“Is Bascom making you any trouble? If he is, say so, ’cause I happen to have the whip-hand so far as he’s concerned. That Nelson’s nothin’ but a tool of his, and a dull tool at that.”
“He’s an objectionable person, I must say,” remarked Maxwell, and hesitated to trust himself further.
Mrs. Burke gazed at Maxwell for some time in silence and then began:
“You look about done up—I don’t want to be pryin’, 208 but I guess you’d better own up. Something’s the matter.”
“I am just worried and anxious, and I suppose I can’t help showing it,” he replied wearily.
“So you’re worried, are you. Now don’t you get the worried habit; if it makes a start it will grow on you till you find yourself worryin’ for fear the moon won’t rise. Worryin’s like usin’ rusty scissors: it sets your mouth awry. You just take things as they come, and when it seems as if everything was goin’ to smash and you couldn’t help it, put on your overalls and paint a fence, or hammer tacks, or any old thing that comes handy. What has that rascal Bascom been doin’? Excuse me—my diplomacy’s of the hammer-and-tongs order; you’re not gettin’ your salary paid?”
For some time Maxwell hesitated and then answered:
“Well, I guess I might as well tell you, because you will know all about it anyway in a day or two, and you might as well get a correct version of the affair from me, though I hate awfully to trouble you. The parish owes me two hundred and fifty dollars. I spoke to Reynolds about it several times, but he says that Bascom and several of his intimate friends won’t pay their subscriptions promptly, and so he can’t pay me. But the shortage in my salary is not the worst of it. 209 Did you know that the rectory was heavily mortgaged, and that Bascom holds the mortgage?”
“Yes, I knew it; but we paid something down’, and the interest’s been kept up, and we hoped that if we did that Bascom would be satisfied.”
“It seems that the interest has not been paid in some time, and the real reason why Nelson called just now was to inform me that as Bascom was about to foreclose we must get out as soon as we could. I told him that we would leave on Wednesday next.”