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Show 116 BY PATH AND TKAIL. wealth, for the mines of Mexico were literally pouring out silver. Its reputation for gaiety, for the beauty and vivacity of its senoritas, for its variety^ of amusements and for the splendor of its climate, attracted to its hos pitable clubs many of the rollicking and adventurous youth of Spain. Among them was a young man of noble birth, who at once flung himself into the whirlpool of dissipation that eddied in the flowing river of fashion able amusements. In a few years he wasted his patri mony in a fast life and in wild debauchery. Utterly ruined in pocket and in credit, he determined to end it all in suicide. He was returning from the Spanish casino, after losing heavily at a game of chance, when the thought of self- destruction possessed him. He was re volving in his mind the easiest way leading from earth to where " To hell!" he muttered. Then he entered upon another line of thought. He had read and heard of men in desperate circumstances asking and receiving help from the devil. " I'll be damned anyhow, " he argued with himself , " and I may as well have a few more years on earth be fore going down into the pit." Much to his surprise, when he entered his chambers he found them lighted up and a stranger awaiting him. The man who rose to greet him was in simple citizen's dress, and uncommonly like one of those curb brokers who are so numerous in our own day. " I understand, sir," said the stranger, " that you wish my services." " Who are you?" asked the Spaniard. " I am the party who, many hundreds of years agor said to the founder of your religion: " All these will I give thee, if, falling down, thou wilt adore me." " The Devil?" |