But I guess I've got the start of him." So he went on buying and buying, oftentimes paying double the original price of the article.

People in the neighboring towns collected all the worthless ordnance they could find, and sent it by the cart-load to Rivermouth.
When his barn was full, Silas began piling the rubbish in his cellar, then in his parlor.

He mortgaged the stock of his grocery store, mortgaged his house, his barn, his horse, and would have mortgaged himself, if anyone would have taken him as security, in order to carry on the grand speculation.

He was a ruined man, and as happy as a lark.
Surely poor Silas was cracked, like the majority of his own cannon.

More or less crazy he must have been always.