"I met Roper—of Bates and Roper, you[Pg 181] know—coming out of the old man's house yesterday. I guess we each suspected the other of being on a private speculation, but after considerable sounding I found that he had been commissioned to buy the place. Then it struck me that you and this other party might have been quietly prospecting." [Pg 181] I shook my head. "I'm not after oil or gas wells or anything else in that line," I said decidedly. "I want the place for a quiet home. Who is this other—man?" "I don't know. Roper didn't name his client, and of course I didn't name mine, but as far as I can make out we've both had similar instructions. It looks as if the old man were holding off to see who would make the highest bid. Now it isn't worth more than four thousand, but you can decide whether to bid higher or let it go." If anything could have made me more eager it was the knowledge that someone else wanted Waydean. The thought of Marion's dismay if our home should be sold over our heads filled me with the determination to settle the matter at once. I[Pg 182] told Brooks to go ahead to the extent of five thousand dollars. [Pg 182] "Well," he said, shaking his head with reluctance, "I'd rather lose my commission than see you give that, for the land isn't worth the money,—that is, for farming," he added, with a shrewd glance at me,—"but that's your look-out, and I'll do my best." [Pg 183] [Pg 183] X UNCLE BENNY CREATES A DIVERSION X UNCLE BENNY CREATES A DIVERSION It was during the first eighteen months of our life at Waydean that I wrote "The Meditations of Uncle Benny" for the Observer. I do not allude to these sketches as anything out of the ordinary, for there are times, as Marion says, when it is well for one to neither affirm nor deny the truth. Why it is wrong for me to voice a just and critical appreciation of my literary work, and proper for my wife to openly admire her newly scrubbed floor or her arrangement of flowers in a vase, I cannot see. Nor can I get her to explain; she prefers to say that if I cannot see for myself it would be useless for her to try to
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