At the time when Jimmy slept in his chair, previous to being aroused from his slumbers by the invasion of Spike, a certain Mr. John McEachern, Captain of Police, was seated in the parlour of his uptown villa, reading. He was a man built on a large scale. Everything about him was large⁠—his hands, his feet, his shoulders, his chest, and particularly his jaw⁠—which even in his moments of calm was aggressive, and which stood out, when anything happened to ruffle him, like the ram of a battleship. In his patrolman days, which had been passed mainly on the East Side, this jaw of his had acquired a reputation from Park Row to Fourteenth Street. No gang fight, however absorbing, could retain the undivided attention of the young blood of the Bowery when Mr. McEachern’s jaw hove in sight, with the rest of his massive person in close attendance. He was a man who knew no fear, and he had gone through disorderly mobs like an east wind.

But there was another side to his character. In fact, that other side was so large that the rest of him, his readiness in combat and his zeal in breaking up public disturbances, might be said to have been only an offshoot. For his ambition was as large as his fist and as aggressive as his jaw. He had entered the Force with the single idea of becoming rich, and had set about achieving his object with a strenuous vigour that was as irresistible as his mighty locust-stick. Some policemen are born grafters, some achieve graft, and some have graft thrust upon them. Mr. McEachern had begun by being the first, had risen to the second, and for some years now had been a prominent member of the small and hugely prosperous third class, the class which does not go out seeking graft, but sits at home and lets graft come to them.

Though neither his name nor his financial methods suggested it, Mr. McEachern was by birth an English gentleman. His complete history would take long to write. Abridged, it may be told as follows. His real name was John Forrest, and he was the only son of one Eustace Forrest, at one time a major in the Guards. His only other relative was Edward, Eustace’s elder brother, a bachelor. When Mrs. Eustace died, four years after the marriage, the widower, having spent eighteen months at Monte Carlo working out an infallible system for breaking the bank, to the great contentment of M. Blanc and the management in general, proceeded to the gardens, where he shot himself in the orthodox way, leaving many liabilities, no assets, and one son.

Edward, by this time a man of substance in Lombard Street, adopted John, and sent him to a series of schools, beginning with a kindergarten and ending with Eton.

Unfortunately, Eton had demanded from John a higher standard of conduct than he was prepared to supply, and a week after his eighteenth birthday his career as an Etonian closed prematurely. Edward Forrest thereupon delivered his ultimatum. John could choose between the smallest of small posts in his uncle’s business and £100 in banknotes, coupled with the usual handwashing and disowning. John had reached out for that money almost before the words had left his uncle’s mouth. He left for Liverpool that day and for New York on the morrow.

He spent his hundred pounds, tried his hand without success at one or two odd jobs, and finally fell in with a friendly policeman, who, observing the young man’s physique, which even then was impressive, suggested that he should join the Force. The policeman, whose name was O’Flaherty, having talked the matter over with two other policemen whose names were O’Rourke and Muldoon, strongly recommended that he should change his name to something Irish, the better to equip him for his new profession. Accordingly, John Forrest ceased to be and Patrolman J. McEachern was born.

In his search for wealth he had been content to abide his time. He did not want the trifling sum which every New York policeman acquires. His object was something bigger, and he was prepared to wait for it. He knew that small beginnings were an annoying but unavoidable preliminary to all great fortunes. Probably Captain Kidd had started in a small way. Certainly Mr. Rockefeller had. He was content to follow in the footsteps of the masters.

A patrolman’s opportunities of amassing wealth are not great. Mr. McEachern had made the best of a bad job. He had not disdained the dollars which came as single spies rather than in battalions. Until the time should arrive when he might angle for whales he was prepared to catch sprats.

Much may be done, even on a small scale, by perseverance. In those early days Mr. McEachern’s observant eye had not failed to notice certain pedlars who obstructed the traffic, diverse tradesmen who did the same by the pavement, and restaurant-keepers not a few with a distaste for closing at one o’clock in the morning. His researches in this field were not unprofitable. In a reasonably short space of time he had put by the $3,000 which were the price of his promotion to detective-sergeant. He did not like paying $3,000 for promotion, but there must be sinking of capital if an investment is to prosper. Mr. McEachern “came across,” and climbed one more step up the ladder.

As detective-sergeant he found his horizon enlarged. There was more scope for a man of parts. Things moved more rapidly. The world seemed full of philanthropists anxious to “dress his front” and do him other little kindnesses. Mr. McEachern was no churl. He let them dress his front; he accepted the little kindnesses. Presently he found that he had $15,000 to spare for any small flutter that might take his fancy. Singularly enough, this was the precise sum necessary to make him a captain.

He became a captain. And it was then that he discovered that El Dorado was no mere poet’s dream, and that Tom Tiddler’s Ground, where one might stand picking up gold and silver, was as definite a locality as Brooklyn or the Bronx. At last, after years of patient waiting, he stood like Moses on the mountain, looking down into the Promised Land. He had come to where the big money was.

The book he was reading now was the little notebook in which he kept a record of his investments, which were numerous and varied. That the contents were satisfactory was obvious at a glance. The smile on his face, and the reposeful position of his jaw were proof enough of that. There were notes relating to house property, railroad shares, and a dozen other profitable things. He was a rich man.

This was a fact which was entirely unsuspected by his neighbours, with whom he maintained somewhat distant relations, accepting no invitations and giving none. For Mr. McEachern was playing a big game. Other eminent buccaneers in his walk of life had been content to be rich men in a community where moderate means were the rule. But about Mr. McEachern there was a touch of the Napoleonic. He meant to get back into society⁠—the society of England. Other people have noted the fact⁠—which had impressed itself very firmly on the policeman’s mind⁠—that between England and the United States there are 3,000 miles of deep water. In the United States he would be a retired police captain; in England an American gentleman of large and independent means with a beautiful daughter.

That was the ruling impulse in his life⁠—his daughter Molly. Though, if he had been a bachelor, he would certainly not have been satisfied to pursue a humble career aloof from graft; on the other hand, if it had not been for Molly he would not have felt, as he gathered in his dishonest wealth, that he was conducting a sort of Holy War. Ever since his wife had died, in his detective-sergeant days, leaving him with a year-old daughter, his ambitions had been inseparably connected with Molly.

All his thoughts were on the future. This New York life was only a preparation for the splendours to come. He spent not a dollar unnecessarily. When Molly was home from school they lived together simply and quietly in the small house which Molly’s taste made so comfortable. The neighbours, knowing his profession and seeing the modest scale on which he lived, told each other that here, at any rate, was a policeman whose hands were clean of graft. They did not know of the stream that poured week by week and year by year into his bank, to be diverted at intervals into the most profitable channels. Until the time should come for the great change, economy was his motto. The expenses of his home were kept within the bounds of his official salary. All extras went to swell his savings.

He closed his book with a contented sigh and lit another cigar. Cigars were his only personal luxury. He drank nothing, ate the simplest food, and made a suit of clothes last for quite an unusual length of time; but no passion for economy could make him deny himself smoke.

He sat on, thinking. It was very late, but he did not feel ready for bed. A great moment had arrived in his affairs. For days Wall Street had been undergoing one of its periodical fits of jumpiness. There had been rumours and counter-rumours, until finally from the confusion there had soared up like a rocket the one particular stock in which he was most largely interested. He had unloaded that morning, and the result had left him slightly dizzy. The main point to which his mind clung was that the time had come at last. He could make the great change now at any moment that suited him.

He was blowing clouds of smoke and gloating over this fact when the door opened, admitting a bull terrier, a bulldog, and in the wake of the procession a girl in a kimono and red slippers.