Self-contained and undemonstrative as Loring was in public, he, nevertheless, gave way to an uncontrollable burst of laughter which humiliated him beyond measure when he discovered the attention he had attracted.

CHAPTER XIII

IN WHICH JOHNNY BUYS A PRESENT AND HATCHES A SCHEME

Johnny, relying like a lost mariner on Polly Parsons and Constance Joy to help him pick out a present for his only mother, approached Lofty’s with a diffidence amounting to awe.  In that exclusive shop he would meet miles of furbelowed femininity, but he would not have ventured unprotected into those fluffed and billowed aisles for anything short of a penance.

Being a philosopher, however, he kept his mind active in as many other directions as possible, like a child deliberately feasting upon thoughts of Santa Claus though on the way to a promised spanking.

“There’s a hoodoo on this block,” Johnny observed as they were caught in the traffic crush almost in front of their destination.

“Lofty and Ersten must be the hoodooers, then,” laughed Polly.  “Everybody else has gone away.”

Johnny looked at the towering big Lofty establishment, which occupied half the block, and at the dingy little ladies’ tailoring shop, down around the other corner, with speculative curiosity.  About both, as widely different as they were, there was the same indefinable appearance of prosperity, as if the solid worth from within shone heavily through.

“Lofty’s couldn’t move and Ersten wouldn’t,” supplemented Constance.

“Not that Dutchman!” returned Polly, laughing again as she peered into the low dark windows of the ladies’ tailoring shop.  “I was in the other day, and he told me three times that he would be right there to make my walking frocks for the next thirteen years.”

“He was having a quarrel with Mr. Schnitt about the light in the workroom when I was in,” observed Constance, “but he told me the same thing, in his enjoyable German way, and he seemed almost angry about it.”

“That’s the extent of his lease,” guessed Johnny shrewdly.  “They’re trying to get it away from him.”

“I wonder why,” speculated Constance.

“It’s as simple as spending money,” Johnny announced.  “Lofty intends building an extension.”

“They won’t tear down Ersten’s shop,” Polly confidently asserted.

“They’ll move him in a wheelbarrow some night,” Johnny prophesied.  “If I could grab his lease I could play a few hours.”

Both the girls laughed at him for that speech.

“You’ll be gray before the thirty-first of May,” warned Polly.

“It turns anybody gray to dig up a million,” agreed Johnny.  “It’s a good guess, though, Polly.  I counted seven new white ones this morning.”

“That’s a strange coincidence,” commented Constance, with a secretly anxious glance at his hair.  “You’re just seven hours behind your schedule.”