some physical activity, and with fat playwrights, and with Jewish
theatrical managers, and with the few authentic Christians who
occasionally strayed into the place and seemed ill at ease therein. He
had liked this club for another reason; his sense of humor had often
been highly excited by the thought of his being a member of the
Y.M.C.A.

Having this instinct for physical fitness, he had not greatly minded
being a coal-passer during the greater part of his stay at Sing Sing;
better that than working in the knitting mills; so that now, though
underfed and under weight, he was active and hard-muscled.

Larry Brainard could not have told why, and just when, he had turned
to devious ways. He had never put that part of his life under the
microscope. But the simple facts were that he had become an orphan at
fifteen and a broker's clerk at nineteen after a course in a business
college; and that experiences with wash-sales and such devious and
dubious practices of brokers, his high spirits, his instinct for
pleasure, his desire for big winnings--these had swept him into a wild
crowd before he had been old enough to take himself seriously, and had
started him upon a brilliant career of adventures and unlawful money-
making in whose excitement there had been no let-up until his arrest.
He had never thought about such technical and highly academic subjects
as right and wrong up to the day when Casey and Gavegan had slipped
the handcuffs upon him. To laugh, to dance, to plan and direct clever
coups, to spend the proceeds gayly and lavishly--to challenge the
police with another daring coup: that had been life to him, a game
that was all excitement.

And now, after two years in which there had been plenty of time for