of the uncomfortable way Disgrace has of turning up at your heels
just when you think you have eluded her in the last town but one.

Ted Terrill did not choose the first method. He had it thrust
upon him. After Ted had served his term he came back home to visit
his mother's grave, intending to take the next train out. He wore
none of the prison pallor that you read about in books, because he
had been shortstop on the penitentiary all-star baseball team, and
famed for the dexterity with which he could grab up red-hot
grounders. The storied lock step and the clipped hair effect also
were missing. The superintendent of Ted's prison had been one of
the reform kind.

You never would have picked Ted for a criminal. He had none
of those interesting phrenological bumps and depressions that
usually are shown to such frank advantage in the Bertillon
photographs. Ted had been assistant cashier in the Citizens'
National Bank. In a mad moment he had attempted a little
sleight-of-hand act in which certain Citizens' National funds were
to be transformed into certain glittering shares and back again so
quickly that the examiners couldn't follow it with their eyes. But
Ted was unaccustomed to these now-you-see-it-and-now-you-don't
feats and his hand slipped. The trick dropped to the floor with an
awful clatter.

Ted had been a lovable young kid, six feet high, and blonde,
with a great reputation as a dresser. He had the first yellow
plush hat in our town. It sat on his golden head like a halo. The
women all liked Ted. Mrs. Dankworth, the dashing widow (why will
widows persist in being dashing?), said that he was the only man in