While she still hesitated, he added one more recommendation.
"An old house it is, but solid, and will stand forever. Why, old Mr. Messenger was born here."
"Was he?" she cried, "was my—was Mr. Messenger actually born here?"
She hesitated no longer. She took the house at his own price; she accepted his terms, extortionate and grasping as they were.
When the bargain was completed—when she had promised to sign the agreement for a twelvemonth, pay a year in advance, and appoint the disinterested one her executor of repairs, she returned to Bormalack's. In the doorway, a cigarette in his mouth, lounged the idle apprentice.
"I saw you," he said, "with the benevolent Bunker. You have fallen a prey to my uncle?"
"I have taken a house from him."
"The two phrases are convertible. Those who take his houses are his victims. I hope no great mischief is done."
"Not much, I think."
The young man threw away his cigarette.