for a good many years,
and I generally see all that is going on around me. Among the regular
visitors are at least half a dozen young men, belonging to our best
families--who have been raised with care, and well educated. That their
presence here is unknown to their friends, I am quite certain--or, at
least, unknown and unsuspected by some of them. They do not drink a
great deal yet; but all try a glass or two. Toward nine o'clock, often
at an earlier hour, you will see one and another of them go quietly out
of the bar, through the sitting-room, preceded, or soon followed, by
Green and Slade. At any hour of the night, up to one or two, and
sometimes three o'clock, you can see light streaming through the rent
in a curtain drawn before a particular window, which I know to be in
the room of Harvey Green. These are facts, sir; and you can draw your
own conclusion. I think it a very serious matter."

"Why does Slade go out with these young men?" I inquired. "Do you think
he gambles also?"

"If he isn't a kind of a stool-pigeon for Harvey Green, then I'm
mistaken again."

"Hardly. He cannot, already, have become so utterly unprincipled."

"It's a bad school, sir, this tavern-keeping," said the man.

"I readily grant you that."

"And it's nearly seven years since he commenced to take lessons. A
great deal may be learned, sir, of good or evil, in seven years,
especially if any interest be taken in the studies."

"True."

"And it's true in this case, you may depend upon it. Simon Slade is not
the man he was, seven years ago. Anybody with half an eye can see that.
He's grown selfish, grasping, unscrupulous, and passionate. There could
hardly be a greater difference between men than exists between Simon
Slade the tavern-keeper, and Simon Slade the miller."

"And intemperate, also?" I suggested.

"He's beginning to take a little too much," was answered.

"In that case, he'll scarcely be as well off five years hence as he is
now."

"He's at the top of the wheel, some of us think."

"What has led to this opinion?"

"He's beginning to neglect his house, for one thing."

"A bad sign."

"And there is another sign. Heretofore, he has always been on hand,
with the cash, when desirable property went off, under forced sale, at
a bargain. In the last three or four months, several great sacrifices
have been made, but Simon Slade showed no inclination to buy. Put this
fact against another,--week before last, he sold a hou