“Pickle was engaged most of the time in outdoor operations, and left to Prig and Flutter the sole management of the exchanges.  And both being extremely generous men, and fast enough for any thing, they soon made a large circle of friends, whose paper they were ready to endorse out of sheer love.  I had money enough for all my wants, and began to think myself the happiest of men.  It was also deemed advisable, and for the advantage of the house, that I should go to board at the Astor.  So, rubbing out the old score, I left my humble lodgings at Mrs. Pickle’s, and returned to my old quarters, where, on seeing the quality of my pocket, I soon got in high favor with the landlord, and gave dinners to my friends.  We went on swimmingly for nearly a year, and the Young American Banking House of Pickle, Prig, Flutter, & Co., it got rumored on the street, had been wonderfully prosperous.  I sent my wife, Polly Potter, enough to live like a lady, and all the village began to say she was an excellent person, and our children played with the children of the best of them.  One day, a short time after we had been drawing no end of bills, and selling largely of foreign exchange, there came back upon us such a large amount of returned paper as completely drove Flutter out of sight, while Prig said he held it advisable not to be seen at the counter.  Twenty-four hours passed, and he also was not to be found.  Poor Pickle got nervous, and turned pale, and offered all the excuses his ingenuity could invent to save himself from a cage with bars.  Curses came like thunder claps upon the head of the house, but it was all to no effect.  We had no balance in the bank, and cursing money out of a dead banking house, it seemed to me, was as useless an occupation as trying to get goods out of the custom house without feeing an employ‚ of that very accommodating asylum for idlers and rogues.  The house thought it advisable to shut up, which it did by posting a notice to that effect upon the door.  For myself, I felt like making my peace with my Maker, and enjoining him to send me some less perplexing mission; for the thing got into the newspapers, and we were held up to be a set of impostors, who deserved to be well hanged.

“And then Wall Street got into a strong frenzy, raised a cry of holy horror that such miscreants had been suffered to pollute the atmosphere of its righteousness; to preserve which its votaries were ready to call in all the bishops and priests of the land; though not a word was said of the many who had ransomed their backslidings with the tears of widows they had induced to invest in divers schemes.  But to make the matter worse, it was found that Flutter, who was skilled in caligraphy, and could imitate the signatures of others to perfection, had raised a large amount of money on a species of collateral that proved to be worthless, though excellent as illustrating his skill in imitation.  In truth, Flutter could manufacture first class paper with a degree of perfection rarely