ate men helping me devil Ersten
to death, but he won't sell."

"Of course he'll sell," declared Johnny confidently. "You can buy
anything in New York if you go at it right. Each deal is like a Chinese
puzzle. You never do it twice alike."

"Try this one," urged Lofty. "There's a good commission in it."

"Commission? Not for Johnny!" promptly refused that young man; "I'll
buy it myself, and hold you up for it."

"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 first made a swift but careful
estimate of Ersten's room, accommodations and requirements. Outside, he
studied the