"You have, hey?" says I. "That's interestin', if true. What's the way?"
"Why," says he, twistin' some more, "that mortgage is due on the first of June. If it ain't paid, Philander'll be foreclosed and he'll move out of town. It's only a thousand dollars and Phi's got half of it. If somebody—you and Mr. Jacobs, say—was to lend him t'other half, why then he could pay it off and—and—"
"And stay where he is," I finished disgusted. "That would be real lovely for Philander, but I don't see where we come in. This ain't a billiard and loan society Mr. Jacobs and I are runnin', thankin' you and Foster for the suggestion."
"Wait a minute, Skipper," says Jim Henry. "Your engine is runnin' wild. That ain't Ratty's scheme at all. Go on, Rat; spring it on him."
"Philander wouldn't be so set on stayin' where he is, Cap'n Zeb," says Rat, quick as a flash, "if he had another place to move into; another place here on the main road, convenient and handy by. And I think I know a place that could be got for him."
I didn't answer for a minute. I was runnin' over in my mind every possible place that might be sold or let to Philander Foster for a "Palace." And to save my life I couldn't think of one.
"Well," says I, at last, "where is it?"
Ratty leaned forward. "What's the matter with Aunt Hannah Watson's buildin' up the street?" he says. "She's been crazy to sell it for a long spell. And the lower floor would make a pretty fair billiard room, wouldn't it?"
I was disgusted. I knew the buildin' he meant, of course. Jacobs and I had talked it over that very mornin' as a possible place to move the "Ostable Grocery, Dry Goods, Boots and Shoes and Fancy Goods Store" to, but we'd both decided it wa'n't nigh big enough.
"Humph!" says I, "that scheme's so brilliant you need smoked glass to look at it. Do you cal'late as good a church woman as Aunt Hannah Watson would sell or let her place for a billiard room? She needs the money bad enough, land knows; but she's as down on those ha'nts of sin as your dad is, Rat Taylor. She'd never sell to Phi Foster in this world."