Johnson turned to Applerod with a snarl.
Mr. Applerod, said he, you know that I almost never swear. I am now about to do so. Darn it! Its a shame that Trimmer calls here again on that old scheme about which he deviled this house for years, and we forbidden to give Mr. Robert a word of advice unless he asks for it.
Why is it a shame? demanded Applerod. I always have thought that Trimmers plan was a great one.
So, all unprepared, Bobby went forth that evening, to become acquainted with the great plan.
At the restless Traders Club, where the precise corridors and columns and walls and ceilings of white marble were indicative of great formality, men with creases in their brows wore their derbies on the backs of their heads and ceaselessly talked shop. Mr. Trimmer, more creased of brow than any of them, was drifting from group to group with his eyes turned anxiously toward the door until Bobby came in. Mr. Trimmer was most effusively glad to see the son of his old friend once again, and lost no time in seating him at a most secluded table, where, by the time the oysters came on, he was deep in a catalogue of the virtues of John Burnit; and Bobby, with a very real and a very deep affection for his father which seldom found expression in words, grew restive. One thing held him, aside from his obligations as a guest. He was convinced now that his hosts kindness was in truth a mere graceful act of welcome, due largely to his fathers standing, and the idea flattered him very much. He strove to look as businesslike as possible, and thought again and again upon his father; of how he had sat day after day in this stately dining-hall, honored and venerated among these men who were striving still for the ideal that he had attained. It was a good thought, and made for pride of the right sort. With the entrée Mr. Trimmer ordered his favorite vintage champagne, and, as it boiled up like molten amber in the glasses, so sturdily that the center of the surface kept constantly a full quarter of an inch above the sides, he waited anxiously for Bobby to sample it. Even Bobby, long since disillusioned of such things and grown abstemious from healthy choice, after a critical taste sipped slowly again and again.
Thats ripping good wine, he acknowledged.
Theres only a little over two hundred bottles of it left in the world, Mr. Trimmer assured him, and then he waited for that first glass to exert its warming glow. He was a good waiter, was Silas Trimmer, and keenly sensitive to personal influences. He knew that Bobby had not been in entire harmony with him at any period of the evening, but after the roast came on a most careful roast, indeed, prepared under a certain formula upon which Mr. Trimmer had painstakingly insisted he saw that he had really found his way for a moment to Bobbys heart through the channel provided by Nature for attacks upon masculine sympathy, and at that moment he leaned forward with his circular smile, and observed:
By the way, Mr. Burnit, I suppose your father often discussed with you the great plan we evolved for the Burnit-Trimmer Arcade?
Bobby almost blushed at the confession he must make.
Im sorry to say that he didnt, he owned. I never took the interest in such things that I ought, and so I missed a lot of confidences Id like to have had now.
Too bad, sympathized Mr. Trimmer, now quite sure of his ground, since he had found that Bobby was not posted. It was a splendid plan we had. You know,
your building and mine are precisely the same width and precisely in a line with each other, back to back, with only the alley separating us, the Trimmer establishment fronting on Market Street and the Burnit building on Grand. The alley is fully five feet below our two floor lines, and we could, I am quite sure, get permission to bridge it at a clearance of not to exceed twelve feet. By raising the rear departments of your store and of mine a foot or so, and then building a flight of broad, easy steps up and down, we could almost conceal the presence of this bridge from the inside, and make one immense establishment running straight through from Grand to Market Streets. The floors above the first, of course, would bridge over absolutely level, and the combined stores would comprise by far the largest establishment in the city. Of course, the advantage of it from an advertising standpoint alone would be well worth while.
Bobby could instantly see the almost interminable length of store area thus presented, and it appealed to his sense of big things at once.
What did father say about this? he asked.
Thought it a brilliant idea, glibly returned Mr. Trimmer. In fact, I think it was he who first suggested such a possibility, seeing very clearly the increased trade and the increased profits that would accrue from such an extension, which would, in fact, be simply the doubling of our already big stores without additional capitalization. We worked out two or three plans for the consolidation, but in the later years your father was very slow about making actual extensions or alterations in his merchandising business, preferring to expend his energies on his successful outside enterprises. I feel sure, however, that he would have come to it in time, for the development is so logical, so much in keeping with the business methods of the times.