AN EXCITING GAME OF TIT FOR TAT WITH HIRED THUGS
The _Bulletin_, continuing its warfare upon Stone and every one who
supported him, hit upon names that had never before been mentioned but
in terms of the highest respect, and divers and sundry complacent
gentlemen who attended church quite regularly began to look for a
cyclone cellar. They were compromised with Stone and they could not
placate Bobby. The four banks that had withdrawn their advertisements,
after a hasty conference with Stone put them back again the first day
their names were mentioned. The business department of the _Bulletin_
cheerfully accepted those advertisements at the increased rate
justified by the _Bulletin's_ increased circulation; but the editorial
department just as cheerfully kept castigating the erring conservators
of the public money, and the advertisements disappeared again.
Bobby's days now were beset from a hundred quarters with agonized
appeals to change his policy. This man and that man and the other man
high in commercial and social and political circles came to him with
all sorts of pressure, and even Payne Winthrop and Nick Allstyne, two
of his particular cronies of the Idlers', not being able to catch him
at the club any more, came up to his office.
"This won't do, old man," protested Payne; "we're missing you at
billiards and bridge whist, but your refusal to take part in the
coming polo tourney was the last straw. You're getting to be a regular
plebe."
"I am a plebe," admitted Bobby. "What's the use to deny it? My father
was a plebe. He came off the farm with no earthly possessions more
valuable than the patches on his trousers. I am one generation from
the soil, and since I have turned over a furrow or two, just plain
earth smells good to me."
Both of Bobby's friends laughed. They liked him too well to take him
seriously in this.
"But really," said Nick, returning to the attack, "the boys at the
club were talking over the thing and think this rather bad form, this
sort of a fight you're making. You're bound to become involved in a
nasty controversy."
"Yes?" inquired Bobby pleasantly. "Watch me become worse involved.
More than that, I think I shall come down to the Idlers', when I get
things straightened out here, organize a club league and make you
fellows march with banners and torch-lights."
This being a more hilarious joke than the other the boys laughed quite
politely, though Payne Winthrop grew immediately serious again.
"But we can't lose you, Bobby," he insisted. "We want you to quit this
sort of business and come back again to the old crowd. There are so
few of us left, you know, that we're getting lonesome. Stan Rogers is
getting up a glorious hunt and he wants us all to come up to his lodge
for a month at least. You should be tired of this by now, anyhow."
"Not a bit of it," declared Bobby.
"Oh, of course, you have your money involved," admitted Payne, "and
you must play it through on that account; but I'll tell you: if you do
want to sell I know where I could find a buyer for you at a profit."
Bobby turned on him like a flash.
"Look here, Payne," said he. "Where is your interest in this?"
"My interest?" repeated Payne blankly.
"Yes, your interest. What have you to gain by having me sell out?"
"Why, really, Bobby--" began Payne, thinking to temporize.
"You're here for that purpose, and must tell me why," insisted Bobby
sternly, tapping his finger on the desk.
"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 municipal
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 circumstances, 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 hoarsely 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 class 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 assault 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 passed 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 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.
"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, damn 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 damned 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.
"Mind!" exclaimed Bobby. "I never minded it so much in my life as I do
now. The _Bulletin_ must win. I'm bound that it shall win! If we come
out ahead in our fight against Stone I'll get all my advertising back,
and I'll keep my circulation, which makes advertising rates."
The telephone bell rang in the study adjoining the dining-room, and
Bobby, who had been more or less distrait all evening, half rose from
his chair. In a moment more the maid informed them that the call was
for Mr. Burnit. In the study they could hear his voice, excited and
exultant. He returned as delighted as a school-boy.
"Now I can tell you something," he announced. "Within five minutes the
_Bulletin_ will have exclusive extras on the street, announcing that
the legislature has just appointed a committee to investigate
municipal affairs throughout the state. That means this town. I have
spent ten thousand dollars in lobbying that measure through, and
charged it all to improvements' on the _Bulletin_. Sounds like I had
joined the ranks of the 'boodlers,' don't it? Well, I don't give a
cooky for ethics so long as I know I'm right. I'd have been a simp, as
Biff Bates calls it, to go among that crowd of hungry law jugglers
with kind words and the ten commandments. I'm not using crossbows
against cannon, and as a result I'm winning. I got my measure through,
and now I think we'll put Stone and his crew of freebooters on the
grill, with some extra-hot coals for my friend De Graff and the other
saintly sinners who have been playing into Stone's hands. I have been
working a year for this, and the entire politics of this town, with
wide-reaching results in the state, is disrupted."
"You selfish boy," chided Aunt Constance. "You have been here with us
for more than an hour, expecting this all the time, and have not
breathed one word of it to us. 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. He always despised it, and I see you're bound to
be knee-deep in it."
"My father would have succeeded in politics," said Bobby confidently,
"as he succeeded in everything else, after he once got started. I have
his confession in writing, however, that he made a few fool mistakes
himself along at first. As for politics, I _am_ in it knee-deep, and
I'm going to elect my own slate next fall."
"Another reform party, of course," suggested Uncle Dan with a smile.
"Not for Bobby," replied that decided young gentleman. "I am forming
an affiliation with Cal Lewis."
"Cal Lewis!" exclaimed Uncle Dan aghast. Then he closed his eyes and
laughed softly. "As notorious in his way as Sam Stone himself. Why,
Bobby, that's fighting fire with gasolene."
"It's setting a thief to catch a thief. You must remember that for
fifteen years Cal hasn't had any of the pie except in a minor way, and
all this time he's been fighting Stone tooth and toe-nail. The late
reform movement, which failed so lamentably to carry out its gaudy
promises after it had won, left him entirely out of its calculations,
and Lewis actually joined with Stone in overturning it. I propose to
use Lewis' knowledge of political machinery, but in my own way. As a
matter of fact, I have already engaged him and put him on salary; a
good, stiff one, too. His business is to organize my political
machine. I'm going to have a slate of clean men, who will not only
conduct the business of this county and city with probity but with
discretion, and I do not mind telling you that my candidate for mayor
is Chalmers."
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."
"He will have it," said Bobby confidently, "for I intend to make him
the attorney for the investigating committee, and through his work I
expect to have not less than a hundred thousand dollars of stolen
money turned back into the city and county treasuries."
As Bobby announced this he rose mechanically, and, still absorbed in
the details of his big fight, walked out into the hall. It was not
until he had his coat on and his hat in his hand that he came to
himself; and with the deepest confusion found that he had been about
to walk out without making any adieus whatever.
"Why, where are you going?" inquired Agnes, as he came back into the
drawing-room.
He laughed sheepishly.
"Why," he explained, "ever since I received that telephone message I
have been seeing before me the _Bulletin_ extra that they are throwing
on the street right now, and I forgot everything else. I'll simply
have to go down and hold a copy of it in my hands."
"You're just a big boy," laughed Aunt Constance. "Will you ever grow
up?"
"I hope not," declared Agnes, and taking his arm she strolled with him
to the door in perfect peace and confidence.