The Works of George W. M. Reynolds — page 178: what you’re looking at

Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.

THE GATHERING STORM 161 ‘Well does the proverb say that “ the man who deliberates is lost.”’ Whenever an evil idea enters the head, if the individual have not the courage to seize it by the neck at ~ once as he would a snake that turned to bite him, he 1s led by an invisible fascination to look at it in the face, examine it, reflect upon it, and suffer it to haunt him until it becomes his master at last. So was it with Hmmerson, and having thus yielded to the influence of his iniquitous promptings, he proceeded with careful deliberation to execute the crime. A bill of exchange, payable at twenty-one days aiter date, was duly drawn up by his experienced hand, and across it he forged the names of a large trading firm with whom he had had many previous transactions and whose respectability was sufficient to render the bill easy of negotiation. It was for the amount of fifteen hundred guineas, and looked alto- gether, in Emmerson’s estimation, as genuine a document as ever was presented for discount. But nevertheless, the moment he had put the finishing stroke to the forgery, he felt a strange sensation pass over him, as if his position had changed all in a moment, and bad as it was before, had now become ten thousand times worse. Five minutes back, and it was merely the bankruptcy court and the King’s Bench that threatened him; now he had laid himself open to the Old Bailey and Newgate. Ay, and this was not all, for with the mere fact of tracing those few black lines upon a slip of paper, the still blacker spars of the gibbet had suddenly started up before his view. But Emmerson was not the man to be deterred by mere imaginary terrors from his purpose. He was in that condi- tion which is most friendly to the designs of Satan, most favourable to the temptations in which the Evil One seeks to ensnare frail humanity. Accordingly, Emmerson put the bill into his pocketbook, and issuing forth, paused in the front office to say, ‘‘ Well, Mr. Varian, it is time to lock up. Be here early in the morning, as we shall then go over the books together.” With these words the bill-broker took his departure, hugging the idea that his intention was totally unsuspected _ by his clerk; but had he seen the strange expression which passed over Varian’s countenance the instant the door closed behind him, he would not have felt so happy nor so confident in the course which he was pursuing. COMMELOO <S) (C(O) im