aft to Bingham and his friend to play cribbage and euchre and three-
anded whist, and to listen to their stories and boastings in an
interested manner.

Then these principals would talk to him as men talk to those who
have lived a life of crime. Explanations they would never permit,
though they made it abundantly clear to him that he was the rummiest
burglar they had ever set eyes on. They said as much again and again.
The fair man was of a taciturn disposition and irascible at play;
but Mr. Bingham, now that the evident anxiety of his departure
from England was assuaged, displayed a vein of genial philosophy.
He enlarged upon the mystery of space and time, and quoted Kant
and Hegel--or, at least, he said he did. Several times Mr. Ledbetter
got as far as: "My position under your bed, you know--," but then
he always had to cut, or pass the whisky, or do some such intervening
thing. After his third failure, the fair man got quite to look for
this opening, and whenever Mr. Ledbetter began after that, he would
roar with laughter and hit him violently on the back. "Same old start,
same old story; good old burglar!" the fair-haired man would say.

So Mr. Ledbetter suffered for many days, twenty perhaps; and one
evening he was taken, together with some tinned provisions, over
the side and put ashore on a rocky little island with a spring.
Mr. Bingham came in the boat with him, giving him good advice
all the way, and waving his last attempts at an explanation aside.

"I am really NOT a burglar," said Mr. Ledbetter.

"You never will be," said Mr. Bingham. "You'll never make a burglar.
I'm glad you are beginning to see it. In choosing a profession