Johnny shook his head.

“That schedule goes round like an electric fan,” he soberly declared.

“And there’s no switch,” Constance reminded him.

“Gresham,” Johnny suggested with a smile.

Polly cast a sidelong glance at the pretty cousin into whose family she had been adopted.  The subject of Gresham was a painful one; and Johnny felt his blundering bluntness keenly.

“There isn’t any Gresham,” laughingly asserted Polly.  “There never was any Gresham.  Let’s go to Coney Island to-night.”

Both Constance and Johnny gave Polly a silent but sincere vote of thanks.

Willis Lofty, who continued the progressive fortune of his father by prowling about the vast establishment with a microscopic eye, approached Polly with more than a shopkeeper’s alacrity.

“You promised to send for me to be your clerk the next time you came in,” he chided her.

“I didn’t come in this time,” she gaily returned.  “Mr. Gamble is the customer,” and she introduced Constance and the two gentlemen.  “Mr. Gamble wants to buy a silk shawl for a blue-eyed mother with gray wavy hair and baby-pink cheeks.”

“There are a lot of pretty shawls here,” Constance added, “but none of them seems quite good enough for this kind of a mother.”

Young Lofty, himself looking more like a brisk and natty college youth who had come in to buy a gift for his own mother than the successful business man he was, glanced at the embarrassed Johnny with thorough understanding.

“I think I know what you want,” he said pleasantly; and, calling a boy, he gave him some brief instructions.  “We have some very beautiful samples of French embroidered silks, just in yesterday, and if I can get them away from our buyer you may have your choice.  There’s a delicate gray, worked in pink, which would be very becoming to a mother of that description.  They’re quite expensive, but, I believe, are worth the money.”

“That’s what I want,” stated Johnny.  “I understand you’re going to build an extension, Mr. Lofty.”

The girls gasped and then almost tittered.

Young Lofty ceased immediately to be the suave master of friendly favors and became the harassed slave of finance.

“I don’t know where you secured your information,” he protested.

“I’m a fancy guesser,” returned Johnny with a grin.

“I wish you were right,” said Lofty soberly.  “We have quietly gained possession of nearly all the property in the block, but we’re not quite ready to build, nevertheless.”

“I can finish the sad story,” sympathized Johnny.  “One granite-headed ladies’ tailor threatens to block the way for thirteen years.”

Lofty was surprised by the accuracy of his knowledge.  “I’d like to borrow your guesser,” he admitted.

Johnny and the girls looked at each other with smiles of infantile glee.  They were delighted that they had deduced all this while waiting for a traffic Napoleon to blow his whistle.