had owned
it a fortnight, he had felt a hundred times he could have burned it out
of the exasperation of mere spite against it.

He heard, of course, of Bommaney's flight, and of the failure of the
old-established business house. People talked about these things a
good deal for a time, and he himself listened to and took part in many
speculations as to Bommaney's whereabouts, and the means he would take
to get rid of the notes and make them available for his own purposes.
He found it at first a little trying to the nerves. There was nothing,
since Bommaney had accepted his own disgrace and run away, to connect
young Mr. Barter with the lost eight thousand pounds, yet it took much
courage, and a considerable amount of inward spurring, to bring himself
to talk about the business. When a man carries a secret of a quite
harmless nature, it happens often, as almost everybody knows, that
casual words and quite innocent glances startle him with hints of
understanding and participation. What is it when the detection of the
secret involves open shame and penal servitude? Can a man of genuine
courage be a thief? Is not courage after all at the very bottom of all
manly honour, of all sound honesty, all true self-respect? How shall a
thief be other than a lurking cur, whose whole soul, such as it is,
is bent to a mean suspicion that he is suspected, a continuous
terror-stricken watchfulness, a sleeping and waking dread of an awful
hand-clap on the shoulder? There are constitutional differences in
thieves, no doubt, as there are in other people, but the key-note of the
dishonest man's whole thought is fear. When, after a day or two, young
Mr. Barter had accustomed himself to speak of Bommaney and the lost
eight thousand, and had often spoken of them, he began to look out
for suggestions that might be useful to himselt He even led the way at
times, and speaking to solicitors and barristers of extensive criminal
experience, he asked often, for example, how could a scoundrel get rid
of such a clumsy handful? Why didn't the fool cash the notes, he would
ask contemptuously, before he left town, and before he was suspected?
Everybody knew of course that the notes had not been presented, and
their numbers were advertised in all the daily papers. Now what could a
fellow do who had them, by Jingo? What _could_ he do? There was no
way open, so far as young Mr. Barter could see, and he was wonderfully
engaging and innocent of the world's wicke