I had gone to a courthouse where a house was going to be sold at a foreclosure sale on the courthouse steps. I was interested in buying the house, a two-story frame. I was surprised to see that only one other man (a dull-looking character about 30 years old) had shown up for the sale. Usually many people attended the sales.

I figured the house was worth about $20,000, but that it would be sold for much less than that. Since I thought the other fellow would be bidding against me, I pulled him over to the side and quickly told him that instead of bidding against each other, we should go in as partners on the sale. Then we wouldn't have to pay so much for the house and we could split the cost and profit. As I made the offer, I reflected that what I was doing was a violation of anti-trust law. But anti-trust laws were so complex, I thought no one would ever figure out I had broken the law. I figured I could get away with this without problem.

The fellow seemed reluctant at first, but then agreed to the deal. I asked him who he wanted to buy the house, me or him. He said he would buy it. I would have preferred that I buy that house, but I didn't have much choice at this point, and I said, "Ok."

He walked over to the man selling the house and bought it. I didn't actually see the sale or see how much was paid.

***

Afterwards, the fellow seemed to evade me, and I finally found him inside the courthouse. I wanted to pay my portion of the purchase price of the house, and have him deed over half interest in the house to me. He seemed to balk somewhat, but finally he came up with a figure of $5,000 as the amount he had paid for the house. That sounded expensive to me, because I thought the house should have sold for less. Even though the house was worth about $20,000, I thought it was only appraised for $6,000, and that the purchase price should have been about one third of the appraised value, or about $2,000.

Finally the fellow admitted that he had only paid $1,800 for the house. Obviously he had been trying to cheat me out of some money. Now he seemed reluctant to even go through with the deal, as if he were trying to back out of selling me my interest. I grabbed him by the collar, pushed him down on the floor on his back, and pointed my finger in his face. I threatened him that he had to go through with the deal since he had agreed to it. But I could see that I had managed to put myself in a bad situation by getting involved with this fellow.

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