He had no sooner left the building than Johnson grabbed Bobby's telephone and called up Barrister.

"This is Johnson," he said to the old attorney. "I have just sent Applerod over to you to buy fifty shares of New Brightlight at par.

Take his check and hold it for delivery of the stock. I'll have it over to you within an hour, or as soon as I can have the transfer made. It is my stock, but I don't want him to know it."

Hanging up the receiver old Johnson sat in the chair by Bobby's desk and his thin shoulders heaved with laughter.

"Applerod will be plumb crazy when he finds that out," he said. "To think that I have fifteen thousand dollars' worth of this good stock that didn't cost me a cent, all paid for with Applerod's own five thousand dollars!"

Johnson laughed so hard that finally he was compelled to lay his head on the desk in front of him, with his lean old fingers over his eyes.

"Thanks to you, Robert; thanks to you," he added after a little silence.

Bobby, turning from the window, saw the thin shoulders still heaving.

There was a glint of moisture on the lean hands that had toiled for so many years in the Burnit service, and as Bobby pa.s.sed he placed his hand on old Johnson's bowed head for just an instant, then went out, leaving Johnson alone.

It was Applerod who, returning triumphantly with Barrister's promise of the precious block of New Brightlight for delivery in the afternoon, brought Bobby a copy of his own paper containing so much startling news that the front page consisted only of a hysteria of head-lines. Sudden proceedings in bankruptcy had been filed against the Consolidated Illuminating and Power Company. These proceedings had revealed the fact that Frank L. Sharpe, supposed to have left the city on business for the company, had in reality disappeared with the entire cash balance of the Consolidated. This disappearance had immediately thrust the Middle West Construction Company into bankruptcy. By Stone's own acts the Stone enterprises had crumpled and fallen, and all his adherents were ruined.

Out of the chaos that the startling facts he was able to glean created in Bobby's mind there came a thought of Ferris, and he immediately telephoned him, out at the site of the new G. E. and W. shops, where ground was already being broken, that he would be out that way.

Half an hour later he took Ferris into his machine and they whirled over to the waterworks site, where the work had stopped as abruptly as if that scene of animation had suddenly been stricken of a plague and died. On the way Bobby explained to Ferris what had happened.

"You were the lowest legitimate bidder on the job, I believe," he concluded.

"Yes, outside of the local company."

"If I were you I'd get busy with Jimmy Platt on an estimate of the work already done," suggested Bobby. "I think it very likely that the city council will offer the Keystone Construction Company the contract at its former figure, with the proper deductions for present progress.

We will make up the difference between their bid and yours, and whatever loss there is in taking up the work will come out of the forfeit put up by the Middle West Company."

Jimmy Platt ran out to meet them like a lost soul. The waterworks project had become his pet. He lived with it and dreamed of it, and that there was a prospect of resuming work, and under such skilful supervision as that of Ferris, delighted him. While Jimmy and Mr.

Ferris went into the office to prepare a basis of estimating, Bobby stayed behind to examine the carbureter of his machine, which had been acting suspiciously on the way out, and while he was engaged in this task a voice that he knew quite well saluted him with:

"Fine work, old pal! I guess you put all your lemons into the squeezer and got the juice, eh?"

Biff had a copy of the _Bulletin_ in his hand, which was sufficient explanation of his congratulations.

"Things do seem to be turning out pretty lucky for me, Biff," Bobby confessed, and then, looking at Mr. Bates, he immediately apologized.

"I beg pardon for calling you Biff," said he. "I should have said Mr.

Bates."

"Cut it!" growled Biff, looking himself over with some complacency nevertheless.

From his nice new derby, which replaced the slouch cap he had always preferred, to his neat and uncomfortably-pointed gun-metal leathers which had supplanted the broad-toed tans, Mr. Bates was an epitome of neatly-pressed grooming. White cuffs edged the sleeves of his gray business suit, and--wonder of wonders!--he wore a white shirt with a white collar, in which there was tied a neat bow of--last wonder of all--modest gray!

"I suppose that costume is due to distinctly feminine influence, eh, Biff?"

"Guilty as Ca.s.sie Chadwick!" replied Biff with a sheepish grin. "She's tryin' to civilize me."

"Who is?" demanded Bobby.

"Oh, _she_ is. You know who I mean. Why, she's even taught me to cut out slang. Say, Bobby, I didn't know how much like a rough-neck I used to talk. I never opened my yawp but what I spilled a line of frica.s.seed gab so twisted and frazzled and shredded you could use it to stuff sofa-cushions; but now I've handed that string of talk the screw number. No more slang for your Uncle Biff."

"I'm glad you have quit it," approved Bobby soberly. "I suppose the next thing I'll hear will be the wedding bells."

"No!" Biff denied in a tone so pained and shocked that Bobby looked up in surprise to see his face gone pale. "Don't talk about that, Bobby.

Why, I wouldn't dare even think of it myself. I--I never think about it. Me? with a mitt like a picnic ham? Did you ever see her hand, Bobby? And her eyes and her hair and all? Why, Bobby, if I'd ever catch myself daring to think about marrying that girl I'd take myself by the Adam's apple and give myself the d.a.m.nedest choking that ever turned a mutt's map purple."

"I'm sorry, after all, that you are through with slang, Biff," said Bobby, "because if you were still using it you might have expressed that idea so much more picturesquely;" but Biff did not hear him, for from the office came Nellie Platt with a sun-hat in her hand.

"Right on time," she said gaily to Biff, and, with a pleasant word for Bobby, went down with Mr. Bates to the river bank, where lay the neat little skiff that Jimmy had bought for her.

Bobby and Ferris and Platt, standing up near the filters, later on, were startled by a scream from the river, and, turning, they saw the skiff, in mid-stream, struck by a pa.s.sing steamer and splintered as if it were made of pasteboard. Nellie had been rowing. Biff had called her attention to the approaching steamer, across the path of which they were pa.s.sing. There had been plenty of time to row out of the way of it, but Nellie in grasping her oar for a quick turn had lost it.

Fortunately the engines had been stopped immediately when the pilot had seen that they must strike, so that there was no appreciable underdrag. Biff's head had been grazed slightly, enough to daze him for an instant, but he held himself up mechanically. Nellie, clogged by her skirts, could not swim, and as Biff got his bearings he saw her close by him going down for the second time. Two men sprang from the lower deck of the steamer, but Biff reached her first, and, his senses instantly clearing as he caught her, he struck out for the sh.o.r.e.

The three men on sh.o.r.e immediately ran down the bank, and sprang into the water to help Biff out with his burden. He was pale, but strangely cool and collected.

"Don't go at it that way!" he called to them savagely, knowing neither friend nor foe in this emergency. "Get her loosened up someway, can't you?"

Without waiting on them, Biff ripped a knife from his pocket, opened it and slit through waist and skirt-band and whatever else intervened, to her corset, which he opened with big fingers, the sudden deftness of which was marvelous. Directing them with crisp, sharp commands, he guided them through the first steps toward resuscitation, and then began the slow, careful pumping of the arms that should force breath back into the closed lungs.

For twenty minutes, each of which seemed interminable, Jimmy and Biff worked, one on either side of her, Biff's face set, cold, expressionless, until at last there was a flutter of the eyelids, a cry of distress as the lungs took up their interrupted function, then the sharp, hissing sound of the intake and outgo of natural, though labored, breath; then Nellie Platt opened her big, brown eyes and gazed up into the gray ones of Biff Bates. She faintly smiled; then Biff did a thing that he had never done before in his mature life. He suddenly broke down and cried aloud, sobbing in great sobs that shook him from head to foot and that hurt him, as they tore from his throat, as the first breath of new life had hurt Nellie Platt; and, seeing and understanding, she raised up one weak arm and slipped it about his neck.

It was about a week after this occurrence when Silas Trimmer, coming back from lunch to attend the annual stock-holders' meeting of Trimmer and Company, stopped on the sidewalk to inspect, with some curiosity, a strange, boxlike-looking structure which leaned face downward upon the edge of the curbing. It was three feet wide and full sixty feet long. He stooped and tried to tilt it up, but it was too heavy for his enfeebled frame, and with another curious glance at it he went into the store.

The meeting was set for half-past two. It was now scarcely two, and yet, when he opened the door of his private office, which had been set apart for that day's meeting, he was surprised at the number of people he found in the room. A quick recognition of them mystified him the more. They were Bobby Burnit and Agnes, Johnson, Applerod and Chalmers.

"I came a little early, Mr. Trimmer," said Bobby, in a polite conversational tone, "to have these three hundred shares transferred upon the books of Trimmer and Company, before the stock-holders'

meeting convenes."

"What shares are they?" inquired Silas in a voice grown strangely shrill and metallic.

"The stock that was previously controlled by your son-in-law, Mr.

Clarence Smythe. Miss Elliston bought them last week from your daughter, with the full consent of your son-in-law."

"The dog!" Trimmer managed to gasp, and his fingers clutched convulsively.

"Possibly," admitted Bobby dryly. "At any rate he has had to leave town, and I do not think you will be bothered with him any more. In the meantime, Mr. Trimmer, I'd like to call your attention to a few very interesting figures. When you urged me, four years ago, to consolidate the John Burnit and Trimmer and Company Stores, my father's business was appraised at two hundred and sixty thousand dollars and yours at two hundred and forty. On your suggestion we took in sixty thousand dollars of additional capital. I did not know as much at that time as I do now, and I let you sell this stock where you could control it, virtually giving you three thousand shares to my two thousand six hundred. You froze me out, elected your own board, made yourself manager at an enormous salary, and voted your son-in-law another one so ridiculous that it was put out of all possibility for my stock ever to yield any dividends. All right, Mr. Trimmer. With the purchase of this three hundred shares I now control two thousand nine hundred shares and you two thousand seven hundred. I presume I don't need to tell you what is going to happen in today's meeting."

To this Silas returned no answer.

"I am an old man," he muttered to himself as one suddenly stricken. "I am an old, old man."

"I am going to oust you," continued Bobby, "and to oust all your relatives from their fat positions; and I am going to elect myself to everything worth while. I have brought Mr. Johnson with me to inspect your books, and Mr. Chalmers to take charge of certain legal matters connected with the concern immediately after the close of to-day's meeting. I am going to restore Applerod to his position here from which you so unceremoniously discharged him, and make Johnson general manager of this and all my affairs. I understand that your stock in this concern is mortgaged, and that you will be utterly unable to redeem it. I intend to buy it and practically own the entire company myself. Are there any questions you would like to ask, Mr. Trimmer?"

There was none. Silas, crushed and dazed and pitiable, only moaned that he was an old man; that he was an old, old man.

Bobby felt the gentle pressure of Agnes' hand upon his arm. There was a moment of silence.

Trimmer looked around at them piteously. Once more Bobby felt that touch upon his sleeve. Understanding, he went over to Silas and took him gently by the arm.