VIEW OF MONTEVIDEO.VIEW OF MONTEVIDEO.
We passed some trying hours together. Then George left to take Mac's baggage off to the steamer. He engaged two stalwart porters; they stand on every corner busily engaged in plaiting straw for hats while waiting for a job. Dividing the baggage between the two he had it carried to the wharf, and, taking a small boat, quickly had it stowed in the hold and the small articles carried to the stateroom. Soon after he joined us on shore.
It was but 10 o'clock when he came, and it was with something like dismay that we realized that the whole day was before us. Until the day before, when Mac was in the bank, I had never known how long an hour was, but this day we all came to know how long a day could be.
The Ebro was anchored out in the bay. Her coal was all stowed, but strings of barges laden with sacks of coffee were alongside. She was advertised to sail sharp at noon.
I went out once or twice to the bank and police headquarters, hanging about for a few minutes to see if there was anything suspicious, but there was nothing, and each time I hastened back to Mac.
Our presence cheered him up, and he could not brook our absence. At last the long day drew to an end and the shadows, to our intense relief, began to darken in our little room, where we were holding our watch. The tropic night closes quickly in. Soon the city was shrouded in darkness, and we sallied out to the beach at the head of the bay to find relief in movement. The time passed quicker then, and at last we sat down on some wreckage there and watched the tropic night as it revealed its wealth of stars, and sitting there we began to philosophize, moralizing upon the destiny of man and his relations to things seen and unseen, upon spiritual force; most of all upon divine justice, which in the end evens up all things. But like so many other philosophers who write the style of the gods and make a pish at fortune, we failed to make a personal application of our philosophy.
Near by there was a boat stand from which we had resolved to embark for the steamer about two miles away.The night was lovely as a dream, and we knew that midnight would find a large number of passengers on deck, many of whom would pass the night there. Forward was all the bustle and confusion inseparable from receiving and stowing cargo.
At 9 o'clock I left them to go and get the remainder of the gold not yet on board—some four thousand pounds. The street cars passed near by, and within half an hour I returned with the gold in a bag swung from my shoulder by a heavy strap. I also had with me a woman's wrap and a silk shawl. We sat for an hour longer, and then securing a boat with two negro rowers, we pulled for the ship. Three or four small boats were fastened to the companion ladder, and our arrival attracted no attention. Two officials in uniform—probably custom officers—stood at the companion way. It was an anxious moment, but we slipped through the dimly lighted cabins and passages, and were soon safely in the stateroom. Bidding both good-bye, and promising to be on board again at 8 in the morning, I went ashore and straight to bed, and soon was dreaming of starlit seas, of tropic woods and Summer bowers, white and sweet with May blossoms. My health then, as now, was perfect, and I awoke fresh and hopeful. After breakfasting on a dish of prawns and another of soft-shelled crabs, I was off across the bay. Soon after 8 I knocked softly at the stateroom door, was admitted and presented the lunch I had brought. They gave me a warm greeting, but neither had slept. The room had been hot and stuffy, and the noise of stowing cargo had helped to banish sleep. Both were unnerved somewhat, but I had just come off shore confident and cheerful, and my confidence and spirits proved infectious.
I knew by sight the chief of police and those just under him. I also knew Braga, the bank manager, by sight. They, of course, did not know me, and I could, unsuspected, be a looker-on in Vienna. Soon the passengers, their friendsand many idle visitors came off in boatloads, while I, of course, scrutinized every boatload as it came up the side of the ship.
At 9.30 I saw a boat coming, which, when half a mile away, I recognized as containing the chief of police and several of his subordinates; ten minutes after Braga and one of the bank officials came, the only passengers in their boat, and at once joined the police on the after deck and stood with them waiting and watching the boats as they arrived. In the mean time babel reigned around the ship. About three score boats surrounded her, the owners selling to the passengers everything from oranges to monkeys, snakes and parrots.
I determined to conceal from George and Mac that Braga and the police were on the ship, and about every twenty minutes I would slip down and report "All's well;" but soon after 10 o'clock the enemy were joined by the ticket agent from shore, and I could see they were contemplating some movement. Slipping down to the cabin, I said: "Boys, everything is all right; keep perfectly cool. Braga and the police are pulling to the ship and may search it; if so, it will take half an hour to get here. I will keep everything in my eye and give you ample notice." I then returned on deck and stood among the officials. They conversed in Portuguese, which was Greek to me; soon the agent dived below and reappeared with the manifest of the passengers, and an enormous heap of passports. After some conversation they sent the passports back; then, headed by the agent and purser, manifest in hand, they began to verify the list and scrutinize the passengers in the staterooms. Once more I hurried below and reported.
Mac was naturally very dignified, but divesting himself of coat, vest and dignity at the same time, he planted himself under the berth. Very close and very hot quarters he found it, and we put the bags of oranges in front, disposing of themso as to make it appear as if they filled the whole space, when in reality they were a mere screen.
Then we opened the door to the fullest extent. We had taken off our coats—it being frightfully hot—and with a bottle of claret and a bowl of ice standing on the little washstand and two glasses all in full view, we awaited the arrival of our friends, the enemy.
Our door was flat against the partition, giving a full sweep of the room to the eye of the passerby, and George and I waited confidently for the inspection we knew was inevitable. I sat on the foot of the lower berth, smoking and swinging my feet. George sat on a folding camp-stool, with his face toward the door, but not obstructing the view. Soon the procession arrived, with the ticket agent in front. When he saw George he at once recognized him as the Mr. Wilson who had bought the ticket, and he simply said: "How do you do, Mr. Wilson?" and passed on without looking in the room. Braga and the police followed, casually glanced at us two, and were gone. I put on my coat and followed the procession, and at 11.30 they went up on the after deck, evidently satisfied that their man was not on the ship, and contented themselves with watching new arrivals. I flew down, gave them the good news that the search was over, and poor Mac, half-roasted, came from behind the bags of oranges. Declaring he was roasted alive and dying of thirst, he finished the bottle of iced claret.
Ten minutes before 12 the bell was rung and all people for shore were warned to leave. Soon we heard the pleasant sound of the steam winch lifting the anchor, and at noon precisely, to our relief, the screw began to revolve at quarter speed, and the Ebro to respond by forging slowly ahead. All boats fell off but ours and the police boat. At last, after giving a good look up and down the bay, Braga and the police entered the boats, and, casting off, soon were left behind. Once more and for the last time I flew downto the cabin. They saw the good news in my face; then, shaking Mac's hand in hearty farewell, we ran to the upper deck, down the ladder into our boat, and a moment later the big ship, putting on full steam, left us astern, we ordering the boatman to pull hard after the ship. Mac soon appeared on the after deck, and waved his handkerchief to us in farewell. We gave him three cheers, and, excited and happy, with our long anxiety over, we returned to the shore.
With Mac sailing northward ho! with Wilson's passport and ticket in his pocket, and all our money save two thousand pounds in his trunk, our buccaneering expedition on the Spanish Main was over and all but a failure when comparing the £10,000 we had captured with our magnificent expectations.
Here was a gigantic and well-conceived scheme which had almost collapsed through trifles, which, to an honest enterprise would have been light as air, but which to us and to our plans were of crushing force, built up, as all schemes of wrong doing are, on foundations of sand.
To conclude very briefly the narrative of this expedition, I will here add that the day after Mac's departure, altering his passport to fit George's description, we sailed on the Chimborazo south to Montevideo. Upon our arrival we, with all other passengers for the town, were promptly put in quarantine for ten days in a vile little island called in irony the Isle of Flowers; but the mails were fumigated and sent through, as were two additional mails arriving from Europe and Rio. When our quarantine was over we were permitted to enter the city. We found that some advice or rumor had reached there, and we feared to venture our letters of credit for money. So, destroying all documents save our passports, we paid a visit to Buenos Ayres, and then we embarked on a French steamer for Marseilles, arriving there without any particular adventure, and the next day had a happy meeting with Mac in Paris.
Once more together and our adventures since we separated related, the question arose: What next?
We determined to abandon our dangerous business, for we had capital sufficient to start in an honest career, and resolved to do so. For a long time our attention had been turned to Colorado, and we had frequently talked over a project of going to some growing city there, starting a bank and building a wheat elevator and stockyards. Fifty thousand dollars would start our bank, and $10,000, with some credit, the elevator and yards. This sum we had, with an additional $10,000 to pay our way until profit came in from our investments. Here was another great and honorable scheme—one easily carried out had we only gone on with it. What a success we might have made, particularly so when considered in the light of the development of Colorado since 1872 and our energy and knowledge of business.
In Paris we all stopped at the Hotel Meurice, Rue Rivoli, and spent much time sightseeing. We were particularly interested in viewing the battlefields around Paris—so interested, in fact, that we read up the whole history of the mighty struggle with Germany, which ended in throwing France into the dust. We, like most of the world here, got our ideas of the war and the battles from the current news of the day, as published in the newspapers, and we had a general idea that the Frenchmen had not made much of a fight.That conclusion could only be arrived at by a superficial knowledge such as had been ours. Investigation upon the spot and a study of impartial authorities soon opened our eyes to the fact that France only succumbed after a mighty and most heroic struggle. The first few weeks of the war saw her entire regular army captive, and transported prisoners across the Rhine. That army had made a brave but unfortunate fight. Badly commanded, with the transport and subsistence utterly demoralized, they were no match for the mighty hosts that Germany poured across the Rhine. Perfectly equipped, matchless in discipline since the palmy days of Rome, commanded by the foremost military intellects of the age, they met the French, overmatching them at every point of contact; enveloping their columns with masses of infantry, or sweeping them with murderous storms of shot and shell, or launching a magnificent cavalry at them, against which French valor—ill directed as it was—proved futile, and that splendid array of 480,000 men had to ground their arms, surrender their colors, and, to their own unspeakable shame and humiliation, become captive to their foes, leaving their beloved France defenseless. But the loss of their army, no more than their thronging foes, dismayed France. The heart of the nation was stirred, and from the Rhine to the Atlantic, from the Channel to the blue Mediterranean, France rose as one man. They saw the entire military force of Germany encamped on their soil, and in their undisciplined valor, hurled themselves against it, and gave to their astounded foes an exhibition of Titanic force and determined valor whose story, when known, will become the admiration of all generations of men.
It was against the decree of Heaven that France should win in the struggle, but she fell only to rise the higher for the fall. The year 1871 saw France in the dust, with the armies of her foe encamped over more than half her soil, with robber-like demands for huge sums of gold ere the modernGoths would march home again. To-day she stands the marvel of the world. Twice the France of 1870, with the busy hum of industry through all her borders, an overflowing treasury, a contented people and an army and many which are the awe of Europe. To-day the enemy that flung her to earth twenty-four years ago, seeks safety from her attack in defensive alliances with all the nations of the Continent.
We resolved to see Europe before returning to America, so the next few weeks were spent in a pleasure jaunt.
In the course of it we visited Vienna, remaining there some time and bringing away many and pleasant memories of that music-loving old city on the Danube. We finally all returned to Wiesbaden together and visited the Casino, watching the play and players with an interest that never flagged. Here we saw such vast sums of money ever changing hands that we almost insensibly began to think the thousands we had were as nothing, and when divided up, the sum coming to each seemed almost beggarly.
Gradually we began to speculate as to the desirability of doubling our capital once or twice at least, before we threw up our hands and gave up the game. I need hardly tell the reader that what at first was a philosophical speculation, an airy theory of a possibility, rapidly crystallized into steadfast purpose and determinate resolve, and soon our brains were working, and readily brought forth a new scheme. For was not there the Bank of England, with uncounted millions in her vaults, and was not I, as Frederick Albert Warren, a customer of the bank, and as such were not the vaults of the bank at our disposition?
We rated our powers high and fondly thought that, speaking in a general way, honesty was the best policy, yet in our case there was an exception to the rule. We felt and acknowledged we were doing wrong, but since the wrong (apparently) profited us, we would do wrong that good might come thereby.
Finally we resolved to go on with our postponed assault upon the money bags of the Bank of England, at the same time evolving a plan that seemed to promise unbounded wealth and complete immunity for us all.
So we packed our baggage, bade farewell to Wiesbaden, and one early June morning in 1872 saw us all once more in smoky London, resolved to rouse that Old Lady called the Bank of England from her century-long slumber spent in dreaming of her impregnability.
In Frankfort there are several firms, Fischer by name, all bankers, and as soon as we determined to return to London, Mac wrote a letter in French to the Bank of England and signed it H. V. Fischer, which, of course, would leave the manager to suppose his correspondent was one of the Fischer bankers. In the letter he said his distinguished customer, Mr. F. A. Warren, had written him from St Petersburg, requesting him to transfer to his account in the Bank of England the small balance remaining to his credit on his (Fischer's) books, therefore he had the honor to inclose bills on London for £13,500, payable to the order of the manager, said sum to be placed to the credit of Mr. F. A. Warren.
I took this letter to Frankfort, and, having purchased bills of exchange on London to the amount named, inclosed them and mailed the letter. A day or so after I received a letter at Frankfort from the manager of the bank, acknowledging the receipts of the drafts, and announcing that the proceeds of the same had duly been placed to the credit of F. A. Warren. So I had over $67,000 to my credit, and had now been a depositor for five months.
George took up his residence at a private house in the west end of London, while Mac and I went to the Grosvenor Hotel.
This hotel was one of the very few then in England which were allowed by the aristocrats of London society to be whatthey called highly respectable, that is, exclusive, and, therefore, a fit dwelling place for their dainty selves. In Dublin there is one of these highly respectable hostels, the Gresham, on Sackville street. This hotel was a type of all of the sort I mention. I once stopped at the Gresham for a week and became one of the "nobility and gentry" that frequent these hotels. The waiters all wore full-dress suits, faultless in cut and fit, and the chief event in their daily existence, the serving of the table d'hote, wore white kid gloves. The bewildering changes of varied colored dishes (I mean crockery ware), was something to make one stare. Course number one brought on a soup dish of pale violet color, quite a work of art, but its contents was a watery compound with an artistic name. Course number two consisted of a unique plate, light green in color, with little fishes wriggling through green waves, but bearing on it a small insipid portion of a genuine inhabitant of the deep; and so on, course followed course, each on a different colored plate. If the dinner was intended for an exhibition of crockery, each one of the seven I had there was a success, but, however gratifying to the eye the dinners might be, they were lamentable failures so far as stomach and appetite were concerned; but when I came to pay my bill I found the white kid gloves and the fancy china again; they were all in it, and many more things as well. The bill was more than a foot long, filled with such items as soap, sixpence; one envelope, one penny; one sheet note paper, one penny; bath, two shillings; extra towels and soap for same, sixpence, and so on through the line.
We found the Grosvenor another Gresham. However, as we wanted to stop at a swell hotel, we concluded—so long as we were there—to remain; but after a few days we found the cuisine "highly respectable;" that is, for dinner one could get roast—either beef or mutton. As for vegetables, we were strictly limited to turnips, cauliflowers, cabbage andpotatoes, and, for dessert, the famous apple tart of England, more deadly even than our mince pie.
SOME NATIVES I MET IN TAWNY, SPAIN.—Page 290.SOME NATIVES I MET IN TAWNY, SPAIN.—Page290.
The proprietor of a certain popular restaurant in New York has a fad for hanging elaborately got-up Scripture texts—exhortations mostly—around the walls of his restaurant. Interspersed with these are advertisements of his eatables—also exhortations—such as, "Try our buckwheat cakes, 10 cents;" "Try our doughnuts and coffee;" between the two exhortations, a third bidding one flee from the wrath to come; but the most fetching of all are two companion cards. On the one is the legend, "Try our hot mince pie;" on the other is displayed the apropos warning, "Prepare to meet thy God."
So we resolved to sleep at the Grosvenor, but to avoid the apple tart. We soon discovered a good restaurant near by, where we dined, and, as I am on the subject of dining, I will finish this chapter with a little narrative, the moral of which I will leave my readers to find: We were now settled down in London, prepared to devote all our attention to that Old Lady—The B. of E.—and, in accordance with a habit of ours, we began to look for some safe place—hotel, cafe or restaurant—where we could meet, run in at any time for consultation, or to write notes. Three things were requisite—nearness to the money centre of the city, a room where we could be secluded from people coming and going, and a proprietor clever enough not to be inquisitive, with a genius for minding his own business. A man who has a genius for that thing always carries it in his face, just as his opposite—the busybody—carries the traces of his restless inquisitiveness in the face and manner.
That same day we discovered, in a small street leading off Finsbury, a shop with a sign over the door bearing the legend: "Licensed to sell spirits and caterer." It had canned and potted meats, along with bottles of wine, in the window, but was evidently fast going to seed. We pushed our wayin and found a bright, fresh-looking young Englishman, evidently a countryman, but intelligent and civil, much like a gamekeeper. We knew at once we had our place and man.
After some weeks we observed, now and then, a couple of sharp-looking customers hanging about the place.
We feared being watched, and began to think it time to change, so suddenly ceased calling at mine host's snuggery and took up new quarters in a private house not far away. About two months later I happened to be near and called. He received me warmly, and told me we had saved him from bankruptcy. He had been a gamekeeper on a nobleman's estate, and his wife had been a housemaid there. They married against the wishes of their master, but they had five hundred pounds, and, coming to London, started business on that. Custom was poor, and soon they were at the end of their rope, when, happily for them, we came along and spent money enough in his place to set him on his feet again.
BANK OF ENGLAND BULLION VAULTS.BANK OF ENGLAND BULLION VAULTS.
Although I had the very respectable balance of $67,000 at the bank, I had not as yet, since my arrival in London, paid it a visit. This was in pursuance of our plans. So far I had only done business with the supernumeraries, and none of the people at the top had ever even heard of me. But we determined that they should not long remain in ignorance of the great American contractor, F. A. Warren.
Three months had elapsed since our departure from London on our piratical tour to the Spanish Main. In all nearly five months had elapsed since Green had introduced me to the Old Lady whose impregnable vaults we had now at last determined to loot. That in itself was a favorable circumstance, as it would give me a chance to flourish in a grandly indefinite way to the effect that I had "for some time" been a customer of the bank, and none of the officials would probably take the trouble to ascertain how very brief, in fact, my acquaintance had been.
I left London by the night mail from Victoria Station for Paris, the first of many hurried trips I took to the Continent on the business we had entered upon. Truly, we worked hard, spent money lavishly, brought all our power and genius to work—for what? To have the lightning fall on us.
Upon my arrival I drove at once to the Hotel Bristol, Place Vendome, a swell hotel, where none but the great sirs o' the earth could afford to stop.
Here I registered as F. A. Warren, London, and at once sent off the following letter:
P. M. Francis, Esq., Manager Bank of England, London.Dear Sir: I am a customer of the bank, therefore I take the liberty of troubling you in the hope to have the benefit of your advice.Will you kindly inform me what good 4 per cent. stocks are to be had in the market, also if the bank will transact the business for me?I remain very truly yours,F. A. WARREN.
P. M. Francis, Esq., Manager Bank of England, London.
Dear Sir: I am a customer of the bank, therefore I take the liberty of troubling you in the hope to have the benefit of your advice.
Will you kindly inform me what good 4 per cent. stocks are to be had in the market, also if the bank will transact the business for me?
I remain very truly yours,
F. A. WARREN.
By return mail came a letter wherein I was advised to invest in India 4 per cents or London Gas. I wrote an immediate order to have the bank purchase ten thousand pounds of India stock and sent my check for that amount, on his own bank, payable to the order of the manager. I received the stock, instantly sold it, and replaced the money to my credit, and the next day sent off an order for ten thousand pounds gas stock, and repeated the operation until I had made the impression I wanted to make on the mind of the manager, so that when I returned to London for my decisive interview and sent in my card he would at once recognize the name, F. A. Warren, as the multi-millionaire American who had been sending him ten thousand pound checks from Paris.
All the time of my stay in France I had nothing to do but enjoy myself, and I entered upon a systematic sightseeing in and around Paris. There are some strange contrasts in that old town. One day I made one of a coaching party to Fontainebleau, twenty-one miles from the city. Every foot of the road there is classic ground, and I had assiduously studied day by day the history of France. That Paris is France is nearly a truth, and I had in my mind a tolerably clear view of the history of the country and of the men who made its history. I was right there on the scene of the history-making, and I found an intensity of interest in my excursions such as I had never experienced before. The driverof the coach was an Englishman by the name of Nunn. I mention this here, as he eventually became my servant, and will appear again in the narrative.
To the Parisian hotel proprietor and shopkeeper the American visitor is truly a providence. "Mine host" looks to him for loaves and fishes, and is never deceived. The antics of our rich countrymen in Paris are portentous in their amazing prodigality, and I fear we are the laughing stock of the shopkeepers there.
At the Cafe Riche and Tortoni's I have seen extravagances in ordering expensive wines and viands by my countrymen that made me regret that the fools who were being served were not forced to toil for the mere necessaries of existence. Certainly they were unworthy stewards of the wealth heaven or the other place had bestowed on them by inheritance. I remember one boy there throwing away in vice and dissipation the fortune his father had through years of a long life spent toilsome hours in accumulating. I sat at a table near him on several occasions, when, after his banquet was half over, he used to reward the waiter with a five-hundred franc note ($100), but the proprietor was ever close at hand and would instantly despoil the garcon of his prize. He was companioned by a member of the demi-monde, who, when arrayed in male attire, as she was nightly, would cut up enough monkey tricks in one night at the Valentino or Mabille to have made the fortunes of all our comic paper artists had they been on the spot to catch her antics with a kodak and then lay them before an admiring public.
The fortune this boy had inherited was unfortunately too vast and too well-invested by his overfond and madly foolish father for the son to run through it entirely. A very few years left him an imbecile in body and mind, to become the prey of a parcel of sharks who, dressing in purple and fine linen and faring sumptuously every day, held him in a state of abject slavery and fear. One day, aboard his own yacht,off Naples, they married him to a notorious woman. Under the guardianship of his wife and her villain paramour he wandered like a spectre amid the scene of his former riot.
For long at Monte Carlo he lingered like a ghost, and at last died in Florence. The American colony attended his funeral in a body, while his widow, dissolved in tears, refused to be comforted. Although many dark stories were whispered, the Americans there forgave her all, for her grief and sorrow were so overpoweringly evident that it would have seemed a crime to doubt her tender love for the departed. After having the body embalmed, she embarked with her dead love for America, and to-day his ashes rest in that mighty city of the dead, Greenwood, under a Greek cross of white marble, bearing the date of birth and death. I went to see it last Easter week. The grave was strewn with flowers, and the pedestal bears this inscription:
"Too good for this world,The angels bore him to heaven,Leaving his heartbroken wifeTo mourn her unspeakable loss."
Unopposed she succeeded to her husband's estate. It was large then; to-day it has grown to enormous proportions. She is not, but easily might have been, one of the Four Hundred.
At Saratoga last August I saw her sitting on the balcony of the United States Hotel—fat, wrinkled, vulgar-looking, covered with diamonds. Nemesis appears to have postponed her visit to the lady. Her life from her own standpoint has been a tremendous success. She has been philosopher enough to appreciate what an immense factor mere eating and drinking is in the sum of human enjoyment. Born with a cold heart, a constitution of iron, and the digestion of an ostrich, happily for her peace of mind she was absolutely without imagination.
"IN MY DREAM I WAS ON A SHORELESS SEA."—Page 286."IN MY DREAM I WAS ON A SHORELESS SEA."—Page286.
To fill the sum of human happiness (from her own standpoint) she only required one other thing, a good bank account, and that, she said, heaven had put in her way, so her life has been filled full of joy, and of the only sort she cared for or could appreciate. In her early years, when her passions were strong, lover and paramour followed in rapid succession. When her blood grew cold she found her delight in the pleasures of the table, and keeping the same cook, who was an expert, for twenty years, and exercising freely, 1894 found her at 60 with a strong pulse, a perfect digestion and a keen enjoyment of sport, racing in particular, and, on the whole, enjoying life as well as any woman in the universe, with no regrets, no torturing remorse, but with a serene faith that when done with this world she—never having done anything very bad here—will have a pretty good time in the world to come.
ENTRANCE TO BULLION VAULTS, BANK OF ENGLAND.ENTRANCE TO BULLION VAULTS, BANK OF ENGLAND.
After the events narrated in the last chapter, I returned to London. I arrived early in the morning, and, meeting my companions, we had a long and anxious talk over my near-approaching and all-important interview with that great Sir of the London world, the manager of the Bank of England. Happy for us if in that interview the manager had asked for the customary references, or had used ordinary business precaution and investigated me, or, indeed, had acted as any ordinary business man would have done under ordinary circumstances. Our own conclusions were that the fact that I was already a depositor, together with the impression made by the letters and my £10,000 checks, would put the thing through. Yet we, of course, felt that a thousand things could arise to block our way effectually. A look, a word too much, a shadow, or a smile in my face might ruin all; but still, after providing so far as possible for every contingency, after planning what was to be said or left unsaid at the interview, after my companions filling me full of advice, we felt after all that everything must be left to my discretion, to say and to act as I thought best under the circumstances.
This council of war was held in my room in the Grosvenor. I had arrived from Paris at 6 o'clock. Mac and I breakfasted together at 8. George joined us at 9, and we talked until 10, then we set out together for the bank. Arriving there, they remained outside, watching for my reappearance. Entering the bank, I sent in my card (F. A. Warren) by a liveried flunkey, and was immediately ushered into the manager's parlor. He has long since gone over to the majority, so here I will not so much as name or describe him. Sufficient to say, that as soon as I set eyes upon him I thought that we would have no particular difficulty in carrying out our plans, save only so far as details went.
The manager, who had been told that I was a railroad contractor, expressed himself highly gratified to have me do my business through the bank, and said they would do all in their power to accommodate me. I told him that, of course, I was financing large sums, and would require more or less discounts before the year was out. Then I came away, and meeting my two friends outside of the bank, in answer to their eager inquiries as to what had transpired, I told them that, so far as the bank officials were concerned, our way to the vaults of the bank was wide open.
So ended the last scene of Act I.
The next day I went to the Continental Bank, in Lombard street, and bought sight exchange on Paris for 200,000 francs, paying for it by a check on the Bank of England. I was given a note of identification to the Paris agent of the bank.
That night I left Victoria Station for Paris. At 10 the next morning I had my money, and, going to the Place de la Bourse, near the Exchange, I commissioned a broker, who was a member of the Exchange, to purchase bills on London for £8,000. I cautioned him to buy bills drawn only on well-known banking houses. About 3 o'clock he had the bills ready. I paid him the amount, along with his commission, and, examining the paper, found that he had purchased for me about what I wanted.
I will explain, for the benefit of any reader not conversant with financial transactions, that if John Russell, cotton broker in Savannah, ships a thousand bales of cotton to a firm in Manchester, England, the firm in Manchester authorizes himto draw a bill of exchange on their firm, payable at some London bank at three or six months' time, for the value of the cotton. We will say the price is £10,000. Russell draws ten bills for £1,000 each, say payable at the Union Bank of London. He gives these bills to a money broker in Savannah, who sells them on the Exchange and gets for them whatever the rate of exchange may then be on London. The president of the Georgia Central Railroad may have ordered a thousand tons of steel rail in England for his road, and to pay for them he orders a broker to buy for him bills on London to the amount of the cost of the rails. He purchases the Russell bills, and these bills of exchange he sends in payment to the steel rail manufacturers in England, so, as a matter of fact, the president of the Georgia Central pays Russell for his thousand bales of cotton, but has the bills of exchange. So, in place of £10,000 in gold being freighted twice across the ocean, the ten pieces of paper cross only once. These ten bills for £1,000 each, drawn on the Union Bank of London at six months, in due time are presented, duly accepted and paid at maturity by the bank.
Instead of commercial notes or bills they are now known as acceptances, and are just as good as a bank note. Therefore, if the owner—no matter who it is—wants the money at once, any bank will discount all or either for the face value less the interest. In every commercial centre of the world these accepted bills are being discounted by banks and moneyed corporations for enormous sums, but by no bank in the world in such huge amounts as by the Bank of England. Their daily discounts run into the millions.
What our plan was will be made clear later.
A BILL OF EXCHANGE.A BILL OF EXCHANGE.View larger image
The evening of the day of my arrival in Paris found me on the express speeding to Paris. Two hours past midnight I was on the miserable little passenger steamer that plies across the chopping channel, and which I suppose has seen more of human misery than all the fleets that sail the Atlantic, forthe channel has stronger counter currents, and wind, tide and currents seem ever to be in violent opposition, and here
"E'er across the main doth floatA sad and solemn swell,The wild, fantastic, fitful noteOf Triton's breathing shell."
And Triton (old Neptune's t'other name) makes all passers over this part of his realm pay ample tribute for "his fantastic, fitful notes."
The Paris night express lands one at early dawn in London, nearly always weak on the legs, however. I breakfasted with Mac, and after that took the bills to the various banks on which they were drawn, and leaving them for their acceptance, I called again the next day and received them back, bearing across the face, the magic words:
"London, Aug. 14, 1872."Accepted for the Union Bank of London."E. Barclay, Manager."J. Wayland, Assistant Manager."
"London, Aug. 14, 1872.
"Accepted for the Union Bank of London.
"E. Barclay, Manager.
"J. Wayland, Assistant Manager."
Then I hurried to the Grosvenor, and we all looked at them with curiosity, for it was upon the imitation of just such acceptances that our whole plan was based. I intended to present this and many more batches of genuine bills for discount at the bank until the officials should become accustomed to discounting for me. In the mean time, as fast as I got genuine acceptances and bills, we kept on making imitations of them for future use, only leaving out the date until such time as we should be ready to put them in for discount. Of course, the success or failure of our whole plan turned upon this point. Is it the custom of the Bank of England (in 1873) to send acceptances offered for discount to the acceptors for verification of signatures?
This is always done in America, and had this very requisite precaution been used by the Bank of England our planwould have been fruitless and we should have been a few thousands out of pocket; but, if not, then we could throw into the hopper enough acceptances of home manufacture so that through the red tape routine of the bank millions of sovereigns would be ground out into our pockets.
Taking my deposit book and the genuine bills, I went to the bank and left the bills for discount. This was at once done and the amount placed to my credit. I drew £10,000, and that night found me once more one of 500 unfortunates paying tribute to Neptune. This time I landed at Ostend and took the train for Amsterdam. There I repeated the Paris operation, securing £10,000 in genuine bills. I returned to London, and as before left them for acceptance. Then my companion manufactured a lot of imitations and put them away with those previously manufactured, to be all ready when the day came to use them. The genuine bills were then discounted. Again and again I went to the Continent, repeating the operation, until at last my credit at the bank was firm as a rock, and we were ready to reap our harvest. But these operations, simple as they seem, lasted over a period of six months, and had been made at heavy cost. Our ordinary living expenses were not less than $25 a day for the three, while our extraordinary expenses were enormous. I probably traveled 10,000 miles over the Continent in my bill-buying expeditions to Paris, Amsterdam, Frankfort and Vienna.
Another source of expense was the commissions paid to brokers for buying bills on the exchange. Then we had many expenses purely personal, and, enormous as it seems, the sum total from the day of our return from Brazil until the day of our operations against the bank began to bring us in cash were quite $500 a week, so that we had invested $15,000 in preparation, not to speak of our hard work—and it was hard work, and trying, too, for there were a multitude of details to be worked out.
All the details of events leading through the long Summer and Autumn days of 1872 up to the hour when the golden shower began to fall on us are of intense, almost dramatic, interest. I will not, however, lengthen the narrative by giving here any further account of them, but will merely relate the story of the last five days before the actual presentation of our home-brewed acceptances.
The bank had been discounting for weeks comparatively large sums for me. Many thousand pounds of the genuine article discounted had matured and been paid, and more thousands were still in the vaults, awaiting maturity, and would fall due, while our home-manufactured bills would be laid away in the vaults, there to remain for four or five months until due. Of course a full month or two months before that we could pack our baggage and be on the other side of the world; I on some hacienda in Mexico, George and Mac at some fashionable resort in Florida. They soon to knock at the gates of the Four Hundred, I to spend a year or two in Mexico, playing "grand senor," until, under the skillful management of our friends, Irving, Stanley and White, at Police Headquarters in New York, the affair had blown over, and they invited me to return.
But, as the sequel will show, the reality took on a different complexion from the ideal.
BOW STREET POLICE STATION.BOW STREET POLICE STATION.
My credit at the bank was solid as a rock. That means I had gone through the red-tape routine. It only behooved us to use circumspection enough to avoid making mistakes in our papers, and fortune was ours. I knew everything was all right, but George, being a thorough business man himself, could not comprehend that it could be quite right, and he insisted upon one supreme test. Any single bill of exchange is seldom drawn for more than £1,000, rarely for £2,000, and one of £6,000 is almost unheard of. If a party in Bombay wanted exchange on London for £100,000, his broker would probably furnish him with one hundred bills for £1,000 each. But George had made up his mind that as a test, and to make an impression upon the bank manager, I should go to Paris and get a bill on London from Rothschilds drawn to the order of F. A. Warren direct. Could this be done it would, of course, make it appear that I had intimate relations with the Rothschilds, and as a minor consideration we could use the Rothschild acceptance—a pretty nervy thing to do, as Sir Anthony de Rothschild, the head of the London house, whose name we proposed to offer, was a director of the Bank of England, and would have to pass his own paper for discount—that is, paper bearing his name, manufactured by ourselves.
We tried to talk George out of this notion, which Mac and I regarded as a freak, unnecessary in the first place, and impossible anyhow. But he was persistent, and I had to start out and try. I expected an expense of $1,000 and a delay of two weeks, but fortune or the devil favored us. So, purchasing at the exchange broker's in London 200,000 francs in French paper money, once more I left Victoria Station for Paris. Once more, an unwilling victim, I heard the "wild, fantastic, fitful note of Triton's breathing shell." At Calais I took my place in what the French call a coupe; that is, the end compartment on a car, which, by paying ten francs extra, you can occupy alone. It is unlike theother compartments in that there are no arms dividing it into seats; so one can lie full length on the cushion.
Before this night I speak of I had cherished a theory as to what I should do in the event of an accident happening to any train whereon I was a passenger. In such a case I proposed to catch on to some object and hold on, leaving my body and limbs to swing freely. My theory ever since that night has been that I will go just wherever the breaking timbers and flying furniture send me. I had fallen into a sound sleep before the train started, and was aroused from it to find myself hurled about the compartment much as a stout boy would shake a mouse in a cage, and quite as helpless.
Our train was off the track. My carriage was near the engine, and the momentum of the long train forced the car in the rear of mine up on end, and it appeared as if it would fall over and crush me. I thought my hour had come, and I cried out, "At last!" There was no fear or terror in it, but merely the thought that after many months of almost incessant travel, and necessarily of peril, "at last" my fate had come. It had not. How good heaven would have been if it had sent me to my doom then and there!
The accident had occurred at Marquise, a small town sixteen miles from Calais and four from Boulogne, the first stopping place of the express. It was a very long train, but the carriages were all empty except two. A heavy excursion train had left Paris, and the cars were going back empty. What lessened the number of passengers was the fact that it was Sunday night. The English do not travel on Sundays as a rule. So, fortunately, a great loss of life was prevented. However, two were killed and half of the remaining passengers injured. My own injuries were slight and consisted of trifling cuts on the face and hands from flying glass. But, far worse than that, I had received a nervous shock, which took some weeks to wear off, and duringthe rest of my journey to Paris and return to London I was as nervous as a timid woman. I stayed at Marquise until noon, when the express passing at that hour made a special stop to pick me up.
In our glorious and free country the killing or mangling of a few persons more or less is of no particular concern to any one beyond the friends of the victims, least of all to the railway magnate or to his servant. But in France an accident which results even in the wounding of a passenger is a very serious matter to the road where it occurs and to its officials. They always hasten to take the fullest responsibility, and if attention or the more solid matter—cash—can comfort the sufferer, he will have no occasion to mourn long. If one life be lost—even a servant of the road—a strict judicial inquiry takes place upon the scene of the accident, by a high official of the State, advised by experts, not as in this country, by some drunken country loafer or ward heeler, who, all ignorant of the law, has been "elected" county coroner, and one who is more anxious to procure free passes on the road than he is concerned for the victim murdered by the neglect or parsimony of inefficient railway officials.
The road from Paris to Calais is known as the Chemin de Fer du Nord, and Baron Alphonse de Rothschild, head of the Paris Rothschilds, is the president of the road. This fact occurred to me within a few minutes of the accident, and I thought I might make use of the affair as a means to help me in my business at Paris. I arrived about dark, went to the Grand Hotel, and to bed at once. My nerves were so shaken that I was timid, even when in the elevator, but I slept well and awoke at daylight feeling better.
At 10 o'clock, limping badly and leaning on a cane, I entered a carriage and drove to the Maison Rothschild, Rue Lafitte. The banking house might well be called a palace. The various offices open upon a courtyard, while the whole architecture of the building would suggest the residence ofan officer of State or nobleman rather than a building devoted to finance. But the currents which centre there are potent and far-reaching, and come richly laden with tribute from the four quarters of the world. To win that tribute slaves toil, and, toiling, die, in Brazilian diamond mines, and thousands of coolies, entrapped by agents in China and India, enter into perfidious contracts which commit them to hopeless slavery and send them to wear out their lives in despairing toil amid the pungent and murderous ammoniacal fumes of the guano islands of Chili and Peru. The Rothschilds, too, own the Almaden quicksilver mine and others.
They control the quicksilver industries of the world, and to swell their abnormal hoard, portentous in its vastness, other poor wretches, condemned under form of law, are doomed to days of wearing toil, and, their bones rotting from quicksilver absorption, to nights of racking pains. So, too, far Siberia contributes its quota of human misery that the golden stream of interest on century-old loans may have no interruption, but pour on unceasingly into the vaults of the Rothschilds.
Alighting from the carriage and mounting the steps with difficulty, I entered the English Department, and, seating myself, awaited the manager's presence. He came, and expressing great concern when he learned I was a victim of the Marquise disaster, asked what he could do for me. I replied I wanted to see the Baron. He disappeared into a range of offices, and no doubt told Baron Alphonse I was some important personage, doubly important because injured on his road.
Soon a slight, sallow man of about 43 appeared, wearing an old-fashioned stovepipe hat and a shabby suit of snuff-colored garments. The look of the attendants testified that the deity was before me. Taking off his antiquated chapeau he began a profuse apology for the accident, explainingthat accidents were most unusual events in France; that he would order his own physician to attend me, that I should have every attention without the slightest charge or expense to myself, etc., etc., and ended by saying I was to command him if he could serve me. In return I told him since he was so distressed over the accident and my plight, I should say no more about either, but as I was too badly shaken to complete the business on which I had come to Paris I should request him to instruct his subordinates to aid me in transmitting the funds I had brought from London back again. He called the manager and told him to accommodate me in anything, then, shaking hands and with many expressions of regret, he withdrew.
I told the manager I wanted a three months' bill on London for £6,000. He informed me that the house of Rothschild was not issuing time bills, but since the Baron's order suspended the rule in my case, he would procure me six bills for £1,000 each. These really were just as good for our purpose as one bill for £6,000, but I had come to Paris on George's demand that I should procure one bill for this unusual amount, so perforce I had to say "No," that I wanted one bill only.
The manager began to remonstrate, saying it was unusual, and wanted to explain the nature of a bill of exchange, but I cut him short, bidding him recall the Baron at once. The thought of recalling that Jupiter to repeat an order was enough to send a thrill through the entire staff, and he instantly said: "Oh, sir, if you wish the £6,000 in one bill, you shall have it, but it will involve some delay." So paying him 150,000 francs on account, I ordered the bill sent to me at 2 o'clock precisely at the Grand Hotel, and drove off to the Louvre, where I spent two hours in the picture galleries. At 2 o'clock I was at the hotel, and an attendant came with the bill, and, pointing to a signature on it, informed me it was that of a Cabinet Minister, equivalent to our Secretaryof the Treasury, certifying that the tax due the government on the bill was paid. He explained the revenue stamp required upon a bill of exchange was one-eighth of 1 per cent. of the face of the bill, making the tax on my single bill 187 francs, or about $37. All bills are stamped in a registering machine, which presses the stamp into the paper; but there were no registering machines for a stamp of so high a denomination as 187 francs either in the branch revenue office in the Rothschild bank or at the Treasury, so the Baron had taken the bill to the Treasury himself and got the Cabinet Minister to put his autograph on it—probably the first and only time in history that such a thing had been done. I wanted very much indeed to keep that bill as a curiosity, but then the necessity of the time was on me, and I was not then a collector of curios.
I had been only eighteen hours in Paris, and by a happy fluke the business was done over which I had counted upon spending a good part of the month.
When I left London I was all at sea as to how I should carry out the objects of my visit to Paris. One plan was to procure an interview by strategy with the Baron Alphonse and try to cajole him, but without reference, and devoid of all business relations or acquaintance in Paris, it was at best a questionable expedient, and I probably would have had a take-down. But the accident at Marquise came and smoothed the apparently insuperable difficulties in my way. But I have found that something unusual does come to help a man on his way to the devil when he is anxious to get there, which he is pretty sure to do, if he is only diligent and careful to improve his opportunities.
What diligence and strict attention to business do men exhibit when they start out to wreck their own lives and break the hearts of those near to them! In a play by a modern writer, one scene presents Satan flying at midnight over one of our cities, while the drunken songs and joyous shoutsof some gilded revelers rise in the night. The merry songs and laughter are music to the ears of Lucifer. He pauses in his flight to listen, and as the songs and shouts increase in volume he looks down on the revelers and with a bitter sneer soliloquizes thus of them:
"Ye are my bondsmen and my thralls,Your lives I fill with bitter pain."
And that sums it up pretty well; but we must look straight away from the entrance of the Primrose Way to the exit.
Well, I had successfully played my trump card on the Rothschilds, and, not seeing the end, thought I had won, and cleverly won; so before sitting down to dinner I went to the telegraph office and telegraphed to my partners: