disguised,--explained the difference between the
different parts of the notes,--pointed out where the writer was firm in
his purpose, and his nerves well braced, and where his fears overcame
his resolution,--where he had paused to recover his courage, and for a
considerable time,--where he had changed his pen, and how the forgery
was continued through several days,--what parts were done by Temple, and
what by Conway,--

"Till all the interim
Between the acting of the dreadful thing
And the first motion"

was brought so vividly and truthfully to mind that Mr. Conway fell to
the floor as if dead. The cashier, relieved from a pressure that had for
weary months been grinding his very soul, burst into tears. A scene of
strange excitement ensued, during which Mr. Conway muttered incoherent
sentences in condemnation of Temple and then of himself,--now with
penitence, and then with rage. Recovering his composure, he suggested
the Jew as the guilty party. Mr. Sidney then dissected the handwriting
of the Jew, and demonstrated that there was as great a difference
between his chirography and a New-Englander's as between the English and
the Chinese characters,--showed how the Jew must have been exceedingly
timid, and stated the probability that he had left the city not because
he had taken any part in the forgery, but because he had been frightened
away. Then turning to Conway, he gave him a lecture such as no mortal
before ever gave or received. The agony of Conway's mind so distorted
his body as made it painful in the extreme to all beholders. "His inmost
soul seemed stung as by the bite of a serpent." When at last Mr. Sidney
turned and took from his valise a small steel safe, which Conway
recognized as his own, "the terrors of hell got hold of him," and his
anguish was indescribably horrible. The little safe had been by some
unknown and unaccountable process taken from a larger one in Conway's
office, and was unopened. Neither Mr. Sidney nor the directors have ever
seen its contents; but in consideration that it should not be opened,
Mr. Conway confessed his crime in the very form of Mr. Sidney's
description, paid the notes before leaving the bank, and _remains a
director to this day_. As is often the case, the greater criminal goes
unwhipped of justice.

* * * * *

Mr. Sidney, besides the faculty I have described, had acquired another,
less wonderful perhaps, but still quite remarkable,