"A snug little nest, eh?" Cavanaugh asked, with a slow and rather automatic smile. "Looks like somebody ought to rent it, cheap as I hold it and ready furnished--only fifteen a month." "It is all right," John answered, indifferently. "You ought to rent it in the fall, anyway, when business picks up." "I want to rent it by the time we finish the court-house, anyway"--Cavanaugh continued to smile--"and I'd like to rent it to somebody that would take care of it-- I mean somebody that I know about. Gee! wouldn't this be a snug little nest for a pair of new-married turtle-doves? Think of a fellow coming back from his day's work at night to a cottage like this, with a little wife to meet him in a white bib and tucker and a kiss and a glad smile?" John had a sudden flash of comprehension, and he flushed from head to foot. His great mouth made a failure of a smile, and that he was pleased Cavanaugh did not doubt. "You think you have a joke on me," John said. "Well, well, go it, Sam! I'm game for a little thing like that." "You may call it a joke, but I don't," the contractor said, quite seriously. "You see, I've got an ax to grind--two, in fact, for in the first place I want to rent this house for enough to pay the taxes and insurance, and in the next I want to tie you down to Ridgeville. I am too old to move now, and I need you mighty bad. Say, you and I can become partners before long." "Well, what has that got to do with your--your other damn foolishness?" John's face was averted as he spoke. They were back in the bedroom now, and he made a pretense of examining the new sash-cords of the window. He drew one of the weights up in its hidden groove and lowered it again. He had never before examined a detail of a building so minutely. He looked closely at the paint on the mullions and searched for flaws in the glass. "It has got this to do with it," Cavanaugh went on, now steadily and without a vestige of his former smile. "I'm no fool, my boy. I know as well as I stand here that you are not going to leave that sweet little girl up there to do the drudgery for that irritable old hog and his obedient wife. If you did I'd lose respect for you. You are making good pay and you will make even better. In a little nook like this you could make her as happy as the day is long. She could do all the housework and not work a fourth as hard as she does now. Why, I saw her in the corn-field the other day, toiling like an old-time slave with a heavy hoe, while her rotten old daddy was in the house picking out passages in the Bible to pin down some particular argument of his." "I guess--I guess--" John stammered, "that the--the _girl_ would have something to say on the subject."