A FALSE MOVE.

Daily Telegraph (Napier), Issue 4036, 28 June 1884, Page 6 (Supplement)

A FALSE MOVE.

He was a porter in a wholesale dry goods house on Jefferson avenue. His salary was not large enough to warrant him in buying a fast horse and wearing silk undershirts, but he was growing fat and smoking fair to medium cigars. In an evil moment the tempter came and wbispei'ed in his ear that he could make £20,000 as easy as rolling off a log. With that much money ip his hjnd pocket he could cheese the racket and have a new tailor every Week in the ycai\ Yesterday morning at nine o'clock the porter invited the senior partner to go upon tho roof with him to see about repairs. There was a wicked leer on his faco and a strange light in his eyes, but the guileless senior partner noticed nothing but the fact that the porter was getting a brandy flush on his nose. No sooner had they reached the roof than the villain seized his employer and held him suspended over tho dizzy height, and cried out: — 'Your cheque for $20,000 or I'll drop you into the alley!' 'Say $15,000?' 'Never!' ' Make it $17,000 ?' ' I will not! Givo mb what I ask or over you go.' ' Very well—l knock under.' The senior partner sat down on the icy cover of tho trap-door and wrote tho cheque for the sum named. The porter seized it and swiftly descended and closed tho trap to keep tho victim on tho roof. It was but the work of five minutes to run to the bank and present the cheque. ' Never had a cent on deposit with us,' said the cashier, as he shoved it'back. The porter had made a false move, and he had lost. He crossed the river on the ice, and is now a wanderer on foreign shores.