ser's attendant--it would give
them a very fair chance of making a big haul. If, however, they did not
succeed in their anticipation of perpetrating any robberies or swindling
on the voyage by cards, they knew that on a new gold-field they would
have glorious opportunities. Swires--who really was a ship steward--they
had become acquainted with in San Francisco, and had admitted into their
fraternity. For quite two years they had "worked" the mail steamers
between Sydney and San Francisco, fleecing the passengers who were
foolish enough to be enticed into playing with them. Sometimes there
would be but two of them--with Swires--sometimes three, and they usually
took their passages separately, met on board as strangers, and,
being always well-dressed, and very agreeable in their manners, soon
ingratiated themselves with the rest of the passengers. Their lavish
manner of living and courteous attention to ladies and children always
paved the way to success; but at last they became too well known, and
had to change their sphere of work from the American steamers--which
are always infested by sharpers--to other lines. As "the Hon. Wilburd
Merriton" the chief scoundrel of the gang had travelled all over the
world, changing his name and appearance as occasion demanded. In the
mining towns of California and Nevada he would be a wealthy English
gentleman looking for suitable investments; on a Peninsular and Oriental
liner from Melbourne to London, he would be either a college professor
enjoying a twelve months' holiday trip, a squatter in the Northern
Territory of South Australia, or the owner of a nitrate mine in Peru;
and whatever role he played, he always succeeded in swindling some
one. Women were his chief victims. His handsome appearance, fascinating
manners, and easy courtesy were as fatal to a confiding woman as to the
managers of banks who cashed his cheque when he was "temporarily short
for a few hundreds." An excellent linguist in the principal Continental
languages, he could also talk like, and assume the manners of, the rough
gold-diggers with whom he so frequently associated for his nefarious
purposes. Unlike his associates--the Jew, Barney Green (alias Capel),
and Pinkerton and Cheyne--he had only once seen the inside of the
prison, when as "the Hon. Wilburd Merriton" he was given a sentence of
two years' hard labour for forgery in Auckland, New Zealand.

Lacey, who was then editing a newspaper in that somnolent lit