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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.
CHAPTER XIV
BOBBY ENTERS A BUSINESS ALLIANCE, A SOCIAL ENTANGLEMENT AND A QUARREL WITH AGNES
The report of Mr. Johnson and Mr. Chalmers upon the Brightlight Electric Company was a complicated affair, but, upon the whole, highly favorable. It was an old establishment, the first electric company that had been formed in the city, and it held, besides some minor concessions, an ancient franchise for the exclusive supply of twelve of the richest down-town blocks, this franchise, made by a generous board of city fathers, still having twenty years to run. The concern’s equipment was old and much of it needed renewal, but its financial affairs were in good shape, except for a mortgage of a hundred thousand dollars held by one J. W. Williams.
“About this mortgage,” Mr. Chalmers advised Mr. Burnit; “its time limit expires within two months, and I have no doubt that is why Sharpe wants to put additional capital into the concern. Moreover, Williams is notoriously reputed a lieutenant of Sam Stone’s, and it is quite probable that Stone is the real holder of the mortgage.”
“I don’t see where it makes much difference, so long as the mortgage has to be paid, whether it is paid to Stone or to somebody else,” said Bobby reflectively.
“I don’t see any difference myself,” agreed Chalmers, “except that I am suspicious of that whole crowd, since Sharpe is only a figurehead for Stone. I find that Sharpe is credited with holding two hundred thousand dollars’ worth of the present stock. The majority of the Consumers Company and a good share of the United are also in his name. Just how all these facts have a bearing upon each other I can not at present state, but in view of the twenty years’ franchise, and of the fact that you will hold undisputed control, I do not see but that you have a splendid investment here. The contract for the city lighting of those twelve blocks is ironclad, and the franchise for exclusive private lighting and power is exclusive so long as ‘reasonably satisfactory service’ is maintained. As this has been undisputed for thirty years I don’t think you need have much fear upon that score,” and Chalmers smiled.
In the afternoon of that same day Sharpe called up.
“What dinner engagement have you for to-night?” he inquired.
“None,” replied Bobby, after a moment of hesitation.
“Then I want you to dine with me at the Spender. Can you make it?”
“I guess so,” replied Bobby reluctantly, after another hesitant pause. “What time, say?”
“About seven. Just inquire at the desk. I’ll have a dining-room reserved.”
Bobby was very thoughtful as he arrayed himself for dinner, and he was still more thoughtful when, a boy ushering him into the cozy little private dining-room, he found the over-dazzling young Mrs. Sharpe with her husband. She greeted the handsome young Mr. Burnit most effusively, clasping his hand warmly and rolling up her large eyes at him while Mr. Sharpe looked on with smiling approval. Bobby experienced that strange conflict which most men have known, a feeling of revulsion at war with the undoubted lure of the women. She was one of those who deliberately make appeal through their femininity alone.
“Such a pleasure to meet you,” she said in the most silvery of voices. “I have heard so much of Mr. Burnit and his polo skill.”
“It’s the best trick I do,” confessed Bobby, laughing.
“That’s because Mr. Burnit hasn’t found his proper forte as yet,” interposed Sharpe. “He was really cut out for the illuminating business.” And he led the way to the table, upon which Bobby had already noted that five places were laid.
“A couple of our friends might drop in,” said the host in explanation; “they usually do.”
“If it’s Sam and Billy we’re not going to wait for them,” said Mrs. Sharpe with a languishing glance at Bobby. “They’re always ages and ages late, if they come at all. Frank, where are those cocktails? I’m running down.”
She took the drink with an avidity Bobby was not used to seeing among his own women friends, and almost immediately it heightened her vivacity. There could be no question that she was a fascinating woman. Again Bobby had that strange sense of revulsion, and again he was conscious that, in spite of her trace of a tendency to indecorum, there was a subtle appeal in her; one, however, that he shrank from analyzing. Her talk was mostly of the places she had been, with almost pathetic little mention now and then of unattainable people. Evidently she craved social position, in spite of the fact that she was for ever shut out from it.
While they were upon the fish the door opened and two men came in. With a momentary frown Bobby recognized both; one of them the great Sam Stone, and the other William Garland, a rich young cigar manufacturer, quite prominent in public affairs. The latter he had met; the former he inspected quite curiously as he acknowledged the introduction.
Stone gave one the idea that he was extremely heavy; not that he was so grossly stout, although he was large, but he seemed to convey an impression of tremendous weight. His features and his expression were heavy, his eyes were heavy-lidded, and he was taciturnity itself. He gave Bobby a quick scrutiny from head to foot, and in that instant had weighed him, measured him, catalogued and indexed him for future reference for ever. Stone’s only spoken word had been a hoarse acknowledgment of his introduction, and as soon as the entrée came on he attacked it with a voracious appetite, which, however, did not prevent him from weighing and absorbing in silence every word that was spoken in his hearing. Bobby found himself wondering how this unattractive man could have secured his tremendous following, in spite of the fact that Stone “never broke a promise and never went back on a friend,” qualities which would go far toward establishing any man in the esteem of mankind.
It was not until the appearance of the salad that any allusion was made to business, and then Garland, upon an impatient signal from Stone, turned to Bobby with the suavity of which he was thorough master.
“Mr. Sharpe tells me that you consider taking a dip into the public utilities line,” he suggested.
Instantly three of them bent an attention upon Bobby so straight that it might have been palpable even to him, had not Stone suddenly lighted a match to attract their attention, and glared at them.
“I have already decided,” said Bobby frankly, seeing no reason for fencing. “My legal and business advisers tell me that it would be a good investment, and I am ready to take hold of the Brightlight Electric as soon as the formalities can be arranged.”
Stone grunted his approval, and immediately rose, looking at his watch.
“Pleased to have met you, Mr. Burnit,” he rumbled hoarsely, and took his coat and hat. “Sorry I can’t stay. Promised to meet a man.”
“Coming back?” asked Garland.
“Might,” responded the other, and was gone.
As soon as Stone had left, the trifle of strain that had been apparent prior to Bobby’s very decided statement that he would go into the business, was lifted; and Mrs. Sharpe, pink of cheek and sparkling of eye and exhilarated by the wine to her utmost of purely physical attractiveness, moved when the coffee was served to a chair between Bobby and Garland, and, gifted with a purring charm, exerted herself to the utmost to please the new-comer. She puzzled Bobby. The woman was an entirely new type to him, and he could not fathom her.
With the clearing of the table more champagne was brought, and Bobby began to have an uneasy dread of a “near-orgie,” such as was associated in the minds of the knowing ones with this crowd. Sharpe, however, quickly removed this fear, for, pushing aside his own glass with a bare sip after it had been filled, he drew forth a pencil and produced some papers which he spread before Bobby.
“I imagined that you would have a very favorable report on the Brightlight Electric,” he said with a smile, “so I took the liberty of bringing along an outline of my plan for reorganization. If Mr. Garland and Mrs. Sharpe will excuse us for talking shop we might glance over them together.”
“You’re selfish,” pouted Mrs. Sharpe quite prettily, but, nevertheless, she turned her exclusive attention to Garland for the time being.
With considerable interest Bobby plunged into the business at hand. Here was a well-established concern that had been doing business for three decades, which had been paying ten per cent. dividends for years, and which would doubtless continue to do so for many years to come. An opportunity to obtain control of it solved his problem of investment at once, and he strove to approach its intricacies with intelligence. He became vaguely aware, by and by, that just behind him Garland and Mrs. Sharpe were carrying on a most animated conversation in an undertone interspersed with much laughter, and once, with a start of annoyance, he overheard Garland telling a slightly risqué story, at which Mrs. Sharpe laughed softly and with evident relish. He glanced around involuntarily. Garland had his arm across the back of her chair, and they were leaning toward each other in a close proximity which Bobby reflected with sudden savageness could not possibly occur if that were his wife; nor was he much softened by the later reflection that, in the first place, a woman of her type never could have been his wife, and that, in the second place, it was not the man who was to blame, nor the woman so much, as Sharpe himself. Indeed, Bobby somehow gained the impression that the others flouted and despised Sharpe and held him as a weakling.
His glance was but a fleeting one, and he turned from them with a look which Sharpe, noting, misinterpreted.
“I had hoped,” he said, “to go into this thing very thoroughly, so that we could begin the reorganization at once, with the preliminaries completely understood; but if we are detaining you from any engagement, Mr. Burnit – ”
“Not at all, not at all,” the highly-interested Bobby hastened to assure him. “I have no engagements whatever to-night, and my time is entirely at your disposal.”
“Then let’s drop down to the theater,” suddenly interposed Mrs. Sharpe. “You can talk your dust-dry business there just as well as here. Billy, telephone down to the Orpheum and see if they have a box.”
Bobby was far too unsuspecting to understand that he had been deliberately trapped. Though not of the ultra-exclusives, his social position was an excellent one and he had the entrée everywhere. To be seen publicly with young Burnit was a step upward, as Mrs. Sharpe saw it, in that forbidding and painful social climb.
Bobby started with dismay when Garland stepped to the telephone, but he was fairly caught, and he realized it in time to check the involuntary protest that rose to his lips. He had acknowledged that his time was free and at their disposal, and he regretted deeply that no good, handy lie came to his rescue.
They arrived at the theater between acts, and with the full blaze of the auditorium upon them. Bobby’s comfort was not at all heightened when Stone almost immediately followed them in. He had firmly made up his mind as they entered to obtain a place in the rear corner of the box, where he could not be seen; but he was not prepared for the generalship of Mrs. Sharpe, who so manœuvered it as to force him to the very edge, between herself and Garland, and, as she turned to him with a laughing remark which, in pantomime, had all the confidential understanding of most cordial and intimate acquaintanceship, Bobby glanced apprehensively across at the other side of the proscenium-arch. There, in the opposite box, staring at him in shocked amazement, sat Agnes Elliston!