precisian, doubtless, during business hours; but with just this honest
love of horseflesh lurking deep down there in him -- unsuspected,
sweetening the whole lump. Can you not behold him, freed from his
desk, turning to pursue his natural bent, as a city-bred dog still
striveth to bury his bone deep in the hearth-rug? For no filthy lucre,
you may be sure, but from sheer love of the pursuit itself! All the
same, he erred; erred, if not in taste, at least in judgment: for we
cannot entirely acquit him of blame for letting himself be caught.

In these tame and tedious days of the policeman rampant, our
melancholy selves are debarred from many a sport, joyous and debonair,
whereof our happier fathers were free. Book-stealing, to be sure,
remains to us; but every one is not a collector; and, besides, 'tis a
diversion you can follow with equal success all the year round. Still,
the instance may haply be pregnant with suggestion to many who wearily
ask each year, what new place or pursuit exhausted earth still keeps
for the holiday-maker. 'Tis a sad but sober fact, that the most of men
lead flat and virtuous lives, departing annually with their family to
some flat and virtuous place, there to disport themselves in a manner
that is decent, orderly, wholly uninteresting, vacant of every buxom
stimulus. To such as these a suggestion, in all friendliness: why not
try crime? We shall not attempt to specify the particular branch --
for every one must himself seek out and find the path his nature best
fits him to follow; but the general charm of the prospect must be
evident to all. The freshness and novelty of secrecy, the artistic
satisfaction in doing the act of self-expression as well as it can
possibly be done; the experience of being not the hunter, but the
hunted, not the sportsman, but the game; the delight of comparing and
discussing crimes with your mates over a quiet pipe on your return to
town; these new pleasures -- these and their like -- would furnish