which the former was to have the pirate's treasure.
There was one condition which need not be mentioned, being generally
understood in all cases where the devil grants favors; but there were
others about which, though of less importance, he was inflexibly
obstinate. He insisted that the money found through his means should be
employed in his service. He proposed, therefore, that Tom should employ it
in the black traffic--that is to say, that he should fit out a slave ship.
This, however, Tom resolutely refused; he was bad enough, in all
conscience, but the devil himself could not tempt him to turn
slave-dealer.

Finding Tom so squeamish on this point, he did not insist upon it, but
proposed instead that he should turn usurer; the devil being extremely
anxious for the increase of usurers, looking upon them as his peculiar
people.

To this no objections were made, for it was just to Tom's taste.

"You shall open a broker's shop in Boston next month," said the black man.

"I'll do it to-morrow if you wish," said Tom Walker.

"You shall lend money at two per cent a month."

"Egad, I'll charge four!" replied Tom Walker.

"You shall extort bonds, foreclose mortgages, drive the merchant to
bankruptcy----"

"I'll drive him to the d----l!" cried Tom Walker eagerly.

"You are the usurer for my money!" said the black legs, with delight.

"When will you want the rhino?"

"This very night."

"Done!" said the devil.

"Done!" said Tom Walker.

So they shook hands and struck a bargain.

A few days' time saw Tom Walker seated behind his desk in a counting-house
in Boston. His reputation for a ready-moneyed man, who would lend money
out for a good consideration, soon spread abroad. Everybody remembers the
days of Governor Belcher, when money was particularly scarce. It was a
time of paper credit.

The country had been deluged with government bills; the famous Land Bank
had been established; there had been a rage for speculating; the people
had run mad with schemes for new settlements, for building cities in the
wilderness; land jobbers went about with maps of grants and townships and
Eldorados, lying nobody knew where, but which everybody was ready to
purchase. In a word, the great speculating fever which breaks out every
now and then in the country had raged to an alarming degree, and everybody
was dreaming of making sudden fortunes from nothing. As usual, the fever
had subsided; the dream had gone off, and the imagi