"'Of course, we will allow ye a fair price fer yer property when we need it,' he explained.
"'If ye think yer price'll put a gateway here, ye're sadly mistaken,' I said. 'Ye can put up yer hotel, an' every drop o' spirits that's sold in the country can go to ye, an' I'll no complain, but I warn ye that I've spent thirty-five years gettin' this tavern into my keepin', an' it'll take forty more to get it out again.' I jist let him have it straight, an' then I wint in an' slammed the door to show me contempt fer the loikes o' him.
"Then, a few days afterwards, two gentlemen called on me, an' they said they wanted to make a proposition to me, but I just told them to see me lawyers about it, an' they sort o' fidgitted awhile, an' then they asked me who I was employin' to look after my interests. I just bid them go and find out if they thought it worth while, an' I left them sittin' there like two bad boys in school," Nancy stopped while she laughed again, and young John broke in with a question.
"Was my father one of those two men?"
"Now, Johnny, ye needn't be mixin' yer father in the talk at all. Ye know he an' I never agreed," Nancy demurred.
"But I want to know for a reason," he persisted. "You have a payment—the last, I believe—on the mortgage falling due shortly?" he inquired.
"I have," she answered, somewhat perplexed.
"Well, my father would like you to miss making that payment, because he wants to get a commission for securing the sale of your property, and that would give him a hold on you. I can appreciate your desire to stay with the old place, so I would advise you to be early in sending him this amount. Can you raise it?" young John asked.
Nancy sat for awhile in mental perturbation, and then somewhat dubiously answered, "Yes."
"Oh, that just reminds me that Corney bade me give you a hundred dollars," young John said, hurriedly, his face lighting up.