Chapter 10

The way in which Richard Hand senior came to go to Keturah Smiley for money was this: The affairs of the Blue Port Bivalve Company, though generally prosperous, required, at certain seasons, ready money. And despite his $20,000, now considerably grown, Richard Hand could not always put his fingers on it. He had little use for banks. He paid doctor’s bills for babies at about eight per cent., equipped young married couples at as high as sixteen per cent.—for had they not the rest of their lives to pay it off in?—and buried people at an average rate of twelve per cent. This was good business.

He had got all Blue Port under his thumb except Keturah Smiley. It irked him to see walking along Main Street the tall, stiff figure of the only woman who had ever turned him down on a business proposition. He would go over, speculatively, the character, disposition, and probable fortune of his lost sister-in-law.