“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.”
Here again was insidious flattery, the insinuation that Bobby must be thoroughly aware of “the business methods of the times.”
“Of course, the idea is new to me,” said Bobby, assuming as best he could the air of business reserve which seemed appropriate to the occasion; “but I should say, in a general way, that I should not care to give up the identity of the John Burnit Store.”
“That is a fine and a proper spirit,” agreed Mr. Trimmer, with great enthusiasm. “I like to see it in a young man, but I’ve no doubt that we can arrange that little matter. Of course, we would have to incorporate, say, as the Burnit-Trimmer Mercantile Corporation, but while having that name on the front of both buildings, it might not be a bad idea, for business as well as sentimental reasons, to keep the old signs at the tops of both, just as they now are. Those are little details to discuss later; but as the stock of the new company, based upon the present invoice values of our respective concerns, would be practically all in your hands and mine, this would be a very amicable and easily arranged matter. I tell you, Mr. Burnit, this is a tremendous plan, attractive to the public and immensely profitable to us, and I do not know of anything you could do that would so well as this show you to be a worthy successor to John Burnit; for, of course, it would scarcely be a credit to you to carry on your father’s business without change or advance.”
It was the best and the most crafty argument Mr. Trimmer had used, and Bobby carried away from the Traders’ Club a glowing impression of this point. His father had built up this big business by his own unaided efforts. Should Bobby leave that legacy just where he had found it, or should he carry it on to still greater heights? The answer was obvious.