hitney and Towle regardless of the effect upon
themselves.

Early next morning there came to my office two wild-eyed, desperate
creatures, Towle and Mr. Patch.

I had spent the night going over my accounts and those of which I had
charge, and in addition to a quick, real loss of over a million dollars,
I realized that the immediate future was so hung with dark clouds that I
dared not anticipate what the coming day might mean to me and mine; but
when I looked upon the big, powerful man, who had always seemed in any
light in which I had heretofore beheld him to fear neither man nor
God--when I looked and saw his plight I pitied him deeply, sincerely. He
carried a large travelling-bag, and Mr. Patch two others.

"Lawson, for God's sake, don't do what they are all doing--don't upbraid
me! I've got to get out into the world and be dead to all I
know--family, friends, every one. If I stay, it's State's prison or
worse, and Whitney says I must go. I've got all the papers together and
Whitney has given me what cash he had on hand, and this check of
$10,000. Do me one last favor, get me gold for it. I know I have no
right to ask any favors of you, but think if you were in my place. I
have a wife and children, and--" and the great, strong man wept like a
child.[11]

I called my secretary, and in a short time George Towle with the $10,000
in gold and the bags of "evidence" faded out of my life and into the
gray mist of eternity.

A few days after, a vessel dropped anchor off the island of Jamaica;
George Towle's body was carried ashore and buried, and Mr. Patch was
escorted back to the ship. A few days later, with weights of lead to
carry it to its last resting-place at the ocean's bottom, the latter's
dead body was dropped over the vessel's side. And somewhere floating the
high seas are a venturesome sailor-captain and a crew, who when in their
cups tell, 'tis said, strange tales of bags of gold and mysterious
documents.

As for the members of the Great and Good Court of the old Commonwealth
of Massachusetts for the year of our Lord One thousand eight hundred and
ninety-six, they received, none of them could tell from where, their
promised vote-money in the form of a yarn that the "stuff" belonging to
them had been delivered to George Towle, but that Towle had decamped
with it to foreign shores, where he was living in luxury with Mr. Patch.

'Tis writ that some crimes are so black and foul that they will not
down, and wh