For three quarters of an hour, perhaps longer, Johnny dismissed the thousand-dollar-a-week job from his mind and waited with rising indignation for Bland.  What had become of the darned little runt?  Here it was nine o’clock, and no sign of him.  The lobby was beginning to wear an atmosphere of sedate bustling to and fro.  Johnny watched travelers arrive with their luggage, watched other travelers depart.  Business men strayed in, seeking acquaintances.  The droning chant of pages in tight jackets and little caps perched jauntily askew interested him.  Would Bland, when he came, have sense enough to send one around calling out “Mr. Jew-wel—­Mr. John-ny Jew-wel”?  Johnny knew exactly how it would sound.  Cliff Lowell might, but he did not want to see Cliff.  The more he thought about him the more he distrusted that proposition.  A thousand dollars a week did not sound convincing in the broad light of day.  It was altogether too good to be true.  Why, good golly!  Nobody but a millionaire could afford to pay that much just for riding around; and if they could, they’d buy themselves an airplane.  They wouldn’t rent one, that was certain.

At ten o’clock Johnny mentally blew up.  He had not come to Los Angeles to sit around in any doggone hotel like an old woman waiting for a train, and if Bland or anybody else thought he’d hang around there all day—­ He went to the desk, left word that he had gone out to Inglewood, watched the clerk scribble the information on a slip of paper and put it in his key box, and went out wondering how he was going to find his way to the Thunder Bird.  But his natural initiative came to his aid.  He saw an automobile with a FOR HIRE sign on it, held brief conversation with the driver, and was presently leaning back on the cushions watching luckless pedestrians dodge out of the way.  The sight, I may add, restored his good humor to the point of forgetting his dignity and crawling over into the front seat where he proceeded to scrape acquaintance with the driver.  Los Angeles was a great place, all right—­when you can see it from the front seat of an automobile.  Johnny began to talk automobiles to the man and managed to extract a good deal of information, that may or may not have been authentic, concerning the various “makes” and their prices and speed.  Not that he intended to buy one; but still, with good luck, there was no reason why he should not, when he had that note paid.  A car certainly did give class to a man—­and according to this fellow it would be a real economy to own one.  This man said he looked upon a car as a necessity; and Johnny very quickly adopted his point of view and began to think how extravagant he was not to own one.  Why, take this trip, for instance.  If he owned the car himself, all it would cost him to go to Inglewood would be the gas he would burn.  As it was, it would probably mean ten or fifteen dollars before he was through.  An automobile of your own sure did mean a big saving all around—­time and money.  Take a job like this man Lowell had offered, why, he could very soon own a car.  A thousand dollars a week, for a few weeks—­it was his to take, if he wanted to do it—­