Kitabı oku: «The Making of Bobby Burnit»

DEDICATION

To the Handicapped Sons of Able

Fathers, and the Handicapped

Fathers of Able Sons,

with Sympathy for

each, and a

Smile for

both

CHAPTER I
BOBBY MAKES SOME IMPORTANT PREPARATIONS FOR A COMMERCIAL LIFE

“I am profoundly convinced that my son is a fool,” read the will of old John Burnit. “I am, however, also convinced that I allowed him to become so by too much absorption in my own affairs and too little in his, and, therefore, his being a fool is hereditary; consequently, I feel it my duty, first, to give him a fair trial at making his own way, and second, to place the balance of my fortune in such trust that he can not starve. The trusteeship is already created and the details are nobody’s present business. My son Robert will take over the John Burnit Store and personally conduct it, as his only resource, without further question as to what else I may have left behind me. This is my last will and testament.”

That is how cheerful Bobby Burnit, with no thought heretofore above healthy amusements and Agnes Elliston, suddenly became a business man, after having been raised to become the idle heir to about three million. Of course, having no kith nor kin in all this wide world, he went immediately to consult Agnes. It is quite likely that if he had been supplied with dozens of uncles and aunts he would have gone first to Agnes anyhow, having a mighty regard for her keen judgment, even though her clear gaze rested now and then all too critically upon himself. Just as he came whirling up the avenue he saw Nick Allstyne’s white car, several blocks ahead of him, stop at her door, and a figure which he knew must be Nick jump out and trip up the steps. Almost immediately the figure came down again, much more slowly, and climbed into the car, which whizzed away.

“Not at home,” grumbled Bobby.

It was like him, however, that he should continue straight to the quaint old house of the Ellistons and proffer his own card, for, though his aims could seldom be called really worth while, he invariably finished the thing he set out to do. It seemed to be a sort of disease. He could not help it. To his surprise, the Cerberus who guarded the Elliston door received him with a smile and a bow, and observed:

“Miss Elliston says you are to walk right on up to the Turkish alcove, sir.”

While Wilkins took his hat and coat Bobby paused for a moment figuratively to hug himself. At home to no one else! Expecting him!

“I’ll ask her again,” said Bobby to himself with determination, and stalked on up to the second floor hall, upon which opened a delightful cozy corner where Aunt Constance Elliston permitted the more “family-like” male callers to smoke and loll and be at mannish ease.

As he reached the landing the door of the library below opened, and in it appeared Agnes and an unusually well-set-up young man – a new one, who wore a silky mustache and most fastidious tailoring. The two were talking and laughing gaily as the door opened, but as Agnes glanced up and saw Bobby she suddenly stopped laughing, and he almost thought that he overheard her say something in an aside to her companion. The impression was but fleeting, however, for she immediately nodded brightly. Bobby bowed rather stiffly in return, and continued his ascent of the stairs with a less sprightly footstep. Crestfallen, and conscious that Agnes had again closed the door of the library without either herself or the strange visitor having emerged into the hall, he strode into the Turkish alcove and let himself drop upon a divan with a thump. He extracted a cigar from his cigar-case, carefully cut off the tip and as carefully restored the cigar to its place. Then he clasped his interlocked fingers around his knee, and for the next ten minutes strove, like a gentleman, not to listen.

When Agnes came up presently she made no mention whatever of her caller, and, of course, Bobby had no excuse upon which to hang impertinent questions, though the sharp barbs of them were darting through and through him. Such fuming as he felt, however, was instantly allayed by the warm and thoroughly honest clasp she gave him when she shook hands with him. It was one of the twenty-two million things he liked about her that she did not shake hands like two ounces of cold fish, as did some of the girls he knew. She was dressed in a half-formal house-gown, and the one curl of her waving brown hair that would persistently straggle down upon her forehead was in its accustomed place. He had always been obsessed with a nearly irresistible impulse to put his finger through that curl.

“I have come around to consult you about a little business matter, Agnes,” he found himself beginning with sudden breathlessness, his perturbation forgotten in the overwhelming charm of her. “The governor’s will has just been read to me, and he’s plunged me into a ripping mess. His whole fortune is in the hands of a trusteeship, whatever that is, and I’m not even to know the trustees. All I get is just the business, and I’m to carry the John Burnit Store on from its present blue-ribbon standing to still more dazzling heights, I suppose. Well, I’d like to do it. The governor deserves it. But, you see, I’m so beastly thick-headed. Now, Agnes, you have perfectly stunning judgment and all that, so if you would just – ” and he came to an abrupt and painful pause.

“Have you brought along the contract?” she asked demurely. “Honestly, Bobby, you’re the most original person in the world. The first time, I was to marry you because you were so awkward, and the next time because your father thought so much of me, and another time because you wanted us to tour Norway and not have a whole bothersome crowd along; then you were tired living in a big, lonely house with just you and your father and the servants; now, it’s an advantageous business arrangement. What share of the profits am I to receive?”

Bobby’s face had turned red, but he stuck manfully to his guns.

“All of them,” he blurted. “You know that none of those is the real reason,” he as suddenly protested. “It is only that when I come to tell you the actual reason I rather choke up and can’t.”

“You’re a mighty nice boy, Bobby,” she confessed. “Now sit down and behave, and tell me just what you have decided to do.”

“Well,” said he, accepting his defeat with great philosophy, since he had no reason to regard it as final, “of course, my decision is made for me. I’m to take hold of the business. I don’t know anything about it, but I don’t see why it shouldn’t go straight on as it always has.”

“Possibly,” she admitted thoughtfully; “but I imagine your father expected you to have rather a difficult time of it. Perhaps he wants you to, so that a defeat or two will sting you into having a little more serious purpose in life than you have at present. I’d like, myself, to see you handle, with credit to him and to you, the splendid establishment he built up.”

“If I do,” Bobby wanted to know, “will you marry me?”

“That makes eleven times. I’m not saying, Bobby, but you never can tell.”

“That settles it. I’m going to be a business man. Let me use your ’phone a minute.” It was one of the many advantages of the delightfully informal Turkish alcove that it contained a telephone, and in two minutes Bobby had his tailors. “Make me two or three business suits,” he ordered. “Regular business suits, I mean, for real business wear – you know the sort of thing – and get them done as quickly as you can, please. There!” said he as he hung up the receiver. “I shall begin to-morrow morning. I’ll go down early and take hold of the John Burnit Store in earnest.”

“You’ve made a splendid start,” commented Agnes, smiling. “Now tell me about the polo tournament,” and she sat back to enjoy his enthusiasm over something about which he was entirely posted.

He was good to look at, was Bobby, with his clean-cut figure and his clean-cut face and his clean, blue eyes and clean complexion, and she delighted in nothing more than just to sit and watch him when he was at ease; he was so restful, so certain to be always telling the truth, to be always taking a charitably good-humored view of life, to turn on wholesome topics and wholesome points of view; but after he had gone she smiled and sighed and shook her head.

“Poor Bobby,” she mused. “There won’t be a shred left of his tender little fleece by the time he gets through.”

One more monitor Bobby went to see that afternoon, and this was Biff Bates. It required no sending in of cards to enter the presence of this celebrity. One simply stepped out of the elevator and used one’s latch-key. It was so much more convenient. Entering a big, barnlike room he found Mr. Bates, clad only in trunks and canvas shoes, wreaking dire punishment upon a punching-bag merely by way of amusement; and Mr. Bates, with every symptom of joy illuminating his rather horizontal features – wide brows, wide cheek-bone, wide nose, wide mouth, wide chin, wide jaw – stopped to shake hands most enthusiastically with his caller without removing his padded glove.

“What’s the good news, old pal?” he asked huskily.

He was half a head shorter than Bobby and four inches broader across the shoulders, and his neck spread out over all the top of his torso; but there was something in the clear gaze of the eyes which made the two gentlemen look quite alike as they shook hands, vastly different as they were.

“Bad news for you, I’m afraid,” announced Bobby. “That little partnership idea of the big gymnasium will have to be called off for a while.”

Mr. Bates took a contemplative punch or two at the still quivering bag.

“It was a fake, anyway,” he commented, putting his arm around the top of the punching-bag and leaning against it comfortably; “just like this place. You went into partnership with me on this joint – that is, you put up the coin and run in a lot of your friends on me to be trained up – squarest lot of sports I ever saw, too. You fill the place with business and allow me a weekly envelope that makes me tilt my chin till I have to wear my lid down over my eyes to keep it from falling off the back of my head, and when there’s profits to split up you shoves mine into my mitt and puts yours into improvements. You put in the new shower baths and new bars and traps, and the last thing, that swimming-tank back there. I’m glad the big game’s off. I’m so contented now I’m getting over-weight, and you’d bilk me again. But what’s the matter? Did the bookies get you?”

“No; I’ll tell you all about it,” and Bobby carefully explained the terms of his father’s will and what they meant.

Mr. Bates listened carefully, and when the explanation was finished he thought for a long time.

“Well, Bobby,” said he, “here’s where you get it. They’ll shred you clean. You’re too square for that game. Your old man was a fine old sport and he played it on the level, but, say, he could see a marked card clear across a room. They’ll double-cross you, though, to a fare-ye-well.”

The opinion seemed to be unanimous.

CHAPTER II
PINK CARNATIONS APPEAR IN THE OFFICE OF THE JOHN BURNIT STORE

Bobby gave his man orders to wake him up early next morning, say not later than eight, and prided himself very much upon his energy when, at ten-thirty, he descended from his machine in front of the old and honored establishment of John Burnit, and, leaving instructions for his chauffeur to call for him at twelve, made his way down the long aisles of white-piled counters and into the dusty little office where old Johnson, thin as a rail and with a face like whittled chalk, humped over his desk exactly as he had sat for the past thirty-five years.

“Good-morning, Johnson,” observed Bobby with an affable nod. “I’ve come to take over the business.”

He said it in the same untroubled tone he had always used in asking for his weekly check, and Johnson looked up with a wry smile. Applerod, on the contrary, was beaming with hearty admiration. He was as florid as Johnson was colorless, and the two had rubbed elbows and dispositions in that same room almost since the house of Burnit had been founded.

“Very well, sir,” grudged Johnson, and immediately laid upon the time-blackened desk which had been old John Burnit’s, a closely typewritten statement of some twenty pages. On top of this he placed a plain gray envelope addressed:

To My Son Robert,

Upon the Occasion of His Taking Over the Business

Upon this envelope Bobby kept his eyes in mild speculation, while he leisurely laid aside his cane and removed his gloves and coat and hat; next he sat down in his father’s jerky old swivel chair and lit a cigarette; then he opened the letter. He read:

“Every business needs a pessimist and an optimist, with ample opportunities to quarrel. Johnson is a jackass, but honest. He is a pessimist and has a pea-green liver. Listen to him and the business will die painlessly, by inches. Applerod is also a jackass, and I presume him to be honest; but I never tested it. He suffers from too much health, and the surplus goes into optimism. Listen to him and the business will die in horrible agony, quickly. But keep both of them. Let them fight things out until they come almost to an understanding, then take the middle course.”

That was all. Bobby turned squarely to survey the frowning Johnson and the still beaming Applerod, and with a flash of clarity he saw his father’s wisdom. He had always admired John Burnit, aside from the fact that the sturdy pioneer had been his father, had admired him much as one admires the work of a master magician – without any hope of emulation. As he read the note he could seem to see the old gentleman standing there with his hands behind him, ready to stretch on tiptoe and drop to his heels with a thump as he reached a climax, his spectacles shoved up on his forehead, his strong, wrinkled face stern from the cheek-bones down, but twinkling from that line upward, the twinkle, which had its seat about the shrewd eyes, suddenly terminating in a sharp, whimsical, little up-pointed curl in the very middle of his forehead. To corroborate his warm memory Bobby opened the front of his watch-case, where the same face looked him squarely in the eyes. Naturally, then, he opened the other lid, where Agnes Elliston’s face smiled up at him. Suddenly he shut both lids with a snap and turned, with much distaste but with a great show of energy, to the heavy statement which had all this time confronted him. The first page he read over laboriously, the second one he skimmed through, the third and fourth he leafed over; and then he skipped to the last sheet, where was set down a concise statement of the net assets and liabilities.

“According to this,” observed Bobby with great show of wisdom, “I take over the business in a very flourishing condition.”

“Well,” grudgingly admitted Mr. Johnson, “it might be worse.”

“It could hardly be better,” interposed Applerod – “that is, without the extensions and improvements that I think your father would have come in time to make. Of course, at his age he was naturally a bit conservative.”

“Mr. Applerod and myself have never agreed upon that point,” wheezed Johnson sharply. “For my part I considered your father – well, scarcely reckless, but, say, sufficiently daring! Daring is about the word.”

Bobby grinned cheerfully.

“He let the business go rather by its own weight, didn’t he?”

Both gentlemen shook their heads, instantly and most emphatically.

“He certainly must have,” insisted Bobby. “As I recollect it, he only worked up here, of late years, from about eleven fifty-five to twelve every other Thursday.”

“Oftener than that,” solemnly corrected the literal Mr. Johnson. “He was here from eleven until twelve-thirty every day.”

“What did he do?”

It was Applerod who, with keen appreciation, hastened to advise him upon this point.

“Said ‘yes’ twice and ‘no’ twelve times. Then, at the very last minute, when we thought that he was through, he usually landed on a proposition that hadn’t been put up to him at all, and put it clear out of the business.”

“Looks like good finessing to me,” said Bobby complacently. “I think I shall play it that way.”

“It wouldn’t do, sir,” Mr. Johnson replied in a tone of keen pain. “You must understand that when your father started this business it was originally a little fourteen-foot-front place, one story high. He got down here at six o’clock every morning and swept out. As he got along a little further he found that he could trust somebody else with that job —but he always knew how to sweep. It took him a lifetime to simmer down his business to just ‘yes’ and ‘no.’”

“I see,” mused Bobby; “and I’m expected to take that man’s place! How would you go about it?”

“I would suggest, without meaning any impertinence whatever, sir,” insinuated Mr. Johnson, “that if you were to start clerking – ”

“Or sweeping out at six o’clock in the morning?” calmly interrupted Bobby. “I don’t like to stay up so late. No, Johnson, about the only thing I’m going to do to show my respect for the traditions of the house is to leave this desk just as it is, and hang an oil portrait of my father over it. And, by the way, isn’t there some little side room where I can have my office? I’m going into this thing very earnestly.”

Mr. Johnson and Mr. Applerod exchanged glances.

“The door just to the right there,” said Mr. Johnson, “leads to a room which is at present filled with old files of the credit department. No doubt those could be moved somewhere else.”

Bobby walked into that room and gaged its possibilities. It was a little small, to be sure, but it would do for the present.

“Just have that cleared out and a ’phone put in. I’ll get right down to business this afternoon and see about the fittings for it.” Then he looked at his watch once more. “By George!” he exclaimed, “I almost forgot that I was to see Nick Allstyne at the Idlers’ Club about that polo match. Just have one of your boys stand out at the curb along about twelve, will you, and tell my chauffeur to report at the club.”

Johnson eyed the closed door over his spectacles.

“He’ll be having blue suits and brass buttons on us two next,” he snorted.

“He don’t mean it at all that way,” protested Applerod. “For my part, I think he’s a fine young fellow.”

“I’ll give you to understand, sir,” retorted Johnson, violently resenting this imputed defection, “that he is the son of his father, and for that, if for nothing else, would have my entire allegiance.”

Bobby, meanwhile, feeling very democratic and very much a man of affairs, took a street-car to the Idlers’, and strode through the classic portals of that club with gravity upon his brow. Flaxen-haired Nick Allstyne, standing by the registry desk, turned to dark Payne Winthrop with a nod.

“You win,” he admitted. “I’ll have to charge it up to you, Bobby. I just lost a quart of the special to Payne that since you’d become immersed in the cares of business you’d not be here.”

Bobby was almost austere in his reception of this slight.

“Don’t you know,” he demanded, “that there is nobody who keeps even his social engagements like a business man?”

“That’s what I gambled on,” returned Payne confidentially, “but I wasn’t sure just how much of a business man you’d become. Nick, don’t you already seem to see a crease in Bobby’s brow?”

“No, that’s his regular polo crease,” objected lanky Stanley Rogers, joining them, and the four of them fell upon polo as one man. Their especially anxious part in the tournament was to be a grinding match against Willie Ashler’s crack team, and the point of worry was that so many of their fellows were out of town. They badly needed one more good player.

“I have it,” declared Bobby finally. It was he who usually decided things in this easy-going, athletic crowd. “We’ll make Jack Starlett play, but the only way to get him is to go over to Washington after him. Payne, you’re to go along. You always keep a full set of regalia here at the club, I know. Here, boy!” he called to a passing page. “Find out for us the next two trains to Washington.”

“Yes, sir,” said the boy with a grin, and was off like a shot. They had a strict rule against tipping in the Idlers’, but if he happened to meet Bobby outside, say at the edge of the curb where his car was standing, there was no rule against his receiving something there. Besides, he liked Bobby, anyhow. They all did. He was back in a moment.

“One at two-ten and one at four-twenty, sir.”

“The two-ten sounds about right,” announced Bobby. “Now, Billy, telephone to my apartments to have my Gladstone and my dress-suit togs brought down to that train. Then, by the way, telephone Leatherby and Pluscher to send up to my place of business and have Mr. Johnson show their man my new office. Have him take measurements of it and fit it up at once, complete. They know the kind of things I like. Really, fellows,” he continued, turning to the others, after he had patiently repeated and explained his instructions to the foggy but willing Billy, “I’m in serious earnest about this thing. Up to me, you know, to do credit to the governor, if I can.”

“Bobby, the Boy Bargain Baron,” observed Nick. “Well, I guess you can do it. All you need to do is to take hold, and I’ll back you at any odds.”

“We’ll all put a bet on you,” encouraged Stanley Rogers. “More, we’ll help. We’ll all get married and send our wives around to open accounts with you.”

In spite of the serious business intentions, the luncheon which followed was the last the city saw of Bobby Burnit for three days. Be it said to his credit that he had accomplished his purpose when he returned. He had brought reluctant Jack Starlett back with him, and together they walked into the John Burnit Store.

“New office fitted up yet, Johnson?” asked Bobby pleasantly.

“Yes, sir,” replied Johnson sourly. “Just a moment, Mr. Burnit,” and from an index cabinet back of him he procured an oblong gray envelope which he handed to Bobby. It was inscribed:

To My Son,

Upon the Fitting-Out of New Offices

With a half-embarrassed smile, Bobby regarded that letter thoughtfully and carried it into the luxurious new office. He opened it and read it, and, still with that queer smile, passed it over to Starlett. This was old John Burnit’s message:

“I have seen a business work up to success, and afterward add velvet rugs and dainty flowers on the desk, but I never saw a successful business start that way.”

Bobby looked around him with a grin. There was a velvet rug on the floor. There were no flowers upon the mahogany desk, but there was a vase to receive them. For just one moment he was nonplussed; then he opened the door leading to the dingy apartment occupied by Messrs. Johnson and Applerod.

“Mr. Johnson,” said he, “will you kindly send out and get two dozen pink carnations for my room?”

Quiet, big Jack Starlett, having loaded and lit and taken the first long puff, removed his pipe from his lips.

“Bully!” said he.