ledge did not exceed seventy dollars last year. She
knew all these things, and I told her so, and then I asked her where or
how she fancied we were going to raise the one thousand dollars for the
first payment on "our house." To my surprise, Alice was prepared--or
at least she seemed to be prepared for this question.

"Reuben," said she, "I remember having heard Mr. Black say one day
during his visit to us last summer that we ought to have a home, and
that if we ever decided to buy one he would try his best to help us."

Now that Alice spoke of it I, too, recalled that friendly remark of Mr.
Black's. A man who is drowning will catch at a straw. A man who has
bought a house with nothing to pay for it is also predisposed to
clutch. Our old friend Mr. Black now loomed up as my only sure
salvation.

Mr. Black is upward of seventy years of age. He and my father went to
school together in Maine, and subsequently they lived near each other
in Cincinnati. Mr. Black had been a merchant; he had retired from
business rich. After my father's death, while I was still a boy, this
kind old friend was good to me, taking an interest in my work and my
welfare. He had no children of his own, and, if he did not regard me
almost as a son, I certainly grew to regard him almost as a father.
Mr. Black knew the value of money and respected it. He gave freely,
but only where he was assured it was deserved and would do actual good.
A prudent, careful, economical man himself, he encouraged prudence and
thrift in others. He never quite condoned what he regarded as
extravagance upon my part in buying my fifty pieces of mediaeval armor,
although it is to his munificence that I am indebted for the six-foot
telescope with which I am wont to scan the face of the heavens.

The upshot of talks with Alice and Adah and the Denslows--to say
nothing of other neighbors with whom I confidentially consulted--the
upshot of these talks was that I determined to go to Cincinnati to
confer with Mr. Black upon the propriety of his advancing to me the
money wherewith Alice should make the first payment upon her--I mean
our house. To make short of a long story (for if there is one thing
that I despise above all others it is prolixity), I went to Cincinnati
and unfolded my business to my aged friend. Mr. Black appeared to be
in no indecent haste to satiate my craving. He is not, and never was,
a man of exuberant enthusiasms. I was rather pained when, up