erguson----"

"Wouldn't have made the offer he did if he hadn't thought so, too."

"He might have done it to help us."

"He isn't that kind of a man. No, mother, it is for our interest to
hold on to the land till we know more about it."

"How shall we manage about the rent?"

Fred looked troubled.

"Something may turn up to-morrow. When the landlord comes, ask him to
come again at eight o'clock, when I shall be home."

"Very well, Fred."

Mrs. Fenton was so much in the habit of trusting to her son that she
dismissed the matter with less anxiety than Fred felt. He knew very
well that trusting for something to turn up is a precarious dependence,
but there seemed nothing better to do.

CHAPTER IV.

ZEBULON MACK.

At twelve that day the landlord, Zebulon Mack, presented himself
promptly at the door of Mrs. Fenton's room.

He was a small, thin, wrinkled man, whose suit would have been refused
as a gift by the average tramp, yet he had an income of four thousand
dollars a year from rents. He was now sixty years of age. At twenty-one
he was working for eight dollars a week, and saving three-fifths of
that. By slow degrees he had made himself rich, but in so doing he had
denied himself all but the barest necessaries. What he expected to do
with his money, as he was a bachelor with no near relatives, was a
mystery, and he had probably formed no definite ideas himself. But it
was his great enjoyment to see his hoards annually increasing, and he
had no mercy for needy or unfortunate tenants who found themselves
unable to pay their rent promptly.

Mrs. Fenton opened the door with a troubled look.

"I've come for that other three dollars, ma'am," said Zebulon Mack,
standing on the threshold.

"I'm very sorry, sir----" began the widow.

"What! haven't you got the money?" snarled Mack, screwing up his
features into a frown that made him look even more unprepossessing.

"My son Fred will be paid on Saturday night, and then----"

"Saturday night won't do. Didn't you promise it to-day?"

"Yes; and Fred tried to get an advance, but could not."

"Where is he working?"

"On the Erie road."

"Most likely he spends all his money for beer and cigarettes. I know
him. He looks like it."

"You are very much mistaken, sir," said Mrs. Fenton, indignantly.

"Oh, you think so, of course," sneered the landlord. "Mothers don't
know much about their boys, nor fathers either. I am glad I haven't a
son."

"I wouldn'