IN WHICH JOHNNY DREAMS OF A MAGNIFICENT TWENTY-STORY HOTEL
The other terminal hotel projects had been kept very quiet, indeed,
lest the jealous promoters of similar enterprises might be whetted into
greediness; but no such modesty seemed to attend the plans of the
Terminal Hotel Company; in fact, it seemed to court publicity--and,
since Johnny Gamble was known and liked by a host of newspaper men, it
received plenty of attention. After the ball game Johnny rode down to
Mr. Courtney's club with him to dinner; and when he was through talking
to Courtney he immediately called on his newspaper friends.
When Loring arrived at the office in the morning he found Johnny
immersed in a pile of papers--and gloating.
"Say, Johnny, I want you to give me power of attorney to wind up the
Gamble-Collaton Irrigation Company," was Loring's morning greeting.
"Go as far as you like," Johnny told him without looking up from a
glowing account of the magnificent new hostelry.
"Good for you!" approved Loring. "I'd expected to have half an hour's
wrestle with you--and I couldn't afford it, for this is my busy day. I
want you to understand this, Johnny: If I take that old partnership off
your hands you're to ask no questions."
"Go twice as far as you like," offered Johnny indifferently. "I've
forgotten there ever was a Gamble-Collaton Irrigation Company. Listen
to this, Loring: 'Surmounting the twentieth story of the magnificent
new structure there will be a combined roof garden, cafe and theater,
running continuous vaudeville--'"
"This agreement, entered into this twenty-fifth day of April," began
the discordantly hurried voice of Loring. He was dictating to his
stenographer a much more comprehensive agreement than a mere power of
attorney; and as soon, as it was ready Johnny signed it without a
question.
"Get this, Ashley?" he remarked, handing back Loring's pen and reading
gleefully from another paper: "'A subway entrance into the new terminal
station is being negotiated--'"
"All right," said Loring, putting on his hat. "Good-by!"--and he was
gone.
If Loring professed but slight interest in the flamboyant plans for the
new hotel, there were others who were painfully absorbed in the news of
the project. Gresham, for one, read the account with contracted brows
at his late breakfast; and at noon, inspired by a virtuous sense of
duty, he sauntered over to Courtney's club.
"I see you're involved in another hotel proposition," he ventured.
"I hope involved is not the word," returned Courtney with rather a wry
smile.
"Is your company fully organized?" asked Gresham with a trace of more
than polite interest.
"I think not," answered Courtney. "I'm not in a position to state,
however, as the matter is out of my hands. I am taking some stock in
it, of course; but I have nothing to do with the organization of the
company, since I have sold the ground to Mr. Gamble."
"Gamble?" repeated Gresham. "Oh, is that so?"
His tone was so deprecative that Courtney was sharply awakened by it.
"Do you know anything against Gamble?" he quite naturally inquired.
"Not a thing," Gresham hastily assured him. "Anyhow, you have sold him
the property and are fully secured?"
"I've sold it to him under contract," replied Courtney, ready, in view
of his recent experiences, to become panic-stricken at a moment's
notice.
"Of course, if anything happens you can reclaim the property," Gresham
considered. "It forms its own security; but still, any one holding a
private claim against Gamble might try to attach it and give you a
nasty entanglement."
"There doesn't seem to be any danger of that," argued Courtney, looking
worried, nevertheless. "He was able to show me an extremely clean bill
of health. The only drawback I could find in his record was the payment
of some debts which were not rightly his and which he might have
evaded."
"Did he refer you to the Fourth National Bank?" inquired Gresham
quietly.
"No. Say, Gresham, what have you up your sleeve? Gamble paid me fifteen
thousand dollars this morning, as per agreement. I would scarcely think
he would risk that much money on a bluff."
"He paid you the fifteen thousand, then?" said Gresham with a smile.
"Mr. Courtney, one does not like to mix in these affairs; but you and
my father were friends and, though I regret to do so, I feel it my duty
to advise you to call up the Fourth National Bank."
"Thanks!" gratefully acknowledged Courtney, and hurried down to the
telephone booth. He came back in a few moments, and his manner was
distinctly cool. "I 'phoned to Mr. Close," he stated. "He tells me that
an attachment was laid against Mr. Gamble's account at his bank
yesterday for fifteen thousand dollars, and was returned to the server
marked 'no funds'; but that this morning the executor of Mr. Gamble's
interests in the Gamble-Collaton Irrigation Company deposited fifteen
thousand dollars for the specific purpose of meeting this attachment.
Mr. Close informs me that, though he could not, of course, guarantee
Mr. Gamble's solvency, he would take Mr. Gamble's unsupported word on
any proposition. I have known Joe Close for years, and I never knew him
to be so enthusiastic about any man who possessed no negotiable
securities. I thank you for your well-intentioned interference in my
behalf, Mr. Gresham, but I think I shall cling to Mr. Gamble
nevertheless."
"I certainly should if I were in your place," Gresham hastily assured
him with such heartiness as he could assume. "I am delighted to learn
that the rumor I heard of Mr. Gamble's insolvency is unfounded."
"By the way, where did you hear the rumor?" inquired Courtney with a
frown.
"Really, I've forgotten," Gresham confessed.
"One should not forget such things if one repeats such rumors,"
Courtney reproved him.
Gresham went away both puzzled and annoyed. It was three o'clock before
he found Collaton; and that featureless young man, whose lack of
visible eyebrows and lashes was a constant annoyance to the fastidious
Gresham, was in a high state of elation.
"Well, we get back your fifteen thousand," he exulted after they were
safely in Gresham's apartments. "Of course Jacobs gets five thousand
for engineering the deal, but that gives us five thousand apiece.
Jacobs was told--about eleven o'clock--that the money was there."
"Keep my share; but why didn't you send me word?" snarled Gresham. "I
nearly put my foot in it by having a man with whom Gamble is doing
business inquire about him at the Fourth National. In place of injuring
his credit, we've strengthened it."
"Good work!" approved Collaton. "I hope he makes all kinds of money."
"I don't!" snapped Gresham. "Did you read the papers this morning?"
"I read the racing and base-ball returns."
"There was more to interest you in the news. Gamble has a big hotel
proposition on--and I want it stopped. Can you get another attachment
against him for about fifty thousand dollars?"
"It's risky!" And Collaton looked about him furtively. "It's easy
enough to fake an old note for money--"
"You must not say 'fake' to me. I will not countenance any crooked
business."
"To dig up an old note for money I am supposed to have borrowed and
spent--"
"Not supposed."
"For money I borrowed and spent on the work out there--and have a quiet
suit entered by one of my pet assassins in Fliegel's court, have the
summons served and confess judgment. Johnny is sucker enough to confess
judgment, too, rather than repudiate a debt which he can not prove he
does not owe; but I've already milked that scheme so dry that I'm
afraid of it."
"You're afraid of everything," Gresham charged him with the scorn one
coward feels for another. "Your operations out there were spread over
ten thousand acres of ground; and it would take a dozen experts six
months, without any books or papers to guide them, to make even an
approximate estimate of your legitimate expenditures."
"I don't know," hesitated Collaton with a shake of his head--"I only
touched the high places in the actual work out there. I believe I was a
sucker at that, Gresham. If I had buckled down to it, like Gamble does,
we could have made a fortune out of that scheme. He's a wonder!"
"He has wonderful luck," corrected Gresham. "I tried my best to scare
Courtney away from him with that attachment, but he insisted on
clinging to his Johnny Gamble; so we'll hand him enough of Johnny by
laying a fifty-thousand-dollar attachment against his property."
"You're a funny cuss," said Collaton, puzzled. "If you wanted to soak
him for this fifty thousand why did you try to scare Courtney off?"
"Can't you understand that I'm not after the money?" demanded Gresham.
"I've explained that to you before. I want Gamble broke, discredited,
and so involved that he can never transact any business in New York."
"What's he done to you?" inquired Collaton. "He must be winning a
stand-in with your girl."
"My private affairs are none of your concern!" Gresham indignantly
flared.
"All right, governor," assented Collaton a trifle sullenly. "I'll fake
that note for you to-night; and--"
"I told you I would not have anything to do with any crooked work,"
Gresham sharply reprimanded him.
"Oh, shut up!" growled Collaton. "You give me the cramps. You're a
worse crook than I am!"