Kitabı oku: «The Making of Bobby Burnit», sayfa 3
CHAPTER V
WHEREIN BOBBY ATTENDS A STOCK-HOLDERS’ MEETING AND CUTS A WISDOM-TOOTH
Within a very few days was completed the complicated legal machinery which threw the John Burnit Store and Trimmer and Company into the hands of “The Burnit-Trimmer Merchandise Corporation” as a holding and operating concern. The John Burnit Store went into that consolidation at an invoice value of two hundred and sixty thousand dollars, Trimmer and Company at two hundred and forty thousand; and Bobby was duly pleased. He had the majority of stock! On the later suggestion of Mr. Trimmer, however, sixty thousand dollars of additional capital was taken into the concern.
“The alterations, expansions, new departments and publicity will compel the command of about that much money,” Mr. Trimmer patiently explained; “and while we could appropriate that amount from our respective concerns, we ought not to weaken our capital, particularly as financial affairs throughout the country are so unsettled. This is not a brisk commercial year, nor can it be.”
“Yes,” admitted Bobby, “I’ve heard something of all this hard-times talk. I know Nick Allstyne sold his French racer, and Nick’s supposed to be worth no end of money.”
“Exactly,” agreed Mr. Trimmer dryly. “This sixty thousand dollars’ worth of stock, Mr. Burnit, I am quite sure that I can place with immediate purchasers, and if you will leave the matter to me I can have it all represented in our next meeting without any bother at all to you.”
“Very kind of you, I am sure,” agreed Bobby, thankful that this trifling detail was not to bore him.
And so it was that the Burnit-Trimmer Merchandise Corporation was incorporated at five hundred and sixty thousand dollars. It was considerably later when Bobby realized the significance of the fact that the subscribers to the additional capitalization consisted of Mr. Trimmer’s son, his son-in-law, his head bookkeeper, his confidential secretary and his cousin, all of whom had also been minor stock-holders in the concern of Trimmer and Company.
It was upon the day preceding the first stock-holders’ meeting of the reorganized company that Bobby, quite proud of the fact that he had acted independently of them, made the formal announcement to Johnson and Applerod that the great consolidation had been effected.
“Beginning with to-morrow morning, Mr. Johnson,” said he to that worthy, “the John Burnit Store will be merged into the Burnit-Trimmer Merchandise Corporation, and Mr. Trimmer will doubtless send his secretary to confer with you about an adjustment of the clerical work.”
“Yes, sir,” said Mr. Johnson dismally, and rose to open the filing case behind him. With his hand in the case he paused and turned a most woebegone countenance to the junior Burnit. “We shall be very regretful, Mr. Applerod and myself, to lose our positions, sir,” he stated. “We have grown up with the business from boyhood.”
“Nonsense!” exploded Applerod. “We would be regretful if that were to occur, but there is nothing of the sort possible. Why, Mr. Burnit, I think this consolidation is the greatest thing that ever happened. I’ve been in favor of it for years; and as for its losing me my position – Pooh!” and he snapped his fingers.
“Applerod is quite right, Mr. Johnson,” said Bobby severely. “Nothing of the sort is contemplated. Yourself and Mr. Applerod are to remain with me as long as fair treatment and liberal pay and personal attachment can induce you to do so.”
“Thank you, sir,” said Mr. Johnson dryly, but he shook his head, and from the file produced one of the familiar gray envelopes.
Bobby eyed it askance as it came toward him, and winced as he saw the inscription. He was beginning to dread these missives. They seemed to follow him about, to menace him, to give him a constant feeling of guilt. Nevertheless, he took this one quite calmly and walked into his own room. It was addressed:
To My Son,
Upon the Occasion of His Completing a Consolidation with Silas Trimmer
and it read:
“When a man devils you for years to enter a business deal with him, you may rest assured that man has more to gain by it than you have. Aside from his wormwood business jealousy of me, Silas Trimmer has wanted this Grand Street entrance to his store for more than the third of a century; now he has it. He’ll have your store next.”
“Look here, Governor,” protested Bobby aloud, to his lively remembrance of his father as he might have stood in that very room, “I call this rather rubbing it in. It’s a bit unsportsmanlike. It’s almost like laying a trap for a chap who doesn’t know the game,” and, rankling with a sense of injustice, he went out to Johnson.
“I say, Johnson,” he complained, “it’s rather my fault for being too stubborn to ask about it, but if you knew that Mr. Trimmer was trying to work a game on me that was dangerous to the business, why didn’t you volunteer to explain it to me; to forewarn me and give me a chance for judgment with all the pros and cons in front of me?”
“From the bottom of my heart, Mr. Burnit,” said Johnson with feeling, “I should like to have done it; but it was forbidden.”
He already had lying before him another of the gray envelopes, and this he solemnly handed over. It was addressed:
To My Son,
Upon His Complaining that Johnson Gave Him No Warning Concerning Silas Trimmer
The message it contained was:
“It takes hard chiseling to make a man, but if the material is the right grain the tool-marks won’t show. If I had wanted you merely to make money, I would have left the business entirely in the hands of Johnson and Applerod. But there is no use to put off pulling a tooth. It only hurts worse in the end.”
When Bobby left the office he felt like walking in the middle of the street to avoid alley corners, since he was unable to divine from what direction the next brick might come. He had taken the business to heart more than he had imagined that he would, and the very fact of his father’s having foreseen that he would succumb to this consolidation made him give grave heed to the implied suggestion that he would be a heavy loser by it. He had an engagement with Allstyne and Starlett at the Idlers’ that afternoon, but they found him most preoccupied, and openly voted him a bore. He called on Agnes Elliston, but learned that she was out driving, and he savagely assured himself that he knew who was handling the reins. He dined at the Traders’, and, for the first time since he had begun to frequent that place, the creases in his brow were real.
Later in the evening he dropped around to see Biff Bates. In the very center of the gymnasium he found that gentleman engaged in giving a preliminary boxing lesson to a spider-like new pupil, who was none other than Silas Trimmer. Responding to Biff’s cheerful grin and Mr. Trimmer’s sheepish one with what politeness he could muster, Bobby glumly went home.
On the next morning occurred the first stock-holders’ meeting of the Burnit-Trimmer Merchandise Corporation, which Bobby attended with some feeling of importance, for, with his twenty-six hundred shares, he was the largest individual stock-holder present. That was what had reassured him overnight: the magic “majority of stock!” Mr. Trimmer only had twenty-four hundred, and Bobby could swing things as he pleased. His father, omniscient as he was, must certainly have failed to foresee this fact. In his simplicity of such matters and his general unsuspiciousness, Bobby had not calculated that if the additional six hundred shares were to vote solidly with Mr. Trimmer against him, his twenty-six hundred shares would be confronted by three thousand, and so rendered paltry.
Mr. Trimmer was delighted to see young Mr. Burnit. This was a great occasion indeed, both for the John Burnit Store and for Trimmer and Company, and, in the opinion of Mr. Trimmer, his circular smile very much in evidence, John Burnit himself would have been proud to see this day! Mr. Smythe, Mr. Trimmer’s son-in-law, also thought it a great day; Mr. Weldon, Mr. Trimmer’s head bookkeeper, thought it a great day; Mr. Harvey, Mr. Trimmer’s confidential secretary, and Mr. U. G. Trimmer, Mr. Silas Trimmer’s cousin, shared this pleasant impression.
In the beginning the organization was without form or void, as all such organizations are, but Mr. Trimmer, having an extremely clear idea of what was to be accomplished, proposed that Mr. Burnit accept the chair pro tem.– where he would be out of the way. The unanimous support which this motion received was quite gratifying to the feelings of Mr. Burnit, proving at once that his fears had been not only groundless but ungenerous, and, in accepting the chair, he made them what he considered a very neat little speech indeed, striving the while to escape that circular smile with its diameter of yellow teeth and its intersecting crescent of stiff mustache; for he disliked meanly to imagine that smile to have a sarcastic turn to-day. At the suggestion of Mr. Trimmer, Mr. Weldon accepted the post of secretary pro tem. Mr. Trimmer then, with a nicely bound black book in his hand, rose to propose the adoption of the stock constitution and by-laws which were neatly printed in the opening pages of this minute-book, and in the articles of which he had made some trifling amendments. Mr. Weldon, by request, read these most carefully and conscientiously, making quite plain that the entire working management of the consolidated stores was to be under the direct charge of a general manager and an assistant general manager, who were to be appointed and have their salaries fixed by the board of directors, as was meet and proper. Gravely the stock-holders voted upon the adoption of the constitution and by-laws, and, with a feeling of pride, as the secretary called his name, Bobby cast his first vote in the following conventional form:
“Aye – twenty-six hundred shares.”
Mr. Trimmer followed, voting twenty-four hundred shares; then Mr. Smythe, three hundred; Mr. Weldon, fifty; Mr. Harvey, fifty; Mr. U. G. Trimmer, fifty; Mr. Thomas Trimmer, whose proxy was held by his father, one hundred and fifty; making in all a total of fifty-six hundred shares unanimously cast in favor of the motion; and Bobby, after having roundly announced the result, felt that he was conducting himself with vast parliamentary credit and lit a cigarette with much satisfaction.
Mr. Trimmer, twirling his thumbs, displayed no surprise, nor even gratification, when Mr. Smythe almost immediately put him in nomination for president. Mr. Weldon promptly seconded that nomination. Mr. Harvey moved that the nominations for the presidency be closed. Mr. U. G. Trimmer seconded that motion, which was carried unanimously; and with no ado whatever Mr. Silas Trimmer was made president of the Burnit-Trimmer Merchandise Corporation, Mr. Burnit having most courteously cast twenty-six hundred votes for him; for was not Mr. Trimmer entitled to this honor by right of seniority? In similar manner Mr. Burnit, quite pleased, and not realizing that the vice-president of a corporation has a much less active and influential position than the night watchman, was elected to the second highest office, while Mr. Weldon was made secretary and Mr. Smythe treasurer. Mr. Harvey, Mr. U. G. Trimmer and Mr. Thomas Trimmer were, as a matter of course, elected members of the board of directors, the four officers already elected constituting the remaining members of the board. There seemed but very little business remaining for the stock-holders to do, so they adjourned; then, the members of the board being all present and having waived in writing all formal notification, the directors went into immediate session, with Mr. Trimmer in the chair and Mr. Weldon in charge of the bright and shining new book of minutes.
The first move of that body, after opening the meeting in due form, was made by Mr. Harvey, who proposed that Mr. Silas Trimmer be constituted general manager of the consolidated stores at a salary of fifty thousand dollars per year, a motion which was immediately seconded by Mr. U. G. Trimmer.
Bobby was instantly upon his feet. Even with his total lack of experience in such matters there was something about this that struck him as overdrawn, and he protested that fancy salaries should have no place in the reorganized business until experience had proved that the business would stand it. He was very much in earnest about it, and wanted the subject discussed thoroughly before any such rash step was taken. The balance of the discussion consisted in one word from Mr. Smythe, echoed by all his fellow-members.
“Question!” said that gentleman.
“You have all heard the question,” said Mr. Trimmer calmly. “Those in favor will please signify by saying ‘Aye.’”
“Aye!” voted four members of the board as with one scarcely interested voice.
“No!” cried Bobby angrily, and sprang to his feet, his anger confused, moreover, by the shock of finding unsuspected wolves tearing at his vitals. “Gentlemen, I protest against this action! I – ”
Mr. Trimmer pounded on the table with his pencil in lieu of a gavel.
“The motion is carried. Any other business?”
It seemed that there was. Mr. Harvey proposed that Mr. Smythe be made assistant general manager at a salary of twenty-five thousand dollars per year. Again the farce of a ballot and the farce of a protest was enacted. Where now was the voting power of Bobby’s twenty-six hundred shares? In the directors’ meeting they voted as individuals, and they were six against one. Rather indifferently, as if the thing did not amount to much, Mr. Smythe proposed that the selection of a firm name for advertising and publicity purposes be left to the manager, and though Bobby voted no as to this proposition on general principles, it seemed of minor importance, in his then bewildered state of mind. After all, the thing which grieved him most just then was to find that people could do these things!
CHAPTER VI
CONSISTING ENTIRELY OF A RAPID SUCCESSION OF MOST PAINFUL SHOCKS
He was still dazed with what had happened, when, the next morning, he turned into the office and found Johnson and Applerod packing-up their personal effects. Workmen were removing letter-files and taking desks out of the door.
“What’s the matter?” he asked, surveying the unwonted confusion in perplexity.
“The entire office force of the now defunct John Burnit Store has been dismissed, that’s all!” blurted Applerod, now the aggrieved one. “You sold us out, lock, stock and barrel!”
“Impossible!” gasped Bobby.
Mr. Johnson glumly showed him curt letters of dismissal from Trimmer.
“Where’s mine, I wonder?” inquired Bobby, trying to take his terrific defeat with sportsmanlike nonchalance.
“I don’t suppose there is any for you, sir, inasmuch as you never had a recognized position to lose,” replied Johnson, not unkindly. “Did the board of directors elect you to any salaried office?”
“Why, so they didn’t!” exclaimed Bobby, and for the first time realized that no place had been made for him. He had taken it as a matter of course that he was to be a part of the consolidation, and the omission of any definite provision for him had passed unnoticed.
The door leading to his own private office banged open, and two men appeared, shoving through it the big mahogany desk turned edgewise.
“What are they doing?” Bobby asked sharply.
“Moving out all the furniture,” snapped Applerod with bitter relish. “All the office work, I understand, is to be done in the other building, and this space is to be thrown into a special cut-glass department. I suppose the new desk is for Mr. Trimmer.”
Furious, choking, Bobby left the office and strode back through the store. The first floor passageway was already completed between the two buildings, and a steady stream of customers was going over the bridge from the old Burnit store into the old Trimmer store. There were very few coming in the other direction. He had never been in Mr. Trimmer’s offices, but he found his way there with no difficulty, and Mr. Trimmer came out of his private room to receive him with all the suavity possible. In fact, he had been saving up suavity all morning for this very encounter.
“Well, what can we do for you this morning, Mr. Burnit?” he wanted to know, and Bobby, though accustomed to repression as he was, had a sudden impulse to drive his fist straight through that false circular smile.
“I want to know what provision has been made for me in this new adjustment,” he demanded.
“Why, Mr. Burnit,” expostulated Mr. Trimmer in much apparent surprise, “you have two hundred and sixty thousand dollars’ worth of stock in what should be the best paying mercantile venture in this city; you are vice-president, and a member of the board of directors!”
“I have no part, then, in the active management?” Bobby wanted to know.
“It would be superfluous, Mr. Burnit. One of the chief advantages of such a consolidation is the economy that comes from condensing the office and managing forces. I regretted very much indeed to dismiss Mr. Johnson and Mr. Applerod, but they are very valuable men and should have no difficulty in placing themselves advantageously. In fact, I shall be glad to aid them in securing new positions.”
“The thing is an outrage!” exclaimed Bobby with passion.
“My dear Mr. Burnit, it is business,” said Mr. Trimmer coldly, and, turning, went deliberately into his own room, leaving Bobby standing in the middle of the floor.
Bobby sprang to that door and threw it open, and Trimmer, who had been secretly trembling all through the interview, turned to him with a quick pallor overspreading his face, a pallor which Bobby saw and despised and ignored, and which turned his first mad impulse.
“I’d like to ask one favor of you, Mr. Trimmer,” said he. “In moving the furniture out of the John Burnit offices I should be very glad, indeed, if you would order my father’s desk removed to my house. It is an old desk and can not possibly be of much use. You may charge its value to my account, please.”
“Nonsense!” said Mr. Trimmer. “I’ll have it sent out with pleasure. Is there anything else?”
“Nothing whatever at present,” said Bobby, trembling with the task of holding himself steady, and walked out, unable to analyze the bitter emotions that surged within him.
On the sidewalk, standing beside his automobile, he found Johnson and Applerod waiting for him, and the moment he saw Johnson, cumbered with the big index-file that he carried beneath his arm, he knew why.
“Give me the letter, Johnson,” he said with a wry smile, and Johnson, answering it with another equally as grim, handed him a gray envelope.
Applerod, who had been the first to upbraid him, was now the first to recover his spirits.
“Never mind, Mr. Burnit,” said he; “businesses and even fortunes have been lost before and have been regained. There are still ways to make money.”
Bobby did not answer him. He was opening the letter, preparing to stand its contents in much the same spirit that he had often gone to his father to accept a reprimand which he knew he could not in dignity evade. But there was no reprimand. He read:
“There’s no use in telling a young man what to do when he has been gouged. If he’s made of the right stuff he’ll know, and if he isn’t, no amount of telling will put the right stuff in him. I have faith in you. Bobby, or I’d never have let you in for this goring.
“In the meantime, as there will be no dividends on your stock for ten years to come, what with ‘improvements, expenses and salaries,’ and as you will need to continue your education by embarking in some other line of business before being ripe enough to accomplish what I am sure you will want to do, you may now see your trustee, the only thoroughly sensible person I know who is sincerely devoted to your interests. Her name is Agnes Elliston.”
“What is the matter?” asked Johnson in sudden concern, and Applerod grabbed him by the arm.
“Oh, nothing much,” said Bobby; “a little groggy, that’s all. The governor just handed me one under the belt. By the way, boys” – and they scarcely noted that he no longer said “gentlemen” – “if you have nothing better in view I want you to consider yourselves still in my employ. I’m going into business again, at once. If you will call at my house tomorrow forenoon I’ll talk with you about it,” and anxious to be rid of them he told his driver “Idlers’,” and jumped into his automobile.
Agnes! That surely was giving him a solar-plexus blow! Why, what did the governor mean? It was putting him very much in a kindergarten position with the girl before whom he wanted to make a better impression than before anybody else in all the world.
It took him a long time to readjust himself to this cataclysm.
After all, though, was not his father right in this, as he had been in everything else? Humbly Bobby was ready to confess that Agnes had more brains and good common sense than anybody, and was altogether about the most loyal and dependable person in all the world, with the single and sole exception of allowing that splendid looking and unknown chap to hang around her so. They were in the congested down-town district now, and as they came to a dead stop at a crossing, Bobby, though immersed in thought, became aware of a short, thick-set man, who, standing at the very edge of the car, was apparently trying to stare him out of countenance.
“Why, hello, Biff!” exclaimed Bobby. “Which way?”
“Just waiting for a South Side trolley,” explained Biff. “Going over to see Kid Mills about that lightweight go we’re planning.”
“Jump in,” said Bobby, glad of any change in his altogether indefinite program. “I’ll take you over.”
On the way he detailed to his athletic friend what had been done to him in the way of business.
“I know’d it,” said Biff excitedly. “I know’d it from the start. That’s why I got old Trimmer to join my class. Made him a special price of next to nothing, and got Doc Willets to go around and tell him he was in Dutch for want of training. Just wait.”
“For what?” asked Bobby, smiling.
“Till the next time he comes up,” declared Biff vengefully. “Say, do you know I put that shrimp’s hour a-purpose just when there wouldn’t be a soul up there; and the next time I get him in front of me I’m going to let a few slip that’ll jar him from the cellar to the attic; and the next time anybody sees him he’ll be nothing but splints and court-plaster.”
“Biff,” said Bobby severely, “you’ll do nothing of the kind. You’ll leave one Silas Trimmer to me. Merely bruising his body won’t get back my father’s business. Let him alone.”
“But look here, Bobby – ”
“No; I say let him alone,” insisted Bobby.
“All right,” said Biff sullenly; “but if you think there’s a trick you can turn to double cross this Trimmer you’ve got another think coming. He’s sunk his fangs in the business he’s been after all his life, and now you couldn’t pry it away from him with a jimmy. You know what I told you about him.”
“I know,” said Bobby wearily. “But honestly, Biff, did you ever see me go into a game where I was a loser in the end?”
“Not till this one,” confessed Biff.
“And this isn’t the end,” retorted Bobby.
He knew that when he made such a confident assertion that he had nothing upon which to base it; that he was talking vaguely and at random; but he also knew the intense desire that had arisen in him to reverse conditions upon the man who had waited until the father died to wrest that father’s pride from the son; and in some way he felt coming strength. In Biff’s present frame of conviction Bobby was pleased enough to drop him in front of Kid Mills’ obscure abode, and turn with a sudden hungry impulse in the direction of Agnes. At the Ellistons’, when the chauffeur was about to slow up, Bobby in a panic told him to drive straight on. In the course of half an hour he came back again, and this time pride alone – fear of what his chauffeur might think – determined him to stop. With much trepidation he went up to the door. Agnes was just preparing to go out, and she came down to him in the front parlor.
“This is only a business call,” he confessed with as much appearance of gaiety as he could summon under the circumstance. “I’ve come around to see my trustee.”
“So soon?” she said, with quick sympathy in her voice. “I’m so sorry, Bobby! But I suppose, after all, the sooner it happened the better. Tell me all about it. What was the cause of it?”
“You wouldn’t marry me,” charged Bobby. “If you had this never would have happened.”
She shook her head and smiled, but she laid her hand upon his arm and drew closer to him.
“I’m afraid it would, Bobby. You might have asked my advice, but I expect you wouldn’t have taken it.”
“I guess you’re right about that,” admitted Bobby; “but if you’d only married me – Honest, Agnes, when are you going to?”
“I shall not commit myself,” she replied, smiling up at him rather wistfully.
“There’s somebody else,” declared Bobby, instantly assured by this evasiveness that the unknown had something to do with the matter.
“If there were, it would be my affair entirely, wouldn’t it?” she wanted to know, still smiling.
“No!” he declared emphatically. “It would be my affair. But really I want to know. Will you, if I get my father’s business back?”
“I’ll not promise,” she said. “Why, Bobby, the way you put it, you would be binding me not to marry you in case you didn’t get it back!” and she laughed at him. “But let’s talk business now. I was just starting out upon your affairs, the securing of some bonds for which the lawyer I have employed has been negotiating, so you may take me up there and he will arrange to get you the two hundred and fifty thousand dollars you are to have.
It’s for a new start, without restrictions except that you are to engage in business with it. That’s all the instructions I have.”
“Thanks,” said Bobby, with a gulp. “Honestly, Agnes, it’s a shame. It’s a low-down trick the governor played to put me in this helplessly belittled position with you.”
“Why, how strange,” she replied quietly. “I look upon it as a most graceful and agreeable position for myself.”
“Oh!” he exclaimed blankly, as it occurred to him just how uncomfortable the situation must be to her, and he reproached himself with selfishness in not having thought of this phase of the matter before. “That’s a fact,” he admitted. “I say, Agnes, I’ll say no more about that end of it if you don’t; and, after all, I’m glad, too. It gives me a legitimate excuse to see you much oftener.”
“Gracious, no!” she protested. “You fill up every spare moment that I have now; but so long as you are here on business this time, let’s attend to business. You may take me up to see Mr. Chalmers. By the way, I want you to meet him, anyhow. You have seen him, I believe, once or twice. He was here one day when you called, and he was walking with me in the lobby of the theater when you came in to join us one evening.”
“Y-e-s,” drawled Bobby, as if he were placing the man with difficulty.
“The Chalmers’ are charming people,” she went on. “His wife is perfectly fascinating. We used to go to school together. They have only been married three months, and when they came here to go into business I was very glad to throw such of your father’s estate as I am to handle into his hands. Whenever they are ready I want to engineer them into our set, but they live very quietly now. I know you’ll like them.”
“Oh, I’m sure I will,” agreed Bobby heartily, and his face was positively radiant, as, for some unaccountable reason, he clutched her hand. She lifted it up beneath his arm, around which, for one ecstatic moment, she clasped her other hand, and together they went out into the hall, Bobby, simply driveling in his supreme happiness, allowing her to lead him wheresoever she listed. Still in the joy of knowing that his one dreaded rival was removed in so pleasant a fashion, he handed her into the automobile and they started out to see Mr. Chalmers. Their way led down Grand Street, past the John Burnit Store, and with all that had happened still rankling sorely in his mind, Bobby looked up and gave a gasp. Workmen were taking down the plain, dignified old sign of the John Burnit Store from the top of the building, and in its place they were raising up a glittering new one, ordered by Silas Trimmer on the very day Bobby had agreed to go into the consolidation; and it read:
