"On the following day, therefore, I went to Johnson's office, and there put on a hickory shirt, a pair of coarse boots and pantaloons, and in a few minutes I was transformed into a veritable countryman. Johnson colored my face and hands with some preparation which made me appear like a tanned and sunburnt farmer, and thus equipped, I started for the bank. I was provided with two checks for three hundred dollars each, one of which was to be presented to the Geneva bank, when, if I experienced no trouble, I was to present the other at the Union National Bank, where also Mr. Sharpless kept an account. I had no difficulty whatever in obtaining the money, and after dividing it among the other two, I left town on the first train. I received two hundred dollars for my share, and the forgeries were not discovered until a long time had elapsed, and when it was almost impossible to obtain any information concerning them. To this day I don't believe that any of the officers of the two banks have the slightest idea as to how the thing was done. Soon after this forgery, Johnson left Geneva and located at St. Louis, where he still resides. Emboldened by the success of this first venture, Eugene Pearson, who was really the master-spirit in these later efforts, boldly proposed to rob the bank in which he was engaged, but this was something too audacious to be considered for a moment. At length, by dint of repeated suggestions, Johnson and myself began to give some consideration to the matter, and upon Pearson's assuring us of the perfect ease with which the robbery might be accomplished, we at last began to discuss various plans by which the bank might be robbed. Several ideas and propositions were discussed, but either through fear or some other consideration, they all fell through.