"Depends on what this young man says, Sanderson. One thing is sure; I ain't goin' to give up that ten dollars he give me—and Fogg is got to be paid somehow."
"Look here! if you want to keep the mortgage just say so," declared Tom. "It's a good mortgage and pays good interest. You can't invest your money around here to any better advantage."
"All right, then, I'll keep the mortgage," announced Henry Grisley. "But understand, young man, I'm to keep that ten dollars you give me too," he added shrewdly.
"Well, I don't see——" began Tom, when Mr. Sanderson interrupted him.
"All right, Grisley, you keep the ten dollars, and you settle with Fogg," announced the farmer. "And it's understood that you are to make out the mortgage for at least one year longer."
"Can't ye give me more'n the ten dollars?" asked Henry Grisley. "Mebbe I might have to pay Fogg more'n that."
"Don't you pay him a cent more," said Tom. "His services aren't worth it."
"I won't pay him nothin' if I can git out of it," responded the old man, shrewdly. "If I keep the mortgage, then what has he done for me? Nothin'. Mebbe I'll give him half of the ten dollars. I've had jest as much trouble as he has."
Following this discussion the paper formerly drawn up was destroyed and a note written out and signed by Henry Grisley, in which the old man agreed to renew the mortgage for one year from the date on which it had been due.
"To tell ye the truth, I wouldn't have bothered about this," explained old Grisley, in a burst of confidence; "but, you see, Fogg knew the mortgage was due and he come to me and asked me what I was goin' to do about it. And then when word come that your money had been stolen, he told me that I'd better foreclose or otherwise I might git next to nothin'."