smiled upon them. The gold and bonds they had, meant fortunes
for all. I was away in tropic islands leading an idle life with my
bride amid the cocoanut and palm trees. Mac and George had never
appeared in the transaction, and as for Noyes, not a soul in all America
knew he was in Europe, and in all Europe only three or four people had
seen him, and knew him as representing Warren.

The business was finished. All three laden with money were going to
leave England, leaving the bank to slumber on for weeks until the first
bills became due before there could be a discovery. By that time the
cash would have been safely stowed, and how or where or to whom could
anything be traced?

So in council they had decided to be content with the enormous amount
they had. The last batch of bills was in the mail. Only one day more and
the strain on the nerves would be over. That day Noyes bought bonds and
drew cash for more than $150,000. At 3 o'clock they sat down to lunch,
their last in London, and then went direct to Mac's apartments in St.
James' place. All the material for making fraudulent bills was there,
and what could be burned was to be thrown into the grate, and the rest
to first be filed into blank nothings and then thrown into the Thames.
The three were there and they were happy. They had engineered a gigantic
scheme, had struck for wealth and won. The short cut to fortune in
defiance of fate had been traversed and now they set about a grateful
task--that of getting themselves and their rich argosy out of England.
Mac being the artist of the party, and having executed the actual
writing, drew the sealed box containing the unused bills up to the fire
and began throwing them in one by one. In doing so he occasionally would
throw some bill more elaborate than the common run on the floor beside
his chair. He had finished his task and took from the floor those he had
thrown there, looked at them for a moment, then crumbling them together,
raised his hand to throw them in the fire, but as the devil always
forsakes his friends at the critical moment, he stopped, smoothed out
the bills and turning to the others, said: "Boys, these are perfect
works of art; it is a pity to destroy them." From our point of view it
was, since it was only necessary to drop them into the mail and they
would coin us thousands. Then George said: "Suppose we send them in."
The others said "All right," and our doom was sealed.

There were in the lot ninete