ies to quarrel. Johnson is a jackass, but honest. He
is a pessimist and has a pea-green liver. Listen to him and
the business will die painlessly, by inches. Applerod is also
a jackass, and I presume him to be honest; but I never tested
it. He suffers from too much health, and the surplus goes into
optimism. Listen to him and the business will die in horrible
agony, quickly. But keep both of them. Let them fight things
out until they come almost to an understanding, then take the
middle course."

That was all. Bobby turned squarely to survey the frowning Johnson and
the still beaming Applerod, and with a flash of clarity he saw his
father's wisdom. He had always admired John Burnit, aside from the
fact that the sturdy pioneer had been his father, had admired him much
as one admires the work of a master magician--without any hope of
emulation. As he read the note he could seem to see the old gentleman
standing there with his hands behind him, ready to stretch on tiptoe
and drop to his heels with a thump as he reached a climax, his
spectacles shoved up on his forehead, his strong, wrinkled face stern
from the cheek-bones down, but twinkling from that line upward, the
twinkle, which had its seat about the shrewd eyes, suddenly
terminating in a sharp, whimsical, little up-pointed curl in the very
middle of his forehead. To corroborate his warm memory Bobby opened
the front of his watch-case, where the same face looked him squarely
in the eyes. Naturally, then, he opened the other lid, where Agnes
Elliston's face smiled up at him. Suddenly he shut both lids with a
snap and turned, with much distaste but with a great show of energy,
to the heavy statement which had all this time confronted him. The
first page he read over laboriously, the second one he skimmed
through, the third and fourth he leafed over; and then he skipped to
the last sheet, where was set down a concise statement of the net
assets and liabilities.

"According to this," observed Bobby with great show of wisdom, "I take
over the business in a very flourishing condition."

"Well," grudgingly admitted Mr. Johnson, "it might be worse."

"It could hardly be better," interposed Applerod--"that is, without
the extensions and improvements that I think your father would have
come in time to make. Of course, at his age he was naturally a bit
conservative."

"Mr. Applerod and myself have never agreed upon that point," wheezed
John