to publish my disgrace."

"You deserve it," chuckled the colonel. "It won't hurt for Johnny to
know it though. He's the shrewdest young man of my acquaintance, and
he might be able to figure a way out of your dilemma for you."

"I might even be able to make some money out of it myself," Johnny
frankly acknowledged.

"Jump right in and welcome, young man," invited Courtney. "If you
can pull me out whole I don't care how much you make."

"We'll consider that a bargain," offered Gamble.

"All right," returned Courtney, smiling. "We'll shake hands on it in
the good old-fashioned way." And they did so, under Colonel
Bouncer's earnestly interested approval.

"Tell him your troubles," urged the colonel. "If it were my case,
Ben, I'd be yelling for help as long as I had breath in my body."

"It's very simple," explained Courtney. "I imagined that a big hotel
at the new terminal station would be the best investment in New
York. I spoke to a number of my financially active friends about it
and they were enthusiastic. I had verbal promises in one day's work
of all the money necessary to finance the thing. I found that the
big vacant plot across from the station was held at a prohibitive
price. Mallard & Tyne had, with a great deal of labor, collected the
selling option on the adjoining block, fronting the terminal. They
held it at two and a quarter millions. My friends, at an infernal