“Not enough,” grunted Van Ploon, handing back the envelope, and twisting again in the general direction of Gail.
“Ample,” retorted Allison. “You can’t count anything for the buildings. While I don’t deny that they yield the richest income of any property in the city, they are the most decrepit tenements in New York. They’ll fall down in less than ten years. You have them propped up now.”
Jim Sargent glanced solicitously at Gail, but she did not seem to be bored; not a particle!
“They are passed by the building inspector annually,” pompously stated W. T. Chisholm, his mutton chops turning pink from the reddening of the skin beneath. He had spent a lifetime in resenting indignities before they reached him.
“Building inspectors change,” insinuated Allison. “Politics is very uncertain.”
Four indignant vestrymen jerked forward to answer that insult.
“Gentlemen, this is a vestry meeting,” sternly reproved the Reverend Smith Boyd, advancing a step, and seeming to feel the need of a gavel. His rich, deep baritone explained why he was rector of the richest church in the world.
Gail’s eyes were dancing, but otherwise she was demureness itself as she studied, in turns, the members of the richest vestry in the world. She estimated that eight of the gentlemen then present were almost close enough to the anger line to swear. They numbered just eight, and they were most interesting! And this was a vestry meeting!
“The topic of debate was money, I believe,” suggested Manning, rescuing his sense of humour from somewhere in his beard. He was the infidel member. “Suppose we return to it. Is Allison’s offer worth considering?”
“Why?” inquired the nasal voice of clean-shaven old Joseph G. Clark, who was sarcastic in money matters. The Standard Cereal Company had attained its colossal dimensions through rebates; and he had invented the device! “The only reason we’d sell to Allison would be that we could get more money than by the normal return from our investment.”