“Some one will lend it to you,” the mother said. “You mustn’t get so down-hearted.”
“Well, I’d like to know who!” he said, casting a challenge at her from his eyes.
“Why, some o’ the banks—they loan money.”
He laughed aloud, harshly, angrily.
“The banks!” he said, mocking her tone. “The banks! They’d be likely to lend me any without security, wouldn’t they?”
“Well, Jerome, don’t get mad with mother,” she said. “She’d help you if she could.”
He was silent; silent for a long time. She looked up at him now and then, cautiously, but she understood his humor, and she thought by the knitting of his brows that he was deep in thought. Out of his cogitations he came after a time, and then to say, with a mild, hesitating approach to their result:
“I can think of only one thing, mother, I might do.”
“What’s that?” she asked.
“I might borrow a little from the bank—and we give a mortgage on the house.”