“Well, glad to see you, squire,” he declared, cordially. “Nice summer we’re having. Wouldn’t like to take home a couple dozen fresh eggs, would you? Hens doing right well lately. I can spare you some, I reckon, store price.”
“Why, yes, I should,” answered the squire. “Those hens of yours do lay the finest eggs I know of.”
The squire, watching Billy at his work, discoursed of this and that; of the weather, the fishing, politics, and the prospect of the hay crop.
“Wonder what he’s driving at,” was Billy’s inward reflection.
“Have a smoke, Billy?” asked the squire, proffering the other one of Rob Dakin’s best and biggest five-cent affairs.
“Don’t care if I do,” replied Billy, and made a further mental observation that something was coming now, sure.
“By the way, Billy,” remarked the squire, presently, “how do we stand on that mortgage on the island down yonder?”
He said it in an offhand way, just as though he didn’t know, even to the fraction of a cent, the amount of principal and interest due to that very hour.
“Why, I guess you know better than I do, the amount of interest up to date,” replied Billy. “But it ain’t due just yet, eh, squire?”
“Why, no, it isn’t,” replied Squire Brackett; “and I was thinking perhaps we might fix it up between us so there wouldn’t be anything due, and so that you would have something in your own pocket, besides. How would you like that?”