He felt as grand as a lord; and as soon as the forty-nine dollars had become fifty, he waited upon Mr.Hardhand, a little crusty old man, who owned the little black house, and proposed to purchase it.
The landlord was a hard man.

Every body in Riverdale said he was mean and stingy.

Any generous-hearted man would have been willing to make an easy bargain with an honest, industrious, poor man, like John Bright, who wished to own the house in which he lived; but Mr.
Hardhand, although he was rich, only thought how he could make more money.

He asked the poor man four hundred dollars for the old house and the little lot of land on which it stood.
It was a matter of great concern to John Bright.

Four hundred dollars was a "mint of money," and he could not see how he should ever be able to save so much from his daily earnings.