son sharply. "For my part I considered your father--well, scarcely
reckless, but, say, sufficiently daring! Daring is about the word."

Bobby grinned cheerfully.

"He let the business go rather by its own weight, didn't he?"

Both gentlemen shook their heads, instantly and most emphatically.

"He certainly must have," insisted Bobby. "As I recollect it, he only
worked up here, of late years, from about eleven fifty-five to twelve
every other Thursday."

"Oftener than that," solemnly corrected the literal Mr. Johnson. "He
was here from eleven until twelve-thirty every day."

"What did he do?"

It was Applerod who, with keen appreciation, hastened to advise him
upon this point.

"Said 'yes' twice and 'no' twelve times. Then, at the very last
minute, when we thought that he was through, he usually landed on a
proposition that hadn't been put up to him at all, and put it clear
out of the business."

"Looks like good finessing to me," said Bobby complacently. "I think I
shall play it that way."

"It wouldn't do, sir," Mr. Johnson replied in a tone of keen pain.
"You must understand that when your father started this business it
was originally a little fourteen-foot-front place, one story high. He
got down here at six o'clock every morning and swept out. As he got
along a little further he found that he could trust somebody else with
that job--_but he always knew how to sweep_. It took him a lifetime to
simmer down his business to just 'yes' and 'no.'"

"I see," mused Bobby; "and I'm expected to take that man's place! How
would you go about it?"

"I would suggest, without meaning any impertinence whatever, sir,"
insinuated Mr. Johnson, "that if you were to start clerking----"

"Or sweeping out at six o'clock in the morning?" calmly interrupted
Bobby. "I don't like to stay up so late. No, Johnson, about the only
thing I'm going to do to show my respect for the traditions of the
house is to leave this desk just as it is, and hang an oil portrait of
my father over it. And, by the way, isn't there some little side room
where I can have my office? I'm going into this thing very earnestly."

Mr. Johnson and Mr. Applerod exchanged glances.

"The door just to the right there," said Mr. Johnson, "leads to a room
which is at present filled with old files of the credit department. No
doubt those could be moved somewhere else."

Bobby walked into that room and gaged its possibilities. It was a
little small, to be sure