ramifications of Stone's machine, and coming closer and closer daily to people who would much rather have been left entirely out of the picture. It was upon this third day that Bobby, becoming apprehensive merely because nothing had happened, received a visit from Frank Sharpe. Mr. Sharpe was 296 THE MAKING OF BOBBY BURNIT as nattily dressed as ever, and presented himself as pleasantly as a summer breeze across fields of clover. "I came in to see you about merging the Bright- light Electric Company with the Consolidated, Mr. Burnit," said Mr. Sharpe in a chatty tone, laying his hat, cane and gloves upon Bobby's desk and seating himself comfortably. From his face there was no doubt in Mr. Sharpens mind that this was a mere matter of an interview with a satisfactory termination, for Mr. Sharpe had done business with Bobby before ; but something had hap- pened to Bobby in the meantime. "When I get ready for a merger of the Brightlight with the Consolidated I'll tell you about it ; and also I'll tell you the terms," Bobby advised him with a snap, and for the first time Mr. Sharpe noted what a good jaw Bobby had. "I should think," hesitated Sharpe, "that in the present condition of the Brightlight almost any terms would be attractive to you. You have no private con- sumers now, and your contract for city lighting, which you can not evade except by bankruptcy, is losing you money." "If that were news to me it would be quite star- tling," responded Bobby, "but you see, Mr. Sharpe, I am quite well acquainted with the facts myself. Also, I have a strong suspicion that you tampered OLD JOHN BURNIT'S SON 297 with my plant ; that your hired agents cut my wires, ruined my dynamos and destroyed the efficiency of my service generally." "You will find it very difficult to prove that, Mr. Burnit," said Sharpe, with a sternness which could not quite conceal a lurking smile. "I'm beginning to like difficulty," retorted Bobby. "I do not mind telling you that I was never angry before in my life, and I'm surprised to find myself enjoying the sensation." Bobby was still more astonished to find himself lay- ing his fist tensely upon his desk. The lurking smile was now gone entirely from Mr. Sharpe's face. "I must admit, Mr. Burnit, that your affairs have turned out rather unfortunately," he said, "but I think that they might be remedied for you a bit, per- haps. Suppose you go and see Stone." "I do not care to see Mr. Stone," said Bobby. "But he wants to see you," persisted Sharpe. "In fact, he told me so this morning. I'm quite sure you would find it to your advantage to drop over there." "I shall never enter Mr. Stone's office until he has vacated it for good," said Bobby ; "then I might be induced to come over and break up the furniture. If Stone wants to see me I'm keeping fairly regular of- fice hours here." "It is not Mr. Stone's habit to go to other people," 298 THE MAKING OF BOBBY BURNIT bluffed Sharpe, growing somewhat nervous ; for it was one of Stone's traits not to forgive the failure of a mission. He had no use for extenuating circumstances. He never looked at anything in this world but re- sults. Bobby took down the receiver of his house tele- phone. "I'd like to speak to Mr. Jolter, please," said he. Sharpe rose to go. "Just wait a moment, Mr. Sharpe," said Bobby peremptorily, and Sharpe stopped. "Jolter," he di- rected crisply, turning again to the 'phone, "kindly step into my office, will you ?" A moment later, while Sharpe stood wondering, Jolter came in, and grinned as he noted Bobby's visi- tor. "Mr. Jolter," asked Bobby, "have we a good por- trait of Mr. Sharpe?" Jolter, still grinning, stated that they had. "Have a three-column half-tone made of it for this evening's Bulletin." Sharpe fairly spluttered. "Mr. Burnit, if you print my picture in the Bulle- tin connected with anything derogatory, I'll I'll " Bobby waited politely for a moment. "Go ahead, Mr. Sharpe," said he. "I'm interested to know just what you will do, because we're going to OLD JOHN BURNIT'S SON 299 print the picture, connected with something quite de- rogatory. Now finish your threat." Sharpe gazed at him a moment, speechless with rage, and then stamped from the office. Jolter, quietly chuckling, turned to Bobby. "I guess you'll do," he commented. "If you last long enough you'll win." "Thanks," said Cobby dryly, and then he smiled. "Say, Jolter," he added, "it's bully fun being angry. I'm just beginning to realize what I have been miss- ing all these years. Go ahead with Sharpe's picture and print anything you please about him. I guess you can secure enough material without going out of the office, and if you can't I'll supply you with some." Jolter looked at his watch and hurried for the door. Minutes were precious if he wanted to get that Sharpe cut made in time for the afternoon edition. At the door, however, he turned a bit anxiously. "I suppose you carry a gun, don't you?" "By no means," said Bobby. "Never owned one." "I'd advise you to get a good one at once," and Jolter hurried away. That evening's edition of the Bulletin contained a beautiful half-tone of Mr. Sharpe. Above it was printed: "The Bulletin's Rogues' Gallery," and be- neath was the caption : "Hadn't this man better go, too?" CHAPTER XXIY EDITOR BURNIT DISCOVERS THAT HE IS FIGHTING AN ENTIRE CITY INSTEAD OF ONE MAN AT four o'clock of that same day Mr. Brown came in, and Mr. Brown was grinning. In the last three days a grin had become the trade-mark of the office, for the staff of the Bulletin was enjoying itself as never before in all its history. "Stone's in my office," said Brown. "Wants to see you." Bobby was interestedly leafing over the pages of the Bulletin. He looked leisurely at his watch and yawned. "Tell Mr. Stone that I am busy, but that I will receive him in fifteen minutes," he directed, where- upon Mr. Brown, appreciating the joke, grinned still more expansively and withdrew. Bobby, as calmly as he could, went on with his perusal of the Bulletin. To deny that he was some- what tense over the coming interview would be foolish. Never had a quarter of an hour dragged so slowly, 300 EDITOR BURNIT'S FIGHT 301 but he waited it out, with five minutes more on top of it, and then he telephoned to Brown to know if Stone was still there. He was relieved to find that he was. "Tell him to come in," he ordered. If Stone was inwardly fuming when he entered the room he gave no indication of it. His heavy face bore only his habitually sullen expression, his heavy-lidded eyes bore only their usual somberness, his heavy brow had in it no crease other than those that time had graven there. With the deliberateness peculiar to him he planted his heavy body in a big arm-chair opposite to Bobby, without removing his hat. "I don't believe in beating around the bush, Mr." Burnit," said he, with a glance over his shoulder to make sure that the door was closed. "Of course you're after something. What do you want?" Bobby looked at him in wonder. He had heard much of Stone's bluntness, and now he was fascinated by it. Nevertheless, he did not forget his own viewpoint. "Oh, I don't want much," he observed pleasantly, "only just your scalp; yours and the scalps of a few others who gave me my education, from Silas Trimmer up and down. I think one of the things that aggra- vated me most was the recent elevation of Trimmer to the chairmanship of your waterworks commission. Trivial as it was, this probably had as much to do with my sudden determination to wipe you gut, as 302 THE MAKING OF BOBBY BURNIT your having the Brightlight's poles removed from Market Street." Stone laid a heavy hand easily upon Bobby's desk. It was a strong hand, a big hand, brown and hairy, and from the third pudgy finger glowed a huge dia- mond. "As far as Trimmer is concerned," said he, quite undisturbed, "you can have his head any minute. He's a mutt." "You don't need to give me Mr. Trimmer's head," replied Bobby, quite as calmly. "I intend to get that myself." "And as for the Brightlight," continued Stone as if he had not been interrupted, "I sent Sharpe over to see you about that this morning. I think we can fix it so that you can get back your two hundred and fifty thousand. The deal's been worth a lot more than that to the Consolidated." "No doubt," agreed Bobby. "However, I'm not looking, at the present moment, for a sop to the Brightlight Company. It will be time enough for that when I have forced the Consolidated into the hands of a receiver." Stone looked at Bobby thoughtfully between nar- rowed eyelids. "Look here, young fellow," said he presently. "Now, you take it from me, and I have been through EDITOR BURNIT'S FIGHT 303 the mill, that there ain't any use holding a grouch. The mere doing damage don't get you anything un- less it's to whip somebody else into line with a warn- ing. I take it that this ain't what you're trying to do. You think you're simply playing a grouch game, table stakes ; but if you'll simmer down you'll find you've got a price. Now, I'd rather have you with me than against me. If you'll just say what you want I'll get it for you if it's in reach. But don't froth. I've cleaned up as much money as your daddy did, just by keeping my temper." "I'm going to keep mine, too," Bobby informed him quite cheerfully. "I have just found that I have one, and I like it." Stone brushed this triviality aside with a wave of his heavy hand. "Quit kidding," he said, "and come out with it. I see you're no piker, anyhow. You're playing for big game. What is it you want?" "As I said before, not very much," declared Bobby. "I only want to grind your machine into powder. I want to dig up the rotten municipal control of this city, root and branch. I want to ferret out every bit of crookedness in which you have been concerned, and every bit that you have caused. I want to uncover every man, high or low, for just what he is, and I don't care how well protected he is nor how shining 304 THE MAKING OF BOBBY BURNIT his reputation, if he's concerned in a crooked deal I'm going after him " "There won't be many of us left," Stone inter- rupted with a smile. " I want to get back some of the money you have stolen from this city," continued Bobby ; "and I want, last of all, to drive you out of this town for good." Stone rose with a sigh. "This is the only chance I'll give you to climb in with the music," he rumbled. "I've kept off three days, figuring out where you were leading to and what you were after. Now, last of all, what will you take to call it off?" "I have told you the price," said Bobby. "Then you're looking for trouble and you must have it, eh?" "I suppose I must." "Then you'll get it," and without the sign of a frown upon his brow Mr. Stone left the office. The next morning things began to happen. The First National Bank called up the business office of the Bulletin and ordered its advertisement discontin- ued. Not content alone with that, President De Graff called up Bobby personally, and in a very cold and dignified voice told him that the First National was compelled to withdraw its patronage on account of the undignified personal attacks in which the Bulletin was EDITOR BURNIT'S FIGHT 305 indulging. Bobby whistled softly. He knew De Graff quite well; they were, in fact, upon most intimate terms, socially. "I should think, De Graff," Bobby remonstrated, "that of all people the banks should be glad to have all this crookedness rooted out of the city. As a mat- ter of fact, I intended shortly to ask your cooperation in the formation of a citizens' committee to insure hon- est politics." "I really could not take any active part in such a movement, Mr. Burnit," returned De Graff, still more coldly. "The conservatism necessary to my position forbids my connection with any sensational publicity whatsoever." An hour later, Crone, the advertising manager, came up to Bobby very much worried, to report that not only the First National but the Second Market Bank had stopped their advertising, as had Trimmer and Company, and another of the leading dry-goods firms. "Of course," said Crone, "your editorial policy is your own, but I'm afraid that it is going to be ruinous to your advertising." "I shouldn't wonder," admitted Bobby dryly, and that was all the satisfaction he gave Crone; but in- wardly he was somewhat disturbed. He had not thought of the potency of this line of 306 THE MAKING OF BOBBY BURNIT attack. While he knew nothing of the newspaper busi- ness, he had already made sure that the profit was in the advertising. He sent for Jolter. "Ben," he asked, "what is the connection between the First National and the Second Market Banks and Sam Stone?" "Money," said the managing editor promptly. "Both banks are depositories of city funds." "I see," said Bobby slowly. "Do any other banks enjoy this patronage?" "The Merchants' and the Planters' and Traders' hold the county funds, which are equally at Stone's disposal." Bobby heard this news in silence, and Jolter, after looking at him narrowly for a moment, added : "I'll tell you something else. Not one of the four banks pays to the city or the county one penny of interest on these deposits. This is well known to the newspapers, but none of them has dared use it." "Go after them," said Bobby. "Moreover, it is strongly suspected that the banks pay interest privately to Stone, through a small and select ring in the court-house and in the city hall." "Go after them." "I suppose you know the men who will be involved in this," said Jolter. "Some of my best friends, I expect," said Bobby. EDITOR BURNIT'S FIGHT 307 "And some of the most influential citizens in this town," retorted Jolter. "They can ruin the Bulletin They could ruin any business." "The thing's crooked, isn't it?" demanded Bobby. "As a dog's hind leg." "Go after them, Jolter!" Bobby reiterated. Then he laughed aloud. "De Graff just telephoned me that 'the conservatism of his position forbids him to take part in any sensational publicity whatsoever.' " Comment other than a chuckle was superfluous from either one of them, and Jolter departed to the city editor's room, to bring joy to the heart of the staff. It was "Bugs" RoacK who scented the far-reaching odor of this move with the greatest joy. "You know what this means, don't you?" he de- lightedly commented. "A grand jury investigation. Oh, listen to the band!" Before noon the Merchants' and the Planters' and Traders' Banks had withdrawn their advertisements. At about the same hour a particularly atrocious murder was committed in one of the suburbs. Up in the reporters' room of the police station, Thomas, of the Bulletin, and Graham, of the Chronicle, were in- dulging in a quiet game of whist with two of the morn- ing newspaper boys, when a roundsman stepped to the door and called Graham out. Graham came back a moment later after his coat, with such studied non- 308 THE MAKING OF BOBBY BURNIT chalance that the other boys, eternally suspicious as police reporters grow to be, looked at him narrowly, and Thomas asked him, also with studied nonchalance : "The candy-store girl, or the one in the laundry office?" "Business, young fellow, business," returned Gra- ham loftily. "I guess the Chronicle knows when it has a good man. I'm called into the office to save the paper. They're sending a cub down to cover the afternoon. Don't scoop him, old man." "Not unless I get a chance," promised Thomas, but after Graham had gone he went down to the desk and, still unsatisfied, asked : "Anything doing, Lieut.?" "Dead as a door-nail," replied the lieutenant, and Thomas, still with an instinct that something was wrong, still sensitive to a certain suppressed tingling excitement about the very atmosphere of the place, went slowly back to the reporters' room, where he spent a worried half -hour. The noonday edition of the Chronicle carried, in the identical columns devoted in the Bulletin to a fur- ther attack on Stone, a lurid account of the big mur- ider; and the Bulletin had not a line of it! A sharp call from Brown to Thomas, at central police, ap- prised the latter that he had been "scooped," and brought out the facts in the case. Thomas hurried EDITOR BURNIT'S FIGHT 309 down-stairs and bitterly upbraided Lieutenant Cas- per. "Look here, you Thomas," snapped Casper; "you Bulletin guys have been too fresh around here for a long time." In Casper's eyes Casper with whom he had al- ways been on cordial joking terms he saw cruel im- placability, and, furious, he knew himself to be "in" for that most wearing of all newspaper jobs "doing police" for a paper that was "in bad" with the ad- ministration. He needed no one to tell him the cause. At three-thirty, Thomas, and Camden, who was doing the city hall, and Greenleaf Whittier Squiggs, who was subing for the day on the courts, appeared before Jim Brown in an agonized body. Thomas had been scooped on the big murder, Camden and G. W. Squiggs had been scooped, at the city hall and the county building, on the only items worth while, and they were all at white heat ; though it was a great con- solation to Squiggs, after all, to find himself in such distinguished company. Brown heard them in silence, and with great sol- emnity conducted them across the hall to Jolter, who also heard them in silence and conducted them into the adjoining room to Bobby. Here Jolter stood back and eyed young Mr. Burnit with great interest as his two experienced veterans and his ambitious 310 THE MAKING OF BOBBY BURNIT youngster poured forth their several tales of woe. Bobby, as it became him to be, was much disturbed. "How's the circulation of the Bulletin?" he asked of Jolter. "Five times what it ever was in its history," re- sponded Jolter. "Do you suppose we can hold it?" "Possibly." "How much does a scoop amount to?" "Well," confessed Jolter, with his eyes twinkling, "I hate to tell you before the boys, but my own opin- ion is that we know it and the Chronicle knows it and Stone knows it, but day after to-morrow the public couldn't tell you on its sacred oath whether it read the first account of the murder in the Bulletin or in the Chronicle." Bobby heaved a sigh of relief. "I always had the impression that a 'beat' meant the death, cortege and cremation of the newspaper that fell behind in the race," he smiled. "Boys, I'm afraid you'll have to stand it for a while. Do the best you can and get beaten as little as possible. By the way, Jolter, I want to see you a minute," and the mournful delegation of three, no whit less mournful because they had been assured that they would not be held accountable for being scooped, filed out. "What's the connection," demanded Bobby, the EDITOR BURNIT'S FIGHT 311 minute they were alone, "between the police depart- ment and Sam Stone?" "Money !" replied Jolter. "Chief of Police Cooley is in reality chief collector. The police graft is one of the richest Stone has. The rake-off from saloons that are supposed to close at one and from crooked gambling joints and illegal resorts of various kinds, amounts, I suppose, to not less than ten to fifteen thousand dollars a week. Of course, the patrolmen get some, but the bulk of it goes to Cooley, who was appointed by Stone, and the biggest slice of all goes to the Boss." "Go after Cooley," said Bobby. Then suddenly he struck his fist upon the desk. "Great Heavens, man !" he exclaimed. "At the end of every avenue and street and alley that I turn down with the Bulletin I find an open sewer." "The town is pretty well supplied," admitted Jolter. "How do you feel now about your policy?" "Pretty well staggered," confessed Bobby; "but we're going through with the thing just the same." "It's a man's-size job," declared Jolter; "but if you get away with it the Bulletin will be the best- paying piece of newspaper property west of New York." "Not the way the advertising's going," said Bobby, shaking his head and consulting a list on his desk. 312 THE MAKING OF BOBBY BURNIT "Where has Stone a hold on the dry-goods firm of Rolands and Crawford?" "They built out circular show-windows, all around their big block, and these extend illegally upon two feet of the sidewalk." "And how about the Ebony Jewel Coal Company?" "They have been practically allowed to close up Second Street, from Water to Canal, for a dump." Bobby sighed hopelessly. "We can't fight everybody in town," he com- plained. "Yes, but we can !" exclaimed Jolter with a sudden fire that surprised Bobby, since it was the first the managing editor displayed. "Don't weaken, Burnit ! I'm with you in this thing, heart and soul! If we can hold out until next election we will sweep every- thing before us." "We will hold out !" declared Bobby. "I am so sure of it that I'll stand treat," assented Mr. Jolter with vast enthusiasm, and over an old oak table, in a quiet place, Mr. Jolter and Mr. Burnit, having found the sand in each other's craws, cemented a pretty strong liking. CHAPTER XXV AN EXCITING GAME OF TIT FOE TAT WITH HIRED THUGS THE Bulletin, continuing its warfare upon Stone and every one who supported him, hit upon names that had never before been men- tioned but in terms of the highest respect, and divers and sundry complacent gentlemen who attended church quite regularly began to look for a cyclone cellar. They were compromised with Stone and they could not placate Bobby. The four banks that had withdrawn their advertisements, after a hasty confer- ence with Stone put them back again the first day their names were mentioned. The business depart- ment of the Bulletin cheerfully accepted those ad- vertisements at the increased rate justified by the Bulletin's increased circulation; but the editorial de- partment just as cheerfully kept castigating the erring conservators of the public money, and the ad- vertisements disappeared again. Bobby's days now were beset from a hundred quar- ters with agonized appeals to change his policy. 313 314 THE MAKING OF BOBBY BURNIT This man and that man and the other man high in commercial and social and political circles came to him with all sorts of pressure, and even Payne Win- throp and Nick Allstyne, two of his particular cro- nies of the Idlers', not being able to catch him at the club any more, came up to his office. "This won't do, old man," protested Payne ; "we're missing you at billiards and bridge whist, but your refusal to take part in the coming polo tourney was the last straw. You're getting to be a regular plebe." "I am a plebe," admitted Bobby. "What's the use to deny it? My father was a plebe. He came off" the farm with no earthly possessions more valuable than the patches on his trousers. I am one genera- tion from the soil, and since I have turned over a furrow or two, just plain earth smells good to me." Both of Bobby's friends laughed. They liked him too well to take him seriously in this. "But really," said Nick, returning to the attack, "the boys at the club were talking over the thing and think this rather bad form, this sort of a fight you're making. You're bound to become involved in a nasty controversy." "Yes?" inquired Bobby pleasantly. "Watch me become worse involved. More than that, I think I shall come down to the Idlers', when I get things straightened out here, organize a club league and AN EXCITING GAME 315 make you fellows march with banners and torch- lights." This being a more hilarious joke than the other the boys laughed quite politely, though Payne Win- throp grew immediately serious again. "But we can't lose you, Bobby," he insisted. "We want you to quit this sort of business and come back again to the old crowd. There are so few of us left, you know, that we're getting lonesome. Stan Rogers is getting up a glorious hunt and he wants us all to come up to his lodge for a month at least. You should be tired of this by now, anyhow." "Not a bit of it," declared Bobby. "Oh, of course, you have your money involved," admitted Payne, "and you must play it through on that account; but I'll tell you: if you do want to sell I know where I could find a buyer for you at a profit." Bobby turned on him like a flash. "Look here, Payne," said he. "Where is your in- terest in this?" "My interest?" repeated Payne blankly. "Yes, your interest. What have you to gain by having me sell out?" "Why, really, Bobby " began Payne, thinking to temporize. "You're here for that purpose, and must tell me 316 THE MAKING OF BOBBY BURNIT why," insisted Bobby sternly, tapping his finger on the desk. "Well, if you must know," stammered Payne, taken out of himself by sheer force of Bobby's manner, "my respected and revered " "I see," said Bobby. "The the pater is thinking of entering politics next year, and he rather wants an organ." "And Nick, where's yours?" "Well," confessed Nick, with no more force of reservation than had Payne when mastery was used upon him, "mother's city property and mine, you know, contains some rather tumbledown buildings that are really good for a number of years yet, but which adverse municipal government might might depre- ciate in value." "Just a minute," said Bobby, and he sent for Jolter. "Ben," he asked, "do you know anything about Mr. Adam Winthrop's political aspirations?" "I understand he's being groomed for governor," said Jolter. "Meet his son, Mr. Jolter Mr. Payne Winthrop. Also Mr. Nick Allstyne. I suppose Mr. Winthrop is to run on Stone's ticket?" continued Bobby, break- ing in upon the formalities as quickly as possible. "Certainly." AN EXCITING GAME 317 "Payne," said Bobby, "if your father wants to talk with me about the Bulletin he must come himself. Jolter, do you know where the Allstyne properties are?" Jolter looked at Nick and Nick colored. "That's rather a blunt question, under the circum- stances, Mr. Burnit," said Jolter, "but I don't see why it shouldn't be answered as bluntly. It's a row of two blocks on the most notorious street of the town, frame shacks that are likely to be the start of a holocaust, any windy night, which will sweep the entire down-town district. They should have been condemned years ago." "Nick," said Bobby, "I'll give you one month to dispose of that property, because after that length of time I'm going after it." This was but a sample. Bobby had at last become suspicious, and as old John Burnit had shrewdly observed in one of his letters: "It hurts to acquire suspiciousness, but it is quite necessary ; only don't overdo it." Bobby, however, was in a field where suspiciousness could scarcely be overdone. When any man came to protest or to use influence on Bobby in his fight, Bobby took the bull by the horns, called for Jolter, who was a mine of information upon local affairs, and promptly found out the reason for that man's inter- 318 THE MAKING OF BOBBY BURNIT est; whereupon he either warned him off or attacked him, and made an average of ten good, healthy ene- mies a day. He scared Adam Winthrop out of the political race entirely, he made the Allstynes tear down their fire-traps and erect better-paying and con- sequently more desirable tenements, and he had De Graff and the other involved bankers "staggering in circles and hoarsely barking," as "Bugs" Roach put it. So far, Bobby had been subjected to no personal annoyances, but on the day after his first attack on the chief of police he began to be arrested for break- ing the speed laws, and fined the limit, even though he drove his car but eight miles an hour, while his news carriers and his employees were "pinched" upon the most trivial pretexts. Libel suits were brought wher- ever a merchant or an official had a record clear enough to risk such procedure, and three of these suits were decided against him; whereupon Bobby, finding the money chain which bound certain of the judges to Sam Stone, promptly attacked these mem- bers of the judiciary and appealed his cases. His very name became a red rag to every member of Stone's crowd ; but up to this point no violence had been offered him. One night, however, as he was driv- ing his own car homeward, men on the watch for him stepped out of an alley mouth two blocks above the AN EXCITING GAME 319 Burnit residence and strewed the street thickly with sharp-pointed coil springs. One of these caught a tire, and Bobby, always on the alert for the first sign of such accidents, brought his car to a sudden stop, reached down for his tire- wrench and jumped out. Just as he stooped over to examine the tire, some in- stinct warned him, and he turned quickly to find three men coming upon him from the alley, the nearest one with an uplifted slung-shot. It was with just a glance from the corner of his eye as he turned that Bobby caught the import of the figure towering above him, and then his fine athletic training came in good stead. With a sidewise spring he was out of the sphere of that descending blow, and, swinging with his heavy wrench, caught the fellow a smash upon the temple which laid him unconscious. Before the two other men had time to think, he was upon them and gave one a broken shoulder-blade. The other es- caped. There had been no word from any of the three men which might lead to an explanation of this attack, but Bobby needed no explanation; he divined at once the source from which it came, and in the morning he sent for Biff Bates. "Biff," said he, "I spoke once about securing some thugs to act as a counter-irritant against Stone, but I have neglected it. How long will it take to get hold of some?" 320 THE MAKING OF BOBBY BURNIT "Ten minutes, if I wait till dark," replied Biff. "I can go down to the Blue Star, and for ten iron men apiece can get you as fine a bunch of yeggs as ever beat out a cripple's brains with his own wooden leg." Bobby smiled. "I don't want them to go quite that far," he ob- jected. "Are they men you can depend upon not to sell out to Stone?" "Just one way," replied Biff. "The choice line of murderers that hang out down around the levee are half of them sore on Stone, anyhow; but they're afraid of him, and the only way you can use them is to give 'em enough to get 'em out of town. For ten a throw you can buy them body and soul." "I'll take about four, to start on duty to-night, and stay on duty till they accomplish what I want done," and Bobby detailed his plan to Biff. Stone had one peculiarity. Knowing that he had enemies, and those among the most reckless class in the world, he seldom allowed himself to be caught alone ; but every night he held counsel with some of his followers at a certain respectable beer-garden where, in the summer-time, a long table in a quiet, half -screened corner was reserved for him and his fol- lowers, and in the winter a back room was given up for the same purpose. Here Stone transacted all the real business of his local organization, drinking AN EXCITING GAME 321 beer, receiving strange-looking callers, and confining his own remarks to a grunted yes or no, or a brief direction. Every night at about nine-thirty he rose, yawned, and, unattended, walked back through the beer-garden to the alley, where he stood for some five minutes. This was his retreat for uninterrupted thought, and when he came back from it he had the day's developments summed up and the necessary course of action resolved upon. On the second night after the attempted assault upon Bobby he had no sooner closed the alley door behind him than a man sprang upon him from either side, a heavy hand was placed over his mouth, and he was dragged to the ground, where a third brawny thug straddled his chest and showed him a long knife. "See it?" demanded the man as he passed the blade before Stone's eyes. "It's hungry. You let 'em clip my brother in stir for a three-stretch when you could have saved him with a grunt, and if I wasn't workin' under orders, in half an hour they'd have you on slab six with ice packed around you and a sheet over you. But we're under orders. We're part of the reform committee, we are," and all three of them laughed silently, "and there's a string of us longer than the Christmas bread-line, all crazy for a piece of this get- away coin. And here's the little message I got to 322 THE MAKING OF BOBBY BURNIT give you. This time you're to go free. Next time you're to have your head beat off. This thuggin' of peaceable citizens has got to be stopped; see?" A low whistle from a man stationed at the mouth of the alley interrupted the speech which the man with the knife was enjoying so much, and he sprang from the chest of Stone, who had been struggling vainly all this time. As the man sprang up and started to run, he suddenly whirled and gave Stone a vicious kick upon the hip, and as Stone rose, another man kicked him in the ribs. All three of them ran, and Stone, scrambling to his feet with difficulty, whipped his revolver from his pocket and snapped it. Long disused, however, the trigger stuck, but he took after them on foot in spite of the pain of the two fearful kicks that he had received. Instead of darting straight out of the alley, the men turned in at a small gate at the side of a narrow building on the corner, and slammed the gate behind them. He could hear the drop of the wooden bolt. He knew perfectly that entrance. It was to the littered back yard of a cheap Saloon, at the side of which ran a narrow passageway to the street beyond, where street-cars passed every half-minute. Just as he came furiously up to the gate a police- man darted in at the alley mouth, and, catching the glint of Stone's revolver, whipped his own. He AN EXCITING GAME 323 / ran quite fearlessly to Stone, and with a 3extrous blow upon the wrist sent the revolver spinning. "You're under arrest," said he. For just one second he covered his man, then his arm dropped and his jaw opened in astonishment. "Why, it's Stone !" he exclaimed. "Yes, damn you, it's Stone!" screamed the Boss, livid with fury, and overcome with anger he dealt the policeman a staggering blow in the face. "You damned flat-foot, I'll teach you to notice who you put your hands on ! Give me that badge !" White-faced and with trembling fingers, and with a trickle of blood starting slowly from a cut upon his cheek, the man unfastened his badge. "Now, go back to Cooley and tell him I broke you," Stone ordered, and turned on his heel. By the time he reached the back door of the beer- garden he was limping most painfully, but when he rejoined his crowd he said nothing of the incident. In the brief time that it had taken him to go from the alley mouth to that table he had divined the sig- nificance of the whole thing. For the first time in his career he knew himself to be a systematically marked man, as he had systematically marked others ; and he was not beyond reason. Thereafter, Bobby Burnit was in no more jeopardy from hired thugs, and for a solid year he kept up his fight, with plenty 324 THE MAKING OF BOBBY BURNIT of material to last him for still another twelvemonth. It was a year which improved him in many ways, but Aunt Constance Elliston objected to the improvement. "Bobby, they are spoiling you," she complained. "They're taking your suavity away from you, and you're acquiring grim, hard lines around your mouth." "They're making him," declared Agnes, looking fondly across at the firm face and into the clear, un- wavering eyes. Bobby answered the look of Agnes with one that needed no words to interpret, and laughed at Aunt Constance. "I suppose they are spoiling me," he confessed, "and I'm glad of it. I'm glad, above all, that I'm losing the sort of suavity which led me to smile and tell a man politely to take it, when he reached his hand into my pocket for my money." "You'll do," agreed Uncle Dan. "When you took hold of the Bulletin, your best friends only gave you two months. But are you making any money?" Bobby's face clouded. "Spending it like water. We have practically no advertising, and a larger circulation than I want. We lose money on every copy of the paper that we sell." Uncle Dan shook his head. AN EXCITING GAME 325 "Is there a chance that you will ever get it back?" he asked. "Bobby's so used to failure that he doesn't mind," interjected Aunt Constance. ; "Mind!" exclaimed Bobby. "I never minded it so much in my life as I do now. The Bulletin must win. I'm bound that it shall win! If we come out ahead in our fight against Stone I'll get all my ad- vertising back, and I'll keep my circulation, which makes advertising rates." The telephone bell rang in the study adjoining the dining-room, and Bobby, who had been more or less distrait all evening, half rose from his chair. In a moment more the maid informed them that the call was for Mr. Burnit. In the study they could hear his voice, excited and exultant. He returned as de- lighted as a school-boy. "Now I can tell you something," he announced. "Within five minutes the Bulletin will have exclusive extras on the street, announcing that the legislature has just appointed a committee to investigate munici- pal affairs throughout the state. That means this town. I have spent ten thousand dollars in lobbying that measure through, and charged it all to 'improve- ments' on the Bulletin. Sounds like I had joined the ranks of the