“Girlie thinks an awful lot of you,” returned Ford, heaving a sigh, Enoch’s tender allusion to his stepdaughter bringing with it his first ray of hope. “Ever stopped to think,” he went on, with sudden courage, “what this hull business will mean to her when she knows it? See here, neighbor, you’re human, I take it. ’Tain’t human in no man to crowd another feller to ruin like you’re crowdin’ me. It’ll like to kill my wife when she hears it. As for girlie—well, you know what it’ll mean to her—her little home gone, after all I’ve tried to do to make it pleasant for ’em both. S’pose I was to tell you I’ll make good—only you’ve got to give me time; that I’ll pay the rent and give every cent back to Miss Moulton—square her up as clean as a whistle.”
Enoch turned sharply.
“On what, I’d like to know? And when? Out of the chimeric profits of your vast laundry business, I suppose?”
“Hold on, neighbor, not so fast. I ain’t told you all. S’pose you was to give me a couple of weeks’ time. I’ve got a little property I’ve been bangin’ on to up-State. Four neat buildin’ lots on the swellest outskirts of Troy—Fairview Park, they call it—neatest lookin’ place you ever see; gas and water piped right from the city. I’ve been waitin’ for the right party, but if I’ve got to sell now, Crane, I’ll do it. At the lowest figger they’ll square up all these little differences between us—Mrs. Miggs and Miss Moulton will get their satisfy, you’ll get your rent, and girlie and Emma won’t know no more than if it never happened.”
“You’ll pay Miss Moulton first,” declared Enoch firmly. “I am not concerned with Mrs. Miggs’s affairs. Her own lawyer can attend to them; as for the rent, I wish you to understand plainly, that if it was not for your wife and stepdaughter——”
He ceased speaking. His teeth clenched. There was little doubt in Ford’s mind that the worst was over; that Enoch was softening. He already felt more at his ease, and for the first time leaned back in his chair, and with the vestige of a forced smile crossed his long legs, feeling that half the battle was won. What he exactly intended to do he had not the slightest idea. Mrs. Miggs’s lawyer had given him until noon. It was now past eleven. He decided to wire him: “Sending check to-morrow.” Meanwhile Enoch had resumed his pacing before him, muttering to himself words that even Ebner Ford’s quick ears did not catch.
“How about this property of yours?” cried Enoch with renewed heat. “Your four lots in Troy? You are rather vague, sir, about their value. This Fairview Park you speak of? Anything there but gas and water-pipes and a chance for the right party, as you say to come along? Any railroad or street-car communication that would persuade any one to build?”
Ford’s lean jaws, to which the color had now returned, widened in a condescending smile over Enoch’s abject ignorance.
“Fairview Park!” he exclaimed with quick enthusiasm. “Why, neighbor, it’s a bonanza! Has any one built on it? Well, I guess yes! Take the Jenkins mansion alone—the candy king. Mansard roof alone cost a fortune, to say nothin’ of a dozen other prominent homes—brand-new and up to date—not a fence in the hull park. Everybody neighborly. Course, soon as we get our railroad-station things will boom. Quick transportation to the city and plenty of fresh air for the children. Come to think of it, I was lucky to have bought when I did. Got in on the ground floor, ’twixt you and me, and ain’t never regretted it. Big men like Jenkins have been pesterin’ me a dozen times to sell, but I’ve held on, knowin’ I could double my money. Property has already advanced fifty per cent out there in the last few years, friend, and is——”
“Stop, sir!” cried Enoch. “I believe we have already discussed the question of friendship between us.”