"I believe you think you are telling the truth," he said. "Mending pauper's boots and shoes must be a profitable business, then?" "I have had some money left to me," said "Cobbler" Horn. The interest of Daniel Froud was awakened at once. "Ah!" he exclaimed, "that is it, is it? But sit down, Mr. Horn," and the grizzled reprobate pushed towards his visitor, who had hitherto remained standing, one of his rickety and dust-covered chairs. "Cobbler" Horn looked doubtfully at the proffered seat, and said that he preferred to stand. "If you are willing to sell me the house, Mr. Froud," he said, "name your price. It is not my intention to waste your time." Daniel Froud still pondered. It was no longer a question whether he should sell "Cobbler" Horn the house: he was beginning already to consider how much he should ask for it. "So you really wish to buy the house, Mr. Horn?" he asked. "Such is my desire." "And you think you can pay the price?" "I have little doubt on that point." "Well"--with a sudden jerk forward of his forbidding face--"what do you say to L600?" Unsophisticated as he was, "Cobbler" Horn felt that the proposal was exorbitant. "You are surely joking?" he said. "You think the price too small?" "I consider it much too large." "Well, perhaps I was joking, as you said. What do you think of L500?" "I'm afraid even that is too much. I'll give you L450." Daniel Froud hesitated for some minutes, but at last said, "Well, I'll take your offer, Mr. Horn; but it's a dreadful sacrifice." A few minutes sufficed to complete the agreement; and then, in taking his departure, "Cobbler" Horn administered a word of admonition to his grasping landlord. "Don't you know, friend," he said, "that it is a grievous sin to try to sell anything for more than it is worth? And how contemptible it is to be so greedy of money! It does not seem to me that money is to be so eagerly desired, and especially if it does one no more good than yours seems to be doing you. Good morning, friend; and God give you repentance." Mr. Froud had listened open-mouthed to this plain-spoken homily. When he came to himself, he darted forward, and aimed a blow with his fist, which just failed to strike the back of his visitor, who was in the act of leaving the room. Confronting him in the doorway was the old crone who kept his house. "Was that Horn, the shoemaker?" she asked. "Yes, woman." "Horn as has just come into the fortune?" "Well--somewhat." "'Somewhat!' It's said to be about a million of money! Look here!" and she showed him a begrimed and crumpled scrap of newspaper, containing a full account of "Cobbler" Horn's fortune. With a cry, Daniel Froud seized the woman, and shook her till it almost seemed as though the bones rattled in her skin. "You hell-cat! Why didn't you tell me that before?" The wretched creature fell back panting against the door on the opposite side of the passage.