Five Thousand an Hour: How Johnny Gamble Won the Heiress Part 2

Gresham shrugged his shoulders in satisfaction.

"You'll take something for that," Polly confidently comforted her friend Gamble. "There's G. W. Mason & Company, Johnny. Take me over to him and watch me fool him when he says he has no check-book with him. I have check blanks on every bank in town. Bring along my hand-bag and my subscription list, Sammy."

When they had gone, with the feebly pleased Sammy dutifully bringing up the rear, Gresham looked after them with relief.

"Handicap day brings out some queer people," he observed.

"If you mean Mr. Gamble I think him delightful," Constance quickly advised him. "I'm inclined to agree with Polly that he is very much a gentleman."

"He would be quite likely to appeal to Polly," remarked Aunt Pattie as she arose for a visit to a near-by box.

"You mean Cousin Polly," corrected Constance sweetly.

Gresham was very thoughtful. He was more logically calculating than most people thought him.

It was Polly's cousins.h.i.+p which puzzled Johnny Gamble. "When you picked a cousin you made some choice," he complimented her. "How did you do it?"

"They made me," she explained. "You know that Billy Parsons was the only man I ever wanted to marry--or ever will, I guess. His folks met me once and wouldn't stand for me at all; then Billy took sick and went out of his head. He cried for me so that the doctor said he had to have me; so I canceled the best engagement I ever had. I wasn't a star, but I was featured and was making an awful hit. I went right to the house, though, and stayed two months--till Billy died. Then I went back to work; but I hated it. Well, along toward the last they'd got so friendly that I was awful lonesome. It wasn't long till they got lonesome too. They're old, you know; and Billy was all they had. So they came after me and I went with them; and they adopted me and we all love each other to death. Constance's my cousin now--and she stands it without batting an eyelash. She's about the cream of the earth, Johnny!"

He drew in his breath sharply.

"You're a lucky kid!" he told her.

There was something in the intensity of his tone which made her look up at him, startled.

"Now don't you fall in love with her, Johnny!" she begged.

"Why not?" he demanded. "I never tried it; but I bet I can do it."

"That's the trouble," she expostulated; "it's too easy. You can fall in all right, but how will you get out?"

"I don't want out," he a.s.sured her. "I play marbles for keeps."

"All right then; take to pickles and perfume. Look here, Johnny; if none of her own set can ring her with an orange wreath what can an outsider do?"

"How do I know till I try?" he inquired. "I get you, Polly. You mean I'm not in her cla.s.s; but, you see, I want her!"

"So do the others," she objected.

"They're not used to hard work," he earnestly informed her. "Say, I need a million dollars."

"Take enough while you're at it! What do you want it for?"

"Her stack's that high."

"She'd never count it."

"I know; but Aunt Pattie and I would. I have to have it, Polly."

"Then you'll get it," she resignedly admitted. "Why, Johnny, I believe you could get Constance, too!" she added with suddenly accelerated belief in him. "Well, I'm certainly for you. Tell me, what can I do to help you?"

"Poison Gresham for me."

"Give me your fifteen cents," she directed. "He's about as popular with her as a flea with a dog; but he goes with the furniture. He was wished on her by her Aunt Gertrude."

"Why did her aunt hate her?"

"She hated everybody; so she went in for charity. She made six wills, each time leaving all her money to a different public inst.i.tution; but they each one did something she didn't like before she could die. The last time she decided to give Constance a chance, made a new will and took sick the same night. Constance has the interest on her million till she marries Gresham; then she gets it all. If she marries anybody else before Gresham dies the money goes to a home for blind cats, or something like that."

"Healthy soul, wasn't she?" commiserated Johnny. "But why Gresham?"

"The bug for family. Aunt Gertrude's father didn't make his tobacco-trust money fast enough for her to marry Gresham's father, who would have been a lord if everybody in England had died. Constance is to bring aristocracy into the family now."

"Tell her to tear up that million. I'll get her another one," offered Johnny easily.

"You'll need some repairs before you start," she suggested. "They tell me you're down and out."

"Tell them to guess again!" he indignantly retorted. "I own all the to-morrows in the world. There's money in every one of them."

"I've got an awful big bank-account that needs exercise," she offered.

"Now, look here, Johnny, don't yell like I'd hit you with a brick. You told me to help myself once when I needed it, and I did. You ought to let me get even. All right, then; be stingy! Where's Sammy?" She had been feeling in both sleeves with a trace of annoyance, and now she turned to discover Sammy a few paces back, idly watching a policeman putting an inebriated man off the track. "Sammy!" she called him sharply. He came, running and frightened. "I've lost my handkerchief,"

she informed him. "Go get it." Sammy smiled gratefully and was gone.

"Where did you find it?" asked Johnny, indicating the departing messenger. "Follow you home one cold night, or did a friend give it to you?"

"Oh, no," she said carelessly; "it just sticks around. I can't get rid of it, so I've trained it to be handy when I need it."

She fastened upon Colonel Mason just as the horses came to the post, and she was supplying him with a check blank just as they got away from the barrier. Gamble turned to the track and distinguished his long shot off in the lead. He smiled grimly at that irony, for he had seen long-shot horses raise false hopes before. Mildly interested, he watched Angora reach the quarter pole, still in the lead. Rather incredulously, he saw her still in the lead at the half. He was eager about it when she rounded the three-quarters with nothing but daylight before her; and as she came down the stretch, with Nautchautauk reaching out for her flanks, he stuck the ash-end of his cigar in his mouth and did not see the finish. He knew, by the colossal groan from the grandstand, however, that Angora had beaten the favorite; and, though he was not in the least excited, he felt through all his pockets for his tickets, forgetting that he had taken them out at the beginning of the race and still held them in his hand; also, he forgot completely that he was supposed to be escorting Polly, and immediately sauntered down to the betting shed--to collect the largest five thousand and one hundred dollars in captivity.

CHAPTER III

IN WHICH JOHNNY MIXES BUSINESS AND PLEASURE

A general desire to bet on the last race had sent all the occupants of the Boyden box, except Constance, Polly and Gresham, down to the betting shed when Gamble returned; and he was very glad there was room enough for him to sit down and enjoy himself. He had evil designs upon Gresham.

"This is my lucky day," he observed, smiling upon Miss Joy. "I began this afternoon to pile up an exact million. A near horse gave me a five-thousand-dollar start."

"If you keep on at the rate of five thousand dollars an hour you'll have your million in two hundred hours," Constance figured for him.

"I won't work Sundays, evenings, holidays or birthdays," he objected.

"How fussy!" commented Polly. "Which was the kind horse?"

"A goat by the name of Angora," he replied.