"You might not dink differently. Und, how moch woult you love to bay for a deet of de farm?"
"Wa-a-l, there's differences of opinion on that subject. The most approved notion is, that Hugh Littlepage ought to be made to give warrantees, with full covenants, as it's called; and covenants is all in all, in a deed, you know——"
"But might not be in a lease?" put in uncle Ro, somewhat dryly.
"That depinds—but some say them deeds ought to be given, if the tenants allow the landlords the worth of the land when the patentee got it, and interest down to the present day. It does not seem a desp'rate price to pay for land, to give principal and interest, and to throw in all that has been paid beside?"
"Haf you made a calculation, to see vhat it might come to?"
"Shabbakuk has; tell the gentleman, Shabbakuk, how much you made it come to, the acre."
Shabbakuk was a far deeper rogue than his neighbor, Holmes. The last was merely a man of selfish and narrow views, who, from passing a long life with no other object before him than that of scraping together property, had got his mind completely ensnared in the meshes of this world's net; whereas, his companion took the initiative, as the French have it, in knavery, and not only carried out, but invented the schemes of the wicked. He clearly did not like this appeal to his arithmetic, but having no suspicion to whom he was talking, and fancying every man in the lower conditions of life must be an ally in a plan to make the "rich poorer, and the poor richer," he was a little more communicative than might otherwise have been the case. After reflecting a moment, he gave us his answer, reading from a paper in his hand, on which the whole sum had been elaborately worked for the occasion of the late meeting.
"The land was worth ten cents an acre, maybe, when the first Littlepage got it, and that is a liberal price. Now that was eighty years since, for we don't count old Herman Mordaunt's time as anything; seeing that the land was worth next to nothin' in his time. The interest on ten cents at seven per cent, is seven mills a year, or five hundred and sixty mills for eighty years. This is without compound; compound being unlawful, and nothin' agin law should be taken into the account. Add the ten cents to the five hundred and sixty mills, and you get six hundred and sixty mills, or sixty-six cents. Now this sum, or a sum calculated on the same principles, all the tenants are willing to pay for their farms,[27] and if justice prevails they will get 'em."
"Dat seems but little to bay for landt dat might now rent for a dollar an acre each year."
"You forgit that the Littlepages have had the rent these eighty years, the whull time."