As Bobby announced this he rose mechanically, and, still absorbed in the details of his big fight, walked out into the hall. It was not until he had his coat on and his hat in his hand that he came to himself; and with the deepest confusion found that he had been about to walk out without making any adieus whatever. "Why, where are you going?" inquired Agnes, as he came back into the drawing-room. He laughed sheepishly. "Why," he explained, "ever since I received that telephone message I have been seeing before me the _Bulletin_ extra that they are throwing on the street right now, and I forgot everything else. I'll simply have to go down and hold a copy of it in my hands." "You're just a big boy," laughed Aunt Constance. "Will you ever grow up?" "I hope not," declared Agnes, and taking his arm she strolled with him to the door in perfect peace and confidence. CHAPTER XXVI MR. STONE LEAVES BOBBY A PARTING COMMISSION AND A LEFT-HANDED BLESSING It looked good to Bobby, that late extra of the _Bulletin_, and the force that he had kept on duty to get it out greeted him, as he walked through the office, with a running fire of comment and congratulation that was almost like applause. He had bought a copy on the street as he came in, and as he spread it out there came upon him a thrill of realization that this ought to be the beginning of the end. It was. The fact that Bobby, through the _Bulletin_, had forced this action, made him a power to be reckoned with; and straws, whole bales of them, began to show which way the wind was blowing. One morning a delegation headed by the Reverend Doctor Larynx waited upon him. The Reverend Doctor was a minister of great ingenuity and force, who sought the salvation of souls through such vital topics as Shall Men Go Coatless in Summer? The Justice of Three-Cent Car Fares, and The Billboards Must Go. All public questions, civic, state or national, were thoroughly thrashed out in the pulpit of the Reverend Larynx, and turned adrift with the seal of his condemnation or approval duly fixed upon them; and he managed to get his name and picture in the papers almost as often as the man who took eighty-seven bottles of Elixo and still survived. With him were four thoroughly respectable men of business, two of whom wore side-whiskers and the other two of whom wore white bow-ties. "Fine business, Mr. Burnit," said the Reverend Doctor Larynx in a loud, hearty voice, advancing with three strides and clasping Bobby's hand in a vise-like grip; for he was a red-blooded minister, was the Reverend Doctor Larynx, and he believed in getting down among the "pee-pul." "The _Bulletin_ has proved itself a mighty fine engine of reform, and the reputable citizens of this municipality now see a ray of hope before them." "I'm afraid that the reputable citizens," ventured Bobby, "have no one but themselves to blame for their past hopeless condition. They're too selfish to vote."