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 larger circulation than I want. We lose money on every copy of the paper that we sell." Uncle Dan shook his head. "Is there a chance that you will ever get it back?" he asked. "Bobby's so used to failure that he doesn't mind," interjected Aunt Constance. "Mind!" exclaimed Bobby. "I never minded it so much in my life as I do now. The _Bulletin_ must win. I'm bound that it shall win! If we come out ahead in our fight against Stone I'll get all my advertising back, and I'll keep my circulation, which makes advertising rates." The telephone bell rang in the study adjoining the dining-room, and Bobby, who had been more or less distrait all evening, half rose from his chair. In a moment more the maid informed them that the call was for Mr. Burnit. In the study they could hear his voice, excited and exultant. He returned as delighted as a school-boy. "Now I can tell you something," he announced. "Within five minutes the _Bulletin_ will have exclusive extras on the street, announcing that the legislature has just appointed a committee to investigate municipal affairs throughout the state. That means this town. I have spent ten thousand dollars in lobbying that measure through, and charged it all to improvements' on the _Bulletin_. Sounds like I had joined the ranks of the 'boodlers,' don't it? Well, I don't give a cooky for ethics so long as I know I'm right. I'd have been a simp, as Biff Bates calls it, to go among that crowd of hungry law jugglers with kind words and the ten commandments. I'm not using crossbows against cannon, and as a result I'm winning. I got my measure through, and now I think we'll put Stone and his crew of freebooters on the grill, with some extra-hot coals for my friend De Graff and the other saintly sinners who have been playing into Stone's hands. I have been working a year for this, and the entire politics of this town, with wide-reaching results in the state, is disrupted." "You selfish boy," chided Aunt Constance. "You have been here with us for more than an hour, expecting this all the time, and have not breathed one word of it to us. Don't you trust anybody any more?" "Oh, yes," replied Bobby easily; "but only when it is necessary."