It was a favorite practice with Joslin to discover men who were short of money, lend them what they wanted, and thus, after a while, get control of all they possessed. When Joslin first met Mr. Burns, he hoped to entangle him as he had his friend. But the former was too good a merchant and in too sound a position to be brought in this way into his toils. He was therefore obliged to have recourse to sheer knavery to compass his object. The fact of Mr. Burns living so far from the city, the great expense which would be entailed on him by a litigation, and the natural repugnance he thought Mr. Burns would have to a lawsuit, emboldened him to employ the most high-handed measures to cheat him. The fact was, Mr. Burns's paper had become well known in the market, and commanded a ready sale. The manufacture was even--the texture firm and hard. There was a continually increasing demand for it. Joslin determined on--even for him--some audacious strokes. He sent a lot of the paper to an obscure auctioneer, one of his tools, and had it bid off in the name of a young man in his store. He thereupon reported the entire consignment to be unsalable, and credited Mr. Burns with the whole lot at the auction prices, less expenses. In this way he claimed to have no funds when Mr. Burns's drafts became due, and called on the latter for the ready money. The previous consignment he pretended to have sold in the city, at a time when paper was much lower than usual, but he had returned for this the then market price. Really he had not sold the paper at all. Knowing it was about to rise, he simply reported a sale, and kept the paper on hand to take advantage of the market, and he was now selling it at an advance of ten per cent, on the previous rates.