But how to lure the cashier out of the bank? That was the question, and it was while I was racking my brains for some solution of the difficulty that I blundered upon the idea of posing as a wealthy widow who was too lame to leave her carriage when she called at the bank.
During my stay in this city I had heard of the death in Europe of a rich and prominent Brooklyn man. He had been living abroad for the last ten years and had married there an English woman who had never visited Brooklyn and was entirely unknown there except by name.
Nothing could have suited my purpose better. I would pose as this wealthy Brooklyn man's widow, and in this guise would induce the bank cashier to come out to my carriage and talk with me.
You may be sure that I laid my plans with the greatest care, for I knew what a bold undertaking this was and that the least oversight on my part would spoil everything.
First I bought a silver gray wig to cover my chestnut hair. It was a beautiful specimen of the wig-maker's art and cost me sixty-five dollars.
Then I made up my plump, rosy cheeks to look as pale and wrinkled as an invalid woman's should at the age of seventy and dressed myself in the gloomiest, most expensive widow's weeds I could find.
POSING AS A WEALTHY CRIPPLED OLD WIDOW
A pair of hideous blue goggles and two crutches completed my disguise. The glasses were to hide my bright eyes, whose habit of roaming incessantly from side to side I had an idea often made people suspicious of me; and the crutches were to bear out my story of the paralyzed limbs which made my leaving my carriage except when absolutely necessary out of the question.
My costume was not the only detail which had to be arranged to make my plan complete. I must have some visiting cards—cards with a heavy mourning border and the name of the Brooklyn man's widow engraved on them.