“I have just made an engagement to work for five dollars a week,” said our hero, enjoying the squire's look of surprise.
“Indeed! Who pays you that?”
“A gentleman boarding at the hotel has engaged me to read to him as his eyes are weak.”
“A fool and his money are soon parted,” said Squire Leech. “You may retain the position a week.”
“I hope to keep it. I feel sure that I shall.”
“I don't,” said the squire, emphatically.
“Then are you willing to wait—say two weeks—for the rest of the interest?”
“No, I am not, and you ought to have known I shouldn't be. There is a way of arranging the whole matter.”
“By selling the place, you mean?”
“Yes; I mean just that. It is folly for you to think of keeping the property with such a heavy mortgage upon it on which you are unable to pay the interest. I have offered you a fair price for it.”