"
"How much richer?"
"Oh, a great deal. Somebody was saying, only yesterday, that he
couldn't be worth less than thirty thousand dollars."
"Indeed? So much."
"Yes."
"How has he managed to accumulate so rapidly?"
"His bar has a large run of custom. And, you know, that pays
wonderfully."
"He must have sold a great deal of liquor in six years."
"And he has. I don't think I'm wrong in saying that in the six
years which have gone by since the 'Sickle and Sheaf' was opened,
more liquor has been drank than in the previous twenty years."
"Say forty," remarked a man who had been a listener to what we
said.
"Let it be forty then," was the according answer.
"How comes this?" I inquired. "You had a tavern here before the
'Sickle and Sheaf' was opened."
"I know we had, and several places besides, where liquor was sold.
But, everybody far and near knew Simon Slade the miller, and
everybody liked him. He was a good miller, and a cheerful, social,
chatty sort of man putting everybody in a good humor who came near
him. So it became the talk everywhere, when he built this house,
which he fitted up nicer than anything that had been seen in these
parts. Judge Hammond, Judge Lyman, Lawyer Wilson, and all the big
bugs of the place at once patronized the new tavern, and of
course, everybody else did the same. So, you can easily see how he
got such a run."
"It was thought, in the beginning," said I, "that the new tavern
was going to do wonders for Cedarville.
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