sums attract no attention, I readily exchanged my money for 350
one-thousand-franc notes.

* * * * *

Going to Rothschild's, I bought exchange on New York for $80,000, and
left the same night for London. Very many times I journeyed over that
route in after years, but never with so light a heart. I was young and
enthusiastic; all the glamour and poetry of life hung around me, while I
was too inexperienced to notice whither I was drifting, or to understand
the powerful current upon which I had embarked. In fact, I had sold
myself to do the devil's work, and day by day the chain would tighten,
while all the time I thought I could when I pleased stop short on the
downward grade and take the back track. More experience would have
taught me that every one who forsook the path of honor not only thought
the same, but had a purpose to even everything up some day and make
restitution. And to-day there is not a criminal but who, at the start,
looks forward to the time when he will no longer war against society,
but will go out and come in at peace with all men. But when one comes to
think of it, what a fool's game is that of a man who fights against
society!

[Illustration: "THEY FOUND A BODY, RAGGED, EMACIATED, FORLORN. IT WAS
BREA."--Page 120.]

The criminal has but two arms, very short and weak they are, and of
flesh, too. He has but two eyes that cannot possibly see around the
nearest corner, while society has a million arms of steel that can reach
around the world, and a million eyes which are never closed, that can
pierce the thickest gloom with sleepless vigilance. The poor, unhappy
criminal, by fortunate dexterity, may escape for a little, but at last
society lays her iron grasp on him, and with giant force hurls him into
a dungeon. As for the short-lived, tempestuous success that some few
criminals have, is there any sweetness in it? I say no; success won in
honest fight is sweet, but I know from my own experience that the
success of crime brings no sweetness, no blessing with it, but leaves
the mind a prey to a thousand haunting fears that make shipwreck of
peace.

There were no sleeping cars in all Europe then, so I sat up in a
compartment and really enjoyed the ride, viewing the country by
moonlight. At midnight we arrived at Calais, and took the boat for
Dover. Then the express for London. Arriving at Victoria Station I took
a cab to Mrs. Green's, where I had breakfast a l'anglai