tle corner lot, as you
might call it, not only twice what it's worth, but the price of any
other bungalow within reason you choose to select. And I'll pay your
moving expenses, too. Now, what do you say to that?"

"Just what I said before. I don't wish to sell."

"Say, this is a holdup!" blustered the St. Louis millionaire.

Suddenly Denin's good temper came back, with a laugh.

"So you think I'm trying to 'hold you up' for a higher price!" he
exclaimed. "I assure you I'm not. If you offered me twenty thousand
dollars I wouldn't accept."

"What!" gasped Mr. Bradley. "Twenty thousand dollars for this little
rabbit hutch in a back yard? Good Lord, it ain't worth a thousand, at
top price."

"Not to you, but it is to me. So, don't you see, it's useless to argue
further?" asked Denin, his eyes still laughing at the big man's ruffled
discomfiture and surprise that such things could happen between a poor
author and a millionaire.

"Argue! I didn't come here expecting to argue!" spluttered Bradley,
looking like a bull stopped at full gallop by a spider web. "I came
here to--to--"

"I quite understand, and I'm sorry to be disobliging, but I'm afraid I
must," Denin cut in. "Anyhow, I needn't be inhospitable too. Will you
lunch with me, Mr. Bradley? I can't offer you much, but if we're to be
neighbors--"

"Great Scott, man, I'm staying at the Potter!" exploded Bradley, with
a glance almost of horror at the little table in the pergola where
writing materials had pushed aside dishes on a white cloth already
laid. The look contrasted John Sanbourne's hospitality so frankly with
the fare awaiting him at Santa Barbara's biggest hotel, that Denin
laughed again.

"Well, then," he said, "if ever I change my mind I'll send you word.
We'll let it stand at that."

With a reluctance pathetic in a man so large and yellow, Bradley saw
himself forced for the present to swallow the humble author's dictum.
His jaundiced eyes traveled over the little pink house, with its
balcony shaded by pepper trees, over the garden which he had called a
"corner lot," and over the simple pergola which for its owner was a
"corridor of illuminated tapestry." It seemed to Denin that the man
could have burst out crying, like a spoiled child suddenly thwarted.

"I think you're da-- mighty foolish!" Bradley amended, remembering the
need to be conciliatory. "But I'm sure you'll think better of it. I'm
sure you _will_ change your mind. I only hope for you