hat they should remain so. It was very easy
for him to make an over-issue, and hard for him to be detected in his
fraud, by any one who would be dangerous to him. The temptation to make
this issue was one which better men than he had yielded to in a weak
moment, and, to the little conscience which he possessed, the requisite
excuses were ready. He did not intend that any one should lose money by
these bonds. He only proposed a temporary relief to himself. So he
manufactured the bonds, and raised the money he wanted.

Meantime, the members of the very combination in which he had engaged,
having learned of his rascally operation with the stock, were secretly
buying it back from the dupes along the road, at their own figures, with
the purpose of ousting him from the management, and taking the road to
themselves. Of this movement he did not learn, until it was too late to
be of use to him.

It was known, in advance, by the combination, that the working up of the
corner in Muscogee Air Line would be a long operation. The stock had to
be manipulated with great care, to avoid exciting a suspicion of the
nature of the scheme, and the General had informed the holders of his
notes that it might be necessary for him to renew them before he should
realize from his operations. He had laid all his plans carefully, and
looked forward with an interest which none but he and those of his kind
could appreciate, to the excitements, intrigues, marches and
counter-marches of the mischievous campaign.

And then came down upon him the prosecution which he had so long
dreaded, and for which he had made the only preparation consistent with
his greedy designs. Ten thousand dollars of his ready money passed at
once into the hands of Mr. Cavendish, and Mr. Cavendish was satisfied
with the fee, whatever may have been his opinion of the case. After a
last examination of his forged assignment, and the putting of Phipps to
an exhaustive and satisfactory trial of his memory with relation to it,
he passed it into the lawyer's hands, and went about his business with
uncomfortable forebodings of the trial and its results.

It was strange, even to him, at this point of his career, that he felt
within himself no power to change his course. No one knew better than
he, that there was money enough in Benedict's inventions for both
inventor and manufacturer. No one knew better than he, that there was a
prosperous course for himself inside the pale of equity a