“It was your fault,” Carl explained. “You said, you know—”
“Yes, I know, and I expect the joke’s on me at having to get up in the middle of the night like this. But the law gives you three days of grace, you know. And besides, you can’t foreclose a mortgage without giving thirty days’ notice. You had a whole month to pay in. Guess you ain’t studied mortgage law. That’s why I wouldn’t take your ten dollars a day for an extension, and I was having my quiet laugh to see you so flustered and worrited, when you wasn’t in no danger at all.”
“But—but I thought—” Carl stammered.
“That I’d grab the bees away from you to-morrow? Foreclosing a mortgage is a slower business than that. Now you think I’m a pretty hard customer, don’t you?”
Carl blushed.
“Well, I’ll tell you now that I never foreclosed but one mortgage in my life, and that was on a farm where I hadn’t got no interest for three years, and the fellow was boasting that Dave Farr’d never get a cent out of him. Foreclosed on him, I did; but I’d have no more shut down on young people like you than I’d have sold myself out.”
“I’m sorry, Mr. Farr! We didn’t understand—either the business, or you!” cried Alice, and she held out her hand impulsively.
“That’s all right, young lady. You didn’t know nothing about business, of course, and I did, that’s all. I oughter have told you how you stood instead of laughing, and it serves me right to be got up out of bed at this time of night. And now my sleep’s broke up, I’ll have a chaw, and you can tell me how your investment panned out.”
Mr. Farr produced a black plug of tobacco from inside the clock, bit off a piece and disposed himself to listen. Carl briefly outlined their fortunes, and told of the trouble they had had with Larue. Mr. Farr laughed heartily at the expedient of the robber bees.
“I see you young people are as sharp as they make ’em!” he said. “Just think of sending them bees to bring back their own honey! But I know Baptiste Larue—known him for years. He ain’t such a bad fellow, lazy and steals a little, and if you play him a bad trick he’ll get back at you sure as fate. That’s the Indian in him; and if you do him a good turn he’ll never forget it, and that’s the Indian too, I guess. Pity you’ve got at loggerheads with him. Better try to straighten it out. I’ll have a talk with him when I see him, and maybe I can help to straighten things out.”