DOING A SHARPER.

Thames Star, Volume VI, Issue 1827, 10 November 1874, Page 2

DOING A SHARPER.

In a village, in Maine, there lived a man who t Wss exceedingly sharp at trade, always'by his superior cunning or shrewdness getting the upper hand of his customer. This fellow was known as Judge Brown, he having once held the office of Justice of the Peace. When he had retired from the administration of the law, not justice, he set up a grocery and gin-mill, and traded in everything and anything. The Judge had accumulated a fortune, and was so conceited that he would brag of his tricks whenever anyone, was near to listen. One rainy day, as' quite a number were seated round the stove, he began, as usual, to tell of his great bargains, and at last wound up with the expression :'— " Nobody has ever cheated me, nor they can't either! "

'• Judge," said an old man of the company, " I've cheated you more than ever you did me." " How so ? " said the Judge. "If you promise you won't go to law about it, nor do anything, I'll tell you." " Let's hear," cried half a dozen voices at once.

" I'll promise," said the Judge, " and treat in the bargain if you have." " Well, do you remember the waggon' you robbed me of? " "• I never robbed you of a waggon; I. only got the best part of the bargain," said the Judge. " Well, I made up my mind to have it back, and I—; "

" You never did," interrupted the cute Judge. " Yes I did, and interest too." ; " How so " thihderedthe now enraged Judge. . ". WelJ, you see, Judge, I sold you one day a very nice pine log, and "bargained with you for a lot more. Well, that log I stole off your pile down by the mill the night before, and the next day I .sold it to you. The next day I drew it back home, and sold it to you the next day;, and so I kept on till you bought your own log of me twenty-seven times." " That's a lie!" exclaimed the infuriated Judge, running to his book and examining his log account, " You never sold me twenty-seven logs of the same measurement."

" I know it," said the vendor in logs ; " by drawing it back and forth the end wore off, and as it wore, I kept cutting the end off, until it .was only ten feet long—just fourteen feet shorter than it was the first time it wai bought—and when it got so short I drew it home and worked it up into shingles, and the next day you bought the shingles; I concluded I had got the worth of my waggon, and stowed it away in my pocket-book." The exclamation of the Judge was drowned in the shouts of the bystanders, and the log-drawer found the door without the promised treat.