hant friends only known what was up they might have
sat where they were the day through and drank porter out of the pewter
mugs in safety. There were a hundred thousand men in London who would
answer any description the bank could have given of Noyes, Mac and
George had never appeared in the transaction, and I, the F. A. Warren
they were looking for, was living quietly with my young wife in a lovely
isle in the tropic sea.

Surely then, these three high-toned financiers still had the game in
their own hands. They had nothing to fear. They had wealth. There was no
clue to their identity and the world was before them--a world which lays
her treasures and pleasures at the feet of him who commands wealth.

But that mighty Something had decreed otherwise, and a subtle spirit
under whose power they were but purposeless puppets inspired them to
commit an act of folly which was to hurl them from the fools' paradise
wherein they were reveling down to the pit of despair.

Upon Mac casually remarking that they had still a balance of $75,000 to
Warren's credit, Noyes spoke up and said: "Boys, that is too much money
to leave John Bull; suppose you make out a check for L5,000. I will run
over and get the cash, and it will do for pocket money." And the two
others, triumphant in success, became idiots and assented. Making out a
check for L5,000, Noyes started for the bank, check in hand, and
entering, instantly found himself with a hot and angry swarm of hornets
about him.

[Illustration: A NEWGATE SCENE.--DON'T WANT HIS PICTURE TAKEN.]

There were twenty-five detectives in and around the bank. Special
messengers had summoned the affrighted directors. The great bank parlor
was packed with a host of stockholders and directors, who were
questioning the manager and clerks. And excitement rose to fever heat
when, with twenty hands holding him, poor Noyes was hustled in among
them. They rushed at him like a pack of wolves. Had that been a bank
parlor in festive Arizona, they would not have endured the delay
incidental to procuring a rope, but would have ended it and him by
gunnery at short range. Noyes could not be shaken; his nerve never
failed. He said a gentleman had hired him as a clerk, and that was all
he knew. He had left him at the Stock Exchange; if they would let him
go, he would try and find him and bring him around to the bank. J. Bull
is gullible, but not so much so as to swallow that yarn.

So they held tightly to him, a