George Randolph Chester

“ What is it you want?”
“As I said before, not very much,” declared Bobby. “I only want to grind your machine into powder. I want to dig up the rotten municipal control of this city, root and branch. I want to ferret out every bit of crookedness in which you have been concerned, and every bit that you have caused. I want to uncover every man, high or low, for just what he is, and I don’t care how well protected he is nor how shining his reputation, if he’s concerned in a crooked deal I’m going after him—”
“There won’t be many of us left,” Stone interrupted with a smile. ”

“ Don’t you trust anybody any more?”
“Oh, yes,” replied Bobby easily; “but only when it is necessary.”
Agnes smiled across at him in calm content. She had but very little to say now. She was in that blissful happiness that comes to any woman when the man most in her mind is reaping his meed of success from a long and hard-fought battle.
“Spoken like your father, Bobby,” laughed Uncle Dan. “You’re coming to look more and more like him every day. You talk like him and act like him. You have the same snap of your jaws. Your father, however, never dabbled in politics. ”

“ Upon the stage, chattering in shrill voices, were the forty members of the company, still in their queer clothing, while down in front, where shaded lights—seeming dull and discouraged amid all the surrounding darkness—streamed upon the music, were the members of the orchestra, chattering just as volubly. The general note was quite different in pitch from the one Bobby had heard that morning, for since he had seen them the members of the organization had been fed, and life looked cheerful. ”

“ A slenderly-built young man, whose red face needed a shave and whose clothes, though wrinkled and unbrushed, shrieked of quality, came stumbling up the stairs in such hot haste as was possible in his condition, and without ceremony or announcement burst into the room where Bobby Burnit, with that day’s issue of the Bulletin spread out before him, was trying earnestly to get a professional idea of the proper contents of a newspaper. ”

“ Humbly Bobby was ready to confess that Agnes had more brains and good common sense than anybody, and was altogether about the most loyal and dependable person in all the world, with the single and sole exception of allowing that splendid looking and unknown chap to hang around her so. They were in the congested down-town district now, and as they came to a dead stop at a crossing, Bobby, though immersed in thought, became aware of a short, thick-set man, who, standing at the very edge of the car, was apparently trying to stare him out of countenance. ”

“ The confusion of tongues must have been a very tame and quiet affair as compared to the polyglot chattering which burst upon Bobby’s ears when he entered the small lobby of the Hotel Larken. The male members of the Neapolitan Grand Opera Company, almost to a man, were smoking cigarettes. There were swarthy little men and swarthy big men, there seeming to be no medium sizes among them, while the women were the most wooden-featured lot that Bobby had ever encountered, and the entire crowd was swathed in gay but dingy clothing of the most nondescript nature. ”

“ He said this so self-confidently that Agnes laughed.
“Yes,” she admitted, “you are convinced that Silas Trimmer is a thief and a rascal, and you would not take his word for anything. You are convinced that Applerod’s judgment is useless and that your own does not amount to much, but I still believe that the next plausible looking and plausible talking man who comes to you can engage you in any business that seems fair on the surface.” ”

“ To these latter he took great satisfaction in displaying the gem of his collection of post-mortem letters from old John Burnit:
“You don’t need to go away from home to be skinned; moreover, it isn’t patriotic.”
That usually stopped them. He was growing quite sophisticated, was Bobby, quite able to discern the claws beneath the velvet paw, quite suspicious of all the ingenious gentlemen who wanted to make a fortune for him; and their frantic attempts to “get his goat,” as Biff Bates expressed it, had become as good as a play to this wise young person, as also to the wise young person’s trustee. ”

“ It was a tight race to the plant, and there, with Biff not more than two arms’ length behind him, Ripley jerked at a lever hitherto untouched, and instantly the place was plunged into complete darkness.
“There!” screamed Ripley.
A second later Biff had grappled him, and together they went to the floor. It was only a moment that the darkness lasted, however, for tall Tom Daly stood by the replaced switch, looking down at them in quiet joy. Immediately with the turning on of the light Biff scrambled to his feet like a cat and waited for Ripley to rise. ”

“ The Idlers’ Club was the one institution that stood in no awe of the notorious “boss” of the city and of the state; a man who had never held an office, but who, until the past two years, had controlled all offices; whose methods were openly dishonest; who held underground control of every public utility and a score of private enterprises. The idea of Stone as an applicant for membership in the Idlers’ Club was a good joke, but the actual application of Sharpe was too serious for jesting. Nevertheless, all this turmoil over the mere name of the man worked a strange reaction in Bobby Burnit. ”

“ When the manipulators of public service corporations tire of skinning the dear public in bulk, they skin individual specimens just to keep in practice. If you have been fool enough to get into the crowd that invokes the aid of dirty politics to help it hang people on street-car straps, just write them out a check for whatever money you have left, and tell your trustee you are broke again; because you are not and never can be of their stripe, and if you are not of their stripe they will pick your bones. ”

“ Bobby confessed. “You must remember that the city hasn’t room to grow, and must take note that it is trying to spread in this direction. Wouldn’t a fellow be doing a rather public-spirited thing, and one in which he might take quite a bit of satisfaction, if he drained that swamp, filled it, laid out streets and turned the whole stretch into a cluster of homes in place of a breeding-place for fevers?” ”

“ Both the taker and the giver of a bribe, even when it is called ‘preferment,’ are like dogs with fleas; they yelp in their sleep; only the man gets callous after a while and the dog doesn’t. Whoever the fellow is that’s trying to buy your self-respect, go soak him in the eye, and pay your fine.”
“For once I agree most heartily with the governor,” said Bobby, and as a result he did not go to see Stone. Moreover, Frank L. Sharpe was blackballed at the Idlers’ Club with cheerful unanimity, and Bobby figuratively squared his shoulders to receive the blow that he was convinced must certainly fall. ”

“ When Agnes came up presently she made no mention whatever of her caller, and, of course, Bobby had no excuse upon which to hang impertinent questions, though the sharp barbs of them were darting through and through him. Such fuming as he felt, however, was instantly allayed by the warm and thoroughly honest clasp she gave him when she shook hands with him. ”

“ Bobby smilingly inquired.
“But always perfectly ladylike in what it said about him.”
“And what are the politics of the employees?”
At this Mr. Jolter snorted.
“They are good newspaper men, Mr. Burnit,” he stated in quick defense; “and a good newspaper man has no politics.”
Bobby eyed Mr. Jolter with contemplative favor. He was a stout, stockily-built man, with a square head and sparse gray hair that would persist in tangling and curling at the ends; and he perpetually kept his sleeves rolled up over his big arms. ”

“ Agnes gave a little cry of delight, and even Aunt Constance clapped her hands lightly, for Chalmers, a young lawyer of excellent social connections, was a prime favorite with the Ellistons, and in the business he had transacted for the Burnit estate Bobby had found in him sterling qualities.
“Chalmers is a good man,” agreed Uncle Dan, “though he is young, and practically without political influence; but, if you can make him mayor, I predict a brilliant political future for him.” ”

“ 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. ”

“ In the hastily constructed frame office out at the waterworks site, Ed Scales, pale and emaciated and with black rings under his eyes, looked up nervously as Bobby’s little army, reënforced from four to six by the addition of a “plain clothes man” and Dillingham, the Bulletin’s star reporter, invaded the place. Before a word was spoken, Feeney, the plain clothes man, presented Scales with a writ, which the latter attempted to read with unseeing eyes, his fingers trembling. ”

“ Trimmer,” mused Agnes. “I seldom go into his store, for there always seems to me something shoddy about the whole place; but to-morrow I think I shall make it a point to secure a glimpse of him.”
Bobby was delighted. Agnes had always been interested in whatever interested him, but never so absorbedly so as now, it seemed. He almost forgot the stranger in his pleasure. He forgot him still more when, dismissing his chauffeur, he seated Agnes in the front of the car beside him, with Starlett and Allstyne and Aunt Constance in the tonneau, and went whirling through the streets and up the avenue. ”

“ It was to the littered back yard of a cheap saloon, at the side of which ran a narrow passageway to the street beyond, where street-cars passed 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. ”

“ Bobby looked at the two letters in frowning perplexity, and then silently walked into his own office, where Agnes followed him; and it was she who closed the door. He sat down at his desk and held that last letter of his father’s before him in dread. He had so airily built up his program; and apprehension told him what this letter might contain! Presently he was conscious that Agnes’ arm was slipped across his shoulder. She was sitting upon the arm of his chair, and had bent her cheek upon his head. So they read the curt message:
“To throw good money after bad is like sprinkling salt on a cut. ”

“ Burnit, very grave, indeed. It is suicidal to defy Mr. Sharpe, and through him Mr. Stone!”
“Will you shut up!” snarled Johnson to his ancient work-mate. “Mr. Burnit, I have no right to take the liberty, but I am going to congratulate you, sir. Whatever follies inexperience may have led you to commit, you are, at any rate, sir, a man, like your father was before you!” and by way of emphasis Johnson smacked his fist on his desk as he glared in Mr. Applerod’s direction.
“It’s all very well to show fight, Johnson,” said Bobby, a little wanly, “but just the same I have to acknowledge defeat. ”