The trial of Ammon involved practically the reproving of the case against Miller, for which the latter had been convicted and sentenced to ten years in State’s prison, whence he now issued like one from the tomb to point the skeleton, incriminating finger at his betrayer.  But the case began by the convict-witness testifying that the whole business was a miserable fraud from start to finish, carried on and guided by the advice of the defendant.  He told how he, a mere boy of twenty-one, burdened with a sick wife and baby, unfitted by training or ability for any sort of lucrative employment, a hanger-on of bucket shops and, in his palmiest days, a speculator in tiny lots of feebly margined stocks, finding himself without means of support, conceived the alluring idea of soliciting funds for investment, promising enormous interest, and paying this interest out of the principal intrusted to him.  For a time he preyed only upon his friends, claiming “inside information” of large “deals” and paying ten per cent. per week on the money received out of his latest deposits.

Surely the history of civilization is a history of credulity.  Miller prospered.  His earlier friend-customers who had hesitatingly taken his receipt for ten dollars, and thereafter had received one dollar every Monday morning, repeated the operation and returned in ever-increasing numbers.  From having his office “in his hat,” he took an upper room in a small two-story house at 144 Floyd Street, Brooklyn—­an humble tenement, destined to be the scene of one of the most extraordinary exhibitions of man’s cupidity and foolishness in modern times.  At first he had tramped round, like a pedler, delivering the dividends himself and soliciting more, but soon he hired a boy.  This was in February, 1899.  Business increased.  The golden flood began to appear in an attenuated but constant rivulet.  He hired four more employees and the whole top floor of the house.  The golden rivulet became a steady stream.  From a “panhandler” he rolled in ready thousands.  The future opened into magnificent auriferous distances.  He began to call himself “The Franklin Syndicate,” and to advertise that “the way to wealth is as plain as the road to the market.”  He copied the real brokers and scattered circulars and “weekly letters” over the country, exciting the rural mind in distant Manitoba and Louisiana.

There was an instantaneous response.  His mail required the exclusive attention of several clerks.  The stream of gold became a rushing torrent.  Every Monday morning the Floyd Street house was crowded with depositors who drew their interest, added to it, deposited it again, and went upon their way rejoicing.  Nobody was going to have to work any more.  The out-of-town customers received checks for their interest drawn upon “The Franklin Syndicate,” together with printed receipts for their deposits, all signed “William F. Miller,” by means of a rubber stamp.  No human hand could have signed them all