“I can think he’s crooked without batting an eyelash.  I can think it about Gresham too.”

“Why do you have that idea about Gresham?”

“Because I don’t like him,” she triumphantly argued.

“Shake!” invited Johnny.  “I know six reasons why I can do without him.  What are your six?”

“One is because I don’t like him, and another is because he’s going to marry Constance, and the other four are because I don’t like him,” she calmly summed up.

“Does Constance say he’s going to marry her?” he inquired crisply.

“Not in so many words.”

“Then I don’t believe it.  I wouldn’t marry him for six millions.”

“Constance can’t be so careless.  If they break you they can’t sprint fast enough to keep it; but if they take it away from Constance she’s broke.”

“It’s ten-forty!” groaned Johnny.  “I’m slow on that million.  Constance’ll think I’m loafing.”

“Is she interested?”

“She promised last night to keep score.  Gresham was there.  I looked, any minute, to see him bite himself in the neck and die of poison.  Polly, he can’t have her.”

“You’d better tell Constance about that,” laughed Polly.  “Why, Johnny, you had never seen her or heard of her forty-eight hours ago!”

“I know; I didn’t have the right chances when I was young!”

Polly gazed upon him admiringly.

“I’ve seen swift love affairs before, but you’ve set a new record!” she exclaimed.  “Well, I’m for you, Johnny.  Since poor Billy’s parents adopted me and made me a cousin of Constance, I can trot up her stone steps any minute; and she treats me as if I’d had my first bottle in a pink-silk boudoir.  I’ll make it my business to run up there twice a day and boost for you.”

“Don’t be too strong!” Johnny hastily warned her.  “Boost half of the time if you want to, but be sure and knock the other half.”

“I guess it would be better,” soberly agreed Polly—­“even with Constance.  Here’s your terminal station.  Pick out your corner and drive a claim stake.”

Polly obligingly drove slowly around three sides of the huge new terminal.  Directly opposite the main entrance was a vacant plot of ground, with a frontage of an entire block and a depth of four hundred feet.  Big white signs upon each corner told that it was for sale by Mallard & Tyne.  They stopped in front of this location, while both Johnny and Polly ranged their eyes upward, by successive steps, to the roof garden which surmounted the twentieth story of Johnny’s imaginary Terminal Hotel.

“It’s a nifty-looking building, Johnny!” she complimented him as they turned to each other with sheepish smiles.

“I’m going to tear it down and put up a better one,” he briskly told her.  “I’ll hand you a piece of private information.  If the big railroad company which built this terminal station doesn’t own that blank space it’s a fool—­and I don’t think it is.  If it does the property will be held for ever for the increase in value.  Let’s look at these other blocks.  The buildings on the one next to it are worth about a plugged nickel apiece—­and that would make exactly as good a location.”