"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 uncomprehendingly. Here was a problem which was covered and still not covered by his father's observations anent Johnson and Applerod. It was a matter for wrangling, 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 pa.s.sed 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 ma.s.s 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.

"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 disposition.

Savagely in love with his new a.s.sertiveness Bobby 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, unconsciously clinging to his hand as they sat down upon the divan. "I wouldn't enter into any business arrangements 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 business 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 answered, 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 argument. "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 concern 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 both instances a handsome young lady was with them did not seem to mend matters much. He was astonished 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 had been long ripe for the change, though he had not known it. As he had matured, the blood of his heredity 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 organization of the new company, and Bobby, by this time intensely interested and convinced that his interest was business ac.u.men, went over each detail with contracted brow and with kindling enthusiasm.

It was ten o'clock of that morning when Silas Trimmer 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, returning 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 pressing 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 announced, 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 consummated 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 Johnson and Applerod into his confidence, though those two gentlemen were quivering to receive it, but he did order Johnson to allow Mr. Trimmer's representatives to go over the John Burnit books and to verify their latest invoice, together with the purchases and sales since the date of that stock-taking. To Mr. Applerod he a.s.signed the task of making a like examination 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 artisans 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 securing column after column of s.p.a.ce 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 Burnit-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 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 purchasers, 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 Merchandise 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 consisted 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-holders' meeting of the reorganized company that Bobby, quite proud of the fact that he had acted independently of them, made the formal announcement to Johnson and Applerod that the great consolidation had been effected.

"Beginning with to-morrow morning, Mr. Johnson," said he to that worthy, "the John Burnit Store will be merged into the Burnit-Trimmer Merchandise Corporation, and Mr. Trimmer will doubtless send his secretary to confer with you about an adjustment 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 positions, 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 losing me my position--Pooh!" and he snapped his fingers.

"Applerod is quite right, Mr. Johnson," said Bobby severely. "Nothing of the sort is contemplated. 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."

"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 business deal with him, you may rest a.s.sured 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," 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."