d in again, kept
constantly whipped up to the mark by Platt and by the knowledge that
every day's non-completion of the work meant a heavy additional
forfeit, which they had counted on being able to evade so long as the
complaisant Mr. Scales was in charge.

CHAPTER XXIX

JIMMY PLATT ENJOYS THE HAPPIEST DAY OF HIS LIFE

The straightening out of the waterworks matter left Bobby free to turn
his attention to the local gas and electric situation. The _Bulletin_,
since Bobby had defeated his political enemies, had been put upon a
paying basis and was rapidly earning its way out of the debt that he
had been compelled to incur for it; but the Brightlight Electric
Company was a thorn in his side. Its only business now was the street
illumination of twelve blocks, under a municipal contract which lost
him money every month, and it had been a terrific task to keep it
going.

The Consolidated Illuminating and Power Company, however, Bobby
discovered by careful inquiry, was in even worse financial straits
than the Brightlight. To its thirty millions of stock, mostly water,
twenty more millions of water had been added, making a total
organization of fifty million dollars; and the twenty million dollars'
stock had been sold to the public for ten million dollars, each
purchaser of one share of preferred being given one share of common.
As the preferred was to draw five per cent., this meant that two and
one-half million dollars a year must be paid out in dividends. The
salary roll of the company was enormous, and the number of non-working
officers who drew extravagant stipends would have swamped any company.
Comparing the two concerns, Bobby felt that in the Brightlight he had
vastly the better property of the two, in that there was no water in
it at its present, half-million-dollar capitalization.

It was while pondering these matters that Bobby, dropping in at the
Idlers' Club one dull night, found no one there but Silas Trimmer's
son-in-law, the vapid and dissolute Clarence Smythe, which was a
trifle worse than finding the place entirely deserted. To-night
Clarence was in possession of what was known at the Idlers' as "one of
Smythe's soggy buns," and despite countless snubs in the past he
seized upon Bobby as a receptacle for his woes.

"I'm going to leave this town for good, Burnit!" he declared without
any preliminaries, having waited so long to convey this startling and
important information that salutations we