ob 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 d