CHAPTER XIX
IN WHICH THE COLONEL, MESSRS. COURTNEY, WASHER AND OTHERS SIT IN ALITTLE GAME
Morton Washer, having acquired a substantial jack-pot with the aid offour hearts and little casino, boastfully displayed the winning hand.
"Sometime, when you fellows grow up," he kindly offered, "I'll sit downto a real game of poker with you."
Courtney, keeping the bank, dived ruefully into the box for his fourthstack of chips.
"There's one thing I must say about Mort," he dryly observed: "he'scheerful when he wins."
"He can brag harder and louder than any man I ever heard," admittediron-faced Joe Close.
Colonel Bouncer, puffing out his red cheeks and snarling affectionatelyat his friend Washer, corroborated that statement emphatically.
"He's bragged ever since he was a boy," he stated.
"I always had something to brag about, didn't I?" demanded Washer, hisintemperate little pompadour bristling, and his waxed mustache aswaspish as if he were really provoked.
"I don't know," objected the solemn-faced Courtney. "I stung you forhalf a million on that hotel transaction. Give me an ace, Joe."
"Never!" snapped Morton Washer, picking up his cards as they fell. "Itwas Johnny Gamble did that. I open this pot right under the guns forthe size of it and an extra sky-blue for luck. None of you old spavinswas ever able to get me single-handed. A young fellow like JohnnyGamble--that's different. It's his turn. You fellows are all afraid ofmy threes."
"The others might be, so I'll just help them stay out," stated Courtneykindly as he doubled Washer's bet. "By the way, speaking of JohnnyGamble, he was very anxious to get you fellows out here to-day. Now Iwant to give you some solemn advice, Colonel; you'd better keep awayfrom this pot."
"Bless my soul, I have a rotten hand!" confessed Colonel Bouncer,puffing his cheeks. "But you old bluffers can't drive me out of anyplace; so I'll trail." And he measured up to Courtney's stack. "What'sGamble's scheme, Ben?"
"I'll have to let Johnny tell you that himself," responded Courtney asJohnny entered. "Coming into this scramble, Joe?"
"I'm a cautious man," hesitated Close, inspecting the faces of hiscompanions with calm interest. "I don't think you or Mort have secondcousins among your pasteboards, but the colonel is concealing hisfeelings too carefully." And he threw down his cards.
"You're most unprofessional to say so," growled the colonel. "I supposeyou won't see that raise, Mort?"
"I'm not much interested," returned Washer indifferently, "so I'll justtilt it another stack." And he did so with beautiful carelessness. "Ongeneral principles I'm very favorable to any enterprise Johnny Gambleoffers. Isn't that so, Johnny?"
"I hope so," replied Johnny with a laugh as he approached the tableand, with perfectly blank eyes, looked down at the hand which Washerconspicuously held up to him.
Courtney cast only a fleeting glance at Johnny, whose face it would beimpolite to read--also impossible--and concentrated his attention uponhis old friend, Washer.
"You infernal scoundrel, I believe you have them," he decided as Washerfolded his cards into the palm of his hand again.
Courtney turned for a careful inspection of the colonel. Thatgentleman, daintily picking a fleck of dust from his cuff, lookedunconcernedly off into the sky, whistling softly, and Courtney, pushinghis hand into the discard, lighted a cigar, while the colonel metWasher's raise and added a tantalizing white chip.
It was now Washer's turn for consideration, and he studied his onlyremaining opponent with much interest.
"Give me one card, Joe; mostly kings," he requested as he pushed in hisone white chip. "What's your scheme, Johnny?" And he looked up, quiteindifferent to the card he was tossing away. He picked up the one Closecarefully dealt him and, without looking at it, slid it in among theother four.
"I'm ready to close with you for that Bronx subdivision," respondedJohnny, acutely watching Colonel Bouncer as that gentleman asked forone card, received it and studied its countenance with politeadmiration. "It's the proposition I've previously explained to all ofyou, but had to lay aside because I couldn't nail down the property."
"I suppose you have it now," observed Morton, pushing forward withgentle little shoves of his middle finger a very tall stack of chipsarranged in three distinct and equal red, white and blue layers. He hadnot yet looked at his fifth card, and at Colonel Bouncer he directedbut a brief and passing glance. Did he care what the colonel held?
"I have the Wobbles estate in my pocket," replied Johnny, stillwatching the colonel absorbedly. "I must get you together Monday ifpossible."
"Wobbles!" exploded Courtney. "Did you buy that Bronx property at myparty from my guests to sell to us?"
"I did," confessed Johnny with a grin. "This is a lovely party."
The poker game suspended itself for a minute, while all four of thegentlemen looked at him in contemplative admiration.
"He's a credit to the place," observed Joe Close. "Here's where theTexas land grab was arranged, and the wool trust formed, and the jokerinserted into the rebate bill."
"Nevertheless, if Johnny Gamble sits in this game I'll cash in my chipsand quit," declared Morton Washer.
"He's good enough company for me," blustered Colonel Bouncer,scrutinizing his cards one by one.
"I suppose so," agreed Washer with a smile at Johnny, "but he's so fullof young tricks and we're outclassed. What's that property going tocost us?"
"Three and a half million," stated Johnny quietly.
Colonel Bouncer, having now made up his mind, deliberately and withnice care measured up blue chips and red chips and white chips matchingWasher's, and added to them all the blue ones he had in his possession.
"Taking any stock yourself, Johnny?" he softly asked.
"Can't afford it," confessed Johnny with a smile.
"The property's quite worth three and a half million," announcedCourtney decisively, watching the face of Morton Washer as that calmplayer stared at the colonel's chips. "I'm willing to take a million ofthe stock."
"I'll take a million; more if need be," offered Washer. "I've beenwanting in on that for some time. Colonel, what have you got?"
"Five cards," replied the colonel.
"You have threes," charged Washer.
"I'm conducting my business through an agent," laughed Bouncer. "Thereit is," and he indicated the stack of blue chips.
"You have threes," insisted Washer. "The reason I'm so particular isthat I have threes myself, and I want to know which are the better."
"There is one clever way to find out," bantered the colonelconfidently. "You have a lot of chips. Why are you so stingy with them?"
"That's the way I got them," countered Washer. "I'll donate though.I'll do better than that: I'll tap you."
The colonel promptly counted his remaining red and white chips. Washeras promptly measured up to them and to the blues.
"Told you the truth!" he exulted. "I said I had threes, and here theyare! Three tens and a king and another ten!" And he gleefully spreaddown his cards. "I caught the pink one."
"Had mine all the time!" triumphed Colonel Bouncer, throwing down hishand and putting both big arms round the pot. "Four elevens!" Andchuckling near to the apoplexy line he scraped the chips home, whileWasher inspected his excellent collection of jacks. "Now brag, you oldbluffer!" And, still chuckling, he began sorting the chips intopatriotic piles.
"Enjoy yourselves," granted Washer, concealing his intense chagrin withas nonchalant an air as possible. "I give you my word those chips areonly loaned. Go on and laugh! You fellows make a lot of fuss over acheap little jack-pot. Johnny, must you see us Monday?"
"Can't delay it," replied Johnny, checking his own laughter for thepurpose. "I've paid five hundred thousand of the purchase price.Another million must be paid in one week and the balance in two weeks."
"That's pretty rapid work," remarked Close, with a frown, beginningswiftly to figure interest.
"The Wobbleses are in a hurry to sail
. I've looked into the title. It'sclear as a whistle. Can't we arrange a meeting at my office?"
They settled on a meeting at three-forty-five on Monday while MortonWasher dealt.
"Bless my heart, Mort Washer, that's the fourth time you've turned myfirst card and it's always a deuce!" complained the colonel. "If you doit again I shall be compelled to give you an old-time, school-daylicking."
"You can't do it and you never saw the day you could," bristled Washer,brandishing a bony little fist before the colonel's big face.
"There's one more question I'd like to ask," Johnny interposed on thisviolent quarrel. "Will it be necessary for me to offer any stockoutside this group?"
"I can't swing but a quarter of a million to save me; possibly only twohundred thousand," regretted Bouncer.
"If you'd like to carry a little more I'll let you have the money,Colonel," offered his bitter enemy of the bony fist.
"Thanks, Mort," returned the colonel gratefully. "However, it is notnecessary to display the fact to the entire gathering that I now have apair of those deuces."
Washer quickly reached over, snatched the colonel's cards, replacedthem with his own and went on dealing.
"I think we can handle it all among us, Johnny," figured Courtney.
Shortly afterward, Loring, in high glee, separated Polly from ahilarious game of drop-the-handkerchief.
"Well, Polly, it's all over!" he exulted. "Johnny has been in to seehis financial backers. He has bought the Wobbles property and he hasmade his million dollars."
"If Mr. Courtney hasn't any fireworks he must telephone for some rightaway," declared Polly in delight, and suddenly her eyes moistened. "I'mas dippy about Johnny as his own mother!" she added.
"And in just the same way," returned Loring, secretly glad to recognizethat fact. "When you can spare a little time for it, Polly, you mightbecome dippy about me."
"I am," she acknowledged, putting her hand upon his arm affectionately.
"But you don't want to marry me," protested Loring, a trace of paincontracting his brows. "I need you, Polly!"
"Please don't, Ashley," she begged. "It's a for-sure fact that I'mnever going to forget poor Billy. Don't let that stop us being pals,though, please!"
"Certainly not," agreed Loring, with as much cheerfulness as she couldhave wished, and burying deeply for the last time the hope that he hadcherished.
"Look here, Loring," charged Val Russel, striding over with Mrs.Follison; "you'll kindly come into this game or give us back our Polly."
"You'll have to do without your Polly for a minute, children," insistedthat young woman. "She is to be the bearer of glad tidings," and givingher eyes another dab she hurried away to the house.
She found Constance alone in the library, instructing herself with anarticle on mushroom culture.
"I can read your palm without looking at it, pretty lady," bubbledPolly. "A large blond gentleman with handsome blue eyes and a milliondollars in his pocket is about to offer you a proposal of marriage."
Constance, suppressing a rising resentment, turned the leaf of hermushroom article. The next page began a startling political series,which demanded of the public in violent headlines: "Who Spends YourMoney?" but Constance perused it carefully without noticing thedifference.
"I've had my palm read before," she presently observed.
"You don't seem to be alive to the shock I'm giving you," protestedPolly. "Really, girlie, I have some big news for you. Johnny Gamble hasfinished the making of his million!"
"I wish that word million had never been invented!" suddenly flaredConstance. "I'm tired of hearing it. The very thought of it makes meill." How did Polly come to know it first?
"I wouldn't care what they'd call it if it would only buy as much,"returned Polly, still good-naturedly. "And when a regular man likeJohnny Gamble hustles out and gets one, just so he can ask to marryyou, you ought to give a perfectly vulgar exhibition of joy!"
"You have put it very nicely," responded Constance. "If it would onlybuy as much! Do you know that my name is seldom mentioned except inconnection with a million dollars? I must either marry one man or losea million, or marry another who has made a million for that purpose."
"You ought to be ashamed of yourself!" charged Polly. She glared atConstance a moment, bursting with more indignant things to say; butthere were so many of them that they choked her in their attemptedegress, and she swished angrily back to the lawn party, exploding mostof the way.
At just this inopportune moment Johnny Gamble found his way into thepeaceful library.
"Well, it's across!" he joyously confided, forgetting in his happinessthe rebuffs of the day. "I have that million!" and he approached herwith such an evident determination of making an exuberant proposal thenand there that Constance could have shrieked. "I congratulate you," sheinformed him as she hastily rose. "You deserve it, I am sure. Kindlyexcuse me, won't you?" and she sailed out of the room.
Johnny, feeling all awkward joints like a calf, dropped his sailorstraw hat, and Constance heard it rolling after her. With an effort shekept herself from running, knowing full well that if that hat touchedher skirt she would drop!
Johnny looked at the hat in dumb reproach, but when he left the room hewalked widely round it. He dared not touch it.
"Ow, I say, Mr. Gamble," drawled Eugene, passing him in the doorway,"we've picked out the puppy."
While Johnny was still smarting from the burden of that information andwondering what spot of the globe would be most endurable at the presentmoment, Courtney came through the hall on some hostly errand.
"Say, Johnny," he blundered in an excess of well-meaning, "why don'tyou rest from business for a minute? Why aren't you out among some ofthese shady paths with Constance Joy? You've cinched your million, nowgo get the girl."
This was too much for the tortured Johnny, and the smoldering agonywithin him burst into flame.
"Look here, Courtney!" he declared with a vehemence which really seemedquite unnecessary, "I'm going to marry Constance Joy whether she likesit or not!"
A flash of white at the head of the stairs caught Johnny's eye. It wasConstance! There was no hope that she had not heard!
"What's the matter?" asked Courtney, startled by the remarkable changein his countenance.
"I've got the stomach ache!" groaned Johnny with clumsy evasion, thoughpossibly he was truthful after all.
"You must have some whisky," insisted Courtney, instantly concerned.
A servant came out of the library.
"I beg your pardon, sir," he remarked, "but I believe this must be yourhat, Mr. Gamble."
Johnny broke one of his most rigid rules. He said: "Damn!"