What a queer, exciting life this rogue's march must be: this attempt of the bad half-crowns to get into circulation! Had my distinguished friend the Major knocked at many doors that morning, before operating on mine? The sport must be something akin to the pleasure of tiger or elephant hunting.What ingenuity the sportsman must have in tracing his prey--what daring and caution in coming upon him! What coolness in facing the angry animal (for, after all, a man on whom you draw a cheque a bout portant will be angry).What a delicious thrill of triumph, if you can bring him down! If I have money at the banker's and draw for a portion of it over the counter, that is mere prose--any dolt can do that.But, having no balance, say I drive up in a cab, present a cheque at Coutts's, and, receiving the amount, drive off? What a glorious morning's sport that has been! How superior in excitement to the common transactions of every-day life!...I must tell a story; it is against myself, I know, but it WILL out, and perhaps my mind will be the easier.
More than twenty years ago, in an island remarkable for its verdure, I met four or five times one of the most agreeable companions with whom I have passed a night.I heard that evil times had come upon this gentleman; and, overtaking him in a road near my own house one evening, I asked him to come home to dinner, In two days, he was at my door again.At breakfast-time was this second appearance.He was in a cab (of course he was in a cab, they always are, these unfortunate, these courageous men).To deny myself was absurd.My friend could see me over the parlor blinds, surrounded by my family, and cheerfully partaking of the morning meal.Might he have a word with me? and can you imagine its purport? By the most provoking delay, his uncle the admiral not being able to come to town till Friday--would I cash him a cheque? I need not say it would be paid on Saturday without fail.I tell you that man went away with money in his pocket, and I regret to add that his gallant relative has not COME TO TOWN YET!
Laying down the pen, and sinking back in my chair, here, perhaps, Ifall into a five minutes' reverie, and think of one, two, three, half a dozen cases in which I have been content to accept that sham promissory coin in return for sterling money advanced.Not a reader, whatever his age, but could tell a like story.I vow and believe there are men of fifty, who will dine well today, who have not paid their school debts yet, and who have not taken up their long-protested promises to pay.Tom, ****, Harry, my boys, I owe you no grudge, and rather relish that wince with which you will read these meek lines and say, "He means me." Poor Jack in Hades! Do you remember a certain pecuniary transaction, and a little sum of money you borrowed "until the meeting of Parliament?" Parliament met often in your lifetime: Parliament has met since: but I think Ishould scarce be more surprised if your ghost glided into the room now, and laid down the amount of our little account, than I should have been if you had paid me in your lifetime with the actual acceptances of the Bank of England.You asked to borrow, but you never intended to pay.I would as soon have believed that a promissory note of Sir John Falstaff (accepted by Messrs.Bardolph and Nym, and payable in Aldgate,) would be as sure to find payment, as that note of the departed--nay, lamented--Jack Thriftless.
He who borrows, meaning to pay, is quite a different person from the individual here described.Many--most, I hope--took Jack's promise for what it was worth--and quite well knew that when he said, "Lend me," he meant "Give me" twenty pounds."Give me change for this half-crown," said Jack; "I know it's a pewter piece;" and you gave him the change in honest silver, and pocketed the counterfeit gravely.
What a queer consciousness that must be which accompanies such a man in his sleeping, in his waking, in his walk through life, by his fireside with his children round him! "For what we are going to receive," &c.--he says grace before his dinner."My dears! Shall Ihelp you to some mutton? I robbed the butcher of the meat.I don't intend to pay him.Johnson my boy, a glass of champagne? Very good, isn't it? Not too sweet.Forty-six.I get it from So-and-so, whom I intend to cheat." As eagles go forth and bring home to their eaglets the lamb or the pavid kid, I say there are men who live and victual their nests by plunder.We all know highway robbers in white neck-cloths, domestic bandits, marauders, passers of bad coin.What was yonder cheque which Major Delamere proposed Ishould cash but a piece of bad money? What was Jack Thriftless's promise to pay? Having got his booty, I fancy Jack or the Major returning home, and wife and children gathering round about him.
Poor wife and children! They respect papa very likely.They don't know he is false coin.Maybe the wife has a dreadful inkling of the truth, and, sickening, tries to hide it from the daughters and sons.
Maybe she is an accomplice: herself a brazen forgery.If Turpin and Jack Sheppard were married, very likely Mesdames Sheppard and Turpin did not know, at first, what their husbands' real profession was, and fancied, when the men left home in the morning, they only went away to follow some regular and honorable business.Then a suspicion of the truth may have come: then a dreadful revelation;and presently we have the guilty pair robbing together, or passing forged money each on his own account.You know Doctor Dodd? Iwonder whether his wife knows that he is a forger, and scoundrel?
Has she had any of the plunder, think you, and were the darling children's new dresses bought with it? The Doctor's sermon last Sunday was certainly charming, and we all cried.Ah, my poor Dodd!