usly up to the gate a policeman darted in at the
alley mouth, and, catching the glint of Stone's revolver, whipped his
own. He ran quite fearlessly to Stone, and with a dextrous blow upon
the wrist sent the revolver spinning.

"You're under arrest," said he.

For just one second he covered his man, then his arm dropped and his
jaw opened in astonishment.

"Why, it's Stone!" he exclaimed.

"Yes, damn you, it's Stone!" screamed the Boss, livid with fury, and
overcome with anger he dealt the policeman a staggering blow in the
face. "You damned flat-foot, I'll teach you to notice who you put your
hands on! Give me that badge!"

White-faced and with trembling fingers, and with a trickle of blood
starting slowly from a cut upon his cheek, the man unfastened his
badge.

"Now, go back to Cooley and tell him I broke you," Stone ordered, and
turned on his heel.

By the time he reached the back door of the beer-garden he was limping
most painfully, but when he rejoined his crowd he said nothing of the
incident. In the brief time that it had taken him to go from the alley
mouth to that table he had divined the significance of the whole
thing. For the first time in his career he knew himself to be a
systematically marked man, as he had systematically marked others; and
he was not beyond reason. Thereafter, Bobby Burnit was in no more
jeopardy from hired thugs, and for a solid year he kept up his fight,
with plenty of material to last him for still another twelvemonth. It
was a year which improved him in many ways, but Aunt Constance
Elliston objected to the improvement.

"Bobby, they _are_ spoiling you," she complained. "They're taking your
suavity away from you, and you're acquiring grim, hard lines around
your mouth."

"They're making him," declared Agnes, looking fondly across at the
firm face and into the clear, unwavering eyes.

Bobby answered the look of Agnes with one that needed no words to
interpret, and laughed at Aunt Constance.

"I suppose they are spoiling me," he confessed, "and I'm glad of it.
I'm glad, above all, that I'm losing the sort of suavity which led me
to smile and tell a man politely to take it, when he reached his hand
into my pocket for my money."

"You'll do," agreed Uncle Dan. "When you took hold of the _Bulletin_,
your best friends only gave you two months, But are you making any
money?"

Bobby's face clouded.

"Spending it like water. We have practically no advertising, and a
larg