The boy had nothing more to add to his dismissal of the boarder, and expected that Mr. Jordan would either reply or go to his room. But for a time he did neither, and the silence and suspense were growing unbearable when at last the man spoke.
“I will retain my room,” said he, “and take my meals in the town. You do not need the room I occupy, and this plan will cause Mrs. Carden very little work.”
Will was puzzled. Why a man of Mr. Jordan’s means should care to remain in such a poor home was a mystery. He could get much better accommodations at the village hotel for about the same sum he paid Mrs. Carden, and he would be more independent there. But while he canvassed the matter in his mind Mr. Jordan suddenly moved away and with slow steps mounted the stairs to his room, thus terminating the interview.
When the boy reported to his mother the result of this conference, she said:
“He is so reserved in his nature that I think Mr. Jordan shrinks from any public place where he might come in contact with strangers. That is perhaps the reason he does not wish to give up his room. He is accustomed to it, and the man is a slave to habit. Well, let him keep it, Will, if he wishes to; for so long as he takes his meals elsewhere it will not, as he says, cause me much inconvenience. Did he say how much he was willing to pay for the use of the room?”
“No,” replied Will, who was really disappointed, for he had hoped to do away entirely with the restraint imposed upon the family circle by the man’s presence.
Mr. Jordan now began to get his meals in town; but after supper he would take the same long walk he had always done, ending it at the door of the Carden cottage, when he retired to his room for the night. The question of room-rent he settled by handing Mrs. Carden two dollars and a half every Saturday; not a very munificent sum, but perhaps, after all, as much as such accommodation was worth.
And so the family accepted the man’s presence with hopeless resignation.
“As a matter of fact,” said Will to the doctor, “we can’t get rid of him.”
Will had by this time mastered the secret of mushroom growing so thoroughly that both partners felt justified in expecting a regular net profit of a thousand dollars a year from it, which meant an income of five hundred dollars each.