to know, for I've had a good, hard try at it--several tries, in fact.
And you know what they came to."

"But if you persist in this way, Nat,--don't you know what it means?"

"None better. It means going back to what you helped me out of--the
life that nearly killed me."

"And you'd rather--"

"I'd rather that a thousand years before I'd sponge on you another
day.... But, on the level, I'd as lieve try the East River or turn on
the gas.... What's the use? That's the way I feel."

"That's fool talk. Brace up and be a man. All you need is a way to earn
money."

"No," Duncan insisted firmly: "get it. I'll never be able to earn
it--that's a cinch."

Kellogg laughed a little mirthlessly, absorbed in revolving something
which had popped into his head within the last few moments. "There are
ways to get it," he admitted abstractedly, "if you're not too
particular."

"I'm not. I only wish I understood the burglar business."

This time Kellogg laughed outright. He sat up with a new spirit in his
manner. "You mean you'd steal to get money?"