Simon Slade showed no inclination to buy. Put this fact against another,—week before last, he sold a house and lot in the town for five hundred dollars less than he paid for them, a year ago—and for just that sum less than their true value."
"How came that?" I inquired. "Ah! there's the question! He wanted money; though for what purpose he has not intimated to any one, as far as I can learn."
"What do you think of it?"
"Just this. He and Green have been hunting together in times past; but the professed gambler's instincts are too strong to let him spare even his friend in evil. They have commenced playing one against the other."
"Ah! you think so?"
"I do; and if I conjecture rightly, Simon Slade will be a poorer man, in a year from this time, than he is now."
Here our conversation was interrupted. Some one asked my talkative friend to go and take a
