Mr. Slosher turned and smiled.
"h.e.l.lo, Mr. Gamble!" he greeted him, while Mrs. Slosher gave him a bright and cheery little nod. "I played old-fashioned army poker with Colonel Bouncer and Ben Courtney and Mort Washer and Joe Close last night--and the old robbers skinned me out of thirty-two dollars. They spoke of you during the game and I guess you could get backing to any amount in that crowd."
"Thanks for the tip," returned Johnny. "I may need it."
"You"re going to give us our apartment-house property, aren"t you?"
Mrs. Slosher knew by his very appearance.
"It"s only a matter of closing the deal," Johnny told her with a perfectly justifiable smile which Constance, from a distance, criticized severely. He drew an envelope from his pocket and took from it a paper which he pa.s.sed to Mr. Slosher.
It was a written offer from the De Luxe Apartments Company for three hundred thousand dollars.
"That makes my offer, then--at five per cent, advance--three hundred and fifteen thousand," figured Slosher. "Is that a bargain?"
Johnny, glancing contentedly about the big inclosure, saw Jim Guff waiting impatiently for a chance to speak with him.
"It"s a bargain," he agreed, and pretty little Mrs. Slosher nodded her head vehemently with innocent joy.
Gresham pa.s.sed them by and tipped his hat to Mrs. Slosher, including Mr. Slosher in the greeting. A pleasant idea struck Johnny.
"You scarcely intend to build your colored apartment-house under your own name?" he suggested.
"Indeed, no!" laughed Mrs. Slosher happily. "All we wish is the result.
We ask for no credit."
"Moreover," warned Mr. Slosher, "I wouldn"t care to have my purpose known until after I have sold my own residence. I am a little worried, however, about the detail you suggest. No man of any consequence would injure the good will of his fellows by standing sponsor for such a venture."
"I think I know your man," stated Gamble with pleasant antic.i.p.ation.
"I"ll tell you about him if you"ll be careful not to let him or anybody else know that I recommended him."
"I can figure out sufficient reasons for that," replied Slosher. "Is he reliable?"
"He can give you security--and I suppose you had better exact it,"
advised Johnny. "He is the man who first secured the option from Miss Purry."
"What is his name?"
"Collaton," and Johnny gazed serenely after Gresham.
"I"ll send for him in the morning," decided Mr. Slosher.
When Johnny returned to the violet booth he found there Winnie and Sammy Chirp, the latter with all his pockets and both his arms full of Winnie"s purchases and personal belongings, inextricably mixed with similar articles belonging to Polly; and there was a new note of usefulness which redeemed somewhat the feebleness of his smile. Loring was helping Sammy to adjust his burdens; and Winnie, with the aid of the mirror in her vanity box, was trying the effect of violets close to her eyes. Johnny waited patiently for Loring to get through and then, despite Polly"s protest, dragged him away.
"I"ve arranged for the first dent in Gresham and Collaton," he announced, and outlined the program which later on was carried out to the letter. "I"ve fixed to have some valuable property placed in Collaton"s name, with Gresham as security. When that is done I want you to go to Jacobs and play a mean trick on him. Make him serve that attachment on Collaton"s ostensible property. Collaton, having confessed judgment on the note, can not fight it--and Gresham will have to foot the bill."
Self-contained and undemonstrative as Loring was in public, he, nevertheless, gave way to an uncontrollable burst of laughter which humiliated him beyond measure when he discovered the attention he had attracted.
CHAPTER XIII
IN WHICH JOHNNY BUYS A PRESENT AND HATCHES A SCHEME
Johnny, relying like a lost mariner on Polly Parsons and Constance Joy to help him pick out a present for his only mother, approached Lofty"s with a diffidence amounting to awe. In that exclusive shop he would meet miles of furbelowed femininity, but he would not have ventured unprotected into those fluffed and billowed aisles for anything short of a penance.
Being a philosopher, however, he kept his mind active in as many other directions as possible, like a child deliberately feasting upon thoughts of Santa Claus though on the way to a promised spanking.
"There"s a hoodoo on this block," Johnny observed as they were caught in the traffic crush almost in front of their destination.
"Lofty and Ersten must be the hoodooers, then," laughed Polly.
"Everybody else has gone away."
Johnny looked at the towering big Lofty establishment, which occupied half the block, and at the dingy little ladies" tailoring shop, down around the other corner, with speculative curiosity. About both, as widely different as they were, there was the same indefinable appearance of prosperity, as if the solid worth from within shone heavily through.
"Lofty"s couldn"t move and Ersten wouldn"t," supplemented Constance.
"Not that Dutchman!" returned Polly, laughing again as she peered into the low dark windows of the ladies" tailoring shop. "I was in the other day, and he told me three times that he would be right there to make my walking frocks for the next thirteen years."
"He was having a quarrel with Mr. Schnitt about the light in the workroom when I was in," observed Constance, "but he told me the same thing, in his enjoyable German way, and he seemed almost angry about it."
"That"s the extent of his lease," guessed Johnny shrewdly. "They"re trying to get it away from him."
"I wonder why," speculated Constance.
"It"s as simple as spending money," Johnny announced. "Lofty intends building an extension."
"They won"t tear down Ersten"s shop," Polly confidently a.s.serted.
"They"ll move him in a wheelbarrow some night," Johnny prophesied. "If I could grab his lease I could play a few hours."
Both the girls laughed at him for that speech.
"You"ll be gray before the thirty-first of May," warned Polly.
"It turns anybody gray to dig up a million," agreed Johnny. "It"s a good guess, though, Polly. I counted seven new white ones this morning."
"That"s a strange coincidence," commented Constance, with a secretly anxious glance at his hair. "You"re just seven hours behind your schedule."
Johnny shook his head.
"That schedule goes round like an electric fan," he soberly declared.
"And there"s no switch," Constance reminded him.
"Gresham," Johnny suggested with a smile.