"Johnson," said he, "I want you to do me a favor. There is one block of Brightlight stock that I have not yet bought up. It is in the hands of J. W. Williams, one of the old Stone crowd, who ought to be wanting money by this time. He holds one hundred shares, which you should be able to buy by now at fifty dollars a share. I want you to buy this stock in your own name, and I want to loan you five thousand dollars to do it with. I merely want voting power; so after you get it you may hold it if you like and still owe me the five thousand dollars, or I'll take it off your hands at any time you are tired of the obligation. You'd better go to Barrister and have him buy the stock for you." "Yes, sir," said Johnson. Bobby immediately went to De Graff. "I came to subscribe for two hundred and fifty thousand dollars' worth of additional stock in the New Brightlight. I have just deposited two hundred and eighty-five thousand dollars in your bank." "You're becoming an expert," said De Graff with a quizzical smile. "With the million dollars' valuation at which we are to buy in the present Brightlight, the two hundred and fifty thousand subscribed for by Dan Elliston, and the ten thousand held by Miss Elliston, this new subscription about gives you control of the New Brightlight, don't it?" "That's what I want," Bobby exulted. "You don't object, do you?" "Not on my own account," De Graff assured him; "but you'd better have Barrister buy this in for you until we are organized. Then you can take it over." "I guess you're right," agreed Bobby. "I'll send Barrister right over, and I think I shall make him take up the remaining ten thousand on his own account. A week from to-night is the council meeting at which the Consolidated must make good to renew their franchise, and we don't want any hitch in getting our final incorporation papers by that time. The members of the Consolidated are singing swan songs in seven simultaneous keys at this very moment." Bobby's description of the condition of the Consolidated was scarcely exaggerated. It was a trying and a hopeless period for them. The bond issue had failed miserably. It had not needed the _Chronicle_ to remind the public of what a shaky proposition the Consolidated was, for Bobby had thoroughly exposed the corporation during the _Bulletin's_ campaign against Sam Stone. Bond-floating companies from other cities were brought in, and after an examination of the books threw up their hands in horror at the crudest muddle they had ever found in any investigation of municipal affairs.