"Build it! I don't want to. I only want to promote it."
"Does a promoter never build?" asked Polly.
"Not if he can escape," replied Johnny. "All a promoter ever wants to do is to collect the first ninety-nine years' profits and promote something else. Drive me up to the address on that real estate sign and I'll pay you whatever the clock says and let you go."
"The clock says a one-pound box of chocolates," she promptly estimated. "Wait, though. I did send for some!" And she looked back into the tonneau. "Why, drat it all! I mislaid Sammy!" she gasped.
CHAPTER VI
IN WHICH CONSTANCE DECIDES ON A FAIR GAME
By three o'clock Johnny Gamble had acquired so much hotel information that his head seemed stuffed. Every bright-eyed financier in the city had nursed the happy thought of a terminal hotel and had made tentative plans—and had jerked back with quivering tentacles; for all the property in that neighborhood was about a thousand degrees Fahrenheit. The present increase of value and that of the next half-century had been gleefully anticipated, and the fortunate possessor of a ninety-nine-year lease on a peanut stand felt that he was providing handsomely for his grandchildren.
Mr. Gamble detailed these depressing facts to his friend Loring with much vigor and picturesqueness.
"The trouble with New York is that everybody wants to collect the profits that are going to be made," Loring sagely concluded.