t take fire and consume, until his fingers were scorched by
the blaze. "Pity!" he whispered--"good money like that."

He seated himself again and began with a fierce, sustained delight to
arrange and sort the bank-bills, laying the larger denominations by
themselves, smoothing them down with a quick and tender touch, a
kindling eye and a beating heart. In his whole life, past and future,
there was not such another moment of enjoyment. Money is, of course,
precious and acceptable to all men except idiots. But, if it means much
to the good and virtuous, how infinitely more it means to the
thoroughly depraved--the instant gratification of every savage and
hungry devil of a passion which their vile natures harbor. Though the
first and principal thing Offitt thought of was the possession of Maud
Matchin, his excited fancy did not stop there. A long gallery of
vicious pictures stretched out before his flaming eyes, as he reckoned
up the harvest of his hand. The mere thought that each bill represented
a dinner, where he might eat and drink what he liked, was enough to
inebriate a starved rogue whose excesses had always been limited by his
poverty.

When he had counted and sorted his cash, he took enough for his
immediate needs and put it in his wallet. The rest he made up into
convenient packages, which he tied compactly with twine and disposed in
his various pockets. "I'll chance it," he thought, after some
deliberation. "If they get me, they can get the money, too. But they
sha'n't get it without me."

He threw himself on his bed, and slept soundly till morning.

XVIII.

OFFITT PLANS A LONG JOURNEY.

The bright sun and the morning noises of the city waked Offitt from his
sleep. As he dressed himself the weight of the packages in his pockets
gave him a pleasant sensation to begin the day with. He felt as if he
were entering upon a new state of existence--a life with plenty of
money. He composed in his mind an elaborate breakfast as he walked
down-stairs and took his way to a restaurant, which he entered with the
assured step of a man of capital. He gave his order to the waiter with
more decision than usual, and told him in closing "not to be all day
about it, either."

While waiting for his breakfast, he opened the morning "Bale Fire" to
see if there was any account of "The Algonquin Avenue Tragedy." This
was the phrase which he had arranged in his mind as the probable
head-line of the article. He had so co