"Well, if you must know," stammered Payne, taken out of himself by sheer force of Bobby's manner, "my respected and revered--"

"I see," said Bobby.

"The--the pater is thinking of entering politics next year, and he rather wants an organ."

"And Nick, where's yours?"

"Well," confessed Nick, with no more force of reservation than had Payne when mastery was used upon him, "mother's city property and mine, you know, contains some rather tumbledown buildings that are really good for a number of years yet, but which adverse munic.i.p.al government might--might depreciate in value."

"Just a minute," said Bobby, and he sent for Jolter.

"Ben," he asked, "do you know anything about Mr. Adam Winthrop's political aspirations?"

"I understand he's being groomed for governor," said Jolter.

"Meet his son, Mr. Jolter--Mr. Payne Winthrop. Also Mr. Nick Allstyne.

I suppose Mr. Winthrop is to run on Stone's ticket?" continued Bobby, breaking in upon the formalities as quickly as possible.

"Certainly."

"Payne," said Bobby, "if your father wants to talk with me about the _Bulletin_ he must come himself. Jolter, do you know where the Allstyne properties are?"

Jolter looked at Nick and Nick colored.

"That's rather a blunt question, under the circ.u.mstances, Mr. Burnit,"

said Jolter, "but I don't see why it shouldn't be answered as bluntly.

It's a row of two blocks on the most notorious street of the town, frame shacks that are likely to be the start of a holocaust, any windy night, which will sweep the entire down-town district. They should have been condemned years ago."

"Nick," said Bobby, "I'll give you one month to dispose of that property, because after that length of time I'm going after it."

This was but a sample. Bobby had at last become suspicious, and as old John Burnit had shrewdly observed in one of his letters: "It hurts to acquire suspiciousness, but it is quite necessary; only don't overdo it."

Bobby, however, was in a field where suspiciousness could scarcely be overdone. When any man came to protest or to use influence on Bobby in his fight, Bobby took the bull by the horns, called for Jolter, who was a mine of information upon local affairs, and promptly found out the reason for that man's interest; whereupon he either warned him off or attacked him, and made an average of ten good, healthy enemies a day. He scared Adam Winthrop out of the political race entirely, he made the Allstynes tear down their fire-traps and erect better-paying and consequently more desirable tenements, and he had De Graff and the other involved bankers "staggering in circles and hoa.r.s.ely barking,"

as "Bugs" Roach put it.

So far, Bobby had been subjected to no personal annoyances, but on the day after his first attack on the chief of police he began to be arrested for breaking the speed laws, and fined the limit, even though he drove his car but eight miles an hour, while his news carriers and his employees were "pinched" upon the most trivial pretexts. Libel suits were brought wherever a merchant or an official had a record clear enough to risk such procedure, and three of these suits were decided against him; whereupon Bobby, finding the money chain which bound certain of the judges to Sam Stone, promptly attacked these members of the judiciary and appealed his cases.

His very name became a red rag to every member of Stone's crowd; but up to this point no violence had been offered him. One night, however, as he was driving his own car homeward, men on the watch for him stepped out of an alley mouth two blocks above the Burnit residence and strewed the street thickly with sharp-pointed coil springs. One of these caught a tire, and Bobby, always on the alert for the first sign of such accidents, brought his car to a sudden stop, reached down for his tire-wrench and jumped out. Just as he stooped over to examine the tire, some instinct warned him, and he turned quickly to find three men coming upon him from the alley, the nearest one with an uplifted slung-shot. It was with just a glance from the corner of his eye as he turned that Bobby caught the import of the figure towering above him, and then his fine athletic training came in good stead. With a sidewise spring he was out of the sphere of that descending blow, and, swinging with his heavy wrench, caught the fellow a smash upon the temple which laid him unconscious. Before the two other men had time to think, he was upon them and gave one a broken shoulder-blade. The other escaped. There had been no word from any of the three men which might lead to an explanation of this attack, but Bobby needed no explanation; he divined at once the source from which it came, and in the morning he sent for Biff Bates.

"Biff," said he, "I spoke once about securing some thugs to act as a counter-irritant against Stone, but I have neglected it. How long will it take to get hold of some?"

"Ten minutes, if I wait till dark," replied Biff. "I can go down to the Blue Star, and for ten iron men apiece can get you as fine a bunch of yeggs as ever beat out a cripple's brains with his own wooden leg."

Bobby smiled.

"I don't want them to go quite that far," he objected. "Are they men you can depend upon not to sell out to Stone?"

"Just one way," replied Biff. "The choice line of murderers that hang out down around the levee are half of them sore on Stone, anyhow; but they're afraid of him, and the only way you can use them is to give 'em enough to get 'em out of town. For ten a throw you can buy them body and soul."

"I'll take about four, to start on duty to-night, and stay on duty till they accomplish what I want done," and Bobby detailed his plan to Biff.

Stone had one peculiarity. Knowing that he had enemies, and those among the most reckless cla.s.s in the world, he seldom allowed himself to be caught alone; but every night he held counsel with some of his followers at a certain respectable beer-garden where, in the summer-time, a long table in a quiet, half-screened corner was reserved for him and his followers, and in the winter a back room was given up for the same purpose. Here Stone transacted all the real business of his local organization, drinking beer, reviving strange-looking callers, and confining his own remarks to a grunted yes or no, or a brief direction. Every night at about nine-thirty he rose, yawned, and, unattended, walked back through the beer-garden to the alley, where he stood for some five minutes. This was his retreat for uninterrupted thought, and when he came back from it he had the day's developments summed up and the necessary course of action resolved upon.

On the second night after the attempted a.s.sault upon Bobby he had no sooner closed the alley door behind him than a man sprang upon him from either side, a heavy hand was placed over his mouth, and he was dragged to the ground, where a third brawny thug straddled his chest and showed him a long knife.

"See it?" demanded the man as he pa.s.sed the blade before Stone's eyes.

"It's hungry. You let 'em clip my brother in stir for a three-stretch when you could have saved him with a grunt, and if I wasn't workin'

under orders, in half an hour they'd have you on slab six with ice packed around you and a sheet over you. But we're under orders. We're part of the reform committee, we are," and all three of them laughed silently, "and there's a string of us longer than the Christmas bread-line, all crazy for a piece of this getaway coin. And here's the little message I got to give you. This time you're to go free. Next time you're to have your head beat off. This thuggin' of peaceable citizens has got to be stopped; see?"

A low whistle from a man stationed at the mouth of the alley interrupted the speech which the man with the knife was enjoying so much, and he sprang from the chest of Stone, who had been struggling vainly all this time. As the man sprang up and started to run, he suddenly whirled and gave Stone a vicious kick upon the hip, and as Stone rose, another man kicked him in the ribs. All three of them ran, and Stone, scrambling to his feet with difficulty, whipped his revolver from his pocket and snapped it. Long disused, however, the trigger stuck, but he took after them on foot in spite of the pain of the two fearful kicks that he had received. Instead of darting straight out of the alley, the men turned in at a small gate at the side of a narrow building on the corner, and slammed the gate behind them. He could hear the drop of the wooden bolt. He knew perfectly that entrance. It was to the littered back yard of a cheap saloon, at the side of which ran a narrow pa.s.sageway to the street beyond, where street-cars pa.s.sed every half-minute.

Just as he came furiously up to the gate a policeman darted in at the alley mouth, and, catching the glint of Stone's revolver, whipped his own. He ran quite fearlessly to Stone, and with a dextrous blow upon the wrist sent the revolver spinning.

"You're under arrest," said he.

For just one second he covered his man, then his arm dropped and his jaw opened in astonishment.

"Why, it's Stone!" he exclaimed.

"Yes, d.a.m.n you, it's Stone!" screamed the Boss, livid with fury, and overcome with anger he dealt the policeman a staggering blow in the face. "You d.a.m.ned flat-foot, I'll teach you to notice who you put your hands on! Give me that badge!"

White-faced and with trembling fingers, and with a trickle of blood starting slowly from a cut upon his cheek, the man unfastened his badge.

"Now, go back to Cooley and tell him I broke you," Stone ordered, and turned on his heel.

By the time he reached the back door of the beer-garden he was limping most painfully, but when he rejoined his crowd he said nothing of the incident. In the brief time that it had taken him to go from the alley mouth to that table he had divined the significance of the whole thing. For the first time in his career he knew himself to be a systematically marked man, as he had systematically marked others; and he was not beyond reason. Thereafter, Bobby Burnit was in no more jeopardy from hired thugs, and for a solid year he kept up his fight, with plenty of material to last him for still another twelvemonth. It was a year which improved him in many ways, but Aunt Constance Elliston objected to the improvement.

"Bobby, they _are_ spoiling you," she complained. "They're taking your suavity away from you, and you're acquiring grim, hard lines around your mouth."

"They're making him," declared Agnes, looking fondly across at the firm face and into the clear, unwavering eyes.

Bobby answered the look of Agnes with one that needed no words to interpret, and laughed at Aunt Constance.

"I suppose they are spoiling me," he confessed, "and I'm glad of it.

I'm glad, above all, that I'm losing the sort of suavity which led me to smile and tell a man politely to take it, when he reached his hand into my pocket for my money."

"You'll do," agreed Uncle Dan. "When you took hold of the _Bulletin_, your best friends only gave you two months, But are you making any money?"

Bobby's face clouded.

"Spending it like water. We have practically no advertising, and a larger circulation than I want. We lose money on every copy of the paper that we sell."

Uncle Dan shook his head.

"Is there a chance that you will ever get it back?" he asked.

"Bobby's so used to failure that he doesn't mind," interjected Aunt Constance.