"There is a gulf where thousands fell,
Here all the bold adventurers came,
A narrow sound, though deep as hell,
'Change Alley is the dreadful name.
"Subscribers here by thousands float
And jostle one another down.
Each paddling in his leaky boat,
And here they fish for gold and drown.
"Meantime secure on Garraway's cliffs
A savage race by shipwreck fed,
Lie waiting for the foundered skiffs
And strip the bodies of the dead."
Dickens also makes it the scene of the writing of the famous chops and tomato sauce letter from Mr. Pickwick to Mrs. Bardell.
One can imagine the elation of my friends as they sat around that little table at Garraway's. It was only 10:35. Their income that morning had been $150,000. And many more such days had gone before. All danger was over, wealth was won. They saw themselves back in America, among the Four Hundred, possessors of a fortune, however wrongfully obtained, yet obtained in a way that would leave behind no ruined widows and orphans to linger out the remainder of their blighted lives in poverty and misery. That was a point which added zest to their enjoyment of the prospect.
"I am never to go to the bank again. Come, shake hands on that," said Noyes. And in their excitement and wild delight they shook hands again and again.
But they would have moderated their joy had they known that at the very moment the bank porter, pale and frightened, was rushing past the room where they sat, carrying the news to the bank that the two-thousand pound bill was a forgery. Instantly all was confusion and excitement in the bank. Telegrams were at once sent to the detective police, and at that moment swarms of them were pouring out of the Bow street and Scotland Yard offices.
That already stories of gigantic frauds, multiplied a thousand fold by rumor, were flying everywhere that every bank in London was victimized. In ten minutes the story reached the Stock Exchange and a scene of terrific excitement ensued, and, through it all, our three innocents sat on in that dingy old coffee-house, serenely unconscious of the fearful storm that was rising. Still they were safe. Everything was confusion in the bank. The terrified official, frantic with fear, could only describe a tall young man, an American, who said his name was Warren.
Had my three triumphant 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 £5,000. 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 £5,000, Noyes started for the bank, check in hand, and entering, instantly found himself with a hot and angry swarm of hornets about him.