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 the office and found Johnson and Applerod 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 unwonted 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!" gasped Bobby.
Mr. Johnson glumly showed him curt letters of dismissal from Trimmer.
"Where's mine, I wonder?" inquired Bobby, trying to take his terrific
defeat with sportsmanlike nonchalance.
"I don't suppose there is any for you, sir, inasmuch 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 omission 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 Applerod with bitter relish.
"All the office work, I understand, is to be done in the other
building, and this space is to be thrown into a special cut-glass
department. 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 Trimmer 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, 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 accustomed to repression as he was, had a
sudden impulse 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 economy that comes from condensing the
office and managing forces. I regretted very much indeed to dismiss
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."
"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 overspreading 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 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 'improvements, 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 accomplish what I am sure you will want to do, you
may now see your trustee, the only thoroughly sensible person
I know who is sincerely devoted to your interests. Her name is
Agnes Elliston."
"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 business again, at once. If you will call at my
house tomorrow 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 and good common sense than anybody, and was altogether 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 apparently 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 lightweight 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 Biff 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.
"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 assertion that he had
nothing upon which to base it; that he was talking vaguely and at
random; but he also knew the intense desire that had arisen in him to
reverse 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--determined 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."
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, instantly 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 securing of some bonds for
which the lawyer I have employed 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. 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."
[Illustration: Will you if I get my father's business back?]
"Thanks," said Bobby, with a gulp. "Honestly, Agnes, it's a shame.
It's a low-down trick the governor 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."
"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 unaccountable 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 pleasant 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 glittering new one,
ordered by Silas Trimmer on the very day Bobby had agreed to go into
the consolidation; and it read:
"TRIMMER AND COMPANY"