"At lunch-time I talk no business; I eat." The speculator studied those forbidding bushy brows in silence for a moment.

Beneath them, between heavy lids, glowed a pair of very stern gray eyes; but at the outward corner of each eye were two deep, diverging creases, which belied some of the sternness.
"Where do you sleep ?" Johnny asked.
"I don't talk business in my sleep," asserted Mr.Ersten stoutly, and then he laughed with considerable heartiness, pleased immensely with his own joke and not noticing that it was more than half Johnny's.
After all, Johnny had only implied it; he had said it! Accordingly he relented a trifle.

"From four to half-past five, at Schoppenvoll's, I play skat," he added.
"Thank you," said Johnny briskly, and started for the nearest telephone directory.

"I'll drop in on you." "Well," returned Ersten resignedly, "it won't do you any good." Johnny grinned and went out, having first made a swift but careful estimate of Ersten's room, accommodations and requirements.

Outside, he studied the surrounding property, then called on a real estate firm.
At four-ten he went into the dim little basement wine-room of Schoppenvoll.