d worried Johnson, was the deciding straw:

_To My Son Robert, About That Theatrical Venture_

"When a man who knows nothing of the business backs a show,
there's usually a woman at the bottom of it--and that kind of
woman is mostly rank poison to a normal man, even if she is a
good woman. No butterfly ever goes back into its chrysalis and
becomes a grub again. Let birds of a feather flock together,
Bobby."

That unfortunate missive, for once shooting so wide the mark, pushed
Bobby over the edge. There was a streak of stubbornness in him which,
well developed and turned into proper channels, was likely to be very
valuable, but until he learned to use that stubbornness in the right
way it bade fair to plunge him into more difficulties than he could
extricate himself from with profit. Even Agnes, reading that note,
indignantly agreed with Bobby that he was being unjustly misread.

"It is absurd," he explained to her. "This is the first
dividend-paying investment I have been able to make so far, and I'm
going to keep it up just as long as I can make money out of it. I'd be
very foolish if I didn't. Besides, this is just a little in-between
flyer, while I'm conservatively waiting for a good, legitimate
opening. It can take, at most, but a very small part of my two hundred
and fifty thousand."

Agnes, though defending him against his father, was still reluctant
about the trip, but suddenly, with a curious smile, she withdrew all
objections and even urged him to go ahead.

"Bobby," said she, still with that curious smile and strangely shining
eyes, and putting both her hands upon his shoulders, "I see that you
must go ahead with this. I--I guess it will be good for you. Somehow,
I think that this is to be your last folly, that you are really
learning that the world is not all polo and honor-bets. So go
ahead--and I'll wait here."

He could not know how much that hurt her. He only knew, after she had
talked more lightly of his trip, that he had her full and free
consent, and, highly elated with his first successful business
venture, he took up the contracts of the Neapolitan Grand Opera
Company where Signor Matteo, the decamped manager and producer, had
dropped them. The members of the company having attached the scenery
and effects for back salaries, sold them to Bobby for ten thousand
dollars, and he immediately found himself confronted by demands for
settlements, with the alternative of