IN WHICH JOHNNY EXECUTES SOME EXCEEDINGLY RAPID BUSINESS DEALS
Sitting tight and watching the hands of his watch go round, with a
deficit of five thousand dollars an hour piling up against him, was as
hard work as Johnny Gamble had ever done; and yet he knew that, if he
succumbed to impatience and went to the De Luxe Apartments Company
before they came to him, he would relinquish a fifty per cent,
advantage. He saw another day slipping past him, with a total deficit
of sixteen hours behind his schedule--or an appalling shortage of
eighty thousand dollars--when, at one o'clock on Thursday, the expected
happened--and a brisk little man, with a mustache which would have been
highly luxuriant if he had not kept it bitten off as closely as he
could reach it, dropped in, inquired for Loring, jerked a chair as
close to him as he could get it and said, in one breath: "Want to sell
your river-view property?"
"Certainly," replied Loring, in whose name the property stood. "Mr.
Gamble is handling that for me. Mr. Chase, Mr. Gamble."
Mr. Chase, holding to his chair, jumped up, hurried over to Johnny and
once more jerked the chair close up.
"How much do you want for it?" he asked.
"Two hundred and seventy-five thousand."
"Too much. I understand it's restricted to apartment-house purposes
alone?"
"Yes."
"Not less than ten stories, and a minimum rental of three thousand
dollars a suite?"
"Yes."
"You can't sell it for that price with those restrictions."
"We can build on it," replied Johnny calmly.
"You won't," asserted Mr. Chase with equal conviction. "You bought it
to sell. I'll give you two hundred and fifty thousand."
"No," refused Johnny quite bravely, though with a panicky feeling as he
thought of that appallingly swift schedule.
"All right," said Chase. "I'll hold the offer open at that figure for
forty-eight hours. I think you'll come to it."
"I doubt it," responded Johnny, smiling; but he was afraid he would.
In less than an hour he received an unexpected call from Mrs. Guff, who
was in such secret agitation that she quivered like jelly whenever she
breathed.
"Mr. Guff and myself have decided to take Miss Purry's river-view
property off your hands, Mr. Gamble," was the glad tidings she conveyed
to him, smiling to share his delight. "We can't think of letting that
river view slip by us."
"I'm glad to hear it," he announced with gratification, as he thought
of Mr. Chase. "Have you secured the consent of your partners in the
option to waive the apartment-house requirements?"
"Oh, no!" she ejaculated, shocked that any one should think that
possible. "We have decided to build the apartment-house and to live
there."
"To live there!" he repeated, remembering the elaborate Guff residence.
"Yes, indeed!" she enthusiastically exclaimed. "You know the property
slopes down to the river beautifully, and exquisite, private, terraced
gardens could be built there. We could take the entire lower floor of
the apartment building for ourselves, with a private driveway arched
right through it; and we could take the first three floors of the rear
part for our own use, with wonderful Venetian balconies overlooking the
terraces and the river. The remaining apartments would have entrances
on the two front corners, leaving us all the effect of a Venetian
palace. Don't you think that's clever?"
"It is clever!" he repeated with smiling emphasis, and mentally raising
Chase's ultimatum ten per cent.
"I suppose you'll want to charge us more for the property than you paid
for it," she suggested with a faint hope that maybe he might not, since
he had bought it so recently--and through them.
"That's what I'm in business for," he blandly acknowledged. "I can let
you have the property for two hundred and seventy-five thousand
dollars."
"How much did you say?" she gasped.
"Two hundred and seventy-five thousand."
"Why, it's an outrage!" she puffed. "You paid only two hundred and ten
thousand for it yesterday."
"I'm not telling you its cost to me yesterday, but its value to-day,"
he reminded her.
Mrs. Guff had helped her husband to his business success in the early
days--and she had driven bargains with supply men which had made them
glad when she was ill.
"You may keep the property," she wheezed. "Nobody will pay that
price--not even William Slosher; and he'll buy anything if his wife
pouts for it in the ridiculous French clothes she's brought back with
her."
"So the Sloshers are back?" he guessed, with an understanding, at last,
of her agitation.
"They came last night," she admitted, inflating with a multitude of
feelings. "The most ungrateful people in the world! So far from being
thankful for the time and pains and money we spent to protect them,
they're viciously angry and are making threats--positive threats--that
they will disgrace the entire neighborhood!"
"Do you refuse this property at two hundred and seventy-five thousand?"
Mr. Gamble interestedly wanted to know.
"Certainly I do!" she emphatically declared, positive that no human
being would pay that absurd increase in valuation.
"Then the price is withdrawn," he told her; and she left him, puzzling
mightily over that last remark.
Johnny Gamble was a man of steady nerves, yet even he fidgeted until
three o'clock for fear Mr. Slosher would not call him up. At that hour,
however, Mr. Slosher called in person, accompanied by his wife. There
is no need to describe Mr. Slosher, who was merely an elderly gentleman
of much vigor and directness; and it is impossible to describe Mrs.
Slosher, who was never twice alike, anyhow, being merely the spirit of
a beautiful ever changing youth in a body of beautiful ever changing
habiliments.
"What do you want for the river-view property you have just purchased?"
Mr. Slosher demanded.
"I don't know," confessed Johnny, laughing. "The valuation is going up
so rapidly that I can't keep track of it myself. Mrs. Guff was just in,
asking the price."
Mrs. Slosher tapped the toe of a beautiful satin carriage slipper
impatiently upon the floor, and a very bright red spot glowed on each
cheek; but she did not say a word. She only looked at her husband. Mr.
Gamble had a queer idea that her mere gaze could, on an occasion like
this, burn holes through a cake of ice. Certain it is that Mr. Slosher
turned quickly to her--and then, as if he had been galvanized, turned
back to Johnny.
"I'll give you until to-morrow night to secure your highest offer and
then I'll add five per cent, to it," he stated.
"You understand the restrictions, I suppose?" ventured Johnny.
"Perfectly. My kind neighbors have handed me a ten-story
apartment-house, with a minimum rental per suite of three thousand
dollars a year. I'm going to build their neighborhood ornament and fill
it with high-toned niggers!"
Mrs. Slosher smiled. She was a beautiful young woman. To youth belongs
much.
Johnny Gamble, caught amidships, as it were, snorted.
"Well, I don't live out there," he said.
Mr. Slosher smiled.
"That is all, I believe," he announced as he assisted Mrs. Slosher to
her feet with that punctilious gallantry which defies a younger man to
do it better.
At four o'clock Jim Guff called Mr. Gamble on the telephone.
"Hello, Gamble!" he hailed in an entirely new voice. "You're a robber!"
"You flatter me," returned Johnny quite comfortably. "Is there anything
I can do for you in that line?"
"A whole lot," replied Guff. "I'll accept the price you gave Mrs. Guff
on that river-view site."
"Too late," answered Johnny cheerfully. "I withdrew that offer before
Mrs. Guff left the office. Mr. and Mrs. Slosher have been in since
then."
Jim Guff's voice cracked as he hastily said:
"I'll meet any offer he makes you and tack a five-thousand-dollar bonus
to it."
Johnny called up the De Luxe Apartments. Company and secured the ear of
Mr. Chase.
"I withdraw my offer of two hundred and seventy-five thousand for that
river-view property," he stated. "What is the best bid you will make me
above that figure?"
"I'm not inclined to scramble for it," immediately claimed Mr. Chase,
who was aware at the time that he was telling a point-blank lie.
"Very well, then," said Johnny, wondering how he was to get a definite
figure without committing himself. "I'll have to drop you out of my
calculations."
"When must you know?"
"To-morrow morning."
"You're bluffing!" charged Mr. Chase scornfully.
"I have two very earnest bidders for the property," insisted Johnny
with dignity--and completed his bluff, if Chase cared to regard it that
way, by hanging up his receiver.
Before he left the office he entered in his books:
"May 4. Sold; but I don't know who to or at what price. Close to
schedule, though."
He entered the next day in advance:
"May 5. The Babies' Fund Fair--Holiday. Nothing doing."