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.
"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, $15,000April 23. Sunday.April 24. To desk rent, ...$38April 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.
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.