The Last House Standing

Word goes round the town that the old neighborhood is going to be torn down for redevelopment. A landlord hears it and tells the tenants who have rented his house for years to move out early. The tenants accuse him in front of the neighbors. They have counted on a compensation payout they expect to make them rich, and since they have lived in the house for seven or eight years they want half of it. If not that, they want him to sell them the house for next to nothing. None of them will move out. He pretends to agree to the sale to quiet them. What the tenants do not know is that nothing is being torn down. The redevelopment is a rumor. The ground next to the house has been set aside for a crematorium, and his house is the only one outside the marked area.