"But it is after dark already," said Alice. "Wouldn't it seem rather burglarious to make a descent upon the old lady at this hour?"
"And what is more to the point," said I, "the detail (trifling as it may appear) of planking down one hundred dollars is one which I happen just at this moment to be unprepared to provide for."
"The matter should be closed at once," said Mr. Denslow. "In a deal of this kind delay is too often disastrous. As for the one hundred dollars, I will lend you that amount, for a small cash payment is really necessary to bind the bargain."
My heart went out in gratitude to this noble gentleman. Never before had I felt more keenly the value of neighborly friendship.
"As this business is to be transacted in Mrs. Baker's name," said Mr. Denslow to me, "it would be better for you not to go with us to see Mrs. Schmittheimer. The presence of too many strangers might make the old lady shy of doing what we want her to do. See?"
Yes, I comprehended the intent of the suggestion, and I approved it. While it was far from my desire to take any advantage of the Widow Schmittheimer or of anybody else, I recognized the propriety of conserving our own interests to the extent of suffering no rights of our own to be either lost or jeoparded. So while Mr. Denslow and Alice went upon their business mission I remained with Mrs. Denslow and her interesting children and elucidated my theory of the ice-caps of the planet Mars. In less than an hour Mr. Denslow and Alice returned and exhibited with delight a receipt signed by Katherine Elizabeth Schmittheimer, which receipt, I was glad to see, was practically a contract to sell the property upon the terms specified in her original talk with Alice.
"The terms are certainly exceptionally advantageous!" said Mr. Denslow. "It will take some time—perhaps a week or ten days—to investigate the title; when this detail is satisfactorily disposed of you can pay down your one thousand dollars and take possession of the premises."
Pay down one thousand dollars? Ah, I had quite forgotten about that. In my enthusiasm over the prospect of a home of our own, and in the delirium induced by the delightful chatter about the paradise into which that front lawn and that old rookery (as Adah called it) were to be transformed, I had suffered all thought of the essential and inevitable first payment of one thousand dollars to slip quite out of my mind. Now this awful consideration, from which there could be no escape, took complete and exclusive possession of me. Where in the wide, wide world was I to get the one thousand dollars?
This was the question I put to Alice on the way home from the Denslows' that memorable evening. Alice knew as well as I did that my salary was sufficient only to cover the current expenses of the family. She knew as well as I did that the royalties from my books the last year were as follows:
"The Star Gamma in Leo and Its Satellite" . . . . . $1.60
"Mars and Its Ice-Caps" . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .75
"Probable Depth of the Bottle-Neck Seas as
Indicated by the Spectroscope" . . . . . . . . . .30
"Logarithms for the Nursery" . . . . . . . . . . . . 1.15
"Alphabetical Catalogue of Binary Stars" . . . . . . .65
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Total $4.45