now! Report to me, won't you, as soon as you find out whether you
can secure the property? I haven't made an entry on my score board
since last Wednesday night. Good-by."

"Good-by," said Johnny reluctantly; but he held the telephone open,
trying to think of something else to say until he heard the click
which told him that she had hung up.

Last Wednesday night! Why, that was the night he had given the
dinner in celebration of his passing the quarter-of-a-million mark;
and after he had taken her home from the dinner she had sat up to
rule and mark that elaborate score board! Somehow his lungs felt
very light and buoyant.

Collaton, though? How did he get into the deal? Suddenly Johnny
remembered Val Russel's joking at the committee meeting. Gresham
again!

"Loring, I don't think I can wait till June first to get after the
scalps of Gresham and Collaton," he declared as he prepared to go
out. "I want to soak them now."

James Jameson-Guff, so christened by his wife, but more familiarly
known among his associates as Jim Guff, received Johnny with a frown
when he understood his errand.

"You're too late," he told Johnny. "We've turned the option over to
our wives to do with as they pleased. We're to have a swell yacht
club out there now. I think that's a graft, too!"