IN WHICH JOHNNY EVEN DOES BUSINESS AT THE BABIES' FUND FAIR
"I wish I could write poetry," regretted Johnny, looking across at
Constance Joy in the violet booth.
"Why don't you try it?" asked Polly Parsons, following his gaze and
comprehending his desire perfectly, for she, too, was a rabid
Constancite.
"I did," he confessed with a disappointed laugh. "I hadn't the nerve to
be mushy enough, though--and nothing else seems to be real poetry. I
got one line that listened like the goods, but I couldn't match it up:
'As I lie awake and look at the stars--' Pretty good start, eh? How do
you find a rhyme for it?"
"You go down through the alphabet," Polly advised him, rather proud to
be able to answer him so promptly. "Bars, cars, fars, jars--that way,
you know. How I found out is that Sister Winnie writes so much poetry."
"She's a great kid," laughed Johnny. "Where is she?"
"Round here some place, giving orders to Sammy Chirp. Why are you
loafing this afternoon? You're supposed to be making five thousand
dollars an hour, but I don't see any chance for it here."
"It's a holiday," he retorted. "You're loafing yourself. I see it's on
the program that you're to sell a quarter's worth of violets and a
smile, for five dollars a throw at the boutonniere booth. Notice how I
said boutonniere?"
"You got it out of a book," charged Polly disdainfully. "I called
Constance over from the candy booth to take my place because a
gray-haired rusher came back seven times to have me pin violets on his
coat--and I couldn't smile any more. There he goes now. That's his
second trip for Constance."
"This is a cruel world. I suppose it would fuss her all up if I dropped
him out of a window," Johnny observed wistfully.
"Constance doesn't need help. Just watch her!" And Polly grinned
appreciatively as Constance, recognizing and sorting the tottering
lady-killer at a glance, took his money handed him a nosegay and a pin,
and returned to the back of the booth to arrange her stock:
A huge blot of orange and a thin streak of lavender paused on the other
side of the palms. Johnny wondered to see these two enemies together,
but no man could know the satisfaction they took in it.
"The violet booth," read the big blot of orange, adjusting her gold
lorgnette to the bridge of her globular nose and consulting her
catalogue. "Friday afternoon: Polly Parsons and Mrs. Arthur Follison.
That is not Mrs. Follison in the booth, is it?"
"Oh, no, Mrs. Guff!" protested the thin streak of lavender in a rasping
little lavender voice. "Mrs. Follison, though not a doll-face--indeed,
far from it--is of most aristocratic bearing."
"I suppose that person in the booth, then, is the adopted actress,"
guessed Mrs. Guff. "Any one can tell that's beauty and movement of the
professional type."
Johnny looked at Polly with hasty concern, but that young lady was
enjoying the joke on Constance and gripped his arm for silence.
"One can quite understand how poor Billy Parsons might become
infatuated with her doll-face," returned Miss Purry pityingly, since
she was herself entirely free from the crime of doll-facedness; "but
that the Parsons should adopt such a common person merely because Billy
died before he could marry her was inconsiderate of the rest of our
class."
"The artfulness of her!" exclaimed the thick one, lorgnetting the
graceful Constance with a fishy eye as the temporary flower girl
joyously greeted Ashley Loring and Val Russel and Bruce Townley, pinned
bouquets upon them and exchanged laughing banter with them.
"Dreadful!" agreed the shocked thin one. "Those are the very wiles by
which doll-faced stage women insnare our most desirable young men."
Constance looked about just then in search of Polly, and her eyes
lighted as they saw Johnny standing with her.
"Oh, Polly!" she called.
"Coming, Constance!" returned the hearty and cheery voice of Polly from
just behind the critics.
The ladies in lavender and orange were still gasping when Johnny Gamble
passed them with Polly. He had made up his mind about the river-front
property.
Loud acclaim hailed Polly and Johnny, for where they went there was
zest of life; and the boys, knowing well that Johnny never wore
flowers, made instant way for him at the violet booth.
"I'll take some blue ones, lady," announced Johnny gamely, intending to
wear them with defiance.
"I'll give you the nearest we have, mister," laughed Constance, and
promptly decorated him.
Since this was the closest her face and eyes had ever been to him, he
forgot to pay her and had to be reminded of that important duty by
Polly and all the boys in unison. There was a faint evasive trace of
perfume about her, more like the freshness of morning or the delicacy
of starlight than an actual essence, he vaguely thought with a groping
return to his poetic inclination. He felt the warmth of her velvet
cheek, even at its distance of a foot away, and there seemed to be a
pulsing thrill in the very air which intervened. For a startled instant
he found himself gazing deep down into her brown eyes. In that instant
her red lips curved in a fleeting smile--a smile of the type which
needs moist eyes to carry its tenderness. It was all over in a flash,
only a fragment of a second, which seemed a blissful pulsing eternity;
and at its conclusion he thought that her finger quivered as it brushed
his own, where he held out the lapel of his coat, and her cheek paled
ever so slightly--but these were dreams, he knew.
"I'm next, I think," grated a usually suave voice which now had a
decided tinge of unpleasantness; and Paul Gresham, selecting a bunch of
violets from the tray, held them out toward Constance, impatient to end
the all too pretty tableau.
"Next and served," Polly briskly told him; and, taking the boutonniere
from his fingers, she whisked it into place and pinned it and extracted
his money--all apparently in one deft operation.
"Thanks," said Gresham, blinking with the suddenness of it all and
sweeping with a glance of gloomy dissatisfaction, Polly, the bouquet,
Constance and Johnny. "I thought you were to be in the caramel booth,
Constance."
"I'm just going back," she informed him, pausing to straighten Johnny's
lapel, patting it in place and stepping back to view the result with a
critical eye. It seemed to need another coaxing bend and another pat,
both of which she calmly delivered.
A handsome passing couple caught Johnny's eye--a keen and
vigorous-looking elderly gentleman, and Springtime come among them in
the pink and white of apple blossoms--sweet and fresh and smiling; as
guileless as the May itself, but competent!
"Excuse me," said Johnny, and tore himself away from the girl whose
natural beauty made Mrs. Slosher an exquisite work of art. "Beg your
pardon, Mr. Slosher."
Mr. Slosher turned and smiled.
"Hello, Mr. Gamble!" he greeted him, while Mrs. Slosher gave him a
bright and cheery little nod. "I played old-fashioned army poker with
Colonel Bouncer and Ben Courtney and Mort Washer and Joe Close last
night--and the old robbers skinned me out of thirty-two dollars. They
spoke of you during the game and I guess you could get backing to any
amount in that crowd."
"Thanks for the tip," returned Johnny. "I may need it."
"You're going to give us our apartment-house property, aren't you?"
Mrs. Slosher knew by his very appearance.
"It's only a matter of closing the deal," Johnny told her with a
perfectly justifiable smile which Constance, from a distance,
criticized severely. He drew an envelope from his pocket and took from
it a paper which he passed to Mr. Slosher.
It was a written offer from the De Luxe Apartments Company for three
hundred thousand dollars.
"That makes my offer, then--at five per cent, advance--three hundred
and fifteen thousand," figured Slosher. "Is that a bargain?"
Johnny, glancing contentedly about the big inclosure, saw Jim Guff
waiting impatiently for a chance to speak with him.
"It's a bargain," he agreed, and pretty little Mrs. Slosher nodded her
head vehemently with innocent joy.
Gresham passed them by and tipped his hat to Mrs. Slosher, including
Mr. Slosher in the greeting. A pleasant idea struck Johnny.
"You scarcely intend to build your colored apartment-house under your
own name?" he suggested.
"Indeed, no!" laughed Mrs. Slosher happily. "All we wish is the result.
We ask for no credit."
"Moreover," warned Mr. Slosher, "I wouldn't care to have my purpose
known until after I have sold my own residence. I am a little worried,
however, about the detail you suggest. No man of any consequence would
injure the good will of his fellows by standing sponsor for such a
venture."
"I think I know your man," stated Gamble with pleasant anticipation.
"I'll tell you about him if you'll be careful not to let him or anybody
else know that I recommended him."
"I can figure out sufficient reasons for that," replied Slosher. "Is he
reliable?"
"He can give you security--and I suppose you had better exact it,"
advised Johnny. "He is the man who first secured the option from Miss
Purry."
"What is his name?"
"Collaton," and Johnny gazed serenely after Gresham.
"I'll send for him in the morning," decided Mr. Slosher.
When Johnny returned to the violet booth he found there Winnie and
Sammy Chirp, the latter with all his pockets and both his arms full of
Winnie's purchases and personal belongings, inextricably mixed with
similar articles belonging to Polly; and there was a new note of
usefulness which redeemed somewhat the feebleness of his smile. Loring
was helping Sammy to adjust his burdens; and Winnie, with the aid of
the mirror in her vanity box, was trying the effect of violets close to
her eyes. Johnny waited patiently for Loring to get through and then,
despite Polly's protest, dragged him away.
"I've arranged for the first dent in Gresham and Collaton," he
announced, and outlined the program which later on was carried out to
the letter. "I've fixed to have some valuable property placed in
Collaton's name, with Gresham as security. When that is done I want you
to go to Jacobs and play a mean trick on him. Make him serve that
attachment on Collaton's ostensible property. Collaton, having
confessed judgment on the note, can not fight it--and Gresham will have
to foot the bill."
Self-contained and undemonstrative as Loring was in public, he,
nevertheless, gave way to an uncontrollable burst of laughter which
humiliated him beyond measure when he discovered the attention he had
attracted.