Morton Washer, having acquired a substantial jack-pot with the aid of four hearts and little casino, boastfully displayed the winning hand.
"Sometime, when you fellows grow up," he kindly offered, "I'll sit down to a real game of poker with you."
Courtney, keeping the bank, dived ruefully into the box for his fourth stack of chips.
"There's one thing I must say about Mort," he dryly observed: "he's cheerful when he wins."
"He can brag harder and louder than any man I ever heard," admitted iron-faced Joe Close.
Colonel Bouncer, puffing out his red cheeks and snarling affectionately at his friend Washer, corroborated that statement emphatically.
"He's bragged ever since he was a boy," he stated.
"I always had something to brag about, didn't I?" demanded Washer, his intemperate little pompadour bristling, and his waxed mustache as waspish as if he were really provoked.
"I don't know," objected the solemn-faced Courtney. "I stung you for half a million on that hotel transaction. Give me an ace, Joe."
"Never!" snapped Morton Washer, picking up his cards as they fell. "It was Johnny Gamble did that. I open this pot right under the guns for the size of it and an extra sky-blue for luck. None of you old spavins was ever able to get me single-handed. A young fellow like Johnny Gamble—that's different. It's his turn. You fellows are all afraid of my threes."
"The others might be, so I'll just help them stay out," stated Courtney kindly as he doubled Washer's bet. "By the way, speaking of Johnny Gamble, he was very anxious to get you fellows out here to-day. Now I want to give you some solemn advice, Colonel; you'd better keep away from this pot."
"Bless my soul, I have a rotten hand!" confessed Colonel Bouncer, puffing his cheeks. "But you old bluffers can't drive me out of any place; so I'll trail." And he measured up to Courtney's stack. "What's Gamble's scheme, Ben?"
"I'll have to let Johnny tell you that himself," responded Courtney as Johnny entered. "Coming into this scramble, Joe?"
"I'm a cautious man," hesitated Close, inspecting the faces of his companions with calm interest. "I don't think you or Mort have second cousins among your pasteboards, but the colonel is concealing his feelings too carefully." And he threw down his cards.
"You're most unprofessional to say so," growled the colonel. "I suppose you won't see that raise, Mort?"
"I'm not much interested," returned Washer indifferently, "so I'll just tilt it another stack." And he did so with beautiful carelessness. "On general principles I'm very favorable to any enterprise Johnny Gamble offers. Isn't that so, Johnny?"
"I hope so," replied Johnny with a laugh as he approached the table and, with perfectly blank eyes, looked down at the hand which Washer conspicuously held up to him.
Courtney cast only a fleeting glance at Johnny, whose face it would be impolite to read—also impossible—and concentrated his attention upon his old friend, Washer.
"You infernal scoundrel, I believe you have them," he decided as Washer folded his cards into the palm of his hand again.
Courtney turned for a careful inspection of the colonel. That gentleman, daintily picking a fleck of dust from his cuff, looked unconcernedly off into the sky, whistling softly, and Courtney, pushing his hand into the discard, lighted a cigar, while the colonel met Washer's raise and added a tantalizing white chip.
It was now Washer's turn for consideration, and he studied his only remaining opponent with much interest.
"Give me one card, Joe; mostly kings," he requested as he pushed in his one white chip. "What's your scheme, Johnny?" And he looked up, quite indifferent to the card he was tossing away. He picked up the one Close carefully dealt him and, without looking at it, slid it in among the other four.
"I'm ready to close with you for that Bronx subdivision," responded Johnny, acutely watching Colonel Bouncer as that gentleman asked for one card, received it and studied its countenance with polite admiration. "It's the proposition I've previously explained to all of you, but had to lay aside because I couldn't nail down the property."
"I suppose you have it now," observed Morton, pushing forward with gentle little shoves of his middle finger a very tall stack of chips arranged in three distinct and equal red, white and blue layers. He had not yet looked at his fifth card, and at Colonel Bouncer he directed but a brief and passing glance. Did he care what the colonel held?
"I have the Wobbles estate in my pocket," replied Johnny, still watching the colonel absorbedly. "I must get you together Monday if possible."
"Wobbles!" exploded Courtney. "Did you buy that Bronx property at my party from my guests to sell to us?"
"I did," confessed Johnny with a grin. "This is a lovely party."
The poker game suspended itself for a minute, while all four of the gentlemen looked at him in contemplative admiration.
"He's a credit to the place," observed Joe Close. "Here's where the Texas land grab was arranged, and the wool trust formed, and the joker inserted into the rebate bill."
"Nevertheless, if Johnny Gamble sits in this game I'll cash in my chips and quit," declared Morton Washer.
"He's good enough company for me," blustered Colonel Bouncer, scrutinizing his cards one by one.
"I suppose so," agreed Washer with a smile at Johnny, "but he's so full of young tricks and we're outclassed. What's that property going to cost us?"
"Three and a half million," stated Johnny quietly.
Colonel Bouncer, having now made up his mind, deliberately and with nice care measured up blue chips and red chips and white chips matching Washer's, and added to them all the blue ones he had in his possession.
"Taking any stock yourself, Johnny?" he softly asked.
"Can't afford it," confessed Johnny with a smile.
"The property's quite worth three and a half million," announced Courtney decisively, watching the face of Morton Washer as that calm player stared at the colonel's chips. "I'm willing to take a million of the stock."
"I'll take a million; more if need be," offered Washer. "I've been wanting in on that for some time. Colonel, what have you got?"
"Five cards," replied the colonel.
"You have threes," charged Washer.
"I'm conducting my business through an agent," laughed Bouncer. "There it is," and he indicated the stack of blue chips.
"You have threes," insisted Washer. "The reason I'm so particular is that I have threes myself, and I want to know which are the better."
"There is one clever way to find out," bantered the colonel confidently. "You have a lot of chips. Why are you so stingy with them?"
"That's the way I got them," countered Washer. "I'll donate though. I'll do better than that: I'll tap you."
The colonel promptly counted his remaining red and white chips. Washer as promptly measured up to them and to the blues.
"Told you the truth!" he exulted. "I said I had threes, and here they are! Three tens and a king and another ten!" And he gleefully spread down his cards. "I caught the pink one."
"Had mine all the time!" triumphed Colonel Bouncer, throwing down his hand and putting both big arms round the pot. "Four elevens!" And chuckling near to the apoplexy line he scraped the chips home, while Washer inspected his excellent collection of jacks. "Now brag, you old bluffer!" And, still chuckling, he began sorting the chips into patriotic piles.
"Enjoy yourselves," granted Washer, concealing his intense chagrin with as nonchalant an air as possible. "I give you my word those chips are only loaned. Go on and laugh! You fellows make a lot of fuss over a cheap little jack-pot. Johnny, must you see us Monday?"
"Can't delay it," replied Johnny, checking his own laughter for the purpose. "I've paid five hundred thousand of the purchase price. Another million must be paid in one week and the balance in two weeks."
"That's pretty rapid work," remarked Close, with a frown, beginning swiftly to figure interest.
"The Wobbleses are in a hurry to sail. I've looked into the title. It's clear as a whistle. Can't we arrange a meeting at my office?"
They settled on a meeting at three-forty-five on Monday while Morton Washer dealt.
"Bless my heart, Mort Washer, that's the fourth time you've turned my first card and it's always a deuce!" complained the colonel. "If you do it again I shall be compelled to give you an old-time, school-day licking."
"You can't do it and you never saw the day you could," bristled Washer, brandishing a bony little fist before the colonel's big face.
"There's one more question I'd like to ask," Johnny interposed on this violent quarrel. "Will it be necessary for me to offer any stock outside this group?"
"I can't swing but a quarter of a million to save me; possibly only two hundred thousand," regretted Bouncer.
"If you'd like to carry a little more I'll let you have the money, Colonel," offered his bitter enemy of the bony fist.
"Thanks, Mort," returned the colonel gratefully. "However, it is not necessary to display the fact to the entire gathering that I now have a pair of those deuces."
Washer quickly reached over, snatched the colonel's cards, replaced them with his own and went on dealing.
"I think we can handle it all among us, Johnny," figured Courtney.
Shortly afterward, Loring, in high glee, separated Polly from a hilarious game of drop-the-handkerchief.
"Well, Polly, it's all over!" he exulted. "Johnny has been in to see his financial backers. He has bought the Wobbles property and he has made his million dollars."
"If Mr. Courtney hasn't any fireworks he must telephone for some right away," declared Polly in delight, and suddenly her eyes moistened. "I'm as dippy about Johnny as his own mother!" she added.
"And in just the same way," returned Loring, secretly glad to recognize that fact. "When you can spare a little time for it, Polly, you might become dippy about me."
"I am," she acknowledged, putting her hand upon his arm affectionately.
"But you don't want to marry me," protested Loring, a trace of pain contracting his brows. "I need you, Polly!"
"Please don't, Ashley," she begged. "It's a for-sure fact that I'm never going to forget poor Billy. Don't let that stop us being pals, though, please!"
"Certainly not," agreed Loring, with as much cheerfulness as she could have wished, and burying deeply for the last time the hope that he had cherished.
"Look here, Loring," charged Val Russel, striding over with Mrs. Follison; "you'll kindly come into this game or give us back our Polly."
"You'll have to do without your Polly for a minute, children," insisted that young woman. "She is to be the bearer of glad tidings," and giving her eyes another dab she hurried away to the house.
She found Constance alone in the library, instructing herself with an article on mushroom culture.
"I can read your palm without looking at it, pretty lady," bubbled Polly. "A large blond gentleman with handsome blue eyes and a million dollars in his pocket is about to offer you a proposal of marriage."
Constance, suppressing a rising resentment, turned the leaf of her mushroom article. The next page began a startling political series, which demanded of the public in violent headlines: "Who Spends Your Money?" but Constance perused it carefully without noticing the difference.
"I've had my palm read before," she presently observed.
"You don't seem to be alive to the shock I'm giving you," protested Polly. "Really, girlie, I have some big news for you. Johnny Gamble has finished the making of his million!"
"I wish that word million had never been invented!" suddenly flared Constance. "I'm tired of hearing it. The very thought of it makes me ill." How did Polly come to know it first?
"I wouldn't care what they'd call it if it would only buy as much," returned Polly, still good-naturedly. "And when a regular man like Johnny Gamble hustles out and gets one, just so he can ask to marry you, you ought to give a perfectly vulgar exhibition of joy!"
"You have put it very nicely," responded Constance. "If it would only buy as much! Do you know that my name is seldom mentioned except in connection with a million dollars? I must either marry one man or lose a million, or marry another who has made a million for that purpose."
"You ought to be ashamed of yourself!" charged Polly. She glared at Constance a moment, bursting with more indignant things to say; but there were so many of them that they choked her in their attempted egress, and she swished angrily back to the lawn party, exploding most of the way.
At just this inopportune moment Johnny Gamble found his way into the peaceful library.
"Well, it's across!" he joyously confided, forgetting in his happiness the rebuffs of the day. "I have that million!" and he approached her with such an evident determination of making an exuberant proposal then and there that Constance could have shrieked. "I congratulate you," she informed him as she hastily rose. "You deserve it, I am sure. Kindly excuse me, won't you?" and she sailed out of the room.
Johnny, feeling all awkward joints like a calf, dropped his sailor straw hat, and Constance heard it rolling after her. With an effort she kept herself from running, knowing full well that if that hat touched her skirt she would drop!
Johnny looked at the hat in dumb reproach, but when he left the room he walked widely round it. He dared not touch it.
"Ow, I say, Mr. Gamble," drawled Eugene, passing him in the doorway, "we've picked out the puppy."
While Johnny was still smarting from the burden of that information and wondering what spot of the globe would be most endurable at the present moment, Courtney came through the hall on some hostly errand.
"Say, Johnny," he blundered in an excess of well-meaning, "why don't you rest from business for a minute? Why aren't you out among some of these shady paths with Constance Joy? You've cinched your million, now go get the girl."
This was too much for the tortured Johnny, and the smoldering agony within him burst into flame.
"Look here, Courtney!" he declared with a vehemence which really seemed quite unnecessary, "I'm going to marry Constance Joy whether she likes it or not!"
A flash of white at the head of the stairs caught Johnny's eye. It was Constance! There was no hope that she had not heard!
"What's the matter?" asked Courtney, startled by the remarkable change in his countenance.
"I've got the stomach ache!" groaned Johnny with clumsy evasion, though possibly he was truthful after all.
"You must have some whisky," insisted Courtney, instantly concerned.
A servant came out of the library.
"I beg your pardon, sir," he remarked, "but I believe this must be your hat, Mr. Gamble."
Johnny broke one of his most rigid rules. He said: "Damn!"
Johnny Gamble in the following days was, as Loring put it, a scene of intense activity. It was part of his contract with the improvement company that he put their subdivision plans under way; and he planted himself in the center of the new offices while things circled round him at high speed. His persistent use of the fast-gear clutch came from the fact that he would not bind himself to work for them more than two weeks.
"They're handing me a shameful salary for it," he confided to Loring, "and I'm glad to get it because it pays up all my personal expenses during my forty-days' stunt and leaves me my million clear."
"Well," began Loring with a smile, "your million won't be"—he suddenly checked himself and then went on—"won't be a nice pretty sum of money unless it ends in the six round ciphers."
He had been about to tell Johnny that he owed fifteen thousand dollars to Constance Joy. Loring reflected, however, that this could be paid just as well after it was all over; that, if he told about it now, Johnny would drop everything to make that extra fifteen thousand; that, moreover, Constance had not yet given him permission to mention the matter; and, besides, there seemed to be a present coolness between Constance and Johnny which nobody understood. On the whole, it was better to keep his mouth shut; and he did it.
"It's rather a nice-sounding word,—million," he added by way of concealing his hesitation.
"I don't know," returned Johnny, full of his perplexity about Constance. "I'm tired of hearing the word. Sometimes it makes me sick to think of it."
"You ought to be ashamed of yourself!" reproached Loring with a laugh.
"All right," agreed Johnny accommodatingly. "I'm used to that anyhow. For one thing, I'm ashamed of being such a sucker. That old partner of mine not only stung me for every cent I could scrape together for two years, but actually had the nerve to try to sell the big tract of land we irrigated with money."
"To sell it!" exclaimed Loring in surprise.
"That's all," returned Johnny. "He went to the Western Developing Company with it two months ago and had them so worked up that they looked into the title. They even sent a man out there to investigate."
"Flivver, I suppose?" guessed Loring.
"Rank," corroborated Johnny. "Washburn, of the Western Developing, was telling me about it yesterday. He said his man took one look at the land and came back offering to go six blocks out of his way on a busy Monday to see Collaton hung."
"We'd get up a party," commented Loring dryly, and Johnny hurried away to the offices of his Bronx concern.
He was a very unhappy Johnny these days and had but little joy in his million. If Constance did not care for it, nor for him, the fun was all gone out of everything. Work was his only relief, and he worked like an engine.
On one day, however, he was careful to do no labor, and that day was Friday, May nineteenth; Constance's birthday, and he had long planned to make that a gala occasion.
On the evening preceding he called at the house, but Aunt Pattie Boyden, who was more than anxious to have Constance marry the second cousin of Lord Yawpingham, told him with poorly concealed satisfaction that Constance was too ill to see him. He imagined that he knew what that meant, nevertheless, on the following morning he sent Constance a tremendous bouquet and went down into the midst of the crowds at Coney Island, where of all places in the world he could be most alone and most gloomy.
"What's a million dollars anyway?" he asked himself.
At ten o'clock on Saturday morning Mr. Birchard came into the Bronx office with much smiling, presented his credentials duly signed by each of the five Wobbles brothers, received a check for a million dollars made out, by the written instructions of the brothers, to Frederick W. Birchard, Agent, and departed still smiling.
"One step nearer," observed Johnny to Loring an hour or so later. "Next Saturday I'll have the remaining two and a half million and will only pay out one and a half of it. The other million sticks with me."
"The other million?" repeated Loring. "Oh, yes, I see. The half-million you advanced and the half-million profit you make on this deal. For how much can you write your check now, Johnny?"
"If I wrote a check right this minute, to pay for a postage stamp, it would go to protest," laughed Johnny. "I guess I can stand it to be broke for a week though."
"You're a lucky cuss," commended Loring.
"In most things," admitted Johnny half-heartedly.
"In everything," insisted Loring. "By the way, Gresham was over here to see you yesterday while I was out."
"Gresham?" mused Johnny. "That's curious. He was at the Bronx office and also at my apartments. I 'phoned this morning, but was told he had gone out of town for a week."
"You probably missed something very important," returned Loring sarcastically. "Where were you yesterday anyhow?"
"Having a holiday," said Johnny soberly, and escaped.
He wanted work—the more of it the better. He spent the entire week in the most fatiguing toil he could find, and in that week had no word from Constance Joy except a very brief and coldly-formed note thanking him for his flowers.
On the following Saturday morning Gresham walked into the Bronx offices with a particularly smug satisfaction.
"I've come to close up the Wobbles transfer with you," he stated. "I am authorized formally to make over the property to you and to collect the two and a half million remaining to be paid."
"Barring the slight difference of a million dollars the amount is correct," replied Johnny dryly. "I have the million and a half balance ready, but I had expected Mr. Birchard to come in and finish the transaction."
"Birchard is not representing the Wobbleses," Gresham politely informed him. "I had a little talk with them on the Tuesday following the house-party at Courtney's, and they decided to have me look after the matter instead. By the way, I hunted for you everywhere on the day before the first payment was due, to tell you that the Wobbleses preferred to have the two and a half million paid all in one sum to-day; but since you were not in I didn't trouble to leave you a note. Very few men need to be told not to pay out money."
"Do you mean to tell me that Mr. Birchard never has represented the Wobbles family in this matter?" Johnny managed to ask.
"Certainly not," answered Gresham, widening his eyes.
"I have his signed authorization to act for them in the matter," declared Johnny, remembering that circumstance with happy relief.
"You have?" inquired Gresham with great apparent surprise. "Will you allow me to look at the paper?"
Johnny showed it to him triumphantly, but Gresham read it with a smile of contempt.
"I was correct in my suspicions of Birchard," he stated. "This document is a forgery. I hope you did not pay him any money on the strength of it."
Silently Johnny laid before him Birchard's receipt, and a second later as he saw the gleam of gratification in Gresham's eyes was sorry that he had done so.
"I am afraid that you have been swindled," was Gresham's altogether too sympathetic comment. "However, that does not concern the business in hand. This was the day appointed for the final settlement, and I have come prepared to make it with you."
"You'll have to wait," declared Johnny bluntly, putting away the documents.
"I must call your attention to the fact that if you do not close this matter to-day my principals are at liberty to place the property upon the market again."
"Advise them not to do so," Johnny warned him. "Under the circumstances I am certain that I can secure enough delay for investigation—legally, if necessary. I won't move a step until I've looked into this."
"Very well," said Gresham easily, and walked out.
Johnny, in a consternation that was barely short of panic, immediately consulted Loring, and together they set out upon a search for the Wobbleses. At their various hotels—for no two of them put up at the same place—it was discovered that they were severally "probably in the country at week-end parties". Tommy alone they found, but he knew so little and was so upset by what they told him that they were sorry he, too, had not attended a week-end party; and they left him gasping like a sea-lion, with his toupee down over his ear, and saying between gasps over and over again with perfectly vacant eyes: "Eugene's an ass! Perfect ass, don't you know!"
They spent some hopeless time in attempting to trace Birchard, but that gentleman had disappeared on the previous Saturday. No one had seen him or had heard of him or had thought of him. They put the case into the hands of detectives, and gave up hope.
"I don't think it was lucky money any-how," said Johnny gloomily. Constance had not cared for it and it was worthless!
It was not until Monday that they found Eugene Wobbles, and that voluntary expatriate was almost as much taken aback as his brother Tommy had been.
"Ow, I say, it's most extraordinary!" he declared, stroking his drooping mustache and swinging his monocle. "Why, do you know, I met the blooming bounder at Lord Yawp'n'am's—second cousin, you know, of this very decent chap, Gresham. Introduced him at my clubs and all that sort of thing, I assure you! I'll have the burning scoundrel blacklisted!"
"Thanks," said Loring with deep gratitude. "Of course that won't get back the million though."
"Well, I'm bound to give you the right there," admitted Eugene, "but at the same time I must insist that it will cut the beggar never to be allowed the privileges of a gentleman's club again."
"And serve him right, I say; even jolly well right," agreed Loring with a sarcasm that was altogether lost and was intended to be.
"I must say that our friend Gresham has behaved well in the matter," added Eugene. "Birth and breeding are bound to tell. I fancy every one will admit that. What?"
"They tell a great deal," returned Loring dryly. "What did our friend Gresham do that was so decent?"
"Ow, yes," Eugene was reminded, "we were discussing that, weren't we? Well, at our friend Courtney's house-party, Gresham was all for Birchard to handle this business; fairly forced him on us, don't you know; but on Tuesday he came to us much pained, I assure you, and in the greatest confidence told us he was sure the beggar was not the man for the place. Been mixed up in a rotten money scandal or so, don't you know."
"So you discharged Birchard," Loring surmised, keenly interested.
"Well, not exactly," replied Eugene. "You see it wasn't necessary. We never had definitely appointed him. Come to think, neither he nor Gresham insisted on it; and, anyhow, the fellow never came back to us."
"I see," said Loring softly with a glance at Johnny. "So, you being without an agent, Gresham kindly consented to act for you—without commission."
"Ow, yes, certainly, without commission," agreed Eugene. "Very decent indeed of him, now, wasn't it?"
"Almost pathetic," admitted Loring. "Well, Johnny," he said as they went back to the office, "you're up against it. While Birchard was forging the papers to get your million Gresham was establishing an alibi for himself. The only thing I see for you to do—besides laying for Gresham—is to repudiate this entire deal and get back as much of your half-million as you can."
"And owe the rest of it to my friends?" demanded Johnny. "Not any. I'll pay over the two and a half million I have on hand, complete the deal and stand the loss myself. I'll be broke, but I won't owe anybody."
Loring looked at him with sudden pity. "You'll have to take a fresh start," he advised as lightly as possible, since one did not like to be caught expressing pity to Johnny. "You have two days left."
"Guess again!" directed Johnny. "One of them's a holiday—Decoration Day—to-morrow."
"Tough luck, old man!" said Loring.
"I didn't care for the million, Loring," declared Johnny wearily, driven for the first time to an open confession.
"I know," agreed Loring gently, still suffering from his own hurt. "It was Constance. She may not be so keen for that million as you think."
Johnny shook his head sadly.
"I know she isn't," he admitted. "That's the hard part of it. She didn't seem to care when I had it—not for it or for me. Up to that time I thought there was a chance. Now the loss of this money doesn't really hurt. What good would a million dollars do me?"
They had reached the office by this time and made themselves busy with the final papers. Presently came Gresham and all the Wobbleses, concluded their business, and took their two and a half million dollars and happily departed.
Loring glared after Gresham in a fury of anger. He had seen that gentleman, before he left, slip a square white card under the papers on Johnny's desk; and, though he did not conjecture what the card might be, he knew from the curl of Gresham's lips that it meant some covert trick or insult. Turning, he was about indignantly to call Johnny's attention to the circumstance when the beaming expression upon his friend's face stopped him, and sealed any explanation that might have risen to his lips. Johnny had found the card and was reading it with glistening eyes.
"Constance Joy!" he said delightedly. "She must have called." He was lost in pleasant thought for a moment or so and then he looked eagerly up at Loring with: "I wonder if there isn't some way, besides Birchard's, that a fellow could make a million dollars in a day!"
Polly Parsons burst into the boudoir of Constance Joy, every feather on her lavender hat aquiver with indignation. "What do you think!" she demanded. "Johnny Gamble's lost his million dollars!"
Constance, nursing a pale-faced headache, had been reclining on the couch at the side of a bouquet of roses four feet across; but now she sat straight up and smiled, and the sparkle which had been absent for days came back into her eyes.
"No!" she exclaimed. "Really, has he?"
Polly regarded her in amazement. "You act as if you are glad of it," she said.
"I am," confessed Constance, and breaking off one of the big red roses she rose, surveyed herself in the glass, tried the effect of it against her dark hair and finally pinned it on her dressing-gown.
Polly plumped into a big rocking-chair to vent her indignation.
"I don't see anything to giggle at!" she declared. "Johnny Gamble's a friend of mine. I'm going home."
"Don't, Polly," laughed Constance. "Why, this is one of Johnny's roses;" and she gave it an extra touch—really a quite affectionate one.
"I'm all mussed up in my mind," complained Polly in a maze of perplexity. "Johnny Gamble made a million dollars so he could ask you to throw away your million and marry him, and you were so tickled with the idea that you kept score for him."
Constance smiled irritatingly.
"I kept score because it was fun. He never told me why he wanted the money."
"You may look like an innocent kid, but you knew that much," accused Polly.
Constance flushed, but she sat down by Polly to laugh.
"To tell you the truth, Polly, I did suspect it," she admitted.
"Yes, and you liked it," asserted Polly.
Constance flushed a little more deeply.
"It was flattering," she acknowledged, "but really, Polly, it brought me into a most humiliating position. At the Courtneys' house-party I overheard Mr. Courtney tell his wife that Mr. Gamble was making a million dollars in order to marry me; and Johnny was with me at the time!"
The hint of a twinkle appeared in Polly's indignant eyes as she began to comprehend the true state of affairs.
"Suppose he did?" she demanded. "Everybody knew it."
Constance immediately took possession of the indignation and made it her own.
"They had no business to know it!"
Polly smiled.
"Every place I went that day I heard the same thing," continued Constance much aggrieved—"Johnny Gamble's million, and me, and Gresham, and the million dollars I would have to forfeit if I didn't marry Paul. It was million, million, wherever I turned!"
"The million-dollar bride," laughed Polly.
"Don't!" cried Constance. "Please don't, Polly! You've done quite enough. Even you came to me out there that day to tell me that now Johnny had made his million and was coming to propose to me. Why, you knew it before I did."
"I'm sorry I found it out," apologized Polly. "I got it from Loring."
"Why didn't you say that it was Loring who told you?" demanded Constance, disposed now to be indignant at everything.
"I didn't know you were jealous," retorted Polly.
"Jealous!" exclaimed Constance. "Why, Johnny wasn't even civil to any other girl."
Polly smiled knowingly.
"Then why did you quarrel with him?"
"I didn't," denied Constance. "He came the minute you left and I'd have screamed if he had proposed then, so I went away. He dropped his straw hat, and it rolled after me and nearly touched me. He dropped it every time I saw him that day. Also he added the final indignity—I overheard him tell Mr. Courtney that he intended to marry me whether I liked it or not. Now, Polly, seriously, what would you have done if anything like that had happened to you?"
Polly waited to gain her self-control.
"I'd have taken the hat away from him," she declared.
Constance sailed once more.
"I didn't think of that," she admitted.
"No, and instead here's what you've done," Polly pointed out to her: "You turned Johnny loose to look after himself, and he isn't capable of it since he fell in love; so for the last two weeks he's been as savage as any ordinary business man. That's one thing. For another, you've made yourself sick just pining and grieving for a sight of Johnny Gamble."
"I haven't!" indignantly denied Constance, and to prove that assertion her eyes filled with tears. She covered them with her handkerchief and Polly petted her, and they both felt better. "I think I'll dress," declared Constance after she had been thus refreshed. "My headache's much improved and I think I'd like to go somewhere." She hesitated a moment.
"You know everybody was to have gathered here to join Courtney's Decoration Day party this afternoon," she added.
"Yes, I remember that," retorted Polly, "but I didn't like to rub it in. Shall I call up everybody and tell them it's on again?"
"Please," implored Constance, "and, Polly—"
"Yes?"
"Tell Johnny to bring his Baltimore straw hat."
While Polly was trying to get his number, Johnny Gamble sat face to face with his old partner.
"You have your nerve to come to me," he said, as the eyebrowless young man sat himself comfortably in Johnny's favorite leather arm-chair.
"There's nobody else to go to," explained Collaton, with an attempt at jauntiness. "I'm dead broke, and if I don't have two thousand dollars to-morrow I'll quite likely be pinched."
"I'm jealous," stated Johnny. "I had intended to do it myself."
"I've been expecting you to," acknowledged Collaton. "That's one of the reasons I came to you."
"I admire you," observed Johnny dryly. "You bled me for two years, and yet you have the ingrowing gall to come and tell me you're broke."
"Well, it's the truth," defended Collaton. "Look here, Johnny; I've heard that you made a lot of money in the last few weeks, but you haven't had any more attachments against you, have you?"
"You bet I haven't," returned Johnny savagely. "I've been waiting for just one more attempt, and then I intended—"
"I know," interrupted Collaton. "You intended to beat Gresham and Jacobs and me to a pulp; and then have us pinched for disorderly conduct, and try to dig up the evidence at the trial."
"Well, something like that," admitted Johnny with a grin.
"I knew it," corroborated Collaton. "I told them when to stop."
"I guess you'll be a good witness," surmised Johnny. "How deep were you in on this Birchard deal? How much did you get?"
"Did Gresham and Birchard pull something?" inquired Collaton with such acute interest that Johnny felt sure he had taken no part in that swindle.
"Well, yes," agreed Johnny with a wince, as he thought of his lost million. "They did pull a little trick. Did you know Birchard very well?"
"I wouldn't say what I know about Birchard except on a witness-stand," chuckled Collaton, "but I can tell you this much: if he got anything, throw it a good-by kiss; for he can rub himself out better than any man I ever saw. He's practised hiding till he doesn't know himself where he is half of the time."
"I've passed him up," stated Johnny. "The only people I'm after are Gresham and Jacobs and you."
"I wonder if you wouldn't pin a medal on one of us if he'd give you the other two," conjectured Collaton, smoothing his freckled cheek and studying Johnny with his head on one side.
"We're not coining medals this year," declared Johnny, "but if it's you you're talking about, and you'll give me Gresham and Jacobs, I'll promise you a chance to stand outside the bars and look in at them."
"It's a bet," decided Collaton promptly. "I split up with Gresham two or three weeks ago at Coney Island, when he wanted me to go in on a big scheme against you, and I suppose it was this Birchard stunt. I told him I'd had enough. Your money began to look troublesome to me. That was the day you were down there with the girl."
"There's no girl in this," warned Johnny. "Now tell me just what you can do."
"Will you wipe me off the slate?"
"Clean as a whistle," promised Johnny. "If my lawyer lets you be convicted I'll go to jail in your place."
"It's like getting over-change by mistake," gratefully returned Collaton. "I'm tired of the game, Johnny, and if I can get out of this I'll stay straight the balance of my life."
"You'll die in the top tier, with the pentitentiary chaplain writing your farewell letters," prophesied Johnny. "What did you say you could do?"
"Well, I can incriminate not only Jacobs but Gresham in those phoney attachments, and I can hand you the Gamble-Collaton books," set forth Collaton. "Gresham got them away from me to take care of and then held them over me as a threat; but I got them back yesterday by offering to pound his head off. He's a bigger coward than I am."
"How much money did you say you wanted?" inquired Johnny.
"Five thousand," returned Collaton cheerfully.
"You said two."
"I have to have two and I need the rest. I thought maybe I could sell you my interest in The Gamble-Collaton Irrigation Company. There's several thousand acres of land out there, you know."
"I haven't laid a finger on you yet," Johnny reminded him, "but if you make another offer to sell me that land I don't know how I'll stand the strain."
"Well, say you give me the money for fun then," amended Collaton. "I didn't know anything about this Birchard deal, but since you've mentioned it I can piece together a lot of things that mean something now. I'll help you chase that down, and you can afford to spare me five thousand. Why, Johnny, I'm a poor sucker that has made the unfortunate financial mistake of being crooked; and you're the luckiest cuss in the world. To begin with, you're square; and that's the biggest stroke of luck that can happen. Everybody likes you, you're a swift money-maker, and you've got a girl—now don't get chesty—that would make any man go out and chew bulldogs."
Johnny reflected over that statement and turned a trifle bitter. He had no million dollars; he had no friends; he had no girl! He contemplated calling the police.
The telephone bell rang.
"Hello, Polly," he said vigorously into the interrupting instrument, and then Collaton, watching him anxiously, saw his face light up like a Mardi Gras illumination. "Bring my Baltimore straw hat!" jubilated Johnny. "Polly, I'll bring one if I have to go to Baltimore to get it." He paused, and the transmitter in front of his face almost glistened with reflected high-lights. "Engagements! For to-day?" exulted Johnny. "I'm at liberty right now. How soon may I come over?" He listened again with a wide-spread grin. Collaton rolled a cigarette with black tobacco and brown paper, lighted it and smiled comfortably. "Can't I talk to Constance a minute?" implored Johnny, trying to push in the troublous tremolo stop. "Oh, is she? All right; I'll be over in about twenty minutes. No, I won't make it an hour, I said twenty minutes;" and still smiling with imbecile delight he hung up the receiver and turned to Collaton with a frown.
"I think I can raise that two thousand for you," he decided. "Now tell me just what you know about Gresham and Birchard."