"Oh!" exclaimed Gummy hotly, "I could have hit him for speaking so mean to my mother."
"I don't blame you," Janice said sympathetically. "But never mind. Tell the rest."
"Why, all mother could say was what your father told' her to say. She said: 'You said when you were here several weeks ago that you would let me pay off some of the principal and let the mortgage stand.'
"'How much?' he snapped at her—just like a hungry dog at a bone, you know," continued Gummy.
"'I will spare fifty dollars,' said mother.
"'Fifty fiddlestrings!' shouted Strout. 'Won't hear to it!
Won't listen to it!'
"But already, you see," chuckled Gummy, "mother had pushed the interest money toward him across the table. He grabbed it. He couldn't keep his hands off real money, I guess—his own or anybody else's."
"Oh, Gummy!" murmured Amy.
"Well, didn't he just act so?" cried the boy. "Why, he counted that interest money just as hungrily! And he folded it and put it in his wallet."
"You tell it just as it was," sighed Amy. "Of course I do. Well, mother said: 'You can give me my receipt for that, Mr. Strout, if you don't mind.' And then he did go off the handle!" chortled Gummy. "You see, he had tricked himself."