Five Thousand an Hour | Page 7

Polly happily. "It's the first time I ever had any relations, and I'm tickled stiff!"
"So am I!" agreed Johnny heartily, figuring vaguely that somebody or other must have married.
"You are just in the nick of time, Gamble," Gresham quietly stated with a deliberate intention of humiliating this child of no one. "Miss Polly has a subscription list which she wants you to complete."
"He's too late," replied Polly with a flash of her eyes in Gresham's direction. "Mr. Loring just closed up that list," and she winked vigorously at Loring.
"Loring's my friend," Gamble said with a cheerful laugh. "I have check-writer's cramp. Who's to get the loving cup?"
"The loving cup's a bottle," Polly returned. "This is a baby's benefit. It's Constance's pet scheme and I'm crazy about it. We've found a big, hundred-room summer hotel, with two hundred acres of ground, on a high bluff overlooking the ocean; and we're going to turn it into a free hotel for sickly babies and their mothers. Isn't that some scheme?"
"I'm so strong for it I ache!" announced Mr. Gamble with fervor. "Put me down for--" He checked himself ruefully. "I forgot I was broke!" 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 cousinship 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 assured 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 class; 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