"If you come at me too strongly I'll build that tunnel," warned Lofty. 

 "I'll figure it just below tunnel prices," Johnny laughingly assured him. The gray shawl with the pink relief came up just then, and all four of them immediately bought it for Johnny's sole surviving mother. 

 

 

 CHAPTER XIV 

 IN WHICH JOHNNY TRIES TO MIX BUSINESS WITH SKAT 

 Louis Ersten, who puffed redly wherever he did not grayly bristle, met Johnny Gamble half-way. Johnny's half consisted in stating that he had come to see Mr. Ersten in reference to his lease. Mr. Ersten's half consisted in flatly declining to discuss that subject on the premises. 

 "Here—I make ladies' suits," he explained. "If you come about such a business, with good recommendations from my customers, I talk with you. Otherwise not." 

 "I'll talk any place you say," consented Johnny. "Where do you lunch?" 

 "At August Schoppenvoll's," replied Mr. Ersten with no hint of an intention to disclose where August Schoppenvoll's place might be. "At lunch-time I talk no business; I eat." 

 The speculator studied those forbidding bushy brows in silence for a moment. Beneath them, between heavy lids, glowed a pair of very stern gray eyes; but at the outward corner of each eye were two deep, diverging creases, which belied some of the sternness. 

 "Where do you sleep?" Johnny asked. 

 "I don't talk business in my sleep," asserted Mr. Ersten stoutly, and then he laughed with considerable heartiness, pleased immensely with his own joke and not noticing that it was more than half Johnny's. After all, Johnny had only implied it; he had said it! Accordingly he relented a trifle. "From four to half-past five, at Schoppenvoll's, I play skat," he added. 

 "Thank you," said Johnny briskly, and started for the nearest telephone directory. "I'll drop in on you." 

 "Well," returned Ersten resignedly, "it won't do you any good." 

 Johnny grinned and went out, having 

 Prev. P 78/152 next