that they
will hire somebody to beat you into insensibility. If that don't teach
you the proper lesson, they will probably kill you."

Agnes looked up apprehensively, but catching Bobby's smile took this
latter phase of the matter as a joke. Bobby himself was not deeply
impressed with it, but before he went away that night Uncle Dan took
him aside and urged upon him the seriousness of the matter.

"I'll fight them with their own weapons, then," declared Bobby. "I'll
organize a counter band of thugs, and I'll block every move they make
with one of the same sort. Somehow or other I think I am going to
win."

"Of course you will win," said Agnes confidently, overhearing this
last phrase; and with that most prized of all encouragement, the faith
in his prowess of _the_ one woman, Bobby, for that night at least,
felt quite contemptuous of the grilling fight to come.

His second issue of the _Bulletin_ contained on the front page a
three-column picture of Sam Stone, with the same caption, together
with a full-page article, written by Dillingham from data secured by
himself and the others who were put upon the "story." This set forth
the main iniquities of Sam Stone and his crew of municipal grafters.
In the third day's issue the picture was reduced to two columns,
occupying the left-hand upper corner of the front page, where Bobby
ordered it to remain permanently as the slogan of the _Bulletin_; and
now Dillingham began his long series of articles, taking up point by
point the ramifications of Stone's machine, and coming closer and
closer daily to people who would much rather have been left entirely
out of the picture.

It was upon this third day that Bobby, becoming apprehensive merely
because nothing had happened, received a visit from Frank Sharpe. Mr.
Sharpe was as nattily dressed as ever, and presented himself as
pleasantly as a summer breeze across fields of clover.

"I came in to see you about merging the Brightlight Electric Company
with the Consolidated, Mr. Burnit," said Mr. Sharpe in a chatty tone,
laying his hat, cane and gloves upon Bobby's desk and seating himself
comfortably.

From his face there was no doubt in Mr. Sharpe's mind that this was a
mere matter of an interview with a satisfactory termination, for Mr.
Sharpe had done business with Bobby before; but something had happened
to Bobby in the meantime.

"When I get ready for a merger of the Brightlight with the
Consolidated I'll tell you about