Johnny grinned and went out, having first made a swift but careful estimate of Ersten's room, accommodations and requirements. Outside, he studied the surrounding property, then called on a real estate firm.

At four-ten he went into the dim little bas.e.m.e.nt wine-room of Schoppenvoll. He had timed this to a nicety, hoping to arrive just after the greetings were over and before the game had begun, and he accomplished that purpose; for, with the well-thumbed cards lying between them and three half-emptied steins of beer on the table, Ersten was opposite a pink-faced man with curly gray hair, whose clothes sat upon his slightly portly person with fashion-plate precision. It was this very same suit about which Ersten was talking when Johnny entered.

"Na, Kurzerhosen," he said with a trace of pathos in his guttural voice, "when you die we have no more suits of clothes like that."

"I thank you," returned the flexible soft voice of Kurzerhosen. "It is like the work you make in your ladies' garments, Ersten. When you die we shall have no more good walking clothes for our womenfolks."

"And when Schoppenvoll dies we have no more good wine," declared Ersten with conviction and a wave of his hand as Schoppenvoll approached them with an inordinately long-necked bottle, balancing it carefully on its side.

Johnny had drawn near the table now, but no one saw him, for this moment was one of deep gravity. Schoppenvoll, a tall, straight-backed man with the dignity of a major, a waving gray pompadour, and a clean-cut face that might have belonged to a Beethoven, set down the tray at the very edge of the table and slid it gently into place. An overgrown fat boy, with his sleeves rolled to his shoulders, brought three shining gla.s.ses, three bottles of Glanzen Wa.s.ser and a corkscrew.

It was at this most inopportune time that Johnny Gamble spoke.

"Well, Mr. Ersten," he cheerfully observed, "I've come round to make you an offer for that lease."

Mr. Ersten, his gnarled eyebrows bent upon the sacred ceremony about to be performed, looked up with a grunt--and immediately returned to his business. Mr. Kurzerhosen glanced round for an instant in frowning appeal. Mr. Schoppenvoll paid no attention whatever to the interruption. He gave an exhibition of cork-pulling which a watchmaker might have envied for its delicacy; he poured the tall gla.s.ses half-full of the clear amber fluid and opened the bottles of Glanzen Wa.s.ser. The three friends, Schoppenvoll now sitting, clinked their steins solemnly and emptied them. Ersten wiped the foam from his bristling gray mustache.

"About that lease I have nothing to say," he told Johnny, fixing a stern eye upon him. "I will not sell it."

The other gentlemen of the party looked upon the stranger as an unforgivable interloper.

"I'm prepared to make you a very good offer for it," insisted Johnny.

"I have a better location for you, not half a block away, and I've taken an option on a long-time lease for it."

The stolid boy removed the steins. The three gentlemen poured the Glanzen Wa.s.ser into their wine.

"I will not sell the lease," announced Ersten with such calm finality that Johnny apologized for the intrusion and withdrew. As he went out, Ersten and Kurzerhosen and Schoppenvoll, in blissful forgetfulness of him, raised their gla.s.ses for the first delicious sip of the Rheinthranen, of which there were only two hundred and eighty precious bottles left in the world.

Outside, Johnny hailed a pa.s.sing taxi. He called on Morton Washer, on Ben Courtney, on Colonel Bouncer, and even on Candy-King Slosher; but to no purpose. Finally he descended upon iron-hard Joe Close.

"Do you know anybody who knows Louis Ersten, the ladies' tailor?" he asked almost automatically.

"Ersten?" replied Close unexpectedly. "I've quarreled with him for thirty years. He banks with me."

"Start a quarrel for me," requested Johnny. "I've been down to look him over. I can do business with him if he'll listen."

Close smiled.

"I doubt it," he rejoined. "Ersten has just lost the coat cutter who helped him build up his business, and he's soured on everything in the world but Schoppenvoll's and skat and Rheinthranen."

"Could I learn to play skat in about a day?" inquired Johnny.

"You have no German ancestors, have you?" retorted Close.

"No."

"Then you couldn't learn it in a thousand years!"

"I have to find his weak spot," Johnny persisted. "If you'll just make him talk with me I'll do the rest."

Close shook his head and sighed.

"I'll try," he agreed, "but I feel about as hopeful as I would be of persuading a bull to sleep in a red blanket."

Johnny had caught Close as he was leaving his club for home, and they went round immediately to Schoppenvoll's. At exactly five-thirty Ersten emerged from the wine-room with Kurzerhosen.

"h.e.l.lo, Louis!" hailed the waiting Close. "Jump into the taxi here, and I'll take you down to your train."

Ersten and Kurzerhosen looked at each other.

"Always we walk," declared Ersten.

"There's room for both of you," laughed Close, shaking hands with Kurzerhosen.

Ersten sighed.

"Always we walk," he grumbled, but he climbed in.

When they were started for the terminal Ersten leaned forward, with his bushy brows lowering, and glared Close sternly in the eye.

"I will not sell the lease!" he avowed before a word had been spoken.

"We know that," admitted Close; "but why?"

Ersten hesitated a moment.

"Oh, well; I tell you," he consented with an almost malignant glance in the direction of Johnny. "All my customers know me in that place."

"Your customers would find you anywhere," Close complimented him.

"Maybe they do," admitted Ersten. "My cousin, Otto Gruber, had a fine saloon business. He moved across the street--and broke up."

"It was not the same," Close a.s.sured him. "In saloons, men want to feel at home. In your business, your customers come because they get the best--and they care nothing for the shop itself."

"They like the place," a.s.serted Ersten. "I've made a good living there for almost forty years. Why should I move?"

"Because you would be nearer Fifth Avenue," Johnny ventured to interject, and spoke to the chauffeur, who drew up to the curb. "This is the place I have in mind, Mr. Ersten."

"They come to me where I am," insisted Ersten, refusing to look, with unglazed eyes.

"You have no such show-windows," persisted Johnny.

"My customers know my goods inside."

"There's a big light gallery--twice the size of your present workrooms."

Ersten's cheeks suddenly puffed and his forehead purpled, while every hair on his head and face stuck straight out.