"I'm glad to be of service to you," answered the youth. "I only hope for your sake, and for the sake of Songbird, that the money that was stolen is recovered. Songbird is going to get on the trail of that rascal if it is possible to do so."
"I hope they do locate that fellow, Tom. If they don't I'm afraid pa will never forgive poor John."
"Oh, don't say that, Minnie. 'Never' is such a long word it should not have been put in the dictionary," and Tom smiled grimly.
Now that he felt fairly certain that he was to get his money, Henry Grisley was in much better humor.
"I suppose I might as well have left that mortgage as it was," he mumbled. "It was payin' pretty good interest."
"Well, that was for you to decide, Grisley," returned Mr. Sanderson. "Personally I don't see how you are going to make any better investment in these times."
"Well, I've got thirty days in which to make up my mind, ain't I?" queried the old man. "If I don't want to close out the mortgage I ain't got to, have I?"
"Certainly you've got to sell out, now that you have bargained to do so," put in Tom. "You can't expect us to pull our money out of another investment to put it into this one and then not get it."
"Hum! I didn't think o' that," mused old Grisley. He thought hard for a moment, pursing up his lips and twisting his beadlike eyes first one way and then another. "Supposin' I was to say right now that I'd keep the mortgage? What would you do about it?"
"Do you really mean it, Grisley?" asked Mr. Sanderson, anxiously.