Ted Terrill did not choose the first method. He had it thrust upon him.
After Ted had served his term he came back home to visit his mother's
grave, intending to take the next train out. He wore none of the prison
pallor that you read about in books, because he had been shortstop on the
penitentiary all-star baseball team, and famed for the dexterity with
which he could grab up red-hot grounders. The storied lock step and the
clipped hair effect also were missing. The superintendent of Ted's
prison had been one of the reform kind.

You never would have picked Ted for a criminal. He had none of those
interesting phrenological bumps and depressions that usually are shown to
such frank advantage in the Bertillon photographs. Ted had been
assistant cashier in the Citizens' National Bank. In a mad moment he had
attempted a little sleight-of-hand act in which certain Citizens'
National funds were to be transformed into certain glittering shares and
back again so quickly that the examiners couldn't follow it with their
eyes. But Ted was unaccustomed to these now-you-see-it-and-now-you-don't
feats and his hand slipped. The trick dropped to the floor with an awful
clatter.

Ted had been a lovable young kid, six feet high, and blonde, with a great
reputation as a dresser. He had the first yellow plush hat in our town.
It sat on his golden head like a halo. The women all liked Ted. Mrs.
Dankworth, the dashing widow (why will widows persist in being dashing?),
said that he was the only man in our town who knew how to wear a dress
suit. The men were forever slapping him on the back and asking him to
have a little something.

Ted's good looks and his clever tongue and a certain charming Irish way
he had with him caused him to be taken up by the smart set. Now, if
you've never lived in a small town you will be much amused at the idea of
its boasting a smart set. Which proves your ignorance. The small town
smart set is deadly serious about its smartness. It likes to take
six-hour runs down to the city to fit a pair of shoes and hear Caruso.
Its clothes are as well made, and its scandals as crisp, and its pace as
hasty, and its golf club as dull as the clothes, and scandals, and pace,
and golf club of its city cousins.

The hasty pace killed Ted. He tried to keep step in a set of young folks
whose fathers had made our town. And all the time his pocketbook was
yelling, "Whoa!" The young people ran largely to sc