together and bought the option to prevent a building of this character from being erected. I'm so glad you didn't know about it!" 

 Her enthusiasm was contagious. Johnny himself was glad. It seemed like a terrific waste of time to have to wait a month before he could tell her what he thought of her; but he had to have that million! 

 "You're a careful score keeper," he complimented her. "I'll go right after that property. Does the item say who controls it now?" 

 "I have the paper before me. I'll read you the names," she returned with businesslike preparedness: "Mr. James Jameson-Guff, Mr. G. W. Mason, Mr. Martin Sheats, Mr. Edward Kettle." 

 "All the neighbors," he commented. "They don't like honest working-girls, I guess. That's a fine crowd of information you've handed me. I ought to give you a partnership in that million." 

 "You just run along or you'll be too late!" she urged him. "I'll take my commission in the five-thousand-dollar hours you donate to the Babies' Fund Fair. By the way, from whom do you suppose that option was purchased?" 

 "Gresham?" inquired Johnny promptly and with such a thrill of startled intensity in his tone that Constance could not repress a giggle. 

 "No, James Collaton," she informed him. "That's all the news. Hurry, now! Report to me, won't you, as soon as you find out whether you can secure the property? I haven't made an entry on my score board since last Wednesday night. Good-by." 

 "Good-by," said Johnny reluctantly; but he held the telephone open, trying to think of something else to say until he heard the click which told him that she had hung up. 

 Last Wednesday night! Why, that was the night he had given the dinner in celebration of his passing the quarter-of-a-million mark; and after he had taken her home from the dinner she had sat up to rule and mark that elaborate score board! Somehow his lungs felt very light and buoyant. 

 Collaton, though? How did he get into the deal? Suddenly Johnny remembered Val Russel's joking at the committee meeting. Gresham again! 

 "Loring, I don't think I can wait till June first to get after the scalps of Gresham and Collaton," he declared as he prepared to go out. "I want to soak them now." 

 James 

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