“Wanted an option,” repeated Judge Fulsom loudly, “just till I could fix up the paper. ‘And, if you please,’ said she, ‘I’d like t’ pay five thousand dollars for the option, then I’d feel more sure.’ And before I had a chance to open my mouth, she whips out a check-book.” “Gr-reat jumping Judas!” cried the irrepressible Lute, whose other name was Parsons. “Five thousand dollars! Why, the old place ain’t worth no five thousand dollars!” Judge Fulsom removed his pipe from his mouth, knocked out the half-burned tobacco, blew through the stem, then proceeded to fill and light it again. From the resultant haze issued his voice once more, bland, authoritative, reminiscent. “Well, now, son, that depends on how you look at it. Time was when Andrew Bolton wouldn’t have parted with the place for three times that amount. It was rated, I remember, at eighteen thousand, including live stock, conveyances an’ furniture, when it was deeded over to the assignees. We sold out the furniture and stock at auction for about half what they were worth. But there weren’t any bidders worth mentioning for the house and land. So it was held by the assignees—Cephas Dix, Deacon Whittle and myself—for private sale. We could have sold it on easy terms the next year for six thousand; but in process of trying to jack up our customer to seven, we lost out on the deal. But now—” Judge Fulsom arose, brushed the tobacco from his waistcoat front and cleared his throat. “Guess I’ll have to be getting along,” said he; “important papers to look over, and—” “A female woman, like her, is likely to change her mind before tomorrow morning,” said the middle-aged man dubiously. “And I heard Mrs. Solomon Black had offered to sell her place to the young woman for twenty-nine hundred—all in good repair and neat as wax. She might take it into her head to buy it.” “Right in the village, too,” growled Lute Parsons. “Say, Jedge, did you give her that option she was looking for? Because if you did she can’t get out of it so easy.” Judge Fulsom twinkled pleasantly over his bulging cheeks. “I sure did accommodate the young lady with the option, as aforesaid,” he vouchsafed. “And what’s more, I telephoned to the Grenoble Bank to see if her check for five thousand dollars was O. K.... Well; so long, boys!” He stepped ponderously down from the piazza and turned his broad back on the row of excited faces. “Hold on, Jedge!” the middle-aged man called after him. “Was her check any good? You didn’t tell us!” The Judge did not reply. He merely waved his hand. “He’s going over to the post office,” surmised the lean youth, shifting the stub of his cigar to the corner of his mouth in a knowing manner. He lowered his heels to the floor with a thud and prepared to follow. Five minutes later the bartender, not hearing the familiar hum of voices from the piazza, thrust his head out of the door.