“All right,” said Chase.  “I’ll hold the offer open at that figure for forty-eight hours.  I think you’ll come to it.”

“I doubt it,” responded Johnny, smiling; but he was afraid he would.

In less than an hour he received an unexpected call from Mrs. Guff, who was in such secret agitation that she quivered like jelly whenever she breathed.

“Mr. Guff and myself have decided to take Miss Purry’s river-view property off your hands, Mr. Gamble,” was the glad tidings she conveyed to him, smiling to share his delight.  “We can’t think of letting that river view slip by us.”

“I’m glad to hear it,” he announced with gratification, as he thought of Mr. Chase.  “Have you secured the consent of your partners in the option to waive the apartment-house requirements?”

“Oh, no!” she ejaculated, shocked that any one should think that possible.  “We have decided to build the apartment-house and to live there.”

“To live there!” he repeated, remembering the elaborate Guff residence.

“Yes, indeed!” she enthusiastically exclaimed.  “You know the property slopes down to the river beautifully, and exquisite, private, terraced gardens could be built there.  We could take the entire lower floor of the apartment building for ourselves, with a private driveway arched right through it; and we could take the first three floors of the rear part for our own use, with wonderful Venetian balconies overlooking the terraces and the river.  The remaining apartments would have entrances on the two front corners, leaving us all the effect of a Venetian palace.  Don’t you think that’s clever?”

“It is clever!” he repeated with smiling emphasis, and mentally raising Chase’s ultimatum ten per cent.

“I suppose you’ll want to charge us more for the property than you paid for it,” she suggested with a faint hope that maybe he might not, since he had bought it so recently—­and through them.

“That’s what I’m in business for,” he blandly acknowledged.  “I can let you have the property for two hundred and seventy-five thousand dollars.”

“How much did you say?” she gasped.

“Two hundred and seventy-five thousand.”

“Why, it’s an outrage!” she puffed.  “You paid only two hundred and ten thousand for it yesterday.”

“I’m not telling you its cost to me yesterday, but its value to-day,” he reminded her.

Mrs. Guff had helped her husband to his business success in the 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!”