e're stiff 'uns.'

"'Well,' he says, quite cool-like, 'I think I shall be a burglar.'

"I dropped into the seat opposite and stared at him. If any other lad
had said it I should have known it was only foolishness, but he was just
the sort to mean it.

"'It's the only calling I can think of,' says he, 'that has got any
element of excitement left in it.'

"'You call seven years at Portland "excitement," do you?' says I,
thinking of the argument most likely to tell upon him.

"'What's the difference,' answers he, 'between Portland and the ordinary
labouring man's life, except that at Portland you never need fear being
out of work?' He was a rare one to argue. 'Besides,' says he, 'it's
only the fools as gets copped. Look at that diamond robbery in Bond
Street, two years ago. Fifty thousand pounds' worth of jewels stolen,
and never a clue to this day! Look at the Dublin Bank robbery,' says he,
his eyes all alight, and his face flushed like a girl's. 'Three thousand
pounds in golden sovereigns walked away with in broad daylight, and never
so much as the flick of a coat-tail seen. Those are the sort of men I'm
thinking of, not the bricklayer out of work, who smashes a window and
gets ten years for breaking open a cheesemonger's till with nine and
fourpence ha'penny in it.'

"'Yes,' says I, 'and are you forgetting the chap who was nabbed at
Birmingham only last week? He wasn't exactly an amatoor. How long do
think he'll get?'

"'A man like that deserves what he gets,' answers he; 'couldn't hit a
police-man at six yards.'

"'You bloodthirsty young scoundrel,' I says; 'do you mean you wouldn't
stick at murder?'

"'It's all in the game,' says he, not in the least put out. 'I take my
risks, he takes his. It's no more murder than soldiering is.'

"'It's taking a human creature's life,' I says.

"'Well,' he says, 'what of it? There's plenty more where he comes from.'

"I tried reasoning with him from time to time, but he wasn't a sort of
boy to be moved from a purpose. His mother was the only argument that
had any weight with him. I believe so long as she had lived he would
have kept straight; that was the only soft spot in him. But
unfortunately she died a couple of years later, and then I lost sight of
Joe altogether. I made enquiries, but no one could tell me anything. He
had just disappeared, that's all.

"One afternoon, four years later, I was sitting in the coffee-room of a
City restaurant wher