The Making of Bobby Burnit

To this Silas returned no answer.

“I am an old man,” he muttered to himself as one suddenly stricken. “I am an old, old man.”

“I am going to oust you,” continued Bobby, “and to oust all your relatives from their fat positions; and I am going to elect myself to everything worth while. I have brought Mr. Johnson with me to inspect your books, and Mr. Chalmers to take charge of certain legal matters connected with the concern immediately after the close of to-day’s meeting. I am going to restore Applerod to his position here from which you so unceremoniously discharged him, and make Johnson general manager of this and all my affairs. I understand that your stock in this concern is mortgaged, and that you will be utterly unable to redeem it. I intend to buy it and practically own the entire company myself. Are there any questions you would like to ask, Mr. Trimmer?”

There was none. Silas, crushed and dazed and pitiable, only moaned that he was an old man; that he was an old, old man.

Bobby felt the gentle pressure of Agnes’ hand upon his arm. There was a moment of silence.

Trimmer looked around at them piteously. Once more Bobby felt that touch upon his sleeve. Understanding, he went over to Silas and took him gently by the arm.

“Come over here to the window with me a minute,” said he, “and we will have a little business talk.”

“Business! Oh, yes; business!” said Silas, brightening up at the mention of the word.

He rose nervously and allowed Bobby to lead him, bent and almost palsied, over to the window, where they could look out on the busy street below, and the roofs of the tall buildings, and the blue sky beyond where it smiled down upon the river. It was only a fleeting glance that Silas Trimmer cast at the familiar scene outside, and almost immediately he turned to Bobby, clutching his coat sleeve eagerly. “You – you said something about business,” he half-whispered, and over his face there came a shadow of that old, shrewd look.

“Why, yes,” replied Bobby uncomfortably. “I think we can find a place for you, Mr. Trimmer. You have kept this concern up splendidly, no matter how much beset you were outside, and – and I think Johnson will engage you, if you care for it, to look after certain details of buying and such matters as that.”

“Oh, yes, the buying,” agreed Silas, nodding his head. “I always was a good buyer – and a good seller, too!” and he chuckled. “About what do you say, now, that my services would be worth?” and with the prospect of bartering more of his old self came back.

“We’ll make that satisfactory, I can assure you,” said Bobby. “Your salary will be a very liberal one, I am certain, and it will begin from to-day. First, however, you must have a good rest – a vacation with pay, understand – and it will make you strong again. You are a little run down.”

“Yes,” agreed Silas, nodding his head as the animation faded out of his eyes. “I’m getting old. I think, Mr. Burnit, if you don’t mind I’ll go into the little room there and lie on the couch for a few minutes.”

“That is a good idea,” said Bobby. “You should be rested for the meeting.”

“Oh, yes,” repeated Silas, nodding his head sagely; “the meeting.”

They were uncomfortably silent when Bobby had returned from the little room adjoining. The shadow of tragedy lay upon them all, and it was out of this shadow that Bobby spoke his determination.

“I am going to get out of business,” he declared. “It is a hard, hard game. I can win at it, but – well, I’d rather go back, if I only could, to my unsophistication of four years ago. I don’t like business. Of course, I’ll keep this place for tradition’s sake, and because it would please my father – no, I mean it will please him – but I’m going to sell the Bulletin. I have an offer for it at an excellent profit. I’m going to intrust the management of the electric plant to my good friend Biff, here, with Chalmers and Johnson as starboard and larboard bulwarks, until the stock is quoted at a high enough rating to be a profitable sale; then I’m going to turn it into money, and add it to the original fund. I think I shall be busy enough just looking after and enjoying my new partnership,” and he smiled down at Agnes, who smiled back at him with a trusting admiration that needed no words to express.

“Beg your pardon, sir,” said old Johnson, “but I have a letter here for you,” and from his inside pocket he drew one of the familiar steel-gray envelopes, which he handed to Bobby.

It was addressed:

To My Son Bobby, Upon His Regaining His Father’s Business

The message inside was so brief that one who had not known well old John Burnit would never have known the full, full heart out of which he penned it:

“I knew you’d do it, dear boy. Whatever mystery I find in the great hereafter I shall be satisfied – for I knew you’d do it.”

That was all.

“Johnson,” said Bobby, crumpling up the letter in his hand, and speaking briskly to beat back his emotion, “we will move our offices to the same old quarters, and we will move back, for my use, my father’s old desk with my father’s portrait hanging above it, just as they were when Silas Trimmer ordered them removed.”

Two of the stock-holders came in at this moment, and Agnes went down into the store to find Biff Bates and Nellie Platt, for there was much shopping to do. Agnes had taken pretty Nellie under her chaperonage, and every day now the girls were busy with preparations for certain events in which each was highly interested.

Up in the office there was a meeting that was a shock to all the stock-holders but one, and after it was over Bobby joined the shoppers. When the four of them had clambered into Bobby’s automobile and were rolling away, Bobby stopped his machine.

“Look,” he said in calm triumph, and pointed upward, his hand clasping a smaller hand which was to rest contentedly in his through life.

Over the Grand Street front of the building from which they had emerged, workmen were just raising a huge electric sign, and it bore the legend:

THE JOHN BURNIT’S SON STORES