so conclusive they were to his own
mind.

"For how much, if I may ask? I am interested for certain reasons."

"Seventy dollars. That will amount to the interest money they pay now
and ten dollars over. The extra ten will be much less than repairs
and taxes. They will be gainers."

"What will you take for that mortgage?"

"Take for the mortgage?"

The Squire nodded.

The doctor gave another of his keen glances at him. "I don't know
that I want to take anything for it," he said.

"Suppose it were made worth your while?"

"Nobody would be willing to make it enough worth my while to
influence me," said the doctor. "My price for the transfer of a good
investment is what it is worth to me."

"Well, doctor, what is it worth to you?" Squire Eben said, smiling.

"Fifteen hundred dollars," said the doctor.

The Squire whistled.

"I am quite aware that the mortgage is for a thousand only," the
doctor said, and yet without the slightest meaning of apology, "but I
consider when it comes to relinquishing it that it is worth the
additional five hundred. I must be just to myself. Then, too, Mr.
Edwards owed me a half-year's interest. The fifteen hundred would
cover that, of course."

"You won't take any less?"

"Not a dollar."

Squire Eben hesitated a second. "You know, I own that strip of land
on the Dale road, on the other side of the brook," he said.

The doctor nodded, still with his eyes keenly intent.

"There are three good house-lots; that house of the Edwardses is old
and out of repair. You'll have to spend considerable on it to rent
it. My three lots are equal to that one house, and suppose we
exchange. You take that land, and I take the mortgage on the Edwards
place."

"Do you know what you are talking about?" Doctor Prescott said,
sharply; for this plain proposition that he overreach the other
aroused him to a show of fairness.

Squire Merritt laughed. "Oh, I know you'll get the best of the
bargain," he returned.

Then the doctor waxed suspicious. This readiness to take the worst of
a bargain while perfectly cognizant of it puzzled him. He wondered if
perchance this easy-going, card-playing, fishing Squire had, after
all, some axe of policy to grind. "What do you expect to make out of
it?" he asked, bluntly.

"Nothing. I am not even sure that I have any active hope of a higher
rate of interest in the other world for it. I am not as sound in the
doctrines as you, doctor." Squire Eben laughed, bu