"Shall I tell 'em?" says Philander.
"I don't care," says Ratty. "Tell 'em, if you want to."
"Well," says Foster, "old Ebenezer Taylor, Ratty's dad, owns it, drat him! and he's tryin' to drive me out of town 'count of Rat's spendin' so much time in here. Ratty's a fine feller, but his pa's the meanest old skinflint that ever drawed the breath of life. Not meanin' no reflections on your family, Rat—but ain't it so?"
"I shan't contradict you, Phi," says Ratty.
Jacobs and I looked at each other. Then I got up from my chair.
"Jim Henry," says I, "I don't see as we've got much to gain by stayin' here. Let's go home."
We went back to the store, neither of us speakin', but both thinkin' hard. It was all off now, of course. If old Taylor owned that mortgage, he'd foreclose on the nail, if only to get rid of his son's loafin' place. And he wouldn't sell to us—hatin' us as he did—unless we covered the place with cash an inch deep. No, buyin' the "Palace" was a dead proposition. And there wa'n't another available buildin' or lot big enough for us to move to within a mile of Ostable Center.
"Humph!" says I, some sarcastic. "It looks to me—speakin' as a man in the crosstrees—as if that wonderful business brain of yours had sprung a leak somewheres, Jim. Better get your pumps to workin', hadn't you?"
He snorted. "I'd rather have a leaky head than a solid wood one like some I know," he says. "Quiet your Jezebellerin' and let me think.... There's one thing we might do, of course: We might advance the other five hundred to Foster, let him pay off his mortagage, and then—"
"And then trust to luck to get the money back," I put in. "There's more charity than profit in that, if you ask me. Once that mortgage is paid, you couldn't get Philander out of that buildin' with a derrick. He don't want to go."