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

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.