LX. — A SWINDLER EXPOSED.

The following dialogue is taken from "Still Waters run Deep," an English comedy written by Tom Taylor, and played for the first time in London, in 1855. The scene is laid in London and its neighborhood. Mildmay is a retired merchant, concealing under a quiet manner a great amount of energy and courage. Hawksley is a swindler and adventurer, who had persuaded Potter, Mildmay's father-in-law, to take shares in a worthless company. He has also in his possession some letters written to him, many years before, by Mrs. Sternhold, aunt of Mildmay's wife, which, if published, would injure her. Mildmay had learned this last fact by overhearing a conversation between Mrs. Sternhold and Hawksley.

Hawksley. A thousand pardons, my dear fellow; one gets so absorbed in these figures! Take a chair. You'll allow me to finish what I was about.

Mildmay. Don't mind me. I'm in no hurry.

Hawk. By the way, if you'll look on that table, you'll find a plan of our Inexplosive Galvanic Boat somewhere. Just glance your eye over it, while I knock off this calculation; it will give you an idea of the machinery. (After a minute or two of pretended work, putting away his papers, and rising.) And now, my dear Mildmay, I am at your service. But before we come to business, how are all at Brompton? The ladies all well?

Mild. morning.

Hawk.

Mrs. Sternhold's a little out of sorts this

Ah! Had a bad night?

Mild. I should think so.

Hawk. Well, I had a note from Potter. He tells me you had some thoughts of taking shares in our Galvanics. I've mislaid his note; but he mentioned your wanting something like two hundred shares wasn't it?

Mild. I beg your pardon; not exactly, I think.

Hawk. Why, wasn't that the figure you put it at yourself, last night?

Mild. Last night — yes.

Hawk. You haven't changed your mind?

Mild. No.

Hawk. Then let us understand one another. Do you want more than two hundred, or fewer?

Mild. Neither more, nor fewer.

Hawk. What do you mean?

Mild. I mean I don't want any at all.

Hawk. Indeed! You surprise me. I suppose you've slept upon it.

Mild. Exactly. I have slept upon it.

Hawk. Perhaps Mrs. Sternhold's advice may have had something to do with your sudden change of intentions.

Mild. Mrs. Sternhold knows nothing of my sudden change of intention.1

Hawk. Well, as you don't know your own mind for four and twenty hours together, there's nothing more to be said. But as you don't want these shares, may I ask what has procured me the pleasure of seeing you this morning?

Mild. Certainly. I had two objects in coming. In the first place, about two months ago, my fatherin-law, Mr. Potter, took twenty shares in your company. Those shares have come into my hands this morning, by Mr. Potter's indorsement.2 Now, as I don't care about them myself, and as there seems such a rush for them in the market, I suppose you'll have no objection to take them off my hands at par. Hawk. Eh! Take them off your hands at par? Ha! ha ha! Upon my word, that's rather too good! My

dear Mr. Mildmay, I know you're the most amiable of men, but I had no idea how great you were at a practical joke.

Mild. Very well. We'll drop the shares for the present, and come to motive 3 number two.

Hawk. Pray do; and if it's better fun than motive number one, I shall have to thank you for two of the heartiest laughs I've enjoyed for many a day.

Mild. We shall see. You have in your possession thirteen letters, addressed to you by Mrs. Sternhold. The second motive for my visit was to ask you to give up those letters.

Hawk. (Aside.) So! the murder's out! She prefers war! She shall have it. (Aloud.) Mr. John Mildmay, your first demand was a good joke. I laughed at it accordingly. But your second you may find no joke, and I would recommend you to be care ful how you persist in executing this commission of Mrs. Sternhold.

Mild. I beg your pardon. I have no commission from Mrs. Sternhold.

Hawk.

It was not she who told you of those letters? Mild. Certainly not.

Hawk. Who did?

Mild. You must excuse my answering that question.

Hawk. Then you are acting now on your own responsibility?

Mild. Entirely.

Hawk. Very well; then this is my answer. Though you have married Mrs. Sternhold's niece, I do not admit your right to interfere, without authority from Mrs. Sternhold herself, in an affair in which she alone

is interested. I refuse to give up her letters. As to your first request, my business is to sell shares, not to buy them.

Mild. I was prepared for both refusals; so I have taken my measures for compelling you to grant both demands.

Hawk. Indeed you have! Do let me hear what they are. I am all impatience to know how you propose to make Harry Hawksley say yes, when he has begun by saying no.

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Mild. When you explained to me, a little while ago, the theory of your speculation, you thought you were speaking to a greenhorn in such matters. You were under a mistake. Some four years ago I was a partner in a house in the city which did a good deal in discounting paper, the house of Dalrymple Brothers, in Broad Street. You may have heard of it One day it was the 30th of April, 1850 – a bill was presented for payment at our counting-house, purporting to be drawn on us by our correspondents, Watson & Wright, of Buenos Ayres. Though we had no advices of it, it was paid at once, for it seemed all regular and right; but it turned out to be a forgery. Our correspondents' suspicions fell at once upon a clerk who had just been dismissed from their employment for some errors in his accounts. His name then was Burgess. The body of the bill was apparently in the same handwriting as the signature of the firm; but a careful examination showed it to be that of the discharged clerk; and in a blotting-book left accidentally behind him were found various tracings of the signature of the firm. The detectives were at once put on his track; but he

nad disappeared, and no trace of him could ever be discovered. Well, this money was repaid, and the affair forgotten. It so happened that when the bill was presented for payment, only one person was in the counting-house-the clerk who paid the money, and who is since dead. But in the private room of the firm, which was separated from the countinghouse by a glazed door, was the junior partner, who, through the door, saw the bill presented, and observed the face of the person who presented it. I was that junior partner. The person who presented the bill, Burgess, as he was then called, the forger, was you. Hawk. It is an infamous calumny, an abominable Your life shall answer for this insult.

lie !

Mild. I don't think that quite. But allow me to conclude. How you have passed your time since that 30th of April, 1850, I have not the advantage of knowing; but I know that soon after my marriage, and retirement from business, I met you as a visitor at my father-in-law's house. I have a wonderful memory for faces: I remembered yours at once.

Hawk. It is a lie, I tell you.

Mild. No, it isn't. I resolved not to speak till I could back 10 my words by proofs. I applied to my late partners for the forged bill. One of them was dead, the other absent in South America; so that for ten months I found myself obliged to receive, as a guest at my own table, as the intimate and trusted friend of my wife's family, a person whom I knew to be a swindler and a forger. The letter I had been so long waiting for, containing the forged bill, arrived yesterday. That bill is in my pocket. If I do not deliver it into your hands before I leave the room,