"How much is the interest?" asked grannie.
"Well, he did speak of fifteen or twenty per cent for small sums, but that was before we got so friendly together. I don't doubt but he'll make it lower now. You needn't fidget, grannie. It's a mere song, just a few pounds and odd shillings."
Grannie waited a minute or two, thinking to herself, and then she said in a slow sort of way—
"Miles, Mr. Simmons is a bad man."
"Now mother!" said he.
"Mr. Simmons is a bad man," repeated grannie, "and you may take my word for it."
"That's charity, isn't it?" said father. "A man you've never seen in your life before, and one as is just doing me a good turn."
"I don't want to be uncharitable," grannie said. "But I know a bad man when I see him, and he's one. And he'll get you into trouble, as sure as you have to do with him."
"I'm not a boy to be lectured, mother," says he very short. "I hope I'm of an age to choose my own friends, and not be meddled with. I can tell you Simmons is a clever fellow and no mistake. Dear me, I don't know what there is he don't know."
"That may be," grannie said. "But cleverness isn't goodness. I wish it was. The world would be a better world than it is."