"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 s.p.a.ce it"s a fool--and I don"t think it is. If it does the property will be held for ever for the increase in value. Let"s look at these other blocks. The buildings on the one next to it are worth about a plugged nickel apiece--and that would make exactly as good a location."
"But, Johnny; you couldn"t build a hotel in forty days!"
"Build it! I don"t want to. I only want to promote it."
"Does a promoter never build?" asked Polly.
"Not if he can escape," replied Johnny. "All a promoter ever wants to do is to collect the first ninety-nine years" profits and promote something else. Drive me up to the address on that real estate sign and I"ll pay you whatever the clock says and let you go."
"The clock says a one-pound box of chocolates," she promptly estimated.
"Wait, though. I did send for some!" And she looked back into the tonneau. "Why, drat it all! I mislaid Sammy!" she gasped.
CHAPTER VI
IN WHICH CONSTANCE DECIDES ON A FAIR GAME
By three o"clock Johnny Gamble had acquired so much hotel information that his head seemed stuffed. Every bright-eyed financier in the city had nursed the happy thought of a terminal hotel and had made tentative plans--and had jerked back with quivering tentacles; for all the property in that neighborhood was about a thousand degrees Fahrenheit.
The present increase of value and that of the next half-century had been gleefully antic.i.p.ated, 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 part.i.tion 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 Sat.u.r.day."
"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," a.s.serted 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!"