“You are mistaken, sir,” Mrs. Wentworth replied, “if you think I have come here without being actually in want of the food, I ask you to let me have on credit.  Necessity, and dire necessity alone, has prompted me to seek an obligation of you, and if you require it I am willing to pay double the amount you charge, so that my poor children are saved from starvation.”

“I reckon you vill,” Mr. Swartz said, “but ven you vill pay ish te question.”

“I could not name any precise day to you,” answered Mrs. Wentworth.  “I can only promise that the debt will be paid.  If I cannot even pay it myself, as soon as my husband is exchanged he will pay whatever you charge.”

“Dat ish a very doubtful vay of doing pisness,” he remarked.  “I cannot do as you ask.”

“Consider, sir,” she replied.  “The amount I ask you to credit me for is but small, and even if you should not get paid (which I am certain you will) the loss cannot be felt by a man of your wealth.”

“Dat makes no differenish.  I can’t give you credit.  It ish against my rules, and if I proke tem for you I vill have to do so for every body.”

Mrs. Wentworth’s heart sank within her at the determined manner in which he expressed his refusal.  Without replying she moved towards the door, and was about to leave the room when she thought of the bedstead, on the sale of which she now depended.  He may loan money on it she thought, and she returned to the side of his desk.  He looked up at her impatiently.

“Vell,” he remarked, frowning as he uttered the single word.

“As you won’t give me credit,” said Mrs. Wentworth, “I thought you may be willing to loan me some money if I gave a security for its payment.”

“Vat kind of security?” he enquired.

“I have, at my room, a bedstead I purchased from you some time ago,” she replied.  “Will you lend a small sum of money on it?”

“No” he answered.  “I am not a pawnbroker.”

“But you might accommodate a destitute mother,” remarked Mrs. Wentworth.  “You have refused to give me credit, and now I ask you to loan me a small sum of money, for the payment of which I offer security.”

“I cannot do it,” he answered.  “Ven I says a ting I means it.”

“Will you buy the bedstead then?” asked Mrs. Wentworth in despair.

“Vat can I do mit it?” he enquired.

“Why you can sell again,” replied Mrs. Wentworth.  “It will always find a purchaser, particularly now that the price of everything has increased so largely.”

“Veil, I vill puy te pedstead,” he said, and then enquired:  “How much monish do you vant for it?”

“What will you give me?” she asked.

“I vill give you forty tollars for it,” he replied.

“It must be worth more than that,” she remarked.  “The price of everything is so increased that it appears to me as if the bedstead should command a higher price than that offered by you.”