Chapter 24

EDITOR BURNIT DISCOVERS THAT HE IS FIGHTING AN ENTIRE CITY INSTEAD OF ONE MAN

At four o'clock of that same day Mr. Brown came in, and Mr. Brown was grinning. In the last three days a grin had become the trade-mark of the office, for the staff of the _Bulletin_ was enjoying itself as never before in all its history.

"Stone's in my office," said Brown. "Wants to see you."

Bobby was interestedly leafing over the pages of the _Bulletin_. He looked leisurely at his watch and yawned.

"Tell Mr. Stone that I am busy, but that I will receive him in fifteen minutes," he directed, whereupon Mr. Brown, appreciating the joke, grinned still more expansively and withdrew.

Bobby, as calmly as he could, went on with his perusal of the _Bulletin_. To deny that he was somewhat tense over the coming interview would be foolish. Never had a quarter of an hour dragged so slowly, but he waited it out, with five minutes more on top of it, and then he telephoned to Brown to know if Stone was still there. He was relieved to find that he was.

"Tell him to come in," he ordered.

If Stone was inwardly fuming when he entered the room he gave no indication of it. His heavy face bore only his habitually sullen expression, his heavy-lidded eyes bore only their usual somberness, his heavy brow had in it no crease other than those that time had graven there. With the deliberateness peculiar to him he planted his heavy body in a big arm-chair opposite to Bobby, without removing his hat.

"I don't believe in beating around the bush, Mr. Burnit," said he, with a glance over his shoulder to make sure that the door was closed. "Of course you're after something. What do you want?"

Bobby looked at him in wonder. He had heard much of Stone's bluntness, and now he was fascinated by it. Nevertheless, he did not forget his own viewpoint.

"Oh, I don't want much," he observed pleasantly, "only just your scalp; yours and the scalps of a few others who gave me my education, from Silas Trimmer up and down. I think one of the things that aggravated me most was the recent elevation of Trimmer to the chairmanship of your waterworks commission. Trivial as it was, this probably had as much to do with my sudden determination to wipe you out, as your having the Brightlight's poles removed from Market Street."

Stone laid a heavy hand easily upon Bobby's desk. It was a strong hand, a big hand, brown and hairy, and from the third pudgy finger glowed a huge diamond.

"As far as Trimmer is concerned," said he, quite undisturbed, "you can have his head any minute. He's a mutt."

"You don't need to give me Mr. Trimmer's head," replied Bobby, quite as calmly. "I intend to get that myself."

"And as for the Brightlight," continued Stone as if he had not been interrupted, "I sent Sharpe over to see you about that this morning. I think we can fix it so that you can get back your two hundred and fifty thousand. The deal's been worth a lot more than that to the Consolidated."

"No doubt," agreed Bobby. "However, I'm not looking, at the present moment, for a sop to the Brightlight Company. It will be time enough for that when I have forced the Consolidated into the hands of a receiver."

Stone looked at Bobby thoughtfully between narrowed eyelids.

"Look here, young fellow," said he presently. "Now, you take it from me, and I have been through the mill, that there ain't any use holding a grouch. The mere doing damage don't get you anything unless it's to whip somebody else into line with a warning. I take it that this ain't what you're trying to do. You think you're simply playing a grouch game, table stakes; but if you'll simmer down you'll find you've got a price. Now, I'd rather have you with me than against me. If you'll just say what you want I'll get it for you if it's in reach. But don't froth. I've cleaned up as much money as your daddy did, just by keeping my temper."

"I'm going to keep mine, too," Bobby informed him quite cheerfully. "I have just found that I have one, and I like it."

Stone brushed this triviality aside with a wave of his heavy hand.

"Quit kidding," he said, "and come out with it. I see you're no piker, anyhow. You're playing for big game. 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.

"--I want to get back some of the money you have stolen from this city," continued Bobby; "and I want, last of all, to drive you out of this town for good."

Stone rose with a sigh.

"This is the only chance I'll give you to climb in with the music," he rumbled. "I've kept off three days, figuring out where you were leading to and what you were after. Now, last of all, what will you take to call it off?"

"I have told you the price," said Bobby.

"Then you're looking for trouble and you must have it, eh?"

"I suppose I must."

"Then you'll get it," and without the sign of a frown upon his brow Mr. Stone left the office.

The next morning things began to happen. The First National Bank called up the business office of the _Bulletin_ and ordered its advertisement discontinued. Not content alone with that, President De Graff called up Bobby personally, and in a very cold and dignified voice told him that the First National was compelled to withdraw its patronage on account of the undignified personal attacks in which the _Bulletin_ was indulging. Bobby whistled softly. He knew De Graff quite well; they were, in fact, upon most intimate terms, socially.

"I should think, De Graff," Bobby remonstrated, "that of all people the banks should be glad to have all this crookedness rooted out of the city. As a matter of fact, I intended shortly to ask your cooeperation in the formation of a citizens' committee to insure honest politics."

"I really could not take any active part in such a movement, Mr. Burnit," returned De Graff, still more coldly. "The conservatism necessary to my position forbids my connection with any sensational publicity whatsoever."

An hour later, Crone, the advertising manager, came up to Bobby very much worried, to report that not only the First National but the Second Market Bank had stopped their advertising, as had Trimmer and Company, and another of the leading dry-goods firms.

"Of course," said Crone, "your editorial policy is your own, but I'm afraid that it is going to be ruinous to your advertising."

"I shouldn't wonder," admitted Bobby dryly, and that was all the satisfaction he gave Crone; but inwardly he was somewhat disturbed.

He had not thought of the potency of this line of attack. While he knew nothing of the newspaper business, he had already made sure that the profit was in the advertising. He sent for Jolter.

"Ben," he asked, "what is the connection between the First National and the Second Market Banks and Sam Stone?"

"Money," said the managing editor promptly. "Both banks are depositories of city funds."

"I see," said Bobby slowly. "Do any other banks enjoy this patronage?"

"The Merchants' and the Planters' and Traders' hold the county funds, which are equally at Stone's disposal."

Bobby heard this news in silence, and Jolter, after looking at him narrowly for a moment, added:

"I'll tell you something else. Not one of the four banks pays to the city or the county one penny of interest on these deposits. This is well known to the newspapers, but none of them has dared use it."

"Go after them," said Bobby.

"Moreover, it is strongly suspected that the banks pay interest privately to Stone, through a small and select ring in the court-house and in the city hall."

"Go after them."

"I suppose you know the men who will be involved in this," said Jolter.

"Some of my best friends, I expect," said Bobby.

"And some of the most influential citizens in this town," retorted Jolter. "They can ruin the _Bulletin_. They could ruin any business."

"The thing's crooked, isn't it?" demanded Bobby.

"As a dog's hind leg."

"Go after them, Jolter!" Bobby reiterated. Then he laughed aloud. "De Graff just telephoned me that 'the conservatism of his position forbids him to take part in any sensational publicity whatsoever.'"

Comment other than a chuckle was superfluous from either one of them, and Jolter departed to the city editor's room, to bring joy to the heart of the staff.

It was "Bugs" Roach who scented the far-reaching odor of this move with the greatest joy.

"You know what this means, don't you?" he delightedly commented. "A grand jury investigation. Oh, listen to the band!"

Before noon the Merchants' and the Planters' and Traders' Banks had withdrawn their advertisements.

At about the same hour a particularly atrocious murder was committed in one of the suburbs. Up in the reporters' room of the police station, Thomas, of the _Bulletin_, and Graham, of the _Chronicle_, were indulging in a quiet game of whist with two of the morning newspaper boys, when a roundsman stepped to the door and called Graham out. Graham came back a moment later after his coat, with such studied nonchalance that the other boys, eternally suspicious as police reporters grow to be, looked at him narrowly, and Thomas asked him, also with studied nonchalance:

"The candy-store girl, or the one in the laundry office?"

"Business, young fellow, business," returned Graham loftily. "I guess the _Chronicle_ knows when it has a good man. I'm called into the office to save the paper. They're sending a cub down to cover the afternoon. Don't scoop him, old man."

"Not unless I get a chance," promised Thomas, but after Graham had gone he went down to the desk and, still unsatisfied, asked:

"Anything doing, Lieut.?"

"Dead as a door-nail," replied the lieutenant, and Thomas, still with an instinct that something was wrong, still sensitive to a certain suppressed tingling excitement about the very atmosphere of the place, went slowly back to the reporters' room, where he spent a worried half-hour.

The noonday edition of the _Chronicle_ carried, in the identical columns devoted in the _Bulletin_ to a further attack on Stone, a lurid account of the big murder; and the _Bulletin_ had not a line of it! A sharp call from Brown to Thomas, at central police, apprised the latter that he had been "scooped," and brought out the facts in the case. Thomas hurried down-stairs and bitterly upbraided Lieutenant Casper.

"Look here, you Thomas," snapped Casper; "you _Bulletin_ guys have been too fresh around here for a long time."

In Casper's eyes--Casper with whom he had always been on cordial joking terms--he saw cruel implacability, and, furious, he knew himself to be "in" for that most wearing of all newspaper jobs--"doing police" for a paper that was "in bad" with the administration. He needed no one to tell him the cause. At three-thirty, Thomas, and Camden, who was doing the city hall, and Greenleaf Whittier Squiggs, who was subbing for the day on the courts, appeared before Jim Brown in an agonized body. Thomas had been scooped on the big murder, Camden and G. W. Squiggs had been scooped, at the city hall and the county building, on the only items worth while, and they were all at white heat; though it was a great consolation to Squiggs, after all, to find himself in such distinguished company.

Brown heard them in silence, and with great solemnity conducted them across the hall to Jolter, who also heard them in silence and conducted them into the adjoining room to Bobby. Here Jolter stood back and eyed young Mr. Burnit with great interest as his two experienced veterans and his ambitious youngster poured forth their several tales of woe. Bobby, as it became him to be, was much disturbed.

"How's the circulation of the _Bulletin_?" he asked of Jolter.

"Five times what it ever was in its history," responded Jolter.

"Do you suppose we can hold it?"

"Possibly."

"How much does a scoop amount to?"

"Well," confessed Jolter, with his eyes twinkling, "I hate to tell you before the boys, but my own opinion is that we know it and the _Chronicle_ knows it and Stone knows it, but day after to-morrow the public couldn't tell you on its sacred oath whether it read the first account of the murder in the _Bulletin_ or in the _Chronicle_."

Bobby heaved a sigh of relief.

"I always had the impression that a 'beat' meant the death, cortege and cremation of the newspaper that fell behind in the race," he smiled. "Boys, I'm afraid you'll have to stand it for a while. Do the best you can and get beaten as little as possible. By the way, Jolter, I want to see you a minute," and the mournful delegation of three, no whit less mournful because they had been assured that they would not be held accountable for being scooped, filed out.

"What's the connection," demanded Bobby, the minute they were alone, "between the police department and Sam Stone?"

"Money!" replied Jolter. "Chief of Police Cooley is in reality chief collector. The police graft is one of the richest Stone has. The rake-off from saloons that are supposed to close at one and from crooked gambling joints and illegal resorts of various kinds, amounts, I suppose, to not less than ten to fifteen thousand dollars a week. Of course, the patrolmen get some, but the bulk of it goes to Cooley, who was appointed by Stone, and the biggest slice of all goes to the Boss."

"Go after Cooley," said Bobby. Then suddenly he struck his fist upon the desk. "Great Heavens, man!" he exclaimed. "At the end of every avenue and street and alley that I turn down with the _Bulletin_ I find an open sewer."

"The town is pretty well supplied," admitted Jolter. "How do you feel now about your policy?"

"Pretty well staggered," confessed Bobby; "but we're going through with the thing just the same."

"It's a man's-size job," declared Jolter; "but if you get away with it the _Bulletin_ will be the best-paying piece of newspaper property west of New York."

"Not the way the advertising's going," said Bobby, shaking his head and consulting a list on his desk. "Where has Stone a hold on the dry-goods firm of Rolands and Crawford?"

"They built out circular show-windows, all around their big block, and these extend illegally upon two feet of the sidewalk."

"And how about the Ebony Jewel Coal Company?"

"They have been practically allowed to close up Second Street, from Water to Canal, for a dump."

Bobby sighed hopelessly.

"We can't fight everybody in town," he complained.

"Yes, but we can!" exclaimed Jolter with a sudden fire that surprised Bobby, since it was the first the managing editor displayed. "Don't weaken, Burnit! I'm with you in this thing, heart and soul! If we can hold out until next election we will sweep everything before us."

"We will hold out!" declared Bobby.

"I am so sure of it that I'll stand treat," assented Mr. Jolter with vast enthusiasm, and over an old oak table, in a quiet place, Mr. Jolter and Mr. Burnit, having found the sand in each other's craws, cemented a pretty strong liking.