Part 22 (1/2)

Polly cast a sidelong glance at the pretty cousin into whose family she had been adopted. The subject of Gresham was a painful one; and Johnny felt his blundering bluntness keenly.

”There isn't any Gresham,” laughingly a.s.serted Polly. ”There never was any Gresham. Let's go to Coney Island to-night.”

Both Constance and Johnny gave Polly a silent but sincere vote of thanks.

Willis Lofty, who continued the progressive fortune of his father by prowling about the vast establishment with a microscopic eye, approached Polly with more than a shopkeeper's alacrity.

”You promised to send for me to be your clerk the next time you came in,” he chided her.

”I didn't come in this time,” she gaily returned. ”Mr. Gamble is the customer,” and she introduced Constance and the two gentlemen. ”Mr.

Gamble wants to buy a silk shawl for a blue-eyed mother with gray wavy hair and baby-pink cheeks.”

”There are a lot of pretty shawls here,” Constance added, ”but none of them seems quite good enough for this kind of a mother.”

Young Lofty, himself looking more like a brisk and natty college youth who had come in to buy a gift for his own mother than the successful business man he was, glanced at the embarra.s.sed Johnny with thorough understanding.

”I think I know what you want,” he said pleasantly; and, calling a boy, he gave him some brief instructions. ”We have some very beautiful samples of French embroidered silks, just in yesterday, and if I can get them away from our buyer you may have your choice. There's a delicate gray, worked in pink, which would be very becoming to a mother of that description. They're quite expensive, but, I believe, are worth the money.”

”That's what I want,” stated Johnny. ”I understand you're going to build an extension, Mr. Lofty.”

The girls gasped and then almost t.i.ttered.

Young Lofty ceased immediately to be the suave master of friendly favors and became the hara.s.sed slave of finance.

”I don't know where you secured your information,” he protested.

”I'm a fancy guesser,” returned Johnny with a grin.

”I wish you were right,” said Lofty soberly. ”We have quietly gained possession of nearly all the property in the block, but we're not quite ready to build, nevertheless.”

”I can finish the sad story,” sympathized Johnny. ”One granite-headed ladies' tailor threatens to block the way for thirteen years.”

Lofty was surprised by the accuracy of his knowledge. ”I'd like to borrow your guesser,” he admitted.

Johnny and the girls looked at each other with smiles of infantile glee. They were delighted that they had deduced all this while waiting for a traffic Napoleon to blow his whistle.

”Somebody's been telling,” surmised Lofty. ”The worst of it is, we own the original lease. Father covered the entire block, in fact.”

Johnny's thorough knowledge of New York business conditions enabled him to make another good conjecture.

”Your firm has made money too fast,” he remarked. ”Your father hoped to build in twenty years, and you need to build in seven.”

”He provided much better than that,” returned Lofty in quick defense of his father's ac.u.men. ”He only allowed ten-year leases; but the one occupied by Ersten came to him with a twenty-year life on it. We've bought off all the other tenants, at startlingly extravagant figures in some cases; but Ersten won't listen.”

”Did you rattle your keys?” inquired Johnny, much interested.

”As loudly as possible,” returned Lofty, smiling. ”I went up three steps at a time until I had offered him a hundred thousand; then I quit. Money wouldn't buy him.”

”Then you can't build,” innocently remarked Constance.