Trimmer pounded on the table with his pencil in lieu of a gavel.

"The motion is carried. Any other business?"

It seemed that there was. Mr. Harvey proposed that Mr. Smythe be made
assistant general manager at a salary of twenty-five thousand dollars
per year. Again the farce of a ballot and the farce of a protest was
enacted. Where now was the voting power of Bobby's twenty-six hundred
shares? In the directors' meeting they voted as individuals, and they
were six against one. Rather indifferently, as if the thing did not
amount to much, Mr. Smythe proposed that the selection of a firm name
for advertising and publicity purposes be left to the manager, and
though Bobby voted no as to this proposition on general principles, it
seemed of minor importance, in his then bewildered state of mind.
After all, the thing which grieved him most just then was to find that
people _could_ do these things!

CHAPTER VI

CONSISTING ENTIRELY OF A RAPID SUCCESSION OF MOST PAINFUL SHOCKS

He was still dazed with what had happened, when, the next morning, he
turned into the office and found Johnson and Applerod packing-up their
personal effects. Workmen were removing letter-files and taking desks
out of the door.

"What's the matter?" he asked, surveying the unwonted confusion in
perplexity.

"The entire office force of the now defunct John Burnit Store has been
dismissed, that's all!" blurted Applerod, now the aggrieved one. "You
sold us out, lock, stock and barrel!"

"Impossible!" gasped Bobby.

Mr. Johnson glumly showed him curt letters of dismissal from Trimmer.

"Where's mine, I wonder?" inquired Bobby, trying to take his terrific
defeat with sportsmanlike nonchalance.

"I don't suppose there is any for you, sir, inasmuch as you never had
a recognized position to lose," replied Johnson, not unkindly. "Did
the board of directors elect you to any salaried office?"

"Why, so they didn't!" exclaimed Bobby, and for the first time
realized that no place had been made for him. He had taken it as a
matter of course that he was to be a part of the consolidation, and
the omission of any definite provision for him had passed unnoticed.

The door leading to his own private office banged open, and two men
appeared, shoving through it the big mahogany desk turned edgewise.

"What are they doing?" Bobby asked sharply.

"Moving out all the furniture," snapped Applerod with bitter relish.
"All the office work, I understand,