congratulated on his rapidity, and then told to go to various other offices in the neighbourhood of the Royal Exchange, and to purchase more shares. Four hundred pounds in Bank of England Notes were handed him, and the wishes of the mysterious Mr. Brank were satisfactorily effected. These scenes were continually enacted. Notes to a large amount were thus circulated; lottery-tickets purchased; and Mr. Brank—always in a coach, with his face studiously concealed—was ever ready on the spot to receive them. The surprise of the servant was somewhat excited; but had he known that from the period he left his master to purchase the tickets, one female figure accompanied all his movements; that when he entered the offices, it waited at the door, peered cautiously in at the window, hovered around him like a second shadow, watched him carefully, and never left him until once more he was in the Company of his employer—that surprise would have been greatly increased.[2] Again and again were these extraordinary scenes rehearsed. At last the Bank obtained a clue, and the servant was taken into custody. The directors imagined that they had secured the actor of so many parts; that the flood of forged notes which had inundated that establishment would at length be dammed up at his source. Their hopes proved fallacious, and it was found that “Old Patch,” (as the mysterious forger was, from the servant’s description, nick-named) had been sufficiently clever to baffle the Bank directors. The house in Titchfield Street was searched; but Mr. Brank had deserted it, and not a trace of a single implement of forgery was to be seen. Footnote 2: Francis’s History of the Bank of England. All that could be obtained was some little knowledge of “Old Patch’s” proceedings. It appeared that he carried on his paper coining entirely by himself. His only confidant was his mistress. He was his own engraver. He even made his own ink. He manufactured his own paper. With a private press he worked his own notes; and counterfeited the signatures of the cashiers, completely. But these discoveries had no effect; for it became evident that Mr. Patch had set up a press elsewhere. Although his secret continued as impenetrable, his notes became as plentiful as ever. Five years of unbounded prosperity ought to have satisfied him; but it did not. Success seemed to pall him. His genius was of that insatiable order which demands new excitements, and a constant succession of new flights. The following paragraph from a newspaper of 1786 relates to the same individual:—