In addition to these were dozens of neat cards in plain letters and figures, offering wonderful values in Ranches, Wild Land, Homes and New Sub-divisions, the real owners of which the Langford-Ralston Financial Corporation could no more than make a guess at.
It was not long before the windows were attracting the early morning passers-by in the dozens.
Someone telephoned McWilliams, who came along and had a look at the display. He went away in high dudgeon to inform Somerville, Brixton, McIntyre and the rest of them that the new outfit had been getting next to their customers and had succeeded in getting the listings of almost every piece of property in the Valley.
Meantime, Phil and Jim were comfortably ensconced in easy chairs behind their new desks, each smoking a fine brand of cigar, but busy poring over a profusion of maps and blue-prints, in a belated endeavour to get some notion––however indistinct––of how the land lay according to numbers. They knew where Kickwillie Loop was; they could go blindfold to Blear-eyed Monoghan’s Ranch, or Mudflats, or Sunset Avenue, but when it came to driving out to, say, lot 21 sub-division 16, district lot 218––well, that was quite another matter and called for deep and urgent concentration.
Jim kept his brand-new, high-tension, low-geared stenographer busy typing and re-typing forms of Agreements for Sale and Deeds, in anticipation of later business.
Several prominent citizens came in to compliment them 331 on their enterprise and to wish them good luck. The numbers of these well-wishing citizens increased as the news went round, and the Langford-Ralston stock of cigars and cigarettes decreased correspondingly, but the new concern had the pleasure of listing at least a dozen pieces of property direct from the owners.
An alarming piece of information vouchsafed itself just before lunch time, when, for the first time, the bank book of the Financial Corporation was consulted. Out of their original six thousand dollars, there were three thousand left.
“Holy Mackinaw!” breathed Phil, in prayer to some Esquimo god.
“Great Andrew Carnegie!” muttered Jim, wetting the glowing end of his cigar and putting it carefully into his upper vest pocket for future use when a client might be around.
Receipts and jotted notes were gathered together and hastily consulted, but they were unable to reduce their outlay or swell the credit side of their bank book.