I could never fathom the full extent of his speculations; but there were five separate businesses which he avowed and carried like a banner.  The Thirteen Star Golden State Brandy, Warranted Entire (a very flagrant distillation) filled a great part of his thoughts, and was kept before the public in an eloquent but misleading treatise:  Why Drink French Brandy?  A Word to the Wise. He kept an office for advertisers, counselling, designing, acting as middleman with printers and bill-stickers, for the inexperienced or the uninspired:  the dull haberdasher came to him for ideas, the smart theatrical agent for his local knowledge; and one and all departed with a copy of his pamphlet:  How, When, and Where; or, the Advertiser’s Vade-Mecum. He had a tug chartered every Saturday afternoon and night, carried people outside the Heads, and provided them with lines and bait for six hours’ fishing, at the rate of five dollars a person.  I am told that some of them (doubtless adroit anglers) made a profit on the transaction.  Occasionally he bought wrecks and condemned vessels; these latter (I cannot tell you how) found their way to sea again under aliases, and continued to stem the waves triumphantly enough under the colours of Bolivia or Nicaragua.  Lastly, there was a certain agricultural engine, glorying in a great deal of vermilion and blue paint, and filling (it appeared) a “long-felt want,” in which his interest was something like a tenth.

This for the face or front of his concerns.  “On the outside,” as he phrased it, he was variously and mysteriously engaged.  No dollar slept in his possession; rather he kept all simultaneously flying like a conjurer with oranges.  My own earnings, when I began to have a share, he would but show me for a moment, and disperse again, like those illusive money gifts which are flashed in the eyes of childhood only to be entombed in the missionary box.  And he would come down radiant from a weekly balance-sheet, clap me on the shoulder, declare himself a winner by Gargantuan figures, and prove destitute of a quarter for a drink.

“What on earth have you done with it?” I would ask.

“Into the mill again; all re-invested!” he would cry, with infinite delight.  Investment was ever his word.  He could not bear what he called gambling.  “Never touch stocks, Loudon,” he would say; “nothing but legitimate business.”  And yet, Heaven knows, many an indurated gambler might have drawn back appalled at the first hint of some of Pinkerton’s investments!  One, which I succeeded in tracking home, and instance for a specimen, was a seventh share in the charter of a certain ill-starred schooner bound for Mexico, to smuggle weapons on the one trip, and cigars upon the other.  The latter end of this enterprise, involving (as it did) shipwreck, confiscation, and a lawsuit with the underwriters, was too painful to be dwelt upon at length.  “It’s proved a disappointment,” was as far as my friend would go with me in words; but I knew, from observation, that the fabric of his fortunes tottered.  For the rest, it was only by accident I got wind of the transaction; for Pinkerton, after a time, was shy of introducing me to his arcana:  the reason you are to hear presently.