CHAPTER IX AGNES DELIVERS BOBBY A NOTE FROM OLD JOHN BURNIT IN A GRAY ENVELOPE
I have a fuss to pick with you, young man, he said with clumsy joviality. You beat me upon the purchase of that Westmarsh property. Very shrewd, indeed, Mr. Burnit; very like your father. I suppose that now, if I wanted to buy it from you, Id have to pay you a pretty advance. And he rubbed his hands as if to invite the opening of negotiations.
It is not for sale, said Bobby, stiffening; but I might consider a proposition to buy your eight acres. He offered this suggestion with reluctance, for he had no mind to enter transactions of any sort with Silas Trimmer. Still, he recalled to himself with a sudden yielding to duty, business is business, and his father would probably have waved all personal considerations aside at such a point.
Mine is for sale, offered Silas, a trifle too eagerly, Bobby thought.
How much? he asked.
A thousand dollars an acre.
I wont pay it, declared Bobby.
Well, replied Mr. Trimmer with a deepening of that circular smile which Bobby now felt sure was maliciously sarcastic, by the time it is drained it will be worth that to any purchaser.
Suppose we drain it, suggested Bobby, holding both his temper and his business object remarkably well in hand. Will you stand your share of the cost?
It strikes me as an entirely unnecessary expense at present, said Silas and smiled again.
Then it wont be drained, snapped Bobby.
Later in the evening he caught Silas laughing at him, his shoulders heaving and every yellow fang protruding. The next morning, keeping earlier hours than ever before in his life, Bobby was waiting outside Jimmy Platts door when that gentleman started to work.
The first thing you do, he directed, still with a memory of that aggravating
laugh, I want you to build a cement wall straight across the north end of my Westmarsh property.
Mr. Platt smiled and shook his head.
Evidently you can not buy that north eight acres, and dont intend to drain it, he commented, stroking sagely the sparse beginning of those slow professional whiskers. Its your affair, of course, Mr. Burnit, but I am quite sure that spite work in engineering can not be made to pay.
Nevertheless, insisted Bobby, well build that wall.
The previous afternoon Jimmy Platt had made a scale drawing of the property from city surveys, and now the two went over it carefully, discussing it in various phases for fully an hour, proving estimates of cost and general feasibility. At the conclusion of that time Bobby, well pleased with his own practical manner of looking into things, telephoned to Johnson and asked for Applerod. Mr. Applerod had not yet arrived.
Very well, said Bobby, when he comes have him step out and secure suitable offices for us, and this detail despatched he went out with his engineer to make a circuit of the property and study its drainage possibilities.
From profiles that Platt had made they found the swamp at its upper point to be much lower than the level of the river, which ran beyond low hills nearly a mile away; but the river made a detour, including a considerable fall, coming back again to within a scant half-mile of the southern end of the tract, where it was much lower than the marsh. Between marsh and river at the south was an immense hill, too steep and rugged for any practical purpose, and this they scaled.
The west end of the city lay before them crowding close to the river bank, and already its tentacles had crept around and over the hills and on past Westmarsh tract. Young Platt looked from river to swamp, his eyes glowing over the possibilities that lay before them.
Mr. Burnit, he announced, after a gravity of thought which he strove his best to make take the place of experience, you ought to be able to buy this hill very cheaply. Just through here well construct our drainage channel, and with the excavation fill your marsh. It is one of the neatest opportunities I have ever seen, and I want to congratulate you upon your shrewdness in having picked out such a splendid investment.
This, Bobby felt, was praise from Cæsar, and he was correspondingly elated.
He did not return to the study until in the afternoon. He found Johnson livid with abhorrence of Applerods gaudy metamorphosis. That gentleman wore a black frock-coat, a flowered gray waistcoat, pin-striped light trousers, shining new shoes, sported a gold-headed cane, and on the table was the glistening new silk hat which had reposed upon his snow-white curls. His pink face was beaming as he rose to greet his partner.
Mr. Burnit, said he, shaking hands with almost trembling gravity and importance, this day is the apex of my life, and Im happy to have the son of my old and revered employer as my partner.
I hope that it may prove fortunate for both of us, replied Bobby, repressing his smile at the acquisition of the make-up which Applerod had for years aspired to wear legitimately.
Johnson, humped over the desk that had once been Bobbys fathers, snorted and looked up at the stern portrait of old John Burnit; then he drew from the index-file which he had already placed upon the back of that desk a gray-tinted envelope which he handed to Bobby with a silence that was more eloquent than words. It was inscribed: