14 COMMON SENSE 
Things Iooked. discouraging indeed, and for two long years 
Brown struggled on, hoping against hope and looking for a change. 
But the change did not come; or at least it came so slowly that: 
the “hope deferred made the heart sick.” Meantime the interest 
accumulated, and the want of it cramped me, for my regular income 
was also diminished. I had no thought of foreclosing, and yet. it 
would never do to let the matter run on until the property would 
be lost to us both. I did not hint this to Brown, but he saw it as 
clearly as I did, and at last approached me on the subject. The 
result of our conversation was that we both resolved to make a de- 
termined effort to sell it, even if it brought no more than the amount 
ot the mortgage and interest. But after six months hard effort we 
found that we could not get a buyer even at this low price. 
Thoroughly discouraged, Brown suggested that I take the place 
myself, He had an offer from a western firm to take’ the manage- 
ment of a department of their business at a salary which, even if. 
moderate, would at least enable him to live, and he suggested very 
sensibly that ‘to close out by resorting to law would only involve 
expense without any real benefit. He had an opportunity to 
close out his business in the city for asum which would enable him 
to get settled comfortably in his new home, and he had decided to 
take this course provided he could arrange with me. 
To fight against the inevitable is folly, Even if I had refused to 
accept his offer, and had held on to my mortgage and foreclosed it 
by legal measures, I would have gained nothing but a loss, as the 
Irishman said. It seemed hard to take property that had cost over 
$10,000 in exchange for a mortgage of little over one-third that 
amount, but both Brown and myself saw that it was not our doing. 
so much as it was in obedience to the “inexorable logic of events.” 
So far as I was concerned, all I wanted was the amount I had put 
into the investment. Brown had taken chances; I had taken 
none. If the property had increased in value to double its cost 
Brown only would have been the gainer, and so as I had no share 
in the possible profits it was only just that I should have no part: 
or lot in the losses. 
And so, in order to avoid all litigation and expense, Brown made. 
