and he held out his hand.

Stone looked at the proffered hand and shook his head.

"I'd rather smash your face," he growled, and passed out of the door.

It was the last that Bobby ever saw of him, and all that the
_Bulletin_ carried about his flight was the "fact," not at all too
prominently displayed for the man's importance as a public figure,
that Stone's health was in jeopardy and that he was about to take an
ocean voyage upon the advice of his physician; and on that day Stone's
picture disappeared from the place it had occupied upon the front page
of the _Bulletin_.

It was a victory complete and final, but it was not without its sting,
for on that same day Bobby faced an empty exchequer. It was Johnson
who brought him the sad but not at all unexpected tidings, at a moment
when Chalmers and Agnes happened to be in the office. Seeing them,
Johnson hesitated at the door.

"What is it, Johnson?" asked Bobby.

"Oh, nothing much," said Mr. Johnson with a pained expression. "I'll
come back again."

He had a sheet of paper with him and Bobby held out his hand for it.
Still hesitating, old Johnson brought it forward and laid it down on
Bobby's desk.

"You know you told me, sir, to bring this to you."

Had the others not been present he would have added the reminder that
he had been instructed to bring this statement a week in advance of
the time when Bobby should no longer be able to meet his payroll.
Bobby looked up from the statement without any thought of reserve
before these three.

"Well, it's come. I'm broke."

"Not so much a calamity in this instance as it has been in others,"
said Agnes sagely. "Fortunately, your trustee is right here, and your
trustee's lawyer, who has two hundred and fifty thousand dollars still
to your account."

Bobby listened in frowning silence, and old Johnson, who had prepared
himself before he came upstairs for such a contingency, quietly laid
upon Bobby's desk one of the familiar gray envelopes and withdrew. It
was inscribed:

_To My Son Robert, Upon the Turning Over to Him of His Sixth
and Last Experimental Fund_

"If a man fails six times he'd better be pensioned and left to
live a life of pleasant ease; for everybody has a right to be
happy, and not all can gain happiness through their own
efforts. So, if you fail this last time, don't worry, my boy,
but take measures to cut your garment according to the income
from a million and