t like a robber to a meeting of
outlaws, to concoct the details of an outrageous breach of trust, of a
crime which--none knew it better than he--would carry life-long misery
and suffering to the families of nearly every man who trusted him?

[Illustration: "THE DETECTIVES SIGNALED THE BURGLARS: 'THE COAST IS
CLEAR.'"--Page 57.]

"The evil that men do lives after them," but where does the
responsibility of its author end? Who will ever say what crimes may
spring from the one act of wrongdoing, crimes committed, it may be,
by persons who were directly led into them by the consequences of an act
the perpetrator of which had never heard of those affected by it? How
far does the responsibility of the wrongdoer extend? What weight of
horror is he accumulating on his head?

Such questions may perhaps occur afterward, when the pleasure has been
tasted and is gone, and nothing remains of the detected crime but the
ruin it has wrought; but in the excitement of laying the plot, in the
glamour which the hope of success casts over the schemer, they probably
never intrude, conscience is smothered, and he is left to carry out his
schemes to the end.

Doubtless no such thoughts disturbed the president, as he waited that
night while Irving acted as go-between, carrying messages from him to
the agents and from the agents back again to him. At last the
arrangements were made. Duplicate keys of the safe were to be provided,
and a way, to be presently explained, was to be left open to each of
them. Whatever the robbers found in the safes was to be theirs, and the
task of getting it was to be of the easiest. This, of course, was highly
satisfactory to the thieves, but something more must be prepared for the
stockholders and the public. Bank safes are not so easily emptied; there
must be the appearance, at least, of great effort to effect the robbery,
and marks of the effort must be left behind.

It was, therefore, settled that powerful tools were to be provided,
tools able to tear open any strong-box in the world. Such articles are
expensive, and the burglars had no money to procure them. No man who
knows those people will be surprised at this, for, however much money
they may obtain, they never have anything. It melts out of their hands,
and they would be themselves embarrassed to say what becomes of it.

The president's first necessity, therefore, was to pay out about a
thousand dollars for the jimmies, wedges and all the paraphernal