ntly
counted on several more.

I related above how we had in some incomprehensible way omitted putting
on the letter of credit the sub-manager's name. How could we have
committed such a blunder? My answer is that this is only another example
of the unforeseen "something" ever happening to defeat any anticipated
benefit from ill-gotten gains.

The next day Mac went to the bankers again, and was requested by the
manager to show the letter of credit on which was indorsed the ten
thousand pounds he had drawn against it. Looking at the letter, the
manager said: "This is singular; there is only the name of Mr. Bradshaw,
the manager, on this letter; J. P. Shipp, the sub-manager's name, should
be on the credit as well." And then he went on to say that some time
since they had been notified by the London Bank that all letters issued
by them would bear two signatures.

Mac was a man of nerve, but it required all he had not to betray his
uneasiness. He said he really could not say how the omission had
occurred; he supposed it must have been accidental, but he would examine
his other letters as soon as he went back to the hotel.

The look of chagrin and vexation on Mac's face when he came out was a
sight to see, and one that is as vivid in my memory now as in that far
off day in 1872.

He went direct to the hotel, and there George and I soon joined him. We
sat down and looked at each other. The game apparently was up, and we
were a sorely disgusted party. We did not fall out with or reproach
each other, but felt we deserved a kicking. We did not ask each other
any questions, but I know our faces all wore a sadly puzzled look as we
repeated mentally, "How could we have made such an oversight?" But soon
another blunder--the misspelled word--was to crop up, that made this one
of the omitted name seem as a fly to an eagle.

Mac and I thought the game up, and were mentally planning for flight.
But George, being a man of extraordinary courage and resource as well,
declared we could and would retrieve the blunder. He declared a bold
step must be taken, that, as the bankers had only seen the one credit,
the name of Shipp, the sub-manager, must be instantly put on the others.
We had the genuine signature of J. P. Shipp on a draft, and Mac at once
sat down to write it on all the letters. It was a trying ordeal for him,
Mac's nerves having had a wrench. He was a temperate man, but under the
circumstances we advised him to take a glass