"Gentlemen," said Johnny in a quite oratorical tone of voice, "suppose we talk business."
The assembled Wobbleses turned in gasping surprise from the violent family dispute over the puppies.
"Upon my soul, this is a most extraordinary thing!" exclaimed Eugene, looking about him in amazement. "Why, the whole blooming family is here, even Tommy. I say, Tommy, it's perfectly imbecile, with all due respect to you, to prefer that little beggar with the white star."
"I'll back him for a hundred pounds before any official committee," indignantly quavered Tommy, feeling in all the wrong pockets for his betting-book.
"Gentlemen," interposed Johnny most crudely indeed, "I am here to repeat my offer of three million dollars, cash, for your Bronx property; one-half million dollars to-day, one million dollars next Saturday, May twentieth, and the remaining million and a half the following Saturday, May twenty-seventh, title to remain vested in you until the entire amount is paid. Just to show that I mean business I have brought each of you a certified check for one hundred thousand dollars." And he distributed them like diplomas to a class.
Tommy Wobbles, startled to find his toupee on straight, examined his check with much doubt. "I say, you know," he expostulated, "this can't be quite regular!"
"Why not?" inquired Johnny.
"Well—er—it's so very precipitate," responded Tommy, putting the check in his pocket and taking it out again and folding and unfolding it with uncertain fingers. "No time for deliberation and dignity and such rot, you know."
"An advance cash payment of half a million dollars is so full of dignity that its shoes squeak," announced Johnny. "As to delay, I don't see any reason for it. You want to sell the property, don't you?"
Eugene said yes, and the others looked doubtful.
"You're satisfied with the price?" demanded Johnny.
Since Eugene kept silent the others answered that they were.
"You know that by my plan you are perfectly secured until you are fully paid; so there's no reason why we shouldn't wind up the business at once."
"Should you say that this was regular, Birchard?" asked Eugene, toying with his check lovingly. He had just finished figuring that it was worth something like twenty thousand pounds!
"Quite regular indeed," Mr. Birchard smilingly assured him. "Typically American for its directness and decision, but fully as good a business transaction in every way as could be consummated in London."
"Ow, I say," protested Eugene, but he seemed perfectly satisfied, nevertheless.
"As I understand it," went on Mr. Birchard, "Mr. Gamble's proposition is very simple. You are to execute a contract of sale to him to-day, acknowledging receipt of half a million dollars' advance payment, and are at the same time to execute a clear deed that will be placed in the hands of your agent until Mr. Gamble completes his payments. The deed will then be delivered to him and properly recorded. Is this correct, Mr. Gamble?"
"I couldn't say it so well, but that's what I mean," replied Johnny.
"Then, gentlemen," continued Birchard, "I should advise you to sign the papers at once and have the matter off your minds."
Loring had everything ready, but it was Johnny who really conducted the meeting and manipulated the slow-moving Wobbleses so that they concluded the business with small waste of time.
When it was finished Johnny thanked them with intense relief. The Wobbles property was his, and he knew exactly where to sell it at a half-million dollars' profit. His tremendous race for a million was to be won, with a day or so of margin. There were a few technical matters to look after, but in reality the prize was his. He could go to Constance Joy now with a clear conscience and the ability to offer her a fortune equal to the one she would have to relinquish if she married him.
"By the way," said Johnny in parting, "who is your agent?"
"Why, I rather fancy it will be Mr. Birchard," replied Eugene. "Of course nothing is decided as yet, since there are five of us and four stubborn; but I rather fancy it will be Birchard. Eh, old chap?"
"I trust so," responded Birchard with a pleasant smile at Johnny.
CHAPTER XIX. IN WHICH THE COLONEL, MESSRS. COURTNEY, WASHER AND OTHERS SIT IN A LITTLE GAME
Morton Washer, having acquired a substantial jack-pot with the aid of four hearts and little casino, boastfully displayed the winning hand.
"Sometime, when you fellows grow up," he kindly offered, "I'll sit down to a real game of poker with you."
Courtney, keeping the bank, dived ruefully into the box for his fourth stack of chips.
"There's one thing I must say about Mort," he dryly observed: "he's cheerful when he wins."
"He can brag harder and louder than any man I ever heard," admitted iron-faced Joe Close.
Colonel Bouncer, puffing out his red cheeks and snarling affectionately at his friend Washer, corroborated that statement emphatically.
"He's bragged ever since he was a boy," he stated.
"I always had something to brag about, didn't I?" demanded Washer, his intemperate little pompadour bristling, and his waxed mustache as waspish as if he were really provoked.
"I don't know," objected the solemn-faced Courtney. "I stung you for half a million on that hotel transaction. Give me an ace, Joe."
"Never!" snapped Morton Washer, picking up his cards as they fell. "It was Johnny Gamble did that. I open this pot right under the guns for the size of it and an extra sky-blue for luck. None of you old spavins was ever able to get me single-handed. A young fellow like Johnny Gamble—that's different. It's his turn. You fellows are all afraid of my threes."
"The others might be, so I'll just help them stay out," stated Courtney kindly as he doubled Washer's bet. "By the way, speaking of Johnny Gamble, he was very anxious to get you fellows out here to- day. Now I want to give you some solemn advice, Colonel; you'd better keep away from this pot."
"Bless my soul, I have a rotten hand!" confessed Colonel Bouncer, puffing his cheeks. "But you old bluffers can't drive me out of any place; so I'll trail." And he measured up to Courtney's stack. "What's Gamble's scheme, Ben?"
"I'll have to let Johnny tell you that himself," responded Courtney as Johnny entered. "Coming into this scramble, Joe?"
"I'm a cautious man," hesitated Close, inspecting the faces of his companions with calm interest. "I don't think you or Mort have second cousins among your pasteboards, but the colonel is concealing his feelings too carefully." And he threw down his cards.
"You're most unprofessional to say so," growled the colonel. "I suppose you won't see that raise, Mort?"
"I'm not much interested," returned Washer indifferently, "so I'll just tilt it another stack." And he did so with beautiful carelessness. "On general principles I'm very favorable to any enterprise Johnny Gamble offers. Isn't that so, Johnny?"
"I hope so," replied Johnny with a laugh as he approached the table and, with perfectly blank eyes, looked down at the hand which Washer conspicuously held up to him.
Courtney cast only a fleeting glance at Johnny, whose face it would be impolite to read—also impossible—and concentrated his attention upon his old friend, Washer.
"You infernal scoundrel, I believe you have them," he decided as Washer folded his cards into the palm of his hand again.
Courtney turned for a careful inspection of the colonel. That gentleman, daintily picking a fleck of dust from his cuff, looked unconcernedly off into the sky, whistling softly, and Courtney, pushing his hand into the discard, lighted a cigar, while the colonel met Washer's raise and added a tantalizing white chip.
It was now Washer's turn for consideration, and he studied his only remaining opponent with much interest.
"Give me one card, Joe; mostly kings," he requested as he pushed in his one white chip. "What's your scheme, Johnny?" And he looked up, quite indifferent to the card he was tossing away. He picked up the one Close carefully dealt him and, without looking at it, slid it in among the other four.
"I'm ready to close with you f
or that Bronx subdivision," responded Johnny, acutely watching Colonel Bouncer as that gentleman asked for one card, received it and studied its countenance with polite admiration. "It's the proposition I've previously explained to all of you, but had to lay aside because I couldn't nail down the property."
"I suppose you have it now," observed Morton, pushing forward with gentle little shoves of his middle finger a very tall stack of chips arranged in three distinct and equal red, white and blue layers. He had not yet looked at his fifth card, and at Colonel Bouncer he directed but a brief and passing glance. Did he care what the colonel held?
"I have the Wobbles estate in my pocket," replied Johnny, still watching the colonel absorbedly. "I must get you together Monday if possible."
"Wobbles!" exploded Courtney. "Did you buy that Bronx property at my party from my guests to sell to us?"
"I did," confessed Johnny with a grin. "This is a lovely party."
The poker game suspended itself for a minute, while all four of the gentlemen looked at him in contemplative admiration.
"He's a credit to the place," observed Joe Close. "Here's where the Texas land grab was arranged, and the wool trust formed, and the joker inserted into the rebate bill."
"Nevertheless, if Johnny Gamble sits in this game I'll cash in my chips and quit," declared Morton Washer.
"He's good enough company for me," blustered Colonel Bouncer, scrutinizing his cards one by one.
"I suppose so," agreed Washer with a smile at Johnny, "but he's so full of young tricks and we're outclassed. What's that property going to cost us?"
"Three and a half million," stated Johnny quietly.
Colonel Bouncer, having now made up his mind, deliberately and with nice care measured up blue chips and red chips and white chips matching Washer's, and added to them all the blue ones he had in his possession.
"Taking any stock yourself, Johnny?" he softly asked.
"Can't afford it," confessed Johnny with a smile.
"The property's quite worth three and a half million," announced Courtney decisively, watching the face of Morton Washer as that calm player stared at the colonel's chips. "I'm willing to take a million of the stock."
"I'll take a million; more if need be," offered Washer. "I've been wanting in on that for some time. Colonel, what have you got?"
"Five cards," replied the colonel.
"You have threes," charged Washer.
"I'm conducting my business through an agent," laughed Bouncer. "There it is," and he indicated the stack of blue chips.
"You have threes," insisted Washer. "The reason I'm so particular is that I have threes myself, and I want to know which are the better."
"There is one clever way to find out," bantered the colonel confidently. "You have a lot of chips. Why are you so stingy with them?"
"That's the way I got them," countered Washer. "I'll donate though. I'll do better than that: I'll tap you."
The colonel promptly counted his remaining red and white chips. Washer as promptly measured up to them and to the blues.
"Told you the truth!" he exulted. "I said I had threes, and here they are! Three tens and a king and another ten!" And he gleefully spread down his cards. "I caught the pink one."
"Had mine all the time!" triumphed Colonel Bouncer, throwing down his hand and putting both big arms round the pot. "Four elevens!" And chuckling near to the apoplexy line he scraped the chips home, while Washer inspected his excellent collection of jacks. "Now brag, you old bluffer!" And, still chuckling, he began sorting the chips into patriotic piles.
"Enjoy yourselves," granted Washer, concealing his intense chagrin with as nonchalant an air as possible. "I give you my word those chips are only loaned. Go on and laugh! You fellows make a lot of fuss over a cheap little jack-pot. Johnny, must you see us Monday?"
"Can't delay it," replied Johnny, checking his own laughter for the purpose. "I've paid five hundred thousand of the purchase price. Another million must be paid in one week and the balance in two weeks."
"That's pretty rapid work," remarked Close, with a frown, beginning swiftly to figure interest.
"The Wobbleses are in a hurry to sail. I've looked into the title. It's clear as a whistle. Can't we arrange a meeting at my office?"
They settled on a meeting at three-forty-five on Monday while Morton Washer dealt.
"Bless my heart, Mort Washer, that's the fourth time you've turned my first card and it's always a deuce!" complained the colonel. "If you do it again I shall be compelled to give you an old-time, school-day licking."
"You can't do it and you never saw the day you could," bristled Washer, brandishing a bony little fist before the colonel's big face.
"There's one more question I'd like to ask," Johnny interposed on this violent quarrel. "Will it be necessary for me to offer any stock outside this group?"
"I can't swing but a quarter of a million to save me; possibly only two hundred thousand," regretted Bouncer.
"If you'd like to carry a little more I'll let you have the money, Colonel," offered his bitter enemy of the bony fist.
"Thanks, Mort," returned the colonel gratefully. "However, it is not necessary to display the fact to the entire gathering that I now have a pair of those deuces."
Washer quickly reached over, snatched the colonel's cards, replaced them with his own and went on dealing.
"I think we can handle it all among us, Johnny," figured Courtney.
Shortly afterward, Loring, in high glee, separated Polly from a hilarious game of drop-the-handkerchief.
"Well, Polly, it's all over!" he exulted. "Johnny has been in to see his financial backers. He has bought the Wobbles property and he has made his million dollars."
"If Mr. Courtney hasn't any fireworks he must telephone for some right away," declared Polly in delight, and suddenly her eyes moistened. "I'm as dippy about Johnny as his own mother!" she added.
"And in just the same way," returned Loring, secretly glad to recognize that fact. "When you can spare a little time for it, Polly, you might become dippy about me."
"I am," she acknowledged, putting her hand upon his arm affectionately.
"But you don't want to marry me," protested Loring, a trace of pain contracting his brows. "I need you, Polly!"
"Please don't, Ashley," she begged. "It's a for-sure fact that I'm never going to forget poor Billy. Don't let that stop us being pals, though, please!"
"Certainly not," agreed Loring, with as much cheerfulness as she could have wished, and burying deeply for the last time the hope that he had cherished.
"Look here, Loring," charged Val Russel, striding over with Mrs. Follison; "you'll kindly come into this game or give us back our Polly."
"You'll have to do without your Polly for a minute, children," insisted that young woman. "She is to be the bearer of glad tidings," and giving her eyes another dab she hurried away to the house.
She found Constance alone in the library, instructing herself with an article on mushroom culture.
"I can read your palm without looking at it, pretty lady," bubbled Polly. "A large blond gentleman with handsome blue eyes and a million dollars in his pocket is about to offer you a proposal of marriage."
Constance, suppressing a rising resentment, turned the leaf of her mushroom article. The next page began a startling political series, which demanded of the public in violent headlines: "Who Spends Your Money?" but Constance perused it carefully without noticing the difference.
"I've had my palm read before," she presently observed.
"You don't seem to be alive to the shock I'm giving you," protested Polly. "Really, girlie, I have some big news for you. Johnny Gamble has finished the making of his million!"
"I wish that word million had never been invented!" suddenly flared Constance. "I'm tired of hearing it. The very thought of it makes me ill." How did Polly come to know it first?
"I wouldn't care what they'd call it if it would only buy as much," returned Polly, still good-naturedl
y. "And when a regular man like Johnny Gamble hustles out and gets one, just so he can ask to marry you, you ought to give a perfectly vulgar exhibition of joy!"
"You have put it very nicely," responded Constance. "If it would only buy as much! Do you know that my name is seldom mentioned except in connection with a million dollars? I must either marry one man or lose a million, or marry another who has made a million for that purpose."
"You ought to be ashamed of yourself!" charged Polly. She glared at Constance a moment, bursting with more indignant things to say; but there were so many of them that they choked her in their attempted egress, and she swished angrily back to the lawn party, exploding most of the way.
At just this inopportune moment Johnny Gamble found his way into the peaceful library.
"Well, it's across!" he joyously confided, forgetting in his happiness the rebuffs of the day. "I have that million!" and he approached her with such an evident determination of making an exuberant proposal then and there that Constance could have shrieked. "I congratulate you," she informed him as she hastily rose. "You deserve it, I am sure. Kindly excuse me, won't you?" and she sailed out of the room.
Johnny, feeling all awkward joints like a calf, dropped his sailor straw hat, and Constance heard it rolling after her. With an effort she kept herself from running, knowing full well that if that hat touched her skirt she would drop!
Johnny looked at the hat in dumb reproach, but when he left the room he walked widely round it. He dared not touch it.
"Ow, I say, Mr. Gamble," drawled Eugene, passing him in the doorway, "we've picked out the puppy."
While Johnny was still smarting from the burden of that information and wondering what spot of the globe would be most endurable at the present moment, Courtney came through the hall on some hostly errand.
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