“Well, anyhow, if you like a little bungalow, you can buy a better one than this with more ground around it, without troubling yourself to move a mile,” Bradley persisted. “I’m no bargainer. As I said just now, when I want a thing I’m willing to pay for it. I’ll tell you what I’ll do, Mr. Sanbourne. I’ll give you, for this little corner lot, as you might call it, not only twice what it’s worth, but the price of any other bungalow within reason you choose to select. And I’ll pay your moving expenses, too. Now, what do you say to that?”
“Just what I said before. I don’t wish to sell.”
“Say, this is a holdup!” blustered the St. Louis millionaire.
Suddenly Denin’s good temper came back, with a laugh.
“So you think I’m trying to ‘hold you up’ for a higher price!” he exclaimed. “I assure you I’m not. If you offered me twenty thousand dollars I wouldn’t accept.”
“What!” gasped Mr. Bradley. “Twenty thousand dollars for this little rabbit hutch in a back yard? Good Lord, it ain’t worth a thousand, at top price.”
“Not to you, but it is to me. So, don’t you see, it’s useless to argue further?” asked Denin, his eyes still laughing at the big man’s ruffled discomfiture and surprise that such things could happen between a poor author and a millionaire.
“Argue! I didn’t come here expecting to argue!” spluttered Bradley, looking like a bull stopped at full gallop by a spider web. “I came here to—to—”
“I quite understand, and I’m sorry to be disobliging, but I’m afraid I must,” Denin cut in. “Anyhow, I needn’t be inhospitable too. Will you lunch with me, Mr. Bradley? I can’t offer you much, but if we’re to be neighbors—”
“Great Scott, man, I’m staying at the Potter!” exploded Bradley, with a glance almost of horror at the little table in the pergola where writing materials had pushed aside dishes on a white cloth already laid. The look contrasted John Sanbourne’s hospitality so frankly with the fare awaiting him at Santa Barbara’s biggest hotel, that Denin laughed again.