Robsonus could distribute true shares in a
Crystal Palace, why, therefore, being so
accredited and trusted, should he not distribute
false shares, too, and out of the proceeds of
these rear a palace for himself? His own
structure was one of glass, indeed; but a
glass palace will stand as well as any marble
halls if battery be never made against it; and
it certainly is not in rule for over-lookers to
be so ungentlemanly as to annoy men enjoying
trust and confidence with questions. If
Redpattus, keeping the accounts of a gigantic
enterprise, can write in his books three
nothings after one, and clear nine hundred
and ninety-nine pounds by the transaction,
ought he not to grow rich, and upon an
income of five hundred pounds a-year to
expend forty thousand on the furniture of
such a happy home as he is thus enabled to
establish?  Himself supported by the predatory
art, Redpattus could support the arts of
painting and sculpture, patronise literature,
smile beneficently on the poor out of
subscriptions' lists to public charities. So Paulus,
banker, could say grace before his daily meal
on widows' houses, in daily prayer offered up
before his clerks. Charity is the very oldest
cloak that selfishness can wear, and still the
best, still for good and for evil, the great
coverer of sin. Paulus, the union-clerk, called
by his mates Honestus, keeping the books of
the houseless poor, not only took part of the
money given to the destitute, while earning
testimonials by his show of honesty, but even
with the help of a collector, attained such
perfection in the Predatory Art that he would
rate householders in his parish with an extra
penny or two in the pound for the increase
of his own private income. After narrating
this achievement, I sink to a bathos if I
name the good Samaritan who stood by one
of the way-sides in a great city, and made
application to the rich for food and drink,
that he might give them to the poor, but
maintained his own kitchen therewith, and
sent away unaided and uncomforted many
a neighbour who, even in the very house
of that Samaritan, had fallen among thieves.

Seeing that merchants take as goods, and
for a long time pass from hand to hand for
documents which represent goods as securely
as bank notes represent money, dock warrants
written in accordance with a certain
form, Carbo rented a small wharf, so situated,
that it seemed to be part of a noble pile of
attached warehouses, and with the aid of a
friend, Carbo set up in a predatory line of
business, as a manufacturer of dock warrants.
In this way he very literally made a
great deal of money. Quislibet was a yet
cleverer man. He contrived letters from a
London firm on a colonial bank, went to the
colony, had his draughts honoured, summoned
great dinner-parties by notes headed with a
coat-of-arms, lived as the chief man in those
distant parts, and when detection followed,
Quislibet evaded punishment by legal difficulties
that he had created on the score of
jurisdiction. Meagerus, alias Morus, alias
Jennerus, or Our Mr. Jenner, succeeded as
a swindler on a smaller scale. He knew the
slang of true commercial correspondence, and
could forge the signatures of firms dealing
with certain City houses. Thus he delivered
to the house of Folius, this letter:

Manchester, September 6, 1856.
Gentlemen,—We can do with a few flounced silks.
Have you something new and pretty, about sixty shillings
to seventy shillings? You will oblige by sending us a
few on appro. Please send them to our Mr. Jenner,
at Gregory's Hotel, Cheapside, and oblige
Yours, respectfully,
BRUTUS, CASSIUS, and CINNAMON.
C.
Messrs. Folius and Co.

Our Mr. Jenner changed the dresses sent on
appro, for pawnbro's dups.

Leo began business as a London merchant,
with a capital of fifty pounds, and taking
lodgings, proceeded to incur household
expenses as a single man, at the rate of nine
hundred and fifty-five pounds a-year. At
the end of three years' trade, the debts and
liabilities of Leo came to thirty thousand
pounds. There were no assets. There were
no profits. It is an achievement in the
Predatory Art, if, after three years thus enjoyed
at the expense of society, a certificate of
bankruptcy square all accounts.

CHAPTER THE FOURTH. THE SUMMARY.

Thus far have I taught by example those
persons, who, being unversed in the Predatory
Art, would learn what they may accomplish,
if they follow it successfully. They
may convert lead into gold. They may earn
a thousand pounds in a second, by the drawing
of three little circles in a book; they may
make money out of paper. If they go abroad
they may feast like princes, and be honoured
for nothing; if they stay at home, they may,
without any act of forgery, live at the rate of
a thousand pounds a-year upon a capital of
fifty. It is no part of my task to tell the
perils of the road. I recommend it to those
who like a run down-hill in search of fortune.
I speak not of the troubles by the way, and
of the deep slough at the bottom. Who fears
them?

Let me add, as a last recommendation
to the art of which I have been treating,
that he who pursues it will not lack for company,
seeing that like most other professions
it is in these days evidently crowded. I do
not say that in England it is overcrowded,
for here prey abounds—there is no lack of
honest, fat, and unsuspicious men. In other
countries the art may have greater difficulties
to contend with. Thus we learn that in
France, two London pick-pockets have just
been arrested, who express unfeigned disgust
at the circumstance that of ten purses stolen
at the Comic Opera, the aggregate contents
did not amount to eight pounds. This little