"
Vague and general as Miss Rosey's compliment was, it had its full
effect upon her father, who was at times dimly conscious of his
hopeless rusticity and its incongruity with his surroundings. "Yes," he
said awkwardly, with a slight relaxation of his aggressive attitude;
"yes, in course it's more bang-up style, but it don't pay--Rosey--it
don't pay. Yer's the Pontiac that oughter be bringin' in, ez rents go,
at least three hundred a month, don't make her taxes. I bin thinkin'
seriously of sellin' her."
As Rosey knew her father had experienced this serious contemplation on
the first of every month for the last two years, and cheerfully ignored
it the next day, she only said, "I'm sure the vacant rooms and lofts
are all rented, father."
"That's it," returned Mr. Nott thoughtfully, plucking at his bushy
whiskers with his fingers and thumb as if he were removing dead and
sapless incumbrances in their growth, "that's just what it is--them's
ez in it themselves don't pay, and them ez haz left their goods--the
goods don't pay. The feller ez stored them iron sugar kettles in the
forehold, after trying to get me to make another advance on 'em, sez he
believes he'll have to sacrifice 'em to me after all, and only begs I'd
give him a chance of buying back the half of 'em ten years from now, at
double what I advanced him.
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