"Library porch," answered Johnny promptly. "Excuse me, I"m in a hurry."
Constance Joy was not on the library porch. Instead, Johnny found there Polly Parsons and her adopted sister Winnie, Ashley Loring and Sammy Chirp. This being almost a family party for Johnny, he had no hesitation in asking bluntly for Constance.
"This is her morning for Wobbling," returned Polly disdainfully. "A while ago she was dodging the perfectly careless compliments of old Tommy and trying not to see that his toupee was on crooked; and now she"s down toward the ravine some place, watching young Cecil stumble.
You could make yourself a very solid Johnny by trotting right down there and breaking up the party."
"I think I"d rather have a messenger for that," calculated Johnny. "His brothers wish to see Cecil up in the east loggia."
"Sammy will go," offered Winnie confidently; whereat Sammy, smiling affably, promptly rose.
"Go with him, Winnie," ordered Polly. "Trot on now, both of you. I want to talk sense."
Quite cheerfully Winnie gave Sammy her fan, her parasol, her vanity box, her novel, her box of chocolates and her hat, stuffed a handkerchief in his pocket and said: "Come on, Sammy; I"m ready."
"Constance showed me that schedule last night, Johnny," rattled Polly.
"You ought to see it, Loring. On Wednesday, at four o"clock, he was exactly even with it; five hundred thousand dollars to the good."
"I know," laughed Loring, "and he"ll beat his schedule if the Wobbleses will only hold steady for ten minutes."
"You don"t mean to say that a Wobbles could be useful!" protested Polly.
"Half a million dollars" worth," Loring informed her; then he drew his chair closer and lowered his voice. "It"s a funny story, Polly. Two weeks ago Johnny took Courtney and Close and Washer and Colonel Bouncer up to the Bronx in my machine and arranged to sell them a subdivision for three and a half million dollars."
"Help!" gasped Polly. "Burglar!"
"They"ll double their money," a.s.serted Johnny indignantly. "Fanciest neglected opportunity within a gallon of gasolene from Forty-second Street."
"Trouble is, Johnny didn"t own it and doesn"t yet," laughed Loring.
"He"s been trying to buy it from the Wobbleses ever since he arranged to sell it."
"He"ll get it," decided Polly confidently.
"Will they agree when they get together?" Loring worried. "Individually each one needs the money, and each one is satisfied with Johnny"s offer of three million cash."
"Don"t say another word," ordered Polly. "I have to figure this out.
Why, Johnny, if you carry this through it will finish your million, and this is only the thirteenth of May. That"s going some! You weren"t supposed to have it till the thirty-first. Polly"s proud of you!"
"I don"t think you get the joke of this yet, though, Polly," Loring went on. "The Wobbleses don"t know that Johnny had already arranged to sell their land, and the subdivision company doesn"t know that the beautiful Bronx tract is the Wobbles estate. In the meantime both parties are here, and I"m lurking behind the scenery with all the necessary papers ready to sign, seal and deliver."
"Hush!" commanded Polly; "I"m getting excited. It sounds like the finish of the third act. Oh, lookee! Who"s the graceful party with Gresham?"
Both Johnny and Loring glanced up at a tall, suave, easy-moving gentleman, whose clothing fitted him like a matinee idol"s, whose closely trimmed beard would have served as a model for the n.o.bility anywhere, and whose smile was sickening sweet.
"Eugene Wobbles" friend, Birchard," stated Johnny, who kept himself well posted on Wobbles affairs. "He"s always either with Gresham or a Wobbles, and he travels for a living, I believe." And Johnny suddenly rose.
Coming from the direction of the ravine were Constance and Cecil, Winnie and Sammy, and pa.s.sing Gresham and Birchard with the nod of compulsion Johnny walked carelessly on to meet the quartet.
"Good morning, Cecil," he observed. "Your brothers are about to hold a meeting in the east loggia, and I think they"re looking for you."
"No doubt," admitted Cecil wearily. "It"s barely possible that one or two of them are already believing that they will go up. Do you know, I think I shall establish a record for family promptness, if I may be excused. Most annoying to be torn away from such a jolly talk, I"m sure." And receiving the full and free permission of the company to depart he did so, changing his mind twice about whether to go through the rose arbor or round by the sun-dial.
Johnny swung in by the side of Constance.
"Some one told me you had a message for me," he blundered.
"Who said so?" she was cruel enough to ask.
Johnny turned pink, but he was brave and replied with the truth.
"Mr. Courtney," he admitted.
"So I imagined," she answered icily. "Mr. Washer and Mr. Close and Colonel Bouncer are to arrive on the noon train. You"ll excuse me, won"t you, please?" And she hurried on to the house by herself to dress for luncheon.
Johnny Gamble tried to say "Certainly", but he dropped his sailor straw hat. Constance heard it and every muscle in her body jumped and stiffened. Johnny turned to business as a disappointed lover turns to drink.
There seemed a conspicuous dearth of Wobbleses on the east loggia that morning. Loring, pathetically faithful to his post, entertained them in relays as Johnny brought them up: sometimes one, sometimes two, and once or twice as many as three of them at one time; but they all lost their feeble mooring and drifted away.
Luncheon-time pa.s.sed; Washer and Bouncer and Close and Courtney went into executive session; two o"clock came, three o"clock, four o"clock, and still no meeting. At the latter hour Johnny, making his tireless rounds but afflicted with despair, located Billy Wobbles, the one with the jerky eyelids and impulsive knees, on the loggia with Loring; Eugene was in the poker room trying numbly to discover the difference between a four-flush and a deuce-high hand; Tommy, his toupee well down toward his scanty white eyebrows, was boring the Courtney girls to the verge of tears; Cecil, stumbling almost rhythmically over his own calves, was playing tennis with Winnie and Sammy and Mrs. Follison; and Reggie, the twitcher, was entertaining Val Russel and Bruce Townley with a story he had started at nine o"clock in the morning.
Suddenly Johnny was visited with a long-sought inspiration and hurried down to the kennels, remembering with much self-scorn that he had dragged each of the Wobbleses away from there at least once.
The master of the dogs was Irish and young, with eyes the color of a six-o"clock sky on a sunny day, and he greeted Johnny with a white-toothed smile that would have melted honey.
"I locked Beauty up, sir," he said with a touch of his cap, referring to the gentle collie that had poked its nose confidingly into Johnny"s hand at every visit. "There was too much excitement for her with all the strangers round, but she"ll be glad to see you, sir."
"Give Beauty my card and tell her I"ll be back," directed Johnny with a friendly glance in the direction of Beauty"s summer residence. "Didn"t you say something this morning about a crowd of setter puppies?"
"Yes, sir," replied the dog expert proudly. "Several of the gentlemen have been down to see them, but the day has been so hot I didn"t care to bring them out. It"s cool enough now, sir, if you"d like to see them."
"I"ll be back, in five minutes," returned Johnny hastily. "I"ll say h.e.l.lo to Beauty first."
Beauty barked and capered when she was let out, and expressed her entire approval of Johnny in fluent dog language, looking after him reproachfully when he hurried away.
Johnny first begged a puppy of Courtney, then he brought Eugene Wobbles and Tommy Wobbles and Billy and Cecil and Reggie Wobbles down in turns to pick it out for him. Each of the Wobbleses was still there, deciding, when he brought another. When the last Wobbles, including their friend Birchard, was in the inclosure Johnny locked the gate and sent Loring on a brisk errand. That energetic commercial attorney returned in a very few minutes, laden with some papers and writing materials, and followed by a servant carrying a wicker table.
"Gentlemen," said Johnny in a quite oratorical tone of voice, "suppose we talk business."
The a.s.sembled Wobbleses turned in gasping surprise from the violent family dispute over the puppies.
"Upon my soul, this is a most extraordinary thing!" exclaimed Eugene, looking about him in amazement. "Why, the whole blooming family is here, even Tommy. I say, Tommy, it"s perfectly imbecile, with all due respect to you, to prefer that little beggar with the white star."
"I"ll back him for a hundred pounds before any official committee,"
indignantly quavered Tommy, feeling in all the wrong pockets for his betting-book.
"Gentlemen," interposed Johnny most crudely indeed, "I am here to repeat my offer of three million dollars, cash, for your Bronx property; one-half million dollars to-day, one million dollars next Sat.u.r.day, May twentieth, and the remaining million and a half the following Sat.u.r.day, May twenty-seventh, t.i.tle to remain vested in you until the entire amount is paid. Just to show that I mean business I have brought each of you a certified check for one hundred thousand dollars." And he distributed them like diplomas to a cla.s.s.
Tommy Wobbles, startled to find his toupee on straight, examined his check with much doubt. "I say, you know," he expostulated, "this can"t be quite regular!"