pains and penalties inflicted upon lawless persons who appropriate motors
illegally, he was the victim of an irresistible temptation to jump into
the machine thus left in the highway, drive as near home as he dared, and
then abandon it. The owner of the roadster was presumably eating his
evening meal in peace in the snug little cottage behind the shrubbery, and
The Hopper was aware of no sound reason why he should not seize the
vehicle and further widen the distance between himself and a
suspicious-looking gentleman he had observed on the New Haven local.

The Hopper's conscience was not altogether at ease, as he had, that
afternoon, possessed himself of a bill-book that was protruding from the
breast-pocket of a dignified citizen whose strap he had shared in a
crowded subway train. Having foresworn crime as a means of livelihood, The
Hopper was chagrined that he had suffered himself to be beguiled into
stealing by the mere propinquity of a piece of red leather. He was angry
at the world as well as himself. People should not go about with
bill-books sticking out of their pockets; it was unfair and unjust to
those weak members of the human race who yield readily to temptation.

He had agreed with Mary when she married him and the chicken farm that
they would respect the Ten Commandments and all statutory laws, State and
Federal, and he was painfully conscious that when he confessed his sin she
would deal severely with him. Even Humpy, now enjoying a peace that he had
rarely known outside the walls of prison, even Humpy would be bitter. The
thought that he was again among the hunted would depress Mary and Humpy,
and he knew that their harshness would be intensified because of his
violation of the unwritten law of the underworld in resorting to
purse-lifting, an infringement upon a branch of felony despicable and
greatly inferior in dignity to safe-blowing.

These reflections spurred The Hopper to action, for the sooner he reached
home the more quickly he could explain his protracted stay in New York (to
which metropolis he had repaired in the hope of making a better price for
eggs with the commission merchants who handled his products), submit
himself to Mary's chastisement, and promise to sin no more. By returning
on Christmas Eve, of all times, again a fugitive, he knew that he would
merit the unsparing condemnation that Mary and Humpy would visit upon him.
It was possible, it was even quite likely, that the short, stoc