rick on him. Make him serve that
attachment on Collaton's ostensible property. Collaton, having
confessed judgment on the note, can not fight it--and Gresham will have
to foot the bill."

Self-contained and undemonstrative as Loring was in public, he,
nevertheless, gave way to an uncontrollable burst of laughter which
humiliated him beyond measure when he discovered the attention he had
attracted.

CHAPTER XIII

IN WHICH JOHNNY BUYS A PRESENT AND HATCHES A SCHEME

Johnny, relying like a lost mariner on Polly Parsons and Constance Joy
to help him pick out a present for his only mother, approached Lofty's
with a diffidence amounting to awe. In that exclusive shop he would
meet miles of furbelowed femininity, but he would not have ventured
unprotected into those fluffed and billowed aisles for anything short
of a penance.

Being a philosopher, however, he kept his mind active in as many other
directions as possible, like a child deliberately feasting upon
thoughts of Santa Claus though on the way to a promised spanking.

"There's a hoodoo on this block," Johnny observed as they were caught
in the traffic crush almost in front of their destination.

"Lofty and Ersten must be the hoodooers, then," laughed Polly.
"Everybody else has gone away."

Johnny looked at the towering big Lofty establishment, which occupied
half the block, and at the dingy little ladies' tailoring shop, down
around the other corner, with speculative curiosity. About both, as
widely different as they were, there was the same indefinable
appearance of prosperity, as if the solid worth from within shone
heavily through.

"Lofty's couldn't move and Ersten wouldn't," supplemented Constance.

"Not that Dutchman!" returned Polly, laughing again as she peered into
the low dark windows of the ladies' tailoring shop. "I was in the other
day, and he told me three times that he would be right there to make my
walking frocks for the next thirteen years."

"He was having a quarrel with Mr. Schnitt about the light in the
workroom when I was in," observed Constance, "but he told me the same
thing, in his enjoyable German way, and he seemed almost angry about
it."

"That's the extent of his lease," guessed Johnny shrewdly. "They're
trying to get it away from him."

"I wonder why," speculated Constance.

"It's as simple as spending money," Johnny announced. "Lofty intends
building an extension."

"They won't tear down Ersten's shop," Polly c