Mr. Oliphant was unable to offer him either the money itself or practical advice how to get it. “I’m afraid it looks like pretty hard luck this time, Dan, old fellow,” he said. “It’s funny a man with as good a practice as mine can’t ever seem to be able to lay his hands on a little cash that doesn’t have to go right out on some old debt. If I just didn’t have to meet that confounded note I went on for poor old Tom Vertrees I——”
“No, no,” his son protested;—“I wouldn’t let you, if you could. My conscience’d trouble me about what I did let you do for me if I wasn’t so sure you’ll get paid back with seven per cent. interest as soon as I begin to get these lots to sellin’ off a little faster.”
“What about the three men your mother tells me have been out there looking at lots since you sold the first one? Couldn’t you offer them a reduction in the price for a little cash in hand?”
“I did,” Dan replied. “I did that the first thing with each of ’em. But one of ’em told a darkey I’ve got workin’ out there he thought he could get what he wanted still cheaper after the mortgage is foreclosed; and I guess maybe the other two thought the same way about it. I guess that’s the way those seven people felt that came when I tried to auction off some lots awhile back.”
“I’m afraid so. I hope you aren’t going to take it too hard, Dan.”
“Take what too hard, sir?”
“There are other things you can go into, my boy. You’ve shown you’ve got immense energy and perseverance. They may laugh at you, but you can be sure they like the grit you’ve shown, and if you do have to give up the idea——”
“What idea, sir?”
“I mean the idea of this Addition,” his father explained. “If the time’s come when you have to let it go——”
“Ornaby?” Dan interrupted with an incredulity wholly untouched by the facts confronting him. “Why, you just put any such notion out of your mind, sir.” And he repeated the extreme comparison he had made the night before. “Why, I’m not goin’ to let Ornaby go any more than I am our little namesake upstairs in his cradle! I’m goin’ to keep it this time and every time! I’ve got thirteen days left and I’ll find some way!”