I have a
dinner engagement this evening and very little time to dress."

"His own man," said Applerod sorrowfully when Bobby had left them.
"John Burnit would be half crazy if he could know what a botch his son
is making of things. I don't see how a man could let himself be
cheated four times in business."

"I can tell you," retorted Biff. "All his old man ever did for him was
to stuff his pockets with kale, and let him grow up into the sort of
clubs where one sport says: 'I'm going to walk down to the corner.'
Says the other sport: 'I'll bet you see more red-headed girls on the
way down than you do on the way back.' Says the first sport: 'You're
on for a hundred.' He goes down to the corner and he comes back. 'How
about the red-headed girls?' asks the second sport. 'I lose,' says the
first sport; 'here's your hundred.' Now, when Bobby is left real
money, he starts in to play the same open-face game, and when one of
these business wolves tells him anything Bobby don't stop to figure
whether the mut means what he says, or means something else that
sounds like the same thing. Now, if Bobby was a simp they'd sting him
in so many places that he'd be swelled all over, like an exhibition
cream puff; but he ain't a simp. It took him four times to learn that
he can't take a man's word in business. That's all he needed. Bobby's
awake now, and more than that he's mad, and if I hear you make another
crack that he ain't about all the candy I'll sick old Johnson on you,"
and with this dire threat Biff wheeled, leaving Mr. Applerod
speechless with red-faced indignation.

It was just a quiet family dinner that Bobby attended that night at
the Ellistons', with Uncle Dan and Aunt Constance Elliston at the head
and foot of the table, and across from him the smiling face of Agnes.
He was so good to look at that Agnes was content just to watch him,
but Aunt Constance noted his abstraction and chided him upon it.

"Really, Bobby," said she, "since you have gone into business you're
ruined socially."

"Frankly, I don't mind," he replied, smiling. "I'd rather be ruined
socially than financially. In spite of certain disagreeable features
of it, I have a feeling upon me to-night that I'm going to like the
struggle."

"You're starting a stiff one now," observed Uncle Dan dryly.
"Beginning an open fight against Sam Stone is a good deal like being
suspended over Hades by a single hair--amidst a shower of Roman
candles."

"That's putting