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Five Thousand an Hour: How Johnny Gamble Won the Heiress

by George Randolph Chester · English · Gutenberg #4353 · 329,423 chars · public domain (US)

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Title: Five Thousand an Hour: How Johnny Gamble Won the Heiress

Author: George Randolph Chester


        
Release date: August 1, 2003 [eBook #4353]
                Most recently updated: December 27, 2020

Language: English

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Credits: Produced by Charles Franks and the Online Distributed
        Proofreading Team. HTML version by Al Haines.


*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK FIVE THOUSAND AN HOUR: HOW JOHNNY GAMBLE WON THE HEIRESS ***




Produced by Charles Franks and the Online Distributed
Proofreading Team. HTML version by Al Haines.










FIVE THOUSAND AN HOUR

How Johnny Gamble Won the Heiress


BY

GEORGE RANDOLPH CHESTER



Author of

THE MAKING OF BOBBY BURNIT, THE EARLY BIRD, GET-RICH-QUICK WALLINGFORD



ILLUSTRATIONS BY HENRY RALEIGH





CONTENTS


     I   WHICH INTRODUCES JOHNNY GAMBLE AND HIS LAST HUNDRED DOLLARS
    II   IN WHICH STRANGERS BECOME OLD FRIENDS
   III   IN WHICH JOHNNY GAMBLE MIXES BUSINESS AND PLEASURE
    IV   IN WHICH GRESHAM FINDS JOHNNY'S OLD PARTNER ACCOMMODATING
     V   IN WHICH JOHNNY DISPLAYS TALENT AS A TRUE PROMOTER
    VI   IN WHICH CONSTANCE DECIDES ON A FAIR GAME
   VII   IN WHICH JOHNNY DREAMS OF A MAGNIFICENT TWENTY-STORY HOTEL
  VIII   IN WHICH CONSTANCE SHOWS FURTHER INTEREST IN JOHNNY'S
         AFFAIRS
    IX   IN WHICH JOHNNY MEETS A DEFENDER OF THE OLD ARISTOCRACY
     X   IN WHICH JOHNNY IS SINGULARLY THRILLED BY A LITTLE
         CONVERSATION OVER THE TELEPHONE
    XI   IN WHICH JOHNNY EXECUTES SOME EXCEEDINGLY RAPID BUSINESS
         DEALS
   XII   IN WHICH JOHNNY EVEN DOES BUSINESS AT THE BABIES' FUND FAIR
  XIII   IN WHICH JOHNNY BUYS A PRESENT AND HATCHES A SCHEME
   XIV   IN WHICH JOHNNY TRIES TO MIX BUSINESS WITH SKAT
    XV   IN WHICH WINNIE CHAPERONS THE ENTIRE PARTY TO CONEY ISLAND
   XVI   IN WHICH JOHNNY PLANS A REHEARSAL BETWEEN OLD FRIENDS
  XVII   IN WHICH THE STRAW SAILOR HAT OF JOHNNY PLAYS AN
         EMBARRASSING ROLE
 XVIII   IN WHICH THE ENTIRE WOBBLES FAMILY FOR ONCE GETS TOGETHER
   XIX   IN WHICH THE COLONEL, MESSRS. COURTNEY, WASHER AND OTHERS
         SIT IN A LITTLE GAME
    XX   IN WHICH JOHNNY ASKS HIMSELF WHAT IS A MILLION DOLLARS,
         ANYWAY
   XXI   IN WHICH CONSTANCE AVAILS HERSELF OF WOMAN'S PRIVILEGE TO
         CHANGE HER MIND
  XXII   IN WHICH PAUL GRESHAM PROPOSES A VERY PRACTICAL ARRANGEMENT
 XXIII   IN WHICH THE BRIGHT EYES OF CONSTANCE "RAIN INFLUENCE"
  XXIV   IN WHICH JOHNNY DEMANDS SPOT CASH AT ONCE
   XXV   IN WHICH JOHNNY KEEPS ON DOING BUSINESS TILL THE CLOCK
         STRIKES FOUR





FIVE THOUSAND AN HOUR




CHAPTER I

WHICH INTRODUCES JOHNNY GAMBLE AND HIS LAST HUNDRED DOLLARS


About the time the winner of the Baltimore Handicap flashed under the
wire, Johnny Gamble started to tear up a bundle of nice pink tickets on
Lady S. Just then Ashley Loring came by swiftly in the direction of the
betting shed. Loring stopped and wheeled when he caught sight of him as
did most men who knew him.

"Hello, Johnny! I didn't know you had run over. How are you picking
them to-day?" he asked.

"With a dream book," answered Gamble, smiling; "but I ate lobster last
night."

"I didn't know that you cared for the ponies."

"I don't; and it's mutual. Thought I'd take one more whirl, though,
before the Maryland governor also closes the tracks for ever. How are
you doing?"

"I'm working on a new system," stated the tall young man with elation.
"With this scheme, all you have to do is to bet on the right horse.
What did you have in the handicap?"

"The off bay over there," replied Gamble, indicating a team attached to
a sprinkling wagon, away on the farther side of the course. "Have one
of her calling cards, Loring," and he proffered one of the ex-tickets.

"Lady S?" translated Loring. "I cut her acquaintance three bets ago."
And, turning just then toward the grandstand, he smiled up into one of
the boxes and lifted his hat.

Glancing in that direction, Gamble was shocked to find himself looking
squarely into the dark eyes of a strikingly beautiful young woman who
stood with her hands resting upon the rail.

"What do you know about Collaton?" he asked; and, in spite of himself,
he looked again. The young lady this time was laughing with a group of
likable young idlers, all of whom Gamble knew; and, since the startling
stranger was occupied, he could indulge in a slightly more open
inspection.

"I saw Collaton on the track to-day and he was making some big bets,"
replied Loring with a frown. "He's not broke, Johnny. He's merely been
letting you hold the bag."

"Well, help me let go. Loring, I must dissolve that partnership."

The young lawyer shook his head.

"No way to do it so long as the books remain lost. Unless one of you
buys outright the practically defunct Gamble-Collaton Irrigation
Company and assumes all its liabilities, you will remain responsible,
since Collaton possesses no visible property. I'm sure that he stung
you, Johnny."

"Stung me! I'm swelled up yet."

"It's your own fault. You trusted him too much."

"He trusted me. I sold land."

"Of course he trusted you. Everybody does. Meantime he was out West
incurring obligations. You should have gone into bankruptcy and settled
at twenty cents on the dollar when you had a chance, as I advised you."

"Couldn't. I look in the glass when I shave. Anyhow, it's all paid now."

"How do you know, with the books lost? You started in with an equal
amount of money. When that was gone Collaton announced himself
broke--and let you foot the bills. If he only raked off half of what he
spent he got back his own and a tidy fortune besides. Your only chance
is to have that enormous land deal turn out a winner."

"It's worse than Lady S. Tore up my ticket long ago."

"Quite a plunge on a long shot, with a welsher like Collator! making
the book," commented Loring. "He stripped you clean."

"I have my appetite," insisted Gamble with a grin. His cheeks were
ruddy and his skin as flawless as a babe's, and his eyes--exceptionally
large--were as clear as they were direct.

"An appetite like yours only makes it worse to be broke," laughed
Loring.

"There's a plenty of money in New York if I want any," responded
Gamble. "I don't need money, anyhow, Ashley. I have my mother
fixed--and there's nobody else. Besides, I'm not broke. I have a
hundred. Do you know a good horse?"

"Nautchautauk," advised Loring, and they both turned in the direction
of the betting shed. "The price will probably be short; but I look on
it as an investment."

"You can't invest a hundred dollars," argued Gamble.

"You don't mean to say that a hundred's all you have in the world!"
returned Loring. "I thought you'd saved a good deal more than that out
of the wreck."

"I did; but my brother was broke," replied Gamble carelessly, and
stopped in front of a blackboard. The price on Nautchautauk was one and
a half to two. "I don't want a bet," he remarked, shaking his head at
the board; "I need an accident. I wonder if that goat Angora has horns
and a beard?"

"People try fifty-to-one shots just before they cut their throats,"
warned Loring.

"Hide my safety-razor then. Angora carries my hundred. I'll feed a
sawbuck apiece to ten books."

Loring lost sight of him for a few moments, but found him outside, by
and by, in conversation with "Colonel" Bouncer, a heavily-jowled man
with grizzled hair and very friendly eyes which, however, could look
quite cold enough on occasion. The colonel was staring up at the box
occupied by the young lady to whom Loring had bowed.

"Bless my soul, I'm getting near-sighted!" he was saying as Loring
joined them. "Isn't that Paul Gresham up there with Miss Joy?"

"Is that her name?" asked Gamble eagerly. "Well, I believe it."

The colonel turned from him impatiently.

"You know Gresham, don't you, Loring? Is that he up there in that box?"

"That is Saint Paul all right," answered Loring with a smile, as he
glanced up at the prim and precise Gresham, who had now succeeded in
fencing Miss Joy in a corner, away from the other young men.

"Thanks," said the colonel, and walked away abstractedly, his eyes
still turning in the direction of the box, although he did not even
start to go up into the grandstand.

"The colonel is still bargain-hunting," observed Loring with a laugh.
"His shoe-manufacturing business has increased to the point that he
must have more space--and he must have it at once. The only available
ground is Gresham's adjoining property, which Gresham long ago gave up
trying to sell him. The colonel is crazy to buy it now, but he's afraid
to let Gresham know he must have it, for fear Saint Paul will run up
the price on him. In consequence, he trails the man round like a
love-sick boy after an actress. When he finds Gresham he only looks at
him--and goes away. That's only half of the laugh, however. Gresham
wants to sell as badly as the colonel wants to buy, but he doesn't know
where to find a fancy market. Queer case, isn't it?"

"Yes," replied Gamble. "Who's Miss Joy?"

"For heaven's sake, Johnny, don't say you're hit too--even at long
distance!"

"Hit!" repeated Gamble--"I'm flattened out. I'm no lady-fusser, Ashley,
but I'm going to buy a new necktie."

"You don't even know she's rich, do you?" asked Loring, looking at him
with a curious smile.

"Of course I do!" asserted Johnny. "I saw her eyes. Who is she?"

"That's Miss Constance Joy--an orphan worth an exact million dollars;
although I believe there is some sort of a string to it," Loring told
him. "She lives with her aunt, who is Mrs. Pattie Boyden, and she's so
pretty that even women forgive her. Anything else you want to know?"

"Yes. Why do I want to bite Paul Gresham?"

"Hush!" admonished Loring. "He is the remnant of one of our very best
imported families, and he needs the money. He sells a piece of father's
property every year, and he haunts Miss Joy like a pestilence. I think
he's mixed up in her million some way or other. Aunt Pattie approves of
him very much; she is strong for family."

"I'll bite him yet," decided Gamble. "Say, Loring, how am I going to
make a stringless million?"

"If I knew that, I wouldn't be your lawyer," declared Loring. "Excuse
me, Johnny; there's a client of mine."




CHAPTER II

IN WHICH STRANGERS BECOME OLD FRIENDS


Into the box where Miss Constance Joy--slender and dark and
tall--entertained her bevy of admirers, there swished a
violently-gowned young woman of buxom build and hearty manner, attended
by a young man who wore a hundred-dollar suit and smiled feebly
whenever he caught an eye. In his right hand he carried Miss Polly
Parsons' gloves and parasol; in his left, her race-card and hand-bag.
Round his shoulders swung her field-glasses; from his right pocket
protruded her fan and from his left her auto veil. She carried her own
vanity box.

"If you aren't the darlingest thing in the world!" she greeted Miss
Joy, whose face had lighted with a smile of both amusement and
pleasure. "You certainly are some Con! Every time I see you in a new
gown I change my dressmaker. Hello, boys!" She shook hands cordially
with all of them as soon as she had paid her brief respects to Mrs.
Pattie Boyden, who was pleasant and indulgent enough in her greeting,
though not needlessly so.

"You're looking as happy as ever, Polly," observed Constance.

"I'm as happy as a mosquito in a baby's crib," avowed Polly. "I've
added three thousand to-day to the subscription list for our Ocean View
Baby Hotel. Where's that list, Sammy?"

Sammy Chirp passed a few things from his right to his left hand and
searched a few pockets; passed a few things from his left to his right
hand, dropped the lady's handkerchief and picked it up, smiled feebly
upon everybody, and then at last produced the subscription list, which
Miss Joy read most interestedly.

"That's splendid, Polly!" she approved. "Another day's work as good as
this, and we'll be able to buy our hotel."

Paul Gresham, standing stiffly between her and Polly, looked down at
her and smiled correctly.

"I guess we'd better go, don't you think?" he remarked to the other
young men.

"You're safe enough," retorted Polly. "You're safe any place with your
check-book. Besides, we don't want to double names on this list. We'll
spring another one when we're ready to equip and run the place. Oh,
there's Johnny Gamble! Hello, Johnny!" And she leaned far over the rail
to call to him.

It was strange how quickly Johnny Gamble was able to distinguish a
sound coming from that direction, and he looked up immediately. "Come
right up here, Johnny," she commanded him. "I have a great surprise in
store for you."

"Go any place you say if it's not too hot there," he cheerfully assured
her, and started off towards the staircase.

"When I get Johnny Gamble's name this list is closed," said Polly
confidently.

"I'll bet with you on that," offered Bruce Townley. "Johnny probably
hasn't enough money to buy a tin rattle for your babies' hotel."

"No!" she protested, shocked. "I'm so used to seeing him with money
that I don't think I'd know him if he had it shaved off."

"He was too honest, as usual," supplemented Val Russel, lounging
carelessly against the rail. "Here comes Ashley Loring. He can tell you
all about it. Johnny Gamble hasn't a cent left, has he, Loring?"

"It would be most unprofessional to discuss Mr. Gamble's private
affairs," said Loring reprovingly as he came into the box. "Aside from
a mere detail like that, I don't mind saying that Johnny Gamble has
just bet the last hundred dollars he has in the world on an absolutely
criminal long shot."

"I hope he wins!" stated Polly heartily. "I think he's the only real
gentleman I ever knew."

"Well, I like that!" protested Val Russel, laughing.

"I don't mean a slam at you boys," she hastily corrected. "You're a
nice clean bunch; but I know so much about Johnny. He helps people,
then hides so he can't be thanked. He's the one man out of a thousand
that both women and men can absolutely trust."

"That's rather a broad statement," objected Paul Gresham, who had eyed
Polly with fastidious distaste every time she spoke. He was a rather
silent young man with a thin high-arched nose and eyebrows that met,
and was so flawlessly dressed that he sat stiffly.

"I'll make it two in a thousand, Mr. Gresham," said Polly pleasantly.
"I hadn't noticed you; and whatever I am I try to be polite."

The four other young men, who were used to Polly's sweeping
generalities, laughed; for Polly had their hearty approval.

Johnny Gamble arrived.

"Where's the surprise?" he demanded with a furtive glance in the
direction of Miss Joy, a glance which Gresham jealously resented.

"Me!" Polly gaily told him, thrusting her subscription list into the
pocket of Sammy Chirp. "You haven't seen me since I got back."

"You're no surprise--you're a gasp!" he informed her, heartily glad to
see her. "That sunset bonnet is a maraschino."

"Pinkest one they had," she complacently assured him. "I want you to
meet some friends of mine, Johnny." And, with vast pride in her
acquaintanceship with all parties concerned, she introduced him to
Constance and Aunt Pattie.

Johnny Gamble and Constance Joy, for just a moment, looked upon each
other with the frank liking which sometimes makes strangers old
friends. Gresham saw that instant liking and stiffened. Johnny Gamble,
born in a two-room cottage and with sordid experiences behind him of
which he did not like to think in this company, dropped his eyes;
whereupon Miss Constance Joy, who had been cradled under silken
coverlets, studied him serenely. She had little enough opportunity to
inspect odd types at close range--and this was a very interesting
specimen. His eyes were the most remarkable blue she had ever seen.

"Cousin Polly has been telling us most pleasant things about you," she
observed.

"Your cousin Polly?" he inquired, perplexed.

"Yes; we're cousins now," announced Polly happily. "It's the first time
I ever had any relations, and I'm tickled stiff!"

"So am I!" agreed Johnny heartily, figuring vaguely that somebody or
other must have married.

"You are just in the nick of time, Gamble," Gresham quietly stated with
a deliberate intention of humiliating this child of no one. "Miss Polly
has a subscription list which she wants you to complete."

"He's too late," replied Polly with a flash of her eyes in Gresham's
direction. "Mr. Loring just closed up that list," and she winked
vigorously at Loring.

"Loring's my friend," Gamble said with a cheerful laugh. "I have
check-writer's cramp. Who's to get the loving cup?"

"The loving cup's a bottle," Polly returned. "This is a baby's benefit.
It's Constance's pet scheme and I'm crazy about it. We've found a big,
hundred-room summer hotel, with two hundred acres of ground, on a high
bluff overlooking the ocean; and we're going to turn it into a free
hotel for sickly babies and their mothers. Isn't that some scheme?"

"I'm so strong for it I ache!" announced Mr. Gamble with fervor. "Put
me down for--" He checked himself ruefully. "I forgot I was broke!"
Gresham shrugged his shoulders in satisfaction.

"You'll take something for that," Polly confidently comforted her
friend Gamble. "There's G. W. Mason & Company, Johnny. Take me over to
him and watch me fool him when he says he has no check-book with him. I
have check blanks on every bank in town. Bring along my hand-bag and my
subscription list, Sammy."

When they had gone, with the feebly pleased Sammy dutifully bringing up
the rear, Gresham looked after them with relief.

"Handicap day brings out some queer people," he observed.

"If you mean Mr. Gamble I think him delightful," Constance quickly
advised him. "I'm inclined to agree with Polly that he is very much a
gentleman."

"He would be quite likely to appeal to Polly," remarked Aunt Pattie as
she arose for a visit to a near-by box.

"You mean Cousin Polly," corrected Constance sweetly.

Gresham was very thoughtful. He was more logically calculating than
most people thought him.

It was Polly's cousinship which puzzled Johnny Gamble. "When you picked
a cousin you made some choice," he complimented her. "How did you do
it?"

"They made me," she explained. "You know that Billy Parsons was the
only man I ever wanted to marry--or ever will, I guess. His folks met
me once and wouldn't stand for me at all; then Billy took sick and went
out of his head. He cried for me so that the doctor said he had to have
me; so I canceled the best engagement I ever had. I wasn't a star, but
I was featured and was making an awful hit. I went right to the house,
though, and stayed two months--till Billy died. Then I went back to
work; but I hated it. Well, along toward the last they'd got so
friendly that I was awful lonesome. It wasn't long till they got
lonesome too. They're old, you know; and Billy was all they had. So
they came after me and I went with them; and they adopted me and we all
love each other to death. Constance's my cousin now--and she stands it
without batting an eyelash. She's about the cream of the earth, Johnny!"

He drew in his breath sharply.

"You're a lucky kid!" he told her.

There was something in the intensity of his tone which made her look up
at him, startled.

"Now don't you fall in love with her, Johnny!" she begged.

"Why not?" he demanded. "I never tried it; but I bet I can do it."

"That's the trouble," she expostulated; "it's too easy. You can fall in
all right, but how will you get out?"

"I don't want out," he assured her. "I play marbles for keeps."

"All right then; take to pickles and perfume. Look here, Johnny; if
none of her own set can ring her with an orange wreath what can an
outsider do?"

"How do I know till I try?" he inquired. "I get you, Polly. You mean
I'm not in her class; but, you see, I want her!"

"So do the others," she objected.

"They're not used to hard work," he earnestly informed her. "Say, I
need a million dollars."

"Take enough while you're at it! What do you want it for?"

"Her stack's that high."

"She'd never count it."

"I know; but Aunt Pattie and I would. I have to have it, Polly."

"Then you'll get it," she resignedly admitted. "Why, Johnny, I believe
you could get Constance, too!" she added with suddenly accelerated
belief in him. "Well, I'm certainly for you. Tell me, what can I do to
help you?"

"Poison Gresham for me."

"Give me your fifteen cents," she directed. "He's about as popular with
her as a flea with a dog; but he goes with the furniture. He was wished
on her by her Aunt Gertrude."

"Why did her aunt hate her?"

"She hated everybody; so she went in for charity. She made six wills,
each time leaving all her money to a different public institution; but
they each one did something she didn't like before she could die. The
last time she decided to give Constance a chance, made a new will and
took sick the same night. Constance has the interest on her million
till she marries Gresham; then she gets it all. If she marries anybody
else before Gresham dies the money goes to a home for blind cats, or
something like that."

"Healthy soul, wasn't she?" commiserated Johnny. "But why Gresham?"

"The bug for family. Aunt Gertrude's father didn't make his
tobacco-trust money fast enough for her to marry Gresham's father, who
would have been a lord if everybody in England had died. Constance is
to bring aristocracy into the family now."

"Tell her to tear up that million. I'll get her another one," offered
Johnny easily.

"You'll need some repairs before you start," she suggested. "They tell
me you're down and out."

"Tell them to guess again!" he indignantly retorted. "I own all the
to-morrows in the world. There's money in every one of them."

"I've got an awful big bank-account that needs exercise," she offered.
"Now, look here, Johnny, don't yell like I'd hit you with a brick. You
told me to help myself once when I needed it, and I did. You ought to
let me get even. All right, then; be stingy! Where's Sammy?" She had
been feeling in both sleeves with a trace of annoyance, and now she
turned to discover Sammy a few paces back, idly watching a policeman
putting an inebriated man off the track. "Sammy!" she called him
sharply. He came, running and frightened. "I've lost my handkerchief,"
she informed him. "Go get it." Sammy smiled gratefully and was gone.

"Where did you find it?" asked Johnny, indicating the departing
messenger. "Follow you home one cold night, or did a friend give it to
you?"

"Oh, no," she said carelessly; "it just sticks around. I can't get rid
of it, so I've trained it to be handy when I need it."

She fastened upon Colonel Mason just as the horses came to the post,
and she was supplying him with a check blank just as they got away from
the barrier. Gamble turned to the track and distinguished his long shot
off in the lead. He smiled grimly at that irony, for he had seen
long-shot horses raise false hopes before. Mildly interested, he
watched Angora reach the quarter pole, still in the lead. Rather
incredulously, he saw her still in the lead at the half. He was eager
about it when she rounded the three-quarters with nothing but daylight
before her; and as she came down the stretch, with Nautchautauk
reaching out for her flanks, he stuck the ash-end of his cigar in his
mouth and did not see the finish. He knew, by the colossal groan from
the grandstand, however, that Angora had beaten the favorite; and,
though he was not in the least excited, he felt through all his pockets
for his tickets, forgetting that he had taken them out at the beginning
of the race and still held them in his hand; also, he forgot completely
that he was supposed to be escorting Polly, and immediately sauntered
down to the betting shed--to collect the largest five thousand and one
hundred dollars in captivity.




CHAPTER III

IN WHICH JOHNNY MIXES BUSINESS AND PLEASURE


A general desire to bet on the last race had sent all the occupants of
the Boyden box, except Constance, Polly and Gresham, down to the
betting shed when Gamble returned; and he was very glad there was room
enough for him to sit down and enjoy himself. He had evil designs upon
Gresham.

"This is my lucky day," he observed, smiling upon Miss Joy. "I began
this afternoon to pile up an exact million. A near horse gave me a
five-thousand-dollar start."

"If you keep on at the rate of five thousand dollars an hour you'll
have your million in two hundred hours," Constance figured for him.

"I won't work Sundays, evenings, holidays or birthdays," he objected.

"How fussy!" commented Polly. "Which was the kind horse?"

"A goat by the name of Angora," he replied.

"That race should call for an inquiry," sternly stated Gresham.

"You must have bet on the favorite," returned Gamble, and laughed when
Gresham winced. Not a shade of Gresham's expression was escaping him
now.

"We all did," acknowledged Constance smilingly. "This is the first time
I ever bet on the races; and I sent down to bet on every horse in this
last one, so I'll be sure to win just once. I suppose you attend the
races frequently, Mr. Gamble?"

"I'll give you one more guess," he returned. "I don't like to walk
home."

"You won't have to walk this time," she reminded him.

"Not while I ride!" asserted Polly stoutly.

"I'm so glad you won, Johnny. I guess you'll stay in Baltimore now."

"And give this back? I'll get an injunction against myself first.
Polly, I owe you twenty-five hundred dollars. Here's the money."

"This is so sudden," she coyly observed. "My memory's poor, though,
Johnny."

"It's a promise I made myself: If I won this bet half of the winnings
belonged to the babies' hotel."

"Wait, Johnny," objected Polly, pushing the money away from her. "I'd
rather have you on the new subscription list, by and by, for the
furnishing and remodeling fund."

"I'll go on both of them," he offered, putting the money in her lap.
"You ought to know that I stick."

"Yes, you do," she sighed, and passed him the list, covertly pointing
out Gresham's name as she did so and showing the amount opposite it to
be one hundred dollars.

"Mr. Gamble wants to make sure that you'll get it," sneered Gresham,
and laughed. He was anxious to belittle Gamble in the eyes of Constance.

"If Johnny Gamble puts his name down it's as good as paid!" flared
Polly. "By the way, Mr. Gresham, I have that Corn Exchange check blank
for you now."

She handed him the blank and her fountain-pen; and, with some slight
reluctance, Mr. Gresham paid his subscription.

"Thanks," said Polly briskly. "Johnny, did you say I should put you on
the other list for the same amount?"

Constance leaned hastily forward, with the impulse to interfere against
so foolhardy a thing, but caught herself; and, leaning back, she looked
at Johnny Gamble in profile and smiled. There was something fascinating
about the fellow's clear-eyed assurance as he cheerfully answered: "If
you please, Polly."

"It will take you four hundred hours now to make your million," Gresham
advised him, with scarcely concealed contempt.

"I'm no loafer," Gamble declared.

They all laughed at that.

"I beg your pardon," apologized Gresham. "Let's see. How long will it
take you to make your million at the rate of five thousand an hour? How
many hours a day?"

"About seven on regular days; three on Saturdays."

Both the girls were still laughing at the absurdity of it all.

"Counting off for Sundays, you should have your million in about forty
days," persisted Gresham, figuring it with pencil and paper.

Johnny studied the problem carefully.

"All right; I'll do it," he announced, and looked at his watch.

"Bravo!" applauded Constance. "If you could succeed in that you would
display a force which nothing could resist."

Gresham looked at her with a quick frown.

"And if he failed he would display a presumption which nothing could
forgive," he paraphrased. "If it's not asking too much, Mr. Gamble, I'm
curious to know how you propose to accumulate your million." And he
smiled across at Miss Joy, who turned to Gamble, waiting interestedly
for his reply.

"Work a lot of neglected stunts. I never wanted to make a million till
now. I know how, though. I think I'll start with real estate." And he
watched Gresham narrowly.

"That's a dismal enough opening," announced Gresham with a pained
expression. "It is impossible to secure a decent price for property,
especially when you want to sell it."

"If you want to get rid of some I'll buy it," offered Gamble promptly.

"I want cash." And again Gresham smiled over at Constance. The slight
trace of a frown flitted across her brow. She had always thought of
Gresham as a man of perfect breeding.

"Name the right figure. I'll make a deal with you on the spot."

"This is scarcely the place for business," Gresham reproved him.

"I beg pardon," Gamble quickly said, and looked at Constance, a trifle
abashed.

"Please go ahead," that young lady urged. "This is more fun than the
races."

"Thanks." He smiled gratefully, "Now, Gresham, let's get down to
statistics. These are working hours. Here's twenty-five hundred."

"What for?" asked Gresham, looking at the money avariciously.

"To show confidence in the dealer. You have a vacant lot up-town.
What's it worth?"

"Forty thousand dollars," recited Graham.

"If you want forty it's worth thirty," Gamble sagely concluded. "I'll
split it with you. Give you thirty-five."

Gresham shook his head; but Gamble, watching him closely, saw that he
was figuring.

"I can't let the property go for less than its value."

"I don't want you to. I offered you thirty-five."

"On what terms?" inquired Gresham cautiously.

"Thirty days cash. This twenty-five hundred is a first payment. I want
a renewable option. If I don't cross over with the balance in thirty
days, spend the money."

"What do you mean by a renewable option?" asked Gresham, hesitating.

"When this option runs out I get another at the same price--and twice
more after that."

"Nonsense!" exclaimed Gresham, turning away. "Why, I'd be letting you
tie up my property for four months."

"I'm offering you over eighty per cent, a year. You'd rather stay tied."

Gresham pondered that problem for a moment.

"By Jove, you're right!" he said. "I'm selfish enough to hope that you
can't pay for it in thirty days." He reflected that in all probability
this reckless person was playing another long shot. "I'll take you."

Gamble piled the money into his hands, and with Polly's fountain-pen,
wrote a clear and concise statement of the option upon the back of an
unimportant letter. Gresham, as soon as he had finished counting the
money with caressing fingers, read and reread the option
cautiously--and signed it.

Polly reached out for it.

"Let me witness this," she requested with a glance of meaning at her
friend Johnny; and, writing the word "Witnesses" in its proper place,
she signed her name and passed the paper to Miss Joy. "Come in,
Constance; the water's fine," she invited. "Be a witness with me and
let's all be in vulgar trade."

Constance signed the paper gravely, puckering her lips adorably as she
made a careful business of it. She gave the paper to Mr. Gamble, and he
felt foolish enough to kiss the signature. She found another paper upon
her lap and opened it mechanically. It was the subscription list.
Suddenly she burst into laughter.

"This last donation is from Angora!" she exclaimed. "That's a generous
subscription, Mr. Gamble; but I don't know whether to thank you or the
horse."

"Thank the goat, whoever that is," he suggested, smiling into her eyes.
Great Scott, what eyes they were! "Polly, Colonel Bouncer is over there
by the band stand. I'll give you a nickel's worth of peanuts if you'll
tell him what I'm doing."

Mr. Gresham turned olive green.

"Wait a minute, Miss Parsons," he protested. "Mr. Gamble, you manage
very nicely without Mr. Collaton. If you knew of a probable purchaser
for my property you have just taken a most unethical advantage of me."

"You didn't have your fingers crossed," Gamble serenely reminded him.

"Not once," corroborated Polly. "I watched him all the time. Just leave
the colonel to me, Johnny. I'll scare him to death on the way here,"
and she hurried away upon her errand.

"I suppose I must take my medicine," said Gresham glumly. "I should
have sent you to my lawyer. I might have known that your business
ethics and my own would be entirely different."

"What are business ethics, Mr. Gresham?" asked Constance with
suspicious innocence.

"There do not seem to be any," he responded.

"I never heard of any," agreed Gamble cheerfully. "My principle is, See
it first and grab it."

"That's the rule of every highwayman, I believe," charged Gresham. "You
will excuse me for a few moments, please?" And he hurried away in
pursuit of a man whom he had seen passing.

"That's the rule of life," said Gamble. "I had to learn it quick. It
took me four months to save up my first eighteen dollars. I thought I'd
never get it."

"You must have wanted something very much," suggested Constance,
smiling sympathetically at her vision of this man as a boy, hoarding
his pennies and nickels like a miser for so long a time.

"I did," he admitted simply. "I wanted a cook stove with silver knobs.
The day I had it brought home was the proudest of my life. My mother
knelt down and hugged it. It had four lids and not one of them was
cracked."

Constance looked at him with a musing smile. He must have been a
handsome boy.




CHAPTER IV

IN WHICH GRESHAM FINDS JOHNNY'S OLD PARTNER ACCOMMODATING


Beneath the grandstand, Gresham caught up with a thin-faced and
sandy-haired man whose colorless eyebrows and almost colorless eyes
gave his waxlike countenance a peculiarly blank expression--much as if
one had drawn a face and had forgotten to mark in the features. The man
started nervously as Gresham touched him on the shoulder, and his thin
lips parted in a frightened snarl.

"You have such a ghastly way of slipping up behind one," he complained,
brushing the shoulder upon which Gresham had laid his hand.

"You're nervous, Collaton. I'm not Johnny Gamble," laughed Gresham.

"Suppose you were!" indignantly retorted Collaton. "I'm not avoiding
Johnny." And he studied Gresham furtively.

"The Gamble-Collaton books are. Do you imagine there are any more
outstanding accounts against your firm?"

"How should I know?" Collaton glanced about him uneasily.

"True enough--how should you?" agreed Gresham soothingly. "I'd feel
rather sorry for Gamble if an old and forgotten note against your firm,
upon which a judgment had been quietly secured 'by default', should
turn up just now."

"I don't think one will," returned Collaton, searching Gresham's eyes.
"Why?"

"Because he is almost certain to make a deposit in the Fourth National
Bank in a short time."

"That's a very good reason," laughed Collaton, now certain of the eyes.

"If that deposit were to be attached," went on Gresham suavely, "it
might embarrass him very much." There was a slight pause. "If you'll
call me up to-night I'll let you know how much it will be and when he
is likely to bank it."

"Why do you tell me this?" puzzled Collaton.

"Because I want him broke!" explained Gresham, his face suddenly
twitching viciously in spite of himself.

Collaton thought it over carefully.

"What's your telephone number?" he accommodatingly inquired.

Colonel Bouncer, meanwhile, was flattered to have Polly Parsons pause
at his seat as she came down the aisle, after an extended passage at
arms with Val Russel, and tell him how young he looked.

"Gad, you'd make any man feel young and brisk!" he gallantly declared.

"Wasn't that Paul Gresham in Mrs. Boyden's box?"

"Yes; the very Paul," she assured him, glad that the colonel was making
it so easy for her. "He's going to give you a new neighbor, Colonel.
He's just been discussing a deal with Mr. Gamble for the vacant
property next to your factory."

"Bless my soul!" ejaculated the colonel, rising hastily. "He hasn't
actually sold it, has he?"

"He has given Mr. Gamble an option on it," Polly was happy to state.

"You don't say!" exploded the colonel. "Why, what does Johnny Gamble
want with it?"

"He didn't tell; but I think he's organizing a shoe-manufacturing
company," lied Polly glibly.

"Goodness me!" muttered the colonel, and, breathing heavily, he cursed
his procrastination heartily to himself, threw discretion to the winds
and hurried down to the Boyden box just as Gresham returned. His
greeting to the other occupants was but perfunctory, and then he turned
to Gresham with: "You haven't sold your property adjoining my factory,
have you, Gresham?"

"Well, I've given Mr. Gamble an option on it," admitted Gresham
reluctantly.

"For how much?"

"That would be telling," interposed Gamble.

"For how long is your option?" the colonel demanded.

"Thirty days."

"What are you buying it for--investment or improvement?"

"That would be telling again."

"Will you sell it?"

"Depends on the price."

"What'll you take for it?"

"Fifty-five thousand."

"Bless my soul!" exclaimed the colonel. "Why, man, that's robbery! I'll
never pay it. I'll take a chance on waiting until your option expires,
then I'll do business with Gresham. Gresham, what will you want for the
property if Gamble, or WHEN Gamble doesn't take it up?"

"Fifty thousand," said Gresham, and glanced darkly at Gamble.

Miss Joy interrupted with a laugh. Gresham looked at her inquiringly,
but he did not ask her the joke. She volunteered an explanation,
however.

"I'm just framing a definition of business ethics," she stated; "but
really I don't see the difference between yours and Mr. Gamble's."

"Business ethics consists in finding a man who has some money, and
hitting him behind the ear with a sand-bag," explained the colonel.
"Even your price is a holdup, Gresham; but I think I can buy it for
less when the time comes--if I want it."

"You'll have four months to make up your mind," said Gamble with a
triumphant look at Constance.

"I thought your option was for only thirty days."

"It's renewable three times."

"Bless my soul!" shouted the colonel. "That puts an entirely different
face upon the matter. If you don't want too much money for it, Gamble,
I don't mind confessing that I'd like to build an extension to my
factory on that property. Now that my defenses are down, soak me."

"I couldn't refuse a little thing like that. I'll soak you all I can. I
said fifty-five thou-sand, you know."

"You didn't mean it, though!" expostulated the colonel.

"What did I mean then?"

"You meant forty thousand."

"As a mind-reader you're a flivver," chided Gamble. "I'll let you down
one notch, Colonel. I'll make it fifty thousand--and not one cent less."

The colonel looked at him sorrowfully.

"Do you really mean that, Johnny?" he inquired.

"I really mean it."

"Well, if you say you really mean it you really mean it. I know you
well enough for that," admitted the colonel with a sigh. "It's a rank
robbery though. I'll take you, Johnny."

Gamble turned to Gresham.

"If you don't mind, I'll just transfer my option to the colonel," he
suggested.

"The game is in your hands--for the present," Gresham acknowledged.

"We'll just fix it up that way, then, Colonel. Polly, lend me your
fountain-pen again. Colonel, you may hand me your check for seventeen
thousand five hundred. You may pay the balance of the money to
Gresham--upon delivery, I suppose, of the deed."

"Surely," said the colonel nonchalantly; and, producing his own
fountain-pen and check-book, he wrote Johnny Gamble's check, while
Gamble wrote a transfer of his option. Constance watched that
unquestioning operation between the two gentlemen with puzzled brows.

"You're not taking this matter to your lawyer, Colonel," she observed.

"Certainly not!" he replied in surprise. "I've known Johnny Gamble for
years, and I'd take his word for my entire bank-account."

"I must confess that business ethics has me more confused than ever,"
laughed Constance. "You just now accused Mr. Gamble of robbing you."

It was the colonel's turn to laugh.

"I'd have paid him sixty thousand," he advised her, placing the option
affectionately in his pocket-book. "It's worth that to me. I've been
afraid to broach the matter to Gresham for a month, for fear he'd want
seventy-five when he found out I had to have it. I'm getting it cheaper
through Gamble."

A fleeting trace of guilt upon Gresham's countenance told that this
surmise was the truth, and Constance shook her head.

"I don't suppose I shall ever understand it," she confessed.

"I don't, myself," observed Gamble, passing the colonel's check between
his fingers quite happily. "I can loaf three hours now on that
two-hundred-hour stunt, thanks to you, Gresham."

"You had your start by luck," Gresham reminded him.

"Not at all," insisted Gamble cheerfully. "I would have borrowed the
money from the colonel to buy that option. How's that for ethics, Miss
Joy?"

"It's quite in keeping with your methods of the day," rejoined Gresham.
"I still insist that you took an unfair advantage of me."

The colonel, who regretted to be compelled to dislike anybody, turned
upon Gresham a dissatisfied eye.

"Oh, play the game or stay out of it!" he advised. "I'll see you at my
lawyer's to-morrow at eleven. Come with me a minute, Johnny. I want you
to meet a friend of mine who has a big real estate deal on tap, and he
may not go back on our train to-night."

Johnny Gamble made his adieus from the Boyden box with reluctance. The
horses were lining up at the barrier for the last race, and he might
not return in time. While he was bidding a thoroughly inadequate
good-by to Constance, Loring came up hastily and called Polly from the
box.

"Sammy Chirp called my attention to Gresham and Collaton talking
together rather furtively down under the grandstand a few minutes ago,"
he said. "I have a curious impression that they mean harm to Gamble."

"It was Gresham got the harm. Johnny just beat him to a
fifteen-thousand-dollar profit."

"So that was it," said Loring with a frown. "Tell him to watch out.
They were about to attach his bank-account the last time he paid an
unexpected note," and he lounged into the box.

Polly followed Johnny Gamble when he started to rejoin the colonel.

"Do me a favor, please, Johnny," she begged.

"Certainly," he returned. "Do you know what it is?"

"Here's my fountain-pen. Indorse that check over to me, won't you?"

"What's the joke?" he asked.

"I don't want you to have the money. I'm in a hurry now."

"Well, I'm broke again," laughed Johnny in perfect confidence; and he
indorsed the check.

"The most thoroughgoing plebe I ever saw," Gresham commented, looking
after Gamble. "It's so fortunate that one is only compelled to meet him
in public places."

Constance glanced at him curiously and hurried to the rear rail of the
box. She barely mentioned Mr. Gamble's name, and it was surprising how
easily he heard her and how quickly he came back.

"I forgot to ask you to call," she said. "If you can spare any time
from your pursuit of that million dollars we should be glad to see you
at the house--Aunt Pattie and I."

"Will you be busy to-morrow evening?" he briskly inquired.

"There's no one expected but Mr. Gresham," she informed him with a
smile at his precipitancy.

"I'll be there," he stated with businesslike decisiveness. "I'll bring
along from five to twenty thousand dollars' worth of time and use up as
much of it as you'll let me."

"I'll have a meter," she laughed.




CHAPTER V

IN WHICH JOHNNY DISPLAYS TALENT AS A TRUE PROMOTER


"I don't know much about bookkeeping, but I guess this will do,"
observed Johnny, passing over his first attempt for inspection.

Loring examined the little book with keen enjoyment. Johnny had opened
an account with himself and had made five entries. On the debit side
appeared the following items:

  April 22. To three working hours, $15,000
  April 23. Sunday.
  April 24. To desk rent, ...$38
  April 24. To seven working hours, $35,000

On the credit side was this:

  April 22. By skinning Paul Gresham--good work, ..... $15,000

"How is it?" asked Gamble anxiously.

"Good work!" pronounced Loring with a chuckle. "They may not teach this
sort of bookkeeping in commercial colleges. Their kind is stiff and
dry. This has personality. Why am I two dollars shy on desk rent,
though? I thought you were to take forty days to make your million
dollars?"

"That's right," admitted Johnny; "seven hours on week-days and three on
Saturdays--two hundred hours at five thousand an hour. I started on
Saturday, however. To-day is Monday. This morning is when I begin to
use your desk-room. Here's your dollar a day until four P.M., May
thirty-first." And he handed Loring thirty-eight dollars.

"You're not really going to try that absurd stunt?" protested Loring
incredulously.

"I have to. Miss Joy will think I'm a four-flusher if I don't."

"Miss Joy again!" laughed Loring. "You only met her Saturday, and I
don't think you've thought of another thing since."

"Gresham and her million," corrected Johnny, and he started for the
door.

"Where are you going--if anybody should ask for you?" inquired Loring.

"Fourth National."

"To deposit Gresham's fifteen thousand?"

"No," laughed Gamble. "Polly took that away from me."

"That's a good safe place for it," returned Loring, relieved.

"Safe as the mint," corroborated Johnny, and hurried out.

As he went up the steps of the Fourth National Bank a pallid-faced
young man, with eyebrows, eyelashes and hair so nearly the color of his
skin that they were invisible, watched him out of the window of a taxi
that had been standing across the street ever since the bank had
opened. As soon as Johnny entered the door the young man gave a
direction to the driver, and the taxi hurried away.

President Close was conservatively glad to see Johnny. He was a
crisp-faced man, with an extremely tight-cropped gray mustache; and not
a single crease in his countenance was flexible in the slightest
degree. He had an admiration amounting almost to affection for
Johnny--provided the promising young man did not want money.

"Good morning," he greeted his caller. "What can we do for you to-day?"
And in great haste he mentally reviewed the contents of credit envelope
G-237. That envelope, being devoted to Mr. Gamble, contained a very
clear record; so Mr. Close came as near to smiling as those cast-iron
creases would allow.

"Want to give the Fourth National as a reference," returned Johnny
cheerfully.

"I see," assented Mr. Close, immediately ceasing to smile; for now
approached the daily agony of life--the grudging of credit. "I see; I
see. Do you propose engaging in a new venture?"

"Just as often as I can find one," stated Johnny briskly.

Mr. Close looked at him with stern disapproval.

"That does not sound like a very stable frame of mind," he chided.
"What do you propose to do first?"

"A twenty-story hotel."

"That runs into millions!" gasped Close, and reached out to touch a
button upon his desk; but Johnny Gamble stayed that hand.

"You're after my balance," he said. "It's twelve dollars and
thirty-seven cents."

"Well, you see, Mr. Gamble, under the circumstances--" hesitated Mr.
Close.

"I know," interrupted the applicant; "you can only say I'm good for
twelve-thirty-seven. I don't ask you to back me. If anybody 'phones
you, just say I'm a good boy."

Mr. Close almost smiled again.

"So far as the moral risk is concerned I shall have no hesitation in
speaking most highly of you," he granted.

"And don't laugh when you say it," Johnny admonished, smiling
cheerfully, for he knew that Close always did better than he promised.
"Tell them this, can't you?--I've banked with you for five years. I've
run about a ton of money through your shop. I've been broke a dozen
times and I never left a debt behind me. I've been trusted and I always
made good. I guess you could say all that if you stopped to take a
couple of breaths, couldn't you?"

"I shall certainly say those things if I am asked about them," replied
Mr. Close, considering them carefully, one by one. "Don't hesitate to
refer to me. I'll do the best I conscientiously can for you."

Johnny stood waiting for the stream of the traffic to stop for the
cross-current, so that he could go over to the subway, when a big blue
touring car stopped just in front of him, and the driver, a hearty
young woman all in blue, including plumes and shoes, hailed him
joyously.

"Jump in, Johnny!" she invited. "I found a four-leaf clover this
morning--and here I'm lucky already. Sammy, run into the drug store for
some chocolates. Johnny, sit up here with me."

Sammy Chirp, who tied his own cravats and did them nicely, smiled
feebly in recognition of Johnny Gamble, lugged Miss Polly Parson's
bouquet, parasol, fan, hand-bag and coat back into the tonneau and went
upon his errand.

"Thanks, Sammy," said Johnny, and clambered into young Chirp's place in
the car. "Where are you going to take me?"

"Any place you say," rejoined Polly.

"Drive over on Seventh Avenue, then," he directed. "There's a lot of
shack property around the new terminal station. I want to build a
smashing big hotel over there. I don't see why somebody hasn't done it."

Polly puzzled over that matter considerably herself.

"It doesn't seem possible that New York would overlook a bet like
that," she declared, and obeying the traffic policeman's haughty
gesture, turned briskly off Broadway.

"Why not?" he demanded. "New York grabs a cinch. The cinch has been
kicking around loose for fifty years. New York pats herself on the pink
bald spot. 'Nothing gets by me!' she says."

"New York's the best town in the world!" Polly flared.

"I wasn't insulting your friend," apologized Johnny, and looked at his
watch. "Great Scott! It's ten-thirty!" he exploded. "I owe myself
seventy-five hundred dollars. All I've done is to decide on a Terminal
Hotel Company. Want some stock, Polly?"

"I'll take all I can reach if you're leading it around," she assured
him. "I can't take much, but I'll make Daddy Parsons go in, and I'll be
a nuisance to every moneyed man I know."

"By the by, where's the fifteen thousand I made Saturday?" Johnny asked.

"In my bank," she replied. "I just deposited it."

"Why did you take it away from me--if it's any of my business?" he
wanted to know.

"I was afraid they'd snatch it from you," she returned. "Gresham was
all peeved up because you took fifteen thousand away from him in front
of Constance. Loring saw Gresham and your old partner talking together
immediately afterward; and he told me that they might frame up some
crooked scheme to grab the money. I didn't have a chance to explain, so
I asked you to indorse the check to me."

"Do you think Collaton's crooked?" Johnny asked with a queer smile.

"I can think he's crooked without batting an eyelash. I can think it
about Gresham too."

"Why do you have that idea about Gresham?"

"Because I don't like him," she triumphantly argued.

"Shake!" invited Johnny. "I know six reasons why I can do without him.
What are your six?"

"One is because I don't like him, and another is because he's going to
marry Constance, and the other four are because I don't like him," she
calmly summed up.

"Does Constance say he's going to marry her?" he inquired crisply.

"Not in so many words."

"Then I don't believe it. I wouldn't marry him for six millions."

"Constance can't be so careless. If they break you they can't sprint
fast enough to keep it; but if they take it away from Constance she's
broke."

"It's ten-forty!" groaned Johnny. "I'm slow on that million.
Constance'll think I'm loafing."

"Is she interested?"

"She promised last night to keep score. Gresham was there. I looked,
any minute, to see him bite himself in the neck and die of poison.
Polly, he can't have her."

"You'd better tell Constance about that," laughed Polly. "Why, Johnny,
you had never seen her or heard of her forty-eight hours ago!"

"I know; I didn't have the right chances when I was young!"

Polly gazed upon him admiringly.

"I've seen swift love affairs before, but you've set a new record!" she
exclaimed. "Well, I'm for you, Johnny. Since poor Billy's parents
adopted me and made me a cousin of Constance, I can trot up her stone
steps any minute; and she treats me as if I'd had my first bottle in a
pink-silk boudoir. I'll make it my business to run up there twice a day
and boost for you."

"Don't be too strong!" Johnny hastily warned her. "Boost half of the
time if you want to, but be sure and knock the other half."

"I guess it would be better," soberly agreed Polly--"even with
Constance. Here's your terminal station. Pick out your corner and drive
a claim stake."

Polly obligingly drove slowly around three sides of the huge new
terminal. Directly opposite the main entrance was a vacant plot of
ground, with a frontage of an entire block and a depth of four hundred
feet. Big white signs upon each corner told that it was for sale by
Mallard & Tyne. They stopped in front of this location, while both
Johnny and Polly ranged their eyes upward, by successive steps, to the
roof garden which surmounted the twentieth story of Johnny's imaginary
Terminal Hotel.

"It's a nifty-looking building, Johnny!" she complimented him as they
turned to each other with sheepish smiles.

"I'm going to tear it down and put up a better one," he briskly told
her. "I'll hand you a piece of private information. If the big railroad
company which built this terminal station doesn't own that blank space
it's a fool--and I don't think it is. If it does the property will be
held for ever for the increase in value. Let's look at these other
blocks. The buildings on the one next to it are worth about a plugged
nickel apiece--and that would make exactly as good a location."

"But, Johnny; you couldn't build a hotel in forty days!"

"Build it! I don't want to. I only want to promote it."

"Does a promoter never build?" asked Polly.

"Not if he can escape," replied Johnny. "All a promoter ever wants to
do is to collect the first ninety-nine years' profits and promote
something else. Drive me up to the address on that real estate sign and
I'll pay you whatever the clock says and let you go."

"The clock says a one-pound box of chocolates," she promptly estimated.
"Wait, though. I did send for some!" And she looked back into the
tonneau. "Why, drat it all! I mislaid Sammy!" she gasped.




CHAPTER VI

IN WHICH CONSTANCE DECIDES ON A FAIR GAME


By three o'clock Johnny Gamble had acquired so much hotel information
that his head seemed stuffed. Every bright-eyed financier in the city
had nursed the happy thought of a terminal hotel and had made tentative
plans--and had jerked back with quivering tentacles; for all the
property in that neighborhood was about a thousand degrees Fahrenheit.
The present increase of value and that of the next half-century had
been gleefully anticipated, and the fortunate possessor of a
ninety-nine-year lease on a peanut stand felt that he was providing
handsomely for his grandchildren.

Mr. Gamble detailed these depressing facts to his friend Loring with
much vigor and picturesqueness.

"The trouble with New York is that everybody wants to collect the
profits that are going to be made," Loring sagely concluded.

"It's the only way they can get even," Johnny informed him. "Well,
that's the regular handicap. Guess I'll have to take it."

"You don't mean to try to promote a hotel against such inflated
values!" protested Loring.

"Why not?" returned Johnny. "That section has to have a hotel. The
sporty merchants of the Middle West will pay the freight."

"I guess so," agreed Loring thoughtfully. "Well, good luck to you,
Johnny! By the way, President Close of the Fourth National, has called
you up twice this afternoon. I suppose he's gone, by now."

"No, I think he stays to sweep out for the gold-dust," surmised Johnny,
and telephoned to the bank. Mr. Close, however, had gone home an hour
before.

"He's sensible," approved Loring, putting away his papers. "This
weather would tempt a mole outdoors. I'm going to the ball game. Better
come along."

"Too frivolous for me," declared Johnny, eying his little book
regretfully. "There's a thirty-five-thousand-dollar day almost gone.
All I can credit myself with is a flivver. I'm going to stay right here
on the job and figure hotel."

At three-thirty Loring returned.

"So you're not going to the game, Johnny?" he observed with a sly smile.

"At five thousand an hour! Nev-ver!"

"Too bad," regretted Loring still smiling. "I just saw Constance and
Polly. They're going out."

Johnny promptly slammed several sheets of figures into a drawer.

"Is there room for me in your car?" he asked anxiously.

"Val Russel and Bruce Townley are with me. There's plenty of room--but
you really ought to stay here and figure on your hotel," Loring advised
him.

"I can figure any place," stated Johnny briskly, and put away his
little book. "Are we ready?"

The eyes of Constance Joy lighted with pleasure as she saw the group
which filed into the box adjoining the one in which she sat with Polly
Parsons, Paul Gresham, Colonel Bouncer, and Sammy Chirp; and Gresham
watched her discontentedly as she shook hands with Gamble. He did not
like the cordiality of that hand-shake, nor yet the animation of her
countenance. Neither did he like her first observation, which consisted
not of any remarks about health or the weather, but about Johnny's
intimate personal affairs.

"How is the million dollars coming on?" she had interestedly inquired,
and then sat down in Gresham's own chair, next to the dividing rail.
"You know, I promised to keep score for you."

"You may mark me a goose-egg for today," replied Johnny, sitting
comfortably beside her with only the thin board partition between them.

Gresham, his dark eyebrows meeting in a sinister line across his
forehead, smiled with grim satisfaction.

"People with money seem to be watching it on Mondays," he observed.

"They have to sleep some time," Polly quickly reminded him. "Your day
for a nap was Saturday."

"I'm guilty," admitted Gresham with a frowning glance at Johnny. "My
trance--day before yesterday--cost me fifteen thousand. I shan't forget
it soon."

"I'll bet you never will!" Polly agreed.

"Johnny was awake that day," declared Colonel Bouncer, laughing
heartily and reaching over to slap Gamble affectionately on the
shoulder. "He's fifteen thousand better off; and I guess he won't
forget that in a hurry."

"I've forgotten it now," asserted Johnny. "Colonel, I want to talk with
you about some stock in a big hotel opposite the new terminal station."

"Bless my soul--NO!" almost shouted the colonel. "I nearly got tangled
up in my friend Courtney's terminal hotel scheme--and I'm scared yet."

"Courtney?" repeated Johnny. "That's the name they gave me at Mallard &
Tyne's office this afternoon. They told me that he has tied up the only
available block the railroad company overlooked."

"Tied it up!" exploded the colonel. "Bless my soul, it has him tied up!
Courtney's company blew so high that none of the pieces has come down
yet. Meantime his enthusiasm is likely to cost him a round two and a
quarter million dollars."

"He must have had a high fever," commented Johnny. "How could a man be
so forgetful of that much money?"

"He thought his friends were game," explained the colonel; "and, in
spite of his long and successful business experience, he over-looked
the difference between a promise and a promissory note. He nailed his
stock subscribers down with hasty conversation only, and then rushed
off and grabbed the six collected parcels of that block, for fear it
might get away before he had his company legally organized."

"And now he can't unspike it," guessed Johnny smilingly. "Watch out,
Colonel!"

There was a lively scramble in the two boxes as the first foul tip of
the season whizzed directly at them. Gamble, who had captained his
village nine, had that ball out of the air and was bowing jovially to
the applause before Gresham had quite succeeded in squeezing himself
down behind the door of the box.

Naturally it was Polly who led the applause; and Constance shocked the
precise Gresham by joining in heartily.

She was looking up at Johnny with sparkling eyes and flushed cheeks
when Gresham came out of his cyclone cellar--and, if he had disliked
Gamble before, now he hated him.

It is a strange feature of the American national game that the more
perfectly it is played the duller it is. This was a pitchers' battle;
and the game droned along, through inning after inning, with seldom
more than three men to bat in each half, while the score board
presented a most appropriate double procession of naughts. Spectators,
warmly praising that smoothly oiled mechanical process of one, two,
three and out, and telling each other that this was a great game,
nevertheless yawned and dropped their score cards, and put away their
pencils, and looked about the grandstand in search of faces they knew.

In such a moment Colonel Bouncer, who had come into this box because of
a huge admiration for Polly and an almost extravagant respect for
Constance, and who had heartily wished himself out of it during the
last two or three innings, now happily discovered a familiar face only
a few rows back of him. "By George, Johnny, there's Courtney now!" he
announced.

Gamble looked with keen interest.

"Do you mean that gentleman with the ruddy face and the white beard?"
he inquired.

"That's the old pirate," asserted the colonel.

"Why, that's the man you wanted to introduce me to at the race-track in
Baltimore Saturday."

"Bless my heart, so I did!" he remembered. "I thought it might relieve
him to tell his troubles to you. It isn't too late yet. Come on up and
I'll introduce you--that is, unless you want to watch this game."

"I'm pleased to pass up this game till somebody makes an error," Johnny
willingly decided. "If they'll hand out a base on balls and a safe bunt
and hit a batter, so as to get three men on bases with two out, and
then muft a high fly out against the fence, and boot the ball all over
the field while four of the Reds gallop home--I'll stay and help lynch
the umpire; otherwise not. Show me to your friend Courtney." He turned
to take courteous leave of the others and his eyes met the friendly
glance of Constance.

"Let's catch Mr. Courtney at the end of the game," he suggested to the
colonel; and then, turning directly to Constance, he added with a
laugh: "I think I'll play hooky. I don't want to break up the party."

"If you think you see an opportunity for that million, the official
scorer insists upon saying good-by," she laughed in return, and held
out her hand.

Johnny shook the hand with both pleasure and reluctance, and obediently
left.

"I'm offering my pet vanity parasol against a sliver of chewing-gum on
Johnny," Polly confided to Loring. "I could see it in his eye that Mr.
Courtney will be invited to help him make that million."

"Somebody ought to warn Courtney," Gresham commented sarcastically.

"Why warn him?" demanded Loring. "I'll guarantee that any proposition
Johnny makes him will be legitimate."

"No doubt," agreed Gresham. "A great many sharp practices are
considered legitimate nowadays."

"I object, also, to the term 'sharp practices'," responded Loring
warmly. "I don't believe there's a man in New York with a straighter
and cleaner record than Gamble's. Every man with whom he has ever done
business, except possibly yourself, speaks highly of him and would
trust him to any extent; and he does not owe a dollar in the world."

"Doesn't he?" snarled Gresham. "There's an unsatisfied attachment for
fifteen thousand dollars resting against him at the Fourth National
Bank at this very moment."

Loring's indignation gave way immediately to grave concern.

"So that's why Close was trying to get him on the 'phone all
afternoon!" he mused.

"Mr. Gresham," called Polly sharply, "how do you come to know about
this so quickly?"

Gresham cursed himself and the blind hatred which had led him into
making this slip; and he was the more uncomfortable because not only
Loring and Polly but Constance had turned upon him gravely questioning
eyes.

"Such things travel very rapidly in commercial circles," he lamely
explained.

"I had no idea that you were a commercial circle," retorted Polly. "I
wonder who's crooked." Gresham laughed shortly. "It isn't Johnny!" she
indignantly asserted. "I know how Johnny's fifteen thousand was saved
from this attachment, but I wouldn't tell where it is--even here."

Polly and Loring looked at each other understandingly.

"I suppose that was an old Gamble-Collaton account," Loring surmised
with another speculative glance at Gresham. "I am quite certain that
Johnny knows nothing whatever of this claim--let alone the attachment.
The operations of his big irrigation failure were so extensive that,
with the books lost, he can never tell when an additional claim may be
filed against him. If suit is made in an obscure court, and Collaton,
who hasn't a visible dollar, answers summons and confesses judgment for
the firm, Johnny has no recourse."

"Except to repudiate payment," suggested Gresham with a shrug of his
shoulders.

"I wish he would," returned Loring impatiently. "I wish he would let me
handle his affairs in my own way."

"He won't," Polly despaired.

"Tell me, Mr. Loring," interposed Constance, who had been silently
thoughtful all this while; "would this unpaid attachment at Mr.
Gamble's bank interfere with his present success if Mr. Courtney--or
any one else whom Mr. Gamble might try to interest--were to hear of it?"

"It might--and very seriously," returned Loring.

The long somnolent game was suddenly awakened by two blissful errors,
which gave the audience something to jeer at. A tally slipped home for
Boston. A sharp double play redeemed the errors and closed the inning.
The first man up for the Yankees drove a clean two-bagger down the
right foul line; the second man laid down his life nobly with a
beautiful bunt; the Boston pitcher gave a correct imitation of Orville
Wright and presented free rides to the next two Highlanders; big
Sweeney stalked to bat--and the congregation prayed, standing. Under
cover of all this quivering excitement, and with Gresham more absorbed
than ever upon the foul which might yet slay him, Constance turned to
Polly with an intent decisiveness which was quite new to her.

"Arrange it so that I may go home in Mr. Loring's car," she directed.

"Three cheers!" approved Polly, with a spiteful glance at Gresham.

Mr. Courtney, a live-looking elderly gentleman who kept himself more
carefully groomed than many a young man, had shaken hands with Mr.
Gamble quite cordially, had studied him through and through and through
in about half a second of time, and had finished the hand-shake more
cordially than he had begun it.

"The colonel has been saying all sorts of kind things about you,"--he
very graciously stated.

"So he has about you," returned Johnny, smiling into Mr. Courtney's
eyes and liking him.

"I suppose so," admitted Mr. Courtney. "The colonel's always blowing
about his friends, so we mustn't trust each other too far."

"That's a good way to start anyhow," laughed Johnny. "The colonel's
been telling me you're so trusting that you stung yourself."

"How's that?" asked Mr. Courtney, looking at the colonel in perplexity.
"I don't quite understand."

"On that hotel deal," the colonel affably reminded him, and was unkind
enough to laugh.

"You old reprobate!" protested Courtney. "I don't see why you want to
publish my disgrace."

"You deserve it," chuckled the colonel. "It won't hurt for Johnny to
know it though. He's the shrewdest young man of my acquaintance, and he
might be able to figure a way out of your dilemma for you."

"I might even be able to make some money out of it myself," Johnny
frankly acknowledged.

"Jump right in and welcome, young man," invited Courtney. "If you can
pull me out whole I don't care how much you make."

"We'll consider that a bargain," offered Gamble.

"All right," returned Courtney, smiling. "We'll shake hands on it in
the good old-fashioned way." And they did so, under Colonel Bouncer's
earnestly interested approval.

"Tell him your troubles," urged the colonel. "If it were my case, Ben,
I'd be yelling for help as long as I had breath in my body."

"It's very simple," explained Courtney. "I imagined that a big hotel at
the new terminal station would be the best investment in New York. I
spoke to a number of my financially active friends about it and they
were enthusiastic. I had verbal promises in one day's work of all the
money necessary to finance the thing. I found that the big vacant plot
across from the station was held at a prohibitive price. Mallard & Tyne
had, with a great deal of labor, collected the selling option on the
adjoining block, fronting the terminal. They held it at two and a
quarter millions. My friends, at an infernal luncheon, authorized me,
quite orally, indeed, to secure the cheaper site without a moment's
delay, especially since it was rumored that Morton Washer was
contemplating the erection of a hotel upon that very spot."

"I see the finish," laughed Johnny. "Mad with fear, you dashed right
down there and broke yourself! Then Union Pacific fell off an eighth;
they killed an insurrecto in Mexico; the third secretary of a
second-rate life-insurance company died and Wall Street put crape on
the door. All your friends got cold feet and it was the other fellow
who had urged you to buy that property. The colonel says you dropped a
hundred and twenty-five thousand. That's a stiff option. Can't you get
any of it back?"

"Get it back!" groaned Courtney. "They're after the balance. It wasn't
an option--it was a contract. If I don't pay the remainder at the end
of the ninety days they'll sue me; and I have several million dollars'
worth of property that I can't hide."

Gamble shrugged his shoulders resignedly.

"Your only chance is to build or sell," he decided. "It's your
property, all right. Have you offered it?"

"Old Mort Washer wants it--confound him! I've discovered that the day
after I bought this ground he told my friends that he intended to buy
the big piece and build in competition; and they ran like your
horse--Angora--last Saturday, Gamble. Now Washer offers to buy this
ground for two and an eighth millions--just the amount for which I will
be sued."

"Leaving you to try to forget the hundred and twenty-five thousand
you've already spent," figured Gamble. "Nice cheery thought of
Washer's! Of course you applauded?"

"With a brick--if I'd had one!" declared Courtney still angry.

Johnny smiled and looked thoughtfully out over the sunlit greensward.
There were electrifying plays down there; but, "fan" though he was, he
did not see them. Something in the tingle of it, however, seemed to
quicken his faculties.

"Sell me that block, Mr. Courtney," he suggested with a sudden
inspiration.

The mad mob rose to its feet just then and pleaded with Sweeney to "Hit
'er out!" Shrieks, howls and bellows resounded upon every hand;
purple-faced fans held their clenched fists tight to their breasts so
that they could implore the louder.

"On what terms?" shouted Courtney into Johnny's ear.

"I'll take over your contract," yelled Johnny beneath Courtney's hat
brim.

"On what terms?" repeated Courtney at the top of his voice.

"Bless your heart, Sweeney, slam it!" shrieked the now crimson-visaged
colonel. He was standing on his chair, with distended eyes, and waving
his hat violently.

"Your original price!" loudly called Johnny. "Pay you fifteen thousand
now, fifty thousand in thirty days and the balance in sixty."

Sweeney fanned. The atrocious tumult was drowned, in the twinkling of
an eyelash, in a dismal depthless gulf of painful silence. One could
have heard a mosquito wink.

"Where's my security?" bellowed Courtney in Johnny's ear, so
vociferously that all the grandstand turned in that direction and three
park policemen headed for the riot.

"Just come outside and I'll tell you," whispered Johnny with a grin.

"Ashley, how do you like your car?" asked Polly in the groaning calm
which followed Sweeney's infamous strike-out.

"I'm just designing a private medal for the builder," replied Loring.

"Self-cranker, isn't it?"

"Self-cranker, automatic oiler, and supplies its own gasolene. Why?"

"Well, Constance is talking of buying one, and mine is a little too
muscular for her. Suppose you take her for a spin after the game and
deliver her safely to her Aunt Pattie. I'll take the boys back in my
car."

"I'm cheating you in the exchange, but my conscience doesn't hurt me in
the least," accepted Loring with alacrity.

"I've never been in your car, Ashley," insinuated Gresham. "You might
invite me to try it out too."

"At five-thirty to-morrow evening," Ashley coolly advised him. "I'd be
very glad to have you come along now; but the car is engaged for a
strictly private demonstration."

Since the others were prepared to guy him unmercifully if he persisted,
Gresham hinted no more and, very much to his discomfort, saw Loring
gaily drive away with Constance.

On Riverside Drive, Loring spent the first fifteen minutes in extolling
the virtues of his car and Constance listened with patient attention;
but during the first convenient silence she surprised Loring with a bit
of crisp business talk.

"Would you mind telling me the history of Mr. Gamble's partnership with
Mr. Collaton?" she asked.

"I guess I heard what you said," he returned doubtfully, and he looked
at her in astonishment. "Of course you know that Johnny is a client of
mine."

"I know that he is a friend of yours also," she reminded him.

"On that basis I'll tell you anything you want to know," laughed
Loring. "Johnny was doing an excellent business in real estate
speculation when this man Collaton came to him with an enormous
irrigation scheme. They formed a partnership. Collaton went out West to
superintend the reclaiming of some thousands of acres of arid land,
while Johnny stayed here to sell rose-bordered farms to romantic city
home seekers. Collaton spent money faster than Johnny could get it, and
operations had to be discontinued. Johnny has been paying the debts of
the concern ever since. Every time he thinks he has them cleared off, a
new set bobs up; and, since the books and all the papers are lost, he
can't prove or disprove anything. Johnny can't even dissolve the
partnership so long as there are indefinite outstanding accounts. Now,
Constance, I'm not a good lawyer or I would not, even in strict
confidence like this, say the following, to wit and namely: I think
Collaton is a plain ordinary sneak-thief."

They were both silent for a little time.

"Doesn't it seem rather strange that the people who hold claims against
Mr. Gamble should just happen to attach his bank-account on the very
day he was expected to make a deposit, and for the identical amount?"
Constance asked in a puzzled way.

Loring gave her a startled glance.

"It does seem strange," he admitted.

"It would almost seem as if these people had been informed by some one
who knew Mr. Gamble's circumstances quite intimately," she went on.

"That is a very delicate matter to discuss," Loring, with professional
caution, gravely reminded her, fearing that she might mention Gresham's
name.

"You are quite right," she agreed. "What does Mr. Gamble think about it
all?"

"Johnny does a lot of thinking and a lot of talking, but you can't hear
what he thinks," replied Loring with a smile. "He is outwardly
assuming--and where Collaton is certain to have it repeated to
him--that Collaton was merely unfortunate; but I believe he is only
waiting for a proof--and then I imagine he will drop on Collaton and
whoever is helping him like a ton of pig-iron."

"I hope he does!" declared Constance with such sudden vindictiveness
that Loring laughed.

"You seem to have acquired a violent partisanship," he charged her with
a curious smile.

"Yes, I have," she admitted with a slight flush. "I like fair play. I
believe I have a very even temper, but it angers me to see any one so
open and manly and generous as Mr. Gamble made a victim of mean
trickery."

"He's a handsome boy too," commented Loring, grinning.

"Well, suppose he is," she petulantly laughed.

"He has a right to be," granted Loring, looking at her with renewed
admiration. With a slight flush of confusion upon her she was even more
charming than he had ever thought her before. "If I had so
tantalizingly pretty a girl so interested in my fortunes I wouldn't
care whether they perfected aeroplanes or not," he ventured with the
freedom of an old friend.

"You may come down now, thank you," she sweetly informed him. "Can't
you get Mr. Gamble to make you his receiver or trustee, or something,
for the irrigation company?"

"I might now," mused Loring. "He's so interested in the impulsive
attempt to make his million dollars that I think I could persuade him.
He seems to be really serious about that million."

"Of course he's serious about it," asserted Constance almost
indignantly. "Don't you suppose he can do it?"

"Well, this is the age of financial miracles," acknowledged Loring, but
with a shake of his head. "He can't do it, though, if Collaton gobbles
up all he makes and injures his credit besides."

Constance drew a deep breath.

"I wish you to act as my agent, Ashley," she said crisply. "Mr. Gamble
is certain to make some money, is he not?"

"Johnny will always make money," he assured her.

"If you bring in a bill against him for money you have expended, after
you have wound up the Gamble-Collaton affairs, he will, of course, pay
it."

"As quickly as he can find a fountain-pen and a check-book."

"I wish to loan him some money without his knowledge. I want you to
take fifteen thousand dollars early to-morrow morning and pay that
attachment, or whatever it is, at his bank. Naturally I do not want Mr.
Gamble to know that I am interested; and I look to you to manage it so
that, when the money is returned to me, he shall imagine that you have
advanced the funds."

"I can arrange that easily enough," Loring promised her. "Constance, I
suppose I ought to advise you that this is silly; but I'm glad you're
doing it. Moreover, I feel certain that, if this entanglement is
straightened out, Johnny may take a new interest in the irrigation
company and, by handling it himself, may recover all his losses."

"I sincerely hope so," returned Constance earnestly. "You know I've
taken a queer interest in this quixotic attempt of Mr. Gamble's to make
his million. It's like a fascinating game, and I almost feel as if I
were playing it myself--I'm so eager about it."

"And your spirit of fair play is aroused," Loring said.




CHAPTER VII

IN WHICH JOHNNY DREAMS OF A MAGNIFICENT TWENTY-STORY HOTEL


The other terminal hotel projects had been kept very quiet, indeed,
lest the jealous promoters of similar enterprises might be whetted into
greediness; but no such modesty seemed to attend the plans of the
Terminal Hotel Company; in fact, it seemed to court publicity--and,
since Johnny Gamble was known and liked by a host of newspaper men, it
received plenty of attention. After the ball game Johnny rode down to
Mr. Courtney's club with him to dinner; and when he was through talking
to Courtney he immediately called on his newspaper friends.

When Loring arrived at the office in the morning he found Johnny
immersed in a pile of papers--and gloating.

"Say, Johnny, I want you to give me power of attorney to wind up the
Gamble-Collaton Irrigation Company," was Loring's morning greeting.

"Go as far as you like," Johnny told him without looking up from a
glowing account of the magnificent new hostelry.

"Good for you!" approved Loring. "I'd expected to have half an hour's
wrestle with you--and I couldn't afford it, for this is my busy day. I
want you to understand this, Johnny: If I take that old partnership off
your hands you're to ask no questions."

"Go twice as far as you like," offered Johnny indifferently. "I've
forgotten there ever was a Gamble-Collaton Irrigation Company. Listen
to this, Loring: 'Surmounting the twentieth story of the magnificent
new structure there will be a combined roof garden, cafe and theater,
running continuous vaudeville--'"

"This agreement, entered into this twenty-fifth day of April," began
the discordantly hurried voice of Loring. He was dictating to his
stenographer a much more comprehensive agreement than a mere power of
attorney; and as soon, as it was ready Johnny signed it without a
question.

"Get this, Ashley?" he remarked, handing back Loring's pen and reading
gleefully from another paper: "'A subway entrance into the new terminal
station is being negotiated--'"

"All right," said Loring, putting on his hat. "Good-by!"--and he was
gone.

If Loring professed but slight interest in the flamboyant plans for the
new hotel, there were others who were painfully absorbed in the news of
the project. Gresham, for one, read the account with contracted brows
at his late breakfast; and at noon, inspired by a virtuous sense of
duty, he sauntered over to Courtney's club.

"I see you're involved in another hotel proposition," he ventured.

"I hope involved is not the word," returned Courtney with rather a wry
smile.

"Is your company fully organized?" asked Gresham with a trace of more
than polite interest.

"I think not," answered Courtney. "I'm not in a position to state,
however, as the matter is out of my hands. I am taking some stock in
it, of course; but I have nothing to do with the organization of the
company, since I have sold the ground to Mr. Gamble."

"Gamble?" repeated Gresham. "Oh, is that so?"

His tone was so deprecative that Courtney was sharply awakened by it.

"Do you know anything against Gamble?" he quite naturally inquired.

"Not a thing," Gresham hastily assured him. "Anyhow, you have sold him
the property and are fully secured?"

"I've sold it to him under contract," replied Courtney, ready, in view
of his recent experiences, to become panic-stricken at a moment's
notice.

"Of course, if anything happens you can reclaim the property," Gresham
considered. "It forms its own security; but still, any one holding a
private claim against Gamble might try to attach it and give you a
nasty entanglement."

"There doesn't seem to be any danger of that," argued Courtney, looking
worried, nevertheless. "He was able to show me an extremely clean bill
of health. The only drawback I could find in his record was the payment
of some debts which were not rightly his and which he might have
evaded."

"Did he refer you to the Fourth National Bank?" inquired Gresham
quietly.

"No. Say, Gresham, what have you up your sleeve? Gamble paid me fifteen
thousand dollars this morning, as per agreement. I would scarcely think
he would risk that much money on a bluff."

"He paid you the fifteen thousand, then?" said Gresham with a smile.
"Mr. Courtney, one does not like to mix in these affairs; but you and
my father were friends and, though I regret to do so, I feel it my duty
to advise you to call up the Fourth National Bank."

"Thanks!" gratefully acknowledged Courtney, and hurried down to the
telephone booth. He came back in a few moments, and his manner was
distinctly cool. "I 'phoned to Mr. Close," he stated. "He tells me that
an attachment was laid against Mr. Gamble's account at his bank
yesterday for fifteen thousand dollars, and was returned to the server
marked 'no funds'; but that this morning the executor of Mr. Gamble's
interests in the Gamble-Collaton Irrigation Company deposited fifteen
thousand dollars for the specific purpose of meeting this attachment.
Mr. Close informs me that, though he could not, of course, guarantee
Mr. Gamble's solvency, he would take Mr. Gamble's unsupported word on
any proposition. I have known Joe Close for years, and I never knew him
to be so enthusiastic about any man who possessed no negotiable
securities. I thank you for your well-intentioned interference in my
behalf, Mr. Gresham, but I think I shall cling to Mr. Gamble
nevertheless."

"I certainly should if I were in your place," Gresham hastily assured
him with such heartiness as he could assume. "I am delighted to learn
that the rumor I heard of Mr. Gamble's insolvency is unfounded."

"By the way, where did you hear the rumor?" inquired Courtney with a
frown.

"Really, I've forgotten," Gresham confessed.

"One should not forget such things if one repeats such rumors,"
Courtney reproved him.

Gresham went away both puzzled and annoyed. It was three o'clock before
he found Collaton; and that featureless young man, whose lack of
visible eyebrows and lashes was a constant annoyance to the fastidious
Gresham, was in a high state of elation.

"Well, we get back your fifteen thousand," he exulted after they were
safely in Gresham's apartments. "Of course Jacobs gets five thousand
for engineering the deal, but that gives us five thousand apiece.
Jacobs was told--about eleven o'clock--that the money was there."

"Keep my share; but why didn't you send me word?" snarled Gresham. "I
nearly put my foot in it by having a man with whom Gamble is doing
business inquire about him at the Fourth National. In place of injuring
his credit, we've strengthened it."

"Good work!" approved Collaton. "I hope he makes all kinds of money."

"I don't!" snapped Gresham. "Did you read the papers this morning?"

"I read the racing and base-ball returns."

"There was more to interest you in the news. Gamble has a big hotel
proposition on--and I want it stopped. Can you get another attachment
against him for about fifty thousand dollars?"

"It's risky!" And Collaton looked about him furtively. "It's easy
enough to fake an old note for money--"

"You must not say 'fake' to me. I will not countenance any crooked
business."

"To dig up an old note for money I am supposed to have borrowed and
spent--"

"Not supposed."

"For money I borrowed and spent on the work out there--and have a quiet
suit entered by one of my pet assassins in Fliegel's court, have the
summons served and confess judgment. Johnny is sucker enough to confess
judgment, too, rather than repudiate a debt which he can not prove he
does not owe; but I've already milked that scheme so dry that I'm
afraid of it."

"You're afraid of everything," Gresham charged him with the scorn one
coward feels for another. "Your operations out there were spread over
ten thousand acres of ground; and it would take a dozen experts six
months, without any books or papers to guide them, to make even an
approximate estimate of your legitimate expenditures."

"I don't know," hesitated Collaton with a shake of his head--"I only
touched the high places in the actual work out there. I believe I was a
sucker at that, Gresham. If I had buckled down to it, like Gamble does,
we could have made a fortune out of that scheme. He's a wonder!"

"He has wonderful luck," corrected Gresham. "I tried my best to scare
Courtney away from him with that attachment, but he insisted on
clinging to his Johnny Gamble; so we'll hand him enough of Johnny by
laying a fifty-thousand-dollar attachment against his property."

"You're a funny cuss," said Collaton, puzzled. "If you wanted to soak
him for this fifty thousand why did you try to scare Courtney off?"

"Can't you understand that I'm not after the money?" demanded Gresham.
"I've explained that to you before. I want Gamble broke, discredited,
and so involved that he can never transact any business in New York."

"What's he done to you?" inquired Collaton. "He must be winning a
stand-in with your girl."

"My private affairs are none of your concern!" Gresham indignantly
flared.

"All right, governor," assented Collaton a trifle sullenly. "I'll fake
that note for you to-night; and--"

"I told you I would not have anything to do with any crooked work,"
Gresham sharply reprimanded him.

"Oh, shut up!" growled Collaton. "You give me the cramps. You're a
worse crook than I am!"




CHAPTER VIII

IN WHICH CONSTANCE SHOWS FURTHER INTEREST IN JOHNNY'S AFFAIRS


On Wednesday morning Mr. Courtney, sitting as rigidly at his desk as if
he were in church, was handed the card of Morton Washer. He laid the
card face down and placed a paper-weight on it, as if he feared it
might get away. He turned a callous eye on his secretary and, in his
driest and most husky tones, directed: "Tell Mr. Washer I will see him
in five minutes."

During that five minutes Mr. Courtney signed letters as solemnly as a
judge pronouncing a death sentence. At last he paused and looked at
himself for a solid half-minute in the bookcase mirror across from his
desk. Apparently he was as mournful as an undertaker, but at the end of
the inspection his mouth suddenly stretched in a wide grin, which
bristled the silver-white beard upon his cheeks; his eyes screwed
themselves up into knots of jovial wrinkles and he winked--actually
winked--at his reflection in the glass! Thereupon he straightened his
face and sent for Morton Washer.

Mr. Washer, proprietor of two of the largest hotels in New York, and
half a dozen enormous winter and summer places, looked no more like a
boniface than he did like a little girl on communion Sunday. He was a
small, wispy, waspish fellow with a violently upright, raging
pompadour, a mustache which, in spite of careful attempts at waxing,
persisted in sticking straight forward, and a sharp hard nose which had
apparently been tempered to a delicate purple.

"Hear you've revived your hotel project," he said to Mr. Courtney.

"No," denied Courtney. "Sold the property."

"I know," agreed Mr. Washer with absolute disbelief. "What'll you take
for it?"

"I told you it was sold. Here's the contract." And, with great
satisfaction, Courtney passed over the document.

"Two million six hundred and fifty!" snorted Washer. "That's half a
million more than it's worth."

"You told my friends you intended to buy the railroad plot at three and
a half," Courtney gladly reminded him.

"It's four hundred feet deep."

"You said you only wanted two hundred feet square, which is the size of
this plot--and this is an equally good location."

"I know," admitted Washer, contemptuous of all such trifles. "What will
you take for the property--spot cash?"

"It's sold, I tell you. If you want to buy it see Mr. Gamble."

"Who's Gamble?"

"The man who is organizing the Terminal Hotel Company."

"How much stock has he subscribed?"

"You will have to see Mr. Gamble about that."

"Did you take any?"

"Half a million."

"Humph! You could afford to. Now give me the straight of it, Courtney:
Is it any use to talk to you?"

"Not a bit. You'll--"

"I know. I'll have to see Mr. Gamble! Well, where do I find him?"

Mr. Courtney kindly wrote the address on a slip of paper. Mr. Washer
looked at it with a grunt, stuffed it in his waistcoat pocket and
slammed out of the door. Mr. Courtney winked at himself in the glass.
Old Mort Washer would try to take advantage of him, to the extent of an
eighth of a million dollars, would he! Make his old friend Courtney
take an eighth of a million less than he paid, eh? Mr. Courtney
whistled a merry little tune.

Fifteen minutes later, Old Mort Washer bounced into Loring's office.

"Mr. Gamble?" he popped out.

Both gentlemen turned to him, but Loring turned away.

"I'm Gamble," stated that individual.

"I'm Morton Washer."

Since Mr. Gamble was aware of that fact and was expecting this visit,
he betrayed no surprise.

"What can I do for you, Mr. Washer?" he inquired.

"Are you taking bona fide subscriptions to your Terminal Hotel Company?"

"No other kind interests me."

"How nearly is your company filled?"

"Why do you want to know? Do you figure on taking some stock?"

"No."

"What do you want?"

"Your price on the property. Will you sell it?"

"Of course I will--at a profit."

"How much?"

"Two million seven hundred and fifty thousand dollars."

"Keep it!" snapped Washer, and started for the door.

"Much obliged," returned Johnny cheerfully, and returned to his
combination daybook, journal, ledger and diary. "Ashley, I put in four
hours' overtime, Monday. Do I enter that on the debit or credit side?"

Loring stifled a snicker.

"I think I'd open a separate account for that," he solemnly advised.

"I say," renewed Washer, returning one pace, "who are some of your
prospective stockholders?"

"Close, of the Fourth National, is one; Mr. Courtney is another;
Colonel Bouncer is another. I have more."

"Thanks!" snapped Washer. "I'll give you two and a half millions for
that property."

"I'd rather finance the Terminal Hotel. Let me show you a perspective
sketch of it, Mr. Washer," and he opened the drawer of his desk.

"You'll have to excuse me," blurted Mr. Washer. "Good day!" and he was
gone.

"I didn't know you had Close," commented Loring in surprise. "How did
you hypnotize him?"

"Showed him a profit. Mr. Courtney told me last night that Close
boosted me yesterday, so I sold him some stock this morning. Say,
Loring, how did you square that fifteen thousand attachment?"

"None of your business," said Loring.

Mr. Washer rushed in to see Mr. Close.

"I see you've subscribed for stock in the Terminal Hotel Company," he
observed. "To accommodate a client?"

"No, because I thought it would be a good investment," Mr. Close
informed him, turning up the edge of a piece of paper and creasing it
as carefully as if it had been money. "Of course I would not care to
have my action influence others."

"Do you think Gamble can fully organize such a company?"

"I think so," stated Mr. Close. "Understand, I do not recommend the
investment; and my stock is subscribed only on condition that he
obtains his full quota of capital."

"What sort of a man is he?"

"A very reliable young man, I believe," responded Mr. Close, carefully
testing an ink-eaten steel pen point to see if it was really time for
it to be thrown away. "Of course I could not state Mr. Gamble to be
financially responsible, but personally I would trust him. I would not
urge or even recommend any one to take part in his projects; but
personally I feel quite safe in investing with him, though I would not
care to have that fact generally known, because of the influence it
might have. Perhaps you had better see some of the other subscribers."

"No, I've seen enough," announced Mr. Washer. "Thanks!" and he dashed
out of the door.

Ten minutes later he was in Loring's office again.

"Now, name your bottom price for that property," he ordered.

"Two million seven hundred and fifty thousand dollars," obliged Johnny
with careful emphasis on each word.

"It's too much money."

"Don't buy it, then," advised Johnny, smiling quite cheerfully.

"Come on; let's close it up," offered Washer resignedly. "I might have
to pay more if I waited."

"All right," said Johnny. "It's a bargain, then?"

"It's a bargain--confound it!" agreed Mr. Washer quite affably, now
that the struggle was over. "Where do we go?"

"To Mallard Tyne, the six original owners and myself will all take a
piece of your two and three-quarter millions."

"I ought to take a body-guard," grinned Washer; "but I'll chance it.
Come on."

While the foregoing was in progress Constance Joy was entertaining Paul
Gresham, who had the effrontery to drop in for lunch. Of course the
conversation turned to Johnny Gamble. Neither of them could avoid it.
They had reached the point where Gresham was angry and Constance was
enjoying herself.

"I have great faith in him," she was saying. "He has a wonderful
project under way just now."

"And he doesn't care who suffers by it," charged Gresham, furious that
she should be so well-informed. "You'll see that he'll involve
Courtney's property with some of his old debts."

Constance's eyes widened.

"Do you think so?" she inquired as quietly as possible.

"Of course he will. His creditors are certain to take advantage of this
immediately. I warned Courtney."

She hastily arose and went into the hall.

"Oh, Aunt Pattie!" she called up the stairs. "Mr. Gresham is here."
Then to Gresham: "You'll excuse me for a little while, won't you? Aunt
Pattie is coming down."

Five minutes after Johnny and Mr. Washer had gone, Constance Joy came
into Johnny's office with carefully concealed timidity. Her manner was
coldly gracious and self-possessed, and her toilet was perfect; but she
carried one ripped glove.

"Is Mr. Loring in?" she asked with perfect assurance and also with
suddenly accelerated dignity; for the stenographer was really quite
neat-looking--not pretty, you know, but neat.

"He has just gone out," replied the stenographer with tremendous
sweetness. Anybody could look pretty in expensive clothes like
Constance Joy's.

There was a moment's hesitation.

"Is Mr. Gamble in?"

The girl smiled quite brightly.

"Mr. Gamble has just gone out," she stated, and smiled again. She was
not at all pretty when she smiled--not by any means--neat, though.

"Could you tell me where I would be likely to find Mr. Loring?" asked
Constance stiffly.

"Haven't the slightest idea," answered the girl happily, and gave her
hair a touch. Ah! there was a rip under her sleeve!

"Do you know where Mr. Gamble has gone?" and Constance was suddenly
pleasant through and through.

"Mr. Gamble?" repeated the girl, wondering at the sudden sweetness and
suspicious of it. "Oh, Mr. Gamble has gone over to the office of
Mallard back in a few minutes. He's in and out a great deal, but he
seldom stays out of the office long at a time."

"Thank you," said Constance hastily, reflecting that there was a public
telephone booth in the drug store on the corner, so she need not
inquire the address of Mallard & Tyne.

Mr. Gamble, Mr. Courtney, and Mr. Washer were in Mr. Mallard's private
office, with that acutely earnest real estate gentleman, when a boy
came in to advise Mr. Gamble that he was wanted on the telephone.
Johnny Gamble had never heard the voice of Constance over a thin wire,
but he recognized it in an instant; and he hitched his chair six inches
closer to the instrument. He gave her a fool greeting, which he tried
to remember afterward so that he could be confused about it; but
Constance wasted no time in preliminaries.

"Have you any property which could be attached?" she wanted to know.

"Just at the present minute I have," he admitted. "I shall have a
nominal title in a big building plot, for a day or two--or until the
necessary papers can be signed."

"You mustn't wait!" she hastily ordered him. "You must get rid of it
right this minute."

"I'll burn it up if you don't like it," he heartily promised her.
"What's the matter with it?"

"It isn't safe for you to have it an instant. I've wasted so much time
trying to find Polly or Loring, so that they could warn you, that I
haven't time to explain. Just get rid of it immediately--can't you?"

"I can do anything you say," he earnestly informed her, hitching his
chair closer. There was only an inch left, but he took that. "You'll
explain to me to-night what all this is about, won't you?"

"You may come, but you mustn't ask questions."

"I'll be there as soon as I'm through here," he promptly informed her.

"Not so early," she protested, panic-stricken, "I have a caller just
now. You must hurry, Mr. Gamble."

"Yes, I will," and he tried to hitch his chair closer. "You're
telephoning from the house, then?"

"No-o-o-o!" and he thought he detected a stifled snicker. "I left him
with Aunt Pattie and slipped out for a minute."

Him! Him, eh? And she had slipped out to telephone her friend, Johnny,
the bit of hot information!

He covered the transmitter with his hand to turn aside and smile. This
was a pleasant world after all!

"Many, many thanks!" he jubilated. "I think I'll arrange a little
dinner of jollification to-night and hand you the official score. I'll
have the colonel, and Mr. Courtney, and Polly, and--"

"You may call me up and tell me about it as soon as you get that
property off your hands," she interrupted him.

"All right," he reluctantly agreed. "You'll come to the dinner, won't
you?"

"Well, I have a partial engagement," she hesitated.

"Then you'll come," he exultantly knew.

"Maybe," she replied. "Hurry!"

He declared that he would--but he was talking into a dead telephone.

"I guess I'll hurry," he decided, and stalked into Mallard's room.
"Look here, fellows. Can't we cut this thing short?" he suggested.
"There's no use in Mr. Courtney's completing his purchase from Mallard
& Tyne, or me mine from Mr. Courtney, or Mr. Washer his from me. All
that poppy-cock is just to conceal out profits. What Mr. Washer wants
is the ground; and Courtney and I want half a million dollars, besides
the eighth of a million that Mr. Courtney had already invested. Mr.
Washer, give Courtney your check for five-eighths of a million--and
both Courtney and I will tear up our contracts and give you the pieces.
Then you settle with Mallard & Tyne for two and an eighth millions."

"Look here, Courtney, is this a put-up job between you and Gamble?"
demanded Washer.

"No," returned Courtney, with that rarely seen smile of his, "it's only
the finish of that job you put up on me when you persuaded my friends
to drop out of my hotel company."

Washer looked petulant. Johnny Gamble patted him on the shoulder.

"Cheer up," he said--"but hurry. If you don't hurry I'll sell you some
stock in my Terminal Hotel Company."

"Give me some papers to sign," ordered Washer, producing his check-book.

Gresham met the colonel and Courtney on Broadway in full regalia just
as they were turning in at the newest big cafe to dine that night.

"I'm sorry to tell you, Mr. Courtney, that my warning of this noon was
not unfounded," he remarked. "Perhaps, however, you already know it."

"No, I don't," returned Courtney, eying the correctly dressed Gresham
with some dissatisfaction. "I'm not even sure of what you mean."

"About a certain man with whom you are doing business."

"Oh--Gamble?"

"What's the matter with Gamble?" bristled the colonel.

"Why, Gresham hinted to me this morning that Gamble had financial
obligations he could not meet," explained Courtney. "It seems that he
met them, however."

"Of course he did!" snorted the colonel.

"I hadn't intended to make the matter public property," stated Gresham
with an uncomfortable feeling that he was combating an unassailable and
unaccountable prejudice.

"Bless my soul, you're succeeding mighty well!" blurted the colonel.
"Now, tell us all you know about my friend Gamble. Out with it!"

"I beg you to understand, Mr. Courtney, that I am inspired by a purely
friendly interest," insisted Gresham with very stiff dignity. "I
thought it might be of value for you to know--if you were not already
informed--that an attachment for fifty thousand dollars upon Mr. Gamble
was laid against your Terminal Hotel property this afternoon."

Mr. Courtney paused to consider.

"At what time was this attachment issued?"

"At three-thirty, I was informed."

Mr. Courtney's reception of that important bit of news was rather
unusual, in consideration of its gravity. He threw back his head and
laughed; he turned to the colonel and, putting his hand upon his old
friend's shoulder, laughed again; he put his other hand upon Gresham's
shoulder and laughed more. The colonel was a slower thinker. He looked
painfully puzzled for a moment--then suddenly it dawned upon him, and
he laughed uproariously; he punched his old friend Courtney in the ribs
and laughed more uproariously; he punched Gresham in the ribs and
laughed most uproariously.

"Why, bless my heart, boy!" he explained for Courtney. "At two-thirty,
neither Courtney nor Johnny Gamble owned a penny's worth of interest in
the Terminal Hotel site, if that's the property you mean--and of course
you do."

"No," laughed Courtney. "At that hour we sold it outright to Morton
Washer for a cool half-million profit, which my friend Johnny and I
divide equally. I saw him make the entry in his book. He has
twenty-four hours in which to loaf on that remarkable schedule of his.
Johnny Gamble is a wonderful young man!"

"Who's that's such a wonderful young man?" snapped a jerky little
voice. "Johnny Gamble? You bet he is! He skinned me!"

Turning, Courtney grasped the hands of lean little Morton Washer and of
wiry-faced Joe Close.

"We're all here now except the youngsters and the ladies," said
Courtney. "Possibly they're inside. Coming in, Gresham?"

"No, I think not," announced Gresham, sickly. "Who's giving the party?"

"Johnny Gamble," snapped Washer. "It's in honor of me!"

A limousine drove up just then. In it were sweet-faced Mrs.
Parsons--Polly's mother by adoption--Polly, Loring and Sammy Chirp, the
latter gentleman being laden with the wraps of everybody but Loring.

Just behind the limousine was a taxi. In it were Aunt Pattie Boyden,
Constance Joy and Johnny Gamble. Gresham, who had held a partial
engagement for the evening, went to his club instead.




CHAPTER IX

IN WHICH JOHNNY MEETS A DEFENDER OF THE OLD ARISTOCRACY


Johnny, whose sources of information were many and varied, called on a
certain Miss Purry the very next morning, taking along Val Russel to
introduce him.

"Any friend of Mr. Russel's is welcome, I am sure," declared Miss
Purry, passing a clammy wedge of a hand to Johnny, who felt the chill
in his palm creeping down his spine. "Of the Maryland Gambles?"

"No, White Roads," replied Johnny cheerfully. Miss Purry's chiseled
smile remained, but it was not the same. "I came to see you about that
vacant building site, just beyond the adjoining property."

Miss Purry shook her head,

"I'm afraid I could not even consider selling it without a very
specific knowledge of its future." And her pale green eyes took on a
slightly deeper hue.

Val Russel stifled a sly grin.

"This was once a very aristocratic neighborhood," he informed Johnny
with well-assumed sorrow. "Miss Purry is the last of the fine old
families to keep alive the traditions of the district. Except for her
influence, the new-rich have vulgarized the entire locality."

"Thank you," cooed Miss Purry. "I could not have said that myself, but
I can't hinder Mr. Russel from saying it. Nearly all of my neighbors
tried to buy the riverview plot, about which you have come to see me;
but I did not care to sell--to them."

Her emphasis on the last two words was almost imperceptible, but it was
there; and her reminiscent satisfaction was so complete that Johnny,
who had known few women, was perplexed.

"If all the old families had been as careful the Bend would not have
deteriorated," Val stated maliciously, knowing just how to encourage
her. "However, the new-comers are benefited by Miss Purry's
resolve--particularly Mrs. Slosher. The Sloshers are just on the other
side of the drive from the vacant property, and they have almost as
good a river view as if they had been able to purchase it and build
upon it in the first place."

The green of Miss Purry's eyes deepened another tone.

"Mr. Slosher, who is now in Europe, was almost brutal in his
determination to purchase the property," she stated with painful
repression. "The present Mrs. Slosher is a pretty doll, and he is
childishly infatuated with her; but his millions can not buy everything
she demands."

Ignorant of social interplay as Johnny Gamble was, he somehow divined
that William G. Slosher's doll was the neighborhood reason for
everything.

"If you were only certain of what you intend to build there--" she
suggested, to break the helpless silence.

"I have an apartment-house in mind," he told her.

"That would be very large and very high, no doubt," she guessed,
looking pleased.

"It's the only kind that would pay," Johnny Gamble hastily assured her.
"It would be expensive--no suite less than three thousand a year and
nobody allowed to do anything."

"I'll consider the matter," she said musingly.

"What about the price?" asked Johnny, whose mind had been fixed upon
that important detail.

"Oh, yes--the price," agreed Miss Purry indifferently; "I've been
holding it at two hundred thousand. I shall continue to hold it at that
figure."

"Then that's the price," decided Johnny. "Can't we come to an agreement
now?"

"To-morrow afternoon at three," she dryly insisted.

He saw that she meant to-morrow afternoon at three.

"Can't I arrange with you for a twenty-four-hour option?" he begged,
becoming anxious.

"I shall not bind myself in any way," she declared. "To-morrow
afternoon at three."

"That's a beautiful piece of property," commented Johnny as they drove
by. "By George, the apartment-house will shut those people off from the
river!"

"That's the only reason she'd be willing to sell," replied Val. "What
set you hunting up this property?"

"The De Luxe Apartments Company intends confining its operations to
this quarter. They'll go scouting among the listed properties
first--and they may not find this one until I am asking them two
hundred and fifty for it."

That afternoon, Johnny, always prompt, was ahead of time at the final
committee meeting of the Babies' Fund Fair, but Constance Joy did not
seem in the least surprised at his punctuality.

"I was in hopes you'd come early," she greeted him. "I want to show you
the score board of your game."

"Honest, did you make one?" he asked, half-incredulous of his good
fortune, as she led the way into the library; and his eyes further
betrayed his delight when she showed him the score board itself.

"See," she pointed out, "you were to make five thousand dollars an hour
for two hundred working hours, beginning on April twenty-second and
ending May thirty-first."

Johnny examined the board with eager interest. It was ruled into tiny
squares, forty blocks long and seven deep.

"I want to frame that when we're through," he said, admiring the
perfect drawing.

"Suppose you lose?" she suggested, smiling to herself at his
unconscious use of the word "we".

"No chance," he stoutly returned. "I have to paste a
five-thousand-dollar bill in each one of those blocks."

"You've kept your paste brush busy," she congratulated him, marveling
anew at how he had done it, as she glanced at the record which she had
herself set down. "I have the little squares crossed off up to two
hundred and sixty-five thousand dollars."

"The money's in Loring's bank," he cheerfully assured her. "That pays
me up to next Tuesday, May second, at two o'clock. This is two o'clock,
Thursday. I have twenty-four working hours to loaf."

"Lazy!" she bantered him. "That isn't loafing time; it's only a safety
margin."

Her eagerness about it pleased Johnny very much. When he had his
million he intended to ask her to marry him; and it was pleasant to
have her, all unaware of his purpose, of course, taking such an acute
interest in this big game.

"If a man plays too safe he goes broke," objected Johnny seriously,
still intent on the diagram, however. "I notice that none of these
Sundays or Saturday afternoons have money in them. According to my plan
I also allowed for two possible holidays; but why are those two special
days left white?"

"Well," hesitated Constance, flushing slightly, "May thirtieth is
Decoration Day; and then I allowed for a possible birthday."

"Birthday?" he repeated, perplexed. "Whose?"

"Oh, anybody's," she hastily assured him. "You can move the date to
suit. You know you said you weren't going to work on Sundays, evenings,
holidays or birthdays."

"I have but one birthday this year, and it comes in the fall," he
answered, laughing; then suddenly a dazzling light blinded him. "It's
the score keeper's!" he guessed.

In spite of all her efforts to prevent it Constance blushed furiously.
"I had intended to give a little party on the nineteenth," she
confessed.

"I'm coming!" he emphatically announced.

Aunt Pattie Boyden swept into the room, and Johnny immediately felt
that he had on tight shoes. He had once made a fatal error before Aunt
Pattie; he had confessed to having been a voter before he owned a dress
suit.

Paul Gresham arrived, and Aunt Pattie was as the essence of violets.
Paul, though American-born, was a second cousin of Lord Yawpingham.
Johnny and Paul sat and inwardly barked at each other. Johnny almost
barked outwardly.

Val Russel and Bruce Townley came, and everybody breathed a sigh of
relief.

"Well, Johnny," said Val, "I just now saw your newest speculation
driving down the Avenue in a pea-green gown and a purple hat."

"I never had a speculation like that," denied Johnny.

"Sounds like a scandal," decided Bruce Townley.

"You might as well tell it, Val," laughed Constance with a mischievous
glance at Johnny.

"It hasn't gone very far as yet," replied Val, enjoying Johnny's
discomfort, "but it promises well. Johnny and I called upon a wealthy
spinster, away upon Riverside Drive, this morning, ostensibly to buy
real estate."

Val, leaning his cheek upon his knuckles with his middle finger upon
his temple, imitated Miss Purry's languishing air so perfectly that
Aunt Pattie and Gresham, both of whom knew the lady, could see her in
the flesh--or at least in the bone.

"'Ostensible' is a good word in that neighborhood," opined Gresham
lightly. "Were you trying to buy Miss Purry's vacant riverfront
property?"

Notwithstanding his seeming nonchalance, Gresham betrayed an earnest
interest which Constance noted, and she turned to Johnny with a quick
little shake of her head, but he was already answering, and she frowned
slightly.

Mrs. Follison arrived, and after her the rest of the committee came
trooping by twos and threes,--a bright, busy, chattering mob which
stopped all personal conversation.

Last of all came Polly Parsons, accompanied by Ashley Loring and Sammy
Chirp, and by the fluffy little orphan whom she had been keeping in
school for the last three years.

"I know I'm late," declared Polly defiantly; "but I don't adopt a
sister every day. I stopped at Loring's office to do it, and I'm so
proud I'm cross-eyed. Sister Winnie, shake hands with everybody and
then run out in the gardens with Sammy."

Dutifully, Winnie, in her new role of sister, shook hands with
everybody and clenched their friendship with her wide blue eyes and her
ingenuous smile; and, dutifully, Sammy Chirp, laden with her sun-hat
and parasol and fan, her vanity box and lace hand-bag, took her out
into the gardens, and the proceedings began as they usually did when
Polly Parsons arrived. Subcommittees took cheerful and happy possession
of the most comfortable locations they could find, and Constance Joy
walked Ashley Loring out through the side porch.

"There's a very cozy and retired seat in the summer-house," she
informed him. "I wish to have a tete-a-tete with you on a most
important business matter."

"You may have a tete-a-tete with me on any subject whatsoever," laughed
Loring. "I suppose it's about those Johnny Gamble attachments, however."

"It's about that exactly," she acknowledged. "What have you learned of
the one for fifty thousand dollars which was attempted to be laid
against Mr. Gamble's interest in that hotel property yesterday?"

"Very little," he confessed. "It is of the same sort as the one we
discussed the other day."

Constance nodded. "Fraudulent, probably," she guessed.

"I think so myself," agreed Loring. "Trouble is, nobody can locate the
Gamble-Collaton books."

"Perhaps they have been destroyed," mused Constance.

"I doubt it," returned Loring. "It would seem the sensible thing to do;
but, through some curious psychology which I can not fathom, crooks
seldom make away with documentary evidence."

"Who is helping Mr. Collaton?" asked Constance abruptly after a little
silence.

"I do not know," answered Loring promptly, looking her squarely in the
eye.

"Some one of our mutual acquaintance," she persisted shrewdly. "Twice,
now, attachments have been served on Mr. Gamble when the news of his
having attachable property could only have come from our set."

They had turned the corner of the lilac screen and found a little
summer-house occupied by Sammy and Winnie, and the low mellow voice of
Winnie was flowing on and on without a break.

"It's the darlingest vanity purse I ever saw," she babbled. "Sister
Polly bought it for me this morning. She's the dearest dear in the
world! I don't wonder you're so crazy about her. How red your hand is
next to mine! Madge Cunningham says that I have the whitest and
prettiest hands of any girl in school--and she's made a special study
of hands. Isn't that the cunningest sapphire ring? Sister Polly sent it
to me on my last birthday; so now you know what month I was born in.
Jeannette Crawley says it's just the color of my eyes. She writes
poetry. She wrote some awfully sweet verses about my hair. 'The regal
color of the flaming sun', she called it. She's dreadfully romantic;
but the poor child's afraid she will never have a chance on account of
her snub nose. We thought her nose was cute though. Miss Grazie, our
professor of ancient history, said my nose was of the most perfect
Greek profile she had ever seen--just like that on the features of
Clytie, and with just as delicately formed nostrils. We set the
funniest trap for her once. Somebody always told the principal when we
were going to sneak our fudge nights, and we suspected it was one of
the ugly girls--they're always either the sweetest or the meanest girls
in school, you know. We had a signal for it, of course--one finger to
the right eye and closing the left; and one day, when we were planning
for a big fudge spree that night, I saw Miss Grazie watching us pass
the sign. There isn't much escapes my eyes. Sure enough, that night
Miss Porley made a raid. Well, on Thursday, Madge Cunningham and
myself, without saying a word to anybody, stayed in Miss Grazie's room
after class and gave each--other the fudge signal; and sure enough,
that night--"

Constance and Loring tiptoed away, leaving the bewildered Sammy smiling
feebly into the eyes of Winnie and floundering hopelessly in the maze
of her information.

"I have it," declared Constance. "That lovely little chatterbox has
given me an idea."

"Is it possible?" chuckled Loring. "Poor Sammy!"

"He was smiling," laughed Constance. "Here comes the chairman of the
floor-walkers' committee."

Gresham, always uneasy in the absence of Constance, who was too
valuable a part of his scheme of life to be left in charge of his
friends, had come into the garden after them on the pretext of
consulting the general committee.

"Do you know anything about the Garfield Bank?" Constance asked Gresham
in the first convenient pause.

"It is very good as far as I have heard," he replied after careful
consideration. "Are there any rumors out against it?"

"Quite the contrary," she hastily assured him. "It is so convenient,
however, that I had thought of opening a small account there. Mr.
Gamble transferred his funds to that bank to-day--and if he can trust
them with over two hundred and fifty thousand dollars I should think I
might give them my little checking account."

When they were alone again Loring turned to her in surprise.

"I have Johnny's money in my name. I didn't know he had opened an
account with the Garfield Bank," he wondered.

"Neither did I," she laughed. "I told a fib! I laid a trap!"




CHAPTER X

IN WHICH JOHNNY IS SINGULARLY THRILLED BY A LITTLE CONVERSATION OVER
THE TELEPHONE


Mr. Gamble, on his arrival the following afternoon, found Miss Purry
very coldly regretful that she had already disposed of her property for
a working-girls' home, at a hundred and seventy-five thousand dollars,
having made a twenty-five-thousand-dollar reduction by way of a
donation to the cause. Johnny drove back into the city rapidly--for he
was now only sixteen hours ahead of his schedule. He was particularly
out of sorts because Miss Purry had mentioned that the De Luxe
Apartments Company had been after the plot. It is small satisfaction to
a loser to have his judgment corroborated.

There was a Bronx project, involving the promotion of a huge exclusive
subdivision, which he had hoped to launch; but during his call on Miss
Purry that scheme went adrift through the sudden disagreement of the
uncertain Wobbles brothers who owned the land. It was a day of
failures; and at four o'clock he returned to the office and inscribed,
upon the credit side of his unique little day-book, the laconic entry:

"April 28. Two flivvers. $0."

Loring, pausing behind him and looking over his shoulder, smiled--and
added a climax. "Jacobs attached your account at the Garfield Bank
to-day on that fifty-thousand-dollar note."

"That's my first good laugh to-day," returned Johnny. "I have no funds
there."

"Gresham thought you had," said Loring quietly. "A trap was laid to
make him think so, and he walked right into it."

"As soon as I have any place to keep a goat I'll get Gresham's,"
declared Johnny. "So he's really in on it."

"He's scared," stated Loring.

"I hope he's right," returned Johnny. "I do wish they'd let me alone,
though, till Thursday, June first."

On Saturday, the twenty-ninth, and on Monday, the first of May, Johnny
Gamble was compelled reluctantly to enter "flivvers" against his days'
labors; and on Tuesday at two o'clock Constance called him up.

"Guilty!" he acknowledged as soon as he heard her voice. "I'm caught up
with my schedule. At four o'clock I'll be ten thousand dollars behind.
Everything I touch crawls right back in its shell."

"They'll come out again," she encouraged him. "I didn't call you up, as
your score keeper, to tell you that from this hour you will be running
in debt to yourself, but that one of your projects has come to life
again."

"Which one is that?" he eagerly inquired.

"The property owned by that lady on Riverside Drive. I see by this
morning's paper that the working-girls' home is not to be built. I
suppose you already know it, however."

"I overlooked that scandal," he confessed. "Wasn't the building to be
ugly enough?"

"This was a little obscure paragraph," she told him. "It was rather a
joking item, based upon the fact that there is a great deal of ill
feeling among the neighbors, who clubbed together and bought the option
to prevent a building of this character from being erected. I'm so glad
you didn't know about it!"

Her enthusiasm was contagious. Johnny himself was glad. It seemed like
a terrific waste of time to have to wait a month before he could tell
her what he thought of her; but he had to have that million!

"You're a careful score keeper," he complimented her. "I'll go right
after that property. Does the item say who controls it now?"

"I have the paper before me. I'll read you the names," she returned
with businesslike preparedness: "Mr. James Jameson-Guff, Mr. G. W.
Mason, Mr. Martin Sheats, Mr. Edward Kettle."

"All the neighbors," he commented. "They don't like honest
working-girls, I guess. That's a fine crowd of information you've
handed me. I ought to give you a partnership in that million."

"You just run along or you'll be too late!" she urged him. "I'll take
my commission in the five-thousand-dollar hours you donate to the
Babies' Fund Fair. By the way, from whom do you suppose that option was
purchased?"

"Gresham?" inquired Johnny promptly and with such a thrill of startled
intensity in his tone that Constance could not repress a giggle.

"No, James Collaton," she informed him. "That's all the news. Hurry,
now! Report to me, won't you, as soon as you find out whether you can
secure the property? I haven't made an entry on my score board since
last Wednesday night. Good-by."

"Good-by," said Johnny reluctantly; but he held the telephone open,
trying to think of something else to say until he heard the click which
told him that she had hung up.

Last Wednesday night! Why, that was the night he had given the dinner
in celebration of his passing the quarter-of-a-million mark; and after
he had taken her home from the dinner she had sat up to rule and mark
that elaborate score board! Somehow his lungs felt very light and
buoyant.

Collaton, though? How did he get into the deal? Suddenly Johnny
remembered Val Russel's joking at the committee meeting. Gresham again!

"Loring, I don't think I can wait till June first to get after the
scalps of Gresham and Collaton," he declared as he prepared to go out.
"I want to soak them now."

James Jameson-Guff, so christened by his wife, but more familiarly
known among his associates as Jim Guff, received Johnny with a frown
when he understood his errand.

"You're too late," he told Johnny. "We've turned the option over to our
wives to do with as they pleased. We're to have a swell yacht club out
there now. I think that's a graft, too!"

"If you get stung again, Mr. Guff, let me know," offered Johnny, "and
I'll have you a bona fide apartment-house proposition in short order."

"Nyagh!" observed Mr. Guff.

Johnny dutifully reported to his score keeper the result of his errand
and, that evening, to explain it more fully he went out to her house;
but he found Gresham there and nobody had a very good time.

On the following morning he saw in the papers that the Royal Yacht
Club, a new organization, the moving spirit of which was one Michael T.
O'Shaunessy, was to have magnificent headquarters on Riverside
Drive--and he immediately went to see Mr. Guff. Mike O'Shaunessy was a
notorious proprietor of road houses and "clubs" of shady reputation,
and there was no question as to what sort of place the Royal Yacht Club
would be.

Mr. Guff was furious about it.

"I knew it," he said. "The women have just telephoned me an
authorization to send for this Jacobs blackguard and buy back the
option."

"Jacobs?" inquired Johnny, "Not Abraham Jacobs?"

"That's the one," corroborated Guff. "Why, do you know him?"

"He is a professional stinger," Johnny admitted. "He stung me, and
Collaton helped."

"I've no doubt of it," responded Guff. "It was a put-up job in the
first place. By the way, Gamble, you used to be in partnership with
Collaton yourself."

"That's true enough," admitted Johnny. "Possibly I'd better give you
some references."

"Give them to the women," retorted Guff.

An hour later Johnny telephoned Guff.

"Did you repurchase the option from Jacobs?" he inquired.

"Yes!" snapped Guff, and hung up.

The facts that the De Luxe Apartments Company was hot after the
property and that he himself was now four hours behind his schedule,
with nothing in sight, drove Johnny on, in spite of his dismal
forebodings.

Mrs. Guff he found to be a hugely globular lady, with a globular nose,
the lines on either side of which gave her perpetually an expression of
having just taken quinine. In view of her recent experiences she was
inclined to call the police the moment Johnny stated his errand, but he
promptly referred her to some gentlemen of unimpeachable commercial
standing; namely, Close, Courtney, Bouncer and Morton Washer. She
coolly telephoned them in his presence and was satisfied.

"You must understand, however," she said to him severely, "the only way
in which we will release this option is that nothing but a first-class
apartment-house, of not less than ten stories in height and with no
suites of less than three thousand a year rental, shall be erected."

"I'll sign an agreement to that effect," he promptly promised.

"And how much do you offer us for the property?"

"Two hundred thousand," he returned, making a conservative guess at the
amount they must have paid for the two options.

A deepening of the quinine expression told him that he had undershot
the mark.

"Two hundred and ten thousand," he quickly amended.

A chocolate-cream expression struggled feebly with the quinine; and
Johnny, who could translate the lines of the human countenance into
dollars and cents with great accuracy, knew instantly that their two
options had cost them thirty thousand dollars, and that he was offering
the four ladies a profit of one thousand two hundred and fifty dollars'
worth of gowns or diamonds each.

"That will be the most I can give," he still further amended. "I am
prepared to write you a check at any moment."

"I think I can call a meeting at once," she informed him, and did so by
telephone.

Mrs. Sheats, who came over presently, was an angular woman who kept the
expression of her mouth persistently sweet, no matter what her state of
mind might be; and she was very glad indeed that, so long as Miss Purry
insisted on permitting a building of any sort to be erected opposite
the Slosher residence, they were protecting that estimable lady in her
absence by insuring a structure of dignity and class.

Mrs. Kettle, who was a placid lady of mature flesh and many teeth, and
who carried ounces upon ounces of diamonds without visible effort,
bewailed the innovation that Miss Purry was forcing on them, but felt a
righteous glow that, under the circumstances, they were doing so nobly
on behalf of Mrs. Slosher.

Mrs. Mason, who was a little, dry, jerky woman whose skin creaked when
she rubbed it, whose voice scratched and whose whole personality
suggested the rasp of saw-filing, was in her own confession actuated by
less affectionate motives.

"I'm glad of it!" she snapped. "Mrs. Slosher is always talking about
their superb river view and the general superiority of the Slosher
location, the Slosher residence, the Slosher everything! I'm glad of
it!"

The other ladies felt that Mrs. Mason was very catty.

At four o'clock that afternoon Johnny entered in his book:

"May third. To seven hours--nine hours behind schedule--$35,000. To
Purry speculation, $210,000."

To offset this was:

"May third. To a chance, $0."




CHAPTER XI

IN WHICH JOHNNY EXECUTES SOME EXCEEDINGLY RAPID BUSINESS DEALS


Sitting tight and watching the hands of his watch go round, with a
deficit of five thousand dollars an hour piling up against him, was as
hard work as Johnny Gamble had ever done; and yet he knew that, if he
succumbed to impatience and went to the De Luxe Apartments Company
before they came to him, he would relinquish a fifty per cent,
advantage. He saw another day slipping past him, with a total deficit
of sixteen hours behind his schedule--or an appalling shortage of
eighty thousand dollars--when, at one o'clock on Thursday, the expected
happened--and a brisk little man, with a mustache which would have been
highly luxuriant if he had not kept it bitten off as closely as he
could reach it, dropped in, inquired for Loring, jerked a chair as
close to him as he could get it and said, in one breath: "Want to sell
your river-view property?"

"Certainly," replied Loring, in whose name the property stood. "Mr.
Gamble is handling that for me. Mr. Chase, Mr. Gamble."

Mr. Chase, holding to his chair, jumped up, hurried over to Johnny and
once more jerked the chair close up.

"How much do you want for it?" he asked.

"Two hundred and seventy-five thousand."

"Too much. I understand it's restricted to apartment-house purposes
alone?"

"Yes."

"Not less than ten stories, and a minimum rental of three thousand
dollars a suite?"

"Yes."

"You can't sell it for that price with those restrictions."

"We can build on it," replied Johnny calmly.

"You won't," asserted Mr. Chase with equal conviction. "You bought it
to sell. I'll give you two hundred and fifty thousand."

"No," refused Johnny quite bravely, though with a panicky feeling as he
thought of that appallingly swift schedule.

"All right," said Chase. "I'll hold the offer open at that figure for
forty-eight hours. I think you'll come to it."

"I doubt it," responded Johnny, smiling; but he was afraid he would.

In less than an hour he received an unexpected call from Mrs. Guff, who
was in such secret agitation that she quivered like jelly whenever she
breathed.

"Mr. Guff and myself have decided to take Miss Purry's river-view
property off your hands, Mr. Gamble," was the glad tidings she conveyed
to him, smiling to share his delight. "We can't think of letting that
river view slip by us."

"I'm glad to hear it," he announced with gratification, as he thought
of Mr. Chase. "Have you secured the consent of your partners in the
option to waive the apartment-house requirements?"

"Oh, no!" she ejaculated, shocked that any one should think that
possible. "We have decided to build the apartment-house and to live
there."

"To live there!" he repeated, remembering the elaborate Guff residence.

"Yes, indeed!" she enthusiastically exclaimed. "You know the property
slopes down to the river beautifully, and exquisite, private, terraced
gardens could be built there. We could take the entire lower floor of
the apartment building for ourselves, with a private driveway arched
right through it; and we could take the first three floors of the rear
part for our own use, with wonderful Venetian balconies overlooking the
terraces and the river. The remaining apartments would have entrances
on the two front corners, leaving us all the effect of a Venetian
palace. Don't you think that's clever?"

"It is clever!" he repeated with smiling emphasis, and mentally raising
Chase's ultimatum ten per cent.

"I suppose you'll want to charge us more for the property than you paid
for it," she suggested with a faint hope that maybe he might not, since
he had bought it so recently--and through them.

"That's what I'm in business for," he blandly acknowledged. "I can let
you have the property for two hundred and seventy-five thousand
dollars."

"How much did you say?" she gasped.

"Two hundred and seventy-five thousand."

"Why, it's an outrage!" she puffed. "You paid only two hundred and ten
thousand for it yesterday."

"I'm not telling you its cost to me yesterday, but its value to-day,"
he reminded her.

Mrs. Guff had helped her husband to his business success in the early
days--and she had driven bargains with supply men which had made them
glad when she was ill.

"You may keep the property," she wheezed. "Nobody will pay that
price--not even William Slosher; and he'll buy anything if his wife
pouts for it in the ridiculous French clothes she's brought back with
her."

"So the Sloshers are back?" he guessed, with an understanding, at last,
of her agitation.

"They came last night," she admitted, inflating with a multitude of
feelings. "The most ungrateful people in the world! So far from being
thankful for the time and pains and money we spent to protect them,
they're viciously angry and are making threats--positive threats--that
they will disgrace the entire neighborhood!"

"Do you refuse this property at two hundred and seventy-five thousand?"
Mr. Gamble interestedly wanted to know.

"Certainly I do!" she emphatically declared, positive that no human
being would pay that absurd increase in valuation.

"Then the price is withdrawn," he told her; and she left him, puzzling
mightily over that last remark.

Johnny Gamble was a man of steady nerves, yet even he fidgeted until
three o'clock for fear Mr. Slosher would not call him up. At that hour,
however, Mr. Slosher called in person, accompanied by his wife. There
is no need to describe Mr. Slosher, who was merely an elderly gentleman
of much vigor and directness; and it is impossible to describe Mrs.
Slosher, who was never twice alike, anyhow, being merely the spirit of
a beautiful ever changing youth in a body of beautiful ever changing
habiliments.

"What do you want for the river-view property you have just purchased?"
Mr. Slosher demanded.

"I don't know," confessed Johnny, laughing. "The valuation is going up
so rapidly that I can't keep track of it myself. Mrs. Guff was just in,
asking the price."

Mrs. Slosher tapped the toe of a beautiful satin carriage slipper
impatiently upon the floor, and a very bright red spot glowed on each
cheek; but she did not say a word. She only looked at her husband. Mr.
Gamble had a queer idea that her mere gaze could, on an occasion like
this, burn holes through a cake of ice. Certain it is that Mr. Slosher
turned quickly to her--and then, as if he had been galvanized, turned
back to Johnny.

"I'll give you until to-morrow night to secure your highest offer and
then I'll add five per cent, to it," he stated.

"You understand the restrictions, I suppose?" ventured Johnny.

"Perfectly. My kind neighbors have handed me a ten-story
apartment-house, with a minimum rental per suite of three thousand
dollars a year. I'm going to build their neighborhood ornament and fill
it with high-toned niggers!"

Mrs. Slosher smiled. She was a beautiful young woman. To youth belongs
much.

Johnny Gamble, caught amidships, as it were, snorted.

"Well, I don't live out there," he said.

Mr. Slosher smiled.

"That is all, I believe," he announced as he assisted Mrs. Slosher to
her feet with that punctilious gallantry which defies a younger man to
do it better.

At four o'clock Jim Guff called Mr. Gamble on the telephone.

"Hello, Gamble!" he hailed in an entirely new voice. "You're a robber!"

"You flatter me," returned Johnny quite comfortably. "Is there anything
I can do for you in that line?"

"A whole lot," replied Guff. "I'll accept the price you gave Mrs. Guff
on that river-view site."

"Too late," answered Johnny cheerfully. "I withdrew that offer before
Mrs. Guff left the office. Mr. and Mrs. Slosher have been in since
then."

Jim Guff's voice cracked as he hastily said:

"I'll meet any offer he makes you and tack a five-thousand-dollar bonus
to it."

Johnny called up the De Luxe Apartments. Company and secured the ear of
Mr. Chase.

"I withdraw my offer of two hundred and seventy-five thousand for that
river-view property," he stated. "What is the best bid you will make me
above that figure?"

"I'm not inclined to scramble for it," immediately claimed Mr. Chase,
who was aware at the time that he was telling a point-blank lie.

"Very well, then," said Johnny, wondering how he was to get a definite
figure without committing himself. "I'll have to drop you out of my
calculations."

"When must you know?"

"To-morrow morning."

"You're bluffing!" charged Mr. Chase scornfully.

"I have two very earnest bidders for the property," insisted Johnny
with dignity--and completed his bluff, if Chase cared to regard it that
way, by hanging up his receiver.

Before he left the office he entered in his books:

"May 4. Sold; but I don't know who to or at what price. Close to
schedule, though."

He entered the next day in advance:

"May 5. The Babies' Fund Fair--Holiday. Nothing doing."




CHAPTER XII

IN WHICH JOHNNY EVEN DOES BUSINESS AT THE BABIES' FUND FAIR


"I wish I could write poetry," regretted Johnny, looking across at
Constance Joy in the violet booth.

"Why don't you try it?" asked Polly Parsons, following his gaze and
comprehending his desire perfectly, for she, too, was a rabid
Constancite.

"I did," he confessed with a disappointed laugh. "I hadn't the nerve to
be mushy enough, though--and nothing else seems to be real poetry. I
got one line that listened like the goods, but I couldn't match it up:
'As I lie awake and look at the stars--' Pretty good start, eh? How do
you find a rhyme for it?"

"You go down through the alphabet," Polly advised him, rather proud to
be able to answer him so promptly. "Bars, cars, fars, jars--that way,
you know. How I found out is that Sister Winnie writes so much poetry."

"She's a great kid," laughed Johnny. "Where is she?"

"Round here some place, giving orders to Sammy Chirp. Why are you
loafing this afternoon? You're supposed to be making five thousand
dollars an hour, but I don't see any chance for it here."

"It's a holiday," he retorted. "You're loafing yourself. I see it's on
the program that you're to sell a quarter's worth of violets and a
smile, for five dollars a throw at the boutonniere booth. Notice how I
said boutonniere?"

"You got it out of a book," charged Polly disdainfully. "I called
Constance over from the candy booth to take my place because a
gray-haired rusher came back seven times to have me pin violets on his
coat--and I couldn't smile any more. There he goes now. That's his
second trip for Constance."

"This is a cruel world. I suppose it would fuss her all up if I dropped
him out of a window," Johnny observed wistfully.

"Constance doesn't need help. Just watch her!" And Polly grinned
appreciatively as Constance, recognizing and sorting the tottering
lady-killer at a glance, took his money handed him a nosegay and a pin,
and returned to the back of the booth to arrange her stock:

A huge blot of orange and a thin streak of lavender paused on the other
side of the palms. Johnny wondered to see these two enemies together,
but no man could know the satisfaction they took in it.

"The violet booth," read the big blot of orange, adjusting her gold
lorgnette to the bridge of her globular nose and consulting her
catalogue. "Friday afternoon: Polly Parsons and Mrs. Arthur Follison.
That is not Mrs. Follison in the booth, is it?"

"Oh, no, Mrs. Guff!" protested the thin streak of lavender in a rasping
little lavender voice. "Mrs. Follison, though not a doll-face--indeed,
far from it--is of most aristocratic bearing."

"I suppose that person in the booth, then, is the adopted actress,"
guessed Mrs. Guff. "Any one can tell that's beauty and movement of the
professional type."

Johnny looked at Polly with hasty concern, but that young lady was
enjoying the joke on Constance and gripped his arm for silence.

"One can quite understand how poor Billy Parsons might become
infatuated with her doll-face," returned Miss Purry pityingly, since
she was herself entirely free from the crime of doll-facedness; "but
that the Parsons should adopt such a common person merely because Billy
died before he could marry her was inconsiderate of the rest of our
class."

"The artfulness of her!" exclaimed the thick one, lorgnetting the
graceful Constance with a fishy eye as the temporary flower girl
joyously greeted Ashley Loring and Val Russel and Bruce Townley, pinned
bouquets upon them and exchanged laughing banter with them.

"Dreadful!" agreed the shocked thin one. "Those are the very wiles by
which doll-faced stage women insnare our most desirable young men."

Constance looked about just then in search of Polly, and her eyes
lighted as they saw Johnny standing with her.

"Oh, Polly!" she called.

"Coming, Constance!" returned the hearty and cheery voice of Polly from
just behind the critics.

The ladies in lavender and orange were still gasping when Johnny Gamble
passed them with Polly. He had made up his mind about the river-front
property.

Loud acclaim hailed Polly and Johnny, for where they went there was
zest of life; and the boys, knowing well that Johnny never wore
flowers, made instant way for him at the violet booth.

"I'll take some blue ones, lady," announced Johnny gamely, intending to
wear them with defiance.

"I'll give you the nearest we have, mister," laughed Constance, and
promptly decorated him.

Since this was the closest her face and eyes had ever been to him, he
forgot to pay her and had to be reminded of that important duty by
Polly and all the boys in unison. There was a faint evasive trace of
perfume about her, more like the freshness of morning or the delicacy
of starlight than an actual essence, he vaguely thought with a groping
return to his poetic inclination. He felt the warmth of her velvet
cheek, even at its distance of a foot away, and there seemed to be a
pulsing thrill in the very air which intervened. For a startled instant
he found himself gazing deep down into her brown eyes. In that instant
her red lips curved in a fleeting smile--a smile of the type which
needs moist eyes to carry its tenderness. It was all over in a flash,
only a fragment of a second, which seemed a blissful pulsing eternity;
and at its conclusion he thought that her finger quivered as it brushed
his own, where he held out the lapel of his coat, and her cheek paled
ever so slightly--but these were dreams, he knew.

"I'm next, I think," grated a usually suave voice which now had a
decided tinge of unpleasantness; and Paul Gresham, selecting a bunch of
violets from the tray, held them out toward Constance, impatient to end
the all too pretty tableau.

"Next and served," Polly briskly told him; and, taking the boutonniere
from his fingers, she whisked it into place and pinned it and extracted
his money--all apparently in one deft operation.

"Thanks," said Gresham, blinking with the suddenness of it all and
sweeping with a glance of gloomy dissatisfaction, Polly, the bouquet,
Constance and Johnny. "I thought you were to be in the caramel booth,
Constance."

"I'm just going back," she informed him, pausing to straighten Johnny's
lapel, patting it in place and stepping back to view the result with a
critical eye. It seemed to need another coaxing bend and another pat,
both of which she calmly delivered.

A handsome passing couple caught Johnny's eye--a keen and
vigorous-looking elderly gentleman, and Springtime come among them in
the pink and white of apple blossoms--sweet and fresh and smiling; as
guileless as the May itself, but competent!

"Excuse me," said Johnny, and tore himself away from the girl whose
natural beauty made Mrs. Slosher an exquisite work of art. "Beg your
pardon, Mr. Slosher."

Mr. Slosher turned and smiled.

"Hello, Mr. Gamble!" he greeted him, while Mrs. Slosher gave him a
bright and cheery little nod. "I played old-fashioned army poker with
Colonel Bouncer and Ben Courtney and Mort Washer and Joe Close last
night--and the old robbers skinned me out of thirty-two dollars. They
spoke of you during the game and I guess you could get backing to any
amount in that crowd."

"Thanks for the tip," returned Johnny. "I may need it."

"You're going to give us our apartment-house property, aren't you?"
Mrs. Slosher knew by his very appearance.

"It's only a matter of closing the deal," Johnny told her with a
perfectly justifiable smile which Constance, from a distance,
criticized severely. He drew an envelope from his pocket and took from
it a paper which he passed to Mr. Slosher.

It was a written offer from the De Luxe Apartments Company for three
hundred thousand dollars.

"That makes my offer, then--at five per cent, advance--three hundred
and fifteen thousand," figured Slosher. "Is that a bargain?"

Johnny, glancing contentedly about the big inclosure, saw Jim Guff
waiting impatiently for a chance to speak with him.

"It's a bargain," he agreed, and pretty little Mrs. Slosher nodded her
head vehemently with innocent joy.

Gresham passed them by and tipped his hat to Mrs. Slosher, including
Mr. Slosher in the greeting. A pleasant idea struck Johnny.

"You scarcely intend to build your colored apartment-house under your
own name?" he suggested.

"Indeed, no!" laughed Mrs. Slosher happily. "All we wish is the result.
We ask for no credit."

"Moreover," warned Mr. Slosher, "I wouldn't care to have my purpose
known until after I have sold my own residence. I am a little worried,
however, about the detail you suggest. No man of any consequence would
injure the good will of his fellows by standing sponsor for such a
venture."

"I think I know your man," stated Gamble with pleasant anticipation.
"I'll tell you about him if you'll be careful not to let him or anybody
else know that I recommended him."

"I can figure out sufficient reasons for that," replied Slosher. "Is he
reliable?"

"He can give you security--and I suppose you had better exact it,"
advised Johnny. "He is the man who first secured the option from Miss
Purry."

"What is his name?"

"Collaton," and Johnny gazed serenely after Gresham.

"I'll send for him in the morning," decided Mr. Slosher.

When Johnny returned to the violet booth he found there Winnie and
Sammy Chirp, the latter with all his pockets and both his arms full of
Winnie's purchases and personal belongings, inextricably mixed with
similar articles belonging to Polly; and there was a new note of
usefulness which redeemed somewhat the feebleness of his smile. Loring
was helping Sammy to adjust his burdens; and Winnie, with the aid of
the mirror in her vanity box, was trying the effect of violets close to
her eyes. Johnny waited patiently for Loring to get through and then,
despite Polly's protest, dragged him away.

"I've arranged for the first dent in Gresham and Collaton," he
announced, and outlined the program which later on was carried out to
the letter. "I've fixed to have some valuable property placed in
Collaton's name, with Gresham as security. When that is done I want you
to go to Jacobs and play a mean trick on him. Make him serve that
attachment on Collaton's ostensible property. Collaton, having
confessed judgment on the note, can not fight it--and Gresham will have
to foot the bill."

Self-contained and undemonstrative as Loring was in public, he,
nevertheless, gave way to an uncontrollable burst of laughter which
humiliated him beyond measure when he discovered the attention he had
attracted.




CHAPTER XIII

IN WHICH JOHNNY BUYS A PRESENT AND HATCHES A SCHEME


Johnny, relying like a lost mariner on Polly Parsons and Constance Joy
to help him pick out a present for his only mother, approached Lofty's
with a diffidence amounting to awe. In that exclusive shop he would
meet miles of furbelowed femininity, but he would not have ventured
unprotected into those fluffed and billowed aisles for anything short
of a penance.

Being a philosopher, however, he kept his mind active in as many other
directions as possible, like a child deliberately feasting upon
thoughts of Santa Claus though on the way to a promised spanking.

"There's a hoodoo on this block," Johnny observed as they were caught
in the traffic crush almost in front of their destination.

"Lofty and Ersten must be the hoodooers, then," laughed Polly.
"Everybody else has gone away."

Johnny looked at the towering big Lofty establishment, which occupied
half the block, and at the dingy little ladies' tailoring shop, down
around the other corner, with speculative curiosity. About both, as
widely different as they were, there was the same indefinable
appearance of prosperity, as if the solid worth from within shone
heavily through.

"Lofty's couldn't move and Ersten wouldn't," supplemented Constance.

"Not that Dutchman!" returned Polly, laughing again as she peered into
the low dark windows of the ladies' tailoring shop. "I was in the other
day, and he told me three times that he would be right there to make my
walking frocks for the next thirteen years."

"He was having a quarrel with Mr. Schnitt about the light in the
workroom when I was in," observed Constance, "but he told me the same
thing, in his enjoyable German way, and he seemed almost angry about
it."

"That's the extent of his lease," guessed Johnny shrewdly. "They're
trying to get it away from him."

"I wonder why," speculated Constance.

"It's as simple as spending money," Johnny announced. "Lofty intends
building an extension."

"They won't tear down Ersten's shop," Polly confidently asserted.

"They'll move him in a wheelbarrow some night," Johnny prophesied. "If
I could grab his lease I could play a few hours."

Both the girls laughed at him for that speech.

"You'll be gray before the thirty-first of May," warned Polly.

"It turns anybody gray to dig up a million," agreed Johnny. "It's a
good guess, though, Polly. I counted seven new white ones this morning."

"That's a strange coincidence," commented Constance, with a secretly
anxious glance at his hair. "You're just seven hours behind your
schedule."

Johnny shook his head.

"That schedule goes round like an electric fan," he soberly declared.

"And there's no switch," Constance reminded him.

"Gresham," Johnny suggested with a smile.

Polly cast a sidelong glance at the pretty cousin into whose family she
had been adopted. The subject of Gresham was a painful one; and Johnny
felt his blundering bluntness keenly.

"There isn't any Gresham," laughingly asserted Polly. "There never was
any Gresham. Let's go to Coney Island to-night."

Both Constance and Johnny gave Polly a silent but sincere vote of
thanks.

Willis Lofty, who continued the progressive fortune of his father by
prowling about the vast establishment with a microscopic eye,
approached Polly with more than a shopkeeper's alacrity.

"You promised to send for me to be your clerk the next time you came
in," he chided her.

"I didn't come in this time," she gaily returned. "Mr. Gamble is the
customer," and she introduced Constance and the two gentlemen. "Mr.
Gamble wants to buy a silk shawl for a blue-eyed mother with gray wavy
hair and baby-pink cheeks."

"There are a lot of pretty shawls here," Constance added, "but none of
them seems quite good enough for this kind of a mother."

Young Lofty, himself looking more like a brisk and natty college youth
who had come in to buy a gift for his own mother than the successful
business man he was, glanced at the embarrassed Johnny with thorough
understanding.

"I think I know what you want," he said pleasantly; and, calling a boy,
he gave him some brief instructions. "We have some very beautiful
samples of French embroidered silks, just in yesterday, and if I can
get them away from our buyer you may have your choice. There's a
delicate gray, worked in pink, which would be very becoming to a mother
of that description. They're quite expensive, but, I believe, are worth
the money."

"That's what I want," stated Johnny. "I understand you're going to
build an extension, Mr. Lofty."

The girls gasped and then almost tittered.

Young Lofty ceased immediately to be the suave master of friendly
favors and became the harassed slave of finance.

"I don't know where you secured your information," he protested.

"I'm a fancy guesser," returned Johnny with a grin.

"I wish you were right," said Lofty soberly. "We have quietly gained
possession of nearly all the property in the block, but we're not quite
ready to build, nevertheless."

"I can finish the sad story," sympathized Johnny. "One granite-headed
ladies' tailor threatens to block the way for thirteen years."

Lofty was surprised by the accuracy of his knowledge. "I'd like to
borrow your guesser," he admitted.

Johnny and the girls looked at each other with smiles of infantile
glee. They were delighted that they had deduced all this while waiting
for a traffic Napoleon to blow his whistle.

"Somebody's been telling," surmised Lofty. "The worst of it is, we own
the original lease. Father covered the entire block, in fact."

Johnny's thorough knowledge of New York business conditions enabled him
to make another good conjecture.

"Your firm has made money too fast," he remarked. "Your father hoped to
build in twenty years, and you need to build in seven."

"He provided much better than that," returned Lofty in quick defense of
his father's acumen. "He only allowed ten-year leases; but the one
occupied by Ersten came to him with a twenty-year life on it. We've
bought off all the other tenants, at startlingly extravagant figures in
some cases; but Ersten won't listen."

"Did you rattle your keys?" inquired Johnny, much interested.

"As loudly as possible," returned Lofty, smiling. "I went up three
steps at a time until I had offered him a hundred thousand; then I
quit. Money wouldn't buy him."

"Then you can't build," innocently remarked Constance.

Willis Lofty immediately displayed his real age in his eyes and his
jaws.

"I'll tear down the top part of his building and put a tunnel around
him if necessary," he asserted.

"You won't like that any better than Ersten," commented Johnny. "I
think I'll have to make another guess for you."

"I like your work," replied Lofty with a smile. "Let's hear it."

"All right. I guess I'll buy Ersten's lease for you."

"You'll have to find another answer, I'm afraid," Lofty hopelessly
stated. "I've had a regiment of real estate men helping me devil Ersten
to death, but he won't sell."

"Of course he'll sell," declared Johnny confidently. "You can buy
anything in New York if you go at it right. Each deal is like a Chinese
puzzle. You never do it twice alike."

"Try this one," urged Lofty. "There's a good commission in it."

"Commission? Not for Johnny!" promptly refused that young man; "I'll
buy it myself, and hold you up for it."

"If you come at me too strongly I'll build that tunnel," warned Lofty.

"I'll figure it just below tunnel prices," Johnny laughingly assured
him. The gray shawl with the pink relief came up just then, and all
four of them immediately bought it for Johnny's sole surviving mother.




CHAPTER XIV

IN WHICH JOHNNY TRIES TO MIX BUSINESS WITH SKAT


Louis Ersten, who puffed redly wherever he did not grayly bristle, met
Johnny Gamble half-way. Johnny's half consisted in stating that he had
come to see Mr. Ersten in reference to his lease. Mr. Ersten's half
consisted in flatly declining to discuss that subject on the premises.

"Here--I make ladies' suits," he explained. "If you come about such a
business, with good recommendations from my customers, I talk with you.
Otherwise not."

"I'll talk any place you say," consented Johnny. "Where do you lunch?"

"At August Schoppenvoll's," replied Mr. Ersten with no hint of an
intention to disclose where August Schoppenvoll's place might be. "At
lunch-time I talk no business; I eat."

The speculator studied those forbidding bushy brows in silence for a
moment. Beneath them, between heavy lids, glowed a pair of very stern
gray eyes; but at the outward corner of each eye were two deep,
diverging creases, which belied some of the sternness.

"Where do you sleep?" Johnny asked.

"I don't talk business in my sleep," asserted Mr. Ersten stoutly, and
then he laughed with considerable heartiness, pleased immensely with
his own joke and not noticing that it was more than half Johnny's.
After all, Johnny had only implied it; he had said it! Accordingly he
relented a trifle. "From four to half-past five, at Schoppenvoll's, I
play skat," he added.

"Thank you," said Johnny briskly, and started for the nearest telephone
directory. "I'll drop in on you."

"Well," returned Ersten resignedly, "it won't do you any good."

Johnny grinned and went out, having first made a swift but careful
estimate of Ersten's room, accommodations and requirements. Outside, he
studied the surrounding property, then called on a real estate firm.

At four-ten he went into the dim little basement wine-room of
Schoppenvoll. He had timed this to a nicety, hoping to arrive just
after the greetings were over and before the game had begun, and he
accomplished that purpose; for, with the well-thumbed cards lying
between them and three half-emptied steins of beer on the table, Ersten
was opposite a pink-faced man with curly gray hair, whose clothes sat
upon his slightly portly person with fashion-plate precision. It was
this very same suit about which Ersten was talking when Johnny entered.

"Na, Kurzerhosen," he said with a trace of pathos in his guttural
voice, "when you die we have no more suits of clothes like that."

"I thank you," returned the flexible soft voice of Kurzerhosen. "It is
like the work you make in your ladies' garments, Ersten. When you die
we shall have no more good walking clothes for our womenfolks."

"And when Schoppenvoll dies we have no more good wine," declared Ersten
with conviction and a wave of his hand as Schoppenvoll approached them
with an inordinately long-necked bottle, balancing it carefully on its
side.

Johnny had drawn near the table now, but no one saw him, for this
moment was one of deep gravity. Schoppenvoll, a tall, straight-backed
man with the dignity of a major, a waving gray pompadour, and a
clean-cut face that might have belonged to a Beethoven, set down the
tray at the very edge of the table and slid it gently into place. An
overgrown fat boy, with his sleeves rolled to his shoulders, brought
three shining glasses, three bottles of Glanzen Wasser and a corkscrew.

It was at this most inopportune time that Johnny Gamble spoke.

"Well, Mr. Ersten," he cheerfully observed, "I've come round to make
you an offer for that lease."

Mr. Ersten, his gnarled eyebrows bent upon the sacred ceremony about to
be performed, looked up with a grunt--and immediately returned to his
business. Mr. Kurzerhosen glanced round for an instant in frowning
appeal. Mr. Schoppenvoll paid no attention whatever to the
interruption. He gave an exhibition of cork-pulling which a watchmaker
might have envied for its delicacy; he poured the tall glasses
half-full of the clear amber fluid and opened the bottles of Glanzen
Wasser. The three friends, Schoppenvoll now sitting, clinked their
steins solemnly and emptied them. Ersten wiped the foam from his
bristling gray mustache.

"About that lease I have nothing to say," he told Johnny, fixing a
stern eye upon him. "I will not sell it."

The other gentlemen of the party looked upon the stranger as an
unforgivable interloper.

"I'm prepared to make you a very good offer for it," insisted Johnny.
"I have a better location for you, not half a block away, and I've
taken an option on a long-time lease for it."

The stolid boy removed the steins. The three gentlemen poured the
Glanzen Wasser into their wine.

"I will not sell the lease," announced Ersten with such calm finality
that Johnny apologized for the intrusion and withdrew. As he went out,
Ersten and Kurzerhosen and Schoppenvoll, in blissful forgetfulness of
him, raised their glasses for the first delicious sip of the
Rheinthranen, of which there were only two hundred and eighty precious
bottles left in the world.

Outside, Johnny hailed a passing taxi. He called on Morton Washer, on
Ben Courtney, on Colonel Bouncer, and even on Candy-King Slosher; but
to no purpose. Finally he descended upon iron-hard Joe Close.

"Do you know anybody who knows Louis Ersten, the ladies' tailor?" he
asked almost automatically.

"Ersten?" replied Close unexpectedly. "I've quarreled with him for
thirty years. He banks with me."

"Start a quarrel for me," requested Johnny. "I've been down to look him
over. I can do business with him if he'll listen."

Close smiled.

"I doubt it," he rejoined. "Ersten has just lost the coat cutter who
helped him build up his business, and he's soured on everything in the
world but Schoppenvoll's and skat and Rheinthranen."

"Could I learn to play skat in about a day?" inquired Johnny.

"You have no German ancestors, have you?" retorted Close.

"No."

"Then you couldn't learn it in a thousand years!"

"I have to find his weak spot," Johnny persisted. "If you'll just make
him talk with me I'll do the rest."

Close shook his head and sighed.

"I'll try," he agreed, "but I feel about as hopeful as I would be of
persuading a bull to sleep in a red blanket."

Johnny had caught Close as he was leaving his club for home, and they
went round immediately to Schoppenvoll's. At exactly five-thirty Ersten
emerged from the wine-room with Kurzerhosen.

"Hello, Louis!" hailed the waiting Close. "Jump into the taxi here, and
I'll take you down to your train."

Ersten and Kurzerhosen looked at each other.

"Always we walk," declared Ersten.

"There's room for both of you," laughed Close, shaking hands with
Kurzerhosen.

Ersten sighed.

"Always we walk," he grumbled, but he climbed in.

When they were started for the terminal Ersten leaned forward, with his
bushy brows lowering, and glared Close sternly in the eye.

"I will not sell the lease!" he avowed before a word had been spoken.

"We know that," admitted Close; "but why?"

Ersten hesitated a moment.

"Oh, well; I tell you," he consented with an almost malignant glance in
the direction of Johnny. "All my customers know me in that place."

"Your customers would find you anywhere," Close complimented him.

"Maybe they do," admitted Ersten. "My cousin, Otto Gruber, had a fine
saloon business. He moved across the street--and broke up."

"It was not the same," Close assured him. "In saloons, men want to feel
at home. In your business, your customers come because they get the
best--and they care nothing for the shop itself."

"They like the place," asserted Ersten. "I've made a good living there
for almost forty years. Why should I move?"

"Because you would be nearer Fifth Avenue," Johnny ventured to
interject, and spoke to the chauffeur, who drew up to the curb. "This
is the place I have in mind, Mr. Ersten."

"They come to me where I am," insisted Ersten, refusing to look, with
unglazed eyes.

"You have no such show-windows," persisted Johnny.

"My customers know my goods inside."

"There's a big light gallery--twice the size of your present workrooms."

Ersten's cheeks suddenly puffed and his forehead purpled, while every
hair on his head and face stuck straight out.

"My workroom is good enough!" he exploded. "I told it to Schnitt!"

"Is Schnitt your coat cutter?" asked Johnny, remembering what Constance
and Close had said.

Ersten glowered at him.

"He was. Thirty-seven years he worked with me; then he tried to run my
business. He is gone. Let him go!"

"He objected to the light in the workroom, didn't he?" went on the
cross-examiner, carefully piecing the situation together bit by bit.

"He could see for thirty-seven years, till everybody talks about
moving; then he goes crazy," blurted Ersten.

"Won't you look at this place?" he was urged. "Let me show it to you
to-morrow."

"I stay where I am," sullenly declared Ersten, still angry. "We miss my
train."

Close told the driver to go on. Before Ersten alighted at the terminal,
Johnny made one more attempt upon him.

"If a majority of your best customers insisted that they liked the new
shop better would you look at the other place?" he asked.

"My customers don't run my business either!" he puffed.

"Good-by," stated Mr. Kurzerhosen, who had been looking steadily at the
opposite side of the street throughout the journey. "I thank you."

Close stared at Johnny in silence for a moment after their guests had
gone.

"I told you so," he said. "You'll have to give him up as a bad job."

"He's beginning to look like a good job," asserted Johnny. "He can be
handled like wax, but you have to melt him. Schnitt's the real reason.
Do you know Schnitt?"

"I am happy to say I do not," laughed Close. "One like Ersten is
enough."

"Somebody must lead me to him," declared Johnny. "I'm going to see
Schnitt in the morning. I'd call to-night if I didn't have to be the
big works at a Coney Island dinner party."

"I don't see how Schnitt can help you," puzzled Close.

"He's the tack in the tire. I can see what happened as well as if I had
been there. Ersten knew he ought to move. Lofty tried to buy him and
Schnitt tried to force him. Then he got his Dutch up. Schnitt left on
account of it. Now Ersten won't do anything."

"You can't budge him an inch," prophesied the banker. "I know him."

"I'll coax him," stated Johnny determinedly. "There's a profit in him,
and I have to have it!"




CHAPTER XV

IN WHICH WINNIE CHAPERONS THE ENTIRE PARTY TO CONEY ISLAND


At the last minute, Aunt Pattie Boyden fortunately contracted a
toothache--and the Coney Island party was compelled to go unchaperoned.
They tried to be regretful and sympathetic as the six of them climbed
into the big touring car, but Ashley Loring found them a solace.

"Never you mind," he soothed them--"Polly will chaperon us."

"You've lost your address book," declared that young lady indignantly.
"Polly Parsons is not the person you have in mind. I'll be old soon
enough without that! The chaperon of this party is my adopted sister,
Winnie."

"Oh, fun!" accepted the nominee with delight. "We had a course in that
at school." And Winnie, in all the glory of her fluffy youthfulness,
toyed carefully with the points of her Moorish collar. "I was elected
chaperon of the Midnight Fudge Club, and the girls all said that I
fooled Old Meow oftener than anybody!"

Thereafter there was no lull in the conversation; for Winnie, once
started on school reminiscences, filled all gaps to overflowing; and
Sammy Chirp, he of the feeble smile, whose diffidence had denied him
the gift of language, gazed on her in rapt and happy stupefaction.

Meanwhile, Johnny Gamble found himself gazing as raptly at Constance
until the chaperon, in a brief interlude between reminiscences, caught
him at it. She reached over and touched him on the back of the hand
with the tip of one soft pink finger. Immediately she held that finger
to her right eye and closed her left one, and Johnny felt himself
blushing like a school-boy.

There was a trace of resentment in his embarrassment, he found. The
strain of being compelled to make a million dollars, before he could
tell this only desirable young woman in the world that he loved her,
was beginning to oppress him. He wanted to tell her now; but it was a
task beyond him to ask her to forfeit her own fortune until he could
replace it by another. Times were hard, he reflected.

He was now twelve hours behind his schedule and possessed of sixty
thousand dollars less than he should have. At nine o'clock to-morrow
morning that deficit would begin to pile up again at the rate of five
thousand dollars an hour. By comparison their auto seemed slow, and he
spoke to the driver about it. How well Constance Joy was in sympathy
with him and followed his thought, was shown by the fact that she
heartily agreed with him, though they were already exceeding the
Brooklyn speed limit.

"I not only want to be the chaperon but the dictator of this tour,"
declared Winnie when they alighted at the big playground. "I've never
been here before, and I don't want anybody to tell me anything I'm
going to see."

"It's your party," announced Johnny promptly. "Let's be plumb vulgar
about it." And he thrust a big roll of bills into her hands.

"You're a darling!" she exclaimed, her eyes glistening with delight.
"May I kiss him, girls?"

"Ask Johnny," laughed Polly, but Johnny had disappeared behind the
others of the party.

It took Winnie five minutes to chase him down, and she caught him, with
the assistance of Constance, in the thickest crowd and in the
best-lighted space on Surf Avenue, where Constance held him while he
received his reward.

"It's a new game," Johnny confessed, though blushing furiously. "I'll
be 'it' any time you say."

"Once is enough," asserted Winnie, entirely unruffled. "Your face is
scratchy. Come on, you folks; I'm going to buy you a dinner." And,
leading the way into the first likely-looking place, she ordered a
comprehensive meal which started with pickles and finished with pie.

Her party was a huge success, for it laughed its way from one end of
Coney to the other. It rode on wooden horses; on wobbling camels; in
whirling tubs; on iron-billowed oceans; down trestled mountains;
through painted caves--on everything which had rollers, or runners, or
supporting arms. It withstood shocks and bumps and dislocations and
dizziness--and it ran squarely into Heinrich Schnitt!

Three tables, placed end to end at the rail of a Shoot-the-Chutes lake,
were required to accommodate Heinrich Schnitt's party. First, there was
Heinrich himself, white as wax and stoop-shouldered and extremely
clean. At the other end of the table sat Mama Schnitt, who bulged, and
always had butter on her thumb. To the right of Heinrich sat
Grossmutter Schnitt, in a black sateen dress, with her back bowed like
a new moon and her little old face withered like a dried white rose.

Next sat young Heinrich Schnitt and his wife, Milly, who was very
fashionable and wore a lace shirt-waist--though she was not so
fashionable that she was ashamed of any of the rest of the party.

Between young Heinrich and Milly sat their little Henry and little Rosa
and little Milly and the baby, all stiffly starched and round-faced and
red-cheeked. Besides these were Carrie, whose husband was dead; and
Carrie's Louis; and Willie Schnitt with Flora Kraus, whom he was to
marry two years from last Easter; and Lulu, who was pretty, and went
with American boys in the face of broken-hearted opposition.

In front of each member of the party--except the baby--was a glass of
beer and a "hot dog", and down the center of the long table were three
pasteboard shoe boxes, full of fine lunch, flanking Flora Kraus' fancy
basket of potato salad and fried chicken, as well prepared as any those
Schnitts could put up.

It was Constance who, walking quietly with Johnny, discovered Heinrich
Schnitt in the midst of his throng and casually remarked it.

"There's the nice old German who cuts my coats," she observed.

"Schnitt!" exclaimed Johnny, so loudly that she was afraid Schnitt
might hear him. "Let me hear you talk to him."

She looked at him in perplexity for a moment.

"Oh, yes; the lease," she remembered. "I'll introduce you and you can
ask him about it."

"Don't mention it!" hastily objected Johnny. "You may introduce me, but
you do the talking."

"All right, boss," she laughingly agreed, and turned straight over to
the head of the Schnitts' table, where she introduced her companion in
due form.

"I want my walking suit," she demanded.

Heinrich's face had lighted with pleasure at the sight of Constance,
but there was a trace of sadness in his voice.

"You must tell Louis Ersten," he politely advised her.

"I did," protested Constance. "He's holding it back on account of the
coat, and that's your affair."

"It is Louis Ersten's," insisted Heinrich with dignity. "I have retired
from business."

"You don't mean to say you've left Ersten?" returned Constance in
surprise.

"I have retired from business," reiterated Heinrich.

"Ersten wouldn't give papa enough room," broke in Mama Schnitt
indignantly, "so he quits, and he don't go back till he does."

"So I don't ever go back," concluded Heinrich.

"Well, we got enough that papa don't have to work any more," asserted
Mama Schnitt with proper pride and a glance at Flora Kraus; "but he
gets lonesome. That's why we make him come down to Coney to-day and
enjoy himself. He was with Louis Ersten thirty-seven years."

A wave of homesickness swept over Heinrich.

"I take it easy in my old days," he stoutly maintained, but with such
inward distress that, without a protest, he allowed the waiter to
remove his half-emptied glass of beer.

"I'm glad you can take it easy," declared Constance, "but Ersten's
customers will miss you very much--and I am sure Ersten will, too."

"We worked together thirty-seven years," said Schnitt wistfully.

"I'm sure it's only obstinacy," commented Constance when she and Johnny
had rejoined their party. "Why, Mr. Schnitt and Mr. Ersten have grown
up together in the business, and they seemed more like brothers than
anything else. I'd give anything to bring them together again!"

"I'll ask you for it some time," asserted Johnny confidently.

He caught a flash of challenge in her eyes and realized that he was
moving faster than his schedule would permit.

"I'm going to bring them together, you know," he assured her in
confusion.

"I do hope so," she demurely replied.

"We're wasting an awful lot of time!" called Winnie. "The Canals of
Venice! We haven't been in this." And she promptly bought six tickets.

In the bustle of taking boats an officious guard succeeded, for the
thousandth time that day, in the joyful duty of separating a party; and
Constance and Johnny were left behind to enjoy the next boat all to
themselves.

It was dim and cool in there--all narrow gravity canals, and quaint
canvas buildings, and queer arches, and mellow lights, with little dark
curves and long winding reaches, and a restfulness almost like
solemnity.

It was the first time Johnny had been in such close companionship with
Constance as this strange isolation gave them, and he did not know what
to say. After all, what was the use of saying? They were there, side by
side, upon the gently flowing water, far, far away from all the world;
and it would seem almost rude to break that bliss with language, which
so often fails to interpret thought.

Constance's hand was drooping idly across her knee and, by an
uncontrollable impulse, Johnny's hand, all by itself, slid over and
gently clasped the whiter and slenderer one. It did not draw away; and,
huddled up on their low narrow seat, bumping against the wooden banks
and floating on and on, they cared not whither, they stared into
oblivion in that semi-trancelike condition that sometimes accompanies
the peculiar state in which they found themselves.

"Oh-ho-o-o-o!" rang the clear voice of Winnie from a parallel canal
just behind them.

Constance, flushing violently, attempted to jerk her hand away; but
Johnny, animated by a sudden aggressiveness, clasped it tightly and
held it--captive--up to view.

At that interesting moment another sharp turn in the canal brought them
face to face with an approaching boat in which were Paul Gresham and
Jim Collaton!

"I said it was a girl," charged Collaton, studying the green pallor of
Gresham's face with wondering interest as they stepped out into the
glare of the million electric bulbs.

"That is not a topic for you to discuss," returned Gresham, looking up
the brilliantly lighted board walk around the bend of which Johnny
Gamble, with Constance on one arm and Winnie on the other, was gaily
following Polly, that young lady being escorted by the attentive Loring
and the submissive Sammy.

"That's what you said before," retorted Collaton, his eyebrows and
lashes even more invisible in this illumination than in broad
day-light. "It's time, though, for a showdown. You drag me into dark
corners and talk over schemes to throw the hooks into Johnny
Gamble--and I tell you I'm afraid of him!"

"You're mistaken," asserted Gresham dryly. "It was I who told you that
you were afraid of him."

"I admitted it all right," sulkily answered Collaton. "He's awake now,
I tell you; and he's not a safe man to fool with. He turned our last
trick against us, and that's enough hint for me."

"Your trick, you mean," corrected Gresham.

"Our trick, I said!" insisted Collaton, suddenly angry. "Look here,
Gresham, I won't stand any monkey business from you! If there's ever
any trouble comes out of this you'll get your share of it, and don't
you forget it! You've had me lay attachments against the
Gamble-Collaton Irrigation Company on forged notes. Since I had
nothing, Johnny paid them, because he was square. The last attachment,
though--for fifty thousand--he held off until I got that Slosher
Apartment scheme in my own name, and turned it against me; and you had
to pay it, because you had stood good for me."

"What difference does that make to you?" demanded Gresham. "It was my
own money and I got it back."

"It makes just this much difference," explained Collaton: "Gamble and
Loring are busy tracing all these transactions; and when they find out
anything it will be fastened on me, for you never figure in the deals.
You even try to avoid acknowledging to me that you have anything to do
with them."

"You get all the money," Gresham reminded him.

"That's why I know you're framing it up to let me wear the iron
bracelets if anything comes off. Now you play square with me or I'll
hand you a jolt that you won't forget! There's a girl responsible for
your crazy desire to put my old partner on the toboggan--and that was
the girl. You see I happen to know all about it."

Gresham considered the matter in silence for some time, and Collaton
let him think without interruption. They sat down now at one of the
little tables and Collaton curtly ordered some drinks.

"It's a very simple matter," Gresham finally stated. "My father was to
have married Miss Joy's aunt but did not. When the aunt came to die she
left Miss Joy a million dollars, but coupled with it the provision that
she must marry me. That's all."

"It's enough," laughed Collaton. "I understand now why Johnny Gamble
wants to make a million dollars. As soon as he gets it he'll propose to
Miss Joy, she'll accept him and let the million slide. Who gets it?"

"Charity."

"Why, Gresham, I'm ashamed of you!" Collaton mocked. "The descendant of
a noble English house is making as sordid an affair of this as if he
were a cheese dealer! I have the gift of second sight and I can tell
you just what's going to happen. Johnny Gamble will make his million
dollars--and I'm for him. He'll marry Miss Joy--and I'm for her. That
other million will go to charity--and I'm for it. I hope they all win!"

"You're foolish," returned Gresham, holding his temper through the
superiority which had always nettled Collaton. "You like money and I'm
showing you a way to get it from Johnny Gamble."

The waiter brought the drinks. Collaton paid for them, tossed off his
own and rose.

"I've had all of that money I want," he declared. "Whatever schemes you
have in the future you will have to work yourself, and whatever trouble
comes of it you may also enjoy alone--because I'll throw you."

"You would find difficulty in doing that," Gresham observed with a
smile. "I fancy that, if I were to send the missing books of the
defunct Gamble-Collaton Irrigation Company to Mr. Gamble, you would be
too busy explaining things on your account to bother with my affairs to
any extent."

"I was in jail once," Collaton told him with quiet intensity. "If I
ever go again the man who puts me there will have to go along, so that
I will know where to find him when I get out. Good-by."

"Wait a minute," said Gresham. "Your digestion is bad or else you made
a recent winning in your favorite bucket-shop. Now listen to me:
Whatever Johnny Gamble's doing at the present time is of no
consequence. Let him go through with the deal he has on and think he
has scared you off. I'll only ask you to make one more attempt against
him. That's all that will be necessary, for it will break him and at
the same time destroy Miss Joy's confidence in him. He has over a third
of a million dollars. We can get it all."

"Excuse me," refused Collaton. "If I ran across Johnny Gamble's
pocket-book in a dark alley I'd walk square around it without stopping
to look for the string to it."

Gresham rose.

"Then you won't take any part in the enterprise?"

"Not any," Collaton assured him with a wave of negation. "If Johnny
will let me alone I'll let him alone, and be glad of the chance."

Later, Gresham saw Johnny come back and speak to Heinrich Schnitt; but
he had no curiosity about it. Whatever affairs Johnny had in hand just
now he might carry through unmolested, for Gresham was busy with larger
plans for his future undoing.




CHAPTER XVI

IN WHICH JOHNNY PLANS A REHEARSAL BETWEEN OLD FRIENDS


Johnny Gamble was waiting at the store when Louis Ersten came down the
next morning. Mr. Ersten walked in with a portentous frown on his brow
and began to take off his coat as he strode back toward the cutting
room. He frowned still more deeply as Johnny confronted him.

"Again!" he exclaimed, looking about him in angry despair as if he had
some wild idea of calling a porter. "First it's Lofty; then it's some
slick real estate schemer; then it's you! I will not sell the lease!"

"I won't say lease this time," Johnny hastily assured him.

"Then that is good," gruffly assented Ersten with a trace of a
sarcastic snarl.

"Heinrich Schnitt," remarked Johnny.

That name was an open sesame. Louis Ersten stopped immediately with his
coat half-off.

"So-o-o!" he ejaculated, surprised into a German exclamation that he
had long since deliberately laid aside. "What is it about Heinrich?"

"I saw him at Coney Island last night. He doesn't look well."

"He don't work. It makes him sick!" Ersten's voice was as gruff as
ever; but Johnny, watching narrowly, saw that he was concerned,
nevertheless.

"His eyes are bad," went on Johnny, "but I think he would like to come
back to work."

"Did he say it?" asked Ersten with a haste which betrayed the eagerness
he did not want to show.

"Not exactly," admitted Johnny, "but if he knew that he could have a
workroom where there is a better light I know he would like to come.
His eyes are bad, you know."

"I said it makes him sick not to work," insisted Ersten. "If he wants
to come he knows the way."

"His job's waiting for him, isn't it?"

"In this place, yes. In no other place. I don't move my shop to please
my coat cutter--even if he is the best in New York and a boy that come
over from the old country with me in the same ship, and his word as
good as gold money. It's like I told Heinrich when he left: If he comes
back to me he comes back here--in this place. Are his eyes very bad?"

"Not very," judged Johnny. "He must take care of them though."

"Sure he must," agreed Ersten. "We're getting old. Thirty-seven years
we worked together. I stood up for Heinrich at his wedding and he stood
up for me at mine. He's a stubborn assel!"

"That's the trouble," mused Johnny, "He said he wouldn't work in this
shop any more."

"Here must he come--in this place!" reiterated Ersten, instantly stern;
and he walked sturdily away, removing his coat.

Johnny found Heinrich Schnitt weeding onions, picking out each weed
with minute care and petting the tender young bulbs through their
covering of soft earth as he went along. Mama Schnitt, divided into two
bulges by an apron-string and wearing a man's broad-brimmed straw hat,
stood placidly at the end of the row for company.

"Good morning, Mr. Schnitt," said Johnny cheerfully. "I have just come
from Ersten's. He wants you to come back."

"Did he say it?" asked Heinrich with no disguise of his eagerness.

"Not exactly," admitted Johnny, "but he said that you are the best coat
cutter in New York and that your job's waiting for you."

"I know it," asserted Heinrich. "Is he going to move?"

"Not just yet," was the diplomatic return. "He will after you go back
to work, I think."

"I never work in that place again," announced the old man with a sigh.
"I said it."

"That shop isn't light enough, is it?" suggested the messenger.

"There is no light and no room," agreed Heinrich.

"Your eyes began to give out on you, didn't they?"

Heinrich straightened himself and his waxen-white face turned a
delicate pink with indignation.

"My eyes are like a young man's yet!" he stoutly maintained.

"You don't read much any more," charged Mama Schnitt.

"My glasses don't fit," he retorted to that.

"You changed them last winter," she insisted. "Now, papa, don't be
foolish! You know your eyes got bad in Louis Ersten's dark workroom.
You never tell lies. Say it!"

Heinrich struggled for a moment between his pride and his honesty.

"Well, maybe they ain't just so good as they was," he admitted.

"That's what I told Ersten," stated Johnny. "He's worried stiff about
it! I think he'll move so you have a lighter workroom if you go back."

"When he moves I come."

"He won't move till you do."

"Then there is nothing," concluded Schnitt resignedly, and stooped over
to pull another weed. "Mama, maybe Mr. Gamble likes some of that wine
Carrie's husband made the year he died."

"Ja voll," assented Mamma Schnitt heartily, and toddled away to get it.

"I'll fix it for you," offered Johnny. "You go to Ersten and say you
will come back; then Ersten will get a new place before you start to
work."

Heinrich straightened up with alacrity this time, his face fairly
shining with pleasure.

"I do that much," he agreed.

"Good!" approved Johnny. "You want to be careful what you say, though,
for Ersten is stubborn."

"He is stubborn like a mule," Schnitt pointed out with sober gravity.

"You must say you have come back to work in that place."

"I'll never do it!" indignantly declared Heinrich, his face lengthening.

"Certainly not," agreed Johnny hurriedly. "You tell him you want a
month to rest up your eyes."

"I don't need it!" protested Heinrich.

"You only say that so you won't have to work in that shop, but, never
mind, I'll fix it so he offers it," patiently explained Johnny, and
proceeded to make it perfectly plain. "You say that you have come back
to work. Don't say another word."

"I have come back to work," repeated Schnitt.

"Then Ersten will ask you: 'In this place?' You say: 'Yes.'"

Heinrich began to shake his head vigorously, but Johnny gave him no
chance to refuse.

"You say: 'Yes'!" he emphatically insisted. "Ersten will tell you to
take a month off to rest your eyes."

Again Heinrich started to shake his head, and again Johnny hurried on.

"You say: 'Thank you'," he directed; "then you go away. Before your
month is up, Ersten will send for you in a new shop!"

"Will he promise it?"

"No," confessed Johnny. "I promised it but Ersten will do it."

Heinrich pondered the matter long and soberly.

"All right; I try it," he agreed.

"Three cheers!" said Johnny with a huge sigh of relief. "I'll be back
after you in about an hour." And he reluctantly paused long enough to
drink some of the wine which Carrie's husband helped to make. It was
probably good wine.

Ersten was in the cutting room when Johnny again arrived at the store,
and a clerk took his name up very dubiously. The clerk returned,
smiling with extreme graciousness, and informed the caller that he was
to walk straight back. Johnny found Ersten in spectacles and apron,
with a tape-line round his neck and a piece of chalk in his hand, and
wearing a very worried look, while all the workmen in the room appeared
subdued but highly nervous.

"Did you see him?" Ersten asked immediately.

"He is anxious to come back," Johnny was happy to state.

"When?" This very eagerly.

"To-day."

Ersten took his apron and the tape and threw them on a table with a
slam.

"I invite you to have a glass of Rheinthranen," he offered.

"Thanks," returned Johnny carelessly, not quite appreciating the
priceless honor. "I'll have Mr. Schnitt here in an hour, but you must
be careful what you say to him. He is stubborn."

"Sure, I know it," impetuously agreed Ersten. "He is an old assel. What
is to be said?" Johnny could feel the nervous tension of the room
lighten as Ersten walked out with him.

"It will be like this," Johnny explained: "Schnitt will come in with me
and say: 'I have come back to work.'"

"In this place?" demanded Ersten.

"Ask him that. He will say: 'Yes.'"

"Will he?" cried Ersten, unable to believe his ears.

"That's what he will say--but he won't do it."

"What is it?" exploded the shocked Ersten. "You say he says he will
come back to work in this place, but he won't do it! That is
foolishness!"

"No, it isn't," insisted Johnny. "Now listen carefully. Schnitt says:
'I have come back to work.' You say: 'In this place?' Schnitt says:
'Yes.' Then you tell him that he must take a month to rest up his eyes."

"But must I do his coat cutting for a month yet?" protested the abused
Ersten. "Nobody can do it in New York for my customers but Heinrich
Schnitt and me."

"It may not be a month. Just now he might take some of your more
important work home, where the light is better. That would be working
for you in this place."

"Well, maybe," admitted Ersten puffing out his cheeks in frowning
consideration.

Johnny held his breath as he approached the crucial observation.

"By the time his eyes are rested you may have a better shop for the old
man to work in."

Ersten fixed him with a burning glare.

"I see it!" he ejaculated. "You put this job up to make me sell my
lease!"

Johnny looked him in the eye with a frank smile.

"Of course I did," he confessed. "I didn't know either you or Schnitt
until yesterday."

Ersten knit his bristling brows, but presently grinned.

"You're a smart young man," he complimented. "But I don't promise
Schnitt I move."

"Certainly not," agreed the smart young man, and mopped his brow. The
fight was won! "Here is exactly what you must say"--and he went
patiently over the entire dialogue again, word by word.

Ersten listened carefully with frowns at some parts.

"Well, I try it," he dubiously promised.

They were in front of Schoppenvoll's now; and Johnny, noting Ersten's
fretfulness, proved himself a keen student of psychology by suggesting:
"I'm thirsty for that special drink of yours, Ersten; but suppose we
put it off till after I've brought Schnitt."

"Oh, well, if you say so," returned Ersten with poorly assumed
indifference.

"It's as fine as a frog's feather!" Johnny assured Heinrich Schnitt
half an hour later.

"Will he move?" asked Heinrich.

"Yes, but you mustn't say anything about it"

"Well, I like to know it," returned Heinrich with proper caution.

"I have his promise," asserted Johnny.

"Then he moves," declared Heinrich, fully satisfied.

The mediator conveyed Heinrich to Ersten's with much the same feeling
that he would have endured in carrying a full plate of soup--and he had
that feeling all through the conference.

"Hello, Heinrich!" greeted Ersten with indifference.

"Hello, Louis!" returned Schnitt with equal nonchalance; then he
assumed a rigid pose and recited: "I have come back to work."

"In this place?" asked Ersten, with parrotlike perfection.

A lump came into Heinrich Schnitt's throat. He struggled with that
lump, but the simple word "Yes" would not come.

"I say yes; but I don't--"

Johnny jerked him violently by the sleeve.

"He said 'Yes'," he informed Ersten.

"Well, maybe," Ersten was decent enough to admit.

There was an uncomfortable pause in which the two men evinced a slight
disposition to glare at each other.

"Mr. Schnitt's eyes are bad," suggested Johnny hopefully.

"My eyes are like a young man's!" asserted Schnitt, his pride coming
uppermost.

"He needs a month to rest them," insisted the buffer, becoming a trifle
panic-stricken; and he tapped the sole of Ersten's shoe with his foot.

"Must it take a month, Heinrich?" implored Ersten, taking the cue.

"Well, how soon you move?" inquired Schnitt.

"I don't promise I move!" flared Ersten.

"I never come back--"

"Till his eyes are better," hastily interrupted Johnny. "Look here, you
fellows! You're balling up this rehearsal! Now let's get together.
Schnitt, you'll come back to work in this place, won't you?"

"Well, I say it anyhow," admitted Schnitt reluctantly.

"Ersten, you offer him a month to rest his eyes, don't you?"

"I don't promise him I move!" bristled Ersten.

"We understand that," soothed Johnny, "all of us. Schnitt, you'll take
some of Mr. Ersten's work home with you from this place, won't you?"

"Sure, I do that," consented Schnitt eagerly. "Louis, what is in the
shop?"

Ersten had a struggle of his own.

"All what was in when you left," he bravely confessed. "That coat for
Mrs. Follison gives me trouble for a week!"

"She's got funny shoulders," commented Schnitt with professional
impersonality. "It's the left one. You cut it--Let me see it."

There was a sibilant sound as of many suppressed sighs of relief when
Heinrich walked into the cutting room, but no man grinned or gave more
than a curt nod of greeting--for the forbidding eye of Louis Ersten
glared fiercely upon them. He strode across to the table held sacred to
himself and spread down a piece of cloth, bounded by many curves.
Heinrich Schnitt gave it but one comprehensive glance.

"Na, na, na!" he shrilly commented. "Here it is wrong!" And, grabbing
up a slice of chalk, he made a deft swoop toward the material. Suddenly
his arm stayed in mid air and he laid down the chalk with a muscular
effort. "I think I take this home," he firmly announced.

"Heinrich, you come back after the work. Just now we go with Mr. Gamble
to Schoppenvoll's and have a glass of Rheinthranen!" Ersten said.

"The Rheinthranen!" repeated Heinrich in awe; and for the first time
his eyes moistened. "Louis, we was always friends!" And they shook
hands.

Johnny Gamble, keen as he was, did not quite understand it; but,
nevertheless, he had penetration enough to stroll nonchalantly out into
the show-room, where Louis and Heinrich presently joined him,
chattering like a Kaffe-klatsch; and they all walked round to
Schoppenvoll's.

While Schnitt thanked Johnny for his interference until that modest
young man blushed, Ersten argued seriously in whispers with Shoppenvoll
to secure a bottle of the precious wine that only he and Schoppenvoll
and Kurzerhosen had a right to purchase. Johnny drank his with dull
wonder. It tasted just like Rhine wine!

While Heinrich Schnitt was back in the cutting room, carefully
selecting every coat in the shop to take home with him, Ersten drew
Johnny near the door.

"I fool him!" he announced with grinning cuteness. "I move right away.
You get my lease for the best price what that smart-Aleck Lofty offered
me. And another word: Whenever you want a favor you come to me!"

Johnny walked into the Lofty establishment with the feeling of a
Napoleon. "How much will you give me for the Ersten lease?" he
suggested out of a clear sky.

Young Willis Lofty sighed in sympathy with his bank-account.

"Have you really secured it?" he asked.

"I'm the winner," Johnny cheerfully assured him.

"If it's too much I'll build that tunnel," warned Lofty.

"Make me an offer."

"A hundred and twenty-five thousand."

"Nothing doing," stated Johnny with a smile. "There's no use fussing up
our time though. I can tell you, to the cent, how much I must have. At
four o'clock to-day I shall be nineteen hours behind my schedule, and I
want a day for a fresh start, which makes it twenty-six. At five
thousand an hour, that makes a hundred and thirty thousand dollars. I
paid Ersten a hundred thousand. Grand total: two hundred and thirty
thousand."

"I don't understand your figures," protested Lofty.

"It's a private code," laughed the leaseholder, "but that's the price."

"I won't pay it," threatened the young merchant.

"Build your tunnel then," returned Johnny--but pleasantly,
nevertheless. "Don't let's be nervous, Lofty. I might ask you a lot
more, but that's the exact amount the system I'm playing calls for. I
don't want any more and I won't take any less!"

Lofty studied his face contemplatively for a moment and rang for his
treasurer.

"How did you get Ersten?" he was curious to know; and Johnny told him,
to their mutual enjoyment.

At the nearest drug store Johnny called up Constance.

"Heinrich Schnitt is fixing your coat!" he announced.

"Danke!" she cried. "Did you get the lease?"

"Yes, and sold it to Lofty," he enthusiastically informed her. "The
schedule is paid up until four o'clock to-morrow afternoon."

"Oh!" she gasped. "Wait a minute." He held the telephone while she
consulted the score board and did some figuring. "That makes five
hundred thousand of your million! Just half!"

"I'm coming around to see that diagram," he hastily stated.




CHAPTER XVII

IN WHICH THE STRAW SAILOR HAT OF JOHNNY PLAYS AN EMBARRASSING ROLE


"My dear," observed Mr. Courtney as he and his wife approached the
jessamine summer-house, "do you pick your week-end guests from a city
directory or do you draw the names from a hat?" Constance Joy, sitting
in the summer-house with Johnny Gamble, rose and laughed lightly as a
warning.

"My dear," retorted Mrs. Courtney very sweetly indeed and all unheeding
of the laugh, "I pick them by a better system than you employ when you
invite stag parties. You usually need to be introduced to your guests.
Just whom would you like to have me send home?"

"Paul Gresham for one," replied Courtney bluntly, "and the entire
Wobbles tribe, with their friend Birchard, for some more."

"I could 

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