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 proposition?” 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,” 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.”
“Yes?” admitted Bobby interrogatively.
“Well, you know I don’t go around with my hammer 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 appointed by my father, Mr. Barrister,” began Bobby, 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 Johnson. In reply, Mr. Johnson produced, from his own personal and private index-file, an oblong gray envelope addressed:
Opening this in the privacy of his own office, Bobby read:
“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 Chicago 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 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 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.
“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 assertiveness Bobby called on Agnes that evening.
“I saw Mr. Trimmer to-day,” she told him. “I don’t like him.”
“I
