Page:Memoirs of the United States Secret Service.djvu/108

 He conceived a peculiar fancy for horse-flesh, in his young years, and was desirous to become possessed of an animal he could call his own. In the restaurant, he not infrequently met with strangers and travellers passing up and down the country, who halted temporarily at this eating-house as they went, and who often left behind them questionable looking bank bills, which he subsequently discovered in his master's money-drawer. The restaurant-keeper did not object to take these spurious notes; but, on the contrary, received and passed them off, and smiled at the young man's expressed solicitude on the subject.

"It's as good money as any," said his employer. "Don't be too nice! It all goes, and it answers our purpose. Let it slide."

And thus the boy's eyes were first opened to the chances before him. If these bogus rags could thus readily be passed in that establishment, he mentally argued that there was a bigger field of operations to be easily found, if one but took a little time to "prospect for it!" And as the young man thought this affair over at his leisure, he concluded he would now purchase the horse he coveted, at the earliest convenient moment, and then turn his attention to something promising larger pecuniary results than were attainable in the meagrely rewarded service of a drudge, in a country eating-saloon.

He had previously formed an acquaintance with a New York horse-man, who came to the saloon in Concord frequently, and he had seen him and others "shoving the queer" there so often, that he fancied it wasn't a difficult process—while he felt assured that this lively business would pay. He got more intimately conversant with these "gentlemen from New York," and finally left Concord, went to the great metropolis, where crime is so commonly