bushels for that."

"Impossible!" ejaculated the farmer.

"Not at all impossible. Don't you know that by the last arrival from
England have come accounts of a bad harvest, and that wheat has
taken a sudden rise?"

"No, I don't know any such a thing," returned the astonished
Ashburn.

"Well, it's so. Where is your newspaper?--Haven't you read it? I got
mine on Friday evening, and saw the news. Early on Saturday morning
I found two or three speculators ready to buy up all the wheat they
could get at old prices; but they didn't make many operations. One
fellow who pretended to be a fancy sportsman, thrust himself into my
way, but, even if I had not know of a rise in the price of wheat, I
should have suspected it as soon as I saw him, for I read, last
week, of just such a looking chap as him having got ahead of some
ignorant country farmers by buying up their produce, on a sudden
rise of the market, at price much below its real value."

"Good day!" said Ashburn, suddenly applying his whip to the flank of
his horse; and away dashed homeward at a full gallop.

The farmer never sat down to make a regular calculation of what he
had lost by stopping his news paper; but it required no formality of
pencil and paper to arrive at this. A difference of thirty cents on
each bushel, made, for a thousand bushels, the important sum of
three hundred dollars, and this fact his mind instantly saw.