“My father lived to be nigh on to eighty,” said Joshua. “He wa’n’t no healthier than I be, as I know of.”
“You might live to be as old, if you would eat nourishing food.”
“So I do! Who says I don’t?”
“Nancy Gray, the girl that worked for you, says you didn’t allow yourself enough to eat.”
“That girl!” groaned the old man. “It’s well I got red on her, or she’d have eaten me out of house and home. She eat three times as much as I did, and I’m a hardworking man and need more than she does.”
“I suppose you know what I’ve come to speak to you about, Mr. Starr,” said Andy, thinking it time to come to business.
“Have you come to pay that note I hold agin’ your mother?” asked the old man, with suppressed eagerness.
“My mother owes you nothing,” said Andy, firmly.
“You’re mistaken, Andy. She owes me a hundred dollars and interest, and I’ve got the dockyment to prove it.”
“You know very well, Mr. Starr, that my father paid you that money long ago.”