tions at all; that is, that my right
name would ever transpire, or that George and Mac would ever, by any
possibility, be brought into question for the fraud.

So I came back from my walk with my plans outlined. It was to remain
quietly where we were for a fortnight longer, then take the steamer to
Vera Cruz, go to the City of Mexico and there buy an estate, as I had
originally proposed. Then, after a few months, leave my wife there and
travel incog. through Northern Mexico and Texas, meet Mac and George and
afterward return to Mexico.

Not a soul in all Europe knew I was in Cuba, and so long as my name did
not transpire I was as safe in Cuba as if in the desert.

Consequently I determined to go on in the same way since our landing. In
the mean while I would watch the papers, and if any signs of danger
appeared I could take instant measures for my safety.

As the days passed the cable dispatches appearing in the papers
increased in volume, and the papers everywhere had editorials, which, as
a rule, were humorous or sarcastic, poking fun at the Britishers in
general and the Old Lady of Threadneedle Street in particular. Then the
comic papers took it up, and from week to week published cartoons
intended to be funny.

One of the funniest of these came out in one of the New York comics,
which appeared after the mail arrived from London with the particulars
of the simplicity of the bank officials in their dealings with the
mysterious F. A. Warren. This full-page cartoon represented a young dude,
seated on a mule, riding down a steep declivity.

At the bottom the devil stood, holding in the fingers of his extended
hands a quantity of thousand-pound bank notes tempting Warren, and John
Bull stood behind the mule, belaboring it with an umbrella and driving
Warren down to the devil.

I tried to keep the papers from my wife, but one day she came home from
a visit with a flushed face and eager to talk, and began telling me
about some daring countryman of mine "who had the audacity to rob the
Bank of England," and "who ought to have a whipping." On several
occasions Americans there asked my opinion as to who the party could be.

I always told them he was some clever young scamp, with plenty of money
of his own, who did it for the excitement of the thing and from a wish
to take a rise out of John Bull.

The next French steamer for Mexico was advertised to land at Havana for
passengers and mails for Vera Cruz in a few days,