“No!” cried Bobby angrily, and sprang to his feet, his anger confused, moreover, by the shock of finding unsuspected wolves tearing at his vitals. “Gentlemen, I protest against this action! I——”
Mr. Trimmer pounded on the table with his pencil in lieu of a gavel.
“The motion is carried. Any other business?”
It seemed that there was. Mr. Harvey proposed that Mr. Smythe be made assistant general manager at a salary of twenty-five thousand dollars per year. Again the farce of a ballot and the farce of a protest was enacted. Where now was the voting power of Bobby’s twenty-six hundred shares? In the directors’ meeting they voted as individuals, and they were six against one. Rather indifferently, as if the thing did not amount to much, Mr. Smythe proposed that the selection of a firm name for advertising and publicity purposes be left to the manager, and though Bobby voted no as to this proposition on general principles, it seemed of minor importance, in his then bewildered state of mind. After all, the thing which grieved him most just then was to find that people could do these things!
CHAPTER VI
CONSISTING ENTIRELY OF A RAPID SUCCESSION OF MOST PAINFUL SHOCKS
He was still dazed with what had happened, when, the next morning, he turned into the office and found Johnson and Applerod packing-up their personal effects. Workmen were removing letter-files and taking desks out of the door.
“What’s the matter?” he asked, surveying the unwonted confusion in perplexity.
“The entire office force of the now defunct John Burnit Store has been dismissed, that’s all!” blurted Applerod, now the aggrieved one. “You sold us out, lock, stock and barrel!”
“Impossible!” gasped Bobby.