mittee of two came solemnly in to see him.

"Have you decided to open the Chicago branch, sir?" asked Johnson.

"Not this year," said Bobby coolly, and handed back the data. "I wish,
Mr. Johnson, you would appoint a page to be in constant attendance
upon this room."

Back at their own desks Johnson gloated in calm triumph.

"It may be quite possible that Mr. Robert may turn out to be a
duplicate of his father," he opined.

"I don't know," confessed Applerod, crestfallen. "I had thought that
he would be more willing to take a sporting chance."

Mr. Johnson snorted. Mr. Applerod, who had never bet two dollars on
any proposition in his life, considered himself very much of a
sporting disposition.

Savagely in love with his new assertiveness Bobby called on Agnes that
evening.

"I saw Mr. Trimmer to-day," she told him. "I don't like him."

"I didn't want you to," he replied with a grin. "You like too many
people now."

"But I'm serious, Bobby," she protested, unconsciously clinging to his
hand as they sat down upon the divan. "I wouldn't enter into any
business arrangements with him. I don't know just what there is about
him that repels me, but--well, I don't _like_ him!"

"Can't say I've fallen in love with him myself," he replied. "But,
Agnes, if a fellow only did business with the men his nearest
women-folks liked, there wouldn't be much business done."

"There wouldn't be so many losses," she retorted.

"Bound to have the last word, of course," he answered, taking refuge
in that old and quite false slur against women in general; for a man
suffers from his spleen if he can not put the quietus on every
argument. "But, honestly, I don't fear Mr. Trimmer. I've been
inquiring into this stock company business. We are each to have stock
in the new company, if we form one, in exact proportion to the
invoices of our respective establishments. Well, the Trimmer concern
can't possibly invoice as much as we shall, and I'll have the majority
of stock, which is the same as holding all the trumps. I had Mr.
Barrister explain all that to me. With the majority of stock you can
have everything your own way, and the other chap can't even protest.
Seems sort of a shame, too."

"I don't like him," declared Agnes.

The ensuing week Bobby spent mostly on the polo match, though he
called religiously at the office every morning, coming down a few
minutes earlier each day. It was an uneasy week, too, as well as a
busy one, fo