“We’d get up a party,” commented Loring dryly, and Johnny hurried away to the offices of his Bronx concern.

He was a very unhappy Johnny these days and had but little joy in his million.  If Constance did not care for it, nor for him, the fun was all gone out of everything.  Work was his only relief, and he worked like an engine.

On one day, however, he was careful to do no labor, and that day was Friday, May nineteenth; Constance’s birthday, and he had long planned to make that a gala occasion.

On the evening preceding he called at the house, but Aunt Pattie Boyden, who was more than anxious to have Constance marry the second cousin of Lord Yawpingham, told him with poorly concealed satisfaction that Constance was too ill to see him.  He imagined that he knew what that meant, nevertheless, on the following morning he sent Constance a tremendous bouquet and went down into the midst of the crowds at Coney Island, where of all places in the world he could be most alone and most gloomy.

“What’s a million dollars anyway?” he asked himself.

At ten o’clock on Saturday morning Mr. Birchard came into the Bronx office with much smiling, presented his credentials duly signed by each of the five Wobbles brothers, received a check for a million dollars made out, by the written instructions of the brothers, to Frederick W. Birchard, Agent, and departed still smiling.

“One step nearer,” observed Johnny to Loring an hour or so later.  “Next Saturday I’ll have the remaining two and a half million and will only pay out one and a half of it.  The other million sticks with me.”

“The other million?” repeated Loring.  “Oh, yes, I see.  The half-million you advanced and the half-million profit you make on this deal.  For how much can you write your check now, Johnny?”

“If I wrote a check right this minute, to pay for a postage stamp, it would go to protest,” laughed Johnny.”  I guess I can stand it to be broke for a week though.”

“You’re a lucky cuss,” commended Loring.

“In most things,” admitted Johnny half-heartedly.

“In everything,” insisted Loring.  “By the way, Gresham was over here to see you yesterday while I was out.”

“Gresham?” mused Johnny.  “That’s curious.  He was at the Bronx office and also at my apartments.  I ’phoned this morning, but was told he had gone out of town for a week.”

“You probably missed something very important,” returned Loring sarcastically.  “Where were you yesterday anyhow?”

“Having a holiday,” said Johnny soberly, and escaped.

He wanted work—­the more of it the better.  He spent the entire week in the most fatiguing toil he could find, and in that week had no word from Constance Joy except a very brief and coldly-formed note thanking him for his flowers.

On the following Saturday morning Gresham walked into the Bronx offices with a particularly smug satisfaction.