me of Carroll?" said he, holding the fretting
mare tightly, and seesawing the lines, as she tried to dart first one
way, then the other.

Carroll nodded.

"Well, look a-here," said the man, "I heerd you wanted to buy some
hosses."

"You heard rightly," said Carroll.

"Wall, I've got a pair that can't be beat. Kentucky bred,
four-year-old, sound as a whip. Not an out."

"Are you a trader?"

"Yep. Hed them hosses in last week. New-Yorker jest sent for 'em,
then he died sudden, and his heirs threw 'em on the market at a
sacrifice."

Carroll looked at the men, and they looked at him. The two men in the
runabout resembled each other, and were evidently brothers. Carroll's
eyes on the men were sharp, so were theirs on him. Carroll's eyes
were looking for knavery, and the men's were looking for suspicion of
knavery.

"How much?" asked Carroll, finally.

The men looked at each other. One made a motion with his lips; the
other nodded.

"Fifteen hundred," said the first speaker, "and damned cheap."

"Well, you can bring them around, and I'll look at them," said
Carroll. "Any night after seven."

Carroll walked on, turning up the road which led to his own house,
and the men whirled about again and then drove on, the mare breaking
into a gallop.

Chapter IV

In Banbridge no one in trade was considered in polite society, with
one exception. The exception was Randolph Anderson. Anderson had
studied for the law. He had set up his office over the post-office,
hung out his innocent and appealing little sign, and sat in his new
office-chair beside his new desk, surrounded by the majesty of the
lettered law, arranged in shelves in alphabetical order, for several
years, during which his affairs were constantly on a descending
scale. Then at last came a year when scarcely one client had darkened
his doors except Tappan, who wanted to sue a delinquent customer and
attach some of his personal property. After ascertaining that the
personal property had been cannily transferred to the debtor's wife,
he had told Anderson, upon the presentation of a modest bill, that he
was a fraud and he could have done better himself. Beside this
backward stroke of business, Anderson had that year a will to draw
up, for which he was never paid, and had married a couple who had
reimbursed him in farm produce. At the expiration of that year the
lawyer, having to all intents and purposes been given up by the law,
gave it up in his turn.