Written for The Flag of Our Union

The Double Puzzle

by Frances Mary Schoolcraft

George Vincent awoke one morning with a fixed idea in his mind that “something must be done.” It was not a sudden sense of the excellence of Mr. Longfellow’s advice to be “up and doing” that had struck him, although he had no more clearly defined idea in his mind of the nature of the something than if he had been moved only by an abstract impulse to action. All he knew was that it must result in money. His pecuniary affairs had arrived at a conjuncture when something is inevitable, and his anxiety arose from his desire to get the innings, and be the agent, instead of the object, of the next financial operation in which his name should figure. He was on the brink of ruin, and the peculiar dizziness produced by that insecure position often makes men so insane that they plunge headforemost into it, when a little steadier nerve would show them some way to avoid the plunge altogether. He went to his office, revolving schemes in his mind to raise sums of money, all of which schemes were very ingenious but utterly impracticable, unless he had had money already. He found no comfort in his office; there was a cold and unfeeling missive from the notary public, in regard to a rash engagement made by Vincent some sixty days since, to pay a certain sum of money upon a day already elapsed; and various demands for money from various sources, all more or less expected, but none the more welcome. Vincent did very little that day but to rush frantically up and down State street, as uselessly as if he was trying to add a cubit to his stature, and… Read More