It’s said that “there’s a sucker born every minute.” In retrospect, after the events…

It’s said that “there’s a sucker born every minute.” In retrospect, after the events of last summer, I think most of them must live in my hometown, Glenville. I, along with nearly everyone else in town, was taken in by a (1)________________________—a swindler who made us believe he could help us get rich overnight.This con artist, whose name was Chester Turner, supposedly came into town to open a real estate office. After buying up lots of cheap land, he hinted to some of the town’s leading citizens that there would soon be an incredible (2)________________________ of people wanting to buy land in Glenville. Naturally, those who received this interesting information promptly (3)______________________[ed] it throughout town, and soon we were all talking about it. When people questioned Turner about the value of town land, he would hint that there was oil in Glenville by asking, “What if there were energy lying (4)______________________ under the ground in the area, just waiting to spurt out?”An oil find, we all agreed, would (5)___________________________ a huge increase in land prices. Our suspicions about oil seemed to be (6)_____________________________[ed] by some “oil company executives” overheard talking in the local diner. According to their waitress, they would soon have cranes (7)_______________________ the oil derricks so they could begin pumping out millions of gallons of the precious liquid. Soon people were pounding on Turner’s door, begging him to sell them land in Glenville—which he gladly did. After Turner left town with our money, we realized that he and his “oil men” had collaborated to swindle us. We began to hear rumors that all of them had been arrested for carrying out (8)______________________ activities in another state. Although we had all been of one mind when Turner was around, our views now (9)_____________________[ed]. Most of us just kissed our money goodbye, though we berated ourselves for trusting Turner. Some people, however, clung to the belief that they could somehow get Turner to give their money back. They couldn’t accept the fact that the loss of their money was (10)_____________________.