Page:Memoirs of the United States Secret Service.djvu/102

 sinister expression of countenance. He looks the comely scoundrel in feature and form. And his truthful portrait, facing page 77 in this work, affords evidence that he would readily pass for an extraordinary personage, in common society, where he was not known. His commanding, well-developed form and easy address, served him to good account in his intercourse with the public, and his wide spread acquaintance with men and women whom he esteemed to be of the right stamp for his purposes of evil, enabled him to drive a "flush business" in his reckless profession, for a lengthy period, and to goodly profit. But his avarice tempted him to take risks, at times, (as in the instance quoted,) which wiser heads in his line of traffic most studiously avoid.

His parentage was respectable, and Bill was reared in Saratoga County, in the vicinity of the spot where the fashion of the land now pass the summer months. When a boy, he amused himself by perusing stories of the wonderful exploits of Jack Harold, Paul Clifford, Claude Duval, and Jack Sheppard; and thus imbibed a taste for the daring life of this sort of outlaw. At an early age he associated with canallers at Albany and Troy, and here he first commenced his experience as a "shover of the queer," in a field where counterfeit money was readily circulated, and at a period when one State bank bill would pass as readily as another—good or bad.

He grew to manhood, and in a few years Bill became one of the leading "queersmen" in New York state. He made the acquaintance along the Erie Canal, at this time, of almost every " koniacker," "boodle-carrier" and dealer, large or small, in this part of the country—and as he developed into riper manhood, and reached full six-feet-two in stature, he took the lead in the "coney" business, and for years indulged himself in luxury and ease upon the profits of his thriving counterfeiting trade.