The Making of Bobby Burnit

CHAPTER XVI

AGNES APPEARS PUBLICLY WITH MRS. SHARPE AND BIFF BATES HAS A ONE-ROUND SCRAP

That night, though rather preoccupied by the grave consequences that might ensue on this flat-footed defiance of Stone and his crowd, Bobby went to the theater with Jack Starlett and Jack’s sister and mother. As they seated themselves he bowed gravely across the auditorium to Agnes and Aunt Constance Elliston, who, with Uncle Dan, were entertaining a young woman relative from Savannah. He did not know how the others accepted his greeting; he only saw Agnes, and she smiled quite placidly at him, which was far worse than if she had tilted her head. Through two dreary, interminable acts he sat looking at the stage, trying to talk small talk with the Starletts and remaining absolutely miserable; but shortly before the beginning of the last act he was able to take a quite new and gleeful interest in life, for the young woman from Savannah came fluttering into the Elliston box, bearing in tow the beautiful and vivacious Mrs. Frank L. Sharpe!

Bobby turned his opera-glasses at once upon that box, and pressed Jack Starlett into service. Being thus attracted, the ladies of the Starlett box, mystified and unable to extract any explanation from the two gleeful men, were compelled, by force of circumstances and curiosity, also to opera-glass and lorgnette the sufferers.

Like the general into which he was developing, Bobby managed to meet Agnes face to face in the foyer after the show. Tears of mortification were in her eyes, but still she was laughing when he strode up to her and with masterful authority drew her arm beneath his own.

“Your carriage is too small for four,” Bobby calmly told Mr. Elliston, and, excusing himself from the Starletts, deliberately conducted Agnes to a hansom. As they got well under way he observed:

“You will notice that I make no question of being seen in public with – ”

“Bobby!” she protested. “Violet did not know. The Sharpes visited in Savannah. His connections down there are quite respectable, and no doubt Mrs. Sharpe, who is really clever, held herself very circumspectly.”

“Fine!” said Bobby. “You will notice that I am quite willing to listen to you. Explain some more.”

“Bobby!” she protested again, and then suddenly she bent forward and pressed her handkerchief to her eyes.

Bobby was astounded. She was actually crying! In a moment he had her in his arms, was pressing her head upon his shoulder, was saying soothing things to her with perfectly idiotic volubility. For an infinitesimally brief space Agnes yielded to that embrace, and then suddenly she straightened up in dismay.

“Good gracious, Bobby!” she exclaimed. “This hansom is all glass!”

He looked out upon the brilliantly lighted street with a reflex of her own consternation, but quickly found consolation.

“Well, after all,” he reflected philosophically, “I don’t believe anybody who saw me would blame me.”

“You’re a perfectly incorrigible Bobby,” she laughed. “The only check possible to put upon you is to hold you rigidly to business. How are you coming out with the Brightlight Electric Company? I have been dying to ask you about it.”

“I have a telephone in my office,” he reminded her.

“I am completely ignoring that ungenerous suggestion,” she replied.

“It wasn’t sportsmanlike,” he penitently admitted. “Well, the Brightlight Electric is still making money, and Johnson has stopped leaks to the amount of at least twenty thousand dollars a year, which will permit us to keep up the ten per cent. dividends, even with our increased capitalization, and even without an increase of business.”

“Glorious!” she said with sparkling eyes.

“Too good to be true,” he assured her. “They’ll take it away from me.”

“How is it possible?” she asked.

“It isn’t; but it will happen, nevertheless,” he declared with conviction.

He had already begun to spend his days and nights in apprehension of this, and as the weeks went on and nothing happened his apprehension grew rather than diminished.

In the meantime, the Consolidated Illuminating and Power Company went pompously on. The great combine was formed, the fifty million dollars’ worth of stock was opened for subscription, and the company gave a vastly expensive banquet in the convention hall of the Hotel Spender, at which a thousand of the city’s foremost men were entertained, and where the cleverest after-dinner speakers to be obtained talked in relays until long after midnight. Those who came to eat the rich food and drink the rare wine and lend their countenances to the stupendous local enterprise, being shrewd business graduates who had cut their eye-teeth in their cradles, smiled and went home without any thought of investing; but the hard-working, economical chaps of the offices and shops, men who felt elated if, after five years of slavery, they could show ten hundred dollars of savings, glanced in awe over this magnificent list of names in the next day’s papers. If the stock of the Consolidated Illuminating and Power Company was considered a good investment by these generals and captains and lieutenants of finance, who, of course, attended this Arabian Nights banquet as investors, it must certainly be a good investment for the corporals and privates.

Immediately vivid results were shown. Immense electric signs, furnished at less than cost and some of them as big as the buildings upon the roofs of which they were erected, began to make constellations in the city sky; buildings in the principal down-town squares were studded, for little or nothing, with outside incandescent lights as thickly as wall space could be found for them, and the men whose only automobiles are street-cars awoke to the fact that their city was becoming intensely metropolitan; that it was blazing with the blaze of Paris and London and New York; that all this glittering advancement was due to the great new Consolidated Illuminating and Power Company, and more applications for stock were made!

Every applicant was supplied, but the treasury stock of the company having been sold out, the scrip had to come from some place else, and it came through devious, secret ways from the holdings of such men as Stone and Garland and Sharpe.

During the grand orgie of illumination the election came on; the price of gas and electricity went gloriously and recklessly down, and the men who were identified with the triumphantly successful new illuminating company were the leading figures in the campaign. The puerile “reform party,” the blunders of whose incompetence had been ridiculous, was swept out of existence; Garland was elected mayor by the most overwhelming majority that had ever been known in the city, and with him was elected a council of the same political faith. Sam Stone, always in the background, always keeping his name out of the papers as much as possible, came once more to the throne, and owned the city and all its inhabitants and all its business enterprises and all its public utilities, body and soul.

One night, shortly after the new officials went into power, there was no light in the twelve blocks over which the Brightlight Company had exclusive control, nor any light in the outside districts it supplied. This was the first time in years that the company, equipped with an emergency battery of dynamos which now proved out of order, had ever failed for an instant of proper service. Candles, kerosene lamps and old gas fixtures, the rusty cocks of which had not been turned in a decade, were put hastily in use, while the streets were black with a blackness particularly Stygian, contrasted with the brilliantly illuminated squares supplied by the Consolidated Company. All night long the mechanical force, attended by the worried but painfully helpless Bobby, pounded and tapped and worked in the grime, but it was not until broad daylight that they were able to discover the cause of trouble. For two nights the lights ran steadily. On the third night, at about seven-thirty, they turned to a dull, red glow, and slowly died out. This time it was wire trouble, and through the long night as large a force of men as could be mustered were tracing it. Not until noon of the next day was the leak found.

It was a full week before that section of the city was for the third time in darkness, but when this occurred the business men of the district, who had been patient enough the first night and enduring enough the second, loosed their reins and became frantic.

At this happy juncture the Consolidated Company threw an army of canvassers into those twelve monopolized blocks, and the canvassers did not need to be men who could talk, for arguments were not necessary. The old, worn-out equipment of the Brightlight Electric, and the fact that it was managed and controlled by men who knew nothing whatever of the business, its very president a young fellow who had probably never seen a dynamo until he took charge, were enough.

Bobby, passing over Plum Street one morning, was surprised to see a large gang of men putting in new poles, and when he reached the office he asked Johnson about it. In two minutes he had definitely ascertained that no orders had been issued by the Brightlight Electric Company nor any one connected with it, and further inquiry revealed the fact that these poles were being put up by the Consolidated. He called up Chalmers at once.

“I knew I’d hear from you,” said Chalmers, “and I have already been at work on the thing. Of course, you saw what was in the papers.”

“No,” confessed Bobby. “Only the sporting pages.”

“You should read news, local and general, every morning,” scolded Chalmers. “The new city council, at their meeting last night, granted the Consolidated a franchise to put up poles and wires in this district for lighting.”

“But how could they?” expostulated Bobby. “Our contract with the city has several years to run yet, and guarantees us exclusive privilege to supply light, both to the city and to private individuals, in those twelve blocks.”

“That cleverly unobtrusive joker clause about ‘reasonably satisfactory service,’” replied Chalmers angrily. “By the way, have you investigated the cause of those accidents very thoroughly? Whether there was anything malicious about them?”

Bobby confessed that he had not thought of the possibility.

“I think it would pay you to do so. I am delving into this thing as deeply as I can, and with your permission I am going to call your father’s old attorney, Mr. Barrister, into consultation.”

“Go ahead, by all means,” said Bobby, worried beyond measure.

At five o’clock that evening Con Ripley came jauntily to the plant of the Brightlight Electric Company. Con was the engineer, and the world was a very good joke to him, although not such a joke that he ever overlooked his own interests. He spruced up considerably outside of working hours, did Con, and, although he was nearing forty, considered himself very much a ladies’ man, also an accomplished athlete, and positively the last word in electrical knowledge. He was donning his working garments in very leisurely fashion when a short, broad-shouldered, thickset young man came back toward him from the office.

“You’re Con Ripley?” said the new-comer by way of introduction.

“Maybe,” agreed Con. “Who are you?”

“I’m the Assistant Works,” observed Professor Henry H. Bates.

“Oh!” said Mr. Ripley in some wonder, looking from the soft cap of Mr. Bates to the broad, thick tan shoes of Mr. Bates, and then back up to the wide-set eyes. “I hadn’t heard about it.”

“No?” responded Mr. Bates. “Well, I came in to tell you. I don’t know enough about electricity to say whether you feed it with a spoon or from a bottle, but I’m here, just the same, to notice that the juice slips through the wires all right to-night, all right.”

“The hell you are!” exclaimed Mr. Ripley, taking sudden umbrage at both tone and words, and also at the physical attitude of Mr. Bates, which had grown somewhat threatening. “All right, Mr. Works,” and Mr. Ripley began to step out of his overalls; “jump right in and push juice till you get black in the face, while I take a little vacation. I’ve been wanting a lay-off for a long time.”

“You’ll lay on, Bo,” dissented Mr. Bates. “Nix on the vacation. That’s just the point. You’re going to stick on the job, and I’m going to stick within four feet of you till old Jim-jams Jones shakes along to get his morning’s morning; and it will be a sign of awful bad luck for you if the lights in this end of town flicker a single flick any time to-night.”

“Is that it?” Mr. Ripley wanted to know. “And if they should happen to flicker some what are you going to do about it?”

“I don’t know yet,” said Biff. “I’ll knock your block off first and think about it afterward!”

Mr. Ripley hastily drew his overalls back on and slipped the straps over his shoulders with a snap.

“You’ll tell me when you’re going to do it, won’t you?” he asked banteringly, and, a full head taller than Mr. Bates, glared down at him a moment in contempt. Then he laughed. “I’ll give you ten to one the lights will flicker,” he offered to bet. “I wouldn’t stop such a cunning chance for exercise for real money,” and, whirling upon his heel, Mr. Ripley started upon his usual preliminary examination of dynamos and engines and boilers.

Quite nonchalantly Mr. Bates, puffing at a particularly villainous stogie and with his hands resting idly in his pockets, swung after Mr. Ripley, keeping within almost precisely four feet of him. In the boiler-room, Ripley, finding Biff still at his heels, said to the fireman, with a jerk of his thumb over his shoulder:

“Rocksey, be sure you keep a good head of steam on to-night if you’re a friend of mine. This is Mr. Assistant Works back here, and he’s come in to knock my block off if the lights flicker.”

“Rocksey,” a lean man with gray beard-bristles like pins and with muscles in astounding lumps upon his grimy arms, surveyed Mr. Bates with a grin which meant volumes.

“Ring a bell when it starts, will you, Con?” he requested.

To this Biff paid not the slightest attention, gazing stolidly at the red fire where it shone through the holes of the furnace doors; but when Mr. Ripley moved away Biff moved also. Ripley introduced Biff in much the same terms to a tall man who was oiling the big, old-fashioned Corliss, and a sudden gleam came into the tall man’s eyes as he recognized Mr. Bates, but he turned back to his oiling without smile or comment. Ripley eyed him sharply.

“You’ll hold the sponge and water-bottle for me, won’t you, Daly?” he asked, with an evident attempt at jovial conciliation.

Daly deliberately wiped the slender nose of his oil can and went on oiling.

“What’s the matter?” asked Ripley with a frown. “Got a grouch again?”

“Yes, I have,” admitted Daly without looking up, and shrugged his shoulders.

“Then cut it out,” said Ripley, “and look real unpeeved when somebody hands you tickets to the circus.”

From that moment Mr. Ripley seemed to take a keen delight in goading Mr. Bates. He took a sudden dash half-way down the length of the long room, as if going to the extreme other end of the plant, then suddenly whirled and retraced his steps to meet Biff coming after him; made an equally sudden dart for the mysterious switch-board, and seized a lever as if to throw it, but suddenly changed his mind, apparently, and went away, leaving Mr. Bates to infer that the throwing of that particular lever would leave them all in darkness; later, with Biff ready to spring upon him, he threw that switch to show that it had no important function to perform at all. To all these and many more ingenious tricks to humiliate him, Mr. Bates paid not the slightest attention, but, as calmly and as impassively as Fate, kept as nearly as he could to the four-foot distance he had promised.

It was about ten o’clock when Biff, interested for a moment in the switch-board, suddenly missed Ripley, and looking about him hastily he saw the fireman standing in the door of the boiler-room grinning at him, while the other workmen – all of whom were of the old regime – were also enjoying his discomfort; but Daly, catching his eye, nodded significantly toward the side-door which led upon the street. It was an almost imperceptible nod, but it was enough for Biff, and he dashed out of that door. Half a block ahead of him he saw Ripley hurrying, and took after him with that light, cat-like run which is the height of effortless and noiseless speed. Ripley, looking back hastily, hurried into a saloon, and he had scarcely closed the door when Biff entered after him, in time to see his man standing at the telephone, receiver in hand. It was the work of but an instant to grab Ripley by the arm and jerk him away from the ’phone. Quickly recovering his balance, with a lunge of his whole body Ripley shot a swift fist at the man who had interfered with him, but Biff, without shifting his position, jerked his head to one side and the fist shot harmlessly by. Before another blow could be struck, or parried, the bartender, a brawny giant, had rushed between them.

“Let us alone, Jeff,” panted Ripley. “I’ve got all I can stand for from this rat.”

“Outside!” said Jeff with cold finality. “You can beat him to a pulp in the street, Con, but there’ll be no scrimmage in this place without me having a hand in it.”

Ripley considered this ultimatum for a moment in silence, and then, to Biff’s surprise, suddenly ran out of the door. 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. It was Ripley who made the first lunge, which Biff dexterously ducked, and immediately after Biff’s right arm shot out, catching his antagonist a glancing blow upon the side of the cheek; a blow which drew blood. Infuriated, again Ripley rushed, but was blocked, and for nearly a minute there was a swift exchange of light blows which did little damage; then Biff found his opening, and, swinging about the axis of his own spine, threw the entire force of his body behind his right arm, and the fist of that arm caught Ripley below the ear and dropped him like a beef, just as Bobby came running back from, the office.

“What are you doing here, Biff? What’s the matter?” demanded Bobby, as Ripley, dazed, struggled to his feet, and, though weaving, drew himself together for another onslaught.

“Matter!” snarled Biff. “I landed on a frame-up, that’s all. This afternoon I saw Sharpe and this Ripley together in a bum wine-room on River Street, swapping so much of that earnest conversation that the partitions bulged, and I dropped to the double-cross that’s being handed out to you. I’ve been trying to telephone you ever since, but when I couldn’t find you I came right down to run the plant. That’s all.”

“You’re all right, Biff,” laughed Bobby, “but I guess we’ll call this a one-round affair, and I’ll take charge.”

“Don’t stop ’em!” cried Daly savagely, turning to Bobby. “Hand it to him, Biff. He’s a crook and an all-round sneak. He beat me out of this job by underhand means, and there ain’t a man in the place that ain’t tickled to death to see him get the beating that’s coming to him. Paste him, Biff!”

“Biff!” repeated Mr. Ripley, suddenly dropping his hands. “Biff who?”

“Mr. Biff Bates, the well-known and justly celebrated ex-champion middleweight,” announced Bobby with a grin. “Mr. Ripley – Mr. Bates.”

“Biff Bates!” repeated Con Ripley. “Why didn’t some of you guys tell me this was Biff Bates? Mr. Bates, I’m glad to meet you.” And with much respect he held forth his hand.

“Go chase yourself,” growled Mr. Bates, in infinite scorn.

Ripley replied with a sudden volley of abuse, couched in the vilest of language, but to this Biff made no reply. He dropped his hands in his coat pockets, and, considering his work done, walked over to the wall and leaned against it, awaiting further developments.

“Daly,” asked Bobby sharply, breaking in upon Ripley’s tirade, “are you competent to run this plant?”

“Certainly, sir,” replied Daly. “I should have had the job four years ago. I was promised it.”

“You may consider yourself in charge, then. Mr. Ripley, if you will walk up to the office I’ll pay you off.”

CHAPTER XVII

BOBBY’S MONEY IS ELECTROCUTED AND JOHN BURNIT’S SON WAKES UP

Bobby, jubilant, went to see Chalmers next day. The lawyer listened gravely, but shook his head.

“I’m bound to tell you, Mr. Burnit, that you have no case. You must have more proof than this to bring a charge of conspiracy. Ripley had a perfect right to talk with Sharpe or to telephone to some one, and mere hot-headedness could explain his shutting off the lights. Your over-enthusiastic friend Bates has ruined whatever prospect you might have had. Your suspicions once aroused, you should have let your man do as he liked, but should have watched him and caught him in a trap of some sort. Now it is too late. Moreover, I have bad news for you. Your contract for city lighting is ironclad, and can not be broken, but I saw to-day a paper signed by an overwhelming majority of your private consumers that the service is not even ‘reasonably satisfactory,’ and that they wish the field open to competition. With this paper to back them, Stone’s council granted the right to the Consolidated Company to erect poles, string wires and supply current. We can bring suit if you say so, but you will lose it.”

“Bring suit, then!” ordered Bobby vehemently. “Why, Chalmers, the contract for the city lighting alone would cost the Brightlight money every year. The profit has all been made from private consumers.”

“That’s why you’re losing it,” said Chalmers dryly. “The whole project is very plain to me now. The Consumers and the United Companies never cared to enter that field, because their controlling stock-holders were also the Brightlight controlling stock-holders, and they could get more money through the Brightlight than they could through the other companies; and so they led the public to believe that there was no breaking the monopoly the Brightlight held upon their service. Now, however, they want to gain another stock-jobbing advertisement by driving you out of the field. They planned from the first to wreck you for just that purpose – to make Consolidated stock seem more desirable when the stock sales began to dwindle – and they are perfectly willing to furnish the consumers in your twelve blocks with current at their present ridiculously low rate, because, with them, any possible profits to be derived from the business are insignificant compared to the profits to be derived from the sale of their watered stock. The price of illumination and power, later, will soar! Watch it. They’re a very bright crowd,” and Mr. Chalmers paused to admire them.

“In other words,” said Bobby glumly. “I am what Biff Bates told me I would be – the goat.”

“Precisely,” agreed Chalmers.

“Begin suit anyhow,” directed Bobby, “and we’ll see what comes of it.”

“By the way,” called Chalmers with a curious smile as Bobby opened the door; “I’ve just learned that one of the foremost enthusiasts in this whole manipulation has been quiet and conservative Silas Trimmer.”

Bobby did not swear. He simply slammed the door.

Two days later Bobby was surprised to see Sharpe drop in upon him.

“I understand you are bringing suit against the Consolidated for encroachment upon your territory, and against the city for abrogation of contract,” began Sharpe.

“Yes,” said Bobby.

“Don’t you think it rather a waste of money, Mr. Burnit? I can guarantee you positively that you will not win either suit.”

“I’m willing to wait to find that out.”

“No use,” said Sharpe impatiently. “I’ll tell you what we will do, Mr. Burnit. If you care to have us to do so, the Consolidated, a little later on, will absorb the Brightlight.”

“On what terms?” asked Bobby.

“It all depends. We might discuss that later. There’s another matter I’d like to speak with you about. Stone wants to see you, even yet. I want to tell you, Mr. Burnit, he can get along a great deal better without you than you can without him, as you are probably willing to admit by now. But he still wants you. Go and see Stone.”