without questions. The whole operation was a repetition of these
tactics, but with an ever-increasing volume in the amounts of the bills.
On some days the mail brought to the bank letters with bills for
$100,000, sometimes for more, sometimes for less. So November and
December passed away, and the bank continued day by day and week by week
laying away in its vaults the worthless collateral of Mr. F. A. Warren in
exchange for its gold.

But why not be satisfied and stop while it was all right? That is the
question of a wise man, but who ever knew any man who wanted to do a
thing, whether he did it or not, who could not find half a hundred good
reasons why he should do it. But as Christmas came near Mac began to
long for home. He had repaid his father every penny of the large sum he
was owing him; there had been a reconciliation by mail, and each steamer
that came bore many long letters from parents and sisters, all speaking
of their joy over the happy turn of events that was going to bring the
absent member of the flock home within its walls again. The father's
heart, long estranged, grew very tender toward his boy, and with pride
he thought his eldest had thrown off the follies of his youth, and in
manful strength was making ample atonements for the thoughtlessness and
the wanderings of his youth. He and they were all destined to a terrible
awakening. For soon the press of the world was to teem with accounts of
his son's arrest and incarceration for participation in a gigantic
fraud. When the blow fell it came with crushing force on that home, and
a shadow deep as night settled down on the household; all joyousness and
even hope itself fled when the cable bore the news that their boy had
been condemned to life imprisonment in a foreign dungeon. And one by one
the members of that family passed away from a world that held no more
for them since their good name had been tarnished.

In London the boys talked of spending Christmas at home, but the
argument to stay--and it prevailed--was that since the money came in so
easily and in such amounts it was a pity to run away from it. Then,
again, by obtaining an enormous sum and putting it in a place of
absolute security, the bank would be glad to compromise the matter in
consideration of receiving a million or two back again.

So they spent a pretty merry and an exceedingly expensive Christmas in
London, but later in February they determined to pack up and leave.

Everything