Joan and Co.

Dicky led his father through the outer office of Toole & Co. and out to the street. The man bore heavily on his arm. In spite of that Dicky said, “I guess we’d better walk a little.” So he led him for the matter of a block or so in the noonday sunshine before calling a taxi.

“It’s a good day for golf,” said Dicky. “If it’s like this to-morrow I guess we’ll have to take our first lesson.”

Burnett senior lifted his heavy head a moment. “Son,” he said, “did you understand what I told you?”

“Sure,” answered Dicky. “You said they had done you up.”

“I’ve lost everything—everything and more.”

“Well, forget it,” replied Dicky cheerfully. “It was only a question of time, anyway. Just as well to have it done quickly and over with. I’ll bet Toole has a sore spot in the neighborhood of the pit of his stomach.”

“But, Dicky—you don’t understand yet,” faltered Burnett.

“You played and lost—isn’t that all there is to it?”

“I drew all I had from the bank, I tell you. And I’m short two hundred thousand.”

“Just so. We’ll have to raise that on the house and business. I’ll attend to that later. The thing for you to do now is to come home and see mother. You’ve done enough for one day.”

Burnett cringed.

“What can I say to her!” he exclaimed.

“Tell her the truth, that’s all,” answered Dicky. “You don’t need to worry about her.”

Burnett stumbled.

“Put your weight on my arm,” said Dicky. But at the same time he raised his finger to a passing taxi, and as it drew up to the walk helped his father in. The man slumped into the corner like some lifeless thing.

“Come,” warned Dicky, “this won’t do. We can’t let mother see us like this. She’ll think something really serious has happened.”

Burnett groaned.

“It—it will kill her.”

“What will kill her?” demanded Dicky.

“Good Lord!” snapped Burnett, “don’t you understand yet? I’m bankrupt, I tell you.”

Dicky placed his hand gently on his father’s shoulder.

“That’s the stuff,” he encouraged. “You got some of the old ring in your voice that time. Buck up and keep it there. There’s a good old sport down deep in you and that’s the man we’ve got to show mother. I’ll miss my guess if she cares two straws whether you’ve lost your money or not, but if she finds you’ve lost your nerve—she’ll take that hard. She’s come sort of to depend on that.”

Burnett pulled himself together and sat up. He met his son’s eyes.

“Forty years of labor gone in a forenoon. It’s a whole lot lost, son.”

“A whole lot of money,” nodded Dicky. “They certainly trimmed you good. But after all, they didn’t get the best part of that forty years. Even Toole couldn’t reach that. It’s up to you to save the rest.”

“The rest?”

“The fun you had piling it up—even the fun you had gambling with it.”

“Eh?”

“You had your hour,” grinned Dicky.

“It pulled the heart out of me.”

“I don’t believe it. Just now you’re feeling the reaction. But you’ll get over that in a day or two, and it may be the making of you. You’ve been working too hard for a year. The business has been taking out of you little by little all that makes life worth living. It has been eating into your health and your time. Now old Dr. Toole has remedied all that. Sort of heroic treatment, but maybe that’s what you needed. You wouldn’t listen to anything I said.”

“You—you mean about the pumpkin pie?”

“That’s one thing,” admitted Dicky. “Then about golf—”

“Damn golf!” growled Burnett.

“Steady there,” warned Dicky. “You’re going to have time now for that—you and mother. I have a notion it would do her good too.”

“How do you figure I’m going to have time?” demanded Burnett.

“With no business to attend to—”

“Eh?” choked Burnett.

“If you’re in as bad as you say you are, you’ll have to cash in all your assets, won’t you?”

“The business?” Burnett’s fists clenched. For a second his old fighting face came back. “We’ll have to pull that out somehow,” he said, as though to himself. “Good Lord! Why, Dicky, what would become of you? I built that up for you. I—I tried to double what I had for you—for you and for her.”

Dicky turned swiftly.

“You what?”

“It was for you and the princess,” said Burnett. “I—I wanted to make you worth while for her.”

Dicky caught his breath.

“For me and the princess,” he repeated. Then in the cab he felt for his father’s hand. “You took that chance for me and her?”

“You said you weren’t worth enough for her. So—”

Dicky had to gulp hard once or twice. Then his fingers closed over his father’s fingers.

“You old brick,” he trembled. “But I—I didn’t mean it that way. If I had forty million it would be just the same. But it’s worth to me what you lost to know what you lost it for.”

“Only if I’d won!” exclaimed Burnett.

“We might all be worse off than we are now,” declared Dicky. “Anyhow, that chance has gone and so—” The cab had stopped before the door. “The thing for us both to do is to be good sports before mother. Are you game?”

“Right,” nodded Burnett.

It was the clasp of the boy’s hand that had given him a new lease of life. He had expected the latter to take it hard, but instead of that he had seen a flash of something in his eyes he had never seen there before. He went into the house still leaning heavily on Dicky’s arm, but with his head up.

The mere fact that the two were returning home to lunch was in itself enough to arouse Mrs. Burnett’s suspicions. But she did not need even that clue. Her quick, tender eyes had studied her husband’s face too many years to be fooled by any acting he might attempt, or any acting Dicky might attempt either. She came down hurriedly from upstairs the moment she heard their voices and confronted them at once with the question, “What’s the matter?”

“Dad and I just thought we’d surprise you by coming home to lunch,” replied Dicky.

“What’s the matter?” she repeated.

“Why—er—”

It was easier said than done, this telling her the truth. Dicky turned to his father, but the latter only raised appealing eyes to him. She looked very frail at that moment.

“Something has happened!” she exclaimed. “Tell me, Dicky.”

“Why, it isn’t anything to get frightened over.” Dicky stumbled on, “Dad here—well, he took a shot at the market and lost.”

“Everything,” put in Burnett, as though anxious to make a clean sweep of it at once.

Mrs. Burnett relaxed instantly.

“Is—is that all?” she answered. She stepped to her husband’s side. His head was beginning to droop again. “Why,” she exclaimed, “I thought it was something terrible. I thought you had had a shock.”

Dicky grinned as he slapped his father’s back. “What did I tell you?” he demanded. “Isn’t she the old sport?”

“Mother,” said Burnett, “they cleaned me out.”

“Didn’t leave him a shoestring,” nodded Dicky. “Can you beat it?”

Shyly she tucked her hand within her husband’s.

“As long as they didn’t take you, Joshua,” she trembled.

“I guess it would have been better if they had,” he answered.

“Hush,” she whispered as she led him into the sitting-room.

And Dicky with a load off his shoulders backed her up now enthusiastically.

“It’s going to leave him time to enjoy life a little, eh? As soon as you begin to get out and exercise, you can eat all the pumpkin pie you want, Dad. It’s the men who sit around in offices that have to be careful of their diet. If you could have seen the way at Palm Beach some of those old codgers fed up after a round of golf in the morning, you’d have envied them. Got anything to eat in the house, Mother?”

“I guess we can find something,” she smiled.

“I’ve had a strenuous morning,” he explained. “You take care of dad while I go upstairs a moment.”

He went up the stairs two at a time, and entering his room was careful to close the door behind him. Then he sat down before the telephone and called up the offices of the Burnett Manufacturing Company.

“I want to talk with Forsythe,” he announced. He scarcely recognized the man’s voice as he answered. “I just wanted to tell you to hold off on that new deal for a day or two,” he began.

“I wanted to talk that over with your father at once,” answered Forsythe. “It didn’t go through the way I thought it would. Where is Mr. Burnett?”

“He’s at home,” replied Dicky. “He’s going to stay at home for a while.”

“Can I see him at the house?”

“No,” said Dicky.

“But look here—this is serious. I spoke of twenty-five thousand. It looks now as though we might have to raise four times that.”

“Eh?”

“We’ve got to buy that new process, no matter what it costs. If we don’t we’ll be put out of business in six months.”

Dicky passed his hand over his forehead.

“That so?”

“I’ve got to talk it over with your father, I tell you. Every day we wait is going to make it harder.”

“A hundred thousand dollars, you said?”

“Perhaps more. The point is, we’ve got to have it.”

“Look here, Forsythe,” began Dicky, “that’s a lot of money under the present circumstances.”

“The present circumstances?” inquired Forsythe.

“The fact is, dad has got in kind of bad on the market.”

“Good God!” choked Forsythe.

“I’m going to see his lawyer as soon as I can get away, but, to speak frankly, it looks bad. Your friend Toole led him into deep water.”

“You mean—”

“It will take about all he has to square himself. I haven’t been able to go into details with him yet, but I guess there isn’t much doubt he’ll have to scrape together every cent he can raise in and out of the business.”

“He—he’s bankrupt?”

“Practically.”

“Then he’ll drag us all down!”

Dicky resented the tone of his voice.

“Whom do you mean by all of us?”

“You and me and—why, he was a damn fool!”

“Look here, Forsythe!”

“I mean it,” Forsythe ran on wildly. “If he had held off another week—”

“I’d cut out that kind of talk if I were you.”

“I backed him with every cent I had in the world. I have a right to talk. I—”

But at this point Dicky quite unceremoniously hung up the receiver. There was not much use in talking over the telephone to a man in his condition. And to tell the truth, he was not in the slightest sorry for him. He had never liked the man. The way he wore his hair was against him, and his friends Toole and the others were against him.