“I will follow that man till it is proved.”

The next day but one, I received a note from Mr. Sidney, simply saying, “I am on his track.”  He followed the supposed counterfeiter to Philadelphia, where he ascertained that he had passed five-dollar bills of the ——­ bank of Connecticut.  Mr. Sidney obtained the bills the gambler had passed to compare with the genuine.  Failing, however, to find any of the same denomination, he presented the supposed counterfeits to a broker skilled in detecting bad bills, and was surprised to be informed that they were genuine.  At Baltimore, he repeated the inquiry at the counter of a well-known banker relative to other similar bills, and received the same response.  So again in Washington, Pittsburg, Chicago, and several other cities whither he had followed the suspected man, and invariably the reply of the cashier would be, “We will exchange our bills for them, Sir.”  In some Western cities he was offered a premium on the bills he had collected.  At St. Louis he obtained a known genuine bill of the bank in question, and in company with a broker proceeded to examine the two with a microscope.  The broker pronounced the supposed counterfeits to be genuine.  In the mean time the gambler had left the city.  Two days after, Mr. Sidney had overtaken him.  So great were his excitement and vexation that he could scarcely eat or sleep.  In a fit of desperation, without law and against law, he pounced upon the suspected man and put him in irons.  He beat a parley.  It was granted, and the two went to the gambler’s apartments in company.  In a conversation of several hours, Mr. Sidney extracted from him the most valuable information relating to the gang he was so pertinaciously prosecuting, and received into his possession forty-seven thousand dollars in counterfeits of the aforesaid bank, some of which I now have in my possession, and which have been pronounced genuine by our most skilful experts.

* * * * *

It would be gratifying to all lovers of science to be informed that the practical knowledge acquired by Mr. Sidney had been preserved, and that at least the elementary principles of the arts in which he became so nearly perfect had been definitely explained and recorded.  I am not aware, however, that such is the fact, but am persuaded that his uniform policy of concealment has deprived the world of much that would have been exceedingly entertaining and instructive.  That this knowledge has not been preserved is owing mainly to the fact that he considered it of little importance, except as a means for the accomplishment of his purposes, and that those purposes would be most effectually achieved by his withholding from the common gaze the instrumentality by which they were to be attained.  That he intended at some future period to make some communication to the public I am well assured, and some materials were collected by him with this view; but the hot pursuit of the great idea that he never for an hour lost sight of would not allow sufficient rest from his labors, and he deferred the publication to those riper years of experience and acquirement from which he could survey his whole past career.