eight-guinea chance at an office in the
Haymarket, and with the forty pounds to purchase
the same class of chance at an office at the comer
of Bridge-street, Westminster. Samuel had
canvas bags given him so as to keep the different
shares and change distinct. On his way to meet
his master at the Parliament-street Coffee-house,
Mr. Brank hailed him from the other side of
the road, commending him for his speed and
diligence. He was then sent to Charing-cross,
and King-street and York-street, Covent Garden,
to purchase more chances and change more
notes in the same careful manner. In York-street,
by a mere coincidence, his master again met
him, was pleased to meet him, and taking him
into the coach, drove him to Cheapside to change
four hundred pounds' worth more of notes in
the lottery-offices round the Exchange. For
many days this went on, Samuel always observing
that whenever he entered an office a lady
stepped out from a coach behind Mr. Brank's,
and followed him in. This lady remained as long
as Samuel remained, and then walked out,
purchasing nothing.

One day, after changing eight hundred pounds'
worth of notes, Mr. Brank took his servant to
Greenwich to dine at the Ship, while he went to see
the young nobleman's steward and banker, to get
more money for those terrible lottery-tickets.
On their return to town, Samuel changed more
notes, to the amount of three hundred and fifty
pounds. One evening, when Samuel had to
meet his master at Will's Coffee-house with five
hundred pounds in shares and change, he found, to
his horror, that he was an hour late, and that a
porter had been there after him. While the lad
stood in the street hesitating, the porter stepped
up to him and told him that au old gentleman
wanted to speak to him under a gateway in
Macclesfield-street. A coach was called, they both
got in, and drove to Soho-square. Mr. Brank was
very angry at Samuel's want of punctuality, and
left him at the corner of Bateman's-buildings.

It pains us to confess that this Mr. Brank was
also of the old Schutz gang, and one of the
most subtle and wily of forgers. Four days after,
Samuel, being arrested, was employed by Mr.
Bond, the clerk at Bow-street, to help to apprehend
the old fox, his master. On receiving a
message to meet his master at Will's Coffee-
house at a particular hour, it was agreed that
Samuel should go as usual, followed at a
distance by Moses Morant, an officer, dressed as a
porter, carrying a knot on his shoulder, and by
Mr. Bond, dressed as a lady.

The plan succeeded very well at first. A
porter had just called to know if Samuel had
been there. Samuel instantly went back and
told the lady. Mr. Brank, watching this from
the ambuscade of a hackney-coach, and seeing
the whispering, at once scented mischief, and
drove safely off. A rush was instantly made
to Titchfield-street, and handbills were again
showered over the streets. All, of course, in
vain.

It was evident that the man Price was one of
the leaders of these dexterous and artful forgers.
Price had been a fraudulent bankrupt, a contriver
of matrimonial advertisements, and a keeper of
swindling lottery-offices. His last trick had
been played on a retired grocer, named Roberts,
at Knightsbridge, whose friendship he, had
gained, and to whom he had represented
himself as a stockbroker. Roberts, without
consciousness of the fact, had been used by Price
to change his forged notes. He had represented
to Roberts that an old friend of his, a
Mr. Bond — a retired broker, who had made an
enormous fortune in the Alley — wished himself
and a trusty friend to become his executors,
having no relations living except an old maiden
sister. With management, Price said, all
the immense property of the old man — who
lived in that singularly retired part of the world,
Union-court, Leather-lane, Holborn would fall
into the hands of his executors.

On an appointed day and hour, Roberts was
to meet Price at Mr. Bond's. On arriving
there, he found Price had had a business
appointment at the City Coffee-house; but the
lady of the house showed him up-stairs to Mr.
Bond: a decrepid failing old man, buried in a
great chair, with his legs on another, a nightcap
on his head, and his chin and mouth covered
with flannel. Mr. Bond, with many feeble
coughs, lamented Price's absence, and praised
that gentleman's honour, honesty, and integrity;
above all, his choice of a brother executor. When
Roberts next met Price at the coffee-house, and
some business had been transacted, Price
proposed a call on Mr. Bond. On arriving,
however, at Leather-lane, they found that Mr.
Bond had just started in a coach to Highgate
for an airing. After two or three visits to Mr.
Bond, but never with Price, the old gentleman
made his will, and put down Roberts, the executor,
for such a large amount, that, on the strength
of it, Price obtained nearly one thousand pounds
in cash from Roberts, and bonds for two hundred
pounds more.

Price had also, disguised as an old man,
succeeded in getting change for six forged fifty-
pound notes from Roberts's brother, a grocer in
Oxford-street, with whom he had scraped an
acquaintance. On the notes being stopped,
Roberts brought an action against the bankers,
and actually paid Price for his zeal in obtaining
witnesses tor the defence and during the trial,
at which he (Price) himself had the unblushing
audacity to attend.

Though never thoroughly unmasked, this member
of Schutz's gang was indeed not unknown to
the police magistrates. A thunderbolt from Bow-
street was about to fall on Mr. Price; and his
apprehension (if such an eel could be caught, and,
when caught, held by a well-sanded hand) might
lead to disclosures concerning the old gentleman
with the yellow jaundice who bought diamonds;
the old gentleman with the gout in Leather-lane,
who had money in the funds; the old gentleman
wilh the green silk shade, who relished poor
Spillsbury's drops; and the old gentleman with
the patch on his left eye, who was guardian to the
prodigal young nobleman. The Forty Thieves