“How can that be, sir, while I still hold bond and mortgage?  As a business man, you must understand the value to be attached to the idle tales of women, and can see the danger of taking their gossip for authority.  George Wetmore had some knowledge of business, and would not be likely to pay his bond without taking it up, or at least of obtaining a receipt; much less leave the mortgage on record.”

“I am informed he did take your receipt, though he presumes he must have lost it with a missing pocket-book, which his widow supposes to have been dropped from his coat, the very day he returned from the court where he met you, and where he says he paid you the money, being anxious to stop interest as soon as possible.”

“A very idle story, and one you do not suppose the chancellor will believe, confirmed by the hearsay of the party interested in preserving the property.  You are aware, sir, that the sale can be stopped only by an injunction from the Court of Chancery.”

Now, I was certainly no lawyer; but, like almost every American, I knew something of that branch of the jurisprudence of the country, which touched my own interests.  As a land-holder, I had a little knowledge of the law of real estate, and was not absolutely ignorant of the manner in which matters were managed in that most searching of all tribunals, the Court of Chancery.  A lucky thought suggested itself to my mind on the instant, and I made use of it on the spur of the moment.

“It is quite true, sir,” I answered, “that any prudent judge might hesitate about entering a decree on authority no better than the oath of Mrs. Wetmore that she had heard her husband say he had paid the money; but you will remember that the party replying has to swear to his answer.  All of us might be better satisfied in this affair, were you to make oath that the money was never paid.”

This hit told; and from that moment I did not entertain a doubt that Wetmore had paid the money, and that Van Tassel retained a perfect recollection of the whole affair.  This much I could read in the man’s altered countenance and averted eye, though my impressions certainly were not proof.  If not proof, however, for a court of justice, they served to enlist me earnestly in the pursuit of the affair, into which I entered warmly from that moment.  In the meantime, I waited for Van Tassel’s answer, watching his countenance the whole time, with a vigilance that I could easily see caused him great embarrassment.

“Kitty Wetmore and I were born neighbours’ children,” he said; “and this mortgage has given me more trouble than all the rest of my little possessions.  That I have been in no hurry to foreclose is plain by the length of time I’ve suffered to go by, without claiming my dues.  I could wait no longer, without endangering my rights, as there would be a presumption of payment after twenty years, and a presumption that would tell harder against me than old Kitty’s oath.  We are neighbours’ children, as I’ve said, nevertheless, and rather than push matters to extremities I will consent to some sort of a compromise.”