Collaton's name, with Gresham as security. When that is done I want
you to go to Jacobs and play a mean trick on him. Make him serve
that attachment on Collaton's ostensible property. Collaton, having
confessed judgment on the note, can not fight it--and Gresham will
have to foot the bill."

Self-contained and undemonstrative as Loring was in public, he,
nevertheless, gave way to an uncontrollable burst of laughter which
humiliated him beyond measure when he discovered the attention he
had attracted.





CHAPTER XIII

IN WHICH JOHNNY BUYS A PRESENT AND HATCHES A SCHEME




Johnny, relying like a lost mariner on Polly Parsons and Constance
Joy to help him pick out a present for his only mother, approached
Lofty's with a diffidence amounting to awe. In that exclusive shop
he would meet miles of furbelowed femininity, but he would not have
ventured unprotected into those fluffed and billowed aisles for
anything short of a penance.

Being a philosopher, however, he kept his mind active in as many