"Say, Johnny," he blundered in an excess of well-meaning, "why don't you rest from business for a minute? Why aren't you out among some of these shady paths with Constance Joy? You've cinched your million, now go get the girl."
This was too much for the tortured Johnny, and the smoldering agony within him burst into flame.
"Look here, Courtney!" he declared with a vehemence which really seemed quite unnecessary, "I'm going to marry Constance Joy whether she likes it or not!"
A flash of white at the head of the stairs caught Johnny's eye. It was Constance! There was no hope that she had not heard!
"What's the matter?" asked Courtney, startled by the remarkable change in his countenance.
"I've got the stomach ache!" groaned Johnny with clumsy evasion, though possibly he was truthful after all.
"You must have some whisky," insisted Courtney, instantly concerned.
A servant came out of the library.
"I beg your pardon, sir," he remarked, "but I believe this must be your hat, Mr. Gamble."
Johnny broke one of his most rigid rules. He said: "Damn!"
CHAPTER XX. 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!"
CHAPTER XXI. IN WHICH CONSTANCE AVAILS HERSELF OF WOMAN'S PRIVILEGE TO CHANGE HER MIND
Polly Parsons burst into the boudoir of Constance Joy, every feather on her lavender hat aquiver with indignation. "What do you think!" she demanded. "Johnny Gamble's lost his million dollars!"
Constance, nursing a pale-faced headache, had been reclining on the couch at the side of a bouquet of roses four feet across; but now she sat straight up and smiled, and the sparkle which had been absent for days came back into her eyes.
"No!" she exclaimed. "Really, has he?"
Polly regarded her in amazement. "You act as if you are glad of it," she said.
"I am," confessed Constance, and breaking off one of the big red roses she rose, surveyed herself in the glass, tried the effect of it against her dark hair and finally pinned it on her dressing-gown.
Polly plumped into a big rocking-chair to vent her indignation.
"I don't see anything to giggle at!" she declared. "Johnny Gamble's a friend of mine. I'm going home."
"Don't, Polly," laughed Constance. "Why, this is one of Johnny's roses;" and she gave it an extra touch—really a quite affectionate one.
"I'm all mussed up in my mind," complained Polly in a maze of perplexity. "Johnny Gamble made a million dollars so he could ask you to throw away your million and marry him, and you were so tickled with the idea that you kept score for him."
Constance smiled irritatingly.
"I kept score because it was fun. He never told me why he wanted the money."
"You may look like an innocent kid, but you knew that much," accused Polly.
Constance flushed, but she sat down by Poll
y to laugh.
"To tell you the truth, Polly, I did suspect it," she admitted.
"Yes, and you liked it," asserted Polly.
Constance flushed a little more deeply.
"It was flattering," she acknowledged. "but really, Polly, it brought me into a most humiliating position. At the Courtneys' house-party I overheard Mr. Courtney tell his wife that Mr. Gamble was making a million dollars in order to marry me; and Johnny was with me at the time!"
The hint of a twinkle appeared in Polly's indignant eyes as she began to comprehend the true state of affairs.
"Suppose he did?" she demanded. "Everybody knew it."
Constance immediately took possession of the indignation and made it her own.
"They had no business to know it!"
Polly smiled.
"Every place I went that day I heard the same thing," continued Constance much aggrieved—"Johnny Gamble's million, and me, and Gresham, and the million dollars I would have to forfeit if I didn't marry Paul. It was million, million, wherever I turned!"
"The million-dollar bride," laughed Polly.
"Don't!" cried Constance. "Please don't, Polly! You've done quite enough. Even you came to me out there that day to tell me that now Johnny had made his million and was coming to propose to me. Why, you knew it before I did."
"I'm sorry I found it out," apologized Polly. "I got it from Loring."
"Why didn't you say that it was Loring who told you?" demanded Constance, disposed now to be indignant at everything.
"I didn't know you were jealous," retorted Polly.
"Jealous!" exclaimed Constance. "Why, Johnny wasn't even civil to any other girl."
Polly smiled knowingly.
"Then why did you quarrel with him?"
"I didn't," denied Constance. "He came the minute you left and I'd have screamed if he had proposed then, so I went away. He dropped his straw hat, and it rolled after me and nearly touched me. He dropped it every time I saw him that day. Also he added the final indignity—I overheard him tell Mr. Courtney that he intended to marry me whether I liked it or not. Now, Polly, seriously, what would you have done if anything like that had happened to you?"
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