"Now listen a moment!" Mr. Rogers said. And Nancy added gently, almost tremulously: "Do just LISTEN to him, Bert!" "You pay rent, don't you?" began Mr. Rogers, "Sixty, you said? That's seven hundred and twenty dollars a year, and you have nothing to show for it! But you'd consider seventy-five or a hundred cheap enough for a place like this wouldn't you?" "I could go--a hundred, yes," Bert admitted, clearing his throat. "You don't HAVE to go any hundred," the agent said, triumphantly. "And besides that, isn't it to your advantage to live in your own house, and have a home that you can be proud of, and pay everything over your interest toward your mortgage? We have people here who only paid two or three thousand down, we don't push you--that isn't our idea. If you can't meet our terms, we'll meet yours. You've got your nest-egg, whatever it is----" "As a matter of fact, I've got ten thousand to start with," Bert said slowly. "But that's all I have got, Rogers," he added firmly, "And I don't propose----" "You've GOT ten thousand?" asked the agent, with a kindly smile. And immediately his vehemence gave way to a sort of benign amusement. "Why, my dear boy," he said genially, "What's the matter with you? There's a mortgage of twelve thousand on that place now; you pay your ten, and 6 per cent, on the rest--that's something a little more than sixty dollars a month--and then you clear off your loan, or not, as suits you! I don't have to tell you that that's good business. How much of the holdings of Pearsall and Pearsall are clear of mortgages! We carry 'em on every inch of our land, right to the hilt too. If you're getting the equivalent of 8 or 9 per cent, on your money, you should worry about the man that carries the loan. You're paying 6 per cent, on somebody's twelve thousand now, don't forget that..." Chapter Eighteen An hour later they went to see Holly Court again. It was even lovelier than ever in the sweet spring twilight. Triangles of soft light lay upon its dusty, yet polished, floors. Bert said that the place certainly needed precious little furniture; Nancy added eagerly that one maid could do all the work. She drew a happy sketch of Bert and his friends, arriving hot and weary from the city, on summer afternoons, going down to the bay for a plunge, and coming back to find supper spread on the red-tiled porch. Bert liked the idea of winter fires, with snow and darkness outside and firelight and warmth within, and the Bradleys' friends driving up jolly and cold for an hour's talk, and a cup of tea. "What do you think, dear?" said Bert to his wife, very low, when the agent had considerately withdrawn for a few minutes, and they could confer. "Think!" repeated Nancy, in delicate reproach, "Why, I suppose there is only one thing to think, Bert!"