," he added by way of
concealing his hesitation.

"I don't know," returned Johnny, full of his perplexity about
Constance. "I'm tired of hearing the word. Sometimes it makes me sick
to think of it."

"You ought to be ashamed of yourself!" reproached Loring with a laugh.

"All right," agreed Johnny accommodatingly. "I'm used to that anyhow.
For one thing, I'm ashamed of being such a sucker. That old partner of
mine not only stung me for every cent I could scrape together for two
years, but actually had the nerve to try to sell the big tract of land
we irrigated with money."

"To sell it!" exclaimed Loring in surprise.

"That's all," returned Johnny. "He went to the Western Developing
Company with it two months ago and had them so worked up that they
looked into the title. They even sent a man out there to investigate."

"Flivver, I suppose?" guessed Loring.

"Rank," corroborated Johnny. "Washburn, of the Western Developing, was
telling me about it yesterday. He said his man took one look at the
land and came back offering to go six blocks out of his way on a busy
Monday to see Collaton hung."

"We'd get up a party," commented Loring dryly, and Johnny hurried away
to the offices of his Bronx concern.

He was a very unhappy Johnny these days and had but little joy in his
million. If Constance did not care for it, nor for him, the fun was all
gone out of everything. Work was his only relief, and he worked like an
engine.

On one day, however, he was careful to do no labor, and that day was
Friday, May nineteenth; Constance's birthday, and he had long planned
to make that a gala occasion.

On the evening preceding he called at the house, but Aunt Pattie
Boyden, who was more than anxious to have Constance marry the second
cousin of Lord Yawpingham, told him with poorly concealed satisfaction
that Constance was too ill to see him. He imagined that he knew what
that meant, nevertheless, on the following morning he sent Constance a
tremendous bouquet and went down into the midst of the crowds at Coney
Island, where of all places in the world he could be most alone and
most gloomy.

"What's a million dollars anyway?" he asked himself.

At ten o'clock on Saturday morning Mr. Birchard came into the Bronx
office with much smiling, presented his credentials duly signed by each
of the five Wobbles brothers, received a check for a million dollars
made out, by the written instructions of the brothers, to Frederick W.
B