The Making of Bobby Burnit Part 33

"Dead as a door-nail," replied the lieutenant, and Thomas, still with an instinct that something was wrong, still sensitive to a certain suppressed tingling excitement about the very atmosphere of the place, went slowly back to the reporters' room, where he spent a worried half-hour.

The noonday edition of the _Chronicle_ carried, in the identical columns devoted in the _Bulletin_ to a further attack on Stone, a lurid account of the big murder; and the _Bulletin_ had not a line of it! A sharp call from Brown to Thomas, at central police, apprised the latter that he had been "scooped," and brought out the facts in the case. Thomas hurried down-stairs and bitterly upbraided Lieutenant Casper.

"Look here, you Thomas," snapped Casper; "you _Bulletin_ guys have been too fresh around here for a long time."

In Casper's eyes--Casper with whom he had always been on cordial joking terms--he saw cruel implacability, and, furious, he knew himself to be "in" for that most wearing of all newspaper jobs--"doing police" for a paper that was "in bad" with the administration. He needed no one to tell him the cause. At three-thirty, Thomas, and Camden, who was doing the city hall, and Greenleaf Whittier Squiggs, who was subbing for the day on the courts, appeared before Jim Brown in an agonized body. Thomas had been scooped on the big murder, Camden and G. W. Squiggs had been scooped, at the city hall and the county building, on the only items worth while, and they were all at white heat; though it was a great consolation to Squiggs, after all, to find himself in such distinguished company.

Brown heard them in silence, and with great solemnity conducted them across the hall to Jolter, who also heard them in silence and conducted them into the adjoining room to Bobby. Here Jolter stood back and eyed young Mr. Burnit with great interest as his two experienced veterans and his ambitious youngster poured forth their several tales of woe. Bobby, as it became him to be, was much disturbed.

"How's the circulation of the _Bulletin_?" he asked of Jolter.

"Five times what it ever was in its history," responded Jolter.

"Do you suppose we can hold it?"

"Possibly."

"How much does a scoop amount to?"

"Well," confessed Jolter, with his eyes twinkling, "I hate to tell you before the boys, but my own opinion is that we know it and the _Chronicle_ knows it and Stone knows it, but day after to-morrow the public couldn't tell you on its sacred oath whether it read the first account of the murder in the _Bulletin_ or in the _Chronicle_."

Bobby heaved a sigh of relief.

"I always had the impression that a 'beat' meant the death, cortege and cremation of the newspaper that fell behind in the race," he smiled. "Boys, I'm afraid you'll have to stand it for a while. Do the best you can and get beaten as little as possible. By the way, Jolter, I want to see you a minute," and the mournful delegation of three, no whit less mournful because they had been a.s.sured that they would not be held accountable for being scooped, filed out.

"What's the connection," demanded Bobby, the minute they were alone, "between the police department and Sam Stone?"

"Money!" replied Jolter. "Chief of Police Cooley is in reality chief collector. The police graft is one of the richest Stone has. The rake-off from saloons that are supposed to close at one and from crooked gambling joints and illegal resorts of various kinds, amounts, I suppose, to not less than ten to fifteen thousand dollars a week. Of course, the patrolmen get some, but the bulk of it goes to Cooley, who was appointed by Stone, and the biggest slice of all goes to the Boss."

"Go after Cooley," said Bobby. Then suddenly he struck his fist upon the desk. "Great Heavens, man!" he exclaimed. "At the end of every avenue and street and alley that I turn down with the _Bulletin_ I find an open sewer."

"The town is pretty well supplied," admitted Jolter. "How do you feel now about your policy?"

"Pretty well staggered," confessed Bobby; "but we're going through with the thing just the same."

"It's a man's-size job," declared Jolter; "but if you get away with it the _Bulletin_ will be the best-paying piece of newspaper property west of New York."

"Not the way the advertising's going," said Bobby, shaking his head and consulting a list on his desk. "Where has Stone a hold on the dry-goods firm of Rolands and Crawford?"

"They built out circular show-windows, all around their big block, and these extend illegally upon two feet of the sidewalk."

"And how about the Ebony Jewel Coal Company?"

"They have been practically allowed to close up Second Street, from Water to Ca.n.a.l, for a dump."

Bobby sighed hopelessly.

"We can't fight everybody in town," he complained.

"Yes, but we can!" exclaimed Jolter with a sudden fire that surprised Bobby, since it was the first the managing editor displayed. "Don't weaken, Burnit! I'm with you in this thing, heart and soul! If we can hold out until next election we will sweep everything before us."

"We will hold out!" declared Bobby.

"I am so sure of it that I'll stand treat," a.s.sented Mr. Jolter with vast enthusiasm, and over an old oak table, in a quiet place, Mr.

Jolter and Mr. Burnit, having found the sand in each other's craws, cemented a pretty strong liking.

CHAPTER XXV

AN EXCITING GAME OF t.i.t FOR TAT WITH HIRED THUGS

The _Bulletin_, continuing its warfare upon Stone and every one who supported him, hit upon names that had never before been mentioned but in terms of the highest respect, and divers and sundry complacent gentlemen who attended church quite regularly began to look for a cyclone cellar. They were compromised with Stone and they could not placate Bobby. The four banks that had withdrawn their advertis.e.m.e.nts, after a hasty conference with Stone put them back again the first day their names were mentioned. The business department of the _Bulletin_ cheerfully accepted those advertis.e.m.e.nts at the increased rate justified by the _Bulletin's_ increased circulation; but the editorial department just as cheerfully kept castigating the erring conservators of the public money, and the advertis.e.m.e.nts disappeared again.

Bobby's days now were beset from a hundred quarters with agonized appeals to change his policy. This man and that man and the other man high in commercial and social and political circles came to him with all sorts of pressure, and even Payne Winthrop and Nick Allstyne, two of his particular cronies of the Idlers', not being able to catch him at the club any more, came up to his office.

"This won't do, old man," protested Payne; "we're missing you at billiards and bridge whist, but your refusal to take part in the coming polo tourney was the last straw. You're getting to be a regular plebe."

"I am a plebe," admitted Bobby. "What's the use to deny it? My father was a plebe. He came off the farm with no earthly possessions more valuable than the patches on his trousers. I am one generation from the soil, and since I have turned over a furrow or two, just plain earth smells good to me."

Both of Bobby's friends laughed. They liked him too well to take him seriously in this.

"But really," said Nick, returning to the attack, "the boys at the club were talking over the thing and think this rather bad form, this sort of a fight you're making. You're bound to become involved in a nasty controversy."

"Yes?" inquired Bobby pleasantly. "Watch me become worse involved.

More than that, I think I shall come down to the Idlers', when I get things straightened out here, organize a club league and make you fellows march with banners and torch-lights."

This being a more hilarious joke than the other the boys laughed quite politely, though Payne Winthrop grew immediately serious again.

"But we can't lose you, Bobby," he insisted. "We want you to quit this sort of business and come back again to the old crowd. There are so few of us left, you know, that we're getting lonesome. Stan Rogers is getting up a glorious hunt and he wants us all to come up to his lodge for a month at least. You should be tired of this by now, anyhow."

"Not a bit of it," declared Bobby.

"Oh, of course, you have your money involved," admitted Payne, "and you must play it through on that account; but I'll tell you: if you do want to sell I know where I could find a buyer for you at a profit."

Bobby turned on him like a flash.

"Look here, Payne," said he. "Where is your interest in this?"

"My interest?" repeated Payne blankly.

"Yes, your interest. What have you to gain by having me sell out?"

"Why, really, Bobby--" began Payne, thinking to temporize.

"You're here for that purpose, and must tell me why," insisted Bobby sternly, tapping his finger on the desk.