rranged matter. I tell you, Mr. Burnit, this is a
tremendous plan, attractive to the public and immensely profitable to
us, and I do not know of anything you could do that would so well as
this show you to be a worthy successor to John Burnit; for, of course,
it would scarcely be a credit to you to carry on your father's
business without change or advance."

It was the best and the most crafty argument Mr. Trimmer had used, and
Bobby carried away from the Traders' Club a glowing impression of this
point. His father had built up this big business by his own unaided
efforts. Should Bobby leave that legacy just where he had found it, or
should he carry it on to still greater heights? The answer was
obvious.

CHAPTER IV

AGNES EMPHATICALLY DECIDES THAT SHE DOES NOT LIKE A CERTAIN PERSON

At the theater that evening, Bobby, to his vexation, found Agnes
Elliston walking in the promenade foyer with the well-set-up stranger.
He passed her with a nod and slipped moodily into the rear of the
Elliston box, where Aunt Constance, perennially young, was
entertaining Nick Allstyne and Jack Starlett, and keeping them at a
keen wit's edge, too. Bobby gave them the most perfunctory of
greetings, and, sitting back by himself, sullenly moped. He grumbled
to himself that he had a headache; the play was a humdrum affair;
Trimmer was a bore; the proposed consolidation had suddenly lost its
prismatic coloring; the Traders' Club was crude; Starlett and Allstyne
were utterly frivolous. All this because Agnes was out in the foyer
with a very likely-looking young man.

She did not return until the end of that act, and found Bobby ready to
go, pleading early morning business.

"Is it important?" she asked.

"Who's the chap with the silky mustache?" he suddenly demanded, unable
to forbear any longer. "He's a new one."

The eyes of Agnes gleamed mischievously.

"Bobby, I'm astonished at your manners," she chided him. "Now tell me
what you've been doing with yourself."

"Trying to grow up into John Burnit's truly son," he told her with
some trace of pompous pride, being ready in advance to accept his
rebuke meekly, as he always had to do, and being quite ready to cover
up his grievous error with a change of topic. "I had no idea that
business could so grip a fellow. But what I'd like to find out just
now is who is my trustee? It must have been somebody with horse sense,
or the governor would not have appointed whoever it was. I'm