Dick could stand it no longer.
He felt that since he was a man of business now, and the head of the house, he ought to have something to say about such a transaction as this.
"Mr. Cheatham, let me explain to you just what my mother means. This house is not for sale," he said, in positive tones that made the old money-lender stare at him.
"Not for sale, young man, when your mother came to me and begged me to take it off her hands? It was only a question of price, and I have even gone a hundred above her own figure. Surely she would not be so foolish as to lose such a golden opportunity, which may never occur again. Not for sale—you must be mistaken, boy."
"As she said to you, circumstances have also changed with us since she called on you. My mother has come into some money, enough to keep her in comfort all her life, and she does not mean to let this house, which my father himself built, go out of her possession. You could not buy it sir, at double the price you offer."
The lawyer and money shark jumped up from his chair as though he had been fixed upon a spring like a jack-in-the-box.
"Madam, is what your son tells me true?" he demanded, hotly.
"Every word of it, Mr. Cheatham; I have been trying to say the same thing but somehow could not get you to understand me. We do not intend to leave Riverview, and the property is withdrawn from sale," she replied.
"Then I have been a fool to come out here to-night," he growled, and shuffled out toward the gate.
"A good riddance, and I hope he never comes here again. When he really got it through his head that you had fallen into a fortune the old beast looked at you as if he could eat you, mother. If he ever comes courting around here I'll be tempted to do something desperate, the old skinflint. He's the worst-hated man in all Riverview, even if he is the richest," declared Dick, as he heard the vehicle moving down the road with sundry creakings and groanings, for they said Hezekiah Cheatham was too stingy to buy axle grease.