“No, I don't.”
“Well, it's that mortgage deed that Basset held on my place, with—the signature torn off, cancelled—” Ozias said, in a hoarse voice. “D'ye know anythin' about it now?”
“No, I don't,” replied Jerome, with emphasis.
“Well,” said Ozias, “I found it under the front door-sill. Belindy said she heard a knock on the front door, but when she went there wa'n't nobody there, an' there was this paper. She come runnin' out to the shop with it. It was jest before noon. What d'ye s'pose it means?”
Jerome took the deed and examined it closely. “Have you read what's written above the heading of it?” he asked.
“No; what is it, J'rome?”
Ozias put on his spectacles; Jerome pointed to a crabbed line above the heading of the mortgage deed.
“I giv as present the forth part of my proputty, this morgidge to Ozier Lamm.
“Simon Basset.”
“He's took crazy!” cried Ozias, staring wildly at it.
“Guess he's been crazy over dollars and cents all his life, and this is just an acute phase of it,” replied Jerome, calmly, taking up his plough handles again.