with a grin. There _was_ a velvet rug on the
floor. There were no flowers upon the mahogany desk, but there _was_ a
vase to receive them. For just one moment he was nonplussed; then he
opened the door leading to the dingy apartment occupied by Messrs.
Johnson and Applerod.

"Mr. Johnson," said he, "will you kindly send out and get two dozen
pink carnations for my room?"

Quiet, big Jack Starlett, having loaded and lit and taken the first
long puff, removed his pipe from his lips.

"Bully!" said he.

CHAPTER III

OLD JOHN BURNIT'S ANCIENT ENEMY POINTS OUT THE WAY TO GRANDEUR

Mr. Johnson had no hair in the very center of his head, but, when he
was more than usually vexed, he ran his fingers through what was left
upon both sides of the center and impatiently pushed it up toward a
common point. His hair was in that identical condition when he knocked
at the door of Bobby's office and poked in his head to announce Mr.
Silas Trimmer.

"Trimmer," mused Bobby. "Oh, yes; he is the John Burnit Store's chief
competitor; concern backs up against ours, fronting on Market Street.
Show him in, Johnson."

Jack Starlett, who had dropped in to loaf a bit, rose to go.

"Sit down," insisted Bobby. "I'm conducting this thing all open and
aboveboard. You know, I think I shall like business."

"They tell me it's the greatest game out," commented Starlett, and
just then Mr. Trimmer entered.

He was a little, wiry man as to legs and arms, but fearfully rotund as
to paunch, and he had a yellow leather face and black eyes which,
though gleaming like beads, seemed to have a muddy cast. Bobby rose to
greet him with a cordiality in no degree abashed by this appearance.

"And what can we do for you, Mr. Trimmer?" he asked after the usual
inanities of greeting had been exchanged.

"Take lunch with me," invited Mr. Trimmer, endeavoring to beam, his
heavy, down-drooping gray mustache remaining immovable in front of the
deeply-chiseled smile that started far above the corners of his nose
and curved around a display of yellow teeth. "I have just learned that
you have taken over the business, and I wish as quickly as possible to
form with the son the same cordial relations which for years I enjoyed
with the father."

Bobby looked him contemplatively in the eye, but had no experience
upon which to base a picture of his father and Mr. Trimmer enjoying
perpetually cordial relations with a knife down each boot leg.

"Very sorry, Mr