Among those few acquaintances I had formed during my brief
prosperity, was one with a gentleman named Harris, who had owned
apartments under mine on Twenty-second Street. Harris was elegant,
educated, traveled, and apparently well-to-do in riches. Busy with my
own mounting fortunes, the questions of who Harris was? and what he
did? and how he lived? never rapped at the door of my curiosity for
reply. One night, however, as we sat over a late and by no means a
first bottle of wine, Harris himself informed me that he was employed
in smuggling; had a partner-accomplice in the Customs House, and
perfect arrangements aboard a certain ship. By these last double
advantages, he came aboard with twenty trunks, if he so pleased,
without risking anything from the inquisitiveness or loquacity of the
officers of the ship; and later debarked at New York with the
certainty of going scatheless through the customs as rapidly as his
Inspector partner could chalk scrawlingly "O.K." upon his sundry
pieces of baggage.
Coming from Old Trinity, still mooting Cornbury and his smugglings, my
thoughts turned to Harris. Also, for the earliest time, I began to
consider within myself whether smuggling was not a field of business
wherein a pushing man might grow and reap a harvest.
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