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 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.