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if Mr. E. would cease all further proceedings.
Mr. E. was delighted with his success,
and readily consented. Mr. Trevor at
once dived into the deep pocket of his red surtout,
and produced a thousand-pound note, for
which he requested change. Not having sufficient
cash or notes in the house, Mr. Trevor
proposed a cheque on Mr. E.'s banker, and
having received that, left the house in a state of
the utmost penitence and mortification.

Mr. E.'s self-congratulation was somewhat
abated the next morning, by his discovering the
thousand-pound note to be a forgery. He
instantly rushed to the bank to stop payment,
but unfortunately found that a porter, followed
by a tall thin woman, had obtained notes for the
draft full four hours before.

Who could this sham Dutch merchant be,
and who could be his partner, the swindler in
the red surtout? Certainly not Schutz, for he
had fled from London, and besides, Schutz was a
decrepid jaundiced old man. But might not the
two rogues be both members of Schutz's gang?
That was what was vigorously discussed by
baffled directors in the bank parlour.

A short time before the successful trick
played by the gentleman from Holland, Mr.
Spillsbury, a chemist, of Soho-square, on reaching
home after a walk, found a card in the hall
with the name of Wilmot on it. All the servant
knew, was, that it had been left by a very
respectable old gentleman. The next evening
Mr. Spillsbury received a note requesting him
to call on Mr. Wilmot at half- past five
o'clock that evening, as he wished to give an
order for drops. The letter was directed from
Gresse-street, Rathbone-place. Mr. Spillsbury
went at the appointed time, and being shown
in by a smart lad in livery, found Mr. Wilmot to
be a decrepid old man wrapped in a large camlet
great-coat. He had a slouched hat on, the
big brim of which was bent downwards on
each side of his head; he wore green
spectacles, a green silk shade (hanging from his hat),
and a large bush wig. A piece of red flannel
rose from his chin almost as high as his cheek-
bones. To complete this remarkable dress, the
old man's legs were swathed in flannel. Mr.
Wilmot instantly began to explain that, having
had a tooth clumsily drawn, he wore the flannel
to prevent cold. He then praised the matchless
drops of Spillsbury, and alluded to the innumerable
cures mentioned in the advertisements, &c.
The druggist was delighted, and left with the
promise of a large order. A week after, Mr. Wil-
mot's boy called at Spillsbury's, requesting two
guineas' worth of drops, and change for a ten-
pound note. A few days after the drops were
sent, Mr. Spillsbury was paralysed by hearing
from Sir Sampson Wright that Mr. Wilmot's
bank-note was a forgery, and that the forger
had decamped. Soon after this, the disconcerted
chemist met, at the Percy-street coffee-house,
which he frequented, a Mr. Price, formerly a
brewer and keeper of a lottery-office: the same
busy man of the world, in fact, who had met the
solicitor of the Bank of England at Calais, and
did his best to aid him in apprehending the
diamond thief, Schutz. Over their fragrant
chocolate, the two cronies discussed the forgery.
The chemist expressed a little surprise at the
extreme neatness of the handwriting. Mr.
Price, a simple creature, stared through his
spectacles, and kept constantly ejaculating :

"Lack-a-day, good Gad, who could believe
such knavery could exist! What, and did the
Bank actually refuse payment, sir?"

"Yes, indeed," replied the chemist,
acrimoniously, " I and a great many others took them,
and they were so inimitably well done, that the
nicest judges could not distinguish them from
the true Abraham Newlands."

"Good Gad, lack-a-day!" sighed Price, " the
fellow must have been an ingenious villain!
Dear, dear me! What a complete old scoundrel!"

If the muffled-up old man were not Schutz
again, who was he ? The Bank began to consider
the gang of forgers that infested London
to be innumerable, and shrouded in
unfathomable mystery.

Some considerable time before Mr. Spillsbury's
loss, a lad employed by a musical instrument
maker in the Strand, wanting another place,
answered an advertisement dated from the
Marlborough-street Coffee-house, Carnaby Market.
One day, just as it was dusk, a man came
and called him to his coach, as the old gentleman
who had advertised desired to speak with
him. On getting into the coach, he found a
very tall thin man, nearly seventy years of age,
dressed in a camlet surtout, buttoned close up
over his chin; he was apparently gouty, for his
legs wore huge bundles of flannel, and his feet
were hidden in clumpy square-toed shoes. A
broad-brimmed hat was drawn down low over his
forehead, and a large black patch covered his left
eye, so that the old gentleman's prominent nose,
deep sunken right eye, and a small part of his
right cheek, were alone visible. He had an incessant
faint hectic cough which greatly distressed
and fatigued him. Finding the lad honest and
frank, he told him that he was guardian to a
whimsical young nobleman down in Bedfordshire.
On the lad's (Samuel's) master coming
to the coach door and giving him a good character,
Mr. Brank (the advertiser), of No. 59,
Titchfield-street, Oxford-street, engaged him at
eighteen shillings a week. On going to that
address, Samuel saw Mr. Brank, and he still kept
the patched side of his face turned towards the
lad; such being the old man's constant peculiarity.
In a low  broken voice he told him
that his young master was a prodigal, and
unfortunately a great dabbler in those deceitful and
alluring bubbles, lottery-tickets. The lad was
to buy, at his own expense, a drab livery, turned
up with red, and to call on a certain day
and hour. On keeping his appointment, old
Mr. Brank told him that the thoughtless young
lord had just sent letters again requesting the
purchase of lottery-tickets. He then gave Samuel
a twenty-pound and a forty-pound note, and
sent him with the twenty pounds to purchase an