hich
will be distributed among Stone and his henchmen. The other twenty
million will go to the dear public, who will probably be given one
share of common as a bonus with each share of preferred, and pay ten
million sweaty dollars for it. Do you think this new company expects
to pay dividends? On their plants, worth at a high valuation, five
million dollars, and their new capital of ten million, a profit must
be earned for fifty million dollars' worth of stock, and it can not be
done. Within a year I expect to see Consolidated Illuminating and
Power Company stock quoted at around thirty. By that time, however,
Stone and his crowd will have sold theirs, and will have cleaned up
millions. Brightlight Electric was probably too small a factor to be
considered in the consolidation. Did you pay off that mortgage? Then
Stone has his hundred thousand dollars; the back salary list of
Stone's henchmen has been paid up with your money; Sharpe and Williams
have converted their stock and Stone's into cash at a fancy figure;
Eastman is to be taken care of in the new company and they are
satisfied. In my estimation you are well rid of the entire crowd,
unless they have some neat little plan for squeezing you. But I'll
tell you what I would do. I would go direct to Stone, and see what he
has to say."

Bobby smiled ironically at himself as he climbed the dingy stairs up
which it was said that every man of affairs in the city must sooner or
later toil to bend the knee, but he was astonished when he walked into
the office of Stone to find it a narrow, bare little room, with the
door wide open to the hall. There was an old, empty desk in it--for
Stone never kept nor wrote letters--and four common kitchen chairs for
waiting callers. At the desk near the one window sat Stone, and over
him bent a shabby-looking man, whispering. Stone, grunting
occasionally, looked out of the window while he listened, and when the
man was through gave him a ten-dollar bill.

"It's all right," Stone said gruffly. "I'll be in court myself at ten
o'clock to-morrow morning, and you may tell Billy that I'll get him
out of it."

Another man, a flashily-dressed fellow, was ahead of Bobby, and he,
too, now leaned over Stone and whispered.

"Nothing doing," rumbled Stone.

The man, from his gestures, protested earnestly.

"Nix!" declared Stone loudly. "You threw me two years ago this fall,
and you can't come back till you're on your uppers good and proper. I
d