IN WHICH A CHARMING GENTLEMAN OFFERS AN INVESTMENT WITHOUT A FLAW
It was pretty, in the succeeding days, to see Agnes poring over
advertisements and writing down long lists of suggested enterprises
for investigation, enterprises which proved in every case to be in the
midst of an already too thickly contested field, or to be hampered by
monopoly, or subject to some other vital drawback. There seemed to be
a strange dearth of safe and suitable commercial ventures, a fact over
which Bobby and Agnes together puzzled almost nightly. There was to be
no false start this time; no stumbling in the middle of the race; no
third failure. The third time was to be the charm. And yet too much
time must not be wasted. They both began to feel rather worried about
this.
Of course, there was a letter, in the familiar gray envelope. It had
been handed to Bobby by Johnson upon the day the second check for two
hundred and fifty thousand had been paid over by Chalmers upon Agnes'
order, and it read:
_To My Son Robert,
Upon His Third Attempt to Make Money_
"The man who has never failed has been either too lucky or too
timid to have much tried and tested worth. The man who always
fails is too useless to talk about. As you've failed twice
you're neither too lucky nor too timid. It remains to be seen
if you are too useless.
"Remember that money isn't the only audible thing in this
world; but it makes more noise than anything else. A vast
number of people call money vulgar; but, if you'll notice,
this opinion is chiefly held by those who haven't been able to
secure any of it.
"I wouldn't have you sacrifice any decent principle to get it,
because that is not necessary; but go get money of your own,
and see what a difference there is between dollars. A dollar
you've made is as different from a dollar that's given to you
as your children are from other people's."
"If only the governor had pointed out some good business for me to go
into," complained Bobby as he read this letter over with Agnes.
She shook her head soberly. She realized, more than he possibly could,
as yet, just where Bobby's weaknesses lay. She had worried over them
not a little, of late, and she was just as anxious as old John Burnit
had been to have him correct those defects; and she, like Bobby's
father, was only thankful that they were not defects of manliness, of
courage or of moral or mental fiber. They were only defects of
training, for which the elder Burnit, as he had himself confessed, was
responsible.
"That isn't what he wanted at all, Bobby," she protested. "The very
fact of your two past failures shows just how right he was in making
you find out things for yourself. The chief trouble, I am afraid, is
that you have been too ready to furnish the money and let others spend
it for you."
"I know," said Bobby. "I have been too willing to take everybody's
word, I guess; but I have always been able to do that in my crowd, and
it is rather a dash to me to find that in business you can not do it.
However, I have reformed."
He said this so self-confidently that Agnes laughed.
"Yes," she admitted, "you are convinced that Silas Trimmer is a thief
and a rascal, and you would not take his word for anything. You are
convinced that Applerod's judgment is useless and that your own does
not amount to much, but I still believe that the next plausible
looking and plausible talking man who comes to you can engage you in
any business that seems fair on the surface."
"I deserve what you say," he confessed, but somewhat piqued,
nevertheless. "However, I don't think you are giving me credit for
having learned any lesson at all. Why, only to-day you ought to have
heard me turning down a proposition to finance a new and improved
washing-machine. Sounded very good and feasible, too. The man was a
good talker and thoroughly earnest and honest, I am sure. I really did
want to help the fellow start his business, but somehow or other I
could not seem to like the idea of washing-machines; such a sudsy sort
of business."
Agnes laughed the sort of a laugh that always made him want to catch
hold of her, but if he had any intentions in that respect they were
interfered with just now by Uncle Dan, who strolled into the parlor in
his dressing-jacket and with a cigar tilted in the corner of his
mouth.
"How's the Commercial Board of Strategy coming on?" he inquired as he
offered Bobby a cigar.
"Fine!" declared Bobby; "except that it can not think of a stratagem."
"I think you are very selfish not to help us out, Uncle Dan," declared
Agnes. "With all your experience you ought to be able to suggest
something for Bobby to go into that would be a nice business and
perfectly safe and make him lots of money without requiring too much
experience to start with."
"Young lady," said Uncle Dan severely, "if I knew a business of that
kind I'd sell some of the stock of my factory and go into it myself;
but I don't. The fact is, there are no business snaps lying around
loose. You have to make one, and that takes not just money, but work
and brains."
"I'm perfectly willing to work," declared Bobby.
"And you don't mean to say that he hasn't brains!" objected Agnes.
"No-o-o," admitted Uncle Dan. "I am quite sure that Bobby has brains,
but they have not been quite--a--a--well, say solidified, yet. You're
not allowed to smoke in this parlor, Bobby. Mrs. Elliston wants a
quiet home game of whist; sent me to bring you up."
Secretly, old Dan Elliston was himself puzzling a great deal over a
career for Bobby, but up to the moment had not found anything that he
thought safe to propose. Not having a good idea he was averse to
discussing any project whatsoever, and so, each time that he was
consulted upon the subject, he was as evasive as this about it, and
Bobby each morning dragged perplexedly into the handsome offices of
the defunct Applerod Addition, where Applerod and Johnson were still
working a solid eight hours a day to straighten out the affairs of
that unfortunate venture.
Those offices were the dullest quarters Bobby knew, for they contained
nothing but the dead ashes of bygone money; but one morning business
picked up with a jerk. He found a mine investment agent awaiting him
when he arrived, and before he was through with this clever
conversationalist a man was in to get him to buy a racing stable.
Affairs grew still more brisk as the morning wore on. Within the next
two hours he had politely but firmly declined to buy a partnership in
a string of bucket shops, to refinance a defunct irrigation company,
to invest in a Florida plantation, to take a tip on copper, and to
back an automobile factory which was to enter business upon some
designs of a new engine stolen by a discharged workman.
"How did all these people find out that I have two hundred and fifty
thousand dollars to invest?" impatiently demanded Bobby, after he had
refused the allurements of a patent-medicine scheme, the last of that
morning's lot.
There followed a dense silence, in the midst of which old Johnson
looked up from the book in which he was entering a long, long list of
items on the wrong side of the profit and loss account, and jerked his
lean thumb angrily in the direction of Applerod.
"Ask him," he said.
Chubby-faced old Applerod, excessively meek of spirit to-day, suffered
a moment of embarrassment under the accusing eyes of young Burnit.
"The newspapers, sir," he admitted, twisting uncomfortably in his
swivel chair. "The reporters were here yesterday afternoon with the
idea that since you haven't announced any future plans, the failure of
our real estate scheme--_my_ real estate scheme," he corrected in
response to a snort and a glare from Johnson--"had left you penniless.
Of course I wasn't going to let them go away with that impression, so
I told them that you had another two hundred and fifty thousand
dollars to invest, with probably more to follow, if necessary."
"And of course," groaned Bobby, "it is all in print, with ingenious
trimmings."
From a drawer in his desk Johnson quietly drew copies of the morning
papers, each one folded carefully to an article in which, under wide
variations of embarrassing head-lines, the facts of Bobby's latest
frittering of his father's good money were once more facetiously, even
gleefully, set forth and embellished, with added humorous speculations
as to how he would probably cremate his new fund. Bobby was about to
turn into his own room to absorb his humiliation in secret when
Applerod hesitantly stopped him.
"Another thing, sir," he said. "Mr. Frank L. Sharpe called up early
this morning to know when he would find you in, and I took the liberty
of telling him that you would very likely be here at ten o'clock."
Bobby frowned slightly at the mention of that name. He knew of Sharpe
vaguely as a man whose private life had been so scandalous that
society had ceased to shudder at his name--it simply refused to hear
it; a man who had even secured advancement by obligingly divorcing his
first wife so that the notorious Sam Stone could marry her.
"What did he want?" he asked none too graciously.
"I don't know, sir," said Applerod; "but he telephoned me again just
as you were getting rid of this last caller. I told him that you were
here and he said that he would be right over."
Bobby made no reply to this, but went thoughtfully into his room and
closed the door after him. In less than five minutes the door opened,
and Mr. Applerod, his voice fairly oily with obsequiousness, announced
Mr. Frank L. Sharpe! Why, here is a man whose name was in the papers
every morning, noon and night! Mr. Sharpe had taken a trip to New York
on behalf of the Gas Company; Mr. Sharpe had returned from his trip to
New York on behalf of the Gas Company; Mr. Sharpe had entertained at
the Hotel Spender; Mr. Sharpe had made a speech; Mr. Sharpe had been
interviewed; Mr. Sharpe had been indisposed for half a day!
Quite prepossessing of appearance was Mr. Sharpe; a tall, rather
slight gentleman, whose features no one ever analyzed because the eyes
of the observer stopped, fascinated, at his mustache. That wonderful
adornment was wonderfully luxuriant, gray and curly, pretty to an
extreme, and kept most fastidiously trimmed, and it lifted when he
smiled to display a most engaging row of white, even teeth. Centered
upon this magnificent combination the gaze never roved to the animal
nose, to the lobeless ears, to the watery blue eyes half obscured by
the lower lids. He was immaculately, though a shade too youthfully,
dressed in a gray frock suit, with pearl-gray spats upon his shoes,
and he was most charmed to see young Mr. Burnit.
"You have a very neat little suite of offices here, Mr. Burnit," he
commented, seating himself gracefully and depositing his gray hat, his
gray cane and his gray gloves carefully to one side of him upon
Bobby's desk.
"I'm afraid they are a little too nice for practical purposes," Bobby
confessed. "I have found that business isn't a parlor game."
"Precisely what I came to see you about," said Mr. Sharpe. "I
understand you have been a trifle unfortunate, but that is because you
did not go into the regular channels. An established and paying
corporation is the only worth-while proposition, and if you have not
yet settled upon an investment I would like to suggest that you become
interested in our local Brightlight Electric Company."
"I thought there was no gas or electric stock for sale," said Bobby
slowly, clinging still to a vague impression that he had gained five
or six years before.
"Not to the public," replied Mr. Sharpe, smiling, "and there would not
have been privately except for the necessity of a reorganization. The
Brightlight needs more capital for expansion, and I have too many
other interests, even aside from the Consumers' Electric Light and
Power and the United Gas and Fuel Companies, to spare the money
myself--and the Brightlight is too good to let the general public in
on." He smiled again, quite meaningly this time. "This is quite
confidential, of course," he added.
Bobby bowed his acknowledgment of the confidence which had been
reposed in him, and generously began at once to reconstruct his
impressions of the impossible Mr. Sharpe. You couldn't believe all you
heard, you know.
"The Brightlight," went on Mr. Sharpe, "is at present capitalized
for two hundred and fifty thousand dollars, and is a good
ten-per-cent.-dividend-paying stock at the present moment; but its
business is not growing, and I propose to take in sufficient capital
to raise the Brightlight to a half-million-dollar corporation, clear
off its indebtedness and project certain extensions. I understand that
you have the necessary amount, and here is the proposition I offer
you. Brightlight stock is now quoted at a hundred and seventy-two. We
will double its present capitalization, and you may take up the extra
two hundred and fifty thousand dollars' worth of its stock at par, or
about three-fifths of its actual value. That is a bargain to be
snapped at, Mr. Burnit."
Did Bobby Burnit snap at this proposition? He did not. Bobby had
learned caution through his two bitter failures, and of caution is
born wisdom.
"Two hundred and fifty thousand dollars' worth of stock in a
five-hundred-thousand-dollar corporation won't do for me," he declared
with a firmness that was pleasant to his own ears. "I don't care to go
into any proposition in which I have not the controlling interest."
Mr. Sharpe, remembering the details of Bobby's Trimmer and Company
experiment, hastily turned his imminent smile of amusement into a
merely engaging one.
"I don't blame you, Mr. Burnit," said he; "but to show you that I am
more willing to trust you than you are to trust me, if you care to go
into this thing I'll agree to sell you from one to ten shares of my
individual stock--at its present market value, of course."
"That's very good of you," agreed Bobby, suddenly ashamed of his
ungenerous stand in the face of this sportsmanlike attitude. "But
really I've had cause for timidity."
"Caution is not cowardice," said Mr. Sharpe in a tone which conveyed a
world of friendly approbation. "This matter must be taken up very
soon, however, and I can not allow you more than a week to
investigate. I'd be pleased to receive your legal and business
advisers at any time you may nominate, and to give them any advantage
you may wish."
"I'll investigate it at least, and I thank you for giving me the
opportunity," said Bobby, really very contrite that he had been doing
Sharpe such a mental injustice all these years. "By the way," he
suddenly added, "has Silas Trimmer anything whatever to do with this
proposition?"
Mr. Sharpe smiled.
"Mr. Trimmer does not own one share of stock in the Brightlight
Electric Company, nor will he own it," he answered.
"In that case," said Bobby, "I am satisfied to consider your offer
without fear of heart-disease."
The departing caller met an incoming one in the outer office, and
Agnes, sweeping into Bobby's room, breathlessly gasped:
"That was Frank Sharpe!"
"The same," admitted Bobby, smiling down at her and taking both her
hands.
"I never saw him so closely," she declared. "Really, he's quite
distinguished-looking."
"As long as he avoids a close shave," supplemented Bobby. "But what
brings you into the--the busy marts of trade so early in the morning?"
"My trusteeship," she answered him loftily, producing some documents
from her hand-bag. "And I'm in a hurry. Sign them papers."
"Them there papers," he kindly corrected, and seating himself at his
desk he examined the minor transfers perfunctorily and signed them.
"I'm afraid I'm a failure as a trustee," she told him. "I ought to
have had more power. I ought to have been authorized to keep you out
of bad company. How came Mr. Sharpe to call on you, for instance?"
"To make my fortune," he gravely assured her. "Mr. Sharpe wants me to
go into the Brightlight Electric Company with him."
"I can imagine your courteous adroitness in putting the man back in
his place," she laughed. "How preposterous! Why, he's utterly
impossible!"
"Ye-e-es?" questioned Bobby. "But you know, Agnes, this isn't a
pink-tea affair. It's business, which is at the other end of the
world."
"You're not honestly defending him, Bobby?" she protested
incredulously. "Why, I do believe you are considering the man
seriously!"
"Why not?" he persisted, arguing against his own convictions as much
as against hers. "We want me to make some money, don't we? To make a
success that will let me marry you?"
"I'm not to say so, remember," she reminded him.
"Father put no lock on my tongue, though," he reminded her in turn;
"so I'll just lay down the dictum that as soon as I succeed in any one
business deal I'm going to marry you, and I don't care whether the
commodity I handle is electricity or potatoes."
"But Frank L. Sharpe!" she exclaimed, with shocked remembrance of
certain whispered stories she had heard.
"Really, I don't see where he enters into it," persisted Bobby. "The
Brightlight Electric Company is a stock corporation, in which Mr.
Sharpe happens to own some shares; that is all."
She shook her head.
"I can't seem to like it," she told him, and rose to go.
The door opened, and Johnson, with much solemnity, though in his eyes
there lurked a twinkle, brought in a card which, with much stiff
ceremony, he handed to Bobby.
"Professor Henry H. Bates," read Bobby in some perplexity, then
suddenly his brow cleared and he laughed uproariously. "Come right in,
Biff," he called.
In response to this invitation there entered upon Agnes' vision a
short, chunky, broad-shouldered young man in a checked green suit and
red tie, who, finding himself suddenly confronted by a dazzlingly
beautiful young lady, froze instantly into speechless awkwardness.
"This is my friend and partner, Mr. Biff--Mr. Henry H. Bates--Miss
Elliston," introduced Bobby, smiling.
Agnes held out her hand, which suddenly seemed to dwindle in size as
it was clasped by the huge palm of Mr. Bates.
"I have heard so much of you from Mr. Burnit, and always nice things,"
she said, smiling at him so frankly that Mr. Bates, though his face
flushed red, instantly thawed.
"Bobby's right there with the boost," commented Mr. Bates, and then,
not being quite satisfied with that form of speech, he huskily
corrected it to: "Burnit's always handing out those pleasant words."
This form of expression seeming also to be somewhat lacking in polish,
he relapsed into more redness, and wiped the strangely moist palms of
his hands upon the sides of his coat.
"He doesn't talk about any but pleasant people," Agnes assured him.
After she had gone Mr. Bates looked dazedly at the door through which
she had passed out, then turned to Bobby.
"Carries a full line of that conversation," he commented, "but I like
to fall for it. And say! I'll bet she's game all right; the kind that
would stick to a guy when he was broke, in jail and had the smallpox.
That's your steady, ain't it, Bobby?"
Coming from any one else this query might have seemed a trifle blunt,
but Bobby understood precisely how Mr. Bates meant it, and was
gratified.
"She's the real girl," he admitted.
"I'm for her," stoutly asserted Mr. Bates, as he extracted a huge wad
of crumpled bills from his trousers pocket. "Any old time she wants
anybody strangled or stabbed and you ain't handy, she can call on your
friend Biff. Here's your split of last month's pickings at the gym.
One hundred and eighty-one large, juicy simoleons; count 'em, one
hundred and eighty-one!" And he threw the money on the desk.
"Everything paid?" asked Bobby.
"Here's the receipts," and from inside his vest Mr. Bates produced
them. "Ground rent, light, heat, payroll, advertising, my own little
old weekly envelope and everything; and I got one-eighty-one in my
other kick for my share."
"Very well," said Bobby; "you just put this money of mine into a fund
to buy further equipments when we need them."
"Nit and nix; also no!" declared Mr. Bates emphatically. "This time
the bet goes as she lays. You take a real money drag-down from now
on."
"Mr. Johnson," called Bobby through the open door, "please take charge
of this one hundred and eighty-one dollars, and open a separate
account for my investment in the Bates Athletic Hall. It might be,
Biff," he continued, turning to Mr. Bates, "that yours would turn out
to be the only safe business venture I ever made."
"It ain't no millionaire stunt, but it sure does pay a steady divvy,"
Mr. Bates assured him. "I see a man outside scraping the real-estate
sign off the door. Is he going to paint a new one?"
"I don't know," said Bobby, frowning. "I shall, of course, get into
something very shortly, but I've not settled on anything as yet. The
best thing that has turned up so far is an interest in the Brightlight
Electric Company offered me to-day by Frank L. Sharpe."
"What!" shrieked Biff in a high falsetto, and slapped himself smartly
on the wrist. "Has he been here? I thought it seemed kind of close.
Give me a cigarette till I fumigate."
"What's the matter with the Brightlight Electric Company?" demanded
Bobby.
"Nothing. It's a cinch so far as I know. But Sharpe! Why, say, Bobby,
all the words I'd want to use to tell you about him have been left out
of the dictionary so they could send it through the mails."
Bobby frowned. The certain method to have him make allowances for a
man was to attack that man. When he arrived at the Idlers' Club at
noon, however, he was given another opportunity for Christian charity.
Nick Allstyne and Payne Winthrop and Stanley Rogers were discussing
something with great indignation when he joined them, and Nick drew
him over to the bulletin board, where was displayed the application of
Frank L. Sharpe, proposed by Clarence Smythe, Silas Trimmer's
son-in-law, and seconded by another undesirable who had twice been
posted for non-payment of dues.
"There is only one thing about this that commends itself to me, and
that is the immaculate and colossal nerve of the proceeding," declared
Nick indignantly. "The next thing you know somebody will propose Sam
Stone."
At this they all laughed. The Idlers' Club was the one institution
that stood in no awe of the notorious "boss" of the city and of the
state; a man who had never held an office, but who, until the past two
years, had controlled all offices; whose methods were openly
dishonest; who held underground control of every public utility and a
score of private enterprises. The idea of Stone as an applicant for
membership in the Idlers' Club was a good joke, but the actual
application of Sharpe was too serious for jesting. Nevertheless, all
this turmoil over the mere name of the man worked a strange reaction
in Bobby Burnit.
"After all, business is business," he declared to himself, "and I
don't see where Sharpe's personality figures in this Brightlight
Electric deal, especially since I am to have control."
Accordingly he directed Chalmers and Johnson to make a thorough
investigation of that corporation.