“My dear fellow, no!” expostulated Chelsea; “a man came in behind me, but I thought he was your friend. It must have been a thief. Did he steal anything?” President Martin in the excitement hadn’t thought of that. He was assured that everything was intact.
“How fortunate, my dear fellow,” said Chelsea; “that you’ve lost nothing. Those rascally blacklegs are so bold! Oh, we have them in London, even worse than you have them here, don’t you know.”
With this comforting blather for President Martin, and “Many thanks, my dear fellow, for your kindness,” Chelsea George bowed himself out of the banking office and was soon in Fulton Street, cursing English George, and his stupidity, in all the varied forms of blasphemy he could command.
In the meantime, English George might be a bungler and deserve all the cursing that Chelsea could deliver, but as to his fleetness, there could not be a question. When he disappeared from the window, it was to land ten feet below on the sidewalk in Fulton Street, making good his escape by way of the old horse-car tunnel through the block to Vesey Street at College Place.
It was not until after Chelsea had left the bank, and the police reported, half an hour later, that the thief had escaped, that the guilty bank clerk began to feel safe. When the crash of the bookkeeper’s stool came, Taylor thought there would be certain exposure for him. That night he saw the two Georges and said something far from complimentary to English.
I have related the details of this attempt to “lift” the box of securities, to demonstrate in what state of mind I found John Taylor, for it was in listening to Chelsea George berating English that I, like a flash, conceived the plot to loot the Ocean Bank. Naturally my trained mind told me that a bank clerk who was so anxious and willing to participate in the stealing of one hundred thousand dollars would be quite likely to fall a victim to a bribe which would make possible a game worth striving for.
“You can get next to him in a bond-selling deal,” advised Chelsea; “but I don’t know whether he’d turn to a bank job again after the bungle of English.”
“It won’t do me any harm to know him,” said I. “I’m sure that a man who’ll stand for a deal such as you’ve described won’t stop at anything. So, if you’ll put me up to him, I’ll make a try.”
“No try, no game, George, true enough!”
“Yes,” added I; “and when you meet this Taylor, tell him you know of a man who’s got a few thousands of paper fit for the market. I’ll bait him with ’crooked bonds’ as a stepping-stone to a bigger thing.”