nto the drug store for
some chocolates. Johnny, sit up here with me."

Sammy Chirp, who tied his own cravats and did them nicely, smiled
feebly in recognition of Johnny Gamble, lugged Miss Polly Parson's
bouquet, parasol, fan, hand-bag and coat back into the tonneau and went
upon his errand.

"Thanks, Sammy," said Johnny, and clambered into young Chirp's place in
the 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 of
shack property around the new terminal station. I want to build a
smashing 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 like
that," she declared, and obeying the traffic policeman's haughty
gesture, turned briskly off Broadway.

"Why not?" he demanded. "New York grabs a cinch. The cinch has been
kicking around loose for fifty years. New York pats herself on the pink
bald 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 his
watch. "Great Scott! It's ten-thirty!" he exploded. "I owe myself
seventy-five hundred dollars. All I've done is to decide on a Terminal
Hotel Company. Want some stock, Polly?"

"I'll take all I can reach if you're leading it around," she assured
him. "I can't take much, but I'll make Daddy Parsons go in, and I'll be
a 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?" he
wanted to know.

"I was afraid they'd snatch it from you," she returned. "Gresham was
all peeved up because you took fifteen thousand away from him in front
of Constance. Loring saw Gresham and your old partner talking together
immediately afterward; and he told me that they might frame up some
crooked scheme to grab the money. I didn't have a chance to explain, so
I 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 it
about Gresham too."

"Why do you have that idea about Gresham?"

"Because I don't like him," she triumphantly argued.

"Shake!" invited Johnny. "