The Making of Bobby Burnit Part 36

Bobby found himself silent. For two years he had planned and hoped for this moment of victory. Now that the exultant moment had come he found himself feeling strangely sorry for this big man, in spite of his unutterable rascality.

"I ain't coming back," Stone went on after a pause, "and there's something I want to ask you to do for me."

"I should be glad to do it, Mr. Stone, if it is anything I can allow myself to do."

"Aw, cut it!" growled Stone. "Look here. I got a list of some poor mutts I been looking out for, and I've just set aside a wad to keep it going. I want you to look after 'em and see that the money gets spread around right. I know you're square. I don't know anybody else to give it to."

To Bobby he handed a list of some fifty names and addresses, with monthly amounts set down opposite them. They were widows and orphans and helpless creatures of all sorts and conditions, blind and deaf and crippled, whom Stone, in the great pa.s.sion that every man has for some one to love and revere him, and in the secret tenderness inseparable from all big natures, had made his pensioners.

"There ain't a soul on earth knows about these but me, and every one of 'em is wise to it that if they ever blat a word about it the pap's cut off. I don't want a thing, not even a hint, printed about this--see? I ain't afraid that you'll use it in the paper after me asking you not to, so I don't ask you for any promise."

"I'll do it with pleasure," offered Bobby.

"Well, I guess that's about all," said Stone, and turned to go.

Bobby came from behind his desk.

"After all, Stone," he said, with some hesitation, "I'm sorry to lose an enemy so worth while. I wish you good luck wherever you are going,"

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 pa.s.sed 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 a half dollars, invested so safely that it can yield you but two per cent. If the fault of your ill success lies with anybody it lies with me, and I blame myself bitterly for it many times as I write this letter.

"Remember, first, last and always, that I want you to be happy."

Bobby pa.s.sed the letter to Agnes and the envelope to Chalmers.

"This is a little premature," he said, smiling at both of them, "for I'm not applying for the sixth portion."

Agnes looked up at him in surprise.

"Not applying for it?"

"No," he declared, "I don't want it. I understand there is a provision that I can not use two of these portions in the same business."

Both Chalmers and Agnes nodded.

"I don't want money for any other business than the _Bulletin_,"

declared Bobby, "and if my father has it fixed so that he won't help me as I want to be helped, I don't want it at all."

"There is another provision about which you perhaps don't know,"

Chalmers informed him; "if you refuse this money it reverts to the main fund."

Bobby studied this over thoughtfully.

"Let it revert," said he. "I'll sink or swim right here."

The next day he went to his bank and tried to borrow money. They liked Bobby very much indeed over at the bank. He was a vigorous young man, a young man of affairs, a young man who had won a great public victory, a young man whom it was generally admitted had done the city an incalculable amount of good; but they could not accept Bobby nor the _Bulletin_ as a business proposition. Had they not seen the original fund dwindle and dwindle for two years until now there was nothing left? Wouldn't another fund dwindle likewise? It is no part of a bank's desire to foreclose upon securities. They are quite well satisfied with just the plain interest. Moreover, the _Bulletin_ wasn't such heavy security, anyhow.

Bobby tried another bank with like results, and also some of his firm business friends at the Traders' Club. In the midst of his dilemma President De Graff of the First National came to him.

"I understand you have been trying to borrow some money, Burnit?"

It sounded to Bobby as if De Graff had come to gloat over him, since he had been instrumental in dragging De Graff and the First National through the mire.

"Yes, sir, I have," he nevertheless answered steadily.

"Why didn't you come to us?" demanded De Graff.

"To you?" said Bobby, amazed. "I never thought of you in that connection at all, De Graff, after all that has happened."

De Graff shrugged his shoulders.

"That was like pulling a tooth. It hurt and one dreaded it, but it was so much better when it was out. Until you jumped into the fight Stone had me under his thumb. The minute the exposure came he had no further hold on me. It is the only questionable thing I ever did in my life, and I'm glad it was exposed. I admire you for it, even though it will hurt me in a business way for a long time to come. But about this money now. How much do you need at the present time?"

"I'd like an account of about twenty-five thousand."

"I can let you have it at once," said De Graff, "and as much more as you need, up to a certain reasonable point that I think will be amply sufficient."

"Is this Stone's money?" asked Bobby with sudden suspicion.