tempter. Unscrupulous selfishness was written all over his
sinister countenance; and I wondered that it did not strike every
one, as it did me, with instant repulsion. There could not be, I
felt certain, any common ground of association, for two such
persons, but the dead level of a village bar-room. I afterward
learned, during the evening, that this man's name was Harvey
Green, and that he was an occasional visitor at Cedarville,
remaining a few days, or a few weeks at a time, as appeared to
suit his fancy, and having no ostensible business or special
acquaintance with anybody in the village.

"There is one thing about him," remarked Simon Slade, in answering
some question that I put in reference to the man, "that I don't
object to; he has plenty of money, and is not at all niggardly in
spending it. He used to come here, so he told me, about once in
five or six months; but his stay at the miserably kept tavern, the
only one then in Cedarville, was so uncomfortable, that he had
pretty well made up his mind never to visit us again. Now,
however, he has engaged one of my best rooms, for which he pays me
by the year, and I am to charge him full board for the time he
occupies it. He says that there is something about Cedarville that
always attracts him; and that his health is better while here than
it is anywhere except South during the winter season. He'll never
leave less than two or three hundred dollars a year in our
village--there is one item, for you, of advantage to a place in
having a good tavern."

"What is his business?" I asked. "Is he engaged in any trading
operations?"