lavish expenditure. For instance, on one trip she bought a wire potato masher for seven cents, a spice cabinet for thirty cents, sixty cents worth of trimming for an old hat, and a pair of silk suspenders for me. The price mark on the latter was carefully obliterated, being a present, so I couldn't tell what they cost;[Pg 179] anyway, it wouldn't have been proper to look at the price, if it had been legible. Evidently, at that rate of spending she would have enough money left to stock the farm when it became hers.

[Pg 178]

[Pg 179]

The real estate agent whom I consulted smiled loftily when I alluded to Peter Waydean's reputation for shrewdness and overreaching. "Don't concern yourself about that, Mr. Carton," he said. "We business men are accustomed to deal with these close-fisted farmers. They usually know the value of a farm as well as we do, but we know how to get them down to the bottom figure. We don't run after the owner and let him think we're anxious to buy; we approach him in the most incidental manner, dangling the bait, so to speak, until he's afraid someone else is going to snap it up. Now, the Waydean farm I take to be worth about thirty-five hundred, and you say the old man talks of selling, so if you allow a margin of a hundred or two I think I can secure it without any trouble."

The calm confidence of Mr. Brooks elated me; after telling him he might go as high[Pg 180] as four thousand dollars, I went home, calculating on the way how I would spend the remaining thousand that I would still have to the good.

[Pg 180]

A week later Brooks shook his head as I entered his office. "We haven't quite got that deal through, Mr. Carton," he said. "The fact is that there seems to be a snag. Old man appears willing to sell—quite genial and all that, but when it comes to figures he fights shy; says he wants more time to think. To hurry him up I made a straight offer of four thousand. I could see that he was inclined to gobble it, but he held back, and when I went out yesterday I discovered why. Ever hear of that being a likely spot for oil or gas?"

"Good heavens, no!" I cried.

He smiled at my evident alarm. "I haven't either," he assured me, "but I thought perhaps you might have inside information. The idea came into my head when I found there was another party as keen to get the place as you."

"Another—party?" I gasped.

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