ccessfully unscrupulous
are termed swindlers, and eventually stand in the dock," he went on.
"What are your successful politicians but successful liars? What are
your great South African magnates, before whom even Royalty bows, but
successful adventurers? And what are your millionaire manufacturers but
canting hypocrites who have got their money by paying a starvation wage
and giving the public advertised shoddy, a quack medicine, or a soap
which smells pleasantly but is injurious to the skin? No, my dear
Ewart," he laughed, as we turned into the long tunnel, with its row of
electric lights, "the public are not philosophers. They worship the
golden calf, and that is for them all-sufficient. At the Old Bailey
I should be termed a thief, and they have, I know, a set of my
finger-prints at Scotland Yard. But am I, after all, any greater thief
than half the silk-hatted crowd who promote rotten companies in the City
and persuade the widow to invest her little all in them? No. I live upon
the wealthy--and live well, too, for the matter of that--and no one can
ever say that I took a pennyworth from man or woman who could not afford
it."

I laughed. It always amused me to hear him talk like that. Yet there was
a good deal of truth in his arguments. Many an open swindler nowadays,
because he has successfully got money out of the pockets of other people
by sharp practice just once removed from fraud, receives a knighthood,
and struts in Pall Mall clubs and in the drawing-rooms of Mayfair.

We had emerged from the tunnel, successfully passed the _douane_, and
were again in France.

With our engines stopped, we were silently descending the long decline
which runs for miles towards Sospel, when my companion suddenly aroused
himself and said--

"You mentioned Regnier's friend--Raoul, I think you called him. Go over
that incident again."

I did as I was bidden. And when I had concluded he drew a long breath.

"Ah! Regnier is a wary bird," he remarked, as though to himself. "I
wonder what his game could be in warning you?" Then, after a pause,
he asked, "Has Mademoiselle mentioned me again?"

"Several times. She is your great admirer."

"Little fool!" he blurted forth impatiently. "Has she said any more
about her missing father?"

"Yes, a good deal--always worrying about him."

"That's not surprising. And her lover, the man Martin, what about him?"

"She has said very little. You have taken his place in her heart," I
said