"Cost me forty thousand two years ago," says he, "but I'm turning it over for twenty-five to the first bidder."
Well, say, when old man Ogden slings cold figures at you like that, you can gamble that he's talkin' straight.
"I'm it, then," says I. "Fifteen down, ten on mortgage."
"That suits me," says he. "I'll have the papers made out to-day."
"And say," says I, "what is this Toreador, anyway; a race horse, or an elevator apartment?"
Would you guess it? He'd hung up the receiver. That's what I got for bein' sporty. But I wa'n't goin' to renig at that stage. I fills out me little blue check and sends her in, and that night I goes to bed without knowin' what it is that I've passed up my coin for.
It must have been near noon the next day, for I'd written a letter and got my check book stubs added up so they come within two or three hundred of what the bank folks made it, when a footman in white panties and a plum colored coat drifts through the Studio door.
"Is this Professor McCabe, sir?" says he.
"Yep," says I.
"There's a lady below, sir," says he. "Can she come up?"