The Making of Bobby Burnit

It was pretty, in the succeeding days, to see Agnes poring over advertisements and writing down long lists of suggested enterprises for investigation, enterprises which proved in every case to be in the midst of an already too thickly contested field, or to be hampered by monopoly, or subject to some other vital drawback. There seemed to be a strange dearth of safe and suitable commercial ventures, a fact over which Bobby and Agnes together puzzled almost nightly. There was to be no false start this time; no stumbling in the middle of the race; no third failure. The third time was to be the charm. And yet too much time must not be wasted. They both began to feel rather worried about this.

Of course, there was a letter, in the familiar gray envelope. It had been handed to Bobby by Johnson upon the day the second check for two hundred and fifty thousand had been paid over by Chalmers upon Agnes' order, and it read: