It was the last that Bobby ever saw of him, and all that the Bulletin carried about his flight was the “fact,” not at all too prominently displayed for the man’s importance as a public figure, that Stone’s health was in jeopardy and that he was about to take an ocean voyage upon the advice of his physician; and on that day Stone’s picture disappeared from the place it had occupied upon the front page of the Bulletin.
It was a victory complete and final, but it was not without its sting, for on that same day Bobby faced an empty exchequer. It was Johnson who brought him the sad but not at all unexpected tidings, at a moment when Chalmers and Agnes happened to be in the office. Seeing them, Johnson hesitated at the door.
“What is it, Johnson?” asked Bobby.
“Oh, nothing much,” said Mr. Johnson with a pained expression. “I’ll come back again.”
He had a sheet of paper with him and Bobby held out his hand for it. Still hesitating, old Johnson brought it forward and laid it down on Bobby’s desk.
“You know you told me, sir, to bring this to you.”
Had the others not been present he would have added the reminder that he had been instructed to bring this statement a week in advance of the time when Bobby should no longer be able to meet his payroll. Bobby looked up from the statement without any thought of reserve before these three.
“Well, it’s come. I’m broke.”
“Not so much a calamity in this instance as it has been in others,” said Agnes sagely. “Fortunately, your trustee is right here, and your trustee’s lawyer, who has two hundred and fifty thousand dollars still to your account.”
Bobby listened in frowning silence, and old Johnson, who had prepared himself before he came upstairs for such a contingency, quietly laid upon Bobby’s desk one of the familiar gray envelopes and withdrew. It was inscribed: