early days--and she had driven bargains with supply men which had
made them glad when she was ill.

"You may keep the property," she wheezed. "Nobody will pay that
price--not even William Slosher; and he'll buy anything if his wife
pouts for it in the ridiculous French clothes she's brought back
with her."

"So the Sloshers are back?" he guessed, with an understanding, at
last, of her agitation.

"They came last night," she admitted, inflating with a multitude of
feelings. "The most ungrateful people in the world! So far from
being thankful for the time and pains and money we spent to protect
them, they're viciously angry and are making threats--positive
threats--that they will disgrace the entire neighborhood!"

"Do you refuse this property at two hundred and seventy-five
thousand?" Mr. Gamble interestedly wanted to know.

"Certainly I do!" she emphatically declared, positive that no human
being would pay that absurd increase in valuation.

"Then the price is withdrawn," he told her; and she left him,
puzzling mightily over that last remark.

Johnny Gamble was a man of steady nerves, yet even he fidgeted until
three o'clock for fear Mr. Slosher would not call him up. At that
hour, however, Mr. Slosher called in person, accompanied by his
wife. There is no need to describe Mr. Slosher, who was merely an