IN WHICH JOHNNY ASKS HIMSELF WHAT IS A MILLION DOLLARS, ANYWAY
Johnny Gamble in the following days was, as Loring put it, a scene of
intense activity. It was part of his contract with the improvement
company that he put their subdivision plans under way; and he planted
himself in the center of the new offices while things circled round him
at high speed. His persistent use of the fast-gear clutch came from the
fact that he would not bind himself to work for them more than two
weeks.
"They're handing me a shameful salary for it," he confided to Loring,
"and I'm glad to get it because it pays up all my personal expenses
during my forty-days' stunt and leaves me my million clear."
"Well," began Loring with a smile, "your million won't be"--he suddenly
checked himself and then went on--"won't be a nice pretty sum of money
unless it ends in the six round ciphers."
He had been about to tell Johnny that he owed fifteen thousand dollars
to Constance Joy. Loring reflected, however, that this could be paid
just as well after it was all over; that, if he told about it now,
Johnny would drop everything to make that extra fifteen thousand; that,
moreover, Constance had not yet given him permission to mention the
matter; and, besides, there seemed to be a present coolness between
Constance and Johnny which nobody understood. On the whole, it was
better to keep his mouth shut; and he did it.
"It's rather a nice-sounding word,--million," he added by way of
concealing his hesitation.
"I don't know," returned Johnny, full of his perplexity about
Constance. "I'm tired of hearing the word. Sometimes it makes me sick
to think of it."
"You ought to be ashamed of yourself!" reproached Loring with a laugh.
"All right," agreed Johnny accommodatingly. "I'm used to that anyhow.
For one thing, I'm ashamed of being such a sucker. That old partner of
mine not only stung me for every cent I could scrape together for two
years, but actually had the nerve to try to sell the big tract of land
we irrigated with money."
"To sell it!" exclaimed Loring in surprise.
"That's all," returned Johnny. "He went to the Western Developing
Company with it two months ago and had them so worked up that they
looked into the title. They even sent a man out there to investigate."
"Flivver, I suppose?" guessed Loring.
"Rank," corroborated Johnny. "Washburn, of the Western Developing, was
telling me about it yesterday. He said his man took one look at the
land and came back offering to go six blocks out of his way on a busy
Monday to see Collaton hung."
"We'd get up a party," commented Loring dryly, and Johnny hurried away
to the offices of his Bronx concern.
He was a very unhappy Johnny these days and had but little joy in his
million. If Constance did not care for it, nor for him, the fun was all
gone out of everything. Work was his only relief, and he worked like an
engine.
On one day, however, he was careful to do no labor, and that day was
Friday, May nineteenth; Constance's birthday, and he had long planned
to make that a gala occasion.
On the evening preceding he called at the house, but Aunt Pattie
Boyden, who was more than anxious to have Constance marry the second
cousin of Lord Yawpingham, told him with poorly concealed satisfaction
that Constance was too ill to see him. He imagined that he knew what
that meant, nevertheless, on the following morning he sent Constance a
tremendous bouquet and went down into the midst of the crowds at Coney
Island, where of all places in the world he could be most alone and
most gloomy.
"What's a million dollars anyway?" he asked himself.
At ten o'clock on Saturday morning Mr. Birchard came into the Bronx
office with much smiling, presented his credentials duly signed by each
of the five Wobbles brothers, received a check for a million dollars
made out, by the written instructions of the brothers, to Frederick W.
Birchard, Agent, and departed still smiling.
"One step nearer," observed Johnny to Loring an hour or so later. "Next
Saturday I'll have the remaining two and a half million and will only
pay out one and a half of it. The other million sticks with me."
"The other million?" repeated Loring. "Oh, yes, I see. The half-million
you advanced and the half-million profit you make on this deal. For how
much can you write your check now, Johnny?"
"If I wrote a check right this minute, to pay for a postage stamp, it
would go to protest," laughed Johnny. "I guess I can stand it to be
broke for a week though."
"You're a lucky cuss," commended Loring.
"In most things," admitted Johnny half-heartedly.
"In everything," insisted Loring. "By the way, Gresham was over here to
see you yesterday while I was out."
"Gresham?" mused Johnny. "That's curious. He was at the Bronx office
and also at my apartments. I 'phoned this morning, but was told he had
gone out of town for a week."
"You probably missed something very important," returned Loring
sarcastically. "Where were you yesterday anyhow?"
"Having a holiday," said Johnny soberly, and escaped.
He wanted work--the more of it the better. He spent the entire week in
the most fatiguing toil he could find, and in that week had no word
from Constance Joy except a very brief and coldly-formed note thanking
him for his flowers.
On the following Saturday morning Gresham walked into the Bronx offices
with a particularly smug satisfaction.
"I've come to close up the Wobbles transfer with you," he stated. "I am
authorized formally to make over the property to you and to collect the
two and a half million remaining to be paid."
"Barring the slight difference of a million dollars the amount is
correct," replied Johnny dryly. "I have the million and a half balance
ready, but I had expected Mr. Birchard to come in and finish the
transaction."
"Birchard is not representing the Wobbleses," Gresham politely informed
him. "I had a little talk with them on the Tuesday following the
house-party at Courtney's, and they decided to have me look after the
matter instead. By the way, I hunted for you everywhere on the day
before the first payment was due, to tell you that the Wobbleses
preferred to have the two and a half million paid all in one sum
to-day; but since you were not in I didn't trouble to leave you a note.
Very few men need to be told not to pay out money."
"Do you mean to tell me that Mr. Birchard never has represented the
Wobbles family in this matter?" Johnny managed to ask.
"Certainly not," answered Gresham, widening his eyes.
"I have his signed authorization to act for them in the matter,"
declared Johnny, remembering that circumstance with happy relief.
"You have?" inquired Gresham with great apparent surprise. "Will you
allow me to look at the paper?"
Johnny showed it to him triumphantly, but Gresham read it with a smile
of contempt.
"I was correct in my suspicions of Birchard," he stated. "This document
is a forgery. I hope you did not pay him any money on the strength of
it."
Silently Johnny laid before him Birchard's receipt, and a second later
as he saw the gleam of gratification in Gresham's eyes was sorry that
he had done so.
"I am afraid that you have been swindled," was Gresham's altogether too
sympathetic comment. "However, that does not concern the business in
hand. This was the day appointed for the final settlement, and I have
come prepared to make it with you."
"You'll have to wait," declared Johnny bluntly, putting away the
documents.
"I must call your attention to the fact that if you do not close this
matter to-day my principals are at liberty to place the property upon
the market again."
"Advise them not to do so," Johnny warned him. "Under the circumstances
I am certain that I can secure enough delay for investigation--legally,
if necessary. I won't move a step until I've looked into this."
"Very well," said Gresham easily, and walked out.
Johnny, in a consternation that was barely short of panic, immediately
consulted Loring, and together they set out upon a search for the
Wobbleses. At their various hotels--for no two of them put up at the
same place--it was discovered that they were severally "probably in the
country at week-end parties". Tommy alone they found, but he knew so
little and was so upset by what they told him that they were sorry he,
too, had not attended a week-end party; and they left him gasping like
a sea-lion, with his toupee down over his ear, and saying between gasps
over and over again with perfectly vacant eyes: "Eugene's an ass!
Perfect ass, don't you know!"
They spent some hopeless time in attempting to trace Birchard, but that
gentleman had disappeared on the previous Saturday. No one had seen him
or had heard of him or had thought of him. They put the case into the
hands of detectives, and gave up hope.
"I don't think it was lucky money any-how," said Johnny gloomily.
Constance had not cared for it and it was worthless!
It was not until Monday that they found Eugene Wobbles, and that
voluntary expatriate was almost as much taken aback as his brother
Tommy had been.
"Ow, I say, it's most extraordinary!" he declared, stroking his
drooping mustache and swinging his monocle. "Why, do you know, I met
the blooming bounder at Lord Yawp'n'am's--second cousin, you know, of
this very decent chap, Gresham. Introduced him at my clubs and all that
sort of thing, I assure you! I'll have the burning scoundrel
blacklisted!"
"Thanks," said Loring with deep gratitude. "Of course that won't get
back the million though."
"Well, I'm bound to give you the right there," admitted Eugene, "but at
the same time I must insist that it will cut the beggar never to be
allowed the privileges of a gentleman's club again."
"And serve him right, I say; even jolly well right," agreed Loring with
a sarcasm that was altogether lost and was intended to be.
"I must say that our friend Gresham has behaved well in the matter,"
added Eugene. "Birth and breeding are bound to tell. I fancy every one
will admit that. What?"
"They tell a great deal," returned Loring dryly. "What did our friend
Gresham do that was so decent?"
"Ow, yes," Eugene was reminded, "we were discussing that, weren't we?
Well, at our friend Courtney's house-party, Gresham was all for
Birchard to handle this business; fairly forced him on us, don't you
know; but on Tuesday he came to us much pained, I assure you, and in
the greatest confidence told us he was sure the beggar was not the man
for the place. Been mixed up in a rotten money scandal or so, don't you
know."
"So you discharged Birchard," Loring surmised, keenly interested.
"Well, not exactly," replied Eugene. "You see it wasn't necessary. We
never had definitely appointed him. Come to think, neither he nor
Gresham insisted on it; and, anyhow, the fellow never came back to us."
"I see," said Loring softly with a glance at Johnny. "So, you being
without an agent, Gresham kindly consented to act for you--without
commission."
"Ow, yes, certainly, without commission," agreed Eugene. "Very decent
indeed of him, now, wasn't it?"
"Almost pathetic," admitted Loring. "Well, Johnny," he said as they
went back to the office, "you're up against it. While Birchard was
forging the papers to get your million Gresham was establishing an
alibi for himself. The only thing I see for you to do--besides laying
for Gresham--is to repudiate this entire deal and get back as much of
your half-million as you can."
"And owe the rest of it to my friends?" demanded Johnny. "Not any. I'll
pay over the two and a half million I have on hand, complete the deal
and stand the loss myself. I'll be broke, but I won't owe anybody."
Loring looked at him with sudden pity. "You'll have to take a fresh
start," he advised as lightly as possible, since one did not like to be
caught expressing pity to Johnny. "You have two days left."
"Guess again!" directed Johnny. "One of them's a holiday--Decoration
Day--to-morrow."
"Tough luck, old man!" said Loring.
"I didn't care for the million, Loring," declared Johnny wearily,
driven for the first time to an open confession.
"I know," agreed Loring gently, still suffering from his own hurt. "It
was Constance. She may not be so keen for that million as you think."
Johnny shook his head sadly.
"I know she isn't," he admitted. "That's the hard part of it. She
didn't seem to care when I had it--not for it or for me. Up to that
time I thought there was a chance. Now the loss of this money doesn't
really hurt. What good would a million dollars do me?"
They had reached the office by this time and made themselves busy with
the final papers. Presently came Gresham and all the Wobbleses,
concluded their business, and took their two and a half million dollars
and happily departed.
Loring glared after Gresham in a fury of anger. He had seen that
gentleman, before he left, slip a square white card under the papers on
Johnny's desk; and, though he did not conjecture what the card might
be, he knew from the curl of Gresham's lips that it meant some covert
trick or insult. Turning, he was about indignantly to call Johnny's
attention to the circumstance when the beaming expression upon his
friend's face stopped him, and sealed any explanation that might have
risen to his lips. Johnny had found the card and was reading it with
glistening eyes.
"Constance Joy!" he said delightedly. "She must have called." He was
lost in pleasant thought for a moment or so and then he looked eagerly
up at Loring with: "I wonder if there isn't some way, besides
Birchard's, that a fellow could make a million dollars in a day!"