“Fifty guineas, sir; neither more nor less.”
“Say thirty and we'll deal.”
“I don't want money, sir,” replied the sturdy farmer, “and I won't part with the horse under his value. I will get what I ask for him.”
“Say thirty-five.”
“Not a cross under the round half hundred; and I'm glad it is not your mother that is buying him.”
“Why so?” asked Woodward; and his eye darkly sparkled with its malignant influence.
“Why, sir, because if I didn't sell him to her at her own terms, he would be worth very little in a few days afterwards.”
The observation was certainly an offensive one, especially when made to her son.
“Will you take forty for him?” asked Woodward, coolly.
“Not a penny, sir, under what I said. You are clearly a good judge of a horse, Mr. Woodward, and I wonder that a gentleman like you would offer me less than I ask, because you cannot but know that it is under his value.”