CHAPTER XI.
"CRACK THE LAWYER'S VOICE THAT HE MAY NEVER MORE FALSE TITLES PLEAD, NOR SOUND HIS QUILLETS SHRILLY."
The Eastward Ho was a hint of a project we had frequently talked over as a possible speculation. Here we see how men are led on step by step from bad to worse when once they set out on the Primrose Way.
In returning from Europe with the $10,000 commission in my pocket, I vowed never again to engage in any unlawful speculation. I was through! No criminal life for me! Then came the day when we struck for the $20,000 and won, and we were all happy in the thought that our last unlawful deed was over.
Then we took the third step we had vowed never to take, and had discussed the $240,000 project. We had spent money on it, had laid our plans cunningly and deep, and were confident of success. We had even planned how to invest our thousands in an honest business, and so win the esteem of all good men, and, of course, in some happy future would make restitution. But that is a future which never comes in the history of crime. These three wrong steps had been taken only after convincing ourselves that the circumstances justified each separate act.
Such is the contradiction of human nature that even when planning crime we not only intended to make restitution, but despised all other wrongdoers and reprobated their crimes. Each wrongful act of ours was to be the last, and it was with something like despair that we began to realize that there was no stopping place on the dangerous road we were treading.
My $13,000 commission from the European trip had melted away. Our share of the $20,000 got from Jay Cooke & Co. was fast going. Our deep-laid plot to win $240,000 had miscarried, and now the necessity was upon us of engaging in another illegitimate operation if we would continue in our life of ease and luxury.
For the next few days we did little but dine and plan. Discussion followed discussion, and through them all we clung to the general proposition that we would not do any more in our particular line in America. At last we resolved to go to Europe and realize the fortune that seemed to elude our grasp at home.
We resolved to tell Irving in a general way that we were going to Europe to make some money, and would pay him and his two fellows their percentage. Then we could (apparently) work with impunity; for, of course, if we committed a forgery in Europe and were recognised as Americans—as probably we would be—the foreign police would report the case to the New York police—that is, to Irving—and we should be safe in New York.