"From Miss Snape herself."
"Have you circulated any other bills made by the same drawer?"
"O yes!" said the draper, without hesitation; "I have paid away a bill
for one hundred pounds to Mr. Sparkle, the jeweller, to whom Miss Snape
owed twenty pounds. They gave me the difference."
"And how long has that bill to run now?"
"About a fortnight."
"Did you indorse it?"
"I did. Mr. Sparkle required me to do so, to show that the bill came
properly into his possession."
"This second bill, you say is urgently required to enable Miss Snape to
leave town?"
"Yes; she is going to Brighton for the winter."
I gave Mr. Axminster a steady, piercing look of inquiry. "Pray, sir," I
said, "could you meet that one hundred pounds bill, supposing it could
not be paid by the accepter?"
"Meet it!" The poor fellow wiped from his forehead the perspiration which
suddenly broke out at the bare hint of a probability that the bill would
be dishonored--"Meet it? O no! I am a married man, with a family, and
have nothing but my salary to depend on."
"Then the sooner you get it taken up, and the less you have to do with
Miss Snape's bill affairs, the better."
"She has always been punctual hitherto."
"That may be." I pointed to the cross-writing on the document, and said
deliberately, "_This_ bill is a forgery!"
At these words the poor man turned pale. He snatched up the document, and
with many incoherent protestations, was rushing toward the door, when I
called to him in an authoritative tone, to stop. He paused--his manner
indicating not only doubt, but fear. I said to him, "Don't flurry
yourself; I only want to serve you. You tell me that you are a married
man, with children, dependent on daily labor for daily bread, and that
you have done a little discounting for Miss Snape, out of your earnings.
Now, although I am a bill-discounter, I don't like to see such men
victimized. Look at the body of this bill--look at the signature of your
lady-customer, the drawer. Don't you detect the same fine, thin,
sharp-pointed handwriting in the words 'Accepted, Dymmock Munge." The
man, convinced against his will, was at first overcome. When he
recovered, he raved; he would expose the Honorable Miss Snape, if it cost
him his bread--he would go at once to the police office. I stopped him,
by saying roughly, "Don't be a fool! Any such steps would seal your ruin.
Take my advice; return the bill to the lady, saying, simply, that you
cannot get it discounted. Leave the rest to me, and I think the bill you
have indorsed to Sparkle will be paid." Comforted by this assurance,
Axminster, fearfully changed from the nervous, but smug, hopeful man of
the morning, departed. It now remained for me to exert what skill I
possessed, to bring about the desired result. I lost no time in writing a
letter to the Honorable Miss Snape, of which the following is a copy:--
"Madam,--A bill, purporting to be drawn by you, has been offered to me
for discount. There is something wrong about it; and, though a stranger
to you, I advise you to lose no time in getting it back into your own
hands.--D.D."
I intended to deal with the affair quietly, and without any view to
profit. The fact is, that I was sorry--you may laugh--but I really was
sorry to think that a young girl might have given way to temptation under
pressure of pecuniary difficulties. If it had been a man's case, I doubt
whether I should have interfered. By the return of post, a lady's maid
entered my room, profusely decorated with ringlets, lace, and perfumed
with patchouli. She brought a letter from her mistress. It ran thus:--
"Sir,--I cannot sufficiently express my thanks for your kindness in
writing to me on the subject of the bills, of which I had also heard a
few hours previously. As a perfect stranger to you, I cannot estimate
your kind consideration at too high a value. I trust the matter will be
explained; but I should much like to see you. If you would be kind
enough to write a note as soon as you receive this, I will order it to
be sent to me at once to Tyburn Square. I will wait on you at any hour
on Friday you may appoint. I believe that I am not mistaken in supposing
that you transact business for my friend, Sir John Markham, and you will
therefore know the inclosed to be his handwriting. Again thanking you
most gratefully, allow me to remain your much and deeply obliged,
JULIANA SNAPE."
This note was written upon delicate French paper embossed with a coat of
arms. It was in a fancy envelope--the whole richly perfumed, and
redolent of rank and fashion. Its contents were an implied confession of
forgery. Silence, or three lines of indignation, would have been the
only innocent answer to my letter. But Miss Snape thanked me. She let me
know, by implication that she was on intimate terms with a name good on
a West-End bill. My answer was, that I should be alone on the following
afternoon at five.
At the hour fixed, punctual to a moment, a brougham drew up at the corner
of the street next to my chambers. The Honorable Miss Snape's card was
handed in. Presently, she entered, swimming into my room, richly, yet
simply dressed in the extreme of Parisian good taste. She was pale--or
rather colorless. She had fair hair, fine teeth, and a fashionable voice.
She threw herself gracefully into the chair I handed to her, and began by
uncoiling a string of phrases, to the effect that her visit was merely to
consult me on "unavoidable pecuniary difficulties."
According to my mode, I allowed her to talk; putting in only an
occasional word of question that seemed rather a random observation than
a significant query. At length after walking round and round the subject,
like a timid horse in a field around a groom with a sieve of oats, she
came nearer and nearer the subject. When she had fairly approached the
point, she stopped, as if her courage had failed her. But she soon
recovered, and observed, "I cannot think why you should take the trouble
to write so to me, a perfect stranger." Another pause--"I wonder no one
ever suspected me before."
Here was a confession and a key to character. The cold gray eye, the thin
compressed lips, which I had had time to observe, were true indexes to
the "lady's inner heart;" selfish calculating, utterly devoid of
conscience; unable to conceive the existence of spontaneous kindness;
utterly indifferent to anything except discovery, and almost indifferent
to that, because convinced that no serious consequences could affect a
lady of her rank and influence.
"Madam," I replied, "as long as you dealt with tradesmen accustomed to
depend on aristocratic customers, your rank and position, and their
large profits, protected you from suspicion; but you have made a mistake
in descending from your vantage ground to make a poor shopman your
innocent accomplice--a man who will be keenly alive to anything
that may injure his wife or children. His terrors--but for my
interposition--would have ruined you utterly. Tell me, how many of these
things have you put afloat?"
She seemed a little taken a-back by this speech, but was wonderfully
firm. She passed her white, jewelled hand over her eyes, seemed
calculating, and then whispered, with a confiding look of innocent
helplessness, admirably assumed, "About as many as amount to twelve
hundred pounds."
"And what means have you for meeting them?"
At this question so plainly put, her face flushed. She half rose from her
chair, and exclaimed in the true tone of aristocratic _hauteur_, "Really,
sir, I do not know what right you have to ask me that question."
I laughed a little, though not very loud. It was rude, I own; but who
could have helped it? I replied, speaking low, but slowly and
distinctly--"You forget. I did not send for you; you came to me. You have
forged bills to the amount of twelve hundred pounds. Yours is not the
case of a ruined merchant or an ignorant over-tempted clerk. In your case
a jury"--(she shuddered at that word)--"would find no extenuating
circumstances; and if you should fall into the hands of justice you will
be convicted, degraded, clothed in a prison-dress, and transported for
life. I do not want to speak harshly; but I insist that you find means to
take up the bill which Mr. Axminster has so unwittingly endorsed!"
The Honorable Miss Snape's grand manner melted away. She wept. She seized
and pressed my hand. She cast up her eyes, full of tears, and went
through the part of a repentant victim with great fervor. She would do
anything--anything in the world to save the poor man. Indeed, she had
intended to appropriate part of the two hundred pound bill to that
purpose. She forgot her first statement, that she wanted the money to go
out of town. Without interrupting, I let her go on and degrade herself by
a simulated passion of repentance, regret, and thankfulness to me, under
which she hid her fear and her mortification at being detected. I at
length put an end to a scene of admirable acting, by recommending her to
go abroad immediately, to place herself out of reach of any sudden
discovery; and then lay her case fully before her friends, who would no
doubt feel bound to come forward with the full amount of the forged
bills. "But," she exclaimed, with an entreating air, "I have no money; I
cannot go without money!" To that observation I did not respond although
I am sure she expected that I should, check-book in hand, offer her a
loan. I do not say so without reason; for, the very next week, this
honorable young lady came again, and, with sublime assurance and a number
of very charming, winning speeches, (which might have had their effect
upon a younger man), asked me to lend her one hundred pounds, in order
that she might take the advice I had so obligingly given her, and retire
into private life for a certain time in the country. I do meet with a
great many impudent people in the course of my calling--I am not very
deficient in assurance myself--but this actually took away my breath.
"Really, madam," I answered, "you pay a very ill-compliment to my gray
hairs, and would fain make me a very ill return for the service I have
done you, when you ask me to lend a hundred pounds to a young lady who
owns to having forged to the extent of one thousand two hundred pounds,
and to owing eight hundred pounds besides. I wished to save a personage
of your years and position from a disgraceful career; but I am too good a
trustee for my children to lend money to anybody in such a dangerous
position as yourself."
"Oh!" she answered, quite unabashed, without a trace of the fearful,
tender pleading of the previous week's interview--quite as if I had been
an accomplice, "I can give you excellent security."
"That alters the case; I can lend any amount on good security."
"Well, sir, I can get the acceptance of three friends of ample means"
"Do you mean to tell me, Miss Snape, that you will write down the names
of three parties who will accept a bill for one hundred pounds for you?"
Yes, she could, and did actually write down the names of three
distinguished men. Now I knew for certain, that not one of those noblemen
would have put his name to a bill on any account whatever for his dearest
friend; but, in her unabashed self-confidence, she thought of passing
another forgery _on me_. I closed the conference by saying, "I cannot
assist you;" and she retired with the air of an injured person. In the
course of a few days, I heard from Mr. Axminster, that his liability of
one hundred pounds had been duly honored.
In my active and exciting life, one day extinguishes the recollection
of the events of the preceding day; and, for a time, I thought no more
about the fashionable forger. I had taken it for granted that,
heartily frightened, although not repenting, she had paused in her
felonious pursuits.
My business one day led me to the establishment of one of the most
wealthy and respectable legal firms in the city, where I am well known,
and, I believe, valued; for at all times I am most politely, I may say,
most cordially received. Mutual profits create a wonderful freemasonry
between those who have not any other sympathy or sentiment. Politics,
religion, morality, difference of rank, are all equalized and
republicanized by the division of an account. No sooner had I entered the
_sanctum_, than the senior partner, Mr. Precepts, began to quiz his
junior, Mr. Jones, with, "Well, Jones must never joke friend Discount
anymore about usury. Just imagine," he continued, addressing me, "Jones
has himself been discounting a bill for a lady; and a deuced pretty one
too. He sat next her at dinner in Grosvenor Square, last week. Next day
she gave him a call here, and he could not refuse her extraordinary
request. Gad, it is hardly fair for Jones to be poaching on your domains
of West-End paper!"
Mr. Jones smiled quietly, as he observed, "Why, you see, she is the niece
of one of our best clients; and really I was so taken by surprise, that I
did not know how to refuse."
"Pray," said I, interrupting his excuses, "does your young lady's name
begin with S.? Has she not a very pale face, and cold gray eye?"
The partners stared.
"Ah! I see it is so; and can at once tell you that the bill is not
worth a rush."
"Why, you don't mean--?"
"I mean simply that the acceptance is, I'll lay you a wager, a forgery."
"A forgery!"
"A forgery," I repeated as distinctly as possible.
Mr. Jones hastily, and with broken ejaculations, called for the cash-box.
With trembling hands he took out the bill, and followed my finger with
eager, watchful eyes, as I pointed out the proofs of my assertion. A long
pause was broken by my mocking laugh; for, at the moment, my sense of
politeness could not restrain my satisfaction at the signal defeat which
had attended the first experiment of these highly respectable gentlemen
in the science of usury.
The partners did not have recourse to the police. They did not propose a
consultation with either Mr. Forrester or Mr. Field; but they took
certain steps, under my recommendation; the result of which was that at
an early day, an aunt of the Honorable Miss Snape was driven, to save so
near a connection from transportation, to sell out some fourteen hundred
pounds of stock, and all the forgeries were taken up.
One would have thought that the lady who had thus so narrowly escaped,
had had enough--but forgery, like opium-eating, is one of those charming
vices which is never abandoned, when once adopted. The forger enjoys not
only the pleasure of obtaining money so easily, but the triumph of
befooling sharp men of the world. Dexterous penmanship is a source of the
same sort of pride as that which animates the skillful rifleman, the
practiced duellist, or well-trained billiard-player. With a clean Gillott
he fetches down a capitalist, at three or six months, for a cool hundred
or a round thousand; just as a Scrope drops over a stag at ten, or a
Gordon Cumming a monstrous male elephant at a hundred paces.
As I before observed, my connection especially lies among the
improvident--among those who will be ruined--who are being ruined--and
who have been ruined. To the last class belongs Francis Fisherton, once
a gentleman, now without a shilling or a principle; but rich in
mother-wit--in fact, a _farceur_, after Paul de Kock's own heart. Having
in by-gone days been one of my willing victims, he occasionally finds
pleasure and profit in guiding others through the gate he frequented, as
long as able to pay the tolls. In truth, he is what is called a
"discount agent."
One day I received a note from him, to say that he would call on me at
three o'clock the next day to introduce a lady of family, who wanted a
bill "done" for one hundred pounds. So ordinary a transaction merely
needed a memorandum in my diary, "Tuesday, 3 p.m.; F.F., £100 Bill." The
hour came and passed; but no Frank, which was strange--because every one
must have observed, that, however dilatory people are in paying, they are
wonderfully punctual when they expect to receive money.
At five o'clock, in rushed my Jackall. His story, disentangled from
oaths and ejaculations, amounted to this:--In answer to one of the
advertisements he occasionally addresses "To the Embarrassed," in the
columns of the "Times," he received a note from a lady, who said she was
anxious to get a "bill done"--the acceptance of a well-known man of rank
and fashion. A correspondence was opened, and an appointment made. At the
hour fixed, neatly shaved, brushed, gloved, booted--the revival, in
short, of that high-bred Frank Fisherton who was so famous
"In his hot youth, when Crockford's was the thing."
glowing with only one glass of brandy, "just to steady his nerves," he
met the lady at a West-End pastry-cook's.
After a few words (for all the material questions had been settled by
correspondence) she stepped into a brougham, and invited Frank to take a
seat beside her. Elated with a compliment of late years so rare, he
commenced planning the orgies which were to reward him for weeks of
enforced fasting, when the coachman, reverentially touching his hat,
looked down from his seat for orders.
"To ninety-nine, George Street, St. James," cried Fisherton, in his
loudest tones.
In an instant the young lady's pale face changed to scarlet, and then to
ghastly green. In a whisper, rising to a scream, she exclaimed, "Good
heavens! you do not mean to go to _that_ man's house," (meaning me.)
"Indeed, I cannot go to him, on any account; he is a most horrid man, I
am told, and charges most extravagantly."
"Madam," answered Frank, in great perturbation, "I beg your pardon, but
you have been grossly misinformed. I have known that excellent man these
twenty years, and have paid him hundreds on hundreds; but never so much
by ten per cent. as you offered me for discounting your bill."
"Sir, I cannot have anything to do with your friend." Then, violently,
pulling the check-string, "Stop," she gasped, "and _will you_ have the
goodness to get out?"
"And so I got out," continued Fisherton, "and lost my time; and the heavy
investment I made in getting myself up for the assignation--new primrose
gloves, and a shilling to the hair-dresser--hang her! But, did you ever
know anything like the prejudices that must prevail against you? I am
disgusted with human nature. Could you lend me half a sovereign till
Saturday?"
I smiled. I sacrificed the half sovereign, and let him go, for he is not
exactly the person to whom it was advisable to intrust all the secrets
relating to the Honorable Miss Snape. Since that day I look each morning
in the police reports with considerable interest; but, up to the present
hour, the Honorable Miss Snape has lived and thrived in the best society.