One more monitor Bobby went to see that afternoon, and this was Biff Bates. It required no sending in of cards to enter the presence of this celebrity. One simply stepped out of the elevator and used one’s latch-key. It was so much more convenient. Entering a big, barnlike room he found Mr. Bates, clad only in trunks and canvas shoes, wreaking dire punishment upon a punching-bag merely by way of amusement; and Mr. Bates, with every symptom of joy illuminating his rather horizontal features—wide brows, wide cheek-bone, wide nose, wide mouth, wide chin, wide jaw—stopped to shake hands most enthusiastically with his caller without removing his padded glove.
“What’s the good news, old pal?” he asked huskily.
He was half a head shorter than Bobby and four inches broader across the shoulders, and his neck spread out over all the top of his torso; but there was something in the clear gaze of the eyes which made the two gentlemen look quite alike as they shook hands, vastly different as they were.
“Bad news for you, I’m afraid,” announced Bobby. “That little partnership idea of the big gymnasium will have to be called off for a while.”
Mr. Bates took a contemplative punch or two at the still quivering bag.
“It was a fake, anyway,” he commented, putting his arm around the top of the punching-bag and leaning against it comfortably; “just like this place. You went into partnership with me on this joint—that is, you put up the coin and run in a lot of your friends on me to be trained up—squarest lot of sports I ever saw, too. You fill the place with business and allow me a weekly envelope that makes me tilt my chin till I have to wear my lid down over my eyes to keep it from falling off the back of my head, and when there’s profits to split up you shoves mine into my mitt and puts yours into improvements. You put in the new shower baths and new bars and traps, and the last thing, that swimming-tank back there. I’m glad the big game’s off. I’m so contented now I’m getting over-weight, and you’d bilk me again. But what’s the matter? Did the bookies get you?”
“No; I’ll tell you all about it,” and Bobby carefully explained the terms of his father’s will and what they meant.
Mr. Bates listened carefully, and when the explanation was finished he thought for a long time.
“Well, Bobby,” said he, “here’s where you get it. They’ll shred you clean. You’re too square for that game. Your old man was a fine old sport and he played it on the level, but, say, he could see a marked card clear across a room. They’ll double-cross you, though, to a fare-ye-well.”
The opinion seemed to be unanimous.