Mr. Guff was furious about it.

“I knew it,” he said.  “The women have just telephoned me an authorization to send for this Jacobs blackguard and buy back the option.”

“Jacobs?” inquired Johnny, “Not Abraham Jacobs?”

“That’s the one,” corroborated Guff.  “Why, do you know him?”

“He is a professional stinger,” Johnny admitted.  “He stung me, and Collaton helped.”

“I’ve no doubt of it,” responded Guff.  “It was a put-up job in the first place.  By the way, Gamble, you used to be in partnership with Collaton yourself.”

“That’s true enough,” admitted Johnny.  “Possibly I’d better give you some references.”

“Give them to the women,” retorted Guff.

An hour later Johnny telephoned Guff.

“Did you repurchase the option from Jacobs?” he inquired.

“Yes!” snapped Guff, and hung up.

The facts that the De Luxe Apartments Company was hot after the property and that he himself was now four hours behind his schedule, with nothing in sight, drove Johnny on, in spite of his dismal forebodings.

Mrs. Guff he found to be a hugely globular lady, with a globular nose, the lines on either side of which gave her perpetually an expression of having just taken quinine.  In view of her recent experiences she was inclined to call the police the moment Johnny stated his errand, but he promptly referred her to some gentlemen of unimpeachable commercial standing; namely, Close, Courtney, Bouncer and Morton Washer.  She coolly telephoned them in his presence and was satisfied.

“You must understand, however,” she said to him severely, “the only way in which we will release this option is that nothing but a first-class apartment-house, of not less than ten stories in height and with no suites of less than three thousand a year rental, shall be erected.”

“I’ll sign an agreement to that effect,” he promptly promised.

“And how much do you offer us for the property?”

“Two hundred thousand,” he returned, making a conservative guess at the amount they must have paid for the two options.

A deepening of the quinine expression told him that he had undershot the mark.

“Two hundred and ten thousand,” he quickly amended.

A chocolate-cream expression struggled feebly with the quinine; and Johnny, who could translate the lines of the human countenance into dollars and cents with great accuracy, knew instantly that their two options had cost them thirty thousand dollars, and that he was offering the four ladies a profit of one thousand two hundred and fifty dollars’ worth of gowns or diamonds each.

“That will be the most I can give,” he still further amended.  “I am prepared to write you a check at any moment.”

“I think I can call a meeting at once,” she informed him, and did so by telephone.

Mrs. Sheats, who came over presently, was an angular woman who kept the expression of her mouth persistently sweet, no matter what her state of mind might be; and she was very glad indeed that, so long as Miss Purry insisted on permitting a building of any sort to be erected opposite the Slosher residence, they were protecting that estimable lady in her absence by insuring a structure of dignity and class.