United States Government bonds, which were on deposit with Wells, Fargo & Co., and later, through Miller’s father, sixty-five thousand dollars in bonds of the New York Central Railroad and the United States Government.  Thus Ammon secured from his dupe the sum of two hundred and forty-five thousand five hundred dollars, the actual market value of the securities bringing the amount up to two hundred and fifty thousand five hundred dollars, besides whatever sums he had been paid by Miller for legal services, which could not have been less than ten or fifteen thousand dollars.  The character of the gentleman is well illustrated by the fact that later when paying Mrs. Miller her miserable pittance of five dollars per week, he explained to her that “he was giving her that out of his own money, and that her husband owed him.”

[Illustration:  Ammon’s deposit slips and a receipt signed by Mrs. Ammon.]

There still remained, however, the chance of getting a few dollars more and Ammon advised Miller “to try to get Friday’s receipts, which were the heaviest day’s business.”  Acting on this suggestion, Miller returned to Floyd Street the next morning at about half past nine, finding a great crowd of people waiting outside.  About one o’clock he started to go home, but discovering that he was being followed by a man whom he took to be a detective, he boarded a street car, dodged through a drug store and a Chinese laundry, finally made the elevated railroad, with his pursuer at his heels, and eventually reached the lawyer’s office about two o’clock in the afternoon.  Word was received almost immediately over the telephone that Miller had been indicted in Kings County for conspiracy to defraud, and Ammon stated that the one thing for Miller to do was to go away.  Miller replied that he did not want to go unless he could take his wife and baby with him, but Ammon assured him that he would send them to Canada later in charge of his own wife.  Under this promise Miller agreed to go, and Ammon procured a man named Enright to take Miller to Canada, saying that “he was an ex-detective and could get him out of the way.”  Ammon further promised to forward to Miller whatever money he might need to retain lawyers for him in Montreal.  Thereupon Miller exchanged hats with some one in Ammon’s office and started for Canada in the custody of the lawyer’s representative.

How the wily colonel must have chuckled as poor Miller trotted down the stairs like a sheep leaving his fleece behind him.  A golden fleece indeed!  Did ever a lawyer have such a piece of luck?  Here was a little fellow who had invented a brilliant scheme to get away with other people’s money and had carried it through successfully—­more than successfully, beyond the dreams of even the most avaricious criminal, and then, richer than Midas, had handed over the whole jolly fortune to another for the other’s asking, without even taking a scrap of paper to show for it.  More than that, he had then voluntarily