“I’m afraid even that is too much. I’ll give you £450.”
Daniel Froud hesitated for some minutes, but at last said, “Well, I’ll take your offer, Mr. Horn; but it’s a dreadful sacrifice.”
A few minutes sufficed to complete the agreement; and then, in taking his departure, “Cobbler” Horn administered a word of admonition to his grasping landlord.
“Don’t you know, friend,” he said, “that it is a grievous sin to try to sell anything for more than it is worth? And how contemptible it is to be so greedy of money! It does not seem to me that money is to be so eagerly desired, and especially if it does one no more good than yours seems to be doing you. Good morning, friend; and God give you repentance.”
Mr. Froud had listened open-mouthed to this plain-spoken homily. When he came to himself, he darted forward, and aimed a blow with his fist, which just failed to strike the back of his visitor, who was in the act of leaving the room.
Confronting him in the doorway was the old crone who kept his house.
“Was that Horn, the shoemaker?” she asked.
“Yes, woman.”
“Horn as has just come into the fortune?”
“Well—somewhat.”