"Oh, no! She only came to stay while I was sick. John insists on my having her to wash and iron, and I have no objection to that; but as to any thing else I have to do, Jane is more plague than profit. I am of the Widow Scudder's opinion about girls: I want them to stand out of my way and let me get done."
It turned out that Joe's business was to try and borrow the money which John was soon to receive from Mr. Beckman. He proposed to secure it by a mortgage on a house of Mr. Van Horn's, and by some means or other to pay eight per cent. interest.
John listened with so much attention that Joe made sure of his object; and he was quite taken aback when John said, quietly,—
"That would be usury, Joe."
"Well, what if it is? I don't suppose you will pretend to say that there is any morality concerned in taking one rate of interest more than another. I have heard you say myself that you could see no more sense in a law regulating the hire of money than in one to regulate the price of horses."
"I do not," replied John. "But, while there is such a law, whoever lends money on more than legal interest runs the chance of losing the whole. Besides, I don't like money transactions between relations; and, more than all, I would never lend money to anybody to put into the liquor business."
"Pshaw! Why need you know what the money is used for? I suppose the long and the short of it is that you want to put the money into your own business."
"Not at all. I have no intention of putting it into any business. I mean to salt it down, as they say,—invest it in some good, safe stock, and let it alone. There is something pleasant in the idea of having a sum laid aside out of the risk of business—a kind of nest-egg."
"But, Caswell, you don't consider the security. That fine house and lot on a good street. Why, it rents for two hundred and fifty dollars a year."
"And quite free from incumbrance?"