rge sums flowing from transactions, a little irregular, perhaps,
but which the necessities of Government permitted, were endeavoring, by
any means, to open up new fountains of wealth in place of those which
the close of the war had exhausted.

One of the resources presenting itself most naturally to men in a
position to profit by it was speculating with other people's money, and
very naturally the result of such speculation was disastrous in the
highest degree. When detection became inevitable the defaulter generally
fled, hoping to find in a foreign land safety from the stroke of justice
and a shelter from the reproaches of his victims.

Occasionally, one more resolute, dreading flight as much as detection,
flung himself into schemes which, if they failed, meant the most hideous
and utter ruin, but which, if they succeeded, rendered discovery
impossible, and made his position more solid than ever before. One day,
late in the sixties, in the parlor of a bank in Greenwich street, a
gentleman was anxiously scanning the books of the establishment. He
alone in all the institution knew of a secret which would horrify his
brother officials and carry desolation to scores of homes, the first to
suffer being his own. Perhaps had it been possible to exempt this one
home, the misery of the others would not have greatly affected him. But
suffering must be kept from his own house, and all and any means to
banish it would be and must be good.

The gentleman in whose mind these thoughts were passing was the
president of the bank, who knew himself to be a defaulter to an enormous
amount, and who was now anxiously reflecting upon the means to cover up
his robberies. Fortunately for him he was acquainted with the one man
who more than any other in all America was able to help him. This was
Capt. Irving. The president was a man of nerve. He knew, as everybody
else knew, the relations in which the police stood to the thieves, and
he felt that if he could arrange to have his own bank robbed, his
difficulties would vanish, and his share in the defalcations be covered
up.

Little time was left to him before the inevitable discovery, but the
prompt and skillful use he made of it to extricate himself from the
fearful danger of his position makes one almost regret that a man of
such resolution and such opportunities should prove to the world that
high qualities may exist when the moral sense is entirely wanting.
Irving was quickly taken into