ast war--the War of
1812, I mean--came to an end, all the brigs, schooners, and barks fitted
out at this port as privateers were as eager to get rid of their useless
twelve-pounders and swivels as they had previously been to obtain them.
Many of the pieces had cost large sums, and now they were little better
than so much crude iron--not so good, in fact, for they were clumsy
things to break up and melt over. The government didn't want them;
private citizens didn't want them; they were a drug in the market.

But there was one man, ridiculous beyond his generation, who got it into
his head that a fortune was to be made out of these same guns. To buy
them all, to hold on to them until war was declared again (as he had
no doubt it would be in a few months), and then sell out at fabulous
prices--this was the daring idea that addled the pate of Silas Trefethen,
"Dealer in E. & W. I. Goods and Groceries," as the faded sign over his
shop-door informed the public.

Silas went shrewdly to work, buying up every old cannon he could lay
hands on. His back-yard was soon crowded with broken-down gun-carriages,
and his barn with guns, like an arsenal. When Silas's purpose got wind
it was astonishing how valuable that thing became which just now was
worth nothing at all.

"Ha, ha!" thought Silas. "Somebody else is tryin' hi git control of the
market. But I guess I've got the start of him."

So he went on buying and buying, oftentimes paying double the original
price of the article. People in the neighboring towns collected all
the worthless ordnance they could find, and sent it by the cart-load to
Rivermouth.

When his barn was full, Silas began piling the rubbish in his cellar,
then in his parlor. He mortgaged the stock of his grocery store,
mortgaged his house, his barn, his horse, and would have mortgaged
himself, if anyone would have taken him as security, in order to carry
on the grand speculation. He was a ruined man, and as happy as a lark.

Surely poor Silas was cracked, like the majority of his own cannon. More
or less crazy he must have been always. Years before this he purchased
an elegant rosewood coffin, and kept it in one of the spare rooms in his
residence. He even had his name engraved on the silver-plate, leaving a
blank after the word "Died."

The blank was filled up in due time, and well it was for Silas that he
secured so stylish a coffin in his opulent days, for when he died his
worldly wealth would not have