“Thin they don’t value your services as they should,—pardon my sayin’. This minnit they ought to give ye more. Now I need a man like yourself to be me representative in New York. I give you the first option. Will ye come and accept the position for six thousand a year?”
Mr. Hollister acted dazed. Grandmother spoke up:
“Answer, Archibald.”
But still Archibald kept quiet.
“Is it because ye think it not honorable to leave them? Thin tell thim that I have offered ye more and see if they will do the same. I’ll give you a week to see.”
“And now, ma’am, I have heard that ye wished to sell. Yere Granddaughter will marry and this house will be too big for the three of yees. A pretty apartment on the Park will be far better for ye. What is yere price for the house?”
“We refused thirty thousand for it in 1900,” replied Mrs. Hollister, “and real estate has increased in value since that.”
“Very well,” said Mr. Casey, “I know what ye say is true, and I will pay a fair price. I will give ye fifty thousand for this house, ma’am, and I will have it re-modeled for my girl.”
“I will accept,” said Mrs. Hollister, in a prompt businesslike way. “There is no mortgage on the house,” she added.
“Yere more of a business woman than yere son. Faith, he’s worryin’ over hurtin’ feelings of his employers I do be thinkin’,” and Mr. Casey laid back and laughed.