The Rise of Mr Ponzi

By Charles Ponzi

INTRODUCTION

MEET MR. PONZI,

THE CHAMPION GET-RICH-QUICK WALLINGFORD

OF AMERICA

"Ponzi is the guy who put the crease in Croesus," wrote Neal O'Hara for the Boston Traveler toward the end of July, 1920. "He is the guy that ran up millions from a two-cent stamp. If five-spots were snowflakes, Ponzi would be a three day blizzard."

"You've got to hand it to his credit. He makes your money gain 50 percent in 45 days, which is as much as the landlords do. He delivers the goods with postage stamps, which is more than Burleson does. The way Ponzi juggles the reds and the greens, he makes Post Office look like a child's game. He simply buys stamps in Europe while the rest of the boys are buying souvenir post cards. And a postage stamp is still worth two cents in spite of the service you get for it, and any yap knows that you cannot get stuck on postage stamps unless you sit on the gluey side up."

"Ponzi's way is cheaper than making money with your own sextuple press. The way he's got it fixed with postage stamps, the Government does the printing for him. He stretches a dollar into a million with all his sleeves rolled up. You furnish the dollar and Ponzi tosses in the six zeros in back of it. This baby can turn decimal points into commas on almost any bank-book. The way that Ponzi has money here and in Europe goes to prove that half of the world are squirrels and the other half nuts. The only thing that's got 'em worried is that they don't know which side is furnishing the nuts."

"Worried" isn't the half of it. According to Miss Marguerite Mooers Marshall, a staff writer for the New York Evening World, Ponzi had them in a frenzy. Listen to what she said:—

"Whoever said that proud old New Englanders are conservative, undoubtedly made that statement before the advent of Charles Ponzi. To-day all Boston is get-rich-quick mad over him, the creator of fortunes, the modern King Midas who doubles your money in ninety days. Did I say Boston? My mistake. I should have said the entire New England, from Calais, Maine to Lake Champlain, from the Canadian border to New Jersey."

"At every corner, on the street-cars, behind the department store counters, from luxurious parlors to humble kitchens, to the very outskirts of New England, Ponzi is making more hope, more anxiety, than any conquering general of old. Mary Pickford, Sir Thomas Lipton and smuggling booze over the Canadian border aren't in it any more."

"For Ponzi makes everybody rich quick. Loan him your money, from fifty dollars to fifty thousand dollars, and in 180 days he gives you back twice as much as you gave him. He has been doing it for eight months and he is still at it."

"With no other security than his personal note, Boston is pouring all its savings into Ponzi's hands. Like a tidal wave, the passion for investment with the new Italian banker has swept over Boston folk until it took half of the Boston's police force to subdue the enthusiasm of a throng of prospective investors overflowing from the banking office, through the corridors, down the stairs, and into the street, blocking the traffic."

In the opinion of Miss Marshall, "Ponzi belongs to America, the land of the 520 per cent Miller, of the man who cornered wheat, of all the other get-rich-quick Wallingfords."

Regardless of what may develop as to the "righteousness and legality of the methods by which Ponzi, according to his own admission, has cleaned up in six months a fortune for himself, has given thousands of investors 50 per cent on their money, has operated from a central office of two rooms attended by twelve clerks and has done the whole blessed thing with postage stamps, plus a knowledge of the world postage regulations and of foreign exchange, plus an idea of magnificent simplicity and apparently bombproof consistency, plus all the nerve there is to it," she thought the world would agree with her that Ponzi "would be wasted anywhere else than in America."

"Ponzi stands as the premier get-rich-quick financier of the age,"— conceded the Washington Post.

When, according to the Rochester Times-Union, "a man untaught in finance shows Wall Street and the greatest financiers in the world that they are pikers, whether the Ponzi bubble bursts or not, the American people will take off their hats to a fellow so clever as he," because as Arthur B. Reeve explained it, although Ponzi might be "a product of conditions … his success is nevertheless the result of his own remarkable personality. Not every one can step out on a street cornel and persuade the passersby by the thousands to give him their pay envelopes—even on a chance of a return as great as 400 percent a year." And the Washington Evening Star agreed that "whether he retires a millionaire or is finally detected as a swindler, Ponzi must stand as a remarkable figure" and "it must be said of him that whatever his game, he has certainly played it well."

CHAPTER I

MR. PONZI LANDS IN BOSTON WITH $2.50

TO ADD A $15,000,000.00 CHAPTER TO THE HISTORY

OF STATE STREET FINANCE.

November 15, 1903, was a Sunday. A Fall day typical of the New England shores, with a fine, steady drizzle blown in by an icy East wind over miles and miles of ocean. One of those exasperating days on which only the sacred cod-fish of Massachusetts would defy the elements along Tremont Street and around the Boston Common without a diving suit on.

In the harbor and on the waterfront, the drizzle and the East wind were even more intense. From the expanse of the Atlantic, they seemed to converge upon a point between Castle and Governor's Island and blow with added force along the path of the narrow ship channel, beating up thousands of white-caps from a dirty and murky looking sea surface.

On that Sunday morning the S.S. Vancouver of the Old Dominion Line could be seen coming up the Boston harbor shortly after 8 o'clock. She was progressing slowly and majestically, pitching occasionally where the channel was deeper and rougher. In those days, a ten-thousand-ton vessel was no fishing boat and the Vancouver was well justified to feel as self-conscious of her size as a modern Cunarder.

A little ways up the harbor, the ship pulled up alongside the Company's pier in East Boston. The gang planks were lowered. A motley crowd of passengers who had been lining the decks began to ooze out of her side and onto the dock.

They were immigrants. Immigrants of various nationalities, but predominantly Italians. Most of them had travelled in steerage, some in first or second class. But they were all immigrants. They were all men, women or children who had left their native country and come to America, temporarily or for good, with the common purpose of finding better wages, better living conditions and greater economic independence.

I was one of those immigrants; one of the motley crowd oozing out of the ship's side; a diminutive figure bedecked in expensive clothes of the latest European cut and followed down the gang-plank by a couple of stewards laden with several pieces of baggage, large and small, labeled "First Class."

Truly, for an immigrant, I did not look the part. There was nothing in my appearance to suggest the bread winner; nothing that could even be remotely associated with the thought of manual labor, of work of any kind; of economic penury. From tie to spats, I looked like a million dollars just out of the mint; like a young gentleman of leisure, perhaps like the scion of wealthy parents on a pleasure tour. And that goes to show that appearances don't mean a thing. In fact, I was in a jam right then and there—in an economic ham and a critical predicament at that and five thousand miles away from home and five hundred or more miles away from my ultimate destination, in a strange country, with no friends and no money. That's it. Broke right from the start, my entire resources in cash amounting to $2.50.

Less than two weeks before I had left Italy with $200, a maternal blessing and a buoyant frame of mind, bound for the United States. I had sailed on a definite mission and with a definite purpose; on a cinch, to get rich.

"Go and make a fortune and then come back,"—had urged my elders—just like that and just as if amassing a fortune in America was something which could not be helped. "You can't miss it,"—they had insisted to overcome my hesitancy. "In the United States the streets are actually strewn with gold; all you have to do is stoop and pick it up." The events of later years showed that there was more truth than poetry in my elder's forecast. In fact, it has been my experience that I did not even have to stoop down to pick up the gold. In 1920 it was actually tossed into my lap; not by the pennyweight and with a teaspoon, but in large lumps and with a steam shovel.

Nevertheless, right after landing, as I was standing on the company's dock, on American soil, my predicament was much too critical. I still had the maternal blessing with which I had set sail but that was all. The $200 had dwindled down to $2.50 on the way over and a card sharp had taken me for most of it and the tips and the bar the rest of it. My buoyant frame of mind was buoyant no longer—it was top heavy. In fact, I stood there with my elders' assurances still ringing in my ears, ready to pick up the gold, but forced into the realization that I had been grossly duped. There was no gold at my feet or yellow nuggets strewn about; only mud—plain mud—sticky, black mud an inch deep which extended from the landing to the gate and beyond it away up the street as far as the naked eye could see. Just mud. And I had come all the way from Italy, over five thousand nautical miles of deep, blue water, to find nothing but mud and shattered dreams of untold wealth easily acquired.

The reason why Boston did not see much more of me at that time, on that particular occasion, must not be ascribed to snobbery on my part. It was that my destination had been planned in advance back home and the change had not been made on my part. I had been destined for Pittsburgh, the "Smoky City" of Pennsylvania, as the presumptive abode of some fifth cousin of some third cousin of ours. Allegedly, he was a railroad contractor, but in reality one not beyond petty pilfering during the slack season in grand larceny. Which goes to show that allegations in general, whether in court or elsewhere, must be taken with a grain of salt.

Not only had my destination been planned ahead, but my elders had seen to it that their plans did not miscarry and I had been provided with unalienable wherewithals to get there. Wise old birds, my elders. They had a hunch, based upon experience, that I might run out of cash before I got to the other side of the ocean, as I had been stranded before on much shorter trips. So they had furnished me with a prepaid railroad fare to Pittsburgh by way of New York. If they hadn't, Boston and I would have got acquainted that very drizzling Sunday.

As it was, I did not leave the dock and with the rest of the New York bound immigrants I waited on that pier until a special train picked us up about 9 p.m., and twelve solid hours in the cold, in the mud and without a thing to eat.

There is no doubt about that train being a special. I hope to tell it was. It was so far out of the ordinary for discomfort and everything else as to make a war-time 40 and 8 look like a Pullman in comparison. It was routed to New York over the Southern Pacific or the Santa Fe. It must have been, as nothing else could explain its getting into the Grand Central the day after noon, unless it ran around in circles all night, or stopped at every crossing, or bowed at every telegraph pole. The well known slow train through Kansas was a streak of lightning alongside of ours.

When we reached New York I was on the verge of cannibalism. An early edition of Wimpy as my stomach had been idle so long that it had withered and I would have traded my soul for anything that I could sink my teeth into, be it a steak of the leather variety or a pole cat. So, the moment the brakes began to screech under the shed, I took a dive out of that train and made a bee-line for the gate.

The cop on duty did not like the idea of my making a race track out of the train shed and he spread out his arms and caught me on the fly. Notwithstanding his embrace, I knew that he was no lost brother of mine and resented his untimely affection. We exchanged words and many of them, but I could no more understand his Irish twang than he could my Italian. It was a draw, an impasse, rather, so we called in a bootblack to arbitrate. The situation cleared up immediately. The cop was told that I was hungry, starved and that I wanted to eat first and talk afterwards. He conceded that my haste, once explained, was beyond argument and withdrew and the bootblack and I withdrew in the direction of the nearest restaurant. We ate; that is, I presume that he did as I was too busy with my own meal to pay any attention to his. He paid the check, but ordinarily I would have paid it, and $2.50 did not permit me to stand on ceremonies, so I let him have his way and winced. After that one experience, I believe that bootblack lost all inclination to be hospitable to incoming immigrants. One such experience is enough for anybody. My appetite must have set him back the price of a suit of clothes with two pairs of pants.

My next problem was to locate the Pennsylvania Station, which, at that time, had not moved into New York, but was still across the River, but I didn't know that, of course. All that I knew was that I had to go by street-car in one direction, then transfer to another car going in the different direction, then walk a couple of blocks to the right, then—Oh, what's the use. The gist of the thing is that I had to get there and did not have the slightest idea as to where or how. Old Teddy Roosevelt must have felt the same way when he was trying to trace the course of the River of Doubt in the Brazilian jungle.

The Pennsylvania Station proved to be the most elusive thing I ever chased after in all my life, girls included. Whenever I inquired about it, it seemed to be just around the corner—like Mr. Hoover's prosperity. But I rounded dozens of corners and walked dozens of miles and blocks in all directions before I could establish even a remote contact with it. Eventually, I got there, yes, after I discovered that I must head for a ferry boat in order to land on the New Jersey side of the River. But I got there exhausted—numb—dead. For the best part of an afternoon I had been going around loaded with "light" baggage, so-called. Light, from the standpoint of size and space, but not of weight, because it felt like lead. And when the Pennsylvania Station hove in sight, I wasn't interested in trains any longer and I didn't give a hoot whether I got to Pittsburgh or not, or whether I never hobnobbed with the Carnegies, the Fricks and the Mellons. All I craved for was a coffin; a yielding, comfortable one in which I could lay my aching limbs for an eternal rest.

CHAPTER II

MR. PONZI BOBS UP IN MONTREAL WITH

ONE DOLLAR AND BUYS A PECK OF TROUBLE

To have landed in America without money was not half as bad as having landed without the least knowledge of its language. I could not fill an office job because I did not speak or understand a word of English. What I knew of other languages did not help. Likewise, my general education was useless. As a student and a man of frail physique, I was not cut out for manual labor. Still, I had to live. And in order to earn a living I had to work at something.

During the four uneventful years which followed my arrival into the United States, I filled a number of menial jobs. Jobs that I detested and loathed. Jobs at which I was invariably underpaid for my needs and overpaid for what I deserved. I filled them as a matter of necessity. Not of choice. And the net result was that I did not make any headway. I lived and that is all. But to live is to learn. And I learned. Every day served to add a few words to my English vocabulary.

I tried my hand at everything. From grocery clerk to road drummer. From sewing machine repair man to insurance salesman. From factory hand to kitchen and dining room help. In some of the jobs I lasted no time. In others, I lasted longer. Often, I would be fired. Oftener, I would quit of my own accord either disgusted or to avoid being fired. I shifted from one city to another. Sometimes by rail. Others, by foot. Pittsburgh, New York, Paterson, New Haven, Providence, and then … Montreal, Canada.

I don't know what brought me up there. The summer heat, maybe. Or fate. But one afternoon of July 1907, I alighted at the Gare Bonaventure with no baggage and a dollar bill in my pocket. Now a dollar isn't much at any time. On or off the gold standard. In a strange country, it was still less. It was, however, a sufficient incentive for me to get busy and do something.

I got busy. Within two blocks of the railroad station, up St. James Street, I spied the sign of the Banco Zarossi and went right in. In less than five minutes I was signed up as a clerk. The first congenial job I had struck in four years!

Louis Zarossi and I got along fine. He was a big hearted man, good natured, liberal, jolly and, I dare say, on the level. Much more on the level than many I have met since, although coated with a veneer of respectability. While it is true that later events gave Zarossi a sort of black eye, it is my opinion—my expert opinion of him—that he was the victim of circumstances and bad associations rather than a man of evil intent and dishonest inclinations.

Around that time, Zarossi was well fixed. His Italian bank was doing a land office business. His reputation and credit were of the best. But he was easily led.

The usual run of dimeless promoters and sponges began to buzz and flock around him. The successful man is never without them, if he is easy with them. They can smell a sucker further and quicker than a buzzard can a corpse. They got him to engage in a number of activities. The new enterprises needed money. And he began to dip into his depositors' accounts; the same old story of a lot of bank executives. Some do it less skillfully than others and get caught. Some get away with it because they are either smarter or have more political pull.

To make a long story short, the time came when Zarossi found himself financially embarrassed. I enjoyed his full confidence and he told me of his predicament. He was not insolvent by any means. But some of his enterprises had not proved very productive and he needed some cash. Some new blood, so to speak.

Around that time who should show up in Montreal, but an old schoolmate of mine. He had come to Canada looking for business opportunities. We met, celebrated and talked. I explained to him Zarossi's situation. Brought the two together. And they made a deal. My old schoolmate sailed for Italy and returned in a few weeks with the money necessary to establish him in partnership with Zarossi.

Everything went along fine for a while. Things hummed. Then … came the revolution! Some of Zarossi's enterprises went under. The rumor got around that he was in difficulties. The banks shut down his credit. His depositors began to withdraw their money.

There wasn't much that could be done to avert a disaster. But what had to be done, had to be done quick. Self preservation being the first law of nature, each party in interest thought of himself first and … the devil take the rest. Like some of the recent marine disasters. I had nothing to lose one way or the other. Except my job. So, I merely stood by in the role of spectator, but I did not miss a thing of what was going on.

An emergency council was called into executive session to devise ways and means to keep Zarossi afloat. The council was made up of Zarossi, my old schoolmate and another man known as Spagnoli. That was not his real name. It was an alias. We knew not his real name. The police of his native city undoubtedly did. Hence the alias. Being in the confidence of all, I, of course, was the unavoidable fixture in the council room.

This old schoolmate was a peculiar sort of a fellow. Although illiterate, he had managed to amass quite a bit of money. Tainted money, it's true. But money nevertheless. If all that was said of him was true, he should have spent the best part of his life in jail. He probably ended there after I lost track of him. I don't know and I don't care.

In some way he had succeeded in winning Zarossi's confidence. It didn't take much to do that. Zarossi was always ready to welcome even a rattlesnake with open arms. Or, maybe, he had loaned Zarossi some money now and then. The fact is that "wherever Zarossi went, he was sure to go." Like Mary's little lamb.

At the emergency council's meeting, the old schoolmate got right down to brass tacks.

"Louis," he told Zarossi, "you must leave Canada. If you hang around another week, they will put in jail for embezzlement and you'll never get out!"

"But I can't run away!" Zarossi protested, "I can't leave my family. I can't give up a business I have built so painstakingly."

"Don't be a fool, Louis!" He insisted. "This is no time to get sentimental. In jail you would not be any good to your family."

"But the situation is not desperate," interposed Zarossi. "I don't need much money to see me through."

"Little or much, it is more money than you can raise just now," retorted he.

"How so?" asked Zarossi in surprise. "You have told me that you would loan me the money, haven't you?"

"Have I? I don't remember," he replied. "At any rate, I couldn't give you a dime just now. My money is all tied up. I don't see any other way out for you, but to go."

Zarossi, deprived of financial assistance at the last minute, had to give in. He agreed to run away. He made a deal by which my old schoolmate was to appear as his major creditor, petition him in bankruptcy after he had left, then offer to settle with the other creditors at two cents on the dollar. Through that deal he hoped to get ahold of Zarossi's assets which, if properly administered and liquidated, would have paid much more than 2%, and benefit thereby at the creditor's expense.

"You go along and don't worry," he told Zarossi. "As soon as I have possession of your assets, I will go 50-50 with you." And Zarossi believed him. But he was planning all the time to cheat him too.

In fact, a day or two later, while the three of us were having a drink in a barroom up St. James Street, he asked Zarossi to give him a forged note.

"Make out a note to me for a small sum and sign So-and-So's name to it," he said to him.

"But that would be forgery," protested Zarossi.

"Sure. I want it to be forgery," he admitted. "I want to make sure you will not come back to Canada, under some promise of immunity, before I lay my hands on your assets. I've got to protect myself. I'll keep the note, but will not use it against you except in the event you should come back of your own accord and spoil my plans."

Zarossi did as he was told. He gave him the note. I don't remember any more what name he did sign to it. Nor the amount. A few days later, he left Canada and went to Mexico. But before he left, he assigned to my old schoolmate some negotiable property which the bank owned out West. Enough to reimburse him for his investment. To me he assigned … the care of his family. Wife and three kids. Or were they four? I don't remember. But they were more than I had bargained for.

CHAPTER III

MR. PONZI FALLS FROM THE FRYING-PAN

INTO THE FIRE AND WONDERS

WHAT IT IS ALL ABOUT

At the beginning, there was an awful fuss over Zarossi's flight. Some of the depositors were real ugly. They made things generally unpleasant all around. They threatened Zarossi's family. Even my own life. But things cooled down after a while. They always do. If they didn't, there would be more bank executives hanging from tree limbs, than running around in Rolls Royces or smoking dollar cigars behind mahogany desks. And that,—God forbid!—would be one form of bank insurance that would bring home the bacon without "ifs" and "buts".

The Zarossi family left their pretentious apartment and moved with me into a couple of furnished rooms. We shared with the landlady the use of the kitchen, bath, parlor and dining-room. I went to work. Yes, on the stagger plan; now and then. The two oldest girls went to work too. The mother remained home to cook the meals and mind the house.

We led a very modest and retired life. Entirely too much so. Hardly went anywhere. We spent our evenings at home yawning until bed time. But that could not last long. I was then 26 and very susceptible to girlish charms. Zarossi's eldest daughter was 17 and very pretty. The inevitable happened. We fell in love with each other. And yawned no longer evenings.

My old schoolmate was a frequent visitor at the house. He was about my age, and equally susceptible to a girl's charms, and he fell in love too, with the same girl. But I had the edge on him. His love never got to first base.

In so far as I was concerned, his being in love with my girl did not affect my friendship for him. For the very good reason that I did not know he was in love. I learned of it later. Too late, in fact, to put me on my guard. In so far as he was concerned, I am inclined to believe that his disappointment drove him actually insane. No sane person would have done to me what he did, unless he was the reincarnation of perfidy.

It happened in the summer of 1908. For some time he had been telling me that he intended to go out West to liquidate his interests in the independent branches of the Banco Zarossi. There were three of those branches. One in Sudbury, Ontario; one in Calgary, Alberta; and one in Fernie, British Columbia. I had established them and knew all about them.

He hesitated going because he was neither familiar with the language, nor the country, nor the business. He suggested that I go first and he would follow me. I told him I had no money to undertake such a trip. He said he would furnish the money and allow me a commission, and I agreed to go.

One Saturday we met in St. James Street by prearrangement. We went into the Bank of Hochelaga, in which he had an account, and he presented a check for certification. It was the closing hour or a few minutes after. I remember that, because the time had something to do with his alleged inability to cash the check right there and then. But I do not vouch for either the veracity or the accuracy of the allegation.

His failure to cash the check seemed to preclude my departure which had been set for the coming Monday. I could not go away for a month or two, on such a long trip, without a trunk, some clothes and a few things. All purchases I had planned to make that same Saturday afternoon. But he said that he might be able to cash the check elsewhere.

In the evening, when he came over to the house, he still had the check. He hadn't been able to do anything with it.

"There is a chance," he said, "that they might cash it at one of the Hochelaga branches which are open Saturday evenings. What do you say? Shall we try?"

I agreed that we should. So, we left the house and went to the branch in St. Catherine Street. He walked up to the paying-teller's window, exchanged a few words and got the cash. About $400.

We left the bank, made some purchases and went home to pack. All I had of mine did not fill one half of the trunk.

" Tomorrow I will bring some of my stuff to fill the trunk," said he and left.

The next day he came over and brought what he wanted me to take along. Mostly papers in large envelopes. He gave me about $200 in cash, saying that he would buy me the ticket in the morning and bring it over.

Monday forenoon, I went out to buy a few more things. I came home about 11:30. As I stepped into the doorway, two plain clothes men put me under arrest and rushed me upstairs to my room. They frisked me and found the $200. They went through the trunk, discovered a number of blank checks among his papers, seized everything, and took me to headquarters. There, I found myself locked up on a charge of forgery and held incommunicado.

I was dazed. I did not know what to think. I couldn't make head or tail of the whole thing. To make matters worse, I couldn't see anybody or talk with anybody.

From headquarters I was transferred later to the jail. While there, I was permitted to write letters. But I never received an answer to any of them. Never received a visit. Never saw a newspaper. I was virtually buried alive and knew not what was going on outside.

Conditions in the jail beggar description. The place was filthy and invested with vermin. The moment they assigned me to a cell, I knew I could not stand it for twenty-four hours. So, I mustered up my wits to the rescue. I cuddled up in a corner of the bed, against the wall, with a vacant stare, chewing a towel to shreds. Other inmates, going by, observed me and reported to the guard. He came over and had me transferred to the jail hospital.

There, I threw a couple of war whoops and started to climb into a barred window. Two orderlies took hold of me and put me into a strait-jacket. I lay still for a couple of hours. Then I acted as if I was coming to from an epileptic attack. The straitjacket was removed and I was given a bed in that jail. The ruse enabled me to remain in the hospital

all the time I was in jail. Conditions there were far from pleasant, but bearable.

One day, probably a month or so later, I learned, through the usual prison channels, that Zarossi was also a guest in the same jail. He had arrived the night before, brought back from Mexico under extradition proceedings. I asked to see him and was allowed.

My old schoolmate had doublecrossed him. Unable to effect a compromise with the other creditors and get ahold of Zarossi's assets, he blamed him for it. He had tried to blackmail him and his wife without success. So, he had turned right round and demanded Zarossi's extradition on the strength of the forged note.

Zarossi and I put our heads together and went over the situation. We found that only my testimony could convict him. As that of my old schoolmate could not do it. But, being in jail, I could not flee the jurisdiction of the coutry. Therefore, it was up to me to decide what to do. Whether to side with a despicable crook like my old schoolmate, or with Zarossi, a friend and my girl's father beside. I could not hesitate. I did not hesitate. I decided to save Zarossi, cost what it may.

A few days later, his came came up for a hearing. I was summoned as a witness. My old schoolmate took the stand first and accused Zarossi of having forged the note. After him, I was called to the stand to testify. I answered the preliminary questions. Then I was shown the forged note.

"Have you ever seen this note before?" I was asked.

"Yes, sir. I have." I answered.

"On what occasion did you see it?" was the next question. I related the circumstances under which I had seen it. In a barroom in St. James Street.

"Who was present on that occasion?" inquired the Crown prosecutor.

I mentioned my old schoolmate and myself.

"Was anyone else there?" insisted the prosecutor.

"No, sir. Only the two of us." I stated.

"Wasn't Zarossi there too?" asked the prosecutor a little provoked, because I was supposed to be his witness.

"No, sir. Zarossi was not there," I maintained.

The prosecutor shifted the attack from another angle.

"Do you know who wrote that note?" he asked point blank.

"I do," I replied calmly.

"Who wrote it?" he continued, believing he had me in a corner.

"I did," I replied.

"You did? You wrote that note?" exploded the prosecutor at my unexpected answer.

"Yes, sir. I did," I confirmed with the same nonchalance of a George Washington under the cherry tree.

"All of it," I said.

The hearing ended right there and then. My old schoolmate left the courtroom in a rage: like a wild man. The prosecutor asked the court to dismiss the charge. The judge ordered Zarossi discharged, but gave him twenty-hour hours to leave Canada. I went back to the jail.

Before I left the courtroom, the prosecutor, a young Italian, came up to me.

"You lied and you know you did," he whispered to me in our native language.

"Of course, I did. But you can't prove it," I replied to him with a grin.

"I don't hold it against you, Charlie," he said then. "Zarossi is a darned sight better man than the complainant."

Back in the jail, there was nothing else for me to do than to await patiently my own trial. Zarossi had left Montreal, followed shortly afterwards by his family. Their destination was unknown. My old schoolmate, apparently, had also dropped out of sight.

I was brought into court in October, I believe. There for the first time, I learned the exact nature of the charges against me. I was accused of having forged that very check which my old schoolmate had presented for certification and payment. I don't remember whose name had been forged. That of some shipping broker, I believe. And the amount was around $400.

I pleaded not guilty. The witnesses were called to the stand to testify. Four of them, I think. The man whose name had been forged, the two detectives and the paying teller. The shipping broker said he knew me. Said I had called at his office occasionally on Zarossi's business. That, was true. He also stated that the check had been torn from the back of his check book. Undoubtedly, that was also so. But he was unable to say whether I had done it. He had not seen me around his office about that time.

The two detectives testified to have found a number of blank checks in my trunk and $200 in my pocket.

"What has become of that money?" inquired the judge. "Is it here?"

"No, your Honor," answered one of the detectives. "It has been returned to the bank."

"Returned to the bank?" asked the judge rather amazed. "And upon whose authority?"

"It was the bank's money," explained the witness. "We saw no reason for holding it."

"That's it," interrupted the judge, considerably provoked. "The police take it upon themselves to decide what is and is not material evidence. If it had been some poor man's money, he would not have got it back so easily. But, being the money of the Bank of Hochelaga, a great bank, the police must go out of their way, actually violate the law, to see to it that the bank is not inconvenienced.

"I am going to adjourn this case and look into the matter. I want to see where the responsibility rests for the unwarranted return of that money. Upon the proper identification of that money, hinges, to a large extent, the defendant's guilt or innocence. He has a right to be confronted with the alleged proofs against him. He has a legitimate title to that money until it has been properly identified in this court as someone else's property."

After that blasting from the bench, a blasting which made headlines in the Montreal papers, I went back to the jail in high spirits. I felt reasonably sure that the judge would dismiss the case. And that goes to show how little I knew about judges at that time.

In fact, when the trial was resumed, the judge's attitude was changed. The money incident was dropped. The last witness was called to the stand. He was the paying-teller.

"Is this the man who presented the check and to whom it was paid?" the prosecutor asked him pointing to me.

The paying-teller said he "presumed" I was the man. Three months had elapsed and he had not seen me since, he admitted. However, he was under the impression that the man who presented the check was taller, thinner, clean shaved and had light hair. His description certainly did not fit me. It was more like that of my old schoolmate.

For an identification, it was a corker! But it got by. Anything would have got by that day. Besides, I couldn't butt in because I was represented by counsel. I hadn't mentioned that. But I had a lawyer. He had volunteered to represent me gratis because I had saved his client from jail.

He was the least loquacious member of the bar I ever ran across. Cal Coolidge was actually garrulous alongside of that lawyer. Throughout the whole trial, he never cross-examined a witness, he never put in an objection, he never so much as glanced in my direction. The only thing he did was to get up, presumably to argue in my behalf, and say:

"If Your Honor please, I recommend my client to the mercy of this Court."

When I heard that, they could have knocked me down with a feather. He had virtually conceded my guilt even before the court had pronounced me guilty. In a way, I am glad he did not say more. If he had, they would have hung me!

I got my first taste of legal uncertainties when the judge spoke:

"Notwithstanding the brilliant argument of counsel for the defense," he said, "the evidence compels me to find the defendant guilty of forgery as charged, etc …"

Now, can you tie that? Brilliant argument of counsel, etc …! He could have said just as well: "Failure of counsel to put up a defense, compels me to conclude that my belief in the defendant's guilt is shared by counsel …" and let it go at that. It wouldn't have been half as raw as the other way.

A few days later, the court sentenced me to three years of imprisonment in the St. Vincent de Paul Penitentiary. The same afternoon, I was transferred there from the jail. An hour afterwards, my own mother would not have recognized me. I was bathed, shaved, clipped, dressed in a hideous uniform, mugged, fingerprinted and numbered. I had ceased to be a citizen. To have a name of my own. I had become a number!

CHAPTER IV

BY ADDING TWO AND TWO TOGETHER,

MR. PONZI DEVELOPS AN ANALYTIC MIND AND

ARRIVES AT THE INEVITABLE HOUR

The St. Vincent de Paul Penitentiary was no kindergarten. It was a prison where a man did time every minute of the day. It was a gaol. A replica of the Old Bailey. Of the Bastille. Of the Chateau d'If of Count of Monte Cristo fame.

From the sack of corn leaves and cobs which served as a mattress to the basement dungeons, that prison was indeed a place of penance and punishment. But, with all of that, I cannot say that I have ever witnessed an act of brutality or cruelty. The rules were strict. The utmost severity prevailed. But the prisoners were not abused unnecessarily nor exposed to inhumane treatment.

Favoritism was not practiced there. Each man stood on his own merits, be he a banker or a laborer, a native or a foreigner. Each had to start from the bottom of the ladder and work his way up with good behavior and industry. Outside influence did not get beyond the gate. But there were opportunities for advancement. There were jobs better than others. Privileges to be earned, and a man had to earn what he got.

My first assignment was to be a shed where they "made little ones Out of big ones". Just that. I was supposed to pound lumps of rock into gravel with a mallet for seven or eight hours a day, and I did it.

In the two or three months I was in that shed, I figure I crushed enough rock to gravel the Yellowstone National Park. I got to be so proficient at it, that they must have blasted a couple of mountain ranges out in the Rockies to keep me going. After I started on that job, British Columbia never looked the same. Had they kept me at it a little longer, I would have flattened that province down smoother than a pancake!

Eventually, my prowess received recognition and I was promoted to a clerkship in the blacksmith shop. From there I graduated into the Chief Engineer's office. Then, out front with the Chief Clerk and in the Warden's office. I couldn't go any further up without stepping out of the gate.

As the Warden's clerk, I had the freedom of the prison. I could go anywhere within the walls, at any time, without being escorted by a guard. I was permitted to talk to other prisoners on official business. But, of course, a guard forty feet away could not tell whether my conversations with other prisoners were official or private. So, I conversed frequently. Especially with an ex-banker, because what I wanted to know in the worst way was how in the world I could have been arrested on a Monday morning for a forged check cashed only the preceding Saturday night.

In the first place, it did not seem likely that the forgery could have been discovered in that short a period of time. Secondly, since my name did not appear on the check and I was unknown at the bank and at police headquarters, it looked like a physical impossibility that I could be connected with that check within less than forty-eight hours.

A Monsieur Lecoq or a Sherlock Holmes could not have traced that check to me in forty-eight hours. Even a sorcerer or fortune teller could not have done that. For the very good reason that any person gifted with superhuman vision would, in any event, have gone to Pizzoccolo first. Then, perhaps, he would have come to me. But it was absolutely inconceivable that two detectives, who could not see further than their nose, should, although in error, outclass a Lecoq, a Sherlock Holmes, and even a seer!

When I explained the circumstances to the ex-banker, he said it was clear as daylight that somebody had tipped off both the bank and the police.

"You see," he told me, "that check was drawn upon the main office and cashed at a branch on Saturday night. It could not have gone from the branch to the main office much before 10 o'clock Monday morning.

Checks are usually held in banks longer than that, two or three days, sometimes. At the main office they had no way of telling it was forged, since they had not detected the forgery at the time of certification. The man whose name had been forged did not know and could not know. He would have known of it only at the end of the month when he got his statement from the bank. Or, he might have learned of it before if the forged check should have caused him to overdraw his account."

"Then it is your opinion that somebody tipped the bank off?" I asked him.

"Of course," he said.

"But I don't believe anybody knew about the check, except my old schoolmate and myself," I hazarded.

"Then it's clear that he tipped off the bank," he affirmed.

"Impossible!" I declared, as if appalled at the enormity of the thing, "I could not believe that of him. Beside, he could not put me in trouble and keep out himself."

"Is that so?" the banker said a bit cynically. "Figure it out for yourself then. You are in trouble and he is not."

" Yes, but that is so because I did not mention his name," I explained in his justification.

"That's it! He was probably figuring you wouldn't," he retorted.

"Why wouldn't I?" I asked.

"Because, even if it dawned upon you that he was at the bottom of the whole thing, you could not have cleared yourself by blaming him," replied the ex-banker. "The evidence is just as strong against you as it may have been against him. The both of you would've been convicted. By the way," he asked, "where is he now?"

"I don't know," I answered.

"Have you seen him since? Has he written to you? Has he helped you in any way?" continued the ex-banker in his cross-examination of me.

"No," I admitted, gradually Impressed by his logic.

"Then, for the love of Mike, wake up and begin to realize that you have been done for to a crisp!" the ex-banker exploded. "Get even with him! Write a letter to the bank and tell on him! They may help you to get out!"

"Oh, I wouldn't do that," I said, rejecting the suggestion. "If I have any bones to pick with him I will look him up. I'll catch up with him some day!"

Little did I realize then how difficult it is to track down a man who does not want to be found. In fact, all my inquiries about him never got further than the West Coast. I heard he bought some moving picture shows. That he was at it for a couple of years. Then, I lost track of him entirely.

The main reason probably was that he was not the only one in that territory at that time opening up moving picture shows. There were others doing the very same thing. Adolph Zukor too, I believe, was there. Some did well, some went under. Zukor, for instance, did exceedingly well. He organized or acquired the Paramount. But my old schoolmate dropped out of sight as if the earth had swallowed him. He is either dead or he has been so successful in altering his identity as to defy recognition. It's true that we have never met face to face since. One such meeting might make all the difference in the world.

What started me on his trail was a visit from my Montreal landlady. She called at the prison shortly after my conversation with the ex-banker. I was hungry for news. News of my girl. Of Zarossi. Of everybody I knew.

"Zarossi is somewhere in the United States," she told me. "I don't know where. I never heard from any of them."

"Not even from Angelina?" I asked. She was my girl.

"No. And you? Have you heard from her?" she inquired.

"No," I had to admit with a certain reluctance. I hated to think she had dropped me so abruptly. "Did she believe me guilty?" I asked.

"I could not say. She never said much," my landlady replied. "Only once she remarked that my old schoolmate, perhaps, knew more about it than we thought."

"She did? What could have made her say that?" I said wondering.

"I don't know," she answered. "I guess she did not like him much because he had been bothering her."

"He had been bothering her?" I asked considerably surprised. "When was that? After I was arrested?"

"No, no. Before," said my landlady somewhat disappointed at my lack of perception. "What's the matter with you? Were you blind? Hadn't you noticed that he too was stuck on Angelina?"

"Of course not," I said. "It's all news to me."

"Oh, you men are all alike!" she declared almost chagrined at her discovery that I was as dumb as the rest. "When you are wrapped up in a girl, you men never see what's going on around her!"

"Maybe you are right," I admitted without the least abashment. "But tell me some more. What's become of him?"

"I don't know," she replied. "I never saw him after you were arrested. I heard he went West."

"Has he ever written?" I asked her.

"No," she said. "But I have talked with a man who had met him out there."

"What was he doing?" I kept asking.

"It seems that he liquidated the branches and then started in business for himself," she replied.

"What business? Where?" I inquired further.

"I don't know where. In several places. All over, I guess," she informed me. "I heard he was buying or putting up small moving picture houses all over the West Coast."

"Then he must be doing well," I said.

"They say he was," she agreed.

That visit gave me all of the information I needed to figure out what had happened to me. There could be no longer any doubt that he had framed me. With jealousy as the motive, he had planned and executed the crime. Then he had fastened it on to me and led the police to my door. And he was doing well while I was doing … time!

Fortunately, there is an end to everything. Even to a prison term. And the end of mine was approaching. Not very fast, it's true. But approaching nevertheless. In fact, approaching faster than I thought because I was not counting the unexpected. On a … Never mind. I was going to let the cat out of the bag beforehand.

Here is what happened. One day, the 13th of July, 1910, I was sitting at the typewriter in the Chief Clerk's office. The Warden came in with a paper in his hand.

"Charlie," he said handing it to me. "I want you to make me a copy of this right away."

"All right, Warden," I said taking the paper from him. I put a sheet in the typewriter, I laid the one to be copied in front of me, and I started to write. It was a printed communication from the Governor General's office. I had typed scores of similar communications before. They all began the same way. This one looked like a pardon.

I kept on typing mechanically until I got to the inmate's name. The Warden was standing in the back of my chair watching me. When I got to the name, I paused petrified. My eyes felt blurred. I rubbed them with the back of my hands and looked again at that name. It was there. Just as plain as day. There could not be any doubt about it. It was a name I had not heard in twenty or more months. It was my name!

The Warden chuckled and patted me on the shoulder.

"You have deserved it, Charlie," he said with a fatherly inflection in his voice. "It is not for me to judge whether or not you should have been sent here in the first place. But, for your sake, I am glad it's over. Run along now and get dressed so that you can make the afternoon train for Montreal."

He did not have to urge me twice. I flew inside and up to the tailor-shop. I took the first suit they gave me. Who cared whether it fitted or not? Who cared for appearances? All that mattered was freedom. And two hours later I was on the street, dressed somewhat grotesquely, with only five dollars in my pocket but happy. I was a free man once more!

CHAPTER V

UNCLE SAM, IN THE PERSON OF AN

IMMIGRATION INSPECTOR, PLAYS A DIRTY TRICK

ON MR. PONZI

Back in Montreal the same evening, I stayed with friends. I couldn't go back to the Windsor Hotel on five dollars. Hardly anywhere, in fact, because the money had to last me until I landed a job. But I couldn't stay in the street either. So, I accepted the hospitality which was tendered to me by those kind hearts, figuring that in a couple of days or so I would be able to find work.

However, I soon discovered that I was entirely too optimistic. A few calls among people, who knew me and who, ordinarily, could have used my services, brought to me the realization that I was up against it. I had a prison record! I was a jail bird! They could not hire me. They would not have me around.

I explained my predicament to one of my old schoolmates, who was running a bank there, a combination of labor and steamship agency. He and I had worked together some years before. He suggested that I leave Montreal and return to the United States.

"They won't know of your record there," he said, "and you can find a job much more easily."

"I would like to go," I told him, "but I have not enough money for the fare."

"Where would you want to go?" he asked.

"New York, I guess, if I can," I replied. "But any other place will do. Buffalo, Rochester, Syracuse, anywhere."

"Why don't you try some smaller places instead?" he urged, "Nearer the border. You might get a job as a time-keeper and interpreter in some camp."'

A few days later, he told me that there were some such camps around Norwood and Ogdenburg, in New York State.

"The fare isn't much," he said. "How are you fixed for money?"

"I am not very flush," I answered. "But I have put in a day here and a day there at odd jobs."

"Then I would go, if I were you," he urged on. "You will probably strike somebody we know in those camps. We sent a lot of men down that way when we were with Zarossi."

That, decided me. Zarossi had placed thousands of laborers in that territory. Both with railroads and private contractors. Zarossi's men had built the Transcontinental. They were everywhere. With the C. P. R., with the Grand Trunk, with the B. & M. On both sides of the border. And I, as one of Zarossi's former clerks, was fairly well known among contractors and foremen.

In the morning of July 30, 1910, I left Montreal. My old schoolmate was at the depot when I bought my ticket. With him were five men. Apparently, there were going my way. They were Italians. Newly arrived immigrants, and he asked me to look after them.

"Give them a hand, Charlie," he said. "Tell them when to get off. They have to change trains at Norwood." I believe he mentioned Norwood, or some such place like that.

The train was one of those locals that stopped at every shed along the road, for ten and fifteen minutes at a stretch. It hobbled on most of the morning in the direction of the border and made it about noon. At the last station on the Canadian side, it settled down for what looked like a regular siesta.

A United States immigration inspector came on board and went through the coaches, pausing here and there to interview each passenger. Eventually, he got to where the five Italians and myself were. He spoke to them first. They did not understand a word. So, he turned to me.

"Are these men with you?" the inspector asked me.

"Not exactly," I said, but they are going my way and I have been asked to help them out."

"Where are they going?" he inquired.

"I don't know for sure," I stated. "Somewhere near Norwood. I think."

"What are they going there for?" he pressed on.

I had to ask the men before I could answer the question. They said they were going on some job. I believe they even exhibited some letter to show their destination.

"Where are they coming from?" the inspector wanted to know.

"From Montreal," I replied.

"All right," he said, and he walked along into the next coach.

Five minutes later, the train started off again. The next stop was Moers Junction, N. Y., on the United States side of the border. We were looking indifferently out of the window at the usual activity which follows the arrival of any train, when somebody yelled out:

"Hey, you men!"

We turned around and saw the immigration inspector on the doorway of the coach. He was addressing us. No doubt about that.

"You men get off this train and follow me," he directed. I conveyed his order to the five Italians and we did as we were told. He took us to a little shack. A sort of an office. There he informed us that we were under arrest. He said we had violated the immigration laws of the United States.

The same afternoon, we were transferred to Rouses Point. N. Y., and locked up. A couple of days later, we were brought to Plattsburg and put in jail there to await trial in the Fall. I was held for smuggling aliens into the United States. The five Italians were held as material witnesses.

The whole thing did not seem to make sense. I tried to figure it out. But gave it up as a bad job. Finally, I had a chance to see an assistant United States Attorney. I told him the facts. He listened.

"You brought those men into the United States in violation of immigration laws," he said.

"I did nothing of the kind," I retorted. "They came of their own accord. We were merely on the same train."

"But you've helped them. You have acted as interpreter for them," he insisted.

"Why shouldn't I have acted as interpreter?" I shot back at him. "It seems to me that I have helped both sides, in any case."

"At any rate," he continued, "you have all effected an illegal entry into the United States. None of you had a permit to enter."

"I, for one, did not know a permit was necessary." I explained. "Since I went to Canada three years ago, I have come in and out of the United States half a dozen times without a permit. I was never asked for one. I never met with an immigration inspector on the train. The only officials I ever ran across at the border were custom officers. They would come aboard and inspect the baggage."

"That does not alter the fact that this time you are all in the United States illegally," he went on.

"I won't concede even that," I told him. "We were interviewed on the Canadian side of the border. The train was not in motion. If we were not admissible for any reason, it seems to me that that was the time to exclude us. The inspector should have told us then.

"The inspector does not need to be told by you what he should or should not have done," the attorney interrupted.

"It seems to me that he does too," I poured back at him, losing my head. "It was his duty to warn us. To keep us from violating the law. Regardless of whether or not we were ignorant of the law. Instead, he actually coaxed us, led us, into a violation of the law in order to make a record for himself. I have no earthly use for that sort of public official. He, and not I, is the one who should be charged with smuggling those aliens."

"You will sing a different tune in a couple of months from now," he threatened with a leer.

"Maybe I will and, yet, maybe I won't," I snapped back. By then I was ready to relegate him to the seventh hell. If I didn't tell him so, he certainly read my mind because he brought the interview to a close.

All five of us languished in the Plattsburg jail until October. We could not raise bail. Fortunately, I had a cell all to myself, while other prisoners were required to bunk together. I managed to kill time sleeping and reading old magazines. But jail life, with its depressing idleness, began to get on my nerves. Two months of it had put me in a frame of mind where I no longer cared what happened to me, so long as I could have it over with.

Evidently, that assistant United States Attorney was a psychologist I will let it go at that. It is not exactly what I thought he was. But "psychologist" sounds better. He knew or sensed that I was ripe for any sort of an approach. Just think of it! What an uncanny intuition that man had! He was utterly wasted in a district attorney's office! He was a naturally born "con" man! One who could tell and play a sucker better than any professional.

He sent for me. Told me how sorry he was about the whole thing. How he hated to go through with it. But his duty was clear. He was under oath to uphold and preserve the Constitution … etc. It never occurred to me then to tell him that the Constitution had been preserved so long that it was actually pickled! Instead, I felt so blue over his predicament that it almost brought tears to my eyes! It certainly was a darned shame that any scalliwag like me should be permitted to put such a nice man in that kind of stew!

The situation was so tense, that I actually expected him any minute to fall all over me and weep! I was scared. The prison suit I had on was not pre-shrunk. A good cry and it would have been all over with it. It would have left me looking like a bell-boy in shorts!

"Charlie," he said (they always call me Charlie when they want to stick me). "I want to help you. You are a pretty good sort of a fellow. Will you take my advice?"

"Sure," I told him before I knew what the advice was. "I'll do anything you say, bud …" I was about to say "buddy" but corrected myself and changed it to "sir".

"Then plead guilty," he urged with an entreating look on his face.

"I will, like hell!" I jumped up. I might have felt soft-hearted. But not that soft.

"Don't get excited, Charlie," he purred on, "I am your friend. I am advising you for your own good. If you go through with the trial, you will be convicted. The evidence is against you. The judge will believe the inspector. He won't believe you, because you have a prison record. You would be licked before you started."

In that, I agreed with him. I did not tell him so. But I knew even then how hopeless it was to buck the government without shekels or influential friends. However, I did not give in right away.

"If I am convicted, I won't be any worse off than if I plead guilty," I said.

"Oh, yes, you will," he rebutted. "The judge won't feel so inclined to be lenient. He might send you away for a long stretch. Make an example of you. The penalty is two years and $1,000 fine for each alien. In your case he would give you ten years and $5,000 fine."

"Not if I plead guilty, what will happen?" I asked.

"No much, I guess," he said shrugging his shoulders. "Perhaps a $50 fine."

"But I can't pay the fine," I told him. "I haven't $50."

"In that case, you will have to serve a month in jail for it," he explained.

"Are you sure?" I insisted.

"Practically," he confirmed. "It is up to me to recommend the penalty. Judges always take the district attorney's recommendations."

"And you promise to let me off with a $50 fine if I plead guilty?" I asked him again.

"Yes," he said, "I promise you that I will speak to the judge."

And he did! But God, the judge and himself only know what he told him! I kept my end of the bargain. I pleaded guilty. Then he walked up to the bench. He handed some papers to the judge. He whispered to him. The judge glanced through the papers and took a squint at me. Then he said:

"Oh, what's the use!… Two years and $500 fine!" and he passed the paper along to the clerk.

Somebody, a deputy-marshal, I guess, took me by the arm and led me out of the court-room before I had time to realize what had happened. If he hadn't done that, I might have had to face additional charges of assault and battery and contempt. I was so mad, I was fit to be tied!

A couple of days later, I and four more federal prisoners, with a couple of deputy-marshals, started on our way South to serve our respective sentences in the United States Penitentiary at Atlanta, Ga.

The five Italians were discharged from custody right after my trial. There were paid their two or more months allowances as government witnesses. They were legally permitted to remain in the United States! Can you, reader, figure that out? I can't. I have been trying to ever since, but without success.

CHAPTER VI

MR. PONZI SWAPS A 2' x 4'

COUNTY JAIL FOR UNCLE SAM'S

$10,000,000 BIG-HOUSE

On the way South, we travelled by Pullman, had our meals in the dining-car, and lounged about in our seats like tourists. In Washington, we had lunch at a pretentious restaurant near the station. Then we took a walk through the Capitol grounds. We would have gone inside, but were afraid to embarrass some of the boys.

We did not visit at the White House either. President Taft asked to be excused. He was busy. Probably figuring how he could beat Teddy Roosevelt at the next presidential elections. But figures do lie sometimes!

In Atlanta, the deputy-marshals took us to a "bar-room" (?!) for a bracer. Something to pep us up before the ordeal of a prison commitment. The hardest stuff there, was near beer! In fact, it was so far from any beer taste that it could not have caught up with it in a coon's age. We drank it and groaned. Keeled over, almost!

We found the United States Penitentiary a sight for sore eyes. It wasn't like anything we had seen before. Not I, at least. In those days, it had the reputation of being a Biltmore, a Ritz-Carlton in its line. And it lived up to its reputation too! Why wouldn't it? It was the potential abode of every big man in the country. "Big" from the standpoint of money, power or brains. From cabinet members and members of Congress to national bank officials and postal clerks. From incometax dodgers to bootleggers and mail-robbers. And it stands to reason that those birds, knowing that an ounce of prevention is worth two points of cure, would take the New Willard as a pattern for "their" prison. They probably figured that since it had to be a cage, it might as well be a gilded cage.

I didn't have much trouble down there in getting myself a clerical job. I found it waiting for me. In the laundry. But my knowledge of Italian, English and French got me promoted. I was transferred to the mail clerk's office, who by the way, is now the present Warden of that institution. Besides addressing and sealing envelopes, it was my duty to translate into English and type all incoming and outgoing mail, if written in any of the foreign languages with which I was more or less familiar. Particularly so, all correspondence from and for Ignazio Lupo and his alleged co-partners in crime.

Lupo was supposed to be an early edition of Al Capone. He was doing 30 years for counterfeiting. The same as Capone is doing eleven years for not having paid an income-tax. Actually, Lupo was doing time for all the crimes which were attributed to him. Among them, he was reputed to have ordered the killing in Sicily of Lieutenant Petrosino of the New York police force.

Far be it from me to uphold murder or any form of crime. I believe that a man ought to be punished for his misdeeds. But I believe also that he should be dealt with on the level. That he should be punished for what he has actually done. And not overpunished, for a minor infraction or punished for something he never did, even if the man deserves ten times as much for other things which cannot be proved against him.

Of his other alleged crimes, I don't know anything about. I don't care and don't want to know. They are something between him and his Maker and no business of mine in any way, shape or form.

Lupo approached me in the prison yard during a ball game. He asked me whether I would mind moving into the same cell with him. He said that the prison officials, acting upon instructions were giving him one stool-pigeon after another for a cell-mate. Which was true. They were driving him crazy. He wanted somebody whom he knew wouldn't be there just to hurt him.

His plight was distressing. Regardless of the fact that a man with a 30-year sentence is not apt to prove a very cheerful companion, I told him I would ask to move in with him. We were put together. And I found much in him that I liked. He was extremely good-hearted.

Frank, direct, and with "guts."

After I got to know more about his case, I became convinced that he had been used to further the advancement of one of the officers of the United States Secret Service. If I needed any evidence of it, I got it on my release from Atlanta. I had promised Lupo that I would call on the editors of the Atlanta Constitution and of the Atlanta Journal and give them the facts. I kept my promises. But the editors talked and the Secret Service got wind of it. One day, two of those guys cornered me in Peachtree Street and warned me to keep my nose out of Lupo's case.

"If you don't, inside of a week we will have you back with him for a long stretch," they threatened and they meant it too.

Evidence of Secret Service activities was not lacking even at the prison, anyway. An operator, Italian, had been attached to the mail clerk's office as an assistant. He wore a uniform and also did guard duty.

But his main function was to check my translation in general, and of Lupo's letters in particular, and forward copies to Washington. What the Secret Service were after, was evidence of Lupo's connection with other crimes. They assumed he would be fool enough to let the cat out of the bag someday, if there was any cat in the bag. And they never stopped to think that I was his cell-mate and helped him write all those letters. Letters which I knew I would have to translate later for their benefit! Of all the dumb Alecs, they surely deserved the blue ribbon!

My job kept me out of the cell Sundays and holidays. Not to work. Just to sit around the office with other clerks. To smoke, talk or play checkers and chess. With us was Charlie W. Morse, the same who had been rubbing elbows with the Big Wigs in Wall Street. The same to whom a well-known steamship company was said to have handed a cool million dollars on his release from prison.

Charlie Morse was a pretty good sort of fellow. Loaded with money. Liberal. A good mixer. And extremely well versed in Wall Street finance. He could read the stock exchange quotations backwards.

One day he walked into Warden Moyer's office and asked him for the privilege to send a code wire to his brokers. The Warden, after much arguing back and forth, finally gave in. He told him not to make it a practice and send only that one wire along. Charlie did.

Several days later, again he walked into the Warden's office and handed him a check for $2,000 to bearer. The Warden wanted to know whom and what it was for.

"It's for you, "Charlie told him. "It's your share of the deal I put through with my code wire."

It seems that he had made quite a haul on a stock transaction. But Warden Moyer did not like that a bit. He declined the check and gave him hell. He even threatened to lock him up. Charlie did not mind the blasting. It was like water on a duck's back for him. But he was never permitted to send out another wire. Not from that United States Penitentiary, at any rate.

Perhaps, it didn't make much difference to him. He had all the money he wanted. Seven or more million dollars, they said. Anyway, he did not stay there much longer. He was doing a 15-year stretch. But he had no intention of serving it in full.

It is a matter of public knowledge that he had hired Harry M. Daugherty, of President Harding's cabinet fame, as his lawyer. Nobody knows how much he paid him. But, years later, according to the newspapers, Daugherty still claimed that Morse was indebted to him for $50,000.

Daugherty looked after the Washington end of Morse's case. Charlie began to eat soap and other stuff and soon developed the symptoms of locomotor ataxia or of Bright's disease. I don't remember which. And it does not matter after all. But he was certified in a hopeless condition and in immediate danger of his life. They transferred him to Fort Oglethorpe, Ga. A few months later, he was pardoned by President Taft, having served all together, a little over two years on a 15-year sentence. Once released, naturally he declined to die. He must've lived another dozen years or so.

I remained in Atlanta till the expiration of my full term and served an extra month for the fine. I was not paroled. In fact, for some reason or other which I do not remember, I did not apply for a parole, notwithstanding my good behavior. I was released unconditionally in July 1912. No effort was made to deport me.

CHAPTER VII

"PAGE MR. INSULL!" ON THE

PONZI POWER, LIGHT & WATER COMPANY

OF BLOCTON, ALA.

My meeting in Peachtree Street with the two Secret Service men convinced me that Atlanta, as the gag goes, was "no place for a minister's son." As a matter of fact, like the rest of Georgia, it was no place for anybody except a native "cracker." The Ku Klux Klan was very active. The streets of Marietta were still splattered with the blood of Leo Frank.

I made myself scarce p.d.q., and even quicker than that. "When the midnight choo-choo blew for Alabam," I was on it. Why Alabama of all places? For no other reason than that Alabama was in a western direction. "Go West, young man, go West!"

A few years later, astrologers told me it was all wrong. I should never have gone West. My stars pointed to the East, they said. And they were right. To become enlightened, a man ought to travel always in the direction of the sun. Every yap knows that. But, on the other hand, the eastern routes are so crowded with blue lodge members that a traveler must sit up all night to get to a railroad ticket-window ahead of them.

Be that as it may, I landed in Birmingham. I could not miss it. That is unless I catapulted from the train. And I wouldn't have missed it if I had missed it. The only thing of interest I found there was a "quack". An old acquaintance of mine from Providence.

This quack had an infirmary. Whether or not he had a license to practice is a horse of a different color. Maybe he did and, yet, maybe he didn't. Away back in Providence he did not have one. In fact, he had to leave in a hurry on account of that. But in Birmingham he might have had one. If he did, I don't know how he got it, because the only "medicine" he had ever taken in was castor oil when he was a kid.

I saw his sign over the infirmary and was attracted by the name. It was familiar. Out of curiosity, I went in to find out whether it was a case of two practitioners with an identical shingle or of two shingles for one and the same "doctor." The moment I saw the man, the recognition was mutual.

We talked. He was very frank about his activities. Couldn't very well have been anything else with me. The infirmary was a "racket," he explained. A good racket. He was cleaning up! With what? With fake claims against the coal companies!

This is how it worked. He had agents scattered all over. In every mining camp. They were on a commission basis. As soon as a miner was the victim of some accident, especially a minor accident, he would be coached by the quack's agent to exaggerate the injury, to make it appear an internal injury, and to decline any settlement that may be offered by the company.

Right away, or in due course of time, according to the nature of the injury, the victim would end up at the quack's infirmary. He would stay there weeks or maybe months, leading the life of Riley. Nothing was too good for him. The quack would report his condition to the company and vouch for any sort of internal injury. Eventually, a settlement had to be discussed. This invariably included doctor's fees and infirmary bills at figures that would have staggered even a Johns Hopkins or Mayo clinic's patient. Plus this, the company had to pay some damages to the man himself. The quack cut in 50-50 on the damages too.

The infirmary was always full. And why wouldn't it be? When genuine accidents were scarce, fake accidents were resorted to. A miner would get his "buddy" to throw a few lumps of coal at him. They would pile up some "slack". Summon help. And report a "cave in". The miner would claim minor injuries. The quack would certify to them and collect. And that goes to show that Barnum was right. There is a sucker born every day, and they make him a claim adjuster for a coal mining company! It surely is "a great life if you don't weaken!"

I had a splendid chance to get in that accident racket. I was offered a job. Not for my superficial knowledge of medicine. Rather, for my intimate knowledge of the quack's methods and past. But I am no blackmailer. I live and let live. Besides, that infirmary looked to me as if it might lead me to a relapse. That is, to one of those Alabama chain-gangs. And I gave it a wide berth.

I went to Blocton, instead,—a mining town with a sizable number of Italians where I figured that my knowledge of English might come in handy. In fact, I managed to eke out a living, sometimes acting as interpreter; others, helping the local storekeepers out with their books; occasionally as a male nurse to some battered miner.

Life was far from dull in that small community. Between christenings, weddings and other celebrations, we had more good times than we would have in a large city. It was like one big, happy family. A real brotherhood of common interests and endeavors and of neighborly love. Men, women and children were all banded together by a uniform hope in and fear of their lord and master, the capricious King Coal. Gaiety ebbed or flowed in that camp at the king's whim, according to whether he was lavish or the other way, with tons of precious black mineral or with his frightful destruction of human lives!

It was in my capacity of male nurse that I soon discovered something was amiss in that community. There was no running water. No electric current. The water was toted from wells and springs. Candles and kerosene furnished the light. To administer first aid under those handicaps was not a cinch. Yet, it had to be done because the hospital was two miles away and the only way to get there was walk.

I made up my mind that the camp must be provided with both light and running water. "To decide" with me is "to act." Even at those days I was no slouch at promoting. For the very good reason that money with me is always the last consideration instead of being the first. Why should I worry about the money? The money is always around to be had. The main thing is to have an idea. A plausible idea which can be dressed up and sold.

All I needed for that water and power plant were a gasoline engine, a pump, a dynamo and a tank. The camp was on the slope of a hill. On top of the hill and down part of the other slope, there was another small, but more exclusive district for the native population. At the bottom of that slope was a creek. The whole community was organized under a charter and had some sort of a town council.

It didn't take much to get a town meeting called. A notice was posted. Word passed around. And one Sunday afternoon we all gathered in the town hall. I was introduced and took the floor.

"Gentlemen," I said, "let's not waste any time in idle words. We are all here to discuss the ways and means and expediency of providing every house in this community with running water and electric light. I have made a superficial survey of the proposition and found that it would be practical to pump the water from the creek to a tank on top of the hill and distribute it from there. The same engine which runs the pump, could also run the dynamo for the electric current. I have no figures to submit at this time as to the cost of the plant, the piping and the wiring. I have no money to pay for it.

"What I propose to do is to get an estimate of the cost. Then I will form a corporation asking each member of this community to subscribe to one or more shares of its preferred stock. Enough of it to pay for the cost. I intend to retain a controlling interest of the common stock for my own services and sell the balance to cover overheads and other emergency expenses of the corporation.

"The rates for water and electric current will be determine by the town council as soon as I shall be able to submit figures for the running cost of the plant and the amortization of the preferred stock. I expect those rates to leave a reasonable margin of profit for the common stock. While I am desirous to promote the welfare of this community, I feel that I am entitled to some returns for my time, energy and services.

"Just now, I ask that a resolution be put to a vote of this meeting endorsing my activities and endeavors and directing the town council to give me a deed to the land needed for the power plant and water tank and a franchise to run pipes and wires. I thank you."

The resolution was unanimously adopted. A few days later, I was given the franchise at a special meeting of the town council. I had a power equipment company send down a couple of engineers to lay out the whole thing and give me some figures. In another month or so, the plant would have materialized.

But … something happened to upset my plans. Something always happens! It never fails. Something so entirely unexpected that it catches me unaware. Like a flower pot that lands on a man's head from a three-story window.

That time, it was an accident. Not to me. To one of the nurses at the company's hospital. Pearl Gossett was her name. She had been cooking a patient's meal on a gasoline stove. The stove exploded. She was frightfully burned. The entire left arm and part of her breast and shoulder were actually one mass of charred flesh.

A couple of days after the accident, Dr. Thomas, the company's doctor, came over to the camp. We were very friendly. He never failed to call on me whenever he was at the camp. He did not fail that day. He stopped at the house where I was staying and we drank a bottle of beer. Our conversation drifted to the nurse.

"How's Pearl?" I inquired. "Is she making any progress?"

"Her condition is very serious," the doctor said. "Almost desperate. Gangrene is setting in."

"Can't anything be done to save her?" I asked.

"Skingrafting, perhaps," he replied. "I wanted to try it. But I can't find anybody who will give up as little as an inch of his skin for her."

He told me he had asked everybody around the camp. He had been turned down in each instance.

It did not seem fair that a young girl like Pearl should be permitted to die such a horrible death. That nurse had been so kind to her patients that it seemed inconceivable that she should meet with such ingratitude. It made my blood sizzle to think that any person could be so selfish, so cowardly as to refuse a mere inch of his own skin to save a human life.

"How many inches of skin do you need altogether, doctor?" I asked him.

"Forty or fifty, I guess," he said. "But I can't find even ten in a community of 2,000 or more people."

"You're all wrong, doctor," I said. "You have found them. I will give you all the skin you need."

"You?" he said as if he was afraid he had misunderstood." You? You will give the whole of it?"

" Yes, doctor," I confirmed, "I will. When do you want me?"

"We cannot put the thing off very long," he answered. "But I don't want to hurry you either. You might want to prepare for it. Sort of brace up. When can you be ready?"

"I am ready now," I told him.

Dr. Thomas took a good look at me before he replied. He wanted to make sure I wouldn't flinch. Evidently, what he saw in my eyes decided him.

"All right then. Come along," he said. "But you better put your coat on," he added with a twinkle in his eyes, noticing that in my eagerness to follow him, I was going in my shirt sleeves.

That evening, I was put on the operating table.

Before they gave me the ether, I wanted to know from what part of my body they were going to peel my skin.

"From the thigh," said Dr. Thomas. "By the way, from which leg shall we take it?" he asked.

"It's all the same to me," I told him. "Take it from both, if you need it."

And he did. When I came to, both of my legs were bandaged, from hip to knee. And sore! Oh, boy! But what's a couple of sore legs more or less between friends? Just a trifle! In fact, I was in the hospital the best part of the next three months. Convalescing? No. Shedding more skin on the installment plan. Enough to make a couple of suit-cases. But I say that with no regret. It was probably instrumental in saving that nurse's life. If not her life, her arm. In either case, I am glad to have done something to help a fellow being. Regardless of what it may have cost me.

Undoubtedly, I suffered physically. The ordeal was quite painful. Also, I incurred some danger from complications. Pneumonia, for instance. But I did not get anything worse than pleurisy. Economically, it just blew my power plant to smithereens! But again I may say: What's a power plant more or less in the land of Insull? A trifle! A mere trifle! He did not miss it! And neither did I. Not much.

CHAPTER VIII

MR. PONZI'S MEDICAL CAREER

IN MOBILE IS ABRUPTLY CUT SHORT

BY A UNIVERSITY PRESIDENT

It was around the Spring or Summer of 1914 that I made my appearance in Mobile, Ala. I had come from Pensacola on the coast-wise steamer Tarpon. Not as a passenger. Only as a painter. On a contract job to paint the deck structure.

I did what I was supposed to do. But had some trouble collecting what was owed to me. I quarreled with the Captain. Told him to go to blazes. He went back to Pensacola, instead. I remained in Mobile.

In those days, one place was just as good as the next. I had discovered that I could paint—more or less. Signs were my specialty. Any kind of signs. But I could figure on a house painting job, too, and manage to make a living almost anywhere. I would work one town and shift to the next one without any trouble.

In Mobile I did fairly well at the beginning. Then things slacked up a bit. But as I was ready to move on, I noticed an ad in the local papers.

"Librarian wanted at the Medical College. Apply in person," it read. I applied. Knowing the Greek language, those big medical words were not exactly "all Greek to me." They were something I understood. So I landed the job. Which did not pay much, but I took it because it was dignified and congenial, so to speak. Not many would cherish it like I did, eating their noon lunch in an anatomical room full of corpses pickled in formaldehyde, with possibility of picking up a slice off someone's thigh, instead of a slice of boiled ham.

Speaking of congeniality, I had all sorts of pranks played on me by those medical students. Some of the boys were really cute in their ways! They would just as soon as not drop a test-tube full of typhoid germs into my soup. Or turn loose in the library a whole cage of guinea pigs injected with cholera morbus. Anything to provoke a laugh. One night, after a storm which had put the lights out of commission, I turned in, in the dark. My room was on the ground floor of the building. The moment I got under the sheets, I felt the presence of someone else in my bed. A drunken student, I thought. But it wasn't. It was a "stiff"—a dead negro—embalmed, too. As I could not carry him alone up to the second floor where he belonged, I laid him on the floor in my room. We both slept peacefully, but I woke up first. Such was the life at the college. One prank after another. But it worked both ways.

My duties as librarian were the least of all. I catalogued the ten thousand or more books in the library, and the periodicals, too. I observed regular hours and issued books. I collaborated also on the college publication. Typed the whole of it. Showed visitors around the building. And, nights included, I was tied up with the free out-patient obstetric service.

In this connection, when a call came in from an expectant mother, it was up to me to hunt up the two students assigned to the case—who, by the way, might be anywhere except home,—prepare their satchel, send them on their way. Sometimes it happened that one of the two students could not be found, or would not be found. Then I would turn into a mid-wife and go along myself. There was nothing to it. Nearly all were ordinary deliveries, not "special" deliveries. And, between attending classes, reading up text books, watching operations and postmortems, etc., I knew as much about deliveries as any of the boys, in fact, as much as any mail carrier. After all, it was only a question of waiting. I could not improve upon nature. It would have to take its course. And it usually did, sooner or later. And the waiting was not half as hard on me as it was on the expectant mother.

All considered, that job suited me fine. I got along capitally with the faculty and the boys. I liked Mobile, its bay, the well known Mobile Bay, its climate, everything. But my contentment did not last over a year. I should have known it wouldn't last. If it had, it would have interrupted a long circle of bad breaks.

Before I proceed to narrate the events. I must explain that the Medical College was a part of the University of Alabama. The university itself was located at Tuscaloosa. The Medical College was located at Mobile, instead of in the campus, because a medical college always needs to be where it may have easy access to a fairly large hospital. Mobile, being a larger city than Tuscaloosa, afforded better hospital facilities.

I do not recollect what had caused the Medical College to locate in Mobile instead of in Birmingham. All I know is that it was there and that, in my time, a bunch of Birmingham doctors were trying their darndest to have it removed from Mobile to their city. The Mobile M. D.'s were pulling their own political wires just as hard to have the college stay down there.

The moment I became connected with that institution, my loyalty to the faculty, naturally, led me to side with them. But it was not within the scope of my job to take an active part in the controversy, except in my capacity of collaborator in the college publication. As such, I worked hand in hand with one of the faculty.

He and I were real "buddies" in that fight. He was the most rabid opponent the Birmingham bunch ever had to contend with. At least, that's what we all believed. We banked on him. We had implicit confidence in his loyalty and sincerity, until something happened to shake our confidence in him.

It was the night before he was leaving for his summer vacation. He and I were alone in his office. He was straightening out his papers. Giving me some instructions; arranging things in general. And when he got ready to leave the building, he handed me two letters to mail.

"Be sure to mail them tonight," he told me, "because I am leaving on the morning train in the same direction and I want them to get to the destination before me."

I had no intention of disregarding his wishes. As soon as he left the building, I got ready to do the same thing and to go to the post-office. But I happened to glance at the envelopes. I noticed that one was addressed to a doctor in Birmingham notoriously active in the projected removal of the Medical College from Mobile. The other was addressed to the President of the university, whom we had reason to suspect was antagonistic to the Mobile crowd. I was thunderstruck. From what I knew, that faculty member was the last one who should ever have anything to do with such people. He and they were supposed to be at logger-heads.

I was a bit perplexed. There was something before me which did not look right. Yet it seemed inconceivable to suspect him of treachery. I did not know what to do. But my loyalty to the institution prevailed. I decided to open those letters. I could always seal them again and mail them if they contained no treasonable matter.

I opened them. Read them. And there, before me was the evidence that he had been double-crossing the college right along. He was working hand-in-hand with the Birmingham bunch.

My course was clear. I could not suppress that evidence and remain loyal to the college. I saw no reason for suppressing it anyway. Since he was a double-crosser, I owed him nothing. Let him face the consequences.

I called up Dr. Frazer, then acting-dean, and told him to come right over to the college. He did. I showed him the letters. He asked me to make copies of them, and took the originals. The following morning the derelict faculty member was asked to resign. He did not and could not decline to do so, under the circumstances.

Within a few days, the matter was reported to the President of the University. The faculty, of course, did not fail to express their chagrin at having discovered that he was siding with the Birmingham crowd. They felt that he should have been neutral. I don't know what he replied, but he made it a point to direct that I be fired.

Dr. Frazer showed me his letter. I laughed. Told him not to pay any attention to it, that the man who wrote it was crazy with the heat.

"But he is my superior in the University," said Dr. Frazer, "I must obey him."

"Not in this instance. But go ahead if you want to," I told him. "Only you'd better warn him that if I am fired I'll bring suit and let the world know the reason I am being fired."

"I can't tell him that," protested Dr. Frazer. "He expects me to tell him that I have fired you."

"Well, it's just too bad about him that I am not fired and that I won't be fired. On second thought, I believe I will spare you even that trouble. In the morning I will give you a letter from me to send along. If after that, he still insists that I be fired, it will be time enough for you to act."

I did write the delinquent faculty member of the University a letter. And what a letter! Insulting? Of course, not. Only diplomatic. But I had him in a corner and I let him have it. He had it coming, anyway. The result was that I was not fired. Not right away. He got rid of me in another way, though. That is, by failing to appropriate any more for my salary. And so, before summer was over, I was out of that job, after all.

CHAPTER IX

MR. PONZI PULLS A FAST ONE

ON THE NEW ORLEANS CITIZENRY AND

DUCKS NONE TOO SOON

From Mobile I went to New Orleans just in time to witness the terrible hurricane of September 1915. "Witness" is no word. I was right in the midst of it! Everything was flying but the birds! Store-signs, shingles, tiles, tree-limbs, galvanized iron-roofs! In Esplanade Avenue the trees were bending like blades of grass! I never saw the like of it before or since. It remained the worst storm in the history of the city until Huey Long struck New Orleans. His antics made it look like a breeze in comparison. As a political twister, Huey couldn't be beaten on this side of hell by either man or elements!

In New Orleans, Tulane did not need a librarian. They could have used me as a score keeper. But I could not keep myself, much less a whole score. As a half-back, it was entirely out of the question. I wouldn't have known what to do with the other half while one half was playing.

So, I reverted to painting. The good old reliable vocation. The only steady and permanent job. More permanent than a permanent wave.

Most store-signs had been blown by the storm to Baton Rouge and points North. It was cheaper for the store-keepers to have new ones painted than to move their stores up there after the old ones. I worked, they worked, we worked. And, by Mardi Gras, New Orleans again looked the same as it had for the past couple of centuries, only a little more spic and span on account of the fresh paint. I had those signs as flashy and bright as a Creole.

So far as appearances went, everything was normal by Spring. Only, the storm seemed to have kindled old feuds along the water front and around the market district. Hardly a week passed without some shooting, or some stabbing, or both. Blood flowed more freely than water. Life in New Orleans began to look like one murder after another. Things were so bad that people were selling their houses to buy cemetery lots.

It was after the wholesale slaughter in front of the Monteleone Hotel that an Italian Protestant minister and I were commenting on the situation, at his house, over the supper table. We were both very indignant. Such a state of affairs put the entire Italian colony in a bad light. The press was yelling blue murder as usual, and demanding action. The Mayor was pulling his few stray hairs and wishing his constituents would behave themselves until after election. The police were following imaginary clues which led nowhere. Chasing rainbows. Chasing everything but the culprits. And the killers were nonchalantly oiling their guns and honing their stilettos.

The Italian minister and I were in complete accord that something ought to be done. But who was going to do it? Huey Long wasn't there yet. And nobody else knew where to start from or what to do. Except burying the dead. The mortality was so great that National Casket shares soared out of sight on the exchange. Insurance companies were on the verge of bankruptcy, while undertakers were buying apartment houses. We decided to step into the fray and throw a monkey wrench into the feudists' ranks.

The two of us, in size and weight, could not have licked more than a couple of sheets of postage stamps without running out of breath. We were no Cameras. However, what we lacked in muscular development and boxing technique we possessed in ingenuity and practical psychology. We knew the killers were bold because they felt secure from detection. And why wouldn't they be? The cops, as cops go, couldn't detect a wisp of smoke even if they were sitting on a bon-fire. Informers were scarcer than flying elephants. Nobody dared to squeal. Not even the pigs. But let the fear grow among the killers that they might secretly be denounced by persons whose identity they could not establish, and they would undoubtedly slow up. That's what the minister and I thought, because nothing deters a man from evil more than the certainty or a strong possibility of being caught at it and punished for it.

With all of our wisdom, the minister and I were a couple of nuts, so to speak. Full of crazy ideas. We were about the same age and had much in common. He knew I couldn't paint any better than he could preach. He knew he couldn't preach any worse than I could paint. Our religious views did not clash. He was a Protestant. I was a Catholic. But he didn't give a "darn" what I believed in. And I didn't give a "damn" what he believed in. All considered, we were like two peas in a pod. Two bodies with one soul.

Having reached unanimous conclusions on the subject of the killings, we decided to act. We pulled one of the craziest stunts ever conceived. Actually took our lives into our own hands. No doubt about that. If word had got around in that community connecting us with what we did, we would have been stuffed with more lead than a fisherman's sinker.

We constituted ourselves as a committee of two, allegedly the spokesmen of a newly organized secret society which only existed in our fervid imagination. On the stroke of midnight, we slipped mysteriously into the city editor's office of the New Orleans States and whispered to him to lead us somewhere where we could converse in all privacy. It was a matter of life and death, we told him. He believed it. A matter of his own life and death, he thought perhaps, by the looks of us two. But he decided that the safest way for him was to humor. us. To gain time until he could find out whether he was dealing with a couple of lunatics on a furlough from the bug-house, or with a couple of murderers, or with two good men with a real story.

He led us to a little room. Made us sit down.

"Spill it," he said, using a verb that would cover the situation from all angles. It was clear that we were there to "spill" something. But he didn't know for sure whether it was a story or his blood. And he felt that the quickest way to find out was to use a verb which would compel us to show our hand.

"Not so fast, my dear sir," I warned him. "Before we speak we must have your word that you will never disclose our identity under any circumstances. If it became known that we have come to you, we would be killed in no time. Will you give us your word?"

"Yes. I can do that. I will give you my word that I will never divulge your identity to anyone," he promised. "But what's the story?" he asked.

"The story is this," I told him. "The better element of the Italian colony have decided to take matters into their own hands and put an end to all these killings. They have organized a secret society and pledged every member to gather information about every person suspected to be connected with any murder. The information will be turned in daily to the executive officers of the society, pieced together and transmitted to the police. The secret society will have spies everywhere."

"Who are the members of the society?" the editor asked.

"That, we cannot disclose. A fairly large number of Italians attended the first meeting and took the pledge. They came a few a time and at different hours so as to not arouse curiosity. They conferred with the leaders. Took their pledge. Learned the pass words. And left a few at a time as they had come. This is as much as we can tell you," I replied to the editor.

"What about yourselves?" he inquired.

"We have been delegated to represent the society and communicate with the press, the authorities and the police. Our first call has been for you. We will arrange later to meet the Mayor and the Chief of Police. We have brought a copy of a resolution adopted at the first meeting of the society. Here is the copy," I said handing it to him. It was a resolution the minister and I had drafted after supper. The editor took it and read it.

"That's swell!" he said. "I am going to print it as it is on the front page of tomorrow's morning edition. Who is it signed by?" he asked looking at the signatures.

"By us," I answered. "The Reverend here is the executive secretary of the society. I am its executive director. But you must not publish our names."

"Of course not," he agreed. "I'll cut the signatures off before the copy leaves my hands."

We lingered in the editor's office long enough to be complimented for our high spirited sense of civic duties. And make a few arrangements too. We told the editor we would be glad to meet both the Mayor and the Chief of Police. But could not risk being seen either at City Hail or at headquarters.

"You ring me up in the morning," he suggested, "I'll speak to the Mayor and the Chief and have them meet you anywhere."

The following morning the New Orleans States came out with a front page article on our midnight call. It painted us as two potential martyrs for the cause of "law and order." Only, that they did not exactly use the same words that make Cal Coolidge as famous as the