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The city papers were teeming now with the vast energy and public-spirited enterprise of young Robert Burnit and Oliver P. Applerod, and there were many indications that the enterprise was to be a most successful one.
Burnit," said the Reverend Doctor Larynx in a loud, hearty voice, advancing with three strides and clasping Bobby's hand in a vise-like grip; for he was a red-blooded minister, was the Reverend Doctor Larynx, and he believed in getting down among the "pee-pul."
In the morning it seemed that Madam Villenauve had been in earnest in her absurd intentions, for, in his room, at eleven o'clock, he was served with papers in the breach-of-promise suit of Villenauve versus Burnit, and the amount of damages claimed was the tremendous sum of one hundred and fifty thousand dollars, an amount, of course, only commensurate with Madam Villenauve's standing in the profession and her earning capacity as an artist, her pride and shattered feelings and the dashing to earth of her love's young dream being of corresponding value.
She had worried over them not a little, of late, and she was just as anxious as old John Burnit had been to have him correct those defects; and she, like Bobby's father, was only thankful that they were not defects of manliness, of courage or of moral or mental fiber. They were only defects of training, for which the elder Burnit, as he had himself confessed, was responsible.
"Of course, the idea is new to me," said Bobby, assuming as best he could the air of business reserve which seemed appropriate to the occasion; "but I should say, in a general way, that I should not care to give up the identity of the John Burnit Store." "That is a fine and a proper spirit," agreed Mr. Trimmer, with great enthusiasm.
The game they were playing was a parting set-to, for the three others were leaving in the morning for Stanley's hunt, but Bobby was glad when it was over. In the big, lonely house he sat in the study for an hour before he went to bed, looking abstractedly up at the picture of old John Burnit and worrying over this new development.
When you urged me, four years ago, to consolidate the John Burnit and Trimmer and Company Stores, my father's business was appraised at two hundred and sixty thousand dollars and yours at two hundred and forty. On your suggestion we took in sixty thousand dollars of additional capital.
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.
I spoke about it to you yesterday morning, you know, and said that I felt quite hopeful Mr. Burnit would buy it." "I know," said Mr. Thorne, politely but coldly; "and I told you at the time we talked about it that I never hold anything in the face of a bona fide offer." "But who has it?" Bobby insisted, more eager now to get it, since it had slipped away from him, than ever before.
Burnit, how much political influence do you think you could swing?" "Frankly, I never thought of it," said Bobby surprised. "You belong to the Idlers' Club, you belong to the Traders' Club, to the Fish and Game, the Brassie, the Gourmet, and the Thespian Clubs. You are a member of the board of governors in three of these clubs, and are very popular in all of them.
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