"You are certainly not serious in what you say, Mr. Page!"
"I never was more serious in my life," returned the old gentleman.
"And you permitted me to be made the victim, upon your own acknowledgment, of a shameful swindle, and did not expend even a breath to save me!"
"I am not used to be spoken to in that way, young man," replied Mr. Page, coldly, and with a slightly offended air. "Nor am I in the habit of forcing my advice upon everybody."
"If you saw a man going blindfold towards the brink of a precipice, wouldn't you force your advice upon him?"
"Perhaps I might. But as you were not going blindfold over a precipice, I did not see that it was my business to interfere."
A cutting reply was on the lips of Jordan, but a thought of Edith cooled him off suddenly, and he in a milder and more respectful tone of voice, "I should be glad, Mr. Page, if you would demonstrate the error under which I have been labouring in regard to this business. If there is an error, I wish to see it; and can see it as quickly as any one, if it really exists, and the proper means of seeing it are furnished."
The change in the young man's manner softened Mr. Page, and he sat down, pencil in hand, and by the aid of the answers which the actual experience of Jordan enabled him to give, showed him, in ten minutes, that the more land he cleared and the more logs he sawed up, the poorer he would become.
"And you knew all this before?" said Jordan.
"Certainly I did. In fact, I built the saw-mill owned by Tompkins, and after sinking a couple of thousand dollars, was glad to get it off of my hands at any price. Tompkins makes a living with it, and nothing more. But then he is his own engineer, manager, clerk, and almost every thing else, and lives with the closest economy in his family—much closer than you or I would like to live."