"To tell you the truth, Mr. Burnit," said he, "I have not seen it. I never in all my life saw a place where there were so many interruptions to work. If we could only be back in your father's store, sir." "We'll be back there before we quit," said Bobby confidently; "or I'll be in the incurable ward." "I hope so, sir," said Johnson dismally, and strode across the street to catch his car; but he came back hastily to add: "I meant about the store; not about the asylum." Biff Bates laughed as he clambered into the tonneau with Bobby. "If you'd make a billion dollars, Bobby, but didn't get back your father's business that Silas Trimmer snaked away from you, Johnson would think you'd overlooked the one best bet." "So would I," said Bobby soberly, and he had but very little more to say until the chauffeur stopped at Bobby's own door, where puffy old Applerod, who had been next to Johnson in his usefulness to old John Burnit, stood nervously awaiting him on the steps. "Terrible, sir! Terrible!" spluttered Applerod the moment he caught sight of Bobby. "This open defiance of Mr. Stone will put entirely out of existence what little there is left of the Brightlight Electric Company." "Cheer up, Applerod, for death must come to us all," encouraged Bobby. "Such shreds and fragments of the Brightlight as there are left would have been wiped out anyhow; and frankly, if you must have it, I put you in there as general manager, when I shifted Johnson to the _Bulletin_ this morning, because there was nothing to manage." Applerod threw up his hands in dismay. "And there will be less. Oh, Mr. Burnit, if your father were only here!" Bobby, whose suavity Applerod had never before seen ruffled, turned upon him angrily. "I'm tired hearing about my father, Applerod," he declared. "I revere the governor's memory too much to want to be made angry by the mention of his name. Hereafter, kindly catch the idea, if you can, that I am my own man and must work out my own salvation; and I propose to do it! Biff, you don't mind if I put off seeing you until to-morrow? 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."