difying
was said by the judge weightily, about the retribution overtaking the
perpetrator of `the most heartless frauds on an unprecedented scale.' I
don't understand these things much, but it appears that he had juggled
with accounts, cooked balance sheets, had gathered in deposits months
after he ought to have known himself to be hopelessly insolvent, and
done enough of other things, highly reprehensible in the eyes of the
law, to earn for himself seven years' penal servitude. The sentence
making its way outside met with a good reception. A small mob composed
mainly of people who themselves did not look particularly clever and
scrupulous, leavened by a slight sprinkling of genuine pickpockets
amused itself by cheering in the most penetrating, abominable cold
drizzle that I remember. I happened to be passing there on my way from
the East-End where I had spent my day about the Docks with an old chum
who was looking after the fitting out of a new ship. I am always eager,
when allowed, to call on a new ship. They interest me like charming
young persons."

I got mixed up in that crowd seething with an animosity as senseless as
things of the street always are, and it was while I was laboriously
making my way out of it that the pressman of whom I spoke was jostled
against me. He did me the justice to be surprised. "What? You here!
The last person in the world--If I had known I could have got you
inside. Plenty of room. Interest been over for the last three days.
Got seven years. Well, I am glad."

"Why are you glad? Because he's got seven years?" I asked, greatly
incommoded by the pressure of a hulking fellow who was remarking to some
of his equally oppressive friends that the "beggar ought to have been
pole-axed." I don't know whether he had ever confided his savings to de
Barral but if so, judging from his appearance, they must have been the
proceeds of some successful burglary. The pressman by my side said
`No,' to my question. He was glad because it was all over. He had
suffered greatly from the heat and the bad air of the court. The
clammy, raw, chill of the streets seemed to affect his liver instantly.
He became contemptuous and irritable and plied his elbows viciously
making way for himself and me.

A dull affair this. All such cases were dull. No really dramatic
moments. The book-keeping of The Orb and all the rest of them was
certainly a burlesque revelation but the public did not care for