dashed through an alleyway, back for a block on the next
street in the direction he had just come, and thenceforth leisurely
and with an appearance of virtue he did not need to feign, made his
way home without molestation.

Upon examining the booty that had so strangely come into his
possession, Mr. Middleton was at a loss to think which were the
greater villains, those who had robbed, or those who had been robbed.
One wallet contained five hundred and forty dollars in greenbacks and
some memoranda accompanying it showed that it was a corruption fund to
be used in bribing voters at an approaching election. The other wallet
contained sixty dollars and a detailed plan for bribery, fraud, and
intimidation which was to be carried out in one of the doubtful wards.
There were also some silver coins, and two gold watches bearing no
names or marks that could identify their owners, but the detailed plan
contained the name of the politician who had drawn it up and who was
to be benefited by its successful accomplishment. This was a clue by
following which Mr. Middleton might have found the parties who had
been robbed and return their property, but he was deterred from doing
so by several considerations. The knowledge he had of the proposed
fraud was exceedingly dangerous to the interests of one of the
political parties and to the personal interests of one of the bosses
of that party. It would be clearly to their advantage to have Mr.
Middleton jailed and so put where there would be no danger that he
would divulge the information in his possession. Besides this, the
money was to be used for corrupt purposes, would go into the hands of
evil men who would spend it evilly. Deprived of it, a thoroughly bad
man was less likely to be elected. For these moral and prudential
reasons, Mr. Middleton saw that it was plainly his duty to the public
and to himself to retain the money. The victims, bearing in mind that
the recovery of the money by the police would also mean the discovery
of the incriminating documents and that any persecution of the robbers
might incite them to sell the documents to the opposite party, would
be very chary about doing or saying anything. But there was the
householder, who surely would tell his tale and who had an idea of Mr.
Middleton's personal appearance. Accordingly, that excellent young man
disposed of the gold watches to one Isaac Fiscovitz on lower State
Street, and with the results of the exchange purchas