“Who told you so?”

“Oh, I heard.  I hear about all that’s goin’ on, one way or another.  I was over there a fortni’t ago.”

“You were?  Why didn’t you stop in and see me?  You haven’t been there but once since the place started.”

“Yes, I have.  I’ve been by a good many times.  Didn’t stop, though.  Too many of them city dudes around to suit me.  Did you fetch your October interest money.”

“No, I didn’t.  It ain’t due till week after next.  When it is I’ll send it, same as I have the rest.”

“All right, all right, I ain’t askin’ you for it.  What did you come for?”

And then Thankful told him.  He listened without comment until she had finished, peering over his spectacles and keeping up the eternal “weeding.”

“There,” concluded Mrs. Barnes, “that’s what I came for.  Will you do it?”

The answer was prompt enough this time.

“No, I won’t,” said Solomon, with decision.

Thankful was staggered.

“You won’t?” she repeated.  “You won’t—­”

“I won’t lend you no more money.  Why should I?”

“You shouldn’t, I suppose, if you don’t want to.  But, the way I look at it, it would be a perfectly safe loan for you.  My prospects are fine; everybody says so.”

“Everybody says a whole lot of things.  If I’d put up money on what everybody said I’d be puttin’ up at the poorhouse, myself.  But I ain’t puttin’ up there and I ain’t puttin’ up the money neither.”

“All right; keep it then—­keep it and sleep on it, if you want to.  I can get along without it, I guess; or, if I can’t, I can borrow it of somebody else.”

“Humph!  You’re pretty sassy, seems to me, for anybody that’s askin’ favors.”

“I’m not askin’ favors.  I told you that when I first come to you.  What I asked was just business and nothin’ else.”

“Is that so?  As I understand it you’re askin’ to have a mortgage renewed.  That may be business, or it may be a favor, ‘cordin’ to how you look at it.”

Thankful fought down her temper.  The renewal of the mortgage was a vital matter to her.  If it was not renewed what should she do?  What could she do?  All she had in the world and all her hopes for the future centered about her property in East Wellmouth.  If that were taken from her—­

“Well,” she admitted, “perhaps it is a favor, then.”

“Perhaps ’tis.  Why should I renew that mortgage?  I don’t cal’late to renew mortgages, as a general thing.  Did I say anything about renewin’ it when I took it?  I don’t remember that I did.”

“No, no—­I guess you didn’t.  But I hope you will.  If you don’t—­I—­I—­Solomon Cobb, that boardin’-house means everything to me.  I’ve put all I’ve got in it.  It has got the best kind of a start and in another year—­I—­I—­Please, Oh please don’t close me out.”

“Humph!”

“Please don’t.  You told me when I was here before what a lot you thought of my Uncle Abner.  You knew how much he thought of me.  When you think of him and what he said—­”