University of Virginia Library

3. CHAPTER III.
THE COMBINATORS IN CONCLAVE.

The visitors whom Satchell admitted one after the other, stumbled
about as well as they could in the dark office to find seats,—
some of them occupying barrels and boxes and others such places
as they could avail themselves of. The office was by this time
nearly wrapped in darkness, for the day had closed; a faint flicker
light from the fire only cast its uncertain radiance upon the faces
and forms of the singularly disposed group. After they were seated,
Satchell lighted a tallow candle and after deliberately sticking
it into the neck of an ink-bottle, resumed his seat in the leathern
arm chair. He then gazed round upon his visitors with a scorching
glance from beneath his pent-house brows. They all sat
awaiting his pleasure to speak. The last comers looked like fair-dealing
citizens of the town, so far as dress and appearance went,
being neatly appareled, clean shaved and genteel.

“Well, gentlemen,” said Satchell, thrusting out his under lip in
quite an august way, “we are all assembled, I believe.”

“Yes, sir, we are all here,” responded Mr. Pindle.

“Very well. Now as this meeting will be our last before we go
into operation, all the matters should be thoroughly discussed and
understood.”

“Yes, sir, they should be, Mr. Satchell,” responded a heavy
man, with a deep baritone voice, and an enormous nose. “We
must have all the law clear; we can't run risks and then be found
in the wrong.”

“No; we put our whole faith in you, Squire Satchell,” called
out a squeaking, thin, violin voice, from a slender gentleman in
spectacles, who was seated upon the edge of a barrel, and seemed
rather uneasy on his seat too; “we pay you and you must protect
us.”

“True, Mr. Satchell, Mr. Haul speaks truly,” said a man in a
camblet wrapper, who looked half gone in consumption, and who
coughed with a painful hollow sound at every third word. “We
have all the risks to run, while you receive sure profits and without
any capital.”

“Talking of capital, gentlemen,” responded the lawyer, with a
sardonic smile, “I think we are pretty much upon an equality. I
have closely examined into the criminal law governing the crime
of obtaining goods under false and fictitious pretences, and I can
assure you that in the enterprise you contemplate you run no risk
whatsoever.”

“So that we keep within the pale of the criminal law,” said Mr.
Swindle, “we care not a snap of the finger for civil tribunals.”

“Yes, that is the general sentiment,” said a young man about
three and twenty, with a very keen gray eye, and a small thin
mouth, always pursed up, as if he were playing at cards and was
hesitating whether to play his trump card or trust his partner. He
was dressed in a blue frock coat buttoned to the chin, a black stock,
and a Panama hat; for it was early in the month of October,—a
time when the summer gear struggles to hold out against the innovations
of Winter's costume, especially with individuals like the
young gentlemen in question, whose purses are as light as their
pants.

“Yes, that is all we care for,” responded the heavy man with
the base voice. “Keep us out of the clutches of the criminal law,
and we'll laugh at a civil prosecution.”

“That is my intention, gentlemen,” responded Satchell. “I
have here written out a digest of the records of all cases parellel to
the present matter. I have carefully dissected and analyzed them,
submitting them to the severest test. No vantage point has escaped
my scrutiny. If you will listen, I will read to you the result.”

Here Mr. Satchell from three or four pages of closely written
manuscript read an abstract of all the reports of cases for obtaining
fraudulently the property of others. He also read notes of his own
appended, showing by what means each particular statute could be
evaded with safety.

This reading was listened to with marked attention, and seemed
to be received with very decided approbation by the gentlemen
present.

“Now you see, gentlemen, just how far you can go and yet keep
within the law. It depends now on yourselves to go forward and
make a profitable business operation together. Are you ready to
proceed to action? Mr. Pindle informs me that he has hired a suitable
store—”

Before a reply could be given, the company were electrified by a
sudden burst of eloquent recitation proceeding from the room on
the right. The speaker's voice was elevated in a sort of triumphant
ecstasy. What he said could be distinguished plainly, being
enunciated in the true vein heroic:

“'Pon honor! what can all that mean?” ejaculated Mr. Pindle,
who with the rest of the company had been listening with amazement.

“It will do!” continued the voice. “By the immortal Hercules,
it will do! It is worth two cents a line if it is worth one.”

“That is a poetical gentleman, who calls himself Mr. Frederick
Byron Rhymewell,” said Mr. Satchell, with a smile. “He has
lately taken that room, and is doubtless a very harmless person.
So don't look as if you had been overheard plotting a conspiracy.
Be assured if he hears us he thinks of nothing but his doggrel
rhyme, which he makes at so much a line for the shopdealers to
stick in the newspapers.”

“He seems to be a very noisy individual, sir,” said the stout
gentleman with the basson voice, resuming his seat upon the edge
of a box, from which the sudden voice had started him. “We
must talk lower, gentlemen.”

Some few low murmurings were still heard from the poet's room,
as if he was buzzing over his copy and correcting it for the press.

“I asked you, gentlemen, if you were ready to commence operations?”
observed the lawyer, once more calling their attention to
the matter before them.

“Yes, I believe we are,” replied Mr. Swindle, who seemed to
have a certain importance and weight of character among them.—
“Pindle has the store, he says. Where is it?”

“No. 34, — Street. I hire from Mr. George Wells, the shipping
merchant.”

“I know him. He will do.”

“So I told him,” answered Satchell. “Now I wish you to detail
to me your plan, as I have laid down the law. I can then
judge whether it can be carried out safely.”

“Our plan is this,” responded Mr. Swindle, in a low tone, so as
not to be overheard by the poet in the adjoining room, “and in
stating it there need be no mincing of words between us; for we
know one another. Without money, without means, without
character, and without friends, we have combined together to rob
the public, but to rob so as to evade justice. These are the two
great points of our operations. For this we are bound together in
u solemn compact. We have not always been what we are now,
but circumstances have driven us to this course. We are men
whose minds have become so perverted that we cannot follow even
if we could find any honest occupation. There is not one who
hears me that could be honest a month. You see I speak plainly.
We are assembled here, a set of desperate spirits in combination, to
cheat, defraud, plunder an unsuspecting community. We are
united by the same interests. We have sworn to the same compact.
I will now, as I promised at our last meeting, lay before
you my plan of operations then hinted to you. It is as follows.”

Here the members of the “combination” drew closer together
so as to be nearer the speaker, and all listened with intense attention.

“In the first place, I propose, as I did on that occasion, that we
select a fictitious firm as the basis of our operations.”

“That is already chosen,” said Mr. Pindle. “Swindle, Pindle
& Co.”

“Yes, unless the gentlemen present prefer another,” observed
Mr. Swindle, bowing round blandly.

“I see no necessity of another,” remarked the lawyer.

“None whatever. We could not have a better house, or better
men for the operation,” answered several voices, among which was
heard the baritone of the heavy gentleman.

“Such being your pleasure, my friends,” resumed Mr. Swindle,
“I am ready to perform my part to the best of my abilities. A firm
being chosen and a counting-room being obtained, this is the mode
of proceeding that I submit. The first thing is for us to engage a
carpenter, painter, and upholsterer to fit up the counting-room in a
very splendid style, to attract the eye and give an idea of capital
at the bottom. We shall then employ a printer to get up a very
showy, neat card, stating our business, &c., `Swindle, Pindle &
Co., Commission Merchants, and Land and Real Estate Brokers.'
We must then send our card to a stationer, and get him to send us
all the stationery, books, &c., that we want. Upon our card will
be the references to my friends here, who will have offices similarly
fitted up in other parts of the city, or else hire a desk in some large
counting-room. Swindle, Pindle & Co. will refer the stationer to
Breter, Freter & Co.,” added the speaker, bowing to the heavy
gentleman and the slim gentleman, to designate them; “and also
to Charles Caregee & Co., who will also have a handsome place of
business, and honor our references!” here he bowed to the consumptive
gentleman in the camblet wrapper. “Thus we will establish
a firm and references, gentlemen, and then prepare to make
our purchases.”

“Do you mean to put your own names upon the business card
as the head firm?” asked the lawyer. “If you do, you will be
liable.”

“I so understand you, Mr. Satchell.”

“No, you would then be amenable in all your subsequent operations
to the law. The law would know where to find its men.
No, no, that won't do. And besides, you and Pindle are too well
known, for persons to place any confidence in you. You must
choose a fictitious name for your firm. The firm should be composed
of nobodies, while the references should be real.”

“I see now my error, sir,” answered Mr. Swindle. “You are
correct. Let me hear what further suggestions you can make; for
now you have an outline of my project, and can with your shrewdness
no doubt improve upon it.”

“I think I can. You propose to go into business as a Commission
House, with no other capital than the references to your copartners
here present, who will, like you, have offices, where they
will satisfy in the most favorable manner all persons who inquire
about you.”

“Yes.”

“Very well; then this is your plan. But I shall charge you one
hundred dollars more for suggesting it.”

“You shall have it,” answered the three gentlemen in specs.

“Out of your first gains?”

“Yes,” answered Mr. Swindle, somewhat reluctantly.

“If, then, you would make all secure, you will follow my directions
closely, and I will guaranty you a profitable and safe business.
Hire first your counting-room, and get your carpenters,
painters, and upholsterers to fit it up in the style you proposed, and
let them call for their pay some other day, for the excuse that
much money to pay out just in starting will be accepted by them,
and they will wait—till they get it. Your stationer will trust you
on seeing your card and references, which you will send to him,
but he will first go and give you a call to look round, and perhaps
call on one of your referees, who must be ready to satisfy
him of your goodness and substantiality. The name on your card,
instead of being your own may be Moonshine, Clouds & Co.,
which is as good as any thing. Your references must be real
names, such as are here present. In the offices of the referees
there need not be so much to meet the eye, but merely a show of
business, desks, maps hung round, old ledgers piled up, and a sort
of busy confusion of humbugery about.”

“But, sir, what am I to do?” inquired Mr. Pindle.

“You and Mr. Swindle are to be in the counting-room of course.
He, from his respectable air and mercantile gravity of countenance,
will be there as clerk of the firm, to receive callers, buyers or purchasers.
You will be the out-doors man to make purchases and
bring business to the house, for which you are very well fitted.
Mr. Swindle will be in the counting-room, always ready to receive
merchandize and packages of goods which you order to be sent to
your firm, that is the firm of Moonshine, Clouds & Co., to which
you are of course only an out-door clerk. It will be important, of
course, Mr. Pindle, that you transact business with merchants who
do not know you.”

“Of course, sir, that is understood.”

“It should be, sir,” resumed the lawyer and master spirit of this
conclave of rogues. “It would be very unfortunate for you to appear
at all busy in the presence of those who have had experience
of your business affairs. Keep out of their way and out of their
line, which is the wholesale dry goods. Your business in the
present enterprise must lie entirely with a different class of merchants,
and in different streets from your old haunts. All will be
new and clear before you. The articles you will deal in will be
principally such articles as are afloat in the market, and pass from
purchaser to purchaser without moving from the original storage,
copper, hides, wool, cochineal, gunny-bags, tea, coffee, raisins,
Mediterranean and Brazilian goods, &c.. You will proceed in all
your operations with the confidence and boldness of men who have
large monied capital, and who intend to pay cash on delivery.”

“But how would you chalk out a single operation, sir, as a model
specimen?” asked Mr. Swindle, with a look of deference to the
knowledge and sagacity of the lawyer.

“In this way. You have, suppose, all ready in the counting-room,
your cards prepared and yourselves also. You have your
referees at their desks, wherever that may be, and prepared to
satisfy all inquisitive persons.”

“Very well, so far, so good,” remarked Mr. Pindle, kicking his
feet delightedly against the sides of the barrel. “Now to the particulars.”

“'Pon honor!” exclaimed Mr. Pindle, at this sudden outburst of
negro melody from the boot-black's premises underneath. “What
is that?”

“Yes, what in the d—l is that?” demanded the heavy gentleman,
in a tone of surprise. “You have odd lodgers, Mr.
Satchell!”

“That is black Handy, who rents a room below,” answered
Satchell, dryly. “He always sings that particular song when he
begins to black up his boots. You can't stop him. If he don't sing
he can't polish. I've got quite used to him, gentlemen.”

“'Pon honor,” ejaculated Mr. Pindle, as Handy's voice rose in
volume and melody, “I think he must suppose we love his Rose
too!”