CHAPTER V
IN WHICH JOHNNY DISPLAYS TALENT AS A TRUE PROMOTER
"I don't know much about bookkeeping, but I guess this will do,"observed Johnny, passing over his first attempt for inspection.
Loring examined the little book with keen enjoyment. Johnny had openedan account with himself and had made five entries. On the debit sideappeared the following items:
April 22. To three working hours, $15,000 April 23. Sunday. April 24. To desk rent, ...$38 April 24. To seven working hours, $35,000
On the credit side was this:
April 22. By skinning Paul Gresham--good work, ..... $15,000
"How is it?" asked Gamble anxiously.
"Good work!" pronounced Loring with a chuckle. "They may not teach thissort of bookkeeping in commercial colleges. Their kind is stiff anddry. This has personality. Why am I two dollars shy on desk rent,though? I thought you were to take forty days to make your milliondollars?"
"That's right," admitted Johnny; "seven hours on week-days and three onSaturdays--two hundred hours at five thousand an hour. I started onSaturday, however. To-day is Monday. This morning is when I begin touse your desk-room. Here's your dollar a day until four P.M., Maythirty-first." And he handed Loring thirty-eight dollars.
"You're not really going to try that absurd stunt?" protested Loringincredulously.
"I have to. Miss Joy will think I'm a four-flusher if I don't."
"Miss Joy again!" laughed Loring. "You only met her Saturday, and Idon't think you've thought of another thing since."
"Gresham and her million," corrected Johnny, and he started for thedoor.
"Where are you going--if anybody should ask for you?" inquired Loring.
"Fourth National."
"To deposit Gresham's fifteen thousand?"
"No," laughed Gamble. "Polly took that away from me."
"That's a good safe place for it," returned Loring, relieved.
"Safe as the mint," corroborated Johnny, and hurried out.
As he went up the steps of the Fourth National Bank a pallid-facedyoung man, with eyebrows, eyelashes and hair so nearly the color of hisskin that they were invisible, watched him out of the window of a taxithat had been standing across the street ever since the bank hadopened. As soon as Johnny entered the door the young man gave adirection to the driver, and the taxi hurried away.
President Close was conservatively glad to see Johnny. He was acrisp-faced man, with an extremely tight-cropped gray mustache; and nota single crease in his countenance was flexible in the slightestdegree. He had an admiration amounting almost to affection forJohnny--provided the promising young man did not want money.
"Good morning," he greeted his caller. "What can we do for you to-day?"And in great haste he mentally reviewed the contents of credit envelopeG-237. That envelope, being devoted to Mr. Gamble, contained a veryclear record; so Mr. Close came as near to smiling as those cast-ironcreases would allow.
"Want to give the Fourth National as a reference," returned Johnnycheerfully.
"I see," assented Mr. Close, immediately ceasing to smile; for nowapproached the daily agony of life--the grudging of credit. "I see; Isee. Do you propose engaging in a new venture?"
"Just as often as I can find one," stated Johnny briskly.
Mr. Close looked at him with stern disapproval.
"That does not sound like a very stable frame of mind," he chided."What do you propose to do first?"
"A twenty-story hotel."
"That runs into millions!" gasped Close, and reached out to touch abutton upon his desk; but Johnny Gamble stayed that hand.
"You're after my balance," he said. "It's twelve dollars andthirty-seven cents."
"Well, you see, Mr. Gamble, under the circumstances--" hesitated Mr.Close.
"I know," interrupted the applicant; "you can only say I'm good fortwelve-thirty-seven. I don't ask you to back me. If anybody 'phonesyou, just say I'm a good boy."
Mr. Close almost smiled again.
"So far as the moral risk is concerned I shall have no hesitation inspeaking most highly of you," he granted.
"And don't laugh when you say it," Johnny admonished, smilingcheerfully, for he knew that Close always did better than he promised."Tell them this, can't you?--I've banked with you for five years. I'verun about a ton of money through your shop. I've been broke a dozentimes and I never left a debt behind me. I've been trusted and I alwaysmade good. I guess you could say all that if you stopped to take acouple of breaths, couldn't you?"
"I shall certainly say those things if I am asked about them," repliedMr. Close, considering them carefully, one by one. "Don't hesitate torefer to me. I'll do the best I conscientiously can for you."
Johnny stood waiting for the stream of the traffic to stop for thecross-current, so that he could go over to the subway, when a big bluetouring car stopped just in front of him, and the driver, a heartyyoung woman all in blue, including plumes and shoes, hailed himjoyously.
"Jump in, Johnny!" she invited. "I found a four-leaf clover thismorning--and here I'm lucky already. Sammy, run into the drug store forsome chocolates. Johnny, sit up here with me."
Sammy Chirp, who tied his own cravats and did them nicely, smiledfeebly in recognition of Johnny Gamble, lugged Miss Polly Parson'sbouquet, parasol, fan, hand-bag and coat back into the tonneau and wentupon his errand.
"Thanks, Sammy," said Johnny, and clambered into young Chirp's place inthe car. "Where are you going to take me?"
"Any place you say," rejoined Polly.
"Drive over on Seventh Avenue, then," he directed. "There's a lot ofshack property around the new terminal station. I want to build asmashing big hotel over there. I don't see why somebody hasn't done it."
Polly puzzled over that matter considerably herself.
"It doesn't seem possible that New York would overlook a bet likethat," she declared, and obeying the traffic policeman's haughtygesture, turned briskly off Broadway.
"Why not?" he demanded. "New York grabs a cinch. The cinch has beenkicking around loose for fifty years. New York pats herself on the pinkbald spot. 'Nothing gets by me!' she says."
"New York's the best town in the world!" Polly flared.
"I wasn't insulting your friend," apologized Johnny, and looked at hiswatch. "Great Scott! It's ten-thirty!" he exploded. "I owe myselfseventy-five hundred dollars. All I've done is to decide on a TerminalHotel Company. Want some stock, Polly?"
"I'll take all I can reach if you're leading it around," she assuredhim. "I can't take much, but I'll make Daddy Parsons go in, and I'll bea nuisance to every moneyed man I know."
"By the by, where's the fifteen thousand I made Saturday?" Johnny asked.
"In my bank," she replied. "I just deposited it."
"Why did you take it away from me--if it's any of my business?" hewanted to know.
"I was afraid they'd snatch it from you," she returned. "Gresham wasall peeved up because you took fifteen thousand away from him in frontof Constance. Loring saw Gresham and your old partner talking togetherimmediately afterward; and he told me that they might frame up somecrooked scheme to grab the money. I didn't have a chance to explain, soI asked you to indorse the check to me."
"Do you think Collaton's crooked?" Johnny asked with a queer smile.
"I can think he's crooked without batting an eyelash. I can think itabout Gresham too."
"Why do you have that idea about Gresham?"
"Because I don't like him," she triumphantly argued.
"Shake!" invited Johnny. "I know six reasons why I can do without him.What are your six?"
"One is because I don't like him, and another is because he's going tomarry Constance, and the other four are because I don't like him," shecalmly summed up.
"Does Constance say he's going to marry her?" he inquired crisply.
"Not in so many words."
"Then I don't believe it. I wouldn't marry him for six millions."
"Constance can't be so careless. If t
hey break you they can't sprintfast enough to keep it; but if they take it away from Constance she'sbroke."
"It's ten-forty!" groaned Johnny. "I'm slow on that million.Constance'll think I'm loafing."
"Is she interested?"
"She promised last night to keep score. Gresham was there. I looked,any minute, to see him bite himself in the neck and die of poison.Polly, he can't have her."
"You'd better tell Constance about that," laughed Polly. "Why, Johnny,you had never seen her or heard of her forty-eight hours ago!"
"I know; I didn't have the right chances when I was young!"
Polly gazed upon him admiringly.
"I've seen swift love affairs before, but you've set a new record!" sheexclaimed. "Well, I'm for you, Johnny. Since poor Billy's parentsadopted me and made me a cousin of Constance, I can trot up her stonesteps any minute; and she treats me as if I'd had my first bottle in apink-silk boudoir. I'll make it my business to run up there twice a dayand boost for you."
"Don't be too strong!" Johnny hastily warned her. "Boost half of thetime if you want to, but be sure and knock the other half."
"I guess it would be better," soberly agreed Polly--"even withConstance. Here's your terminal station. Pick out your corner and drivea claim stake."
Polly obligingly drove slowly around three sides of the huge newterminal. Directly opposite the main entrance was a vacant plot ofground, with a frontage of an entire block and a depth of four hundredfeet. Big white signs upon each corner told that it was for sale byMallard & Tyne. They stopped in front of this location, while bothJohnny and Polly ranged their eyes upward, by successive steps, to theroof garden which surmounted the twentieth story of Johnny's imaginaryTerminal Hotel.
"It's a nifty-looking building, Johnny!" she complimented him as theyturned to each other with sheepish smiles.
"I'm going to tear it down and put up a better one," he briskly toldher. "I'll hand you a piece of private information. If the big railroadcompany which built this terminal station doesn't own that blank spaceit's a fool--and I don't think it is. If it does the property will beheld for ever for the increase in value. Let's look at these otherblocks. The buildings on the one next to it are worth about a pluggednickel apiece--and that would make exactly as good a location."
"But, Johnny; you couldn't build a hotel in forty days!"
"Build it! I don't want to. I only want to promote it."
"Does a promoter never build?" asked Polly.
"Not if he can escape," replied Johnny. "All a promoter ever wants todo is to collect the first ninety-nine years' profits and promotesomething else. Drive me up to the address on that real estate sign andI'll pay you whatever the clock says and let you go."
"The clock says a one-pound box of chocolates," she promptly estimated."Wait, though. I did send for some!" And she looked back into thetonneau. "Why, drat it all! I mislaid Sammy!" she gasped.
Five Thousand an Hour: How Johnny Gamble Won the Heiress Page 5