"Don't want ye to! Don't want ye to!" piped out Henry Grisley. "Lawyers are a useless expense anyway. I'll settle this case myself, and for what you've done I won't pay more'n ten dollars, jest remember it!" and he shook a long, bony finger in Belright Fogg's face.
"I won't be insulted in this manner!" cried the lawyer, and then in a dudgeon he stormed from the house, leaped into the cutter, and drove away.
"A good riddance to him," murmured Mr. Sanderson. But then he added hastily: "Was that your horse, Grisley?"
"No, it wasn't," was the answer. "And how I'm to git home now, I don't know," added the old man, helplessly.
"Where do you live?" questioned Tom.
"The other side of Ashton, on the Millbury road."
"All right, then, I'll take you there when I go down to the depot," answered Tom. "That is, if you want to ride with me."
"I want to know jest how we stand on this mortgage question first," announced Henry Grisley. "I want your offer down in black and white."
"You shall have it, and the others can be witnesses to it," answered Tom, and in the course of the next quarter of an hour a paper was drawn up and duly signed by which Tom agreed that the mortgage should be taken over by the Rovers within the next thirty days, with all back interest paid, and that Henry Grisley should be paid a bonus of twenty-five dollars for his trouble and for his lawyer's fees. To bind the bargain Tom handed the old man a ten-dollar bill on account, which Henry Grisley stowed away in a leather wallet with great satisfaction.
"Oh, Tom! it's just splendid of you to help us out in this manner!" said Minnie, after the transaction had been concluded and while old Grisley and Mr. Sanderson were talking together.