Collaton, though? How did he get into the deal? Suddenly Johnny remembered Val Russel's joking at the committee meeting. Gresham again!

"Loring, I don't think I can wait till June first to get after the scalps of Gresham and Collaton," he declared as he prepared to go out.

"I want to soak them now."

James Jameson-Guff, so christened by his wife, but more familiarly known among his a.s.sociates as Jim Guff, received Johnny with a frown when he understood his errand.

"You're too late," he told Johnny. "We've turned the option over to our wives to do with as they pleased. We're to have a swell yacht club out there now. I think that's a graft, too!"

"If you get stung again, Mr. Guff, let me know," offered Johnny, "and I'll have you a bona fide apartment-house proposition in short order."

"Nyagh!" observed Mr. Guff.

Johnny dutifully reported to his score keeper the result of his errand and, that evening, to explain it more fully he went out to her house; but he found Gresham there and n.o.body had a very good time.

On the following morning he saw in the papers that the Royal Yacht Club, a new organization, the moving spirit of which was one Michael T.

O'Shaunessy, was to have magnificent headquarters on Riverside Drive--and he immediately went to see Mr. Guff. Mike O'Shaunessy was a notorious proprietor of road houses and "clubs" of shady reputation, and there was no question as to what sort of place the Royal Yacht Club would be.

Mr. Guff was furious about it.

"I knew it," he said. "The women have just telephoned me an authorization to send for this Jacobs blackguard and buy back the option."

"Jacobs?" inquired Johnny, "Not Abraham Jacobs?"

"That's the one," corroborated Guff. "Why, do you know him?"

"He is a professional stinger," Johnny admitted. "He stung me, and Collaton helped."

"I've no doubt of it," responded Guff. "It was a put-up job in the first place. By the way, Gamble, you used to be in partnership with Collaton yourself."

"That's true enough," admitted Johnny. "Possibly I'd better give you some references."

"Give them to the women," retorted Guff.

An hour later Johnny telephoned Guff.

"Did you repurchase the option from Jacobs?" he inquired.

"Yes!" snapped Guff, and hung up.

The facts that the De Luxe Apartments Company was hot after the property and that he himself was now four hours behind his schedule, with nothing in sight, drove Johnny on, in spite of his dismal forebodings.

Mrs. Guff he found to be a hugely globular lady, with a globular nose, the lines on either side of which gave her perpetually an expression of having just taken quinine. In view of her recent experiences she was inclined to call the police the moment Johnny stated his errand, but he promptly referred her to some gentlemen of unimpeachable commercial standing; namely, Close, Courtney, Bouncer and Morton Washer. She coolly telephoned them in his presence and was satisfied.

"You must understand, however," she said to him severely, "the only way in which we will release this option is that nothing but a first-cla.s.s apartment-house, of not less than ten stories in height and with no suites of less than three thousand a year rental, shall be erected."

"I'll sign an agreement to that effect," he promptly promised.

"And how much do you offer us for the property?"

"Two hundred thousand," he returned, making a conservative guess at the amount they must have paid for the two options.

A deepening of the quinine expression told him that he had undershot the mark.

"Two hundred and ten thousand," he quickly amended.

A chocolate-cream expression struggled feebly with the quinine; and Johnny, who could translate the lines of the human countenance into dollars and cents with great accuracy, knew instantly that their two options had cost them thirty thousand dollars, and that he was offering the four ladies a profit of one thousand two hundred and fifty dollars'

worth of gowns or diamonds each.

"That will be the most I can give," he still further amended. "I am prepared to write you a check at any moment."

"I think I can call a meeting at once," she informed him, and did so by telephone.

Mrs. Sheats, who came over presently, was an angular woman who kept the expression of her mouth persistently sweet, no matter what her state of mind might be; and she was very glad indeed that, so long as Miss Purry insisted on permitting a building of any sort to be erected opposite the Slosher residence, they were protecting that estimable lady in her absence by insuring a structure of dignity and cla.s.s.

Mrs. Kettle, who was a placid lady of mature flesh and many teeth, and who carried ounces upon ounces of diamonds without visible effort, bewailed the innovation that Miss Purry was forcing on them, but felt a righteous glow that, under the circ.u.mstances, they were doing so n.o.bly on behalf of Mrs. Slosher.

Mrs. Mason, who was a little, dry, jerky woman whose skin creaked when she rubbed it, whose voice scratched and whose whole personality suggested the rasp of saw-filing, was in her own confession actuated by less affectionate motives.

"I'm glad of it!" she snapped. "Mrs. Slosher is always talking about their superb river view and the general superiority of the Slosher location, the Slosher residence, the Slosher everything! I'm glad of it!"

The other ladies felt that Mrs. Mason was very catty.

At four o'clock that afternoon Johnny entered in his book:

"May third. To seven hours--nine hours behind schedule--$35,000. To Purry speculation, $210,000."

To offset this was:

"May third. To a chance, $0."

CHAPTER XI

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 succ.u.mbed 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."