"It's been for sale all the time he's owned it. That's why we
moved here; it made the rent low."

"Is he rich?"

"They used to have money, but maybe it's all spent. It seemed to
me he might want to raise money on the house, because I don't see
any other reason that could bring him back here. He's already
mortgaged it pretty heavily, your father told me. I don't----"
Mrs. Madison paused abruptly, her eyes widening at a dismaying
thought. "Oh, I do hope your father will know better than to ask
him to stay to dinner!"

Hedrick's expression became cryptic. "Father won't ask him," he
said. "But I'll bet you a thousand dollars he stays!"

The mother followed her son's thought and did not seek to elicit
verbal explanation of the certainty which justified so large a
venture. "Oh, I hope not," she said. "Sarah's threatening to
leave, anyway; and she gets so cross if there's extra cooking on
wash-days."

"Well, Sarah'll have to get cross," said the boy grimly; "and
_I_'ll have to plug out and go for a quart of brick ice-cream and
carry it home in all this heat; and Laura and you'll have to stand
over the stove with Sarah; and father'll have to change his shirt;
and we'll all have to toil and moil and sweat and suffer while
Cora-lee sits out on the front porch and talks toodle-do-dums to
her new duke. And then she'll have _you_ go out and kid him along
while----"