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 succumbed 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."
"Too much. I understand it's restricted to apartment-house purposes alone?"
"Yes."
"Not less than ten stories, and a minimum rental of three thousand dollars a suite?"
"Yes."
"You can't sell it for that price with those restrictions."
"We can build on it," replied Johnny calmly.
"You won't," asserted Mr. Chase with equal conviction. "You bought it to sell. I'll give you two hundred and fifty thousand."
"No," refused Johnny quite bravely, though with a panicky feeling as he thought of that appallingly swift schedule.
"All right," said Chase. "I'll hold the offer open at that figure for forty-eight hours. I think you'll come to it."
"I doubt it," responded Johnny, smiling; but he was afraid he would.
In less than an hour he received an unexpected call from Mrs. Guff, who was in such secret agitation that she quivered like jelly whenever she breathed.
"Mr. Guff and myself have decided to take Miss Purry's river-view property off your hands, Mr. Gamble," was the glad tidings she conveyed to him, smiling to share his delight. "We can't think of letting that river view slip by us."
"I'm glad to hear it," he announced with gratification, as he thought of Mr. Chase. "Have you secured the consent of your partners in the option to waive the apartment-house requirements?"
"Oh, no!" she ejaculated, shocked that any one should think that possible. "We have decided to build the apartment-house and to live there."
"To live there!" he repeated, remembering the elaborate Guff residence.
"Yes, indeed!" she enthusiastically exclaimed. "You know the property slopes down to the river beautifully, and exquisite, private, terraced gardens could be built there. We could take the entire lower floor of the apartment building for ourselves, with a private driveway arched right through it; and we could take the first three floors of the rear part for our own use, with wonderful Venetian balconies overlooking the terraces and the river. The remaining apartments would have entrances on the two front corners, leaving us all the effect of a Venetian palace. Don't you think that's clever?"
"It is clever!" he repeated with smiling emphasis, and mentally raising Chase's ultimatum ten per cent.
"I suppose you'll want to charge us more for the property than you paid for it," she suggested with a faint hope that maybe he might not, since he had bought it so recently—and through them.
"That's what I'm in business for," he blandly acknowledged. "I can let you have the property for two hundred and seventy-five thousand dollars."
"How much did you say?" she gasped.
"Two hundred and seventy-five thousand."
"Why, it's an outrage!" she puffed. "You paid only two hundred and ten thousand for it yesterday."
"I'm not telling you its cost to me yesterday, but its value to-day," he reminded her.
Mrs. Guff had helped her husband to his business success in the early days—and she had driven bargains with supply men which had made them glad when she was ill.
"You may keep the property," she wheezed. "Nobody will pay that price—not even William Slosher; and he'll buy anything if his wife pouts for it in the ridiculous French clothes she's brought back with her."
"So the Sloshers are back?" he guessed, with an understanding, at last, of her agitation.
"They came last night," she admitted, inflating with a multitude of feelings. "The most ungrateful people in the world! So far from being thankful for the time and pains and money we spent to protect them, they're viciously angry and are making threats—positive threats—that they will disgrace the entire neighborhood!"
"Do you refuse this property at two hundred and seventy-five thousand?" Mr. Gamble interestedly wanted to know.
"Certainly I do!" she emphatically declared, positive that no human being would pay that absurd increase in valuation.
"Then the price is withdrawn," he told her; and she left him, puzzling mightily over that last remark.
Johnny Gamble was a man of steady nerves, yet even he fidgeted until three o'clock for fear Mr. Slosher would not call him up. At that hour, however, Mr. Slosher called in person, accompanied by his wife. There is no need to describe Mr. Slosher, who was merely an elderly gentleman of much vigor and directness; and it is impossible to describe Mrs. Slosher, who was never twice alike, anyhow, being merely the spirit of a beautiful ever changing youth in a body of beautiful ever changing habiliments.
"What do you want for the river-view property you have just purchased?" Mr. Slosher demanded.
"I don't know," confessed Johnny, laughing. "The valuation is going up so rapidly that I can't keep track of it myself. Mrs. Guff was just in, asking the price."
Mrs. Slosher tapped the toe of a beautiful satin carriage slipper impatiently upon the floor, and a very bright red spot glowed on each cheek; but she did not say a word. She only looked at her husband. Mr. Gamble had a queer idea that her mere gaze could, on an occasion like this, burn holes through a cake of ice. Certain it is that Mr. Slosher turned quickly to her—and then, as if he had been galvanized, turned back to Johnny.
"I'll give you until to-morrow night to secure your highest offer and then I'll add five per cent, to it," he stated.
"You understand the restrictions, I suppose?" ventured Johnny.
"Perfectly. My kind neighbors have handed me a ten-story apartment-house, with a minimum rental per suite of three thousand dollars a year. I'm going to build their neighborhood ornament and fill it with high-toned niggers!"
Mrs. Slosher smiled. She was a beautiful young woman. To youth belongs much.
Johnny Gamble, caught amidships, as it were, snorted.
"Well, I don't live out there," he said.
Mr. Slosher smiled.
"That is all, I believe," he announced as he assisted Mrs. Slosher to her feet with that punctilious gallantry which defies a younger man to do it better.
At four o'clock Jim Guff called Mr. Gamble on the telephone.
"Hello, Gamble!" he hailed in an entirely new voice. "You're a robber!"
"You flatter me," returned Johnny quite comfortably. "Is there anything I can do for you in that line?"
"A whole lot," replied Guff. "I'll accept the price you gave Mrs. Guff on that river-view site."
"Too late," answered Johnny cheerfully. "I withdrew that offer before Mrs. Guff left the office. Mr. and Mrs. Slosher have been in since then."
Jim Guff's voice cracked as he hastily said:
"I'll meet any offer he makes you and tack a five-thousand-dollar bonus to it."
Johnny called up the De Luxe Apartments. Company and secured the ear of Mr. Chase.
"I withdraw my offer of two hundred and seventy-five thousand for that river-view property," he stated. "What is the best bid you will make me above that figure?"
"I'm not inclined to scramble for it," immediately claimed Mr. Chase, who was aware at the time that he was telling a point-blank lie.
"Very well, then," said Johnny, wondering how he was to get a definite figure without committing himself. "I'll have to drop you out of my calculations."
"When must you know?"
"To-morrow morning."
"You're bluffing!" charged Mr. Chase scornfully.
"I have two very earnest bidders for the property," insisted Johnny with dignity—and completed his bluff, if Chase cared to regard it that way, by hanging up his receiver.
Before he left the office he entered in his books:
"May 4. Sold; but I don't know who to or at what price. Close to schedule, though."
He entered the next day in advance:
"May 5. The Babies' Fund Fair—Holiday. Nothing doing."
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